MSFD on Bethesda's uber next-gen skill system

[Balor]

This lack of differentiation between a character with strength 60 + 20 - 10, and one with a strength of 60 + 10, is the largest source of skill / attribute related bugs, and makes mods like GCD a lot harder to make.

Also, direct script access to the base part of a skill/attribute would be extremely useful. Getting the base of a stat in Morrowind is really annoying.

Oh, too true. It's a plain game bug that was never fixed.
That, and inabilitity to detect 'skill up' sound. *grumbles*

I'm sure someone will do whatever is necessary if I don't though.

If you woun't, that it would be me, heh. I need the system for a TC anyway.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

rather than BASE + FORTIFICATION - DAMAGE

This lack of differentiation between a character with strength 60 + 20 - 10, and one with a strength of 60 + 10, is the largest source of skill / attribute related bugs, and makes mods like GCD a lot harder to make.

Yeah, that's pretty much how Oblivion works (total = base + fortification - damage), though there's a little more to it.

Also, direct script access to the base part of a skill/attribute would be extremely useful. Getting the base of a stat in Morrowind is really annoying.

Not any more!

 

[Balor]

Oh, finally some good news .
However, since it was a plain bug (I mean with attribute damage and the like) - it would be surprising if it was simply translated to from MW to Oblivion.
And for getting base stats - also very good news.
I wonder if stat\skill limits are modifiable in options too, not preset '100'... I was kinda boggled why they forced that anyway.

 

[franc kaos]

Can anyone tell me, as unarmoured is out, why is the heavy and light armour skill still in? Since you gain better AC protection in the skill as you advance, then not wearing any armour means the player is actually penalised for trying to play as an unarmoured character, or am I reading it wrong?

Todd himself said that fighting is not twitch based (whatever it may sound like, ie player/time based blocking), so the player should, like an armour wearing dude, automatically get better at not wearing armour.

I'm not whining about this, I honestly want to know how this is being incorporated into the game. Cheers.

 

[VenomByte]

I have to admit, though there are quite a few features/omissions in Oblivion that I don't agree with, or have been disappointed with, just about all the information released about the new CS seems to be very good indeed.

I can't wait to play with it...

 

[thomase]

If you reach the level up point multiple times before you get a chance to rest and level up, when you DO rest to level up you'll get the appropriate bonus multipliers for each level up. That's because the governing attribute counts are stored in a queue and then reset to 0 each time you advance 10 major skills. No more holding back on leveling up to get x5's in every attribute -- you can't do it for major skills because of the queue, and it takes a very long time for minors.

MSFD:

Unfortunately, this sounds like "odd" attribute point gains are still wasted, encouraging the player to limit the number of skill increases associated with an attribute to an even number. Furthermore, with the 5x multiplier cap, whenever the total number of skill points gained in an attribute is NOT 2, 4, 8, or 10, the extra skill points are "wasted" when it comes to multipliers.

It doesn't sound like the fundamental flaw of Morrowind's system is fixed. Keep in mind, this is not motivated by munchkinism but by balance considerations. If your character's "power" is a function of skill and attribute points gained, then considering that the leveling system allows two different characters at the same level to have a significant'ly different level of power, AND considering the fact that challenges/rewards are based on level rather than a more objective measure of power, how can the game possibly by balanced considering all the possible paths of character development?

How difficult will it be to use the CS to implement the relatively simple modificatiions suggested by Galsiah?

 

[galsiah]

Yeah, that's pretty much how Oblivion works (total = base + fortification - damage), though there's a little more to it.

Also, direct script access to the base part of a skill/attribute would be extremely useful. Getting the base of a stat in Morrowind is really annoying.

Not any more!

That is good news . Certainly a big step forward. If there's a way to detect the difference between a scripted "Player->ModAxe 1" and a natural Axe skill increase, I'll be doubly happy. [e.g. have the SkillRaise sound play on the player - you know it makes sense :D]. Or might there be ModBaseStat and ModFortifiedStat functions? That would be nice.
If not, some modder conventions on use of ModStat might be useful.

I'm generally very pleased with what I've heard concerning the CS. It would be preferable if the limit of 100 were directly editable, but even if it isn't, there will almost certainly be ways around it. The same stategy as Morrowind should work: i.e. when the base goes over e.g. 95, keep it at 95 and increase the fortification. Not a perfect solution, but it works.

If the 100 limit is editable and natural skill increases can be detected fairly directly, that would make reworking the skill/attribute system pretty easy. After that all that's needed is a good design.

 

[pseudo intellectual]

Does anyone else find it ironic that TES fanboys have to come here for information on their stupid game? Is there something wrong with bethesda's forums?

 

[Revasser]

Does anyone else find it ironic that TES fanboys have to come here for information on their stupid game? Is there something wrong with bethesda's forums?

What's not wrong with Bethesda's forums?

 

[galsiah]

How difficult will it be to use the CS to implement the relatively simple modificatiions suggested by Galsiah?

I guess that it won't be possible to modify the level up screen attribute gain system significantly from the CS.
However, skipping the screen and reimplementing a new system in a "messageboxed" menu system is a definite possibility. It won't look as good, but it's doable.

If I were doing things myself, I'd probably make much bigger changes though. My above suggestions are made in the unlikely hope that such changes could still be made to the standard game.


pseudo intellectual:
Most of the TES people here are modders, not fanboys (and if you think franc kaos is a fanboy, you've clearly never been to the official TES Oblivion forum). I thought Morrowind was pretty terrible in some respects, so I did something about it. It also had its good points - its a perfectly good starting point: the engine is fine, it's just the gameplay, balance and plot that needed improvement. With enough mods, Morrowind can be quite good, even though I'll agree that out of the box it had major flaws.

Is there something wrong with bethesda's forums?

Yes - with the Oblivion forum at any rate.
It's easier to come here to discuss Oblivion and the prospects of improving it, since saying "Perhaps Morrowind wasn't perfect, and Oblivion won't be either." doesn't get you mobbed by 500 TES fanboys. The official Oblivion forum can get a bit stupid and doesn't lend itself to informed debate.
The modding forum is fine, but Oblivion is rarely discussed there.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

I'm not going to post a dissertation on how every formula in the game works, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that we are constantly tweaking the formulas). At some point, you're just going to have to play the game and see how it feels. As I've mentioned before, we have a lot of people playtesting the game and they have all been providing feedback on how leveling and skill advancement feels, and we've been adjusting things accordingly. But I know that you won't take my word for it -- so you'll just have to wait to play the game, or wait for someone whose opinion you trust to play the game and let you know.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Are you implying that we don't trust our very own Bethesda developer? Shame on you for being so negative.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Not so much that, but I know that barring full disclosure of all game features, you would rather not take someone's word for it who is so close to the game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Excuse me, I don't follow. I think that a person who is close to the game is in a better position to form an opinion than those who are not close, wouldn't you agree?

 

[pseudo intellectual]

Usually it's a bad sign when a developer astroturfs to this extent -- like when a movie studio excessively advertises a big budget flop ("Seabiscuit" comes to mind).

 

[Imbecile]

Excuse me, I don't follow. I think that a person who is close to the game is in a better position to form an opinion than those who are not close, wouldn't you agree?

I'm sure he does, but I would imagine hes second guessing the fact that The Codex might suspect him of bias.

 

[pseudo intellectual]

Excuse me, I don't follow. I think that a person who is close to the game is in a better position to form an opinion than those who are not close, wouldn't you agree?

I'm sure he does, but I would imagine hes second guessing the fact that The Codex might suspect him of bias.

haven't you got an oil fire to put out?

 

[thomase]

I'm not going to post a dissertation on how every formula in the game works, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that we are constantly tweaking the formulas). At some point, you're just going to have to play the game and see how it feels. As I've mentioned before, we have a lot of people playtesting the game and they have all been providing feedback on how leveling and skill advancement feels, and we've been adjusting things accordingly. But I know that you won't take my word for it -- so you'll just have to wait to play the game, or wait for someone whose opinion you trust to play the game and let you know.

You don't have to post a dissertation. You only need answer a question with a simple yes or no answer:

Given an initial set of chracter statistics (health, fatigue, magicka, attribs, and skills), a certain number of skill point gains in some subset of the skills, and a certain allocation of attribute points distributed at level up, is the final state of the chracter's statistics INDEPENDENT of the order in which skills are increased and attributes are distributed?

For the GCD system, the answer to this question is YES. For Morrowind's orignal system, the answer to this question is NO.

 

[galsiah]

I'm not going to post a dissertation on how every formula in the game works, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that we are constantly tweaking the formulas). At some point, you're just going to have to play the game and see how it feels. As I've mentioned before, we have a lot of people playtesting the game and they have all been providing feedback on how leveling and skill advancement feels, and we've been adjusting things accordingly. But I know that you won't take my word for it -- so you'll just have to wait to play the game, or wait for someone whose opinion you trust to play the game and let you know.

Fair enough, but here's a question that has been asked more than once before that doesn't require a dissertation. It requires a yes, or a no. Answering this type of question with "Trust us, it works well." sounds suspiciously like "no" - how hard would it be to say yes?

The question:
Has the below issue been addressed for Oblivion? Is it no longer the case that a player will often do much better by focusing on only two or three major skills per level, than by playing naturally?

The issue:
In Morrowind I can play naturally, and gain a variety of skills with different governing attributes each level. This might give me a few 2x attribute modifiers each level. This gets me about 6 attribute points per level.
Alternatively I can spend my time thinking about my order of skill gain, focus on two or three attributes per level, and get at least two 4x or 5x attribute modifiers. This gets me perhaps 10 to 15 attribute points per level.

Over a few levels, both the above characters can have the same skills and the same level, but one has a much higher attribute total. Playing naturally is penalised.

Reducing the influence of Minor (previously misc) skills on attribute gain makes this less of a problem, but still an issue: the player who increases all seven major skills each level would tend to do worse in the Morrowind style system.

Saying "Yes" would be quicker than "It's all ok - trust us".
You don't have to explain how it all works, but nothing you've said so far indicates that this major problem no longer exists.

 

[HardCode]

Usually it's a bad sign when a developer astroturfs to this extent -- like when a movie studio excessively advertises a big budget flop ("Seabiscuit" comes to mind).

Don't be a prick. Steve doesn't have to come here and post shit. Sure, go ahead and disagree with stuff he says, but don't doubt the motives. I wouldn't think you were that stupid. Regardless of your take on Bethesda as a company, you have to be an ass not to recognize him as a person.

If you were joking, then so am I :D

 

[Proweler]

Does anyone else find it ironic that TES fanboys have to come here for information on their stupid game? Is there something wrong with bethesda's forums?

The overdose of morrons like you for starters.

Over a few levels, both the above characters can have the same skills and the same level, but one has a much higher attribute total. Playing naturally is penalised.

If you get higher atributes you'll need less hits to kill or succesfully do something thus you'll gain less skill.

 

[Elwro]

In unrelated news, the Polish Scientific Publishers' Encyclopedia says axes actually are blunt weapons..

 

[Imbecile]

haven't you got an oil fire to put out?

Its not near enough me that it makes a difference. Has that made the news in the states, assuming, of course, that is where your'e from?

Or was is a piss-take of my eagle-scoutish fire fighting tendencies

 

[pseudo intellectual]

Does anyone else find it ironic that TES fanboys have to come here for information on their stupid game? Is there something wrong with bethesda's forums?

The overdose of morrons like you for starters.

The word "moron" has only one "R"

 

[AnalogKid]

Usually it's a bad sign when a developer astroturfs to this extent -- like when a movie studio excessively advertises a big budget flop ("Seabiscuit" comes to mind).

From only two teeny pages earlier in this very thread...

Steve Meister should be commended for his tireless devotion to doing damage control and clarifing misinformation and supplying information that is lacking. If his own company wasn't so abysmal at releasing asked for information accurately, he wouldn't have needed to comment...

Which is to say: yes, it's a bad sign that he has to do so much damage control.

But from everything I've read here in the last year or so, accusing MSFD of anything like astroturfing is an unforgiveable insult. Fucker.