Game News Steve Meister explains dumbing down in Oblivion

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Steve Meister, aka MSFD, has made a post <a href=http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=196827&st=80>explaining skills development</a> in highly anticipated <a href=http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.htm>Oblivion</a>
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<blockquote>Major skills START at a higher level than misc skills, but they advance at the same rates for a given skill level. To advance any skill, you have to use it a specific amount -- and that amount increases the higher the skill level. That's true for both misc and major skills. So if you have a major skill at 45 and a minor skill at 45, it'll take the same amount of skill uses to advance either.
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If you advance Major skills 10 times, you can level up. Minor skill advancement does not contribute towards leveling up, but advancing ANY skill in between levels contributes towards increasing the bonus multiplier for the skill's governing attribute. So both majors and minors will contribute towards stat increases when you do level up.</blockquote>
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The gap between Daggerfall and Oblivion has just become bigger.
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Edit: Facing criticism and forums' unrests, and failing to score any points with the "slow" crowd (they aren't called "slow" for nothing), Bethesda was forced to improve the skill system a bit:
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<blockquote>Actually, the amount of skill usage you get for using a skill is the same, but major vs minor does indeed make a difference in the rate of skill advancement. Your class specialization (combat, stealth, magic) has an effect as well. Here's a concrete example.
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Suppose you wanted to advance a skill from 15 to 16.
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Major, within class specialization: 6.76 uses
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Major, non-specialization: 9.02 uses
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Minor, within class specialization: 11.27 uses
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Minor, non-specialization: 15.03 uses
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And those numbers get higher and higher in an exponential curve with higher skill levels. </blockquote>Thanks for the update, Steve.
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[Whipporowill]

Reading this and Steve's follow-up in the gen rpg thread, I can't say I'm all that bothered by the change. Can anyone who does explain what's supposedly so bad about the new system visavi the old?

 

[Fresh]

Oblvion roxx!!1 Daggerfag suxx!! Bethesda forever!!1 Ownage!!

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That said I also dont see the big deal with this change.

 

[Micmu]

Minor skills still increase your attributes AND NOW they increase very fast when at low level !!
This is too funny!
(Skills like athletics you gain whether you like it or not. Not to mention other exploits.)

 

[Sol Invictus]

"Trust us, we tested it and it was good."

The jury's still out on that one.

 

[Deacdo]

The problem, I think, is that they'll lessoning the impact of character creation (even more than in Morrowind). The whole game seems to be made so everyone can create "all in one" characters with ease. Likely to please casual gamers (which appears to be how most of the decisions are made).

That said, the "use to increase" skill system is still the dumbest character development "system" ever implemented into an RPG. So tedious...yet also redundant. Amazing, really.

 

[Twinfalls]

The problem, I think, is that they'll lessoning the impact of character creation (even more than in Morrowind).

That's not quite true. Morrowind allowed you to advance levels by raising any skill. This time ony increases in majors will lead to levelling up. Plus I suppose there are the perks which will encourage you to improve what you've got.

That said, the "use to increase" skill system is still the dumbest character development "system" ever implemented into an RPG. So tedious...yet also redundant. Amazing, really.

Well - I liked it in DF, I didn't like it in MW - since MW was a much more tedious game, and there were less skills.

As I see it, it's not that it's a backward step from MW, it just seems a very small step forward, and more of a lost opportunity to introduce some real sophistication - trees, linked skills, more of those cool DF skills, etc.

Steve says it's all in the balancing they've done, I guess we have to wait and see.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The problem, I think, is that they'll lessoning the impact of character creation (even more than in Morrowind).

That's not quite true. Morrowind allowed you to advance levels by raising any skill.

In your own words, that's not quite true.

 

[geminito]

The problem, I think, is that they'll lessoning the impact of character creation (even more than in Morrowind).

That's not quite true. Morrowind allowed you to advance levels by raising any skill.

In your own words, that's not quite true.

No, only your 10 major and minor (not "misc") skills allowed you to level up.

From what is quoted in the original post, it is almost the exact same system as Morrowind. I doubt anyone will notice the change. You will still be motivated to use your major skills because they are the ones that allow you to level up. And in previous games, you could just pay a trainer to level up your Misc skills anyway. So in a minute you could have uber misc skillz without ever using them.

 

[Micmu]

The problem, I think, is that they'll lessoning the impact of character creation (even more than in Morrowind).

That's not quite true. Morrowind allowed you to advance levels by raising any skill. This time ony increases in majors will lead to levelling up. Plus I suppose there are the perks which will encourage you to improve what you've got.

You haven't played Morrowind, eh? Well... Nothing wrong with that, but you could advance levels by raising TEN skills (major+minor) you selected at start. Now it's 7. No other difference.

Perks oh yes... You are automatically encouraged to powergaem your minor skills just to get the perks.

 

[Twinfalls]

Unfortunately I did play Morrowind. I didn't pay close enough attention to what was going on it seems. I actually meant you could level up by raising a combination of any of your major/minor/misc skills, rather than simply one skill. But yeah, as micmu points out, this is simply a change from 10 skills to 7 for levelling.

 

[Claw]

That said I also dont see the big deal with this change.

The lack of significant change is the big deal. All they've done is merge Major and Minor skills and then rename Misc skills to Minor. The differences to Morrowind are trivial.

You will still be motivated to use your major skills because they are the ones that allow you to level up.

You will be motivated to use minor skills to increase your leet attribute bonus modifiers rather.

Oh well, when a TES game sucks, who ya call? Modmakers!

 

[crpgnut]

It'll be up to WormGod to make Oblivion challenging. He made a really good mod for Morrowind that helped address it's glaring Monte Hall munchkinism.

 

[Chefe]

I guess trying to combat muchkinism for all these years has left Bethesda weary, so they're just going to indulge in it. Give up. Live by the philosophy of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Pussies.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

 

[Chefe]

Yea, you wish you could roll your eyes. You know I'm right.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Reading this and Steve's follow-up in the gen rpg thread, I can't say I'm all that bothered by the change. Can anyone who does explain what's supposedly so bad about the new system visavi the old?

Sure.

Most people agree that DF had one of the best systems ever, complex enough to create very diverse characters with different skills and traits, and support alternative builds. Since the system was use-based, it made sense to split skills into 3 groups representing your character dedication to those skills and thus affecting skills growth. Unlike a skillpoint-based system where it may cost the same to increase any skill and where the naturally limited number of skill points basically duplicates major skills (the ones you care about the most), minor skills (the ones you like to keep at certain levels), and misc skills (the ones you may bump up occasionally), a use-based system that wants to achieve any level of complexity should create natural restrictions representing and reinforcing your character build. Saying "Oh, but it will take a lot of work to raise them all" is as much bullshit as saying "it will take a lot of work to become the leader of all factions".

The way the system works now, it doesn't make any sense to even have major skills. Since all skills take the same time to grow, it should be when any 10 skills level up, your character levels up. Simple as that. More flexible and less idiotic and redundant. The only role that major skills play now is to restrict character development and make it class-based with none of the advantages of having a class, but all the disadvantages of being stuck in one.

The real question is "why" though. Clearly the minor/misc skill system worked fine in DF/MW: it would take a long time to raise a skill, and that's how it should be. The new system would allow raising low-level non-major skills very fast, thus making sure that players can use all the skills somewhat effectively if they want to. Of course, raising those skills high would be hard, but that's a different story.

So, again, what we have is an attempt to let players "be everything, use everything" in the course of one game: rule all factions, use all weapons, and now use all skills. What's next?

 

[FrancoTAU]

Sounds like it'll be easy to be a jack of all trades. I thought Diablo 2 proved that even the masses like a little specialization with their skills

 

[Fodel]

(GhanBuriGhan @ Nov 30 2005, 10:36 AM)
Hmmm, you are saying yourself that minors quickly improve to mediocre levels. And yet you say the difference stays intact? How?

Look at the curve again. Advancement requirements stay pretty flat for most of it, then jump up sharply towards the end.

¿And minors I take it still play a role in leveling since they contribute to the multipliers?

You can advance minors only all day long and never level up. Only advancing major skills will allow you to level up. That's what I was talking about.

As far as the multipliers go, when you advance a skill a formula determines how much that skill advancement contributes to your bonus multipliers. The formula takes into account whether or not the skill being advanced is major or minor. So minor skills do not contribute to the bonus multipliers as much as major skills do.

Also while its "only 7" skills that count to leveling now, all of these 7 are now equal - so there is less fine tuning to start with.

The major skills don't all start out at the same level. Initial skill levels also depend on racial bonuses and other factors.

And I have nothing else to say about this. When you've spent a few months with a few dozen people playtesting your advancement scheme in-game, and you've tweaked and re-balanced and modified your scheme based on their feedback through multiple iterations until everyone was happy with it, then let me know and we can compare notes.

Not bad, even pick a class will be more important, and i dont like class.

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[Rat Keeng]

So, like Morrowind, Oblivion will feature a broken skill system, big whoop. As the simple saying goes at Bethesda, "if it's broke, pretend it's not."

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

What's next?

Erode all soils!

 

[Whipporowill]

What's next?

Erode all soils!

Eroider of Soils. Now that is a custom title if I ever heard one!

 

[Balor]

Hmm, looks like my Alternate Levelling will be in even greater demand, then.
I mean, before your misc skills contribution to stats was offset by them being harder to train, but now... and that is instead of minor skills being more expencive to rise at trainers (something I hoped for)!
Of course, perhaps it is possible that modifiers to learn minor and major skills will stay, but I strongly doubt so, so forgetting such skills faster would be an only way make things fair.

 

[Balor]

Evil Satan, it's hilarious:
There are two groups of mods, based on their 'fairness' (damn, I suspect it sounds lame, but anyway):
'Purist' mods and 'Cheating' mods.

And now the game itself needs quite a bit of modding to become 'purist' now, mwahahaha.
Oh well, that's was the case in Morrowind, too.
Some outright cheating stuff was eliminated, like drinking 100x intelligence potions, sure, but new ways were introduced, as I see... and I suspect we'll see more of this.
Oh well, more stuff to mod. Ain't it cool?

 

[geminito]

It's a single player game, so you can choose not to do some (not all) things and avoid the exploits. I never used the trainers in Morrowind because that part of the system was... incredibly stupid, and I pretended it wasn't there. But I guess other people liked using the trainers. Fine. We don't have to play together like in an MMORPG where balance is important.

Will there be skill trainers in Oblivion? Or is that still a mystary?