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[pisskop]

The height variations a minimal and sad at best.  If I remeber correctly, they are +-10 based on a combination of sex and race.

EDIT: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Races
     compare to Oblivion:  http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Races
      and Morrowind:   http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Races
And

I prefer Skyrim's system to morrowind's. At least when I see an arrow hit a guy, it really does hit rather than 'miss' because some roll said so. My skill as a player influences the game a bit.

This is confusing the combat mechanics with the stats individualizing a character.  and it was skill level more than stat that affected this.

[fqllve]

Morrowind was so ridiculously broken and OP its wasn't even funny.

At least, unlike Oblivion, since it was so broken you didn't have to metagame perfectly for your character to be viable at high levels.

I actually like role-playing in my role-playing games. I'm so glad Skyrim fixed that.

[Soadreqm]

I want an RPG with charaters that are more than programming objects. I suppose I do not want realism per se, I would want games to be less "computery" about things.

How would you go about that? The characters are programming objects. It's not really possible for video games to be less computery. That would be like, I don't know, the laws of physics becoming less important in the real world. Matter just doing its own thing instead of interacting with other matter in a complex but orderly manner.

I guess it's at least conceivable that a game could successfully hide the programming, though. Instead of showing you an arbitrary Power Level, a game could just say that "Yup, this guy's a pretty decent swordsman, all right." Or make the Power Levels more detailed and less levely, for instance having you learn specific sword techniques instead of just incrementing the "sword" skill. That's just so much HARDER to do than just giving the player a spreadsheet. Especially if you also want the procedurally generated descriptive sentences not read like they were written by a computer that was interpreting a spreadsheet of arbitrary power levels.

I suppose I'll even begrudgingly agree that having skills represented as numbers that increase is not inherently fun or interesting. It's a fast and easy way of showing the main character becoming stronger, but if you can pull that off without displaying numbers, that'd be just great. None of the Elder Scrolls games I've played have actually interesting leveling systems. Skyrim comes the closest with its pretty perk trees, that I hate for other reasons, but in Morrowind it's just necessary accounting. Getting levels is fun because FUCK YEAH LEVELS, but from that perspective, it doesn't matter at all how the levels work. It's just necessary accounting.

While the subjects of stats and numbers is here.

Skyrim didn't hide them, it got rid of them altogether.  Rather it simply took all those variables and consoladated them into one-size fits all properties.  Not even race specific variations!  No inherent weakness.

I prefer Skyrim's system to morrowind's. At least when I see an arrow hit a guy, it really does hit rather than 'miss' because some roll said so. My skill as a player influences the game a bit.

Sure, if you like first-person shooters. >:]
Maybe a better approach would have been to apply some deviation to the arrow's direction. Instead of not doing any damage despite hitting the target, you can't hit the target because you're a rubbish archer. Speaking of first-person shooters, the first Deus Ex did exactly that.

[fqllve]

Sure, if you like first-person shooters. >:]
Maybe a better approach would have been to apply some deviation to the arrow's direction. Instead of not doing any damage despite hitting the target, you can't hit the target because you're a rubbish archer. Speaking of first-person shooters, the first Deus Ex did exactly that.

Because nothing's more fun than trying to sneak attack a guy with a bow only to miss because the RNG hates you.

They did that with Fallout 3 too, and one of the more popular mods was no bullet deviation. It may be good RPG mechanics, but it isn't very fun gameplay. And anyway, the dice rolls weren't limited to just ranged weaponry. Before Oblivion the model TES used was rather dated, and most modern ARPGs seem to be going in the same direction because it's more satisfying in an action-oriented game.

[MorleyDev]

They did that with Fallout 3 too, and one of the more popular mods was no bullet deviation. It may be good RPG mechanics, but it isn't very fun gameplay.

Heh, I actually downloaded a mod that added more bullet deviation.

I like to feel inferior and terrible at the start of a game, and like a god at the end. Not like I've found godly gear, but my character has become physically mighty. Like at the start of the game, if I get ambushed in a dark alley without my gear by two assassins, my options are to run like hell or get stabbed at lot. At end of game, I can tear out my attackers heart and beat the other attacker to death with it.

If I feel like I start the game a badass with a small gun and end it as a badass with a big gun...well, where's the sense of progression of my character? I'm looking at you, pretty much every FPS ever.

[fqllve]

In ARPGs at least, the sense of progression is in your mastery of the game mechanics and your ability to inflict greater amounts of damage in a greater number of ways. I think Dark Souls is an excellent example of this. Being able to actually hit what you're aiming at doesn't make your character a badass anyway, it's definitely not equivalent to tearing out a person's heart. The alternative to that mod was using VATS all the time, because it's not like you have perfect aim without the bullet deviation. It did tend to make the lower difficulties easymode though, because the game wasn't optimized for you actually hitting your targets consistently.

And complaining that FPSs don't have character progression is a bit weird to me, it wouldn't even make sense in the majority for your character to start out weak because usually your character is already some badass explorer, ex or current military, or something else to that effect. The only FPS I can think of in recent memory where character progression would make sense is in Far Cry 3, and that did have it.

[MorleyDev]

And complaining that FPSs don't have character progression is a bit weird to me, it wouldn't even make sense in the majority for your character to start out weak because usually your character is already some badass explorer, ex or current military, or something else to that effect. The only FPS I can think of in recent memory where character progression would make sense is in Far Cry 3, and that did have it.

I was exaggerating a bit there, but while I'm at it yes I would like more character progression from my FPS. Not neccessarily gameplay since there that sense of progression comes more in the storytelling. I'd at least like the feeling they've been...I dunno, somehow *affected* by the events of the game? xD Ya know, starting the game as a wide eyed idealist of a space marine and evolving into the grizzled and cynical space marine archetype by the end of the game. But that's just me xD

Heck, doesn't even need to be quite that. I think Half-Life somehow managed it with a silent protagonist. There's a definite feeling of becoming badass in that game as more aliens and enemies get thrown at the player. In contrast, in Call of Duty 4 you start the game mowing down ambiguously brown people and end the game mowing down ambiguously white sometimes Russian people. That's about all the progression the single-player got.

[fqllve]

Yeah, Half-Life had a definite sense of progression without it actually being evinced in your character. But that's just a testament to how well-written those games are. Most FPSs have terrible writing.

[Onlyhestands]

Having recently replayed Skyrim I ran across an old post of mine and I still find myself agreeing with it absolutely.

Also played the dlc, Dawnguard, well part of it. I personally found it embarrassingly bad. It felt like bad fanfiction with mediocre gameplay and voice acting tacked on.

An argument about level scaling huh?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't think a sandbox rpg such as this can even really have a great leveling system. However I think Skyrim's leveling system (and that in Fallout 3/NV) was decent, although there were some big problems. Getting penalized for leveling up, especially non-combat skills is awful. There's no sense of increasing challenge in more dangerous areas, I only had a few moments in the game when I found something too hard, and came back after a few levels and was able to deal with it. It also led to improvements in weapons and armor really being meaningless to, they're more like reskins than anything. Plus certain things become ridiculous, I was more afraid of fighting a bear when I was level 20 than I was of fighting a dragon at level 4. However, at least some enemies do stay weak.

Oblivion's level scaling was the perfect example of what not to do. Remember having to abuse level up bonuses, taking skills you use a lot as miscellaneous skills, just so you wouldn't get owned by level scaling? Try playing an archer in vanilla Oblivion, without being exploity, by level 15 your enemies will look like pincushions before they die. I couldn't even get into the game with level scaling mods, they helped but the entire game was just built around the idea that everything will be as strong as you. I remember some things didn't seem to scale-up, like rats and wolves, but you would still end up fighting bandits in full glass or daedric armor.

I never played arena and daggerfall enough to talk about their level-scaling system.

Morrowind's level scaling was pretty minor. The wilderness, was for the most part, pretty safe at any level, outside of areas like Red Mountain, and Molag Amur regions. They did become a bit harder as you leveled, scribs might become nix-hounds for instance, but you could still find scribs thumping their tails. This also led into the annoying cliff-racer infestation, at level 1 there are almost no cliff racers, by level 7 they're everywhere. There was a sort of rough progression from bandit caves, to Dwemer ruins, to strongholds, to Daedric ruins, and then end-game ruins in Red Mountain. Not to mention other enemies such as vampires, and high level Daedric cultists and such. It wasn't set in stone, sometimes you could find very powerful enemies in a cave that you would expect to clear out no problem at level 15, but instead the bandits insdide clear your body of it's internal organs. This allowed for a real sort of feeling that you are becoming powerful. If something was too difficult you could run away and then return when you're stronger. Watching bandits harmlessly try to fight you when you were level 25 was sort of hilarious. However, the game did become too easy. After you beat the main quest, nothing in Vvardenfell could challenge you until you did the expansions.

On the whole I prefer Morrowind's system, despite it's flaws. And before anybody calls me a rose-tinted nostalgic, I still play Morrowind (modded quite a bit I do admit). I really think Skyrim would have been amazing with a system like Morrowind's with a bit more care taken that even high level players have something to do. However, I would take Skyrim's level-scaling over Oblivions any-day, and I felt it really wasn't too bad, just needed improvement.

[Ivefan]

Also played the dlc, Dawnguard, well part of it. I personally found it embarrassingly bad. It felt like bad fanfiction with mediocre gameplay and voice acting tacked on.

Haven't played it but... just like the rest of skyrim?(except voiceacting maybe.)

[alexandertnt]

I want an RPG with charaters that are more than programming objects. I suppose I do not want realism per se, I would want games to be less "computery" about things.

How would you go about that? The characters are programming objects. It's not really possible for video games to be less computery. That would be like, I don't know, the laws of physics becoming less important in the real world. Matter just doing its own thing instead of interacting with other matter in a complex but orderly manner.

I guess it's at least conceivable that a game could successfully hide the programming, though. Instead of showing you an arbitrary Power Level, a game could just say that "Yup, this guy's a pretty decent swordsman, all right." Or make the Power Levels more detailed and less levely, for instance having you learn specific sword techniques instead of just incrementing the "sword" skill. That's just so much HARDER to do than just giving the player a spreadsheet. Especially if you also want the procedurally generated descriptive sentences not read like they were written by a computer that was interpreting a spreadsheet of arbitrary power levels.

I suppose I'll even begrudgingly agree that having skills represented as numbers that increase is not inherently fun or interesting. It's a fast and easy way of showing the main character becoming stronger, but if you can pull that off without displaying numbers, that'd be just great. None of the Elder Scrolls games I've played have actually interesting leveling systems. Skyrim comes the closest with its pretty perk trees, that I hate for other reasons, but in Morrowind it's just necessary accounting. Getting levels is fun because FUCK YEAH LEVELS, but from that perspective, it doesn't matter at all how the levels work. It's just necessary accounting.

Obviously it is a computer program, I just want it to feel less like one, not somehow become something that is not a literal computer program.

What I do want them to do is to hide the programming, yes, and pretty much the rest of your statement I agree with. Procedurally generated anything is not even necessary (the first play through it would all be fresh and new anyway).
Incrementing a sword skill is fine internally (It doesnt have to be a complex system involving techniques etc) as long as I am given a feel for my characters skill with a sword rather than a precise readout (eg through descriptions, and trial-and-error etc).

[Soadreqm]

Maybe a better approach would have been to apply some deviation to the arrow's direction.

Because nothing's more fun than trying to sneak attack a guy with a bow only to miss because the RNG hates you.

Maybe, just maybe, a mediocre archer SHOULD miss some of the time. And a newbie archer should miss a lot of the time. Otherwise, what's even the point of having an archery skill?

If you're a master with every weapon and able to cast any spell from the minute you stumble wide-eyed out of the tutorial prison, well, that's just not the kind of Elder Scrolls game I was expecting. Maybe I'm just out of the loop? I mean, the latest Fallout game I played was Fallout 2. It's been a while, but I seem to recall missing all the time. I also missed a lot in all the Infinity Engine games. Not being able to hit monsters in Morrowind felt just natural. And at some point, I found roguelikes, and learned to appreciate permadeath and suffer the whims of the RNG without actually punching my monitor.

And now Fallout is a FPS, and the kids are whining about guns not being flawlessly accurate? Bah! Get off my lawn!

How do you sneak attack with a bow, anyway? I mean, it's not like you can pinpoint your opponent's vital organs with the kind of precision you'd have at dagger range.

[Neonivek]

I will say that it is hard for a tall person to look up at someone.

There is something difficult about it.

[forsaken1111]

Maybe a better approach would have been to apply some deviation to the arrow's direction.

Because nothing's more fun than trying to sneak attack a guy with a bow only to miss because the RNG hates you.

Maybe, just maybe, a mediocre archer SHOULD miss some of the time. And a newbie archer should miss a lot of the time. Otherwise, what's even the point of having an archery skill?

How do you sneak attack with a bow, anyway? I mean, it's not like you can pinpoint your opponent's vital organs with the kind of precision you'd have at dagger range.

If you are playing a game from a first person point of view and you fire an arrow and see said arrow hit the target, having the game tell you that you have 'missed' is beyond annoying. If you're going to tie success to an arbitrary number, remove player skill entirely from the equation and just make it a strategy game. Select target, press fire. Whoops I missed.

As for sneak attacking, sure you can if you are a sufficiently good archer in a fantasy world. Legolas hit people in the goddamn throat from a hundred yards. Bet that was surprising... thus: sneak attack.

[Rex_Nex]

ignore this