This ^^^ Oh so definitely this....

Dungeons & Dragons. But I certainly wouldn't compare Oblivion to Neverwinter Nights 2, it's character development system was just a feeble shadow.

I'm confused about all these people championing more action & shiny traded for freedom of choice & options. But hey, some people enjoy being sheep :thumbsup:

D: Both A and B.

They're searching for perfection, but in doing so they're dumbing things down something fierce.

Exactly. As I asked before, where's the option for both?

We still have D&D.
Many games still base their systems on D&D.


I'm confused about all these people seeing less freedom and choice and more "FPS and action game" everywhere.
But hey, some people enjoy being a blind pessimist.

There's that too... But I'll stick with known quantities, and what's known is The Elder Scrolls games were not known for their system complexity. New Vegas has more complexity than any Elder Scrolls game released so far.

Personally, I see the Perk System potentially opening up more complexity and meaningful developmental choices than the Attribute system in previous games. Let's be honest, aside From maybe luck, 99.99% of Elder Scrolls players wind up with 100 in every attribute score anyway. How is that 'Deep"?

How are Die-roll mechanics more complex than timing and coordination based combat? The Timing based combat is actually much harder to pull off from a technical level. I prefer the luck element to always be a bonus, rather than a penalty (Critical hits Vs. Regular hits as opposed to Hit or Miss).

No game under the Bethesda flag had a deep equipment system without the aid of enchanting. Which itself is one of two fields of complexity (Along with spellcraft) that can justifiably be defended. Of course, both, unshackled completely break the game.

So where is this depth and complexity at? Because we Know Enchanting is in the game, and an attempt to bring spellcraft in is being made.



Are you just going to insult people with a different opinion, or actually back up your stance with evidence?

Realism is a far cry from pessimism. Given the current information released, it's fair to say the game is being directed at a much wider audience and less at the fans of previous games in the series.

It's okay, no need to get so offended, I wasn't specifically meaning you.
Sheep should flock together for defense though, it's instinct.

Skyrim has more options than Oblivion from everything we've learned.


Or were you just talking about gaming in general?

Some of both.

And still no evidence to support such an absurd claim[regarding Skyrim].

Let's turn the question on it's head for a moment: How about if instead of streamlining Mysticism into other skills Bethesda said let's make Mysticism more viable by adding a bunch of interesting new spells to that school? How about they decide to reintroduce Spears and Throwing Weapons because people liked using them? How about they introduce some new Skills like, say, a Loremaster skill which allows players to uncover hidden secrets within Skyrim?

Would those who currently think Skyrim is heading for perfection think those negative things because they fly in the face of streamlining?

Yes they're designing the game for more people other than the fans, but that's not a bad thing. Not all of these "other people" are not unwashed peasants who can't read and only played Halo in their lives.

But I really want to know how Skyrim is going to be less of an RPG with no choices?

Skills. We still have them. You use the skill, it raises, just like before. They determine in which ways your character is good at.
Perks. You CHOOSE them every level. You won't be able to get them all in a single playtrough. Choosing them will have as much, if not more effect on your character as you would choose an attribute to raise.
Different combat styles. You have to CHOOSE how do you fight. All of them have their ups and down, so they're going to be played differently. Two-hander will be slow but powerfull, Dual wield will be fast but no magic, Weapon-spell let you use a one handed and a spell. Two spells will let you use two different spells you can combine or one spell with bigger power.
Quests. If they've learned anything from Fallout, they will add multiple ways to finish quests (I know it's speculation, but it's really not any different from what you're doing). Radiant story will make some quests more dynamic.

So where's this "less choice"?

The game isn't dumbed down.

Is it even remotely possible for you to make a post without trying to insult someone? :shakehead:

It's a bit hard to describe isn't it? Depth for me was the "alien atmosphere" of MW. Also it had a gritty and at times hostile culture and truly made me feel that I was an outsider working to integrate into a system. They didn't go that route with OB. With time constraints, new systems, and from the way it sounds not really enough resources put to the game in many aspects it failed. Don't get it twisted that I hate OB. There were MANY fine aspects to it but the feeling of a unique world, or unique dungeons was largely not a part of it. Everything was generalized.

For me the depth comes in the form of a random letter scrawled hastily lying next to a corpse, or that dumb-ass elf falling from the sky( actually one of the first things for me to see). Other things like named soul-gems, goblin totems, hell even goblin jim. For skyrim I would rather have a perk that lets me cheap shot a giant in the jolly bag as opposed to a +5% unarmed modifier. Its more creative by far F3 had the brain in the jar amongst others. These are what sell me to the game. Just saying "Add more details! Add more depth" is a generalization that just doesn't cut it. Maybe creativity and heart?

Why do I need a skill to tell me I can now uncover secrets hidden in Skyrim? Why can't I choose that of my own accord without the need of an arbitrary "Rating"? Where would "Loremaster" fit in as Combat/Stealth/Magic? Certainly not Stealth, there's no subterfuge in that. There's no calling on Arcane powers to read the book, and I don't have to cut off a minotaurs head.

Mysticism was just a label, nothing else. You can even lore it out, as Mysticism was the school where unfitting spells were gathered, but as the arcane practice developed, they came across a more robust classification system for the magic. I'm guessing a lot of Mysticism went into Alteration.

Spears, Crossbows, ect there's really no excuse, aside from Lazy/Focus problems.

You didn't really choose which attributes to increase in fact, that was determined by which skills you used since your last level up. The only choice was whether to go with a +1 in one attribute based on skills you may not have worked on all that much, or a +5 in an area that you did. That's not really much of a choice.

and boy was it an annoying system. lol minor skill grinding , scary stuff.

but hey, getting rid of horrible system with 280 perks is "dumbing down"

Removal of attributes
Removal of birthsigns
Removal of levitation ( & likely other spells as well)
Reduction in variety of weapons & armor
Reduction in number of skills by combining/eliminating them

Lumping things together as if they're the same

Addition of, in their own terms, FPS like sprint
Addition of dual wielding (a highly uncommon skill at best, Drizzt is the exception, not the rule)
Addition of non interactive methods of material gathering with animations
Addition of Perks to cover the same things attributes & skills already did, with some special moves thrown in

Not including graphics updates & NPC behavior improvements, what has been removed far outweighs what has been added in RPG enhancing elements.

alot of these are lies(Skyrim has more armor/weps), very biased (treating Perks or DW as nothing), or leaving out most of the additions.(carriages, radiant ai/story/quest, diverse zones, diverse dungeons, better magic combat, body customization, more distinguished races, town economy + npc children, etc.)

Skyrim has more RP and unique character customization (not at the start though) than Oblivion.

Hmm, well I never realised that Mysticism was nothing but a label while i was playing Morrowind and Oblivion. Makes me wonder how no one at Bethesda noticed this before

Speaking of insults...

How does this reduce depth when perks are added to [over]compensate?

+1

How did Levitation add depth?

How do you know there is a reduction?

Skill creates the foundation, Perk creates the specialization. You don't have a leg to stand on here. -1

Addition? How is that reducing depth.

You can't be serious... Dual wielding too unrealistic for your Fantasy RPG, when not 10 lines ago you wanted Levitation. -5 Get over yourself.

So instead of opening an item box, we see the process. I fail to see how this is dumbing things down. -1

Perks cover the same things attributes did, in different ways. A perk increases sword damage by increased it's overall DPS as a result of a boost in Critical hit rate. It actually changes the feel of the weapon, rather than just the "Score of it".


No, it doesn't. You need to actually explain your opinion on how removing attributes removes depth. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think it does, but it's obvious the impact the doomsayers are preaching is blown out of proportion by a factor of ten-thousand.

Hurr durr da game iz dumbed down.