MSFD on Bethesda's uber next-gen skill system

[Vault Dweller]

You are very amusing.

Thank you. So are you. It is the sheer entertainment value of the codex that keeps me coming back for more. It is just too fun to be around anal retentive rpgers who are always waving their little fists at the gaming establishment.

Yep. We are the ying for your yang - overly righteos defenders of the gaming establishment who are always waving their little fists at the anal retentive rpgers who are always waving their little fists at the gaming establishment. The circle of gaming life.

Isn't it interesting how my point was validated? Now that we have more accurate information, the skill progression doesn't look so bad does it?

You mean, after posting an incorrect information, a game developer has posted a correct information? All the "fast and furious" criticism of the original information has been justified. The new info doesn't sound too bad.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to not be so quick to judge? But what fun would that be? So much more fun to pounce upon any comment a dev makes and skewer them for it. As I said, it's what you do. Shoot first, ask questions later.

I can read. I can. Honest. I read the information and made some conclusions. Simple as that. If the info wasn't correct, I shouldn't be expected to wait 3 days for disclaimers and corrections, should I?

Normally, you have been quite civil toward MSFD. I was a bit surprised at the skewering on the news page.

What skewering? I said "MSFD explains dumbing down", not "directly responsible for".

Have a nice day, sweety.

You too, shmoopie.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

9.02 times? So if I use it 9 times and then think of using it twice I go up?

Perhaps you only get 0.02 usage points every time you use the skill. Some of the "automatic" skills like Athletics are that way, you get a very, very small usage amount for every second you run.

 

[thomase]

'Scuse my poor memory/ignorance. How was this wacky specialisation modifier granted to particular skills in MW? Was it established at chargen?

@Thomase - there'll be multiple tiers of skills with variable rates of progress right from the outset, so how does this not provide a 'talent' aspect? Or is that system you proposed more natural? Feel free to explain it more simply, that stuff made my head spin.

Here's a different way of thinking about it. All skills use the same progresion curve which determines the "base" skill level, and you get a skill bonuses for class, specialization, or race. The sum of your "base" level and the bonus can't exceed 100. It is similar to what has been already described, except that racial bonuses come into play as well as class (major/minor) and specialization.

In Morrowind for example, thinking about it this way, if the lowest possible skill level is 5, the "bonuses" for major, minor, and specialized skills are +25, +10, and +5 respectively (with the restriction that the major and minor bonus are mutually exclusive). Racial bonuses are applied on top of this.

 

[bryce777]

It seems to me as if it would make sense if certain skills could only be used once they are learned.

I mean, can any farmer just start magicking at people by sayign SHAZAM! really loud and pointing a stick at them?

The same might apply for some physical skills, as well.

That way, a mage would at elast start off with the advantage of being able to cast spells immediately, but others would have to go through some effort to do so.

 

[AnalogKid]

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....

True dat.

 

[Astarsis]

you only forgot the new system is exponential

if lvl 1 is 1 use
lvl 100 is 10,000 uses

for morrowind it was what ? 1000 uses

you WILL have to specialize, if you want to go up fast.

in any case, in real life it's often exactly like that. some peoples suck at everything because they are lazy. other peoples are good at everything they do because they work hard.

what can I say ?

what happen in real life is you can't live forever, so if you want to reach the destination, you got to specialize at some point. but again, some peoples (Leaonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin) manage to touched so many aspects of life you almost have the impression they were many peoples.

the only thing missing perhaps is the impact of genetics. and if you believe in it, reincarnation, astrology , familly values, etc... it can get quite complex.

the one thing I know is classes is total bullshit.

hard work is the prime factor. followed by genetic, familly values and then, only then *classes*

if you're lazy, are the heir to a whole line of lazy bum, raised in the temple of laziness, you can try paying millions to get whatever diploma you want, you might get the paper, but you will never be good at your calling (be it doctor, physicist, lawyer... whatever)

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.

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.

Or put differently - "The key word is re-invention. We looked at the skill system, which encourages jack-of-all-trades munchkinism and discourages specialisation, and decided to RE-INVENT it - as the same idiotically simplistic system, but with LESS SKILLS to choose from!

Don't worry about those pesky 'decisions' you had to make when choosing 'majors' - get those minors up (which you'll do at the same or even faster speed as your majors) kidz, and a big fat multiplier bonus is YOURS, you uber MageKnightThiefDiplomats!

Link

 

[Astarsis]

Not really

if they use the X^2 curve, there is the following relationship

total xp for level n = n ^ 2
xp from n to n+1 = 2(n+1) -1

if they use a real exponential curve, it's more like

total xp = n !
xp to n+1 = n+1 * (exp to n)

you can figure out quickly that the curve to go up is pretty step

if it's still like in morrowind and only success is rewarded the high level skill will flatten the curve a bit, and they could increase at comparable speed.

also since the curve is that hard, you will be tempted to focus on more rewarding skills, those that will get you a level up

i'm not sure the difference is depleted that fast

to reach 50 you would need 50! uses, that's pretty big.
50! = 50 * 49 * 48 * 47 * 46 * 45.... etc....

It still seems to me that this curve means that skills I use little will quickly increase to mediocre levels, while it is very hard to increase something beyond the mediocre level. So how is class more important if its only defined by your starting skills, when the initial difference is quickly depleted as the game progresses?

 

[Astarsis]

Can you give us an idea what the formula look like ?

is it a real exponential

n! = n * (n-1) * (n-2) * (n-3) *... *5 * 4 *3 *2 *1

or more like

xp (n to n+1) = 2(n+1) -1
(which mean total xp for level n = n * n => 10,000 usage at level 100)

are the other factor used as straight multiplier or do they speed up the exponential ?

This is what I get for making a quick post when I'm tired. 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.

Suppose you wanted to advance a skill from 15 to 16.

Major, within class specialization: 6.76 uses
Major, non-specialization: 9.02 uses
Minor, within class specialization: 11.27 uses
Minor, non-specialization: 15.03 uses

And those numbers get higher and higher in an exponential curve with higher skill levels.

The amount you get for using a skill depends on the skill. For athletics, for example, you get a VERY small skill usage for every second you run. Magic skills give you a usage either when you cast or when you find a target, depending on the school.

I need more sleep. Note -- the exact numbers are subject to change as we continue balancing the game.

 

[Claw]

the one thing I know is classes is total bullshit.

hard work is the prime factor. followed by genetic, familly values and then, only then *classes*

I am sorry the only thing you know is total bullshit.


Honestly though, your argument doesn't make much sense. Classes are a gameplay mechanic, comparing them to realworld factors like genetics is beyond good sense. Classes are meant to enforce a certain gameplay without having to simulate the complex mechanics that might encourage the players to choose it themselves.
A good classless system would substitute complex mechanics, and a bad classless system removes classes and forgets gameplay.

 

[OverrideB1]

Thank you. So are you. It is the sheer entertainment value of the codex that keeps me coming back for more. It is just too fun to be around anal retentive rpgers who are always waving their little fists at the gaming establishment.

Isn't it interesting how my point was validated? Now that we have more accurate information, the skill progression doesn't look so bad does it? Perhaps it would have been wiser to not be so quick to judge? But what fun would that be? So much more fun to pounce upon any comment a dev makes and skewer them for it. As I said, it's what you do. Shoot first, ask questions later.

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 on the skill progression.

To be honest, Bethesda have nobody to blame but themselves if they get roasted for their stunning information releases. Most of them need to be 'clarified' to get across what was actually intended, some are outright contradictory, and the majority of them are content-free.

Somebody at Bethesda needs to step up and give the PR department a damn' good shaking - I neither know, nor care, if they have a fully-fledged PR department or if it's just a couple of bodies wearing a sticky label saying 'PR' - but it's a sad commentary when one of the programmers is far better at communicating actual game content than the PR department.

If Bethesda learn one thing from Oblivion, I hope that it's "it's cool, trust us" isn't effect PR

 

[thomase]

'Scuse my poor memory/ignorance. How was this wacky specialisation modifier granted to particular skills in MW? Was it established at chargen?

@Thomase - there'll be multiple tiers of skills with variable rates of progress right from the outset, so how does this not provide a 'talent' aspect? Or is that system you proposed more natural? Feel free to explain it more simply, that stuff made my head spin.

Here's a different way of thinking about it. All skills use the same progresion curve which determines the "base" skill level, and you get a skill bonuses for class, specialization, or race. The sum of your "base" level and the bonus can't exceed 100. It is similar to what has been already described, except that racial bonuses come into play as well as class (major/minor) and specialization.

In Morrowind for example, thinking about it this way, if the lowest possible skill level is 5, the "bonuses" for major, minor, and specialized skills are +25, +10, and +5 respectively (with the restriction that the major and minor bonus are mutually exclusive). Racial bonuses are applied on top of this.

More thoughts...

Class and specialization can effectively be thought of as bonuses. Why not just add up all of those combined points, and let the player distribute them amongst skills in any way they want at the start? This way, there is even more character differentiation (at least at the start). Now, instead of only counting a subset of the skills towards leveling, ALL of them should count in some way. The influence of any particular skill towards leveling should be such that in the time to master the skill (ie. attain 100), the aggregate effect toward "leveling" (or attribute gain) should be constant across all skills. In other words, say you have skill A starting at 50 and skill B starting at 0. Increasing skill A from 50 to 100 (mastery) should have the same influence on "leveling" as increasing skill B from 0 to 100. This way, each individual point gained in skill A "counts" twice as much towards leveling as each individual point gained in skill B. On top of this, mastery of skill B takes MUCH longer.

 

[Astarsis]

the one thing I know is classes is total bullshit.

hard work is the prime factor. followed by genetic, familly values and then, only then *classes*

I am sorry the only thing you know is total bullshit.


Honestly though, your argument doesn't make much sense. Classes are a gameplay mechanic, comparing them to realworld factors like genetics is beyond good sense. Classes are meant to enforce a certain gameplay without having to simulate the complex mechanics that might encourage the players to choose it themselves.
A good classless system would substitute complex mechanics, and a bad classless system removes classes and forgets gameplay.

Doesn't make much sense or you are unable to make sense of it.

I don't know where you're getting those strange idea

The father of most current CRPG and MMORPG, and the major factor that forced D&D to add skills was the Pen & Paper system called Runequest.

It was by far the simplest, most elegant and most balanced RPG system ever.

No wonder all the other systems got influenced by it

And it had no classes at all....

But perhaps you just don't know enought about gaming to talk about it without using nice cue words like Gameplay and Game Balance. Each time I hear those words it's usually from peoples who have no clues what they are talking about.

The word Gameplay got very popular after Sid Meyer explained that good Gameplay is the key to making good games, and that all else was secondary.

But unless you are ready to speak about specific aspects of Gameplay, it's pretty much an empty word. Gameplay per itself don't exist. You need a game world and game mechanics in order to use it.

Likewise you don't seem to understand complexity at all. A system can be very complex under the hood, but very simple when it come to user interface.

I'm sorry but the human body IS very complex, yet even a 5 year old kid can walk.... Is that clear enought a picture to understand that a game system can take in account genetic without the player having to know about it ?

By the way classes have absolutely nothing to do at all with gameplay. It's only part of the game world design. Which can have or not have the concept of lasses. It's a design choice. The purpose is usually to provide some level of customisation / uniqueness. It's similar to choosing a character when playing mortal combat.

But many games don't even use the concept. Many combat simulators will feature a single plane or chopper

Classes are just artificial limitations. I dare you to provide me any decent advantage from having classes. I don't recall classes ever improving my Gaming experience.

 

[Claw]

Doesn't make much sense or you are unable to make sense of it.

Doesn't make much sense. There is no or.

Each time I hear those words it's usually from peoples who have no clues what they are talking about.

You probably just read that sentence out loud, proving your point.

Likewise you don't seem to understand complexity at all. A system can be very complex under the hood, but very simple when it come to user interface.

I wasn't talking about the user interface in the first place.

Classes are just artificial limitations. I dare you to provide me any decent advantage from having classes. I don't recall classes ever improving my Gaming experience.

I wasn't even aware of my supposed claim classes improved the gaming experience.

 

[Astarsis]

I wasn't even aware of my supposed claim classes improved the gaming experience.

where did you get the idea I was claiming you were claiming ...

err..

I was just...

reading that sentence out loud, proving your point.

since you

Doesn't make much sense.

Glad I could help you find the right circuit to fry your brain

 

[galsiah]

Just a few clarifications:
Skill progression difficulty is apparently only "exponential" in that it includes an exponent. It is NOT exponential.

The formula (according to MSFD) is something like:
Difficulty = ( Skill * constant1 ) ^ constant2

Both constants are GameSettings easily CS editable. This difficulty is then multiplied by other constants so that Major skills and specialised skills are more easily increased. These constants are not finalised, but they must have been:
Major difficulty = 0.6 * Minor
Specialised = 0.75 * non-specialised
(this can be worked out from MSFD's earlier post)

These can also be changed from the CS.

Here's an educated guess at how skill progress will look against effort made in a skill:
http://uk.geocities.com/galsiah/Oblivion_Skill_Chart2.gif

It's pretty versatile (though not perfect, admittedly). Getting to 100 can be made very hard without making early/mid progression too slow. I'm not too worried about the skill learning curves - but I'm sure I'll be tweaking a few constants before I start playing.

I've seen nothing yet to ease concerns over the "Multiplier at level up" attribute increase system though. It seems that it will encourage playing in a counter-intuitive style. One of the "best" ways to play would be to pick 7 skills as majors you'll rarely if ever use, then go out and use the rest. You'll level extremely slowly, but have amazing skills for your level (and get maximum attribute multipliers when you do level without needing to think about it). Your opponents will be based on your level, not your skill set, so most encounters will be a walkover.

It'll be quite annoying if Oblivion ends up encourageing such absurd play styles and for the player to spend much of his time thinking about the game mechanics, when this could be easily fixed.
If it has been fixed, I do wonder why no precise information has been released to that effect, beyond: "Don't worry, it works really well."

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

A power function then, huh?

JI've seen nothing yet to ease concerns over the "Multiplier at level up" attribute increase system though. It seems that it will encourage playing in a counter-intuitive style. One of the "best" ways to play would be to pick 7 skills as majors you'll rarely if ever use, then go out and use the rest. You'll level extremely slowly, but have amazing skills for your level (and get maximum attribute multipliers when you do level without needing to think about it). Your opponents will be based on your level, not your skill set, so most encounters will be a walkover.

While this is technically certainly true, I keep thinking that people who actually go and play that way really deserve no better.
Nevertheless, I see your point, and personally never quite saw the need for these multipliers to begin with. On the other hand I can assure you that for me, the system will probably work just fine, because I have NO intetnion to model my playing style after the "mathematically ideal" way the system might favor. And that worked pretty well even in Morrowind.

 

[galsiah]

While this is technically certainly true, I keep thinking that people who actually go and play that way really deserve no better. Nevertheless, I see your point, and personally never quite saw the need for these multipliers to begin with. On the other hand I can assure you that for me, the system will probably work just fine, because I have NO intetnion to model my playing style after the "mathematically ideal" way the system might favor. And that worked pretty well even in Morrowind.

Admittedly picking totally opposite major skills to the class you want to play is taking things to extremes, but a system which rewards this is not a good system.

On a less extreme note, the following situation is common enough in Morrowind:
You've just gained enough skills to level up, and are in (say) the mages guild in Balmora. It's getting late, so you might sleep soon, but you also think you could use some training while you're there - some of your misc. magic skills are a bit lacking. You're also pretty sure that you haven't increased magic skills enough to get 5x multipliers in either intelligence or willpower.
Now, do you train first and then sleep, or do sleep then train? Neither is going against what makes good roleplaying sense.

At this point it'll almost certainly occur to you that training first would be better for your character. Do you train first and become a powergamer, or sleep first and become an anti-powergamer? Either way you lose because you're thinking about game mechanics rather than the game world.

If this doesn't occur to you, then you're lucky, but it certainly does occur to me and many others. Most of us don't like it.

Thinking about this for five minutes and you'll see some better possible solutions. Think for an hour, and you'll have a very good solution that makes the current one look silly (or perhaps a headache if you've been overdoing it ), It is not even hard to maintain the possibility of choice, while removing the incentive to think your way through skill increases.
I really can't understand how they've come up with little better than the Morrowind system in this regard - or if this is not the case, why they don't come out and say so in a precise fashion.

 

[HardCode]

A very simple solution is to effect the level-up immediately when your 10th skill increases. More realistically, as soon as you are out of combat mode. Resting to level up is kind of a stupid premise to begin with.

 

[galsiah]

That's not good enough alone though. A simple solution would be:
(1) Have all skills contribute to level increase, but majors more than minors.
(2) Have all skills contribute to attribute modifiers, but majors more than minors.
(3) Fix total attribute points gained per level at say 8.
(4) Allow the player to allocate those 8 points as he wishes, up to a maximum of the modifier in each attribute.

For example if you had gained the following modifiers:
Strength 4
Endurance 3
Agility 2
Speed 2
Intelligence 1
Willpower 1
Personality 1

You could choose: {Str 4, End 3, Agil 1} or {Str 2, End 2, Agil 1, Spd 1, Int 1, Per 1} ...

This keeps level and total attribute points directly related, giving better balance. It allows more player choice than the current system. It doesn't artificially reward or penalise any playing style. It tends to give sensible attribute rewards - if you increase mostly combat skills you'll tend to have higher strength / endurance...

It's true that real powergamers might still feel encouraged to make sure they got high modifiers for their favourite attributes, rather than playing naturally. That's fine though if they like that.
Personally I wouldn't find the above solution at all distracting - however you play, you aren't losing out. All that changes is the type of bonus you can get. Assuming the 100 attribute cap is in place (which is unfortunate), then the way you play is unlikely to limit your potential either.

This isn't an ideal solution, but it's a vast improvement in my opinion, and only requires very minor changes.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

A very simple solution is to effect the level-up immediately when your 10th skill increases. More realistically, as soon as you are out of combat mode. Resting to level up is kind of a stupid premise to begin with.

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.

 

[Deathbane27]

A very simple solution is to effect the level-up immediately when your 10th skill increases. More realistically, as soon as you are out of combat mode. Resting to level up is kind of a stupid premise to begin with.

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.

So the level-up multipliers are set when you get the message to rest, not when you actually do, eh?

 

[galsiah]

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.

That's possibly an improvement, but it encourages the player to be even more careful with skill gain than in Morrowind. A careful player is not an immersed player.
The powergaming/pragmatic solution is now not to hold of on sleeping until you have the modifiers, but rather to make sure you don't increase major skills by 10 before you have the modifiers you want. This, as you point out will take ages.

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.

Giving an incentive for the player to do something that takes a very long time doesn't strike me as an ideal solution. That amounts to saying that you can exploit the system as much in Oblivion as in Morrowind - you'll just have a boring time doing it.
Wouldn't it be best to remove the exploit, rather than making it progressively more boring? Having minor skills influence level a small amount would fix this particular problem at a stroke.

This also still means (as I understand it) that it's much better to focus on strength / endurance skills one level, then on intelligence / willpower ones the next, than to gain a variety of skills over the two levels. The first instance gives you high multipliers on both levels, whereas the second gives you moderate ones.

Again this promotes a constant awareness of game mechanics and harms immersion (for a significant amount of players, if not for everyone). It also makes no real sense.

As always, I'd be happy to be wrong on the above. Am I?

 

[Balor]

Galsiah? Creator of GCD, I presume? A competitor? I'm sure you'll be making GCD for Oblivion too, heh. So will I my Levelling (aka Antimunchkin, heh).
Not sure about the 'skill decay' feature, if MSFD is not... misleading us about reworked training and levelling system - it may be redundant, but if turns out not well-balanced...

Anyway, Galsian, have you thought to make the system especially fitted to incorporate new skills? Based on what I've heard of your GCD, it must be similar (if more advanced in some areas, I must say) to my Levelling, and if that so, incorporating new skills using it (since we'll have no legal ways to add that, *insert 1kb of expletives toward lazy Bethsoft employers*) would be easy.
After all, all progression of skills would be tracked, and leveling overridden - so, adding a few trackers for new skills (in globals, of course) would make them fully integrated into the leveling system.

You can have a look at my One Power (link in my profile) mod that have leveling addon enabling newly added skills attribute to stats and skills... not too balanced, I must say, but the principle that's important here.
Feel free to ask me if you don't understand my ramblings, heh.

 

[crpgnut]

This is one aspect of munchkinism that never bothered me. I never tried to max my statistics. It wasn't required to beat the game, easily. I just played and let my stats be whatever they ended up being. If the game was challenging enough that only high stat players could finish it, then I might have focused on it more. I think the only stat I maxed out was whatever governed alchemy. Of course, a high level alchemist was a god in Morrowind.

 

[galsiah]

MSFD: Thinking about it, the contribution of major/minor skills to level up were editable game settings in the CS in Morrowind. Wouldn't it be the work of a few minutes to change the settings to e.g.:
Points required for a level: 40
Points for a major skill increase: 3
Points for a minor skill increase: 1

That would prevent any incentive to increase minor skills more than major ones so as to maximize attribute gain (presuming there's about a 1:3 ratio of minor:major attribute influence). I guess these will be CS editable in any case though(?), so it's not the end of the world if you don't do it.

It still leaves the player thinking "This level I'll focus on strength and endurance" though...

Galsiah? Creator of GCD, I presume? A competitor? I'm sure you'll be making GCD for Oblivion too, heh. So will I my Levelling (aka Antimunchkin, heh).
Not sure about the 'skill decay' feature, if MSFD is not... misleading us about reworked training and levelling system - it may be redundant, but if turns out not well-balanced...

The very same
GCD for Oblivion - maybe. I'm still hoping it isn't necessary. Even if it is I might not have the time.
I'm sure someone will do whatever is necessary if I don't though.

...incorporating new skills using it (since we'll have no legal ways to add that, *insert 1kb of expletives toward lazy Bethsoft employers*) would be easy.
After all, all progression of skills would be tracked, and leveling overridden - so, adding a few trackers for new skills (in globals, of course) would make them fully integrated into the leveling system.

Putting in new skills with GCD would be pretty easy, although they still wouldn't show up in the stats menu.
For Morrowind, I didn't design GCD in a particularly "New Skills" friendly way. It is possible to add new skills to GCD (someone even did), and to have them affect levelling, and attribute gain. It's not simple though.

If I made/colaborated on such a mod for Oblivion, that would be one thing I'd try to do differently. However, my main hope for Oblivion in this area is that they've sorted out the problems with the skill/attribute storage:
In Morrowind, a stat is stored as BASE + BONUS
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.

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.