Elder Scrolls 6 wishlist

[Lachdonin]

 

 

I do hear you though, it would be nice to make it so that selecting a perk doesn't actually give you that perk, but starts a quest to go somewhere or to someone to learn that perk.

 

I feel like that approach is far too limiting from a roleplaying perspective. It assumes that it's impossible to learn things on your own, to develop your own approaches and solutions to Skills. Plus, it reeks of of the Master on the Mountaintop trope, which is something i hate in RPGs almost as much as Classes.

[chanchan05]

 

 

 

I do hear you though, it would be nice to make it so that selecting a perk doesn't actually give you that perk, but starts a quest to go somewhere or to someone to learn that perk.

 

I feel like that approach is far too limiting from a roleplaying perspective. It assumes that it's impossible to learn things on your own, to develop your own approaches and solutions to Skills. Plus, it reeks of of the Master on the Mountaintop trope, which is something i hate in RPGs almost as much as Classes.

 

Well, it's not really possible to learn on your own anyway. Can you learn Science, Engineering or Medicine on your own? No. Even self-study means you read books written by others or had experience in it under the guidance of others.

Although this could be a problem because of the nature of the perks themselves. For example, the magic perks of being able to cast novice spells at less magicka as you practice more seem fine. Because practice makes perfect, just like how taking 100 3pt shots a day makes it easier to do so after 1 year of doing that. But moving from knowing how to smith ebony armor from smithing 100 steel armors, to me, is like saying I've assembled cars before, so I can assemble an airplane. You still have to learn a few things from others, otherwise, engage in wasteful trial and error.

It doesn't even have to be a master. The quest could simply be a trigger by level where you suddenly get a quest in the logs which says "Experiment on forging Ebony" then you fail the first 4 times then succeed in the 5th, essentially just paying ebony ingots to unlock the perk.

But anyway, this is just preference in terms of roleplaying.

[Lachdonin]

Well, it's not really possible to learn on your own anyway

 

Agriculture was independently and spontaneously developed by at least 4 separate cultures at the same time. Writing developed spontaneously at least 3 times. The same Schools of Thought appeared in Mesoamerica and the Old World independent of eachother with no known association between the two.

 

Thats not to say learning from others doesn't speed the process along. But if it was the only way to learn new things, we'd all still be living in trees.

[chanchan05]

 

Well, it's not really possible to learn on your own anyway

 

Agriculture was independently and spontaneously developed by at least 4 separate cultures at the same time. Writing developed spontaneously at least 3 times. The same Schools of Thought appeared in Mesoamerica and the Old World independent of eachother with no known association between the two.

 

Thats not to say learning from others doesn't speed the process along. But if it was the only way to learn new things, we'd all still be living in trees.

 

Except those didn't happen like one guy developed agriculture all on his own and perfected it in the span of a couple of days. It took years and generations of experimentation. That's what I mean by you don't learn everything on your own. One person's experiments and self-teaching only gets so far, then another one comes along and builds on top of that.

If people can learn the complete extent of everything on their own, Herodotus and Galen would have understood genetic medicine 3000 years ago.

A perfect example is smithing: We have the bronze age then the iron age. The bronze age spanned from 3000-1200 BC. That's basically 1800 years of people using bronze weaponry before they were able to develop iron smithing techniques good enough to supplant bronze.

[Rethrain]

I just don't find the perk system very involving. To me it's just ticking a checkbox.

 

As far as tropes goes... heh. This is an rpg, they reek of tropes (Including Skyrim of course). The best one could find is a tropey rpg with really good story and dialog that is not carried by said tropes and stands on it's own. Sure, I don't mind something utterly original and immersive, in fact, I'm all for it, I want it. I'm just being realistic.

[Lachdonin]

I'll freely admit that Skyrim's execution of the potential the system has was... Less than ideal. Barely competent is probably more appropriate...

 

But a lot of it generally depends on how you see Skills, and how you see what Perks are (or should be). Skills should be broad, interwoven areas of knowledge. Painting. Fighting. Agriculture. Medicine. Diverse ideas that run a wide range, but all rely on the same fundamental basis.

 

Perks, then, are the specialisations. They are the Impressionists and the Surrealists, Fencing and Mugai-ryu, Psychology and Pediatrics.

 

Now, yes, in a far more realistic context, it would be difficult for any individual to spontaneously develop any of these specialised fields of study from nothing. But for the sake of function, there's a little more leeway.

 

You can attach unlocking the ability to pick a Perk to certain quests or trainers, but building the entire system off that heavily limits what you can do with a character. Want to learn a paralyzing strike? Well, there's only one quest in the entire game that gets you it, so every character you have HAS to get it from him. You strip away the ability to play someone whose knowledge of anatomy allows him to develop something similar on his own, or someone who learned the technique from some far off land, or someone who just stumbles upon it in a drunken brawl. Attaching powers, abilities and increases to particular quests or activities limits what sorts of characters you can build within the system, just like attaching Shouting to Dragons Souls inherently limited the Tongue you could play. Want to play an old, practiced master? Too bad, Dragon Souls.

 

Extending that problem to the meat of one of the best RPG stat dynamics ever put in a game seems like a step backwards to me.

 

 

 

As far as tropes goes

 

Absolutely.. It's just a trope i hate. Whoever came up with the Master on the Mountaintop notion clearly never taught, or at least was a terrible teacher. Other tropes i hate are the 'Average Joe rising to the challenge' and 'Sewers'.

[Rethrain]

I'll freely admit that Skyrim's execution of the potential the system has was... Less than ideal. Barely competent is probably more appropriate...

 

But a lot of it generally depends on how you see Skills, and how you see what Perks are (or should be). Skills should be broad, interwoven areas of knowledge. Painting. Fighting. Agriculture. Medicine. Diverse ideas that run a wide range, but all rely on the same fundamental basis.

 

Perks, then, are the specialisations. They are the Impressionists and the Surrealists, Fencing and Mugai-ryu, Psychology and Pediatrics.

 

Now, yes, in a far more realistic context, it would be difficult for any individual to spontaneously develop any of these specialised fields of study from nothing. But for the sake of function, there's a little more leeway.

 

You can attach unlocking the ability to pick a Perk to certain quests or trainers, but building the entire system off that heavily limits what you can do with a character. Want to learn a paralyzing strike? Well, there's only one quest in the entire game that gets you it, so every character you have HAS to get it from him. You strip away the ability to play someone whose knowledge of anatomy allows him to develop something similar on his own, or someone who learned the technique from some far off land, or someone who just stumbles upon it in a drunken brawl. Attaching powers, abilities and increases to particular quests or activities limits what sorts of characters you can build within the system, just like attaching Shouting to Dragons Souls inherently limited the Tongue you could play. Want to play an old, practiced master? Too bad, Dragon Souls.

 

Extending that problem to the meat of one of the best RPG stat dynamics ever put in a game seems like a step backwards to me.

 

 

 

As far as tropes goes

 

Absolutely.. It's just a trope i hate. Whoever came up with the Master on the Mountaintop notion clearly never taught, or at least was a terrible teacher. Other tropes i hate are the 'Average Joe rising to the challenge' and 'Sewers'.

 

Well, all this stems from the fact that you hate classes, while I like them. You like function, I like realism, even if it constricts, or rather precisely because of that.

Your point of finding different ways to skin a cat, as it were, instead of learning them from Guru/Hermit on the mountaintop is well taken, and I agree. However, I like games that have high replayability, as a personal preference.

For example, as Dragonborn I can do everything and be everyone, unless I stop myself and set my own limits, which I do actually, by myself and/or with mods helping. If I don't, I tend to find myself not replaying since I already beat it, though I suppose I might depending on the story...probably won't though. (I replay skyrim because of mods alone, and only mods).

 

If there are some restrictions, I can create other characters that can do...whatever another one can't or make different decisions, or to be more specific, I can make a character that is more adept at doing that one thing the other one sucks at terribly, while keeping both in mind to play. This would make me go back to the game. It will be a slightly different experience without me having to cook up a story by myself -- which I can -- I just can't find validity for it in the game, feels like I'm making up something that doesn't belong, though I suppose it's irrelevant, it's my game after all.

 

I do understand the underlying philosophy of Skyrim, as in: "It only matters what you can do" and not just stats. It's still a good idea.

[nayakri]

To be honest, I also hate the fact that you learn those things from nowhere. I try to think that while giving a perk my character just learned accidentaly how to do something, but even this quickly loses its charm.

 

Frankly, the problem with perks is just a piece of a real problem that consumes Skyrim - which I sum up with: give a piece of something new and make it look nice. Because "looks" are everywhere in Skyrim. I just don't want to count things that could be awesome if developers stopped for a moment and added more details.

 

Therefore: if they want to use perks in the next game, I really hope they will spend some more time on it.

 

(The vision of turning TES into Sims is terrifying...)

[Lachdonin]

Well, all this stems from the fact that you hate classes, while I like them. You like function, I like realism, even if it constricts, or rather precisely because of that.

 

I'd actually argue that Classes are inherently unrealistic. Those sorts of impositions don't exist in reality, and we aren't locked into particular identities at any time. The only limiting factors on what we can and cannot learn are Personal Aptitude (and even then, that can largely be overcome) and Time. Classes, on the other hand, are artificial limitations that impose an identity on you. You're a Knight, this is what you do. You're a Healer, this is how you behave. It would be like signing a piece of paper in your first year of high school, and that dictates what career you have to have for the rest of your life. It's an unnatural, totally unrealistic way to build characters.

 

Skyrim did have problems in it's pacing. It was far too easy to master everything. But the potential to do so should be there. It shouldn't be a forced dynamic, but rather the difference between investing 500 hours in one character to master everything at once, or 300 across a dozen to master specific builds.

 

Of course, replayability is different for different people... If a game forces me to make binary choices, i usually don't bother with additional playthroughs. It ends up feeling forced and shallow (especially regarding storytelling, which is why i hate Choice Driven Narratives) and makes it feel like the developers are holding my hand, preventing me from making my own character defining decisions. Who are they to define how my Paladin fights or interacts?

 

 

To be honest, I also hate the fact that you learn those things from nowhere. I try to think that while giving a perk my character just learned accidentaly how to do something, but even this quickly loses its charm.

 

Depends on how you look at it. I look at Perks as just retroactively stating what your character has been practicing that whole level.

 

I'm of course not saying Skyrim executed things well. But that's Bethesda for you, they can only ever seem to hit the right general block, though they always miss the address. Still, using the system offers way more character potential than basically anything else out there, up to and including bringing back Attributes in a model that actually makes some sense.

[Rethrain]

 

Of course, replayability is different for different people...

 

 

So is realism. Different ways/methods (often opposed, to be honest) to achieve the same thing.