Technically it is a fallacious anology. Skyrim is not a math problem. A similarly fallacious anology would be "Which is more fun, shooting free throws or playing a full game of half court basketball?" since one is far simpler than the other and both reach the goal of putting a basketball through a hoop

I voted yes but not for a reason listed.

While health regen bugs me a little I'm so used to it by now its not a big deal.

Quest markers don't bug me either.

The skill system I'm okay with, bugged me at first but I got over it.
Same with class system.
Still pissed about birth signs though, that was part of the world and just added to it.

What really pisses me off is the same thing that pissed me off about Oblivion. Less weapons. Less armor. Those are the two big ones that depending on the variety were given I can honestly say I may not buy the game if there isn't enough.

:tops:

Really pleased with that poll result, and honestly wasn't expecting it - something to be said for the "vocal minority" argument.
The "dumbing down" thing just gets used every time anything changes which doesn't match an individual's personal taste it seems.

That's part of the reason I included the poll

My thinking is, I'm not making this game. So, like every other game I've ever played (and not created) in my lifetime (which is a freakin' lot!), I'll be purchasing this game, because it sounds interesting to me. Then, I'll play it and after playing for a few hours, I will either come to the conclusion that it's the best game of all time, or that it's just a great game, or it's an average game, or it's a mediocre game, or it's a sub-par game, or it's a Dragon Age 2 (which is the biggest insult I can currently give to a game).

Here's some realism about Skyrim. Realistically, not a single one of us can intelligently comment on whether Skyrim is being "dumbed-down" or not because not a single one of us (save for a select few extremely lucky media experts) have played it yet. Since we haven't played it, we have no idea how these changes will affect the game and the gameplay. That means that all of our comments (positive or negative) about this (and most topics on these forums) are purely speculation and biased opinion. Therefore, realistically, every single one of our arguments agreeing or disagreeing with the game being dumbed-down are all invalid and inadmissible, until such time as we place the Skyrim game disc into our DVD/Blu Ray drives, load it up, create our character and play the game.

...Just sayin'...

What the Hell is this thread!!! Skyrim is ever more complex, damnit!

True, but then all arguments about how the game is going to be awesome are invalid and inadmissible as well. This thread is about discussing general confirmed game mechanics, not saying that factually the game is or is not good/bad

goo goo ga gaa??

That's the most complex sentence in the world right???

Troubling turnabout or horrible hyperbole?

It is that second one. ^^^

Beth removed things from the TES games because they just didn't work or were not that useful. Have you seen the skills available in Daggerfall? They took out several skills that were basically useless when they made MW ... and they added two new races (Orcs and Imperials)! Seriously every game they made since Daggerfall has had things removed, but what they removed made the game overall better, not worse, and things have also been added.

Skyrim has some big changes sure. Things being both removed and added. I'm actually a little nervous myself about the missing attributes, but I also recall how broken the attribute leveling was in OB, so MAYBE they have found a better way.

And yes, it may make the game easier to play. When did that become a bad thing? I like complex games myself, but I'm not crazy about games being complex when they could be just better.

So yeah I think it's being dumbed down, and I am most concerned about losing attributes, but I don't believe that has to be a bad thing.

Yes, many parts of Skyrim are more complex and I can't be anything but supportive for that. What the thead is about is discussing mechanics that remove player action in favor of making the game easier. I don't MIND them having options for making the game easy, what I want is for those options to be just that, options. If you want health to regenerate, turn it on. If you can't find a quest item or door you should be able to go into the journal and turn on the quest marker for that quest instead of the game assuming you need your hand held for EVERY quest. As somebody said though, that would add hundreds of lines of dialogue for the NPCs to give precise directions so it might be a time/money constraint

Definitely a "horrible hyperbole". Some people are just plain idiotic to call Skyrim dumbed down from Morrowind or Oblivion when all they did was add cooler mechanics for the type of game it's going for. But I understand the BGS needs some whiners to avoid them making games too easy to figure out like CoD so I shall leave it at that.

I agree in general. I would say that Morrowind -> Oblivion wasn't really an improvement outright but rather a give and take. What was gained in playability and improved combat was lost in atmosphere and enemy level scaling. The zero sum gain was likely due to the platform change

level scaling has been addressed, though we'll have to see how well that actually works
as for atmosphere, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? but if skyrim gets both of those right, and can properly manage the new stuff it's adding in, I think it could trump both of its predecessors. but as I said, we've got a few months left until we find out

I'm not trying to sound harsh, but that quote you stated in the OP sounds very ignorant. They don't want to buy the game because they said there will be slight health regeneration and then they bring up old crap about how the game is dumbed down? They said that there's a very slow health regeneration, it will not regenerate in combat, it isn't like in some FPS game where you can take hundreds of bullets in your body and hide behind a wall until your health regenerates to normal.

Dumbed down is a massive understatement, most of the stuff that you claim is "dumbed down" was because they wanted to add better content by changing the way something works, or editing it so it can benefit one or more possibilities.

No it doesn't feel dumbed down, not compared to oblivion I fell this will be more onpar with morrowind. The compass thing should be a on/off option and they should make the quest givers give better directions to the quests. but it aint no dumbed down game, some of the best game developers are working on it

As I said in another post, I only added the quote in the OP as a minority voice of some fans. Many people had responded to the quote to agree with it in another thread so I wished to make a thread about it to measure the temperament of this community.

Yes, many of the poll options were things that were changed. Some might say for better and some for worse. Given the context those options were added for people to choose if they felt they were changed for worse

Agreed, I was just speaking to changes between Morrowind and Oblivion

Why do people always say "dumbing down" when in reality it should be called EVOLUTION.

Adapting to a less intelligent audience is also evolution, yes.

i dont think skyrim is dumbed down from oblivion. the fact that combat was changed so that you cant just run in and wail on someone and expect to win all the time ala assassins creed is good news. we have to use smithies to repair our gear instead of hammers out in the field is also good news. cant hold a shield and a sword and be able to cast magic, now you have to give one or the other up is very good news.

are there still quest arrows. i thought the claravoyance spell replaced that? the nearby locations marker are unfortunately still there but that was already in oblivion.

carriages are in so thats certainly and improvement over cheat travel.

i will miss attributes if for nothing more the conversation checks ala Fallout NV.

glad that spellmaking is gone. ill take more interactive spells that have more of an effect on the world than just a change of shaders. dark messiah had fewer spells but was far more fun than oblivions system. if you didnt play that game then think midas magic. if you are on console and couldnt play either then it just svcks to be you.

auto aim im definitely disabling. im on a PC with a mouse/keyboard set up. i understand that someone using a clunky controller is probably going to need it though so i wouldnt call that dumbing down. its the same reason they make AI slower on console games because consolers need the extra time.

getting rid of the "run like the wind" and "leap over tall buildings" mechanics in oblivion was one of the best calls. im hoping they are closer to fallout NV running and jumping. its a lot more realistic.

overall im excited about the game with only a few issues and there will be mods to fix those.........so yeah.

I believe the phrase "dumbing down" is meant to signify something was unnecessarily simplified so that people wouldn't need to put as much though or effort into something. Suppose you took a copy of the hobbit and made a children's book out of it with mostly just pictures and single sentences on each page, this is an extreme anology of what "dumbing down" means to many people. I think on the whole Skyrim is a HUGE evolution over prior games but there are some new mechanics, such as health regen, that oversimplify the game negatively and some holdover mechanics, quest markers instead of detailed quest information, that continue to negatively effect the game relative to older installments

No...that would be called devolution. I like your perk comment! Perks were my favorite thing about FO3. I literally DLed as many perk addons as I could.

Because playing Oblivion required loads of intelligence. Even Morrowind wasn't THAT intelligent. Hell, a lot of intelligent people love CoD but hey at least they're smart enough to not jump on the internet and get flamed for it from people who think that they're smart just because they played Dungeon Master 30 years ago.