Majivo wrote:
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Everything I saw online suggested that the game eventually became unplayable if you chose a starter class. D: D: D:
Are you talking about Oblivion here? If so, well, first of all, why would you even read about things like that ahead of time? Do you have no intention of actually enjoying the game and just want to ruin it for yourself before you start? Second, that's not true either. I'm sure some of the classes were weaker than others, but I doubt any of them were so weak as to be unplayable. Last of all, why would you even pick a starter class? Oblivion is great fun because of all the choices it gives you, and creating your own custom class is one of the best choices in the game.
None of which, of course, explains why someone would choose to level up to 25 by rote and
then start playing the game.
That's doubtful, if you wanted to be a caster. All of your major skills were the spells you used nonstop, which would mean you level quickly. Mobs level with you. But you'd only be getting a few points in Int/Will a level this way (best case scenario is 5, but that's unlikely--probably more Will than Int). You'd only get 1 point in Endurance. After a few levels, your health pool will still be pitifully small, but the health of your enemies will have increased much faster. (Your health increases each level relative to your endurance--if you don't increase it early on, you'll be a glass cannon. And that's not fun, which I quickly discovered after facing human enemies in close quarters. Your spells don't do enough damage to take them down in just a few casts, but you have no health to outlast them.
If I was going pure melee, it wouldn't have been as much of a problem. I would have gotten some Endurance every level from my Armorer skill (and possibly Heavy Armor). Pure Mages don't wear armor, because it lowers their spell effectiveness, so I wouldn't have been gaining much endurance at all.
Originally, I had just intended to get my Endurance to 100 and then start playing. But then I found out that certain quest rewards (the best ones in the game, generally) leveled with you, and that you couldn't get the best version until 25+. So I decided that I didn't want to get crap rewards if it just meant waiting a few levels, but also that I didn't want to look up the rewards for every quest. Hence the level goal of 25.
As for finding this stuff out, I knew about Oblivion's leveling quirks before even buying the game (because of this forum). So I was reading a thread about tips for beginners which happened to mention the problems with mage classes in particular.
Oblivion would have been a lot more fun if you didn't get punished by the game mechanics for doing what you wanted to do. Which is exactly why they've already made it clear that Skyrim will not be using this kind of system. The other issue is that it's absurd to expect someone to know what they want to do before they even get to really play. I did create my own custom class, but I had to start over after I realized my only options were (realistically) to mass level my magic up to the point where I could spend the whole game invisible, or to start over and actually get myself some health.