Gromnir

ss contradicts self. "So long as you don't make a bunch of non-combat skills your majors you should be fine." as you note in your conclusion, skills do not increase at a proportional rate. is not simply a problem if a person has non-combat skills... can (as you seem well aware) be a problem if they has the wrong combat skills. alsp, the combat skills is hardly balanced... not even close to being balanced. as we said, ss ain't trying to be reasonable as much as he is trying to defend. "So? Giving players the option to continue playing after they've done everything is a bad thing, now? Yes, the option to go back and clear out Vilverin a dozen times is there, but you're not forced to. Where is the problem?" problem? is not a problem unless you is arguing that oblivion ain't metagamy... which it clearly is. and clearing out the same area multiple times is not always a matter o' choice. is how many different caves in oblivion? they all pretty much look the same. playing after you is done with game ain't a big thrill for Gromnir, but some people like. even so, such a fuction typically allows you to go back and finish up stuff you didn't do while finishing critical path... rarely does it mean that a person should be able to simply replay the same (already completed areas) over and over and over. "My warrior can cast the lowest level protection spell (given right after making your class) while decked out in Umbra's armor and go toe to toe with 3 Clanfears, at level 15. Only spells I use are a 25 point healing spell and said protection spell. Granted, my sword drains magicka with every hit (thanks sigil stone )." am not sure what your exapmple proves... other than that the 1007 makes the man... and if you ain't lucky 'nuff to come cross the right 1007 for your character build? sorry ss, you really ain't being reasonable. HA! Good Fun!

1=l 0=o 7=t 5=s 1007=loot 10075=loots ph47 10075 for everybody. HA! Good Fun!

well, no, it doesn't. it works... sometimes, but rarely does it work well. typicallly if we wann move a body we gotta grabs an arm or leg and makes 'bout a dozen yanks (z-button activations) to get a body to moves less than 6 inches. is better than nothing, but it don't work well. btw, if elven weapons is not on random 1007 drops previous to level 15, then how does luck factor into the equation? sounds like elven weapons are pre-level 15... they is simply more rare. annecdotal evidence: we stopped playing at level 13, and we had seen quite a number of elven weapons... not many swords, but quite a few battle axes and hammers and a couple of bows. HA! Good Fun!

"People are claiming that the system is meta-gamey, when it is much less so than a traditional RPG. In traditional RPGs people go around and do every quest, even if their character would not. In Oblivion, the compulsion to do this is signifigantly reduced, because helping grannie only gives you a few gold and not 300 XP." *chuckle* has you actually played this game? 1st of all, since being "more realistic" is a big seeling point for ss, which would you say is more realistic: scaling or fixed level encounters? if "more realistic" is a good thing, then we suspect that scaling disturbs the hell out of ss. 2nd, it is appearing that ss doesn't know how oblivion works. does oblivion encourage exp & 1007 milling? sure it does... more so than any game we has played in a long, long time. the difference is that oblivion discourages leveling. again, we don't think ss knows how oblivion works. bob is getting his arse handed to him. seems like every battle is too tough. how does bob fix? he goes out into the wilderness and fights critters with his weaker skills, or he boosts the hell out of his uber skills and simply does not level. see, the thing ss keeps forgetting is that by now bob realizes that leveling ain't what makes his player tough. getting 1007 and raising skills is what makes his player tough. leveling is what makes his FOES/ENCOUNTERS tough. bob will mill the 10075 and exp likes crazy in oblivion... he simply will not choose to level until he feels like he can handle it... which is 'bout as meta-gamey as you can get. let us revisit bob. when bob first goes to cave X and fights some bandits with magical 1007, he must reload likes a dozen times to make it through the cave, but now bob gots a very nice sword or curiass or whatever. the wonderfully stoopid thing 'bout oblivion (as far as metagaming goes) is that bob knows that he can come backs to this cave a short time later and it will be repopulated with new critters and 1007... can pillage the same 1007 sources ad nauseum if he wishes... but the second time 'round he will has better skills and 10075, so cave will be a breeze. *shrug* if ss thinks he is being reasonable he is kidding self. 'course for the hundredth time, scale is not the issue so much as is the leveling scheme. is nothing wrong with scale.... and we disagrees with josh on this. rats in a maze. w/o an intelligent scale scheme you can ends up feeling like a rat in a maze. sure, there may not be any actual walls forcing you down a particular path in a crpg sans scale, but if the encounters is set for a particular level then you gots functional walls. there will be a desire from some folks to use hyperbole to bash scale... or they may simply point to the silliness of oblivion. we ask that you restrain selves. scale not have to be oblivion scale. get through fallout's Den at first level? yeah, such a thing is bad. however, having the Den encounters scale up or down in a range with a set basement would be bad in what way? intelligent scale coupled with a character development and leveling scheme that ain't as retarded as oblivion could be a very good thing. HA! Good Fun!

It isn't splitting hairs. The ES leveling system is closer to reality than a traditional RPG, but isn't realistic. No, traditional systems aren't supposed to mirror reality, what traditional leveling systems try to accomplish is a sort of epiphany moment. Suddenly your character's experience has come to fruition. "Level up" is supposed to represent a moment in time whare your character realizes something that makes them better. Movies and books do this too, except in movies it isn't inexplicable, it is triggered by something specific. In RPGs, it is triggered by delivering grannie her groceries. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> so you recognize that most games not try for realism with levels... and you note that oblivion ain't realistic... not even colse. nevertheless, you feels compelled to note that oblivion is more realistic than other crpgs. ... but you ain't a hair splitter neither. ... am realizing that you work for bethesda now, but we thinks you is trying too hard to defend. as for josh comments, we is again struck by how bethesda appraoach just seemed... lazy. what would it take to put a cap on some areas and a basement on others? want arena to be tougher? makes it so that the arena starts scaling at 'bout 10th level. problem solved, no? arena could be a tougher challenge for somebody who were 20th level, but it would insane difficut for anybody under 10th. however, am not sure that the fo games is best example with which to compare. get higher fo level and you can't seems to have a random encounter w/o it being 'gainst enemies wielding miniguns and gauss rifles and plasma rifles. for the people complaining 'bout the insane high level 1007 drops, fo games may be one of the models the bethesda folks were eyeing when they came up with their rather blunt scaling system. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* split hairs maybe? level scheme for most games is not attempting to mirror reality, so oblivion accomplishment is kinda suspect, eh? HA! Good Fun!

roshan is 'bout 12 or 13, right? musta' meant he started gaming at 5. impressive. HA! Good Fun!

king kong (1933) raging bull spartacus on the waterfront dr. strangelove high noon fight club citizen cane the godfather ii ran off the top of our noggin and the list is subject to change w/o notice. btw, why would anybody ever says "das boat"? the boat? maybe. das boot? sure. das boat? great film in any event. a little too much german opera at end, but other than that it is a definite fixture in Gromnir's top 20. HA! Good Fun!

Context-sensitive vertical drop-down menus. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> examples please. HA! Good Fun!

nuts. we were always the strongest guy working on our crew, and we got far less strong as we worked. line up ten construction workers... guys who has worked in the industry for 10+ years. then line up 10 guys who is dentists or birthday clowns. compare strength. we thinks you will be real surprised at how little difference you see. construction beats you down far more than it builds up. is there some professions that helps builds strength? sure there is... but we never noticed that the guys in the construction industry were all that strong. heck, Gromnir were something of a jock... hard as that is to believe. you thinks football made us stronger? bull. weight training and genetics + proper rest and nutrition made us stronger, but football made us weaker. were hard as hell to keep weight on during the season. throw in the unavoidable small inuries that comes with football (and construction,) and it were even tougher to stay strong. "As for drugs or skin cancer, yes construction work is a tough way to live, but that really has nothing to do with physical strength." actually, it gots a lot to do with physical strength. *shrug* regardless, as we noted already, our friend, the olympic class swimmer, whose oblivion levels would be through the roof, would never try to fight Gromnir for the obvious reason that we is far stronger and far more experienced at fighting. oblivion realistic? never try to convince us that one of its advantages is realism. HA! Good Fun!

so, guys who work construction for 15 years should be really strong, right? sorry chum, but even if you thinks that the level mechanic is logical, do not try to convince us that it is realistic. besides which, imagines if getting better at framing and laying tile also meant that the muggers you met would be particluarly fearsome, and the telemarketing jerks would be so slick that they could actually convince you to buy 2000lbs of meat. Gromnir has a friend who went to the olympics in a swimming event... but it seems highly unlikely that she could kick our arse. btw, working construction never resulted in Gromnir getting strong... made us tired and sore... but at least it didn't make us a drug user or give us skin cancer as it did many other folks. our coaches hated that we worked construction, 'cause we lost weight and gots weaker... but we needed the money, so... again, maybe the mechanic makes sense to people, but do not try to convince us that there is anything realistic 'bout it. HA! Good Fun!

Sorry, I don't agree with your insistence that the problem is only caused by metagaming at all. There are a lot of us who are just playing the game as it comes naturally and for me it's obvious there are serious faults with the level scheme. Your suggestion that players "wait until you arrive at a good character build point" is, in fact, metagaming to me. There's nothing wrong with scaling. Applying it across the board with a poorly designed character development system causes all sorts of havoc - not necessarily for every character or play style but it does for many. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> agreed. as we keep saying, it is NOT scaling that is a problem. the way you level is a problem when you add in the rather blunt instrument that is bethesda scaling. btw, we got no problem with insta-travel. we woulda' complained if some sorta insta-travel weren't available. HA! Good Fun!

... it may be that your suggestion fixes problems (though it is not any thing clever or new as peo has been observing since game's release that in oblivion you is more powerful at level 1 than at level 20,) but such a suggestion is pretty much an admission that bethesda really screwed the pooch with their leveling scheme. if you, as a player, gotta do crazy stuff to keeps game balanced or fun then the developers failed. *shrug* again, we ain't saying that obsidian is terrible, but the level scheme is. scaling is fine, but the level scheme is horrible... which is probably a result of the unavoidably busted learn-by-doing approach. HA! Good Fun!

oh, and as for the dialogues... is not that they is universally terrible... but there is nothing good neither. if you gots some really nauseating dialogues punctuating loads and loads of mostly forgettable dialogues, chances are you is gonna most recall the terrible stuff. in any event, how many characters from oblivion is you thinking will likely show up on those ubiquitous Best NPC lists you see at various game magazine sites and nerdling message boards? sure, there is maybe some quests in oblivion that you really fancied, but how many characters did you encounter that you puts in the Best Evar category? think 'bout it. HA! Good Fun! as for the magic bias, we can see that. once you get the real powerful summons then the game is a breeze, but all you do is summon stuff and then try to stay out of harm's way. lame.

if you focus on magic casting it not seem possible to use arrows. use "c" to cast spells and numbers 1-8 to determine which spells is active. use right hand for mouse and you would have to be a concert pianist to pull off a functional non-wasd + magic casting character. in any event it seems more than a little screwy that this game punishes you for specializing in something other than weapons and armour. specialize in magic and you is gonna get crushed by melee warriors and critters. specialize in thiefy and diplomatic skills and you get murderlized by everything. *shrug* is not a terrible game even so, but we thinks we has reached the limit o' our patience with it. when does nwn2 get released? HA! Good Fun!

About that series I posted pic of. I was simply saying there

what is it we don't know about? anime? is lots of anime that don't use silly giant weapons. as to the FR and D&D, you will notice that most of the item descriptions for weapons is okie dokie. swords is approx. right for historical sizes and weights... is simply the artists who screw things. is nothing wrong with the rules themselves. as for star wars... we don't like star wars with the uber jedi. however, even the most wacky display o' jedi lightsabre nonsesne has never shown a jedi cut a spaceship in half with a lightsabre... 'least not in the movies. ain't never read the books or comics. jedi also do not wield 200lb weapons like they were willow fronds. jedi suck, but ain't nothing like final fantasy or berserk or samurai 7 nonsense... 'least as far as weapons is concerned. HA! Good Fun!

learn by doing has always been subject to balance problems... but oblivion is worse than most such attempts we has seen. you can seemingly level by advancing enough in 1 or 2 skills... but encounter toughness increases across the board. see the problem? 'specially for the folks who levels too quickly in non-combat skills? *shrug* scaling is fine... is the leveling that is screwed. HA! Good Fun!

as far as we can tell, there ain't no way to makes a blanced character w/o doing some crazy gymnastics to do so. if one skill starts getting high, you better spend the next few hours using your weak skills exclusively to brings 'em up... which is difficult 'cause then you levels and the critters gets even tougher... making it more difficult for you to win battles with your weaker combat skills. is nutty. oh, and again, if you spend time in city with lots of speech & security encounters you is gonna be screwed even worse... 'cause once you walk out of city and get attacked by 12th level timber wolfs you is likewise screwed. HA! Good Fun!

again, it depends on which skill you rely on initially, 'cause you will be ever increasingly stuck relying on it. if you play sword wielder from start w/o relying on magic then of course you is gonna get better at sword... and the better you get at sword, the more you level, and the more your opponents level... and the less likely you will be to be able to use other skills effectively. HA! Good Fun!

again, it ain't that you is stronger, is that you is much more balanced. skills increase at oddly unbalanced rates. so even if you use sword often and conjure whenever in battle, your conjure goes up faster and so you level faster, and you become more reliant on conjure 'cause your blade skill lags ever further behind. w/o doing some crazy gameplay gymnastics there just not seem to be a way to keeps all your most useful skills to be increasing at a similar rate. at 1st level the gap 'tween your best and non-used skills will be slight. a first level goblin is not that much better of a combatant than your spell casting character... but at 10+ levels, a goblin is a pretty nasty combat critter, and your magic wielder is probably pretty hopeless by this point. *shrug* it ain't the scale system that bothers us so much as is the leveling of your own character. HA! Good Fun!

A level 1 character with a rusty dagger has more chances of than a level 20 character. Go figure. Levels, being an expression of character power, seem to be almost contradicting in the game. Funny that the same level 1 character can also finish the central story arc but <{POST_SNAPBACK}> the level/scale system is... odd. the more we get into the game, the more we is wondering what bethesda were thinking. Gromnir went through the starting tutorial with a couple different characters... just to see how/if they had actual gameplay differences. quickly we abandonded the marksman+light armour+magic build. marksman sans sneak were a waste... and with sneak we were giving up too many of the magic schools we wanted. next we went with a bruiser character. blunt+heavy armour+armourer+restoration & the death sentence that is athletics+speechcraft.+security. walked 'round the imperial city for an hour or two and then decided to head out into the woods. *groan* too much levels w/too weak combat skills. finally we goes with blade+light armour+magic. is a workable build but we notices that conjuration, in particular, is advancing far faster than is our other skills... and our strategies seems limited to summoning some powerful critter and then running away from the baddies who is trying to chop us into little bits. at lower levels we were able to join in combats with our little iron sword, but now we simply gets mutilated... so we summons and heals and cast some sorta alteration school protection spell... then run 'round in circles. every once in a while we is able to get off a firebolt or similar destruction school magic spell, but not 'nuff to gets much better with destruction skill. now admittedly Gromnir incompetence is part of the problem. the interface is far too demanding for us. am a 1 or 2 button mouse guy, but this game requires us to move with wasd and at same time we gotta cast spells with "c"... but we change spells with number keys 1-8. maybe if we were more accostomed to fps games we would not mind this interface, but we feels too clumsy to accomplish the simultaneous tasks of moving properly while changing and casting spells at the same time... add in sword swinging and we is doomed. so... we runs in circles and summons and heals and maybe gets off a firebolt once in a while. is getting very tedious and we notice that our reliance on such a pathetic tactic is not decreasing as we advance in levels and grow more comfortable with the interface. in point of fact, 'cause of way critters scale, we is increasingly reliant on summons & run tactics. oh, and the dialogues is bad. am not needing shakespeare or even chekhov... heck, even star trek's chekov (walter koeing?) would be an improvement. is just kinda... lame. actually felt pitty for patrick stewart. HA! Good Fun!

some of you jokers needs to learn how to tell time. HA! Good Fun!

the folks at bethesda simply got lazy. you coulda' easily capped some of the randomn encounters at 10th level or so and most of the siliness woulda' been less obvious. cap the randomn bandit encounters and wilderness critters 'n such, but allows the vampire den type stuff scale normal. do the same, but reversed, for things like the arena. has the arena scale, but start the scale at maybe 10th level. just seemed lazy not to do things as Gromnir suggests... that or the bethesda guys honestly thought that their way is better... which is kinda scary. regardless, we honestly not mind that the way oblivion scales. yeah, it has some wacky in-game results, but we not see it as a huge reason to complain. the bethesda folks did scale so that game would be challenging all the way through... which they coulda' done if they were a little more discriminating 'bout how and where they scaled encounters, but ultimately their solution acheived their aim. 'course we thinks that the way the character levels does result in some issues. acrobatics and athletics may have combat applications, but if your character is leveling up at light speeds 'cause he gots acrobatics and athletics and speechcraft and security as major skills, the poor dumb bastard is gonna be in for a world of hurt when he encounters that 12th level imp or timber wolf when all he gots is lame blade or conjuring skills. tell us that athletics and acrobatics is combat skills is ignoring the reality that they has but very minor combat applications compared to the more obvious combat focused skills. scale encounters is fine... bethesda were just kinda ham-fisted about application of it... sorta likes their dialogues. HA! Good Fun!