Well THIS is eerily prophetic...

[Gizmojunk]

Gotta love the good ol "not a good fallout" "not a good elder scrolls" cop out to keep mindlessly hating on a game.

Who said anything about not a good Elder Scrolls? You seem to think it's mindless because you don't value the (often stated) reasons for it, and/or care to understand them. ~Or am I mistaken?

 

[LiveOnTheEdge]

The reason you have character creation in an RPG is more than just a record.

Say I am going to RP a farmer called up to fight in the local militia. I THEN go on to make my character. Now a farmer in say ancient greece is not going to be well educated so I go for low intelligence. He however likely has great outdoor skills and has a decent build due to years of farm work. So I up those. Maybe he was the one who took food to the market on weekends for sale so he learned to converse with people over time so I up charisma. Maybe he has bad eyesight and thus you lower his relevant stat. See how it goes? You don't have time to RP your characters life story and genes. So set the framework for your character which equals how you see him at the time and his whole life.

In Skyrim you start of as a walking talking baby. It doesn't care if you are a poor uneducated farmer, or an ex diplomat or anything. You are literally a walking talking baby. You have to learn everything, you aren't bad with anything at the beginning of the game.

Skills are there so you can make your character then have the world react to it. If you are a doctor in Skyrim the world doesn't care at all. If you are a doctor in fallout 1 the world does care, because it then gives you options in world based on those skills, it also means you are always ahead on those doctoring skills from the get go. You can simulate learning skills over time by upgrading the skills you need (if you lacks something you need most people will practice to overcome that need).

In skyrim you have no character. Just a named skin where you choose the load out.

Yes, you start at the beginning of your character and help define and refine it by the actions you take and the skills you choose to use. Or that was the idea there anyway I think. Whether it was implemented good or not is another thing. As for the world of Skyrim not reacting to you and your choices, that's a flaw with the game world, not necessarily with the character system. And like I said, this and the old P&P character systems are just different ways of doing things and it's going to largely come down to personal tastes as to whether each person likes it or not.

 

[Swastakowey]

The reason you have character creation in an RPG is more than just a record.

Say I am going to RP a farmer called up to fight in the local militia. I THEN go on to make my character. Now a farmer in say ancient greece is not going to be well educated so I go for low intelligence. He however likely has great outdoor skills and has a decent build due to years of farm work. So I up those. Maybe he was the one who took food to the market on weekends for sale so he learned to converse with people over time so I up charisma. Maybe he has bad eyesight and thus you lower his relevant stat. See how it goes? You don't have time to RP your characters life story and genes. So set the framework for your character which equals how you see him at the time and his whole life.

In Skyrim you start of as a walking talking baby. It doesn't care if you are a poor uneducated farmer, or an ex diplomat or anything. You are literally a walking talking baby. You have to learn everything, you aren't bad with anything at the beginning of the game.

Skills are there so you can make your character then have the world react to it. If you are a doctor in Skyrim the world doesn't care at all. If you are a doctor in fallout 1 the world does care, because it then gives you options in world based on those skills, it also means you are always ahead on those doctoring skills from the get go. You can simulate learning skills over time by upgrading the skills you need (if you lacks something you need most people will practice to overcome that need).

In skyrim you have no character. Just a named skin where you choose the load out.

Yes, you start at the beginning of your character and help define and refine it by the actions you take and the skills you choose to use. Or that was the idea there anyway I think. Whether it was implemented good or not is another thing. As for the world of Skyrim not reacting to you and your choices, that's a flaw with the game world, not necessarily with the character system. And like I said, this and the old P&P character systems are just different ways of doing things and it's going to largely come down to personal tastes as to whether each person likes it or not.

It's not about liking it but more about common sense. SHOULD a character know nothing at the beginning of the game and have none of his past effect his current and future life? If that is the answer then yes Skyrim would make sense. But the traditional method of creating a character can still be used for this by giving flat stats etc. Ultimately the traditional method still does it better in every way.

I would say the flaw is in the character creation THEN the game really. A better way would be Oblivion which tried to merge defining your character at the start then leveling up what you do etc (although oblivion's one was flawed the idea/concept is there).

 

[Gizmojunk]

Yes, you start at the beginning of your character and help define and refine it by the actions you take and the skills you choose to use. Or that was the idea there anyway I think. Whether it was implemented good or not is another thing. As for the world of Skyrim not reacting to you and your choices, that's a flaw with the game world, not necessarily with the character system.

The flaw in the character system has been repeatedly mentioned... It is that the PC starts the game without sufficient ability to have lived to their present age.
It's like they fell out of a hole in the sky one night, and started roaming the streets.

And like I said, this and the old P&P character systems are just different ways of doing things and it's going to largely come down to personal tastes as to whether each person likes it or not.

Different as in different goals, and different as in unsuitable to the other's goal. Different, and not the equal of the other for the other's goal.

 

[LiveOnTheEdge]

The system in Skyrim, since it's more focused on the skills you're using, I'd say allows you to RP a little more open and freer in some regards and allows you to RP a little closer to your character.

So if I make a first person shooter, is it a good RPG because you can just *pretend* like you are a stealthy thief despite it having no real impact in the game world? By this logic, I can role play in Metro by saying I'm a thief build simply because I'm imagining it.

I'm not really sure where you were reading all that into it, but the world not reacting to you is a problem with how the game world was implemented and designed, not really because of the character system.

In Morrowind people would downright refuse to talk to you if you were a certain type of character. Others would treat you better. Quests were suited to particular character types.

And you could easily get around that by upping their disposition and your Speechcraft level by money or spells or whatever else, and training up whatever skills were requirements either by doing the grunt work yourself or buying levels through trainers.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

And you could easily get around that by upping their disposition and your Speechcraft level by money or spells or whatever else, and training up whatever skills were requirements either by doing the grunt work yourself or buying levels through trainers.

Yes. That is a much better system than claiming that you are an Orc Warrior or a Breton Mage and having there be no difference between the two besides how you beat people up in dungeon fetch quests.

 

[Swastakowey]

In Morrowind people would downright refuse to talk to you if you were a certain type of character. Others would treat you better. Quests were suited to particular character types.

And you could easily get around that by upping their disposition and your Speechcraft level by money or spells or whatever else, and training up whatever skills were requirements either by doing the grunt work yourself or buying levels through trainers.

But thats the cool thing about RPGs, if im a murderer in real life and people heard about me and wanted nothing to do with me that makes sense. If I was savy enough I could work around that though. After all known criminals can still get chicks and a job etc. That's the point of an RPG, there are many ways to do things just like real life. But even then you will never be able to do it all. By your logic, you can get around enemies on an RPG by simply killing them, why not just remove them entirely and let people just get loot. It removes the challenge of the RPG.

 

[Trannigan]

Gotta love the goodelder scrolls" cop out to keep mindlessly hating on a game.

Who said anything about not a good Elder Scrolls? You seem to think it's mindless because you don't value the (often stated) reasons for it, and/or care to understand them. ~Or am I mistaken?

I mentioned Elder Scrolls because it's the same laughable garbage that I've read elitists spew on the Bethesda forum for years. Some would have people believe only Morrowind is the 'true' ES game.

It's no less laughable when applied to this series people only say that when they have realized they need to conceed a game being good "just not good for the series".

 

[Gizmojunk]

Where does Skyrim indicate the character's demeanor and personality?
Speech-craft can come from a jovial fellow with a knack for clever turns of a phrase, or from a prosecutor with a knack for casting a sinister pall on the facts.

I mentioned Elder Scrolls because it's the same laughable garbage that I've read elitists spew on the Bethesda forum for years. Some would have people believe only Morrowind is the 'true' ES game.

It's no less laughable when applied to this series people only say that when they have realized they need to conceed a game being good "just not good for the series".

I can tell you that Oblivion was my first Bethesda product, and that so far, I seem to like their games from least to most in reverse order. I do believe that they lost staff after Morrowind, and that's when the marked changes seem to have started.

[*Note: I have not played Arena or Daggerfall enough to give them a fair shake at comparisons; I haven't yet played BattleSpire or Redguard at all; but I bought them last week, as the last two that I didn't have.]

 

[Irwin John Finster]

Gotta love the goodelder scrolls" cop out to keep mindlessly hating on a game.

Who said anything about not a good Elder Scrolls? You seem to think it's mindless because you don't value the (often stated) reasons for it, and/or care to understand them. ~Or am I mistaken?

I mentioned Elder Scrolls because it's the same laughable garbage that I've read elitists spew on the Bethesda forum for years. Some would have people believe only Morrowind is the 'true' ES game.

It's no less laughable when applied to this series people only say that when they have realized they need to conceed a game being good "just not good for the series".

Morrowind was an amazing game. Oblivion was a great game. Skyrim was mediocre and most of the people I know who still play Skyrim merely mess around with ENB mods rather than actually play the game.

SO there you have it, once again you have someone who Likes Fallout 3 and Oblivion, yet finds Skyrim mediocre and Fallout 4 terrible.

But you can't handle that because if there are people like me it means maybe Fallout 4 is a bad game, so clearly in the mind of the fanboy the only people that hate Fallout 4 are the old timers who are stuck in 1999 with Fallout 1 and 2 and hate Bethesda for the sake of hating Bethesda.

 

[LiveOnTheEdge]

How exactly do you mean 'equally'? There is a difference between success by another path, and success by negligible variance.

Because it's possible to achieve success through various means or even for different characters to achieve success through similar means. And even different types to some extent. (Of course in Skyrim it is mostly through fighting, but you know...)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean ~exactly. There are no practical limitations about stats or skill abilities; and it certainly was not some kind of "settling for less due to limits". Stats are imperative mechanics for RPGs; they define the character's mental, physical, and social domain. It's what differentiates the Tony Cliftons from the Tony Robbins' in the world ~even though both would be experienced public speakers; a 'Public Speaking' ~perk, is not enough for that.

When I said limitation it was because nowadays with computers you can sort let it figure some of that stuff out for the players and back then it pretty much had to be done by hand and all figured out ahead of time. Now you can still have all the stats and do everything as before (Obviously not in Skyrim, but if devs do build such a game...) and that's fine too.

How does the game engine know what is closer to your character? (How can it react accordingly?)
How can the player know what is closer to their character; and how to act accordingly?

Which is a limitation of the game engine and how and how Bethesda implemented the characters and AI not really because of the character system.

The grand selection of multiple choices that exist in RPGs is [ideally] not there for the whim of the player's mood, but there for them to choose closest to what their current character would identify with at the time, in that situation. If the player makes it all up as they go along... can they ever distinguish what's not in character?

Because it still is totally within your power to still choose what skills you use and how your character plays as you go along. Sure if you never put any thought into it all then you probably won't be able to distinguish your own character that you made, but otherwise yeah, it should be easy to distinguish and define what's in or not in character. (With obvious exceptions to how the NPCs and game world is designed. But that's always true since devs never plan or implement all possibilities.)

 

[LiveOnTheEdge]

Ultimately you did as much RPGing in Skyrim it seems as I did in Starwars Battlefront 2: "I shot them with a shotgun for a hours, then went back and killed them with a rocket launcher for more hours but this time I refused to fight for CIS!"

Incorrect. But feel free to keep making hyperboles in your counter-arguments, it's the NMA standard after all

The idea is the same: You both pretended to be a type of character despite the game not accounting for that whatsoever. Pretending to be a thief in Skyrim changes nothing about the game world, the story, or the dialogue. It provides the same value as pretending to be a Mage in Call of Duty. In Morrowind if you had one type of character you were essentially precluded from engaging in entire questlines and talking to whole groups of people. Your race and character type had far-reaching effects in the game world itself rather than in your imagination.

Not really. You could do almost all of the quests in the game with a single character (with the exception of the Great House quests and the other line of the Bloodmoon quests. Maybe something else, but you could the vast majority of quests.)

Sure, you might have to put in a little extra work depending on what skills you chose as major/minor/ or otherwise. And people did react to your race a little more in Morrowind and there were some effects there.

 

[Someguy37]

snip

From what I recall, couldn't you join BOTH religious institutions, and become leader of both, despite them being at odds, in Morrowind?

 

[Swastakowey]

Ultimately you did as much RPGing in Skyrim it seems as I did in Starwars Battlefront 2: "I shot them with a shotgun for a hours, then went back and killed them with a rocket launcher for more hours but this time I refused to fight for CIS!"

Incorrect. But feel free to keep making hyperboles in your counter-arguments, it's the NMA standard after all

The idea is the same: You both pretended to be a type of character despite the game not accounting for that whatsoever. Pretending to be a thief in Skyrim changes nothing about the game world, the story, or the dialogue. It provides the same value as pretending to be a Mage in Call of Duty. In Morrowind if you had one type of character you were essentially precluded from engaging in entire questlines and talking to whole groups of people. Your race and character type had far-reaching effects in the game world itself rather than in your imagination.

Not really. You could do almost all of the quests in the game with a single character (with the exception of the Great House quests and the other line of the Bloodmoon quests. Maybe something else, but you could the vast majority of quests.)

Sure, you might have to put in a little extra work depending on what skills you chose as major/minor/ or otherwise. And people did react to your race a little more in Morrowind and there were some effects there.

Im pretty sure joining certain guilds prevented you from doing other guilds meaning 1 character cannot do most of the game.

 

[Gizmojunk]

When I said limitation it was because nowadays with computers you can sort let it figure some of that stuff out for the players and back then it pretty much had to be done by hand and all figured out ahead of time. Now you can still have all the stats and do everything as before (Obviously not in Skyrim, but if devs do build such a game...) and that's fine too.

Again, I will say that I don't know exactly what you mean. On the surface I would say that that is not (and was not) the case, but I'm not sure of what you mean.
I can say that it's nuts to have a stat system and not allow the player to know what they are; they have to know in order to play (and how not to play) as the character.

There is not a technological limitation here; PCs are great with numbers, and stats are nothing compared to even 4 bit graphics.

Which is a limitation of the game engine and how and how Bethesda implemented the characters and AI not really because of the character system.

I disagree because the character system defines how the game agrees or disagrees with the player, on matters of the character. The AI is tertiary, and could be replaced with a pop up that says that they beat the hell out of the PC.
(And be done statistically.)

Because it still is totally within your power to still choose what skills you use and how your character plays as you go along. Sure if you never put any thought into it all then you probably won't be able to distinguish your own character that you made, but otherwise yeah, it should be easy to distinguish and define what's in or not in character. (With obvious exceptions to how the NPCs and game world is designed. But that's always true since devs never plan or implement all possibilities.)

Fallout allowed the PC to define aptitudes, and start out proficient in something; even FO3 retained a sliver of this.

The only game that I have seen to do 'learn by doing' well, was Lands of Lore:Throne of Chaos; and even then the PCs all had lives leading up to the start of the game, and begin the game as very competent in one area, or reasonably competent in several.

** I would be open and look forward to a Lands of Lore sequel by Bethesda. I might also like their take on a the Palladium Books RIFTS setting. These kind of suit them, where Fallout does not.

*** Incidentally, Lands of Lore:ToC was a first person dungeon crawler with fully voiced PC dialog, and a lot of it; made in 1994; just around the time that development of Fallout was begun.

****Incidentally again... Two years before Fallout, Interplay's big game was a first person adventure with a spell casting, sword wielding warrior, and was fully voiced, and had dual wielded weapons that hit where you targeted. It's called Stonekeep.

 

[LiveOnTheEdge]

It's not about liking it but more about common sense. SHOULD a character know nothing at the beginning of the game and have none of his past effect his current and future life? If that is the answer then yes Skyrim would make sense. But the traditional method of creating a character can still be used for this by giving flat stats etc. Ultimately the traditional method still does it better in every way.

I would say the flaw is in the character creation THEN the game really. A better way would be Oblivion which tried to merge defining your character at the start then leveling up what you do etc (although oblivion's one was flawed the idea/concept is there).

Well why not? Technically in the P&P system your character knows nothing at the start of the game. It's just that you spend time at the very start before you get into the meat of the game predetermining all of that. Whereas in with the system Skyrim uses you can think of a certain character you want (if you want) to play as beforehand and then make it a reality as you go through the game by what actions you take and what skills you use and level up. (Granted in Skyrim it's a little simple and probably could have been refined a little more I'm sure, like I said. And the game world/NPCs could have been crafted better to react more to you.)

 

[Someguy37]

Im pretty sure joining certain guilds prevented you from doing other guilds meaning 1 character cannot do most of the game.

Nope. You could do
-The Fighters Guild
-Mages Guild
-Thieves Guild
-Tribunal Temple
-Morag Tong
-Imperial cult
-Imperial Legion
-One(possibly two if you used a exploit) of three great houses
-One of the three vampire clans, which shared many of the same quests anyways

In one playthrough of Morrowind.

 

[Swastakowey]

It's not about liking it but more about common sense. SHOULD a character know nothing at the beginning of the game and have none of his past effect his current and future life? If that is the answer then yes Skyrim would make sense. But the traditional method of creating a character can still be used for this by giving flat stats etc. Ultimately the traditional method still does it better in every way.

I would say the flaw is in the character creation THEN the game really. A better way would be Oblivion which tried to merge defining your character at the start then leveling up what you do etc (although oblivion's one was flawed the idea/concept is there).

Well why not? Technically in the P&P system your character knows nothing at the start of the game. It's just that you spend time at the very start before you get into the meat of the game predetermining all of that. Whereas in with the system Skyrim uses you can think of a certain character you want (if you want) to play as beforehand and then make it a reality as you go through the game by what actions you take and what skills you use and level up. (Granted in Skyrim it's a little simple and probably could have been refined a little more I'm sure, like I said. And the game world/NPCs could have been crafted better to react more to you.)

No in a PnP game your character knows the skills and has the physical and mental stats you are able to give depending on the starting level. In Skyrim you have a character that has gone through life without ANY skills, character, knowledge or flaws.

This is the key difference. There is no way that makes a better/same system in any form to the traditional way of creating a character.

Skyrim would make sense if you started the game from a new born and went forward. Not when you start as a fully grown adult regardless of how well it's done.

 

[LiveOnTheEdge]

Yes, you start at the beginning of your character and help define and refine it by the actions you take and the skills you choose to use. Or that was the idea there anyway I think. Whether it was implemented good or not is another thing. As for the world of Skyrim not reacting to you and your choices, that's a flaw with the game world, not necessarily with the character system.

The flaw in the character system has been repeatedly mentioned... It is that the PC starts the game without sufficient ability to have lived to their present age.
It's like they fell out of a hole in the sky one night, and started roaming the streets.

Well in the elder scrolls games they pretty much do fall out of a hole in the sky more or less. And as I've said, instead of pre crafting your character you're building it up as you go.

And like I said, this and the old P&P character systems are just different ways of doing things and it's going to largely come down to personal tastes as to whether each person likes it or not.

Different as in different goals, and different as in unsuitable to the other's goal. Different, and not the equal of the other for the other's goal.

Not really sure what you're getting at with this part.

 

[Dr Fallout]

It's not about liking it but more about common sense. SHOULD a character know nothing at the beginning of the game and have none of his past effect his current and future life? If that is the answer then yes Skyrim would make sense. But the traditional method of creating a character can still be used for this by giving flat stats etc. Ultimately the traditional method still does it better in every way.

I would say the flaw is in the character creation THEN the game really. A better way would be Oblivion which tried to merge defining your character at the start then leveling up what you do etc (although oblivion's one was flawed the idea/concept is there).

Well why not? Technically in the P&P system your character knows nothing at the start of the game. It's just that you spend time at the very start before you get into the meat of the game predetermining all of that. Whereas in with the system Skyrim uses you can think of a certain character you want (if you want) to play as beforehand and then make it a reality as you go through the game by what actions you take and what skills you use and level up. (Granted in Skyrim it's a little simple and probably could have been refined a little more I'm sure, like I said. And the game world/NPCs could have been crafted better to react more to you.)

No in a PnP game your character knows the skills and has the physical and mental stats you are able to give depending on the starting level. In Skyrim you have a character that has gone through life without ANY skills, character, knowledge or flaws.

This is the key difference. There is no way that makes a better/same system in any form to the traditional way of creating a character.

Skyrim would make sense if you started the game from a new born and went forward. Not when you start as a fully grown adult regardless of how well it's done.

Agreed, in Skyrim you were pretty much the same, apart from racial differences. All could stealth, all could cast magic and all could fight all pretty well.