The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim thread

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by Farsight

I'd much rather they just made combat a smaller part of the game. I want to be able to buy up towns, run my own shop (I HAVE SO MUCH SLOP TO SELL!!!), leave a string of broken hearts, own a -mansion- filled with all the people I've recruited and the treasures I've found, and hire people to track down goods for me.

Let the mindless action games focus on perfecting action, and let the massive open world games focus on a massiver opener world.

It sounds like you want to play Fable II and III.

Or at least have more of Fable's chocolate getting into Skyrim's peanut butter(that sounded dirty, tee hee).

[ClannerDelta]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Let the mindless action games focus on perfecting action, and let the massive open world games focus on a massiver opener world.

This is just a strange way of looking at things. It might work for you, but so long as combat is any part of my character progression (and I'd be fine if it wasn't) it should be improved upon. Like any system in a game. Considering it's an ES game. It's a great deal more realistic for me to hope for trimmed up combat in future iterations.

New Vegas wouldn't have been half the game it was if Obsidian didn't improve upon FO3's combat. That's with you actually being able to progress through the story and game without being a combat character at all.

[Ink Asylum]

I finally got around to playing some Skyrim using my cousin's copy while hanging out at his place. I put in about eight hours, around a dozen levels, and visited two of the major cities. I'll probably pick it up someday when it's a super cheap Steam sale, but I'm not rushing out to buy my own copy anytime soon.

I share a lot of complaints that others have pointed out. The combat was already getting repetitive and it's such a huge focus of everything you do. The characters, particularly your companions, are shallow and uninteresting. They only stand out when they have some weird quirk in their voice acting or behavior.

The world is big, but at the same time feels small because you're never more than a short walk away from the next point of interest. It feels more like an amusement park than a vast, unexplored terrain. More content is great, but if it were spaced out more, and perhaps with less obvious compass icons, discovering something would feel more meaningful.

I'm not calling it a bad game, just admitting that it's not my kind of RPG. Not too surprising, as the top RPGs in my all time list are ones like Mass Effect and Planescape: Torment. Ones with much more focus on character interaction and story, and where my choices felt more important.

Sandboxes are fun, but they don't hold my interest as long when competing against games with rich narratives and fascinating characters. The Fallout games, both 2D and 3D are much closer to the kind of open world game that can hold my interest.

I'm glad everyone is loving the game, just not for me.

[Mr. Murphy]

Yeah, for some reason almost everytime I play Skyrim I wind up turning it off and starting up one of the new Fallouts instead. I was trying to play a mage-y character, but the magic combat kindof sucks - cast atronoch, cast sheild spell, cast spark on one dude, run out of magicka, drink a million potions, get charged by five bad guys, flame atronoch doesn't pull any of them off me, I die. If you're going to give me the option of being a summoner, make my summon useful, please? Reload, use shield spell, equip armor, summon sword, end up fighting like a melee character anyway. And the melee is BORING - stand there and tap shoulder button until everything is dead. Awesome. Diving into my favorites menu, assigning a shield spell to one hand, casting it, and then going back to my menu to switch it for something that's actually useful in battle is NOT FUN, and I have to do it for every single encounter. Low level healing magic takes too long to be useful in battle (even the 'instant heal' has that casting delay that will get you killed, so why would I ever use it instead of a potion?), every spell has a slight delay before it goes off (I can switch weapons instantly, but if I want to summon a sword I have to wait a second? Just... why?) and that delay is when I get chopped to pieces by bandits. I just want to kick ass with magic, but leveling those spells up to the point where they're actually usable is really, really frustrating. I spend most of my time savescumming through one bad guy at a time.

It feels so much like Fallout 3 (without guns) that I'm constantly irritated by the lack of VATS. I miss the way VATS gives you the option of playing the game like a turn-based RPG. I prefer the ability to stop and think about where my spells are going next, and to set up my next four attacks and watch them unfold.

If I could tell the game to cast shield, heal, atronoch, bound sword and then sit back for a second and watch it all happen without having to open my favorites menu twice and swap around spells, it would make the game a lot less irritating to me.

[roboninja]

The combat could be so much better.

It is still the single best game I have played.

[Wackman3000]

After 60 something hours (level 49), I think I am ready to put the game down for a while and enjoy some of the other AAA titles that I have completely ignored in the past few weeks. While I was definitely more than obsessed with this game initially, I can say that the charm is starting to wear thin as even on expert I am the most powerful thing in the land. Dragons can't harm me with their frost/fire breath at all, and perish with 2 swings of my enchanted sword. Every quest is starting to fall into the same routine, and I feel like I'm doing things that don't even interest me with no end in sight.

Don't get me wrong, I still think this is my GOTY 2011, but it does start to drag it's ass a bit towards the end. What I'd really like to see out of the next Elder Scrolls game is maybe taking a step back to refresh the combat a bit (as several people have been discussing already) and maybe look at making less quests, but more fulfilling. For every quest that is fun and fleshed out in this game, you end up with 5 really dull, "bring x to y for z" type things.

Now it's time to play Assassin's Creed and enjoy a very different, but very enjoyable (to me) style of combat.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by Mr. Murphy

It feels so much like Fallout 3 (without guns)

It has guns! They're just called "bows".

In both games, I mostly sneak around and shoot things in the head.

Originally Posted by Wolvie

It sounds like you want to play Fable II and III.

Or at least have more of Fable's chocolate getting into Skyrim's peanut butter(that sounded dirty, tee hee).

Well, kinda. Fable is even worse about making things have a point. I want games where what I do matters, so Fable wouldn't be my first example.

It's just strange to be sitting on 150k gold, with nothing to spend it on and still living in a commoner's house. It's odd to have become "THE ONE" for FOUR different groups of people, yet still be the schmuck people ask to find clothes they misplaced.

Becoming rich, or the leader of the assassins, or a famed Hero shouldn't be the end of the gameplay; it should be the beginning. That's when your impact on the world could become really interesting.

Originally Posted by ClannerDelta

This is just a strange way of looking at things. It might work for you, but so long as combat is any part of my character progression (and I'd be fine if it wasn't) it should be improved upon.

All games are subject to constraints of time and budget. I don't care much about the combat in these games, so I'd much rather they focus most of their resources on expanding and improving the story and world-building areas.

[Xydarc]

Originally Posted by Wolvie

Some times as gamers we need to take a step back, and ask "Am I really enjoying this?" Some times a game can have a cool theme and great graphics that reels us in, but the gameplay just doesn't click.

Take myself and Ninja Gaiden for example. The game came out to almost universal praise and love. I got it because I loved the classics. The game just battered me around like an angry bear, and I didn't have much fun despite loving the graphics and art direction. I tried to get better, I tried to have fun and like the game. But it was not meant to be.
I took a moment to look at how miserable I was and asked "Is there a point to this? What am I trying to prove here?" At that point I decided fun was more important than trying to shoehorn myself into a game that I just wasn't enjoying.
I then went on to play the games I was enjoying. Because I realized I had nothing to prove. And the ones that passed judgement on me for not seeing the game through weren't worth getting the praise from.

Edit:


I am also kinda bummed custom spells and enchants were taken out. I think they did this because of the balancing issues Oblivion had from custom spells and enchants(100% chameleon armor!).
It would have been nice to have custom magic in the game, as long as there was a cap to what you could create, to keep balance in check.

Well said.

Maybe they'll bring back custom spells in future DLC?

[Narradisall]

I think Wolvie summed it up rather well. I had the same thing with some games, that while I can fully admit that it's a great game, it doesn't click for me.

---

That said. I'm still enjoying Skyrim, although I think I will start to focus more on the side and main quests, then take a break and play AC:R until I feel like dipping back into more random dragon slaying.

I'm still going to rank this one of my top games, ever. I've had 120 hours of random, hilarious, scripted, intriguing varieties of fun. Which is more than many games.

[Mr. Murphy]

It certainly may be the case that Skyrim just isn't my kind of game - even though the environment and world totally are my kind of game - Oblivion and Morrowind never clicked for me either. I just WANT it to click, since I love dragons and swords and sorcery so much!

When I was thinking about the play style of Skyrim earlier, in context of Wolvie's post, it struck me that this might be an RPG designed for the FPS crowd, the Modern Warfare and Call of Duty players, which is a whole style of gaming I never really enjoyed. I want to be able to enjoy the world and the exploration without all this frustrating combat, and maybe that's just not the purpose of this game - but for me that's a shame, since I DO want to explore and live in the world.

[Serapth]

Originally Posted by Mr. Murphy

When I was thinking about the play style of Skyrim earlier, in context of Wolvie's post, it struck me that this might be an RPG designed for the FPS crowd, the Modern Warfare and Call of Duty players, which is a whole style of gaming I never really enjoyed.

Not really, Bethesda have always created these types of games. Look into the history of their XnGine, that powered Arena and Daggerfall among. It started with Terminator:Future Shock.


So, basically, Bethesda has always made "shooter RPGs", but it is disingenuous to credit MW or CoD for the influence, as if anything based on pedegree, the relationship would be inverted!


Interesting trivia note, Futureshock invented Mouse Look, not Quake!


Actually iD gets credit for a ton of things that they weren't actually the creators of. The Raycasting behind Wolf3D was used in Alternate Reality years before, Ultima Underworld did everything Doom did from an engine perspective a full year before, and Quake was by no means the first 6DoF engine ( I believe Freespace takes that prize ).

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by Xydarc

Well said.

Maybe they'll bring back custom spells in future DLC?

I hope so. Bethesda said the DLC would be much larger and more expansive than Oblivion. So maybe they'll cram it in one of the new expansion packs. Probably not, but we can dream.

[Mr. Murphy]

Originally Posted by Serapth

So, basically, Bethesda has always made "shooter RPGs", but it is disingenuous to credit MW or CoD for the influence, as if anything based on pedegree, the relationship would be inverted!

Well, I wasn't trying to say MW or CoD inspired it, I was just saying that it appeals to the same kind of gamer - and I think I'm just not that kind of gamer.

[Xydarc]

Originally Posted by Mr. Murphy

Well, I wasn't trying to say MW or CoD inspired it, I was just saying that it appeals to the same kind of gamer - and I think I'm just not that kind of gamer.

I truly doubt any of the dudebros have any interest in Skyrim.

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by Xydarc

I truly doubt any of the dudebros have any interest in Skyrim.

I'm related to one, and I can safely say he couldn't be nay less interested. Talk about Halo or CoD and he's all giddy though. So I think you have a point.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by Mr. Murphy

Well, I wasn't trying to say MW or CoD inspired it, I was just saying that it appeals to the same kind of gamer - and I think I'm just not that kind of gamer.

That's not true though. I'm really enjoying Skyrim, but Call of Duty and the like are not my cup of tea whatsoever.

[Panthera]

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[Serapth]

To be honest, Skyrim just hasn't grabbed me. I'm actually back to Dark Souls right now.

[Mr. Murphy]

Originally Posted by Xydarc

I truly doubt any of the dudebros have any interest in Skyrim.

My dudebro brother must be the exception to the rule then, because the only things he plays are Halo and MW, and now... Skyrim.

Also another friend of mine who's a total car redneck has posted nothing but Skyrim related shit on his Facebook lately. The game seems to have a certain universal appeal!

Of course, they both rolled up big, burly loincloth warriors as their characters. While I'm running around as a pretty lady.