General Games Discussion

[harryfrodo]

Um, yeah. You can get to 100 in every skill, but that requires hundreds of hours. I got my character to level 60 maxing out most every relative skill to my own play style, and because enemies scale to your level in Skyrim, fighting with a Two-Handed skill of 2 over using my Bow is stupid, and kind of not fun. The only people that are actually going to hit the soft cap of level 81 are those that actually physically strive to do it --- the game itself doesn't really lend toward that sort of development due to level scaling and training-per-level limits.


There's no static classes in Skyrim but the game sort of shuffles you into one regardless determined by your own play style that may not be defined until 50 hours into the game rather than one you "plan out" ... like the often situation of rolling a Knight-esque character in the beginning of Morrowind but slinging spells 200 hours later.

That was the entire point --- abandoning "classes" and instead utilizing the skill system on its own to define how you play the game. I don't see how an MMO couldn't just as easily do this.


Either way, I don't see what that ultimately has to do with the traditional Elder Scrolls experience of becoming the master of guilds and looting dungeons. It seems particularly easy to transfer that play style into an MMO, as much of the actual leveling mechanics change from game to game and can be altered for an MMO format.

[HardcoreHunter]

Well there are the skill glitches that allow you to cap. Not to mention smiting which can give you godly weapons and armor if you use enchanting and alchemy with it.

I think the MMO will work as it's pretty much doing the same thing that WOW has done. Different factions that can screw each other over by attacking towns and killing quest givers. Sure the quest givers will respawn, but that's why it will work. It's not like it will be a direct from Morrowind rules set as if you kill a character they never come back and can even ruin the game.

[harryfrodo]

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HardcoreHunter wrote:

Well there are the skill glitches that allow you to cap. Not to mention smiting which can give you godly weapons and armor if you use enchanting and alchemy with it.

I think the MMO will work as it's pretty much doing the same thing that WOW has done. Different factions that can screw each other over by attacking towns and killing quest givers. Sure the quest givers will respawn, but that's why it will work. It's not like it will be a direct from Morrowind rules set as if you kill a character they never come back and can even ruin the game.

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Pretty much.

I'd like to see some sort of ability to side with either the Morag Tong or the Dark Brotherhood. That would be pretty fun.

[CupcakeTampons]

You have no time playing video games when there's Cherokee Princessing to be done.

I'm kinda interested in the MMO verison, but I probably won't play it. My poor wittle computer can't even run Skyrim, so I can expect miracles.I could buy parts to supe it up, but I don't have anyone who can put it together for me! I can't do it myself because I'm really stupid and a girl. *whines*

[HardcoreHunter]

The problem that I see is that these 3 factions are at war. However all 3 have access to the guilds. However the guilds have rules that you can't kill other guild mates. And as we know everyone is going to try and join every guild that they can which will make pvp only possible for strict role players who only join one guild.

[PineappleTampons]

They might fix that, since it seems to be a pretty obvious problem.

[covered_in_sponges]

Considering the Dark Brotherhood first splintered off of the Morag Tong sometime around 2E 358, that's a pretty good possibility.

[sticksOsteel]

really not sure how to feel about this... one of my favorite parts of elder scrolls [i've only played skyrim and oblivion mind you] is the way that leveling works, by using particular skills. changing it to class-based skill sets/leveling will make me cry.

exp is for losers...

[Crapshot3]

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sticksOsteel wrote:

really not sure how to feel about this... one of my favorite parts of elder scrolls [i've only played skyrim and oblivion mind you] is the way that leveling works, by using particular skills. changing it to class-based skill sets/leveling will make me cry.

exp is for losers...

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the best mmo's inmo where skill based.

UO and SWG.

there is absolutely no reason this has to be xp based and not skill based. in fact that could be one of it's perks and would get me hella interested

[HardcoreHunter]

They have a couple interviews up on Gameinformer.com   Nothing groundbreaking was really said, just some of the basic stuff and how happy they are to be working on an MMO.

[sticksOsteel]

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Crapshot3 wrote:

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sticksOsteel wrote:

really not sure how to feel about this... one of my favorite parts of elder scrolls [i've only played skyrim and oblivion mind you] is the way that leveling works, by using particular skills. changing it to class-based skill sets/leveling will make me cry.

exp is for losers...

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the best mmo's inmo where skill based.

UO and SWG.

there is absolutely no reason this has to be xp based and not skill based. in fact that could be one of it's perks and would get me hella interested

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i read an article yesterday that just said they confirmed it's exp based.  blagra!

[harryfrodo]

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sticksOsteel wrote:

really not sure how to feel about this... one of my favorite parts of elder scrolls [i've only played skyrim and oblivion mind you] is the way that leveling works, by using particular skills. changing it to class-based skill sets/leveling will make me cry.

exp is for losers...

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Mmmm... skills used to be class-based, actually, and still are to a point (though they don't affect leveling).

Skyrim is probably the most free-form in terms of class development, but Morrowind and Oblivion both limited your development as a character to raising "Major Skills" relevant to the class you chose at the beginning of the game. Bethesda tore out this mechanic in favor of having a more fluid experience, where you're not penalized like you were before if you wanted to adapt to a different play style after using a sword and board for thirty hours. In Morrowind and Oblivion, you often were forced just to make a new character.

In Skyrim, you can just do it without penalty aside from level scaling (like trying to kill level 50 mobs with a skill level of 5 in Two-Handed). There are ways around that problem, like Enchanting gear in Fortify Two-Handed or other skills you're somewhat weak in ... but I just don't see how that type of mechanic would work well for an MMO. I think it would require way too much in terms of balancing skills and levels that would really get away from the whole point of playing an MMO -- party interaction.

The Elder Scrolls as a single-player game is focused on the interest of making your guy a demi-god who destroys everything in one to two hits by the time you're done with the game. Obviously an MMO cannot afford that kind of imbalance from player to monster if you have any intention of having formidable PvE content which makes MMOs actually worth playing.

I'm OK with exp-based leveling mechanics. It really makes no difference to me, and I don't see why Bethesda would bother to complicate things further to maintain some kind of "spirit" of the single-player system. If people don't like the idea, they don't have to play it. They need to focus on using what works in the MMO format rather than trying to appease some sort of middle ground. That's what Square Enix did, and is why FFXI never got that popular (though I played it for three years) and FFXIV straight-up failed.

Either way, I'm playing this game for the opportunity to explore all of Tamriel riding a cliff racer or some shit. If they can get it right, it will be full of win. I hardly care whether I level up from skills or experience. I feel like that's really beyond the point. The Elder Scrolls was always more about the vast exploration and quest content for me, where I felt like I was exploring an actual, living, breathing world. If they can capture that aura and translate it into an MMO, my life is over.

[sticksOsteel]

oblivion you could still pick which skills you wanted to be your major skills. i don't really care about changing my design half-way through a game, i just want to be able to make a guy who's good with block, destruction, and sneak if i feel like it. i want to be able to make the character good in what i choose, and not just make a preset character.

i'm also worried - from the way this article i read made it sound - that the world will look sorta' similar and have some of the same names, etc, but that it won't really be the same sort of vast exploration. wilderness wandering is my fav.

[harryfrodo]

Well which would you rather have: one territory heavily populated with caves and forts and ruins, or all of Tamriel with a bit less density to it, with varied climate and topography? Obviously the MMO rendition of Morrowind won't have a hundred different dunmer family tombs to explore, but I don't see why we wouldn't still be able to explore Balmora, Vivec, Sadrith Mora, etc.

How many MMOs have you actually played? I don't think I've ever played one that doesn't have vast exploration as a core part of its experience. None of them may have the detail level of Skyrim, but their very foundation is based off the concept of providing near-endless questing and exploration. That's how they make money -- to make sure there's always a place for you to explore so you don't cancel your subscription.

To give you an idea, FFXI had over 50 square miles to explore spread out over 200 different zones. To get from one end of the "main" continent to the other on foot, it took you several hours. With a chocobo, you'd still spend a very long time. That was actually one of the complaints about the game. You'd get a party invite to kill some monsters with people, but you had to travel nearly an hour just to get out to where they were. Believe it or not, but it can actually be a detriment to have an online game be so incredibly large, even with teleportation spells.

And I don't know how many areas are in WoW, but back when I was playing (Burning Crusade) people were claiming it was over 60 square miles in size. Blizzard definitely was better at maintaining a scope in size while providing ample fast travel locations. But it still took up to 30 minutes traveling from one end of a continent to the other riding a griffin.

I just think worrying about "vast exploration" is unnecessarily premature, and pointless. If there wasn't shit to explore, no one would re-up their annual subscriptions and the game would die before the next Elder Scrolls single-player game comes out... if not Fallout 4.

[harryfrodo]

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sticksOsteel wrote:
oblivion you could still pick which skills you wanted to be your major skills.

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If you chose to make a custom "Adventurer" class, yes. But major skills were still tied to particular play styles, in basing your character around specific attributes (Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc). You were still playing a "class" you created -- it just was one you devised yourself.


While the idea of removing custom classes sounds lame at first, the purpose behind it was to be able to min-max your character's level development around the limitations of major versus minor skills, like staying at level 1 in Oblivion while having 100 Blade because you put magic as all your major skills. That makes sense under the guise of single-player role playing, but it doesn't really prove that necessary in an MMO environment, especially if they're abandoning the "skill level" system in favor of straight-up experience.

[sticksOsteel]

i don't want WoW. that already exists. i want to be able to just go trek off through the woods now and then because i feel like it. it feels penalizing to go wander off instead of do fetch quests because the quests reward with you a ton of experience, so you really won't level very quickly if you don't feel like fetch-questing. i just want to be able to wander through the woods and still level up the same as anybody else by exploring some random azz cave, lol.

and yeah... i'm totally cool with it if it's a class i make myself. that's what i mean. i don't really care about whether it makes it so a character is stuck in his role after i've built him. i care that it's going to be "if you want to be sneaky, you have to be a rogue." i want to be able to be a sneaky mage if i feel like it. or a sword-n-boarder who's also got a knack for alteration magic, etc. i don't want to be stuck with "well, you wanted to be good with the bow, so i guess that means heavy armor is out."

[harryfrodo]

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sticksOsteel wrote:
and yeah... i'm totally cool with it if it's a class i make myself. that's what i mean. i don't really care about whether it makes it so a character is stuck in his role after i've built him. i care that it's going to be "if you want to be sneaky, you have to be a rogue." i want to be able to be a sneaky mage if i feel like it. or a sword-n-boarder who's also got a knack for alteration magic, etc. i don't want to be stuck with "well, you wanted to be good with the bow, so i guess tthat means heavy armor is out."

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Tell you what: show me how that could work in an MMO while providing proper PvP balance and I'll agree that Bethesda is simply taking the lazy route by bringing back preset classes. But from my years playing MMOs, there's just no way it would work. There's too many variables for broken builds, and Bethesda will spend so much time tweaking skills, so many times, it actually just ruins the game.

Because that's exactly what happened to Guild Wars.



It's hard enough balancing the skills of half a dozen different classes to make a rock, paper, scissors format where no class beats everyone. How long did Blizzard take to balance the PvP parts of Diablo? It won't even be in Diablo 3 on release because it's still not ready.

In Skyrim, where you can stealth around in heavy armor by casting Muffle, maxing out every magic tree and weapon type, there isn't that problem. The idea behind The Elder Scrolls single-player games is to become completely imbalanced and the most overpowered guy in the realm. But from a gameplay standpoint, in multiplayer that just can't work. Sorry. If you can't get over that, then maybe you're better off just waiting for The Elder Scrolls VI or Fallout 4.

[harryfrodo]

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sticksOsteel wrote:
i don't want WoW. that already exists. i want to be able to just go trek off through the woods now and then because i feel like it. it feels penalizing to go wander off instead of do fetch quests because the quests reward with you a ton of experience, so you really won't level very quickly if you don't feel like fetch-questing. i just want to be able to wander through the woods and still level up the same as anybody else by exploring some random azz cave, lol.

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I don't recall anywhere it being said that you have to do fetching quests in The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft, or any MMO. Many of my guild members actually preferred going through instanced dungeons in WoW, avoiding fetching quests all together. They leveled up just as fast as I did, if not faster, because you generally get better gear going through instances and killing bosses than you do killing random mobs in the middle of a field. World of Warcraft is actually designed for a variety of different playstyles, which is why it was so successful. There's the fetching quests there for those that want to do it, but there were plenty of dungeons to explore too.

Some people find "Kill X amount of Y animal to get Z reward" to be completely tedious. I enjoy doing it. I find the repetitious actions quite addictive, actually, and provide a pretty ample reward to what I would already be doing if I went out exploring areas. I saved doing instances for when my friends or guildmates were online, as playing with strangers was never really that fun (or efficient).

But Bethesda Softworks doesn't have to follow that model. There's plenty of different online RPGs out there with different formats that they could draw inspiration from. They could do it like Guild Wars and minimalize "side quests," instead making it where you traverse through a world working toward the completion of a main plot. Or they could do it like FFXI where quests are out there to complete ... but reward epic items and not experience.

I'm sure whatever they do, it'll work naturally in the spirit of The Elder Scrolls franchise, and promote plenty of reason to run out and do whatever you want. Just don't expect to level up by raising skills and creating your own class. A system like Skyrim especially doesn't lend well to that concept, as a level 20 character can either be incredibly strong or incredibly weak... depending on what skills you level up.

[DoseOfLaughter]

You can also PVP to level in WoW, now. After WAR's PVP model being put out there, it became very standard for MMOs to allow you to level via PVP.

[sticksOsteel]

i was under the impression that you wouldn't be able to use a lot of skills unless it was part of your class, so you'd be limited to a certain number of skills total. it's not like picking a warrior would make you not very good with magic, you just plain won't be able to use it.

i really don't want to see rock-paper-scissors pvp. every battle should be a battle of different skills. it's boring to be a rock out looking for some scissors and just praying you don't run across some paper. there's nothing worse than going to a battleground and seeing "well crap, they have a good number of everything, whereas our side brought 75% melee and one healer. i guess we're boned. better create a different type of character."

[DoseOfLaughter]

WoW PVP, despite what you think, isn't rock, paper, scissors PVP....the ONLY class you used to have to look out for was a Resto druid.....and, if I remember correctly, they got the nerf stick when Cata came out....WoW PVP has always been about how good you are at PVP...

[harryfrodo]

Yeah, though I'm not sure how much this game will benefit from it. Apparently in Cyrodiil you're automatically raised to the level cap so that anyone can go and PvP regardless of how much time you have to invest in the game.

[harryfrodo]

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sticksOsteel wrote:
i was under the impression that you wouldn't be able to use a lot of skills unless it was part of your class, so you'd be limited to a certain number of skills total. it's not like picking a warrior would make you not very good with magic, you just plain won't be able to use it.

i really don't want to see rock-paper-scissors pvp. every battle should be a battle of different skills. it's boring to be a rock out looking for some scissors and just praying you don't run across some paper. there's nothing worse than going to a battleground and seeing "well crap, they have a good number of everything, whereas our side brought 75% melee and one healer. i guess we're boned. better create a different type of character."

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Again, I have to ask you if you've ever actually played an MMO before.

Just because they have static, named classes, that doesn't mean that you're limited to messing with skills of your own class.

FFXI ran a job system similar to the original titles, where you could change at whim. Later on in the game you actually unlocked the ability to select a second role as a "support" job that would be halved the level of your main job. I often played as a Bard type character, and the dynamics of my role in a party differed completely whether I ran White Mage or Ninja as my sub job. I literally had access to those classes' skills playing a Bard so long I was high enough level to use the good spells.

Or you can look at a game like Guild Wars which ran a similar main/secondary class system where each class offered a vast pool of skills to use that role, but you're only allowed to use a few of them at a given time. Assassin was pretty bland where there wasn't much to work with, but there was a ton of customization involved in how you wanted to build your Elementalist or Necromancer, both in relation to its own skills and how their role is altered by what secondary is chosen. An Elementalist, for example, could choose to use a bunch of fire spells that specialize in pure damage, or use a bunch of water/ice spells that specializes in slowing down enemies. Or they could use earth spells that provide heavy knockdown effects. It's all within the parameters of one class, but you can imagine how such customization can radically affect how you react to an Elementalist out on the field.

It's never just "Oh that guy is a Elementalist and I'm a Ranger. He's done." If it were ever that simple, I don't think Guild Wars would have drawn the millions of players for years that it did. Some people actually got incredibly creative and would do things like play Rangers with a Necromancer secondary role without ever touching their bow. "Touch Rangers" were actually so overpowered in PvP they had to nerf them. Certain classes in their basic form would have a natural weakness to the cast-interrupts of something like a Ranger, but could get around it through secondary roles.


I'm not suggesting that TESO follow any of these models or whether or not I'd like to see it. I'm just once again reminding you that maybe you shouldn't be so judgmental over what little information we've received thus far. We've got nothing but the most basic of information, and I wouldn't expect to hear much more until E3 next month. All we know is there are preset classes to choose from, and you cannot play as an Imperial.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's about the jist of it beyond a few hinted abilities.

[harryfrodo]

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DoseOfLaughter wrote:
WoW PVP, despite what you think, isn't rock, paper, scissors PVP....the ONLY class you used to have to look out for was a Resto druid.....and, if I remember correctly, they got the nerf stick when Cata came out....WoW PVP has always been about how good you are at PVP...

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Erm. I'm not so sure I agree with that statement.

Every PvP is based around some sort of strength/weakness for each class. Historically, the trifecta is most popular. Mages kill warriors. Warriors kill rogues. Rogues kill mages. Obviously more specialized classes like an archer or bard may not be at such a disadvantage against warriors as a pure assassin is, but there's always going to be some class out there that beats you, and there's going to be some class out there that your build very much so beats the living shit out of. That doesn't mean you always do. I killed plenty of Paladins and Hunters as a Rogue, but as a Rogue it was easiest for me to eliminate Mages and Priests.

And I disagree with you that "WoW PvP has always been about how good you are."

WoW PvP was always about how good your gear was. You could be the best Paladin on your server, but if you rolled into Arena with greens against some guys with Tier 6 you were going to lose. Full stop. Every time.

[DoseOfLaughter]

Probably similar to how ToR handles it. It doesn't actually raise your level, but instead balances your stats to equal out at a certain level. And, at the end of each round, you get a set amount of XP based on if you won or lost.