The Elder Scrolls: On Classes

 “Don’t fix what is not broken.” – A common claim. A claim I don’t disagree with, in principle. But I do have to disagree with it being applied to the classes and levelling in Morrowind and Oblivion. Because “broken” is the only way I have of describing it.

All I really have to say about the change in character levelling system when it comes to Skyrim from the previous games is: “What change?”

A surprising statement, perhaps, until you consider how these systems worked and how little that actually changed with Skyrim. In Morrowind and Oblivion (and Daggerfall, but fuck Daggerfall and its shit interface, RNGenerated world and quests), you pick a selection of skills at the start of your journey that will decide what levels you up. Not that actually defines your character, since there is no difference between a class skill and non-class skill of the same level. They just decide what levels you up and get a bonus to experience gain to match this. In Skyrim you just go out in the world and level by using whatever skill you want. Well, okay, there was one major change: Attribute bonuses when levelling became perk points when levelling.

Attributes start out semi-unique and, through a combination of high starting values compared to max value and how frequent you increase them, very quickly become just the same as everyone else with a remotely similar character. A warrior in Morrowind or Oblivion, regardless of whether they focus on offense or defense or a mix, will have roughly the same numbers in Strength, Endurance, Agility and Speed at all levels. Hybrid characters that spread themselves thin eventually end up more powerful (usually anyway), because the low caps on attributes really do not reward specialization.

Perks, on the other hand, very directly forces you to choose between what you want to do that level and characters that outwardly focus on the same skills (say, a warrior in heavy armor with 1-handed) can vary quite a bit. One might focus on defense and use a shield, with high investment in armor and blocking skills, while the other might be dual wielding and focus much more on the efficiency of his weapons. One might have very high health while the other have a mix of stamina and health. Hybrid characters spread themselves thin in this system too, perhaps even more so, given the limited number of perk points compared to perks.

Putting it like this: Your attributes can have pretty high numbers across the board on a “high level” character in Oblivion and Morrowind, even without grinding. You can also easily max every single attribute by level 50 if you do grind. In Skyrim, you need to be level 250-something to get all the perks. Something that is possible with the Legendary thing added, but still takes a great deal more time and grinding than reaching level 50 (regular max level in Oblivion, and some 20 levels below regular max level in Morrowind). No matter how you twist and turn it, there is simply more specialization of your character going on in Skyrim, because of the more limited perkpoints.

Now that I have poked that hornet’s nest, let’s move on to the topic I want to cover more thoughtfully and that is the classes in Morrowind and Oblivion. And why I don’t think they are worth defending. And we’re not just talking implementation, but in principle.

On implementation, I will say this; it’s shit. The lack of differentiating things between class and non-class skills and the related attribute problem makes it a laughably bad and shallow system. The attributes also don’t really do anything interesting.

For example, if I want to create an agility based, rather than strength based, warrior, I am punished for that. It is not that I am just doing less damage per hit, but I am not receiving anything useful in return for this. Agility gives a minor boost in accuracy and dodge ability in Morrowind and reduced stagger in Oblivion. And both games give a little stamina bonus. In Oblivion, it also gives some bow damage, but that is irrelevant to a warrior character.

In Morrowind, the dodge is nice, I guess, if very inconsistent. But the accuracy is rather quite inconsequential compared. Your primary accuracy comes from the skill in use itself and is already generally reliable by skill-level 50 (70+ for high level enemies like Umbra). Given that starting values for Major Skills in Morrowind range from 30(no bonuses) to 50(Redguard, combat specialization, Long Blade as a Major Skill), this is generally not a problem.

In Oblivion, staggering is nice to avoid, but this too is not very much in return for the sacrifice of the only attribute that increases melee damage. And carry weight. On top of that, Strength also gives stamina. And then there is the biggest problem of them all: I don’t need to make a choice between them, in either of the games. An Agility based warrior is going to be weaker than a Strength, Endurance and Agility based warrior. Which in turn is weaker than a Strength, Endurance, Agility and Speed based warrior. Etc. All of which is easily achieved in the system with little grinding. Hell, unless you intentionally go for suboptimal stats, it is the inevitable result of levelling a warrior character.

But this is not about implementation. Not really, anyway. Most would agree, in my experience, that the levelling system is hardly something to boast about even if they do prefer it over the (mostly the same) system in Skyrim. Which is not so much a different room in the house as just shuffling some furniture around.

The thing I dislike most with the class system in Morrowind and Oblivion, which says a lot given how much I hate the implementation whose only saving grace is “not being that much of a hassle”, is the core ideas underlying it. The fact that it is essentially a class-less system with unnecessary restrictions and faffing attached.

“Unnecessary restrictions?” you ask, thinking about how most class systems do impose restrictions that are, ultimately, arbitrary. “Just look at how many games, like Dragon Age, has decided for the player that Rogues use one of these 2 types of weapons and only this sort of armor. A lot of RPGs does shit like that and I don’t hear you complaining about them.”

Which is true, a lot of RPGs do impose such restrictions, but they are not “unnecessary” in the same sense. Most games I know of that have a class-system for your character, regardless of how free or limited the player is in outfitting them with arms and armor, tend to use the classes to differentiate and specialize.

If we continue with the Dragon Age examples (a system I think has had the wrong evolution regarding equipment freedom since the first one), let’s focus a moment on Origins. Between Warriors and Rogues, there is a bit of overlap, specifically in the archery and dual wielding skills. Does that mean that a Warrior who pick up sword and dagger will be the same as a Rogue who picks up sword and dagger? Nope. Even assuming the two characters are equipped the same, there is still going to be some fundamental differences between them. And all of these changes come from the underlying differences the classes work with.

Warriors have higher health and higher base stats like damage , with talents like Taunt, Disengage and Death Blow. They have the Reaver, Champion, Templar and Berserker specializations to choose from. Rogues have a higher number of secondary skills like Stealth and Poison Making, the ability to Backstab when flanking an enemy and talents like Dirty Fighting, Coup de Grace and Lethality. They have access to the Ranger, Bard, Assassin and Duelist specializations. These are quite significant differences even when assuming the same equipment, let alone what sort of differences in equipment these differences encourages.

Heck, let’s even take a quick look at a class system that does not impose any more equipment restrictions than the Elder Scrolls: Pillars of Eternity. Each class can equip whatever they want and this may or may not be encouraged by how their skills work. The Paladin, if designed to deal damage, is not overly hindered by a 2-handed weapon and medium/heavy armor, since they focus on high damage auto attacks, high base defenses and the occasional Flames of Devotion nuke to take down priority targets. A Barbarian, on the other hand, has skills that rely on duration (like Frenzy) and this supports quicker attacks for maximum effect. Quicker attacks are easiest to achieve with little to no armor and fast weapons like Hatchets and Daggers. You can switch the equipment of the two and it probably won’t be that bad, but you’re going to have to change the playstyle a bit on both of them. And even in the same equipment, they will play differently due to the fundamentals of their classes.

Those bright bastards among you might realize where I am then going to go with the criticism of the Elder Scrolls class system as seen in Morrowind and Oblivion. It imposes restrictions regarding what allows you to level up, without rewarding those restrictions with anything unique to that class. And this is one of the things that makes me say that the system in Skyrim is leagues above Morrowind and Oblivion, even as poorly implemented as it is. Investing in a skill in Skyrim actually differentiates it from other fundamentally similar skills.

If I, for whatever reason, have the same skill level in Blade and Blunt in Oblivion, it does not matter which is my class skill. They will perform equally well. If we just put the Blade and Blunt skills into Skyrim’s system (ignoring for a moment that they made a better separation with 1-handed and 2-handed), the one I have invested perk points in (Skyrim’s equivalence of a “class skill”), will have significantly more to offer me in terms of efficiency. Even if the skill level is the same. Hell, even if the skill level of the one I haven’t invested perks in is higher the one with the investment will perform better.

In short, I think that if you are to have classes in a game, I want there to be tangible differences in the mechanics to differentiate them from one another. Oblivion and Morrowind does not do this, therefor I think having a class system at all is entirely superfluous and counterproductive. The Elder Scrolls had to either remove classes to keep the general approach in gameplay or give unique skills/talents/mechanics to each class to keep a class system if they wanted to move away from that awful mess. Me, I am glad they saw that it was a mess and made a choice.

I have to admit, I would also have liked to see a Skyrim with more traditionally restrictive classes. Though I doubt there would have been any less outcry about that than it has been about the removal of the old system. Well, in name anyway. In practice Skyrim lets you level your character the same exact way as previous titles: Pick a skill and get to work. It just does it with less shit attached to it.