EDIT: Please note that I don't think Skyrim is a bad game, and as a matter of fact I find it to be one of my favorite TES games so far. This is simply a thread of me thinking out loud on how they designed some aspects of the gameplay poorly compaired to other aspects of the game.



So I've been thinking about some of the worst points of Skyrim and how they rank up with the worst of the older TES games to conclude that Skyrim is probably not any better than the older ones with the sum of its parts (or just slightly), but will easily be the best with mods.

Heres the big issues that make Skyrim a big flop for me from a game design perspective:

1. Questlines for factions. Terrible, and structured like a mini-COD style experience. First of all I wish they'd get rid of this whole "faction questline" thing, because nto only is it a [censored] tonne of work to do right, it means the further you try and push that mantra, the farther it gets to being a faction. Morrowind did it best, if abit slowpaced and badly explained and explored. You felt like you were in a faction in MOrrowind. IN Oblivion, it wasn't as good faction wise but at least each questline had some level of meat to it that made it feel deserved to get to the top. And each faction still had some level of perks to being apart of it, not mention their own guildhall in each city that served as a home away from home if you will.

Skryim takes the same inferior faction formula as Oblivion, and instead of refining it and making it better, it severly cuts it down. Faction questlines can be totally beaten in hours, which makes you feel like you didn't deserve to be head of faction, you can still be a master of all factions, even if you have ZERO skill in what the faction is catered to (i.e. I can be arch mage of the college without using magic hardly at all), etc.

Granted the questlines have arguably much more interesting stories and premises than what Oblivion offered. However from a pacing and gameplay standpoint, they are the worst in the series by far. Especially since there is only one "guildhall" in the entire province for each faction. They don't feel like factions in other words, and feel like slightly enlongated side quests. Not to mention you have zero perks for being apart of a faction compaired to not being apart of one, sans one or two here and there. If you were in the mages guild in Morrowind you had easy access to their teleportation between towns, you could take advantage of discounts in enchanting (since most good enchanters were apart of the guild this was great), a lot of top teir spells were only avalable from members of mages guild, and they only would let you use their services if you too were in the guild and of-rank, etc.

Here, there aren't really ranks at all and theres no structure, and you don't need to use the skills the faction is designed around to succeed in it. It's total unfulfilling rubbish, and doubly so when you find out your the harbinger of the fighter guild within hours of joining.

2. Radient Story Quests are way too unorganized and overboard. In other words, Bethesda thought it would be a good idea to give you every quest under the sun as often as possible and as soon as possible. I literally avoid entering settlements and towns I've not been to yet because of the fact that I know I'll be bombarded by quests as soon as I enter.

They really should have let players end quests from their journal if they never wanted to use them (i.e. why do I have a quest to join theives guild if I do NOT want to be a theif, that I can't get rid of simply by entering the town of Riften?).

And it kind of makes the world feel less belivable knowing that each area of each space will have some kind of major problem that involves you, as soon as you discover it. I don't have a problem with cool "scripted" events happening to new and cool places. But for the love of god, if I get drunk and find myself in a shrine to a town I've never been in before, don't script a busy market-scene murder quest to (unrealistically) happen in the middle of the night right as soon as I leave said shrine when I alreayd have 20 quests and am just looking to get out of the city.

And what gets me? Half of the NPC in the world that aren't tied to legitmate quests all have a little task you can choose to do, as if Bethesda was afraid of players running out of things to do. Nevermind my plate already being full.

The solution to this is simple. Just like how you pace and balance the flow of an actually written story to be interesting over time, they really needed to pace and balance the flow of quests from their fancy new "Radient Story" quests, and make the rewards something that won't just make me go "Really? I travel 400 miles to kill some beast for 100 gold when I am in full daedric?"

I.E. Don't make it so the game decides to pile on more quests when I alreayd have 3-5 going on. Don't pile my misc. to-do list with MORE [censored] to do when I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with what I already have. Don't have every sinlge location you can visit on the map have stuff happen as soon as I get there that forces ANOTHER quest on me. Instead, make it so such "special" events are semi-random occurances that only happen if you are a certain level, have gotten to a certain point in the game, or only have a few quests on the book. The whole situation is just like the stupid "Dark Brotherhood Attack" in Tribunal (where as soon as you load that expansion to MOrrowind, you will have an assassin attack you every night with decent gear on, even if you just started a new character). Except this time its happening with every quest in the game instead of with an assassin guy spawning to kill you every time you sleep.

And again, have certain style quests only become avalable for players with certain levels/strengths. Don't give me [censored] "Kill an animal in a guy's home" quests that are hilariously 4th wall breaking and have terrible rewards when I am the leader of YOUR GUILD and level 30. It's like Level Scaling from Oblivion all over again, except instead of the player never having a feeling that his character is progressing level and stat wise, now its the player never having the feeling that he is progressing anywhere quest wise.

Bethesda are too afraid of making content that some players will never see in one play through, even though thats terrible design and going away from that mantra of game design is what makes games like Deus Ex so damn good.


OKAY TIME TO MAKE THE NEXT TWO SHORT:

3. Bad balancing with the perks. Many are designed to circumvent what a skill is supposed to do (i.e. why the [censored] is there a perk for Heavy Armor to be weightless, and who thought that was balanced?), some are just uninspiring, yet OP (see: entire smithing tree), and some enitre skills are useless to invest time or perks into (Speech and Lockpicking for example). They cut out what makes the skills unique with how they balanced perks and what the skills do, while not really improving on the formula Oblivion had at all. This makes Skyrim one of the most shallow RPG experiences in an elderscrolls game to date, when it could have easily been the most interesting and fun if they had just designed their perks/skills to be much better, deeper and more meaningful.

4. Dragons aren't scary, and they can often spawn too much. AKA they are only scary during your first five levels, when after that they get piss easy and spawn way too much later on. This is a shame because they are such awesome enemy types, but bethesda's complete lack of design in such areas like pacing, flow and balance make them into almost annoying distractions like Cliff Racers.



Holy [censored] I got carried away there.

The good news is that Bethesda's world and dungion design are among the best here, and the combat FEELS great, even if it might be totally unbalanced in some areas, such as Destruction being worthless at high levels and smithing+enchanting being boring grinds that give you OP gear. The lore is great, the atmospehre is great, and everything that is almost impossible to fix with mods is pretty stellar. Its just a lot of the game design stuff and balancing and flow that suffer greatly.

I agreed with most parts. Especially the factions. Really the most boring guild-quests in TES series.

I agree with the faction issues.

I completely disagree with the "too much to do" notion. Give me a billion different things to do and let me choose which ones I want to pursue. Really, if you don't want to do a quest, well,mthat, don't do it. I'm never going to complain about too much content. That's just silly. The journal could be better organized for that, but, heck, even that's not necessary. Just ignore what you want to ignore, and complete what you want to complete.

1 Spell Creation

2 Acrobatics

3 Mounted combat

4 H2H

Some good points...especially with the factions. I enjoyed doing the Thieves' Guild quest chain, but I felt hollow and empty upon completion of it. Everyone in the guild was still treating me like a newb even after I had saved all their butts.

This is true. And I think this compromises a lot of good design ideas.

Great points, Hope someone doing something about it in Beth reads and consideres it. and best of hopes you don't get flamed.

I agree with most of your points.

I wanted to add that Radiant quests feel like a robot has made them (well that's actually true) and do not add anything to the game for the reasons you mentioned (travelling across Skyrim for 100g? No thanks).

Also, questlines are too short, and they should have put some prerequisites to advance in the ranks of a guild. Something like doing a certain number of those "extra jobs" for the thieves guild, or for the College, etc.
Right now you can become guildmaster after a couple of quests, and it takes away from the sense of achievement.

Agreeing with a lot of the issues present in the OP, though not necessarily the methoids of improving them.

By far my biggest gripe with Skyrim is the guild structure - it took something I disliked about Oblivion (becoming the leader of a world-wide organization by simply doing a few quests) and ramped it up to 11. In Oblivion, at least the Mage's Guild questline was about as long as the main quest. You took on powerful foes and advanced through the ranks for your service (even if it was too fast). You only become Archmage after already being a Master-Wizard, which felt right. In Skyrim, you become Archmage straight from being an apprentice recruit. No one ever bestows great responsibility on you - you're simply an errand boy for the College, and they assume that just because you're a badass that you'd make a great leader. No, sir, I'm a duel-wielding Orc with an IQ in the single digits. I know i'm strong, but you do not want me leading your organization.

Then they make you the leader, and they never hear from you again.

Good post, I have to agree with most everything and to add on to the pacing of gaining ranks in the game. One of the most brilliant side effects of having skill limitations to gain ranks in Morrowind was that it rarely felt out of place in what order you did quests since you'd perhaps do a quarter of the mages guild and find yourself unable to progress further, at this point being quite fresh and no master of the world yet you seek out the fighters guild and you're made to kill rats. This feels right as you are still quite inexperienced and rats are a fair target for you.

If it had the design of Skyrim you'd quickly become arch-mage in a matter of hours and then you'd go to the fighters guild and be talked down to and made to kill rats as the arch-mage...

Even if you are still just level 5 when you finish the College of Winterhold in Skyrim you are still the arch-mage yet in no way are you treated as such.

My main focus when it comes to issues with Skyrim has long been that http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1302338-a-small-observation-on-the-amount-of-spells-in-the-game/ and that http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1303444-excusion-of-spell-making-a-bad-developing-decision-and-why/ I don't want to flood this topic with that so I will just leave links to two different threads that deal with the topics.

I see content that you WONT see in one playthrough in the same way i see that sort of content in books: It makes the game/book deeper. Take, for example, Battlefield Earth, by Hubbard. I have read that book 10 times(all 1000+ pages of it), and each time I find something new. Each time there is less to find, of course, but that just makes the new thing I find that much cooler, because it brings me right back to the beginning once again.

Take, as counterpoint, Twilight. I read it once, was fairly entertained, and tried to read it again a few months later. Stopped 100 pages in, there was nothing new there. At all.

Dragons are the large disappointment to me. They animate beautifully, and look and sound great...but mechanics wise are underwhelming.

Even the weakest dragon, should have required titanic effort to beat. The mere fact our character can beat dragons at all, without a small army should have been considered a miracle. The way dragons are presented now, they are hardly a threat since just about anyone can take them out, even the normal wildlife.

Why doesn't a dragon's bite cause bleeding damage? Why doesn't a dragon flying or crashing send us off balance with the weight and wind pressure? Why doesn't the tail slam or wing strike send us flying off our feet? Why doesn't their damage penetrate a percentage of our defenses making resistances and powerful armor essential to even survive?

Oh don't get me wrong I totally agree with you

But the way they "paced" how quests and special events happen is just bad - way too much going on at the same time. I would have much prefered there to be a constant dripping of stuff as I play, with quests getting progressively more interesting as I get closer to reaching "end game content" rather than everything happening at once, which is what goes on now.

Whats stupid to me, is that this was the perfect use for radiant quests and they did not really use it. They could have used them to further pad out the major guild questlines, but for some reason chose not to.

I agree.

As for the rest of your points - I couldn't give a **** if it is more believable if it isn't fun. Making me do tons of random robberies in each city before allowing me to move up in rank may be more believable, but it is unfun.

LESS filler, not more. Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood have WAY too much filler (which is sad, because story-wise Dark Brotherhood was my favorite line). The College is probably the best experience I've had. It just needed to end with a bigger climix.

Have you done the Thieves Guild yet? The whole rebuilding the guild aspect is all Radiant AI and feels like nothing more than a great big grind fest because they're all generic quests and feel very repetitive.

I do mostly agree with the OP. Particularly with the faction quests, when I finished them, I did not feel like I had earned the positions I was given. Especially with the College of Winterhold and the Companions.

Not only for Elder Scrolls, but it's shallow for computer RPGs in general. Unlike Oblivion, Skyrim was streamlined and homogenized for console players who'd rather not bother with such details. PC users were just lucky to get a port. More than aspects that were cut from Oblivion (spell crafting, repairing, athletics, etc.) there are aspects/innovations that were introduced in New Vegas (not Elder Scrolls but uses the same game engine) like hunger and the companion wheel that are noticeably absent in Skyrim.

your dissapointed that Skyrim's skills werent balanced, have you been here for the past 2 games?

I agree with the part about dragons. too many.

These skills I want back alongside spell creation. We also need more spell types what we have is an utter lack if diversity.

OP I agree with pretty much everything you have said.

In reguards to the factions I wish there was requirements to advance in the guild. I also wish the quest lines was longer than they are.

Hmm, after reading what you wrote, the only thing I agree with is that I wish the dragons didn't spawn as often. I'm a person who enjoys having 20-50 quests in my log because I can do multiple things at once, or I can do things here and there whenever I want. I wasn't really a fan of the Companions, but I did all the stuff anyways. The Thieves Guild was my favorite line, and also has some of my favorite characters. After the completion of that guild line, the only person who isn't really that kind to me is Vex, but that is her personality, she won't ever be all that grateful to you. But everyone else? Delvin calls you "boss" and quite nice. So is everyone in the Cistern. I also don't find anything wrong in the perk trees. Speech is one of my favorite ones (invested perks all the way up the left side of the tree, more money for me). Personally, I'm not sure I would change anything about the game mechanics at all, but possibly certain quest lines I may prefer that some people didn't die. The crafting skills are some of my favorite parts of the game and I enjoy things like picking master locks at level 12. But, of course, everyone is free to their own opinions. Thank you for taking the time to voice your opinion of the game. I just hope Bethesda doesn't change the way anything currently works.

I totally agree with the OP.



Same here. Because I nearly finished all of the quest lines and experienced most of the radiant quest I wander arround murdering all NPCs hopefully let some of the quests disappear. Yeah my towns looks pretty empty now

After (if I can say that) "finishing" Skyrim it felt like a great toolbox when the CK comes out. I totally liked the combat system and the AI behaviour, the living world, the dungeons (beside the boring quests which led me into them), the grafics engine in general (beside the low res pc textures, I already downloaded >3GB replacers....). You already mentioned those things in your last sentences.

Must say dragons ARE the new cliff racers. And are the easiest thing to kill in the game, hell average spiders are more dangerous. (On any difficulty level) Only thing dragons offer is additional annoyance. The main attraction for this game, has in fact been the least interesting. Can't wait for modders to actually make dragons not completely svck. Honestly Beth needs to hire say the top 20 modders for each version of ES, and pay them to fix their screwed up games.

I'm of the opinion that more "features" don't mean a better game.

I don't mind that Skyrim cut out spell making, or that there are less skills. Cutting things is not inherently bad, as long as the systems we DO have are deep, interesting and intutive to use in their own right. In otherwords, well thought out and fully developed.

Skyrim doesn't really do that though for a lot of aspects in the gameplay. It feels like there wasn't much development spent on a nice chunk of things from a game design perspective, as if they spent all their time just making the technology behind it (I.E. new rendering engine, new radient story system, etc).

whats wrong with that? i didnt mind it to be honest, was a nice diversion