dtgreene: I find that this makes the choice paralysis that tends to be an issue with open world games even worse than it otherwise would be.
This actually is an issue I have with these sort of things; there are many things to do, but I can't think of anything I want to do. Also, an issue with leveling systems; I find that I don't like to make permanent choices about my character. In either case, this can lead to me not playing the game as much, or even quitting the game entirely.
Sometimes, I like having a linear game where there are no irreversible choices to make, whether with the path you take or how you level up your character.
Krimzon14: Oh, I absolutely agree. Games from devs like Bethesda or Bioware (especially Bioware) can very much make the player feel a certain pressure when it comes to making choices, both in gameplay and story. Gameplay choices, like leveling up, can feel a bit unnecessarily difficult because you won't know how you like to play until you try it, or you won't know how useful a stat increase is until you see it's benefit in use and at that point, in most games, you can't take that choice back without restarting/reloading a save file (which I tend to hate because it can break the flow of immersion that I was likely enjoying before having to restart). Moral choices can make for interesting branching/alternate stories, but at the same time, I can't help but enjoy also more linear stories in games a bit more because there tends to be more thought into making a strong, single plot rather than dividing it into several different webs of potential story/character arcs. And the gameplay choices (such as those in action/adventure games) tend to also be vary linear. "Gain this many points to unlock the next skill upgrade" instead of "You need this many points to increase this stat, or this one, or this one, or any of these ones and then choose one of 6 skills/abilities but NO TAKE BACKS".
This is the main reason why I love a game like
Final Fantasy 12 for PS2, because the story is perfectly linear but it's a large, relatively open world to explore with no permanent decisions I have to make with side-quests that don't feel completely like they're just there for filler content. I can have the characters be any role I need them to be (attack, magic, support etc). And every role/skill/ability/weapon/armour/item is available to them all as long as they have that license, which can make it rather grindy but still a very well-made game, at least in my opinion.
Part of the reason I like Final Fantasy 5 so much is how easily you can change character setups. For example, if the story happens to (temporarily) take away the character you were using as a healer, for example, all you need to do is change someone into a White Mage and she'll be able to cast all the White Magic you bought. Learned abilities are useful if you want to give an ability to a job that doesn't normally have it, and the ability point system works better than skill points; Ability Point (ABP) gain is separate from leveling, and it becomes easier to earn ABP the further you progress. (This is in contrast to level-based skill point systems, where you get skill points when leveling up, and leveling up gets harder at higher levels.)
An interesting case I observed in Avadon 2 (and the rest of the Avadon series works this way); while the game uses a skill point system, there is a cheat that you can use to re-allocate the character's skill points (I love this cheat, though things can get quite silly if you start using this cheat constantly mid-battle, so I didn't take it that far), and later in the game, there is someone who you can talk to to do the same thing for free. No penalty for respecing at all.
There are also some games, like Wizardry 1-5 (excluding 4), Bard's Tale 1-3, Ultima 3, the Etrian Odyssey series, and Elminage Gothic, where you can create as many characters as you want; if you don't like your party setup, you can change it, provided you're willing to take the time to level up the new character(s). In the case of Etrian Odyssey, this mitigates the problems with the skill point system by letting you create a new character and spend their skill points differently (and even then, there's an option to respec a character at the cost of a few levels).
