Why I don't like Morrowind/Oblivion's Levelup System

Discussion in 'Games' started by Xylia, Nov 3, 2016.

  1. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Okay, so since I've been asked to take a discussion somewhere else from another thread, I'm going to start a relevant thread here.

    In that thread, I was talking to a couple people about Morrowind/Oblivion's Levelup System and how I hate it.

    For those of you who have never played that game, your Major, Minor, and Misc skills affect your levelups. Whenever you gain levels in these skills, you gain progress towards a Character Levelup. When you gain enough progress towards a Character Levelup, you then need to rest to actually level up, and you cannot control when this happens -- if you gain a Major (and Minor in Morrowind) Skill Level, you get the progress whether you want it or not.

    Well, when you gain progress, the skill that caused it gets "Remembered". Let's say for example, you have a character with... I don't know, Alchemy and Mercantile for Major skills.

    Let's say you then go do a lot of Alchemy and buying/selling junk and you get, say, 5 levels of each. That's 10 levels, and that's enough progress to gain a Character Level.

    When you level up, you can choose 3 out of 5 stats to level: Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Stamina, and.... I forget the last one? I forget what it's called. IIRC, anyways. It's something like that.

    Anyways, you can choose 3 of those to increase during levelup.

    Now, they will either be x1, x 3, or x5 -- in this case, we would have an x5 in Intelligence because both Mercantile and Alchemy are Intelligence skills. However... that means that the other two skills will have x1s, and no, you are not permitted to put 2 of your "points" in the same skill -- I cannot do two or three x5 Intelligence. You can only select a stat once.

    So ideally, to get a good setup, you need to choose skills that are well-rounded so that you can always get x 3 or x5 during levelups. So you'd probably want at least 1 Strength Skill, at least 1 Intelligence Skill, at least 1 Stamina skill... etc. That way, when you gain a levelup, you can level your stats evenly and not be wasting levelup points on x1s.

    The problem with this is... well... one, you have to be careful how you set your character up, what skills you choose as Major/Minor/Misc skills, but.... the bigger problem...

    You have to control when your character gets a levelup in what.

    Let's say, you have One-Handed Swords as one of your Strength skills. Let's say you then have Alchemy as an Intelligence skill. Then, say, you got Archery as an Agility skill, and Heavy Armor as a Stamina skill. That looks well-rounded, right?

    Well, let's say you're out exploring after you'd freshly gotten a levelup, and you step into a mine and you get mobbed by lots of enemies that get in your face and you have no choice but to hack them with your 1-handed sword.

    Oops.

    You got three One-Handed Sword skillups and a Heavy Armor skillup. You're thinking "Uh-oh, that's 40% of a levelup... I better head back to town!"

    On your way back, you run into a bunch of cliff racers that you need to shoot with a bow. Let's say you gain two bow levelups and two Heavy Armor skillups. Uh-oh... now you're 80% of a levelup.

    On your way back to town, you get mobbed by a bunch of in-your-face guys and it's another melee battle! Before you know it, you gain another two One-Handed Sword levelups.

    DING! Levelup!

    You rest, and you see this:

    Strength: x5
    Stamina: x 3
    Agility: x1
    Intelligence: x1
    Luck: x1

    You couldn't get back to town in time to get some Alchemy levelups to increase your intelligence past a x1, so that means one of your three Levelup Points is going to be wasted on an x1.

    This is why I hate that stupid leveling system and I am oh-so-glad they removed it in Skyrim.

    EDIT: What I hate even worse? Auto-Emoticons.
     
  2. Kaede Grimwater

    Kaede Grimwater Existential Complex

    I am gonna follow this thread. I might learn something new.
     
    Firebird Zoom likes this.
  3. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    I have to agree, when I played Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind, this was my biggest annoyance.
    That's also why I was more than happy when I found mods that changed it so I can have a "normal" RPG level progression.
     
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  4. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Skyrim doesn't use this system, though?

    Skyrim's levelups give you a straight +10 to HP, Mana, or Stamina and One Perk Point that you can spend or hoard. Much, MUCH better Levelup System. Some people call it "dumbed down" or "simplified", but in this case, that's a compliment. Vastly superior.
     
    Firebird Zoom likes this.
  5. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    So is there a mod that makes Morrowind, you know, not crash every 10 minutes too? lol. No matter what computer I've attempted to play Morrowind on, it's just crash crash crash crash.
     
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  6. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    More toward the level up system that is dependent of skill progression. (Kind of askew, but whatever, you know?)
    I've never personally needed a mod to run it. o_O
    I suppose I just manage my computer well enough that it doesn't happen...?
    (Well, it did crash a little when I first installed it, but following a few optimization tips, couple hours later, no problems.)
     
    Firebird Zoom likes this.
  7. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Well, in Skyrim, it doesn't matter what skills you level. -All- skills contribute to levelups, and all levelups are always the same: +1 Perk, +10 HP, or MP, or Stamina, pick one.

    Not sure what else you would change unless you gave monsters XP. If you did it that way, then you couldn't get levelups with Speech, Blacksmithing, Alchemy, etc? Not sure how you'd do that lol.

    Last few computers I tried it on, I got CTDs quite often, 10 to 30 minutes. The game would just..... poof, and close itself. I think sometimes it'd pop a "This program isn't responding..." error and then close.

    Though it's been quite awhile since I've tried. So who knows. Have you ran it on Win7? Does it actually work? lol. A lot of older games don't run well on Win7+.

    I know FO3 used to run like a charm on my WinXP machine, then I got it for Win7 and I can play 30-120 min and it will crash. Thankfully, that game auto-saves every 5 minutes or so lol.
     
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  8. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    Yeah, I'll concede to that point. I just saw a point to rant about Skyrim, so I took it. :p

    I run it on my laptop, primarily Win8, but I have a Win7 partition. (Not sure if I ever had it working on Win8...)
    Hilariously enough, my laptop is factory default specs but I run FO4, Skyrim, Witcher 3, etc... I've done things I probably shouldn't have been able to do, lol.

    I think FO3 fixed their OS incompatibilities... maybe. All I know is I bought the Fallout Anthology and that copy of FO3 hasn't crashed yet.
     
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  9. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    They could have, I dunno if they updated the stand-alone version of FO3, maybe only the FOA version of it? Dunno. I just know last time I played it like... a year and a half ago, it was crashing on me, but not so bad that I couldn't play it at all.
     
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  10. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    Not sure if there is any difference in the games though... All you get with FOA is those Steam codes so I assumed it just unlocked the existing Steam game...
    (I don't have both copies, so I cant really compare the content IDs.)

    Buuuut.... Getting back on topic...
    I did overall dislike the level system, however I think if Bethesda just tried to reinvent it, it could've made an excellent RPG mechanic for class setups. But then again, Bethesda has a record of reusing/disabling code instead of reinventing it...
     
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  11. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Well, IMO... it'd be kinda cool if they tried using SPECIAL in an Elder Scrolls game... but I suspect there are licensing issues that force them to use SPECIAL in only Fallout games. It's a nice system that most people seem to love, so it stands to reason that surely they'd try it in their other games, but dunno. Is that a licensed thing, owned by the owners of the Fallout IP?
     
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  12. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    I think its just a design decision. When they bought FO from Interplay, they got full intellectual rights as well.

    Although, I personally think the SPECIAL system should be removed if not rehauled. Prior to FO4, the top stat to prioritize was intelligence.
    Having max intelligence at the start maximized skill point gain and helped with the lockpicking/science skill, a few specific dialog checks, etc.

    Now in FO4, your build isnt limited by your SPECIAL load out and there are no lasting penalties for choosing one stat over another.
    While they still have major influence, they arent as relevant as in prior games, but i think it could still be improved.
     
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  13. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Well, I think the SPECIAL system would be fine, if Skill Point Gains weren't tied to Intelligence. Therefore, Intelligence would not get priority and it would be roughly equal to the rest of the stats and thus it would fix all of the problems FO3/NV had.

    That, and the perk that gives you extra skill point gain should have been retroactive that way your first few levelups aren't always set in stone.
     
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  14. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    That's why I was thankful for FO4. Intelligence was no longer the giant of the stats, so I could finally build a character without worrying about losing efficiency.
    Although, the removal of skills altogether made me a little upset, but it was bearable, many other things considered.
     
  15. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Removal of skills/skill points?
    I know there are perks... is it like Skyrim and you get 1 perk point every time you levelup or something? I never played FO4, mind you.
     
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  16. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    Oh, I didnt know you hadn't played it. Sorry, lol.

    But yeah, FO4 removes skill points entirely. Now there are no conditions to wield weapons effectively unless you count STR requirements to keep it steady.
    Its a bit detestable, but the rehaul to SPECIAL stats helped along with the new perk system.
    (FO4 feels more like a light RPG compared to the prior 2 games. But I still do recommend it if you are considering it.)
     
  17. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Well, see, my computer falls more towards the minimum specs than the recommended specs, and I'm not really wanting to upgrade my computer to be honest, so I've been holding off on it.

    And, well, the $60 price. Maybe if I see it on sale for 30% or more.
     
  18. Inf_Wolf14

    Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

    They are quite few ways to optimize it if you try your hand and are determined.

    Think of it this way, these are my laptop's specs:
    -Intel i5, dual-core, processor
    -8gb RAM
    -1tb SDD HD
    -Intel Integrated Graphics(3400?)
    -2.1ghz processor (2.9 overclocked)

    Regardless, I have played it at solid 50fps. Still not good, but damn impressive considering how hard I'm pushing that brick. :rofl:
    Im not saying its ideal, but i am saying it CAN be done.
     
  19. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    I got a desktop with 16GB, 3.5Ghz 6-Core AMD, and a GeForce 660 GTX 2GB (it seems to take 2 GB of system RAM to make it 4GB .

    It's mainly that graphics card is a little old. And the CPU could be better.
     
  20. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    because it is, it doesn't let's you decide much how your character is.
    In fact the morrorwind was a better simulator towards an RPG. If someone does things related to strenth he will mostlikely get stronger. thats why the morrorwind Way was a lot better RPG wise, and it was more than sufficient to get through Morrorwind even if you didn' "maximise" stuff.
    Skyrim is a bad RPG because basically you choose the perks, which means a character only readin books can get a hulk like cretaure just because the mechanics allow it, but how soemoen never training mauscle gets stronger, well that's just bad RPG.

    Bethesda is goign bad ways with their games and ruin the character progressions, thats like in their falloutgames where you run around more godlike than a proper specialised and skilled character. I would blame the mainstrema gamermass who likes this or is too dump to play a game on specific toughness levels.

    Serious RPG's with proper mechanics a player needs to undertsand and work with are dead I guess.
     

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