Personally, the only part of the Elder Scrolls that should end up in Fallout is how skill points are gained. Comparing how you gained points in Oblivion compared to Fallout 3 it was easier and more natural in Oblivion. Granted that game had its own issues, that's not my point. It makes sense that if I use small guns, that skill increases with use. Its slower, but I don't have to allocate a finite number of skill points. It does grind on for a while, but that forced me to explore Cyrodiil and it had a worth while map to explore, given when the game was made. I was not a fan of choosing 10 health, magic or stamina points at level up, oh well one step forward off a cliff. Thanks Skyrim.
There are two problems with this approach. One, XP in Fallout games tends to come more from completing quests than using skills; you gain some from combat, lockpicking etc, but most of your leveling is done by completing quests. This makes sense because it's assumed you'll be using your favored skills during completion of those quests so you can allocate points to whatever skills you want because you'll be using them anyway, though in more varied ways. Two, the system itself is far from perfect in either game. Oblivion has a completely obtuse skill mechanics coupled with the level scaling fluff. Unless you strictly follow a guide like the one from UESP, you could quickly fuck up your game completely. That is, if you played the game like a normal person, and chose as major skills the ones you used most often, you'd get shitty stat gains and fall behind as the world leveled around you. To get the most out of each level, you had to choose as majors the skills you would use
least. Want to play a stealthy archer thief? Better major in Blunt Weapons, Conjuration Magic, and Heavy Armor. And of course, if you figured this part out yourself, and decided to make sure all your majors would be unwanted, you'd later realize that minor skills accrued points more slowly. Because you never used your major skills in the course of normal gameplay, it would take ages to gain any levels at all, and you'd have to send your mage enchanter to bareknuckle boxing camp just so he could gain those last couple points in Block and Hand to Hand. It was all about striking just the right balance of real majors and fake majors, to level slowly when you needed bonus credits, and quickly when you didn't.
None of it worked, to the point the very first mods released for this game were attempts to fix it. Leveling enemies alongside you isn't the problem by itself, but when my level 30 warrior is getting completely creamed in fight with trash mobs when he's got end game equipment and top points in every combat stat he uses, something is wrong. The way it worked in the base game, it meant that every leveling choice from the beginning of the game had to be perfect, otherwise the enemies level up faster than you and leveling up actually makes you
weaker.
Now compared to the nightmare that was Oblivion's skill system, Skyrim did a good job, but it was still broken to the core. This is a system where you can level to 100 by making 3 million iron daggers, but not receive much XP by completing important quests or dungeons. Both the Fallout and the Skyrim system have their pros and cons but it's fairly clear to me the Fallout games have a completely appropriate system for their style.
