Oblivion

[Gandalf Parker]

DominionsFAN said:

Well in these 2 days I only was traveling in the Imperial province so far and its HUGE with like 10+ castles/cities, lot of dungeons etc. Yes of course you can walk to anywhere or go on horse, or just use fast travel on the map. There are many provinces, I am not exactly sure that how much.

Here is an excellent screenie from the wilderness. Yes Gandalf YOU CAN walk in a wilderness like this. This is how the wilderness looks like. [The forest areas]

Im sure the graphics are great. And that you can walk in the "wilderness" but what Im wondering is whether its really wilderness. In Daggerfall you could walk out of town and fight monsters, you could find dungeons to do. In Morrowind you could step off the road but all you did was step over a hill to another road. You could find a do a dungeon that wasnt on your quest, but all you were doing was some other dungeon that was part of some other quest. Doing things out of order isnt quite the "open gaming" that Morrowind promised.

But it does sound as if maybe they listened to the daggerfall fans. Not as much as Id like apparently. Since other games look to be aways off then I will add Oblivion to my wishlist for now. Im not in a hurry though since I have other new games Ive bught but havent even opened and installed yet

[DominionsFan]

Gandalf Parker said:

Im sure the graphics are great. And that you can walk in the "wilderness" but what Im wondering is whether its really wilderness. In Daggerfall you could walk out of town and fight monsters, you could find dungeons to do. In Morrowind you could step off the road but all you did was step over a hill to another road. You could find a do a dungeon that wasnt on your quest, but all you were doing was some other dungeon that was part of some other quest. Doing things out of order isnt quite the "open gaming" that Morrowind promised.

But it does sound as if maybe they listened to the daggerfall fans. Not as much as Id like apparently. Since other games look to be aways off then I will add Oblivion to my wishlist for now. Im not in a hurry though since I have other new games Ive bught but havent even opened and installed yet

Nop you can fight in the huge wilderness with monsers, and you can find dungeons what are not part of any quests of course. I still travelling around in the starting province, and all I can say is that its HUGE, and awesome.

[OG_Gleep]

Dunno I still think he/she is saying that if its an option then it should be used. And good games don't have those options.

Power Gamers will always find the quickest way to level. Have you ever played an MMO? Every single one had gaping flaws that allowed people to get a huge unfair advantages. Well every single one I've played.

Unlimited Pretender design points means a VQ with 9e9a9w9f9s9n9d9b, and can only be gotten through a trainer as far as I know. The word trainer goes right along with Cheating in my book. Just because you don't use a 3rd party app doesn't mean its not exploiting or cheating. Abuse, exploits, and actual h4xs are all the same. And he/she clearly said what was written was an Abuse of the skill system.

So, if you abuse the system, and then complain about it...its kind of silly. Theres very few games out..good, bad, ok, that don't have some form of exploit someone has found.

And ok.. I may concede that taping "jump" button, may not be an abuse per se..but thats just power gaming in a Skill based system. Every skill based system you can do that. Its just the nature of the beast.

[Endoperez]

OG_Gleep wrote:

Dunno I still think he/she is saying that if its an option then it should be used. And good games don't have those options.

So, if you abuse the system, and then complain about it...its kind of silly. Theres very few games out..good, bad, ok, that don't have some form of exploit someone has found.

I thought that she was only saying that she shouldn't have to limit herself when playing for fun. That's like saying that she shouldn't have to have to play Mictlan without ever summoning demons to have a challenge against the AI. It's like playing C'tis with Cold 3 scale and making sure that you only use your own national units. If you know how to play better, you shouldn't have to shoot your own foot.

And ok.. I may concede that taping "jump" button, may not be an abuse per se..but thats just power gaming in a Skill based system. Every skill based system you can do that. Its just the nature of the beast.

What she listed under spoiler there is something that is clearly unintuitive, stupid, wrong. The game shouldn't work that way. Playing that way shouldn't be the optimal choice. Skill-based system is supposed to encourage certain playstyle, and using your primary skills is part of it.
If "the nature of the beast" is acceptable, is giving Fever Fetishes to undead just part of the game, and acceptable? Not suffering from disease, cold or poison is one of the undeads' primary abilities. The life-draining dagger was meant to be a blood booster for different slot, not a weapon of choice for any creature that wants to have a shield - but as a path that can summon some of the most powerful SC chassises, it makes Blood's primary power of summoning even more powerful.
Sphinx was very powerful pretender in Dom:PPP. It could Teleport into any province very early in the game, and if you got it to an enemy capital on, say, turn 10, he was just screwed. There's not much you can do about it. Sphinx was made truly immobile for DomII, and Teleport was changed. While this might not be the perfect possibility, at least Illwinter did something. Dom:PPP was a good game. DomII is clearly better. Morrowind is a good game, and Oblivion looks better, but why shouldn't the other problems be corrected as well?

[PrinzMegaherz]

Endoperez said:
What she listed under spoiler there is something that is clearly unintuitive, stupid, wrong. The game shouldn't work that way. Playing that way shouldn't be the optimal choice. Skill-based system is supposed to encourage certain playstyle, and using your primary skills is part of it.

If I'm not completely mistaken, you only level up by increasing your primary skills to a certain amount. Her strategy does not involve leveling those skills, so she would forever remain on level one. And I doubt that you could master the arena with a level one character, as your abilities like Hitpoints etc. would be far too low to survive some of the more fierce battles.

[Alneyan]

PrinzMegaherz said:
If I'm not completely mistaken, you only level up by increasing your primary skills to a certain amount. Her strategy does not involve leveling those skills, so she would forever remain on level one. And I doubt that you could master the arena with a level one character, as your abilities like Hitpoints etc. would be far too low to survive some of the more fierce battles.

That's basically her purpose, actually. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, you do *not* want to level up, especially if you happen to be a mage. Compared to other games, your health is relatively high on level 1, and does not rise much with other levels; Mana does not increase at all, and you could aim for the 85 Intelligence on level 1 with ease in Daggerfall (Morrowind is a bit more reasonable here, I think). So, your fire power is comparatively greater than elsewhere, and your access to magic is virtually unlimited.

I have played a character with all skills starting at 5 in Morrowind, and frankly can't say I've noticed much of a difference. Though I had all my important skills in primary/major (and so levelled rather quickly), I was not seriously challenged past the first few levels - that is, once my Destruction skill reached an acceptable level (20% odds of casting isn't great). Note that it was playing the GOTY edition; in earlier incarnations of the game, Magicka was pretty limited (or so I've been told). In Daggerfall, I know I took down the odd Daedra Lord or three at level 2, while deliberately trying not to level up (bloody Language skills made me go up to level 2). Magic *is* powerful (continuous effects anyone?).

I also dislike very much the mindless levelling of some "non-combat" skills that the system implies. Raising, say, Speechcraft takes a *while* if you use the skill in a rational manner. There is only two ways of getting the skill to a reasonably high level without spending ten months on the same character: training, or the clicking madness. Speechcraft could be raised relatively quickly by bribing the same character left and right (until his disposition dropped to 0), even though there was no point in doing so. Training is the other panacea, wherein gold buys power, which buys more gold, and so on. Training has been revamped in Morrowind, though it may be even more useful than before, as you can now get trained above 50.

Note that I speak about Daggerfall and Morrowind only, as I haven't played Oblivion (but there does not seem to be any significant difference). I find the skill-based system to be more interesting than the classes found elsewhere; problem is, the particular implementation of the skills seem to be flawed in those games. It seems to reward the number of successful uses, no matter how trivial (spells without any "real" effect anyone?), and does not consider how important these successes really were. Quantity over quality... hey, doesn't that sound like the levelling scheme of your average MMORPG? (Ultima Online comes to mind here)

[shovah]

oblivion needs windows xp right?

[PrinzMegaherz]

Alneyan said:

That's basically her purpose, actually. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, you do *not* want to level up, especially if you happen to be a mage. Compared to other games, your health is relatively high on level 1, and does not rise much with other levels; Mana does not increase at all, and you could aim for the 85 Intelligence on level 1 with ease in Daggerfall (Morrowind is a bit more reasonable here, I think). So, your fire power is comparatively greater than elsewhere, and your access to magic is virtually unlimited.

I have played a character with all skills starting at 5 in Morrowind, and frankly can't say I've noticed much of a difference. Though I had all my important skills in primary/major (and so levelled rather quickly), I was not seriously challenged past the first few levels - that is, once my Destruction skill reached an acceptable level (20% odds of casting isn't great). Note that it was playing the GOTY edition; in earlier incarnations of the game, Magicka was pretty limited (or so I've been told). In Daggerfall, I know I took down the odd Daedra Lord or three at level 2, while deliberately trying not to level up (bloody Language skills made me go up to level 2). Magic *is* powerful (continuous effects anyone?).

I also dislike very much the mindless levelling of some "non-combat" skills that the system implies. Raising, say, Speechcraft takes a *while* if you use the skill in a rational manner. There is only two ways of getting the skill to a reasonably high level without spending ten months on the same character: training, or the clicking madness. Speechcraft could be raised relatively quickly by bribing the same character left and right (until his disposition dropped to 0), even though there was no point in doing so. Training is the other panacea, wherein gold buys power, which buys more gold, and so on. Training has been revamped in Morrowind, though it may be even more useful than before, as you can now get trained above 50.

Note that I speak about Daggerfall and Morrowind only, as I haven't played Oblivion (but there does not seem to be any significant difference). I find the skill-based system to be more interesting than the classes found elsewhere; problem is, the particular implementation of the skills seem to be flawed in those games. It seems to reward the number of successful uses, no matter how trivial (spells without any "real" effect anyone?), and does not consider how important these successes really were. Quantity over quality... hey, doesn't that sound like the levelling scheme of your average MMORPG? (Ultima Online comes to mind here)

I agree with the last part. I'm playing a thief/assassin, and find it hard to increase my skills. As a Warrior, I would need 3 slashes of my sword to kill my enemy. As an assassin, it only takes one stab from behind. Though the results are the same, the warrior will increase his skills three times as fast.

[OG_Gleep]

Endoperez said:
I thought that she was only saying that she shouldn't have to limit herself when playing for fun. That's like saying that she shouldn't have to have to play Mictlan without ever summoning demons to have a challenge against the AI. It's like playing C'tis with Cold 3 scale and making sure that you only use your own national units. If you know how to play better, you shouldn't have to shoot your own foot.

Your comparing apples and oranges. In SC's example, your playing in a way that the developers never inteded you to.

In your example, your chosing not to use what the developers have given you to provide a bigger challenge.

And yes, people do actually chose harder factions, races, sides, teams etc. to give themselves a greater challenge. Have you ever played against a guy who ALWAYS chose the best team in Madden? Or who always wanted to play the best race/side in a strategy game? In RTR, most players scoff at people who use "better" factions because its too easy.

To each is own I guess...but a lot of people actually do play on hard, or choose something that will provide them with a challenge.

I for instance, in oblivion, I wouldn't pick skills that I won't use so that I'll stay at a low level. That wouldn't be fun to me. And I also won't tape my stealth or jump key down over night, because I did that in morrowind and it became way too easy.

In UO there was a similar system, but since its a MMO the end game is more exciting then the process of getting there. So to me, being a 7x GM and killing PKers was my fun, so I powergamed every way I knew how. I did macro and tape the key down over night. That was fun to me, because the challenge was the PvP, not fighting rats and bears.

What she listed under spoiler there is something that is clearly unintuitive, stupid, wrong.

Only if you do it.

The game shouldn't work that way. Playing that way shouldn't be the optimal choice. Skill-based system is supposed to encourage certain playstyle, and using your primary skills is part of it.

Yes, if you do do what is listed the game will be easier. However, the ENTIRE game scales based on your level. So..if you stay at lvl 1, everything will be low level, but everything will also have basic equipment. A lot of things in the game are tied to your level. IMHO your gimping yourself and the game. But like I said, if this is your definition of fun, then yeah maybe the game is broken.

Dom:PPP was a good game. DomII is clearly better. Morrowind is a good game, and Oblivion looks better, but why shouldn't the other problems be corrected as well?

You were describing actual problems in game balancing. Strategy games and RPGs are different games. If nothing could beat blood in Dominions, it would be banned in MP pretty fast. The CB mod attempted to address the myrad of things that were out of wack.

Skill based systems were designed so that over time, as you used said skills, they would become better, and the skills you don't use...don't. Its pretty simple. If someone macros or tapes a key down, their skills will rise abnormally fast. Don't know how you would change it, and I don't think its an issue that needs to be addressed in a SP game.

In an exp system a lot of people will do random battles over and over again to max out their characters. Someone could theoretically fight random battles over and over again in a console RPG and max out their characters before advancing the story line. Doesn't mean the system is broken.

It becomes a lot more complicated in competitive gaming, and what is needed really depends on what type of game it is. In strategy/sports normally the community will step up and outlaw certain things and provide ground rules for a balanced game that is enjoyable for everyone. In a MMO/FPS, on persistant servers, its impossible for the community to police itself.

But in a SP game, most people police themselves to ensure they have a fun game. The dominons example is most people prefer not to play Ermor against the AI. The same motiviation that compells me to avoid easy difficulty compells me to avoid exploits and abuses.

[PrinzMegaherz]

I completely agree with OG_Gheep.

You know, the real world too is not perfect. Governments are not perfect, people are not perfect. You can't expect games to be perfect, and you will always find a weakness you can exploit. However, if you have the capabilities to find such exploits fast and completely (a skill which I lack), you might put this to better use if you started to change things in the real world, instead of focusing your efforts on games.