Politeia said:
How about one related to genre fiction? It strains credibility and violates the willing suspension of disbelief. Joining all four factions is just dandy, there should be some sort of reasonable litmus test for entry though, and being able to attain the highest possible rank in all should be absolutely out of the question. While all four do require that you have to do...something to gain entry, only two of them approach what would be regarded as reasonable.
The Elder Scrolls is a series where attaining godhood is realizing that one is in a video game, where pausing time by opening menus, reloding saves, and altering the worlds with mods made with the construction kit has been woven into the canon lore of the series.
As Micheal Kirkbride once said
http://www.imperial-library.info/ForumArchives/AmuletAmulet.html
Tamriel is an impossible place, built on impossible precepts. It's, frankly, a magic ball of sentient schizophrenia.
These are why the echoes in every corner of every myth. These are why the ease of men to immortals and immortals into frozen egos.
It is pure magic, thought up by the nagging itch called "if", which necessitated a "then", which in turn made everything scared that it would go away forever.
It is a baby universe with doom already marked on its head, because it cannot really exist, it has no real mother, and it doesn't understand how to get out, or why it might, or if it should because the rest of the void is a horrible thought filled with nothing.
The Elder scrolls cannot exist even under its own logic, It is a universe that alters itself to the ever changing whims of the beings that live there, and that is the entire point of the series.
-The College of Winterhold is not a normal school, it is a place were mages go to have a place to commence their studies, have shared resources, and tell other College members of their discovers before they tell anyone else. Its not about you teaching them or them teaching you. they let you in on the premise that if you learn things about shouting you would tell them first so they can horde it for themselves.
-The Dark Brotherhood continues to exist because The Empire deems them necessary for continuing politics. Its never been about not drawing attention to themselves, its about having a role that needs to be filled. Its similar to how the empire lets the Thieves guild continue to exist because of how they are crime regulators.
-The Companions, the role of Harbinger was created and given to the warriors who did the most epic deed, and by fighting he white-hand, the ghosts of the 500 companions, and saving Kodlak Whiteman's soul from going to the hunting grounds, you have committed the most epic deed of the group. It makes perfect sense if you follow the lore.
-The Thieves Guild in Oblivion blew, the entire last quest was a pointless adventure to get a uber-powered artifact that gets thrown out two seconds later. why did I steal the Elder scroll if I can ever use it? why am I not using it to make the guild better? at Least skyrim's thieves guild lets me use the nightengale powers, and I got the badass armor.
-The Daedric lords are also terribly limited in their knowledge, on top of that the player character is literally god incarnate, your character literally alters the universe to allow you to do whatever he wants by simply existing.
Politeia said:
Say it with me folks -- because it strains credibility and violates the willing suspension of disbelief. Not only that, straining credibility and violating the willing suspension of disbelief is the only way you can allow everyone do everything. So I'm not so much as detracting from the power-players as much as the power-players are detracting from me. I demand the fiction I consume are something more than just juvenile power fantasies.
It only strains belief for people who don't have the faintest understand of the principals behind the Elder scrolls universes existence.
Also, then dont make it a power fantasy, no one is forcing you.
Politeia said:
While I actually do use mods that disable fast-traveling (though I have mods which add teleportation spells and the like) it's not one that I begrudge others for...but it strains credibility and violates the willing suspension of disbelief.
Fast Travel is a system that takes you from point A to point B and that advances time to simulate the time it owuld have taken to walk there.
It isn't teleportation, or instant travel, it is simulated walking with all the walking cut out. How that suspends disbelief is beyond me.
Fast Travel = "we are going to walk your character butmake it to where you don't have to see all of it".
Politeia said:
Actually Bethesda is totally in charge of that one. What's hilarious though is that you actually accuse the people wanting restrictions and harder gameplay as requiring hand-holding. The reality boils down to this: requiring every guild-quest line to be beatable by any character build detracts from them by necessity.
Here's the deal; I totally should have to be a badass wizard in order to become Archmage. I should fail thieves? guild quests if I kill and I should fail Dark Brotherhood quests if I'm caught. I shouldn't be made Harbinger period because I'm barely more than a whelp and for god's sake I should've been able to join the Silver Hand and slaughter them all instead of being forced to become a werewolf. Every character in the game should be killable, absolutely, because when they prevent me from completing quests (including the main one) that gives their lives weight and my actions meaning.
Bethesda is not in charge of the difficulty of games no more then Garry Newman is in charge of the difficulty of G-Mod.
Here's the deal, when Bethesda did do that in Morrowind, with those skill requirements, all people did was exploit around them anyways.
The fact of the matter is people DON'T want those, and if you put them in, all people do is exploit around them.
And no, making character's killable and losing out quests does not give their lives meaning, it just denies you content.
Politeia said:
And most of those things you listed either
1. violate lore
2. can be simply solved by not using the exploits
3. are unnecessary, in the case of atronachs and bound weapons as those without mods still work well even at level 81
Politeia said:
I feel the need to link you to TVtropes article on insane troll logic. The idea that you engaging another doesn?t count as initiating a conversation is?fucking imbecilic. It?s honestly the single dumbest thing I?ve heard in weeks.
Real conversations require two people to be engaging with each other. A single reply to a post is not dual engagement, it is single engagement.
Politeia said:
50 additional magicka is no where near useful at end game. It's far exceeded by enchanting by effects you could gain via enchanting in the vanilla game. Likewise, magicka regen is useless if you have the forethought to enchant and there's no reason for any build you could make to not have enchanting and smithing despite your laughable attempt to paint it as ?exploits?.
Like so many things SkyRE did it better. Instead of a generic regen effect you're allowed to take advantage of the absurd amount of magicka a mage build will have by quickly burning off all that mana in exchange for increased Destruction output. Your damage with destruction spells will increase in cost and damage based upon how much magicka you have in reserve. It's a mode that can be toggled on and off and it lets you burn excess magicka quickly for a damage burst.
It actually kinda is, 50 magicka would be equal to 1/8 of my characters total magicka, which is quite a sizeable chunk.
Except for RP purposes, which is what the skills are for, to RP your character.
As for what SkyRE did, that is so terribly unbalanced it is laughable.
Politeia said:
Again, SkyRe did it better by letting the histskin ability choose what you'd like to regen quickly -- magicka, health, or stamina at the cost of lower regeneration amongst the other two. Also adds a protective scales passive that negates 25% of damage from bladed weapons.
again, that is lore violting, and terribly overpowered.
Politeia said:
Poison resistance is nice; turning an animal into an ally is made obsolete by a dragon shout which has the same effect and a much lower cooldown.
and while one is on cool down you can use the other, and get more total chances to turn animals.
Politeia said:
Again, SkyRe did it better by adding the "twin blood" spells which allow you to either greatly increase the output of all your spells while halving the cost or allow you to briefly conjure unlimited summons. The drawback is that during this time your health depletes continuously and you're vulnerable to magic.
that is, again, terribly unbalanced as magicka resistance is easy to max, and its hard to not ave crap ton of hp regens. All the negatives of that skill are negated by simple potions. It has no real negatives to it.
Politeia said:
Bullshit! SkyRe, again, did it better. Ancestor's Wrath procs whenever you fall below 50% health; on enemies (i.e. Dunmer who aren't you) it activates a flame cloak and a 50% boost to fire damage. On you, you get no flame cloak but a 15% chance to avoid all damage + a 50% boost to fire damage.
And again, anyone who even takes a BRIEF look at that can tell its so op.
Anyone who just even hard assedly keeps thier hp near 50% can get that affect to trigger all the time.
Politeia said:
The only purpose of getting rich quicker is so that at level 40 you can have twice as much gold you'll never spend because there's nothing to spend it on. As Yahtzee said, you can pretty much skip any money making schemes and still end up with a majority share in the universe.
I care very little for Voice of the Emperor; I don't like racial abilities I can gain from ingame abilities.
I spent money on lots of things, including buying shit for my homes in Hearthfire.
Politeia said:
I should really stop harping on about SkyRe, if it weren't so obvious that T3ND0 simply did perks and racial abilities better than Bethesda. Anywho, SkyRe removed Voice of the Emperor and added three new abilities; attack order, guard order, and tactician. Basically this let the Imperial fill a niche by giving him racial abilities which increase the attack speed, damage output, or damage mitigation of followers based upon what's needed at the time. Tactician causes enemies to lose stamina when you perform a block with a shield.
Except he didn't, everything you listed is laughably overpowered, and just as abusable as smithing.
Politeia said:
Again, useless, in both cases the Khajit hand-to-hand damage is still vastly outperformed by actual weapons especially when you factor in enchanting. SkyRe has fix though; an entire branch dedicated to unarmed combat was added to the one-handed tree (renamed light weaponry) with various styles added capable of unique abilities like being able to snatch weapons and shields while fighting unarmed. The Khajit's claws also become stamina dependent for damage; more is better.
That it is over performed does not mean it isn't viable.
And an unarmed tree? why?
Stamina dependent damage? why? people hated that in Oblivion, that is why it was removed.
Politeia said:
Yes but you're only getting half of its use. I notice you still use terms like "warrior, thief, mage" alot. You seem to be dividing your characters along distinct archetypes which is the polar opposite of what a good leveling system should be doing. I never see you talk much about spellswords or other hybrid classes that we had in older TES games.
I use those as examples because those are the three core classes everyone knows, I made a spellsword character in Skyrim easily.
Skyrim's leveling system, b its nature, doesn't force you into archetypes.
Politeia said:
Anywho: SkyRe adds magicka to the list of damage mitigated that way. It also causes health to drain and potions to become less effective so it isn't simply an ability you can use as a crutch anymore.
You couldn't use it as a crutch before either it only lasted 60 seconds and could only be used once a day.
Politeia said:
Thematically it doesn't fit; why are the Redguard poison resistant again? SkyRe adds 50 additional stamina and a unique "charge" like ability
Because the Alikir desert is full of scorpions, snakes, and other poisons animals.
Politeia said:
In some cases, yes, in others no. There's no reason for the Wood Elf racial to be limited to once a day given how underpowered it is. I'm glad SkyRe simply removed it and added in the ability to enchant arrows. In other cases the limitation is necessitated because of poor design.
No the limits are placed there because the entire point of racials was that they were to be used in very rare, emergency situations, not these insta win "if i play my hp at nearly 50% all the time I can spam fire shield" skills.
.
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For someone who claims to hate the "power fantasy" of skyrim's design you seemed to love the mod that changes all the normal, unexploitable, racial skills into easily exploitable win buttons.
