So, levelling in TES has had some… interesting… design choices over the years, from the weird counterintuitive attribute-maxing minigame of major and minor skills in Morrowind and Oblivion, to the much simpler but arguably less-interesting system in Skyrim. And then there’s the contentious issue of level scaling getting its oar in, too.
What would you personally like to see implemented? Where does modern game design stand on the issue? Is skill-based levelling still a sensible idea, or should we be looking in a different direction? (Generic XP? Something else?)
Skill-based leveling should stay. It’s basically a staple of the franchise.
Skyrim’s system but with a few of the removed options from the past would be nice. Also implement some starting choices once again, but don’t make that choice a burden later in the game like Morrowind. Starfield’s background-centric choices that bestow unique traits seems like it could be good to adapt.
Perks are nice but make them more meaningful. I hated the filler ones that were just 5 steps of “X does N% more damage” or “Y is N% more effective”. The Ordinator mod overhauling the perk system had good ideas.