I really like Skyrim's changes to the RPG system. No more classes, or roles, beyond the biases of your chosen race. I've been using a sword, an axe, a bow, and destruction magic, changing up by circumstance in combat, and I don't feel gimped in any category (though magic is typically the most effective at direct damage, due to my choices). Just in general, I feel a ton more free to experiment and explore and play around in Skyrim, do what I feel like, without having to worry about stat multipliers or major and minor skills or leveling up too much or requirements... I picked a Master level chest with a lockpicking skill of 19. It took me like 20 picks to do it, because they'd break instantly if my angle was off and the angle was very very tiny, but I did it. While I was expecting to be in Light Armor all game like I was for Morrowind and Oblivion, I found a set of Heavy Armor enchanted to empower Destructive magic, and so now I'm wearing Heavy Armor. As a Wizardy type character. And that's just great.

Hrm. Fair point.
My D&D 4.0 character sheet is full of stats, and it facilitates roleplaying greatly.

My counterpoint would be, make the system too complicated and you risk poor balance, especially on the later levels. Dragon Age 1 is an excellent example of this, where things are perfectly balanced the first 8-12 levels, and then shit gets wacky fast.

It would be nice to have a simple set of physical attributes...like the SPECIAL system...to help you get a better feel for who or what your character is, but since the game's already using the perk system for balance (and succeeding), I would have it have very little effect and influence, and no influence on combat at all.

@ DDL

I am the first to agree with you that Morrowind had a silly, broken, and thoroughly dumb level advancement system, but I almost dare not say it for fear of making this thread explode.

That said, they fixed it in Skyrim. Everything works the way its supposed to. There's no incentives to play in a silly fashion.

Can you level up archery by shooting your summonings? Sure, but it has to be flame or frost atronarchs, they leave no loot, and you'll lose arrows. Can you level up armor by summoning a dremora and pissing him off? Sure. Can you level up restoration by converting life to mana, then healing the damage? Yup...but you could be getting loot and cash and training a ton of things instead, so it's not really worth it...
If you're 100 on archery, do you ever feel like using another weapon for killing things? yeah, I suppose, but many of monsters will be really hard by that point, so you probably need your bow for a good deal of them.

Every incentive has been set up correctly...I guess the only real concern I have at this point is how valuable enchantment is. As a smith and enchanter, I can make 10 iron daggers for 300 gold, I can buy 10 lesser/petty soul gems and fill them with souls for another 300 (and a dungeon run, which I was gonna do anyway), and I can enchant each dagger with drain life, fetching me 400 gold, so I can quadruple my money.

But, as you practice this, the value of magical daggers will go down...I guess I've earned around 20k this way, and maybe I can get another 10k, but then the scheme will stop working due to price inflation.

30k probably isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, it certainly can't buy you all the training in the world, but it has been enough to buy my way to levelling smithing to 100 (I must've produced 500 iron daggers by now), and will be enough to buy me to 100 enchantment too (which will take a good deal of effort, but it's doable).

These are the crafting skills though, meaning you'll have better equipment for your level, but worse perks than someone going the combat route.

But like I said, everything works. I've not grinded any skill even once, and my progression through the game has gone quite rapidly.

@ Gravedust/vampire dust
A Human heart? Sure, why not, not like I extracted it...omnomnom
T_T

I drop all my iron daggers and leather bracelets on the floor.

And in my opinion, Skyrim stands testament to the fact that if you're not gonna be a good and propa RPG, you shouldn't be one at all. It isn't, and it isn't.
I dunno. Making 500 iron daggers sounds like grinding

"Good" RPG is obviously subjective, and what does "proper" mean here?

What I'm saying is that poorly implemented RPG mechanics detract from the game, rather than add to it.

Do it well, or don't do it at all basically.

More specifically, I feel Skyrim is better for dumping all the RPG stuff.

Skyrim hasn't dumped anywhere near all the RPG stuff, and if you can't see the RPG stuff in Skyrim, you're beyond redemption.

Dunno, I read about a battle-mage with heavy armor on the previous page. Hardly sounds like people stick to their character at all.

And as Jaeder said, 500 daggers not grinding?

@ Jetset; You could perfectly do that in Morrowind. There are not really classes there either. Difference apparently is that you can't just don heavy armor and be efficient with it, like Skyrim apparently is according to your description. I hardly call that an improvement

So what I'm getting from this thread is basically "haters gonna hate".

People who generally hate a game because of its mechanics are likely to hate this, people who generally love a game in spite of its mechanics are likely to love this.

So..no change there, then.

It's a bit more particular than that. Plenty of people who generally hate a game because of its mechanics will still like Skyrim because it's in every way except the awful GUI a massive improvement on Oblivion. RPG fundamentalists like half our forum users will hate it, as you can see from this thread. That should be the take-away

I don't really have any trouble with the UI, but I'm probably the only person here not playing on PC with mouse

I wouldn't say it's your typical run of the mill RPG, but what do I care. It's a game, and a good one at that, who cares if the mechanics are "proper rpg". It works for me.

/ignite flamewar

I haven't played Skyrim yet (With Oblivion in mind, waiting for a steep price-drop), but it just makes no sense to me that "fixing" means "taking it all out"
And as mentioned, I saw nothing wrong with the Morrowind system. As long as you play regular, not force yourself to powerplay as apparently some felt they needed (and no, the game did not force it upon you as stated several times in this thread) it works just fine.

It's like ME > ME2 all over again...

(And since I like ME1 best. Also because of the story though, so I guess it's not exactly comparable)

Well, the 500 or so doubleclicks I've had to make were a bit grindy, but considering you can crank out 3 daggers a second, it's on the same level of wasted time as walking back to the start of the dungeon because your inventory is full and you want to do a single loot run _once_....

The procuring of materials for making those daggers weren't grinding. They were fun. I like exploring, I like shopping, and I like looting things and hunting...more importantly, its not grinding if its not headless, and while the clicks that go into the production of the daggers probably count as grinding, that's a very small part of the activity of smithing.

Why is everyone acting like I hate skyrim?

And skyrim is not an rpg, if you can't see this , youre beyond redemption

"
So what I'm getting from this thread is basically "haters gonna hate".

People who generally hate a game because of its mechanics are likely to hate this, people who generally love a game in spite of its mechanics are likely to love this.

So..no change there, then.
"
I strongly disagree with that statement. I think the mechanics are very well designed, and much of my enjoyment comes from this. I have no qualms about hating on a game because of poor mechanics...this isn't one of those games.

There appear to be a few abuses possible - ways to grind that shouldn't be there - but generally, it is really solid.

Particularly the balance of later levels between getting you extra strength and giving you extra challenges is really well done.

I also completely reject the idea that RPG fundamentalists will hate the game. People who tend to be overly critical of games will hate it, though, because there's a bunch of things that will grate on them. Of course those same people would hate nearly all games if they played them for the first time with their current state of mind, and the only reason they don't hate older games is because being hypercritical is a new development for them.

Well that's perhaps a bit mean spirited of me to say, and I'm sorry about that, but it sure feels that way, when I look at the reactions people have.

Which brings me to...

@Hassat

Please don't buy Skyrim. I don't want you to even consider it. Resign yourself to the fact that the game isn't for you, and simply avoid it.

That way, you will no longer have to look for little tidbits buried in other peoples comments from which to mount weird 2nd-hand criticisms, and I won't have my head explode when you complain that Skyrim makes it easier to be a battlemage than Morrowind did.

I'll even tell you personally that Skyrim sucks and is worthless, if I can be sure noone else hears me, if it'll help with this end.

You're obviously not willing to give the game a fair chance...so do what Jaedar suggested and don't give it one at all.