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Crispy

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It's actually quite interesting because one of the core components of Bethesda's "RPGs" is still progression from a character skill standpoint. The more fighting you do with a one-handed weapon the better you get at it (at least in terms of the amount of damage inflicted). The more you attempt to influence people in dialog the better your Speech skill gets. These things have got to still be controlled internally by numbers, right? So why hide them?

Because numbers are scary and bad, m'kay? They make our heads hert. Ow.
 

Butter

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It's actually quite interesting because one of the core components of Bethesda's "RPGs" is still progression from a character skill standpoint. The more fighting you do with a one-handed weapon the better you get at it (at least in terms of the amount of damage inflicted). The more you attempt to influence people in dialog the better your Speech skill gets. These things have got to still be controlled internally by numbers, right? So why hide them?

Because numbers are scary and bad, m'kay? They make our heads hert. Ow.
In the case of Skyrim, everyone would laugh at them if they showed the persuasion numbers. Many persuasion checks are literally impossible to fail, or have thresholds below the skill's starting value, and only one check requires a Speech skill of 100. Take a guess which one it is.

The one that lets you enter the College of Winterhold without having to cast a novice tier spell!

OK, technically there's a second 100 Speech check added by Creation Club garbage.
 

Late Bloomer

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In vanilla Skyrim, selling items to merchants raises the speech skill. Higher value the better. Any number of perks mods add shouting as a way to raise speech.
 

Zombra

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It's actually quite interesting because one of the core components of Bethesda's "RPGs" is still progression from a character skill standpoint. The more fighting you do with a one-handed weapon the better you get at it (at least in terms of the amount of damage inflicted). The more you attempt to influence people in dialog the better your Speech skill gets.
These things have got to still be controlled internally by numbers, right? So why hide them?
Huh? The numbers are right there on the screen in Starfield. Shoot 100 guys (currently 37/100), gun can be increased to rank 2 and a damage bonus with a deliberate point spend.

The old Skyrim method of a hidden meter that eventually (and organically) increases your skill from 23 to 24 is gone, baby, gone.
 

Crispy

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Sorry, my brain is sort of protecting me from remembering anything about Starfield. And I do mean that, literally. I can't recall the screen you're talking about, although I take your word for it that it's there somewhere.
 

Zombra

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FWIW I don't think any Bethesda game (until Starfield) actually showed you the progress meters for skills. You would just do things a lot and it would tell you when the number went up. Which isn't enough reason to post; what I really want to say is that I like it that way. Not because numbers are scary, but because I appreciate and enjoy the immersion which Bethesda has been good at in the past.

RPGs are amazing games because of their complexity - millions of little modifiers, this sword has a longer reach which means you get this bonus; dwarves are hard for large monsters to hit so they get that AC bonus; etc. Awesome! That level of simulation is super cool. Me, I don't really care whether those numbers are all flashing on the screen or not, because I know the computer remembers them. The joy of CRPGs is that, unlike at a real table in a room with stinky humans, you don't have to freaking remember them all. So much of D&D is just tracking all that shit, and y'know I get the satisfaction in adding up numbers and getting the desired answer, but man, I already work in an office. And everyone has stories about the time they should have lived but they forgot to mention their +2 vs reptiles and so the dragon didn't die when it "should have".

Don't know where I'm going with this but sometimes (not always but sometimes) hiding the numbers can let you focus on other things.
 

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Crispy

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Don't know where I'm going with this but sometimes (not always but sometimes) hiding the numbers can let you focus on other things.
There should be an option to show them, though. As illustrated above, even Oblivion had it. With Skyrim, there were/are mods that can show most of those numeric values, also (they exist).

Now, if Bethesda decides to truly do away with all numeric skill values altogether, turning entirely to the player's skill exclusively, then that will be a departure and a rather pathetic one at that.
 

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