Elder Scrolls : Skyrim

[Janx]

I just found this cracked article about 5 personality flaws Skyrim reveals.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-personality-flaws-skyrim-forces-you-to-deal-with/

It was funny

 

[Banshee16]

Yeah, it seems that unlike Oblivion, NPCs/monsters in various regions may be of significantly higher level than you. Such that you can get into dangerous territory. In Oblivion, you could pretty much handle any given threat because they all leveled with you.

That could be a good thing. The annoying thing about Oblivion was how closely creatures level with you. You never felt like you'd gained any power...

Banshee

 

[LightPhoenix]

Also, I see that the perks can be taken multiple times. For instance, One-Handed has a perk that increases one-handed weapon damage by 20%, and it can apparently be taken five times. Now, do I get a 20% bonus every time I take the perk (ramping all the way up to +100%)), or does the perk not unlock at all until I take all five ranks?

Most of the introductory perks can be taken multiple times, but further ones usually only have one rank. The exact math depends on the perk - Archery and One-Handed go +20/40/60/80/100%, but Sneak is 20/25/30/35/40%.

Anyway, how is archery working out? I never got anywhere with it in Oblivion because it was so slow that it was only good for a single shot against an unaware target.

Archery is vastly improved over Oblivion, mostly in that the damage isn't terrible and speed is slightly better. That said, in the beginning you will need a melee weapon as a backup until you develop ways to deal with approaching enemies. If nothing else, you earn an ability that's very handy for this fairly early on in the main storyline.

The Archery perk tree is, IMO, one of the best in the game. You'll want to grab the perk to zoom (Eagle Eye) as soon as you hit (IIRC) 30 Archery, but it does drain Stamina.

As far as skill synergies go... Alchemy will let you make poisons which you can apply to a weapon for an effect (I don't know if they're one-use or limited duration). I believe you can make stronger bows with Smithing, but I haven't played around with that. Enchantment will let you craft different bows for different targets; Shock for mages/Frost for warriors, for example. Destruction has the "trap" spells, but you'll need a hand free to cast. Similarly, Conjuration will give you some degree of tanking. Heavy/Light armor is really a preference choice, although Light is more mobile. Sneak is obvious for the assassin type character.

 

[Jhaelen]

Yeah, it seems that unlike Oblivion, NPCs/monsters in various regions may be of significantly higher level than you. Such that you can get into dangerous territory. In Oblivion, you could pretty much handle any given threat because they all leveled with you.

Wow, they finally got rid of the auto-leveling monsters?!

This might be the first Elder Scrolls installment worth looking into, then!

[MENTION=8835]Janx[/MENTION]: Thanks for the link to the Cracked article! Particularly #1 was absolutely hilarious!
Unfortunately, I can't give you xp again, yet.

 

[frankthedm]

Wow, they finally got rid of the auto-leveling monsters?!

Skyrim:Leveling - UESPWiki There is some scaling, it just isn't as bad as Oblivion.

 

[Felon]

In a CRPG, the handy thing is, if the monster is too tough, you can always reload and go do something else. In a PnP RPG,if you're dead, your dead, possibly with no way to come back.

"Always"?

Roguelike?

Or, more contemporatively, Demon Souls?

That could be a good thing. The annoying thing about Oblivion was how closely creatures level with you. You never felt like you'd gained any power...

This strikes me as an odd sentiment. In D&D, If my character is 15th level, why should I not expect 15th-level challenges? I need to lord over a 1st-level creature to feel like meteor swarm is a powerful spell? Won't it also feel powerful when cast on a dragon or balor?

 

[Janx]

"Always"?

Roguelike?

Or, more contemporatively, Demon Souls?

The # of games that don't have a means to reload are much fewer than the ones that do. And if you run in a VM, take regular snapshots, even death is bypassable, no matter how the programmer coded it.

The point still stands, the next random encounter in Skyrim might kill you, but if it does, it's only a nuisance to have to re-do some work.

In D&D, if the next random encounter kills you, you might not get to play that PC anymore. If there were no clues that the monster is tougher, that might suck.

Note, I'm not talking about bad dice rolls/tactics. Just raw "the next monster is tough enough to kill you easily, Surprise!"

 

[Alan Shutko]

This strikes me as an odd sentiment. In D&D, If my character is 15th level, why should I not expect 15th-level challenges? I need to lord over a 1st-level creature to feel like meteor swarm is a powerful spell? Won't it also feel powerful when cast on a dragon or balor?

Hmm... Did you play Oblivion?

The challenge with their leveling system was that EVERYTHING leveled with you. You didn't just see bigger monsters. Those bandits at the bridge threatening you with rusty iron swords in level one? They're still threatening you, but now they have glass swords and daedric armor. Huh? If they've got thousands of gold of equipment, why are they hanging out by a bridge?

It also made it hard for you to beat some quests. Say you happen upon a quest that's too hard for you and you run away. Go off and level and now you can handle the quest, right? Nope, the quest may have leveled with you! (Oblivion tried to tack down the levels of the monsters when you first visited the quest, but that didn't work on things like "go collect 10 random things from daedric towers".)

The final big problem was the way leveling worked. You leveled automatically when you slept after your major class skills advanced to a certain level. If you let your major skills advance faster than your minor skills, you'd lose opportunities to train them and you would become less and less capable as you leveled. Eventually, you'd get to the point that you were so far behind the power that you should be at the level that you couldn't actually complete the quest. It turned out it would be better to pick a class with major skills that you never wanted to use, so you could train the hell out of your minor skills.

All of this boiled down to making it somewhat desirable to play the entire main quest WITHOUT EVER LEVELING because it was easier to win that way.

As for me, I enjoyed Oblivion and all the side quests, but because of the leveling problems the main quest got so hard I couldn't make it through a tower even just running past the guards, so I just quit.

 

[Janx]

Alan covered it pretty well.

On the 360, they had DLC for a wizards tower, so you could skip the wizards guild and make your own items and spells.

A friend of mine had the strategy to stay at level one, and break the game by making 100% chameleon or 100% Reflect Damage armors. Then you could play the game without being challenged.

Additionally, just playing the game at level 1 and never leveling, you basically faced wimpy stuff, even on the main quest. It was like Alan said, put your primary skills as stuff you will never use, and you could control the difficulty of the game quite easily.

What I see in Oblivion and Skyim is a demonstration of sandbox and difficulty level ideas.

Some areas should be tougher than others. You should be able to level up and actually see that areas that were hard are now easier.

With Alan's comment about bandits, it makes sense that certain things stay at certain levels.

I'm also pondering if level should be a factor of proximity to civilization. A town should be keeping the wilderness back (scaring it off?), but also since Elder Scrolls is a simulation, you don't really want the random encounters getting to be high level and killing off the town.

 

[Felon]

In D&D, if the next random encounter kills you, you might not get to play that PC anymore.

In 4e? It's just money loss.

Hmm... Did you play Oblivion?

The challenge with their leveling system was that EVERYTHING leveled with you. You didn't just see bigger monsters. Those bandits at the bridge threatening you with rusty iron swords in level one? They're still threatening you, but now they have glass swords and daedric armor. Huh? If they've got thousands of gold of equipment, why are they hanging out by a bridge?

It also made it hard for you to beat some quests. Say you happen upon a quest that's too hard for you and you run away. Go off and level and now you can handle the quest, right? Nope, the quest may have leveled with you! (Oblivion tried to tack down the levels of the monsters when you first visited the quest, but that didn't work on things like "go collect 10 random things from daedric towers".)

The final big problem was the way leveling worked. You leveled automatically when you slept after your major class skills advanced to a certain level. If you let your major skills advance faster than your minor skills, you'd lose opportunities to train them and you would become less and less capable as you leveled. Eventually, you'd get to the point that you were so far behind the power that you should be at the level that you couldn't actually complete the quest. It turned out it would be better to pick a class with major skills that you never wanted to use, so you could train the hell out of your minor skills.

All of this boiled down to making it somewhat desirable to play the entire main quest WITHOUT EVER LEVELING because it was easier to win that way.

I'd say most of that was less to do with auto-leveling than with other quirks or defecits in Oblivion's structure. For instance, Oblivion's solution to handling difficult quests was to...well, lower the difficulty setting.

Oblivion's leveling system was simply defective. I went and did all the thief guild quests early on, and when i was done with them, I found I couldn't fight my way out of wet paper bag in other quests, which were more heavily combat-oriented. But that's not a reflection on auto-leveling enemies, just the lousy leveling system.

My point is, I think it's great for the challenge to evolve as your character evolves. Batman: Arkham City provides a fine example, with packs of thugs appear in deadlier configurations as Batman racks up upgrades. Compare to Assassin's Creed, where Ezio where enemies never evolve, and Ezio is essentially killing the same three types of guards from start to finish. I could kill them off in droves with no upgrades, so why do I care about receiving upgrades?