No autoleveling of skills (bethesda style)

[Piccolo]

xp system rewards characters for role playing while skill use system rewards characters for slamming their head into a wall for hours on end. That is why I like the xp system.

What...?

 

This is such a stupid comment.

[Piccolo]

Skyrim (and other Bethesda titles) does a very good job at what its for. It's not a particularly good RPG - terrible actually - but for a fantasy, 1st person/OTS magic/sword/bow simulator/dungeon crawler it's quite good and I admit I dumped well over a hundred hours playing it. Personally, I prefer the Infinity style games, particularly Fallout and Arcanum for a free form exploration game, but that doesn't mean that the aforementioned Skyrim is crap, it's just a shame Skyrim is what passes for an RPG these days.

*sigh*

 

Why is this turning into a TES vs IE thing? Yes, Skyrim sucks as an RPG, but how is that even relevant to the argument?

 

As others have rightly pointed out, TES games aren't the only games that use a more natural method of skill progression instead of XP. TES is just one example of the right sort of idea being poorly implemented.

[nikolokolus]

Skyrim (and other Bethesda titles) does a very good job at what its for. It's not a particularly good RPG - terrible actually - but for a fantasy, 1st person/OTS magic/sword/bow simulator/dungeon crawler it's quite good and I admit I dumped well over a hundred hours playing it. Personally, I prefer the Infinity style games, particularly Fallout and Arcanum for a free form exploration game, but that doesn't mean that the aforementioned Skyrim is crap, it's just a shame Skyrim is what passes for an RPG these days.

*sigh*

 

Why is this turning into a TES vs IE thing? Yes, Skyrim sucks as an RPG, but how is that even relevant to the argument?

 

As others have rightly pointed out, TES games aren't the only games that use a more natural method of skill progression instead of XP. TES is just one example of the right sort of idea being poorly implemented.

 

I didn't realize I was making an argument?

[Kana]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill. Is it more realistic? I suppose so, but I certainly don't find that entertaining.

 

If PE were to implement a system, I would hope it would be done for the sake of gameplay, and not "realism" (which, IMO, is not a worthy goal in itself). Realism is an attribute, not a virtue.

[AW8]

I'd rather have an XP system where you're rewarded for completing stuff and killing enemies, rather than a TES style of skill progression.

 

The latter usually leads to grinding while I think the former is much more faultless and thus more enjoyable.

That said, I do think the "use sword, raise Blade Skill" skill progression works better in an open-world, non-linear house decoration simulator like TES V: Skyrim.

[KenThomas]

The magic system sucks in the elder scrolls games. Always has, always will. Also, ever since Morrowind they've gotten away with remarkable lack of depth of any kind of story in their games. Their writing is always very 2 dimensional and they fill their game worlds with copy pasted stooges.

 

"I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee."

[Nakia]

Personally I like having the skills I use level up. XP could be used to get points to put into any skill you wish. Hmm Skills level up slowly but no points. XP for completing quests, kill things in what ever manner and that gives perk points. Wonder if that could be done.

 

 

Please let's cut the argument and comments about Skyrim. Whatever our personal opinions about the game it has nothing to do with the discussion of skill leveling adding points vs XP adding points.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Nakia

[nikolokolus]

Personally I like having the skills I use level up. XP could be used to get points to put into any skill you wish. Hmm Skills level up slowly but no points. XP for completing quests, kill things in what ever manner and that gives perk points. Wonder if that could be done.

 

I guess anything is possible, but my guess is that it would probably be seen as a lame attempt to appease two vocal groups of proponents for one style of play. In the end it would probably be more trouble than it's worth to try and design.

[Althernai]

Betrayal at Krondor a very old game used the the method of leveling up a skill according to how often you used it.

Betrayal at Krondor was a mix: skills improved when you use them, but you could pick which skills improve faster independently of how often you used them.

 

I have nothing against the TES games (I thought Skyrim was the best RPG in quite a long while), but I think the IE system makes more sense here. For one thing, we know Obsidian will be using classes. This already places some pretty severe constraint on character progression. For example, if the class of a Baldur's Gate character was Mage, he would never be half as a good at melee combat as a Fighter, no matter how much you tried to steer him in that direction and Thieving was even further out of reach (the skills were simply not available). Also, XP allows easily granted character progression rewards for quests whereas in learn-by-doing systems this is clumsy at best.

[Mabster]

What the system in the Elder Scrolls games does right is level the playing field between heroes and normal folk. A hero shouldn't be able to surpass a highly skilled artisan in blacksmithing just because s/he also kills dragons for funsies. That said, I dislike the grinding element that is present in Bethesda's games, training some of the skills just feels like a massive chore at times.

 

I think skill points could be replaced by skill training tiers (e.g. novice, apprentice, journeyman, master). Improving a skill training could happen through dialogue or exploration (e.g. skill trainers, lore books, ect.). I also think that what characters are be able to do should be determined mostly by their ability scores, so perhaps a character would only get skill training in just three or four areas of expertise, making that skill training feel much more special. This would mean that anyone with high dexterity (or equivalent) could pick a simple lock, but to crack that dwarven safe you'll need a master pick lock.

[Piccolo]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I don't think it's right trashing an entire gameplay concept just because a very small number morons go to extreme lengths to level up their character in a singleplayer game.

[Kana]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I remember plenty of players posting about such methods on the official forums. Another method was to make your character swim into a corner to level up athletics. Is it stupid? Yes. But it also proves my point that such a leveling system rewards grinding.

[Chunkyman]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I don't think it's right trashing an entire gameplay concept just because a very small number morons go to extreme lengths to level up their character in a singleplayer game.

 

Everyone I know (who plays TES games) has done something like that in a TES game, just saying.

 

It's a boring system that often results in inferior gameplay compared to an XP system.

[Metzger]

I agree with the OP. Autoleveling of skills is the worst system ever for computer games. Realism may seem like a good argument but does it really enchance gameplay? Absolutely not. It just forces player to repeat same actions over and over again to raise skills. And it's still not very realistic that you become master smith by crafting bajillion simple iron daggers. Or master swordsman by hitting mudcrab ten thousand times.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Metzger

[Kana]

Realism may seem like a good argument but does it really enchance gameplay?

 

Exactly. It is very telling that no one promotes this kind of system as being more fun, only more realistic.

[Piccolo]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I remember plenty of players posting about such methods on the official forums. Another method was to make your character swim into a corner to level up athletics. Is it stupid? Yes. But it also proves my point that such a leveling system rewards grinding.

So people exploit the levelling system using ridiculous grinding methods, then log onto the forums and moan about the levelling system being ****?

 

I'm amazed these people are even able to log on without fully functioning brains.

[Kana]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I remember plenty of players posting about such methods on the official forums. Another method was to make your character swim into a corner to level up athletics. Is it stupid? Yes. But it also proves my point that such a leveling system rewards grinding.

So people exploit the levelling system using ridiculous grinding methods, then log onto the forums and moan about the levelling system being ****?

 

I'm amazed these people are even able to log on without fully functioning brains.

 

Haha. I agree, but the fact is the system itself encourages this kind of behavior. They did it with Skyrim, too, by grinding up the smithing skill making leather bracers.

[Nakia]

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I don't think it's right trashing an entire gameplay concept just because a very small number morons go to extreme lengths to level up their character in a singleplayer game.

I've never played Betrayal at Krondor, but the Elder Scrolls leveling system rewards grinding. I remember playing Morrowind when it first came out, and players would tape down their control key and park their character behind an NPC. Then they'd go to bed and sleep while their Sneak skill leveled up. Or in Oblivion, how people would just stand there while a mudcrab attacked their character to level up their armor skill.

Who the hell does this kind of thing? Seriously? Are you just speculating here on what some players could potentially do if they wanted to, or do you have some kind of proof that X amount of players did such things?

 

I remember plenty of players posting about such methods on the official forums. Another method was to make your character swim into a corner to level up athletics. Is it stupid? Yes. But it also proves my point that such a leveling system rewards grinding.

 

Hi Kana

 

She speaks the truth. People reported various cheese bits of how they leveled up a skill. Since I frequently play a rogue I myself would find a sleeping beggar at night and run around to get a couple of levels. No game play benefit received there.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Nakia

[Aotrs Commander]

Dungeon Siege used a more amenable system for, at least, levelling your weapons and spells sensibly, as did Spellforce (but of course, they used a mana system, so you could could spam spells just as much, and they were mainly shooty-type spells). The JRPG Grandia I and II also used a similar use-or-lose it (well, use-it-or-don't-improve-it). Which were better than the TES way - but both of which were also combat-only engines.

 

The TES system is definately a poor way to do it, though, even within that style. I spent the first several hours of Morrowind jumping everywhere, and carefully planning out what skills to use in both Morrowind and Oblivion so I didn't lose anything on a level up (and, of course, totally wasting my tie in the latter because Oblivion's level scaling was abyssmal...!)

 

 

 

As, for my entire twenty-off year gaming career, I have played predominatly played Rolemaster and several versions of D&D (and Warhammer FRP to a lesser extent) on the tabletop, and all my favourite RPGs are level-based (all Biowares, all IE games, Witcher, all the JPGs - though again, the later is all combat-based), you'll forgive me if I say emphatically, I want to spend my skill points/talents/whatnot, because that's half the fun of progression and levelling up. Autolevelling skills just isn't anywhere near as satifying. Get XP from everything, "spend" XP on everything...

 

(I imagine it also makes it somewhat easier to balance the game for the devs, since there is a narrower range of character capabilities at any point, as opposed to the difference between a guy who's just wandering through the game and one that's optimising the system. Because people WILL optimise the system, either because they like it, or because they feel they're missing something if they don't. And it's not a bad thing in either case.)

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I'd prefer to see a system where you have to unlock the advances you wish to take before you can spend xp on them. This unlocking could be done through deeds (different solutions to a quest unlock different advances) or training (pay or do quests for trainers to teach you).

Edited September 22, 2012 by aluminiumtrioxid

[KenThomas]

Please let's cut the argument and comments about Skyrim. Whatever our personal opinions about the game it has nothing to do with the discussion of skill leveling adding points vs XP adding points.

 

Okay fair enough but I think many people are bothered by the fact that there are some extremely popular games out there that don't even seem to put effort into dialogue and storyline. If nobody speaks up to say it's not okay with them, all that says to game makers is that it's okay to make games into a series of side quests driven by a thin premise to continue you churning your way though. Diablo, world of warcraft and Skyrim are all like that, some of the most popular games ever. When I play them I feel like there's not much point. I want to see my actions have an effect on the game world, especially in a single player game. I found the Mass Effect games and Fallout New Vegas to be far more satisfying.

 

Bethesda makes RPGs for gamers that hate RPGs. Everything is dumbed down so far that the game does everything for you. It is more of a hack & slash than anything else.

Skyrim is dumbed down because they removed attributes, several skills, made progression quicker, and made everything too reliant on silly perks that shouldn't even be perks (like % damage increase). Not because skill progression is actually relevant to the actions your character performs.

 

Think about it. What's more dumb:

 

- Kill a monster in any way you want, get XP, level any skill you want

 

or

 

- Only gaining a skill increase if/when you actually perform a task that warrants it

 

...

 

The XP way is for kiddies who want too much freedom. "i'm a mage, but I should be able to run around with a hammer at any time and still improve my magic skill"

 

The skill increase on use way only works if all methods of combat are balanced from the start of the game. The problems I've seen with it in the past is that mages in particular are unable to kill all that they need to kill before they run out of mana, forcing them to have to use other fighting styles until their character gets more powerful. Later in the game they then have these skill points into martial fighting styles that are completely useless to them. Most people play those games as an archer or warrior simply because you might run out of mana, but you never run out of muscle. Being able to play a martial character from the beginning of the game and create a statistically perfect stat distribution in the late game but being unable to do the same thing as a magic character is a significant design flaw. If someone did things like running away all the time to try to let their magic recharge to continue fighting in that style, it would take twice as long or more to level up the same amount.

 

Oh and let's face it, I HATED feeling like I was locked into only using a very specific set of skills in order to have my character be a certain way later in the game. It felt like work.

Edited September 22, 2012 by KenThomas

[Rabain]

The solution for magic users is to have a base attack that works off their equipped weapon that still counts as magic. So you could equip a sword but it would attack as though it was a magic attack rather than simple steel, no reason why it couldn't also be a ranged attack. Similar to what mages do in Dragon Age except in DA they only use a staff.

[KenThomas]

The TES system is definately a poor way to do it, though, even within that style. I spent the first several hours of Morrowind jumping everywhere, and carefully planning out what skills to use in both Morrowind and Oblivion so I didn't lose anything on a level up (and, of course, totally wasting my tie in the latter because Oblivion's level scaling was abyssmal...!)

 

 

(I imagine it also makes it somewhat easier to balance the game for the devs, since there is a narrower range of character capabilities at any point, as opposed to the difference between a guy who's just wandering through the game and one that's optimising the system. Because people WILL optimise the system, either because they like it, or because they feel they're missing something if they don't. And it's not a bad thing in either case.)

 

Yeah I believe games like that are balanced around people who don't try to optimize their characters, because optimized characters got way too easy way too fast, even with the difficulty jacked to maximum. Oblivion especially I felt I had to be super super specific and careful about what skills I was using because level ups were coming whenever I'd raised a certain number of skills and that affected my base stats. It pretty much meant you'd have to plan out crafting in alchemy to be an entire level because otherwise you'd lose the chance to use any points you might've earned in strength etc.

[Chunkyman]

I'm going to try using logic to explain why XP systems are better than skill usage systems.

 

Humans (like most animals) respond to incentives and rewards. When a reward is given based on certain actions, people tend to engage in that behavior. In an RPG, people tend to enjoy role playing, and playing the game "normally". Therefore, any rewards you receive (like leveling up) in the game should result from playing the game in a normal fashion. This ties the rewards (leveling up/skill increases) with the behavior players most enjoy participating in (like role playing and playing the game normally). An XP system is great for this because you get the rewards by completing quests, defeating enemies how you want, etc.

 

On the other hand, a skill usage system does not tie your rewards with playing the game in the normal (fun) way. A skill usage system ties your rewards (skill increases/level ups) to how much you engage in repetitive behavior or "grinding". This creates a dilemma for the player that makes gameplay worse, they must either select optimal rewards (through grinding) or lose the fun of playing the game normally (and thus forgoing optimal rewards).

 

Because of this an XP system is preferable because fun behavior is tied to rewards, while a skill usage system ties boring behavior with rewards.

 

In New Vegas, I can play the game exactly ho I want without losing out on anything because the XP system rewards me when I play normally. In Oblivion, I often grind (which is boring as hell) in order to achieve the desired results upon level up.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Chunkyman

[KenThomas]

I also think XP gain is a better quest reward than merely gold. At some point in all games where the character is powerful, funds cease to be an issue.