Originally Posted by
Dhalin
The problem with Elder Scrolls games, though, is this:
While it looks good on paper, the execution of it is a bit off.
First off, you don't get skill from shooting bows at targets -- you have to shoot bows at mobs. Try it. Be a "low-level" character, get a bow and some arrows, and shoot all of your arrows at the target, then look at your Archery score. You'll find that it hasn't increased at all (at least not in Oblivion... don't know about Morrowind).
Same goes for Destruction spells; you get nothing if you cast a spell and miss.
Also, it just simply takes far, far too long to get levels once you get into the 25-30 range, I once started down in Leyawiin and swam clear up as far north as the river would allow and got -1- level of Athletics for doing so, and swimming gives you more athletics skill than anything else in the game.
Did I also mention it took me nearly 15 minutes to do this? Of doing nothing but swimming in a straight line (well I had to swim around the Imperial City, but whatever)?
Also, I made a destruction spell, 1MP cost, fire damage on self. I counted, I picked a level in the 40s, I counted it took me about _50 casts_ to gain 1 level.
Do you have any idea how many mobs you would have to kill to gain 1 level on 1 skill?
The skill gains were far too slow once you got out of the 'pathetically weak' area.
Or how about the worst offender, Mercantile? Someone calculated that to get to Level 100 in Mercantile, one would have to buy or sell over forty-thousand items.
Actually, it might have been 400k. I forget. It was either 40k or 400k, and 40k is sounding a bit small, because I remember selling a whole stack of 200-some arrows, one-by-one, and barely getting 1 level after several minutes of click click click click click.
And that leaves me to another point: Abuse.
Some people recommend running your character up to a wall, and duct-taping a heavy object on the Move Forward key and then going AFK to level Athletics, and then doing the same using a Turbo Controller with the Jump Key to level Acrobatics.
Or, as I mentioned above, selling cheap worthless items one-by-one like arrows.
So yes.....good on paper.... not so good when you actually get it in a game.
Why do you think they chose not to use that system in Fallout3? They thought of a better one: Kill stuff, get XP, gain level..... put points into what skills you feel your character should have, and then pick a perk from a list of perks you qualify for.
Build your character to your tastes.