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

    That would be fine, if it weren't for, you know, the limited number of levelups and the fact it takes so long to get a levelup, and the fact that your stats only increase with levelups?

    If, say, you got a +1 strength every time you increased a Strength-based skill, that would have been fine. You could practice the things you want to practice to raise Strength. But this whole "Choose 3 stats to increase at levelup" was a bad system because it was very difficult to control levels the way you wanted. If you ran out of levelups, and you raised, say, Illusion magic from 10 to 100... you gained zero intelligence points for doing a lot of magical study.

    So... you did all that magical study and didn't get the least bit smarter? That's why the system fails.

    Or hey, let's use your strength example. Let's say you max your levels out and you end up as an agile thief with some decent intelligence. Then you decide to grab a heavy hammer and swing it around and level your Two-Handed Skill from 10 to 100...

    Guess what? You won't be any stronger at the end of it than when you started. All of that physical workout, and no Strength gains to show for it.

    There are no strength scores, so it's all about your skill in weapons. Nobody is saying you gain muscle mass, the game merely assumes that the Dragonborn Hero has average-to-high attributes in all stats. So every Dragonborn is decently muscled and reasonably smart. Have you ever wandered around Skyrim enough and noted how every Nord is ripped? Everybody in that game is ripped.

    It all comes down to your skill in said weapons that makes you stronger. It isn't that you get stronger muscles, it's that you get more effective with how you use the weapons.

    Not everything has to be Dark Souls, you know. Some people to just play a game and enjoy it without being challenged to "TEH MAX" full-time. If I wanted Dark Souls, I would play Dark Souls. Maybe I'm not there for the challenge, but rather to have a nice adventurous time? I don't like feeling like I'm near-death constantly. RPG does not have to equal Survival.

    EDIT: Another way you could do the Morrowind System and do it better:

    1). A skill gives you a +1 to a stat, assuming the skill is higher than the stat. For example, if you have 26 Strength and your 1H Axes is 26, and you gain a 1H Skill, you now have 27 1H Axe and 27 Strength. If you have 27 Strength and 18 Block and you gain a Block skill, your strength will not increase. If you skill 2H Blunt up to 27 and then gain the 28th level, you will get 28 Strength.

    2). Place hard-caps on all attributes at 100 for balance purposes (no more 1,000 acrobatics allowing you to jump over mountains).

    3). Allow temporary buffs to give up to +50 for a maximum of 150 in any stat or skill. Again, no "jumping over mountains" or "running faster than the speed of sound" or what-not.

    4). Tie HP, Magicka, and Stamina to stats: Magicka is Intellect-based, so that each point of Intellect, you gain, say, +10 Magicka and HP would be tied Vitality or whatever that stat was called, and Stamina would be tied to Strength in the same way.

    5). Lastly, get rid of the Levelup system altogether.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2016
    Kaede Grimwater likes this.
  2. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut


    the point of a limited amount of level ups is to prvent the creation of an uber character. thats fine and for many great RPG's did worked well (like any DND ruled ones). Thts the issue with FO, I am the walking god becuse reasons and fix the whole world in a month which hundreds haven't maanged ind ecades.

    And no it makes a game not necesarily into dark souls 3 sry, not sure (again as the discussion about S:cool: how you play your games but Sb was carebare level of difficulty and even morrorwind was rather easy without focussing on any special stat training or whatever. Knowing how the game works just made it carebarelevel too. Play some proper games like the old FO 2 or Wasteland 2. But games nowdays are made for even the most braindead buttonsmasher to succeed, thats why we end up with so many reptitive and boring games and mechanics. it entertains fools. Thast why there is no replay value anymore because you "I can do evertyhing and rock like a baws" with one playthrough. Or play Wizardry 8, thats is a massively funny infinite replayability game, free class changes and near unlimited leveling yet th mobs will scale with yoru party always menaign to be a threat. But most game emchanics nowdays especially on those AAA titles are badly blanced and way too easy. But if you wanna sell a game to the mass it needs to give the mass a statisfaction in achiveeing something and so you lower the games difficulty to a degree where a real gamer just gets bored after one game.

    yes at least i think "level ups" in games based on skill usage progession is somewhat unecessary.
     
  3. Kaede Grimwater

    Kaede Grimwater Existential Complex

    What is a "real gamer" anyway? I don't think that term means what you think it means.

    Please tell me you are not trying to form a mature argument while using terms like this.

    There is no such thing as a "proper game".

    This seems like a extremely opinionated statement, not actual fact.


    If you want your games to kick you in the balls every second of the day, more power to you, but do not act all high and mighty because you play difficult games, you will only make yourself look a fool.

    Think for a moment, some people play games to get rid of stress, not cause it. Some might already have difficult lives, and so they play games to escape from that. I know I use video games this way, it distracts me from my anxiety disorder.
     
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  4. Firebird Zoom

    Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

    The only time I've heard anything like this was in a Blitz video on Elite: Dangerous (It's a mile wide, but an inch deep), where he said you could be a "care bear" and just be a merchant. I took this to mean that a "care bear" would be a peaceful player/entity that would do its best to avoid combat at all costs.
     
  5. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    MLG people use the term "carebear" to refer to people who are lesser-skilled at games, and those who play easy games and/or easier difficulty settings. In MMORPG terms, it is also oftentimes used for people who stay away from PvP and go for the PvE aspects of said game (this term is used widely in WoW forums, for example).

    In every instance, it is used in a derogatory way, so much so that I wish forum moderators would start issuing warnings and bans as it really has no place in a forum.
     
  6. Firebird Zoom

    Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

    So I was on the right track, right?
     
  7. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Eh, not really.

    In that Elite: Dangerous video, the guy is using the term "Carebear" to refer to a pacifist. There's no derogatory tone in that, and there's nothing wrong with being a pacifist.

    Whenever an MLG person uses it, however, it's an insult to basically call someone a "scrub" (another term they often use), or "noob", etc. They also insult the games that these types of people play, said games are not necessarily pacifist games, they are just easy.

    Basically when an MLG person uses the term, they're trying to say you suck and you can only play super-easy games that aren't hard enough for their standards because you don't have their skill level and couldn't handle the hardcore games that they play and are supposedly good at.
     
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  8. Katkill

    Katkill Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    They are capped unless you'll boost them with spells or enchanting. IMO it is already balanced, because jumping with 1000 acrobatics without preparation (slowfall spell for example) is almost certain death. You need time, money and effort to create overpowered spells and items. That's one of the fun parts - being able to do some crazy stuff if you want to.

    You can get scrolls that increase your acrobatics by 1000 right from the start, but there are only few of them. Boots of Blinding Speed will make you extremely fast, but you'll be almost completely blind. It's useful if you really want to go somewhere without fighting 8 million Cliffracers on every step. Even starting with 100,000,000 gold to create the most OP spell ever won't do much because you won't have enough magicka (?) to cast it.

    Oblivion is badly designed anyway, because every single bandit and marauder levels up with you. You must level up your character almost perfectly just to keep up with the rest of the world. Unique items that you get after completing a quest are also leveled, so at level 5 or 10 you'll get nearly useless junk. This game is total BS even with Skyrim level up system.
     
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  9. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    a proper gamer has played many games form many genres and ages to know the differenc between them. he has a lot experience in gaming. So hes not a casual.
    if you think it's not a fact play good old platformers and count how often you die vs how often you die in todays games. They massively dropped in difficulty. And there are games you may not even die more than 5x. on a so called "normal" difficulty. try to compare this with old games on "normal".

    Dunno how you use the term, Have you seen the carebears in your youth? They basically just had low level problems wher enothign was a serious issue and evertyhing was basically solved with simple things and mostly love.

    and SB is carebear level because the "problems" it throws at you are supereasy and solutions are supereasy too. thats nothing MLG related. SB has a difficulty level thats is abbysimal low. Just play some good old console games and platformers to know what the regular diffuculty standard was in the 80's and 90's.

    For people who play games against stress they usually play casual games or have a "easy" difficulty setting. and this is exactly the issue, the todays gams industry has settled "normal" difficulty to be for those players and doesn't even add higher ones anymore. So the basic games are designed for such levels. Also succesfully getting through a game is not a necessarity related to stress, unless you have a bad stress management. Does failing recently means causing stress? wow if so people forgot what playing games means. But exactly this si the reason why games get such a crappy low standard in terms of challanges and difficulties. They simply sell easy "success" for people not able and deal with "losing" or "failing". Thats why PvP games are full of cheaters and hostility today, because all thiose kiddies growing up spoiled with success. If you play games with an averagely older playerbase like MWO. You will have a heavily reduced amount of this behavior. Because those are gamers who lerned to fail and seeing failing as part of a game. You can easily spot those games when an NPC throws terms like "awesome" or "amazing" towards you just because you used WASD correctly in the tutorial.

    carebear level is where the "biggest" problem is actually not even a problem past smaller child problems, as this was what the carebears did. Funnily as kids we played games on Sega master system, C64 and our early DOS/Windows PC's with harder bosses than any of what SB threw at us. So when we were in the "carebear" age we had to deal with harder stuff than now when we are grown up and it involved dying 100's of times. And we surely didn't do that for stressing us. The statisfaction came form progressing further than before or lerning how to imporve by avoiding mistakes. The casualisation is real, because games cost more money today to make and need a wider range of people buying them. purely economical reasons. after 27years of being a gamer the difference is existing and thats not because I have the experience or I am MLG, just playing the old games again proofs this.

    Carebear there fore is just a term old gamers use which does not even meat the condiftions of "easy" compared to old games standards. It does not have any personal judgement towards a person. It's jsut describing an extremely low challanging level. Low enough that it had to find an own term, and carebear was probably used because most old gamers know them from their childhood of the cartoon with the lowest existing problems. Unlike spiderman and superman who had to solve issues of different difficulties.

    if you need a distressing game, play viva pinata that's very relaxing.

    well, in my book of game history the biggest fail sequals where HoMM4, B&W2 and Oblivion. They were so bad compared to the previous game it really made me sad and wished they never existed.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2016
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  10. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    The Carebears were an old 1980-ish cartoon that tried to teach peace and love to little children.

    Said cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with videogaming whatsoever. It's just some troll decided to use the term to imply that all people who enjoy easier games are somehow "little children" who can't handle better. *rolls eyes* The term went viral and it became a meme and is now widely used in the MMORPG society.

    Yeah, I remember those 1980s games.

    See, there's a difference between the word "difficulty" and "fun". I'm one of the few (only?) people I know that got to the end of, and defeated, the last boss of Battletoads without using any external cheating devices. Don't talk to me about "you never played old platformers".

    I have a NES emulator on this computer, and many of the cartridges that I still have, exist in ROM format. Do I think they are fun, moreso than today's games? Not really. Dying over and over again isn't really fun, nor do I have the time to spend 500+ hours memorizing frame-perfect, pixel-perfect jumps and movements.

    Back when I was a kid, I could replay the same level 50 times until I got it right. Today, I have a job. I don't have TIME for that. I want to get on a game and have fun.

    There are still hard games like I wanna be the guy, Dark Souls, Super Meat Boy, etc. Go play those. Why are you hanging out here around us scrubs with a carebear game? Oh, wait, there's something about SB that you find fun, don't you? Otherwise, you wouldn't be here.

    Step 1). Go to Youtube.
    Step 2). Look up gamer rage.
    Step 3). Watch a few videos.

    "Does failing cause stress"? Uh, I'd say, yes, whenever someone grabs their keyboard and starts repeatedly slamming it off the side of their desk, or when they punch their monitor in rage, or when they start yelling obscenities at the top of their lungs over and over again because they failed a part in a game.

    Yes, Failing (especially repeatedly) causes frustration, anger, and yes......stress. It isn't fun, for a lot of people.

    You didn't have a job as a kid, nor did you have a lot of responsibilities. You had TIME to do all that dying.

    Try that today as an adult with a 40 hour per week job, and slower reflexes and hand-to-eye coordination. You get worse at games as you age, you know?

    Get off your high horse, seriously. You like to puff yourself up, don't you? That whole "I'm better than you because I played harder games". Pfft, give me a break. I don't get where you think you've got any kind of right to go judging other people because you don't agree with the games they play.

    You came here to Starbound Forums, where Starbound is a game that you know by now is a "Carebear" game, you haven't left here, you're still here, and now you're berating us "casuals" or "carebears" because we enjoy an "easy" sandbox game. Why don't you go back to your I Wanna Be the Guy, or Super Meat Boy, or whatever, and leave us alone, if you think this game is too easy?

    Or, maybe you could download mods that make the game harder if that's your thing, whatever. But don't come to a "Carebear" games forum to continually insult and berate people for being "Carebears". Oi.

    Really, now?

    I've run into enough people using the term in an insulting and derogatory term, and you've even done it yourself. You say you're not judging people, but that's exactly what you're doing. You're looking down your Seattle Space Needle Nose at us, and going "Well, I played harder games, I'm better than you, and my games are harder than yours!"




    Oh, and... what's with the "Carebear" level of spelling and grammar you got there? You should get on OUR level. Why, when I was a kid back in the 1980s, if you went to school and turned in a paper written/typed like this, you would have been laughed out of the school.

    /sarcasm
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2016
  11. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    As far as Oblivion, Oblivion made 3 mistakes:

    1). That stupid levelling system where everything in the game leveled with you. What's the point of leveling up if your power level relative to your enemy's is always the same? Why even have levelups then?

    2). Keeping the idiotic leveling system that Morrowind had that makes no sense. At least they made a minor improvement, grouped some like skills together, and removed Misc. skills, but it was still flawed from the start. Workable, but flawed.

    3). Copypasta environments. Where you find the same 12 cave rooms in various different combinations. But then they only had ONE guy working on the game's dungeons, so...
     
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  12. Kaede Grimwater

    Kaede Grimwater Existential Complex

    @LilyV3 Well, I can see there is no reasoning with you. This is sad. I get the feeling you have never had to deal with any real problems, and so you have never actually had to de-stress. Xylia already tore apart your poorly put together argument, so I won't bother, I get the feeling you will ignore it and continue to live in your ivory tower anyway. No use wasting breath on someone who is too ignorant to listen.
     
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  13. Firebird Zoom

    Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

    If you want a more modern take on NES platformers, play Shovel Knight or Mighty No.9
     
  14. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    By @LilyV3 's apparent standards (given what they said thusfar in this thread), Shovel Knight is way too easy. Dunno about Mighty No. 9, never played it.

    Not saying Shovel Knight is a bad game, on the contrary, it is awesome because they nailed the chiptune music and graphics style perfectly.
     
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  15. Firebird Zoom

    Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

    And that scene where Plague Knight mashed himself into Shovel Knight's shape. (WORDS)
    Never played Mighty No.9 either, but apparently it's a MegaMan-inspired game made by the developer of MegaMan.
     
  16. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    I had mostlikely to deal with bigger problems than you in Life, and thats exactly one fo the reasons to know that when a game stresses you you are doing soemthing wrong and better should nto play games.
    So i would twist your words around and say, when failing in a GAME is making you rage, then you never had REAL problems in Life, because those that had them, know how insignificant roblems are a game can bring over you.

    and just becasue there exist gamers who rage bcause of failing doesn't means we have to cater all games to the mentally weak people not able to contain themselves. raging over failing is an issue of self control and knowing when to stop soemthign and when not. and many younger people heavily lack these kind of things and go realyl mad about the smallest fails in games nowdays.

    And they carebears have to do with it, they are a methaphor, but xylia has heavy issues comparing the most simple things an on a very low level of abstractions.

    And just now havign a job doesn't change how i deal with gaming, theres plenty of other better ways to distress than raging over gamefails. Thats not a reason why games should be near failsafe for even the most "stressed" person trying to distress.

    same goes for the insulting part, just because youhave meet peopel using it insulting does not mean for everyone. gaian the example is MWO, peopel there GG at the end of a game just for what it means, while in plenty fo other games it's considered an insult. That went to a degree that overwatch even started filtering it. So if you constantly run into games with these kidn of people, you should try to check with what people you regulary play (at leats in games you can control that). or reconsider the games you play. Must be strange lives you have whre everything is stressfull and full of evil people insulting each other. I feel sad for you people where everything seems to be so bad.
     
  17. MilkCalf

    MilkCalf Supernova

    Okay dickhead, just back the fuck down. Games can be enjoyed on what ever difficulty you want. You can be a big asshole if you want to and call yourself superior because of your taste in video games or proclaim yourself as superior becaus of your "MLG gaymeing zkillz" but you don't fucking insult Kaede. I know Kaede better than you do so you have zero reign to do that. And this is only a warning. If you and your sorry ass do that again I will call someone who can really tear you apart.
     
  18. Firebird Zoom

    Firebird Zoom Oxygen Tank

    On a side note, Professional Halo players could beat Professional CoD players at their own game.

    Nope, not saying that.
     
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  19. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Hey now, don't get yourself warning points... IMO, let's just leave them alone and stop responding to them before we get in trouble with the moderators.

    Fact is, I myself might have said more than I should, so Imma just leave it go. We can continue the thread without them.
     
  20. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    So you confirm that you lost objectivity in the discussion because of a personal relation to someone? Also you have probably not read anything at all. it's not about skill, it's about comparing difficulties and also how people deal with failing and what people consider "problems".

    And I never proclaimed MLG skillz, dunno where you obvious rage started reading this.
     

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