» Thu Nov 10, 2016 6:35 pm So first thing's first. This is going to be a serious post about a number of flaws in Skyrim. I played the game, I brought the game and didn't even pirate it (though I did wait for it to come down in price due to a constant tight pocket) and I had a blast in it. I enjoyed it. That said even back then I had some gripes when it was new, but overall it's a neat game. When it comes to the big things. This will be a thread about what's in the vanilla game and discussion about what's lacking in the vanilla game. Mods don't factor in. We shouldn't be doing the devs jobs. Major mods like Frostfall not withstanding (since it's so different it could be considered too far in another direction). Or those various item mods since items are a thing in the game in a decent enough amount. So on and so forth.
Getting back on topic, I noticed the little things were lacking. And the more games that came out touching on the little things, the more I realized just how lacking Elder Scrolls is when it comes to the little things. And it's supposed to be immersive. Which is separate from realistic (If a game has it set so you need to breath in space for whatever reason, it's immersive). Hence this thread. I will touch on a number of topics, including food/items, NPCs, Polygamy, beast folk, marriage and religion (In game). I'm going to go in depth in these topics. I'm going to have opinions on these topics. I expect you to have opinions on these topics. I also expect us all not to go "it's wrong because I said so" because I sure as hell would never do that. Wrong for you, sure, but I don't want people deciding what's wrong for each other in this thread. If you don't want to be a part of that discussion or are just going to be a child and troll and force your opinion as the "truth" to others then there's the X in the corner. I will call for mods if you misbehave in this thread. It might be a game but games can make people ponder "Huh, what if I was in this world. And how are the devs giving the players the option to do things". This thread is intended be a civil debate about various topics in the game. It's also a review of sorts I suppose. First post will be lengthy. Further ones from me may or may not be, depending on how much others cover.
So with that out the way off we go. I'll cover the topics one at a time.
Food/items: This is simple. They don't auto restock. NPCs restock with random items on them, but items themselves (bowls, food, forks that are lying around, etc) don't. Morrowind had this problem. Ok, that's a really old game and probably not as easy to resolve back then. Oblivion had this problem. Ok, maybe they still need some more time to figure out how. SKYRIM has this problem. Nope. Line drawn. That's pushing it. There's already existing games that auto resupply areas in various ways (having the items magically appear, having NPCs spawn to set items down, etc), so WHY is this not a thing? Maybe the odd plate of food will accidentally get knocked over, but with a little luck it will be cleared and then replaced more neatly next time by that random NPC cleaner. It would have just made Skyrim feel more alive if it was there. All it would really require is a script stating "Replace items in civilized, none home areas" or something. Basically resetting items in public places and homes of people that are still alive. Coding wise it doesn't seem too difficult too implement if done in a simple enough fashion like that. It all looks so lifeless when you look at bare tables and... store shelves. Want to loot it, will loot it because it's there, never able to loot there again. Surely SOME sort of system could have been established in the DECADES that have passed by. Seriously, it's been decades.
Beast Folk: I wanted to cover this one before NPCs and polygamy since it ties in somewhat. Long story short, the devs clearly decided not to have too many beast folk in Skyrim. But since the game has only so many NPCs to begin with that just makes it much worse when there's so few. You also can't marry any female khajiits. Unsure on male. There's only one female argonian I'm aware of (Skeeva) and she's tame as a gold fish. Remember the argoians and kajiit from Morrowind? Remember how they used to walk and how different they appeared and even talked? Well here's my question. Why does the oldest Elder Scrolls game pull that off and the newer ones fail to do so? That makes zero sense. Do the devs disprove of beast folk in general (about them actually being "beast like". They're now "tame" in the games). This is clearly a dev design decision about moving the lore into more "civilized" areas, and I can at least get that, but there's zero reason to make the beast folk themselves more tame. At least not ALL of them. Kajiit can just about pull off the "beasty" vibe, but I'm just not feeling it with the argoians at all. Especially after coming across Dar-ma fro Oblivion and Skeeva in Skyrim. There's no "beast" vibe, if that makes any sense. Total immersion killer. Even if they are "civilized" they're still what they are. There should be some hiss or growl in every other sentence or something. The language can change, but not the tongues themselves (which are probably fork/snake like with argonians). And I highly doubt they're all using magic language potions (Which would be a terrible reason to not have it in game if you ask me). Long story short, they've been made too tame. Also I'll note that I personally preferred the Morrowind beast Folk in terms of movement/speech (little as the speech was). Your opinions might differ. But they felt and appeared and were heard much more differently then what we have now. As they should. Because they're not human. It added to immersion and made me think "Hey, this is neat. Different people. Much more different culture. Experiencing it." And it can't be put down to lore decisions alone, because as I stated earlier the devs made the decision to go into that lore direction first. before the game was even made they decided not to have beast folk around as much. When they could have made the lore decision to have them around as much, or something between the two. I'm not asking for different beast like cities here, but I would have hoped for at least a lot of "foreigners" milling around. We already have Forsworn. Not to mention those elves. but they're human like. So it just goes to show really. Mind you if they had replaced the thalmor with argonians/kajiit people might complain about beast folk being the bad guys unless there's also friendly ones in game (which are lacking). But they could easily change the story, make it more grey instead of black and white (because it's not as easy as good/evil). Etc.
Bonus topic: Main story: Thalmor come across as bad guys. Too simple. See last sentence in last topic. There aggressive/snobby attitudes says it all (could have made SOME of them a little less hostile. The sweet talking manipulators not withstanding. I swear they used the same exact elf mage for every prisoner escort). Worse still, we're not even sure exactly what the stance is between them and the Imperials except that there was some war because of religion and a lot of hostility. And we should be finding that stuff out in quests, not just books.
NPCs: To be more specific about the lack of them. We're supposed to be in a place where there's cities. CITIES! And oh look, a few people milling about and only some 20 or so people at most. And it's pretty obvious when you use the same NPC to do the same thing (see last topic). Seriously, you have a random face generator. It's in the game you made. Not hiring another voice actor is one thing, but not even changing the face, which is easily done and for free? Moving on from that rant. Now as for the numbers I say "immersion/gameplay over graphics". If this was done because it would slow down peoples comps then I could live with a bit of a decrease graphics wise (which mods can change as time/technology passes). If it was a coding issue then... figure that out already because you've had since Oblivion to figure out how? Not only that, mods are doing it in the vanilla games already, both new and old. So why aren't the devs able to add more NPCs? Even if it uses similar/the same voices or even no voices at all for many of them I'd be able to live with that if it made the game feel more immersive and alive by just plopping down more people. Just give them random lines of dialog/personality (random TYPES of dialog at that. Enough arrows to the knee...) and you're good to go. And those guards all look the same btw. Aren't they supposed to be different factions? With, you know, different armor and helms and everything? I'm honestly disappointed about last part more then anything else in this thread. I don't think they even changed the color of the uniforms. Just the symbol on the shields. Either way, every one having the EXACT same helm? All over? Moving on before I rant again. And of course not many NPCs in general, which only serves to add to the lack of beast folk around (and the amount to marry I guess). We could also do with random NPCs moving in once people get killed. It would be immersive because that's what actually happens when people die. Others move in. There's a random character generator. There's ways to do it with different dialogue. Random personality scripts add to variety without having to give every NPC a ton of detail, which can be obtained as you play with them provided the game is set to do so.
Marriage: So to begin with marriage was rushed into the game. But that only makes things worse since it's an unfinished product in the game. I'd like the devs to care enough about a game to put in everything before releasing it. It makes games age better, and overly more enjoyable in the long run, which helps keep people interested in the company. Plus if you start something at least have the common decency to finish it. Now as for marriage itself it's semi random but limiting. At the same time. Due to the limited amount of beast-folk (at least from the female side). Though I will add that at least same six marriage is there, so I can say that at least that was covered. I am personally straight but when a game doesn't play favorites and takes others into consideration then it's pulling all the stops. Which does a U turn when it comes to poly and even divorce. Here's how to leave someone because you fell out with the one you're with. Kill them and then find someone else. Nope, you can't avoid killing them. You MUST kill them to get remarried. And that's if the amulet doesn't bug you into staying married with a dead spouse if you happened to wear it. Am I the only one seeing the problem here? If it's THAT broken then it might be worth not putting it in game at all or waiting for a patch to fix it (which in all this time hasn't been done). It's one thing to go "No female kajiit for you" but this is literary putting in the mindset of "Murder to be with someone I love". Talk about mixed messages. Also there were "divorce quests" planned, but that got scraqed. You don't even need quests though. Just add the lines of dialogue. "Do you really want to divorce me?" "Yes." Problem solved. Find someone else. Not that difficult to implement. And sod lore reasons because in the end it's player choice. I'll explain what I mean by that in Polygamy.
Polygamy: So here's how it is. Ye olden times. Historically it was more common back then. In the times of kings and swords. Strike 1. It's also removing players the choice to be poly or not themselves. And it favors mono. Strike 2 right there. It's actually quite possible to have that in game since all you'd need to do is have the marriage scripts, do away with that amulet nonsense (it would help to prevent bugs but it could also work with multiple amulets, but that pushes religion on people which I'll get into later) and just not have the wives/husbands comment about each other (unless the devs put more work into the game to do so. Just means less work for them this way). And they've basically ADDED scripts to PREVENT marriage for NPCs. Think about it. Put on amulet. Marriage scripts unlocked for NPCs. Get married and those scripts are programmed to be gone. It could quite easily be there. Strike 3. But wait, it gets better. My main gripe here, despite being poly myself, is that it outright removes player choice on the matter. Want to be mono? Ok, just marry only one person. Done. Want to be poly? Go take a hike. And there's even a quest AND lore to support mono, which is just rubbing it in poly peoples faces. I actually have deeply psychological reasons for being poly, to the point where I even went insane for a bit because it hurts me as well as others when I play favorites (plus other reasons), so you can imagine how I'm taking this. But I'll not get too in depth on the matter. Suffice to say going "Here's a mono amulet, go F yourself" is just insulting to someone like me. If it works for you, then great. But it doesn't for me and it's not that difficult to have it in the game. I don't think the devs even considered the possibility of affecting people with so much past experiences and so many memories. I actually mean that, not just being sarcastic. I honestly don't think they took that into consideration. Which is probably the only reason I'm not blowing a gasket. I don't know if I should be glad they were ignorant or fuming about not being thought about. Moving on from all of that there's also the issue of Malacath and Mara. Orcs in the strongholds are for Malacath, and get this, they get to be poly. Further insult to injury. But what opens up the wound even further is the fact that the game seems to assume the player worships Mara. Which touches on the religion topic. And pretty much insults players that don't want to be too involved with religion. Or rather having to worship a deity to so much as take a leek.
Religion: So as I mentioned in the last topic religion is a thing in the game. But do you have to be religious? Why can't I, as the dragonborn, just go "Nope. Not picking a side here, I'm going to treat you all based by your actions that I observe alone and if I don't like any of you I'll do my own thing"? At first glance it seems you can do that. But... you can't really. Gods and deadra go out of their way to influence you. And that's perfectly find. They're not perfect perfect without flaws. There's even one in a mod that has flaws (credit goes to mod make and not the devs here though). But let's take a closer look at the situation. First of all we have the amulet of Mara itself. Ok, so what, does this mean Mara is against polygamy is it just a simple fact that the devs didn't bother to add poly in game? It's not stated either way. Yet I'm looking at those Orc strongholds with their multiple spouses, so I'm getting mixed messages there. Enough time to add that bit of lore but not to work on marriage itself? Then we get the thief quests, which ultimately lead up too "You can never be out of my service once you're in, and no nice armor until you serve me forever and ever and ever and ever and-" geez, Nocturnal. Possessive much? But you can't advance the questline until you except, so that's that. You MUST worship a daadra to continue quest plots. And there's no way of leaving it after. No comments about it, no "I renounce you" when you're head of the guild, no "I'll make things hell for you when you die" which could easily end the quest another way while keeping you head of the guild without having to add more content. You get the idea. It's not so much an issue with the other dedra because none of them go "You're mine forever, worship me and make me a sandwich", but the way Nocturnal does that just makes it a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. Which would be totally fine and dandy if I had a way out after. Even gods and daedra can't stop someone going "Hey, I'm going to not worship you anymore. Damn the consequences." It's not so much about the fact that it seems a little pushed on the player, but more about how it seems like it could have been something to be expanded on somewhat. not just Nocturnal, but the whole "god/daedra and how they interact with mortals" in general. It can actually be something done quite well in a game, provided there's not too much of "Worship this, worship it, do it because I said so" and the storyline greys it, making it a complicated matter. Which admittedly is a very story intensive thing to do. Though given the fact that we're already fighting them then it seems only logical to add that in as well. If I could mention a way of such a game that does that well it would be Dragon's Dogma. Basic storyline is "Endless cycle. Make really awesome end of the world stuff happen. It's all pointless because it's an endless cycle. You get picked to be god." The story elements of that make it more interesting then I made it sound. God as a title. giving new meaning to "We're all god". Yet also painting a bleak picture on the matter. Because one of them goes "It's pointless because it's a cycle with these story reasons". I disagree with the pointless part, but either way, story about deities added in. Not in a book but in gameplay itself. Without just going "Fight them. Support them. Do these quests and take sides." Anyway, I digress. Nocturnal is one of the ones I actually like more for some reason. The whole possessive attitude from her just makes me wonder "Hey, they need people supporting them to be strong and maybe even exist" but that just makes me think there could be more story in that area. We visited Valhalla but in the end that's just going to yet another place to do yet another quest. None of the others there even talk to you about "Hey, so this afterlife when you're not dead, huh" or "fight me before you face the dragon. It would be an honor". So much missed opportunity. Though perhaps it wasn't touched on too much because of the fear of making it all come across as "It's forced on you". But dude, we're in Valhalla. We have nocturnal down our throat already to advance the thieves quest line. Again, mixed messages. Do gods and daedra exist in game? Yep. We can even talk to some. But do you have to take sides? Well if you want that shiny armor and to become head of the guild... "Single daedra quest for shiny item here" I can deal with skipping. "Whole faction quest"? Nuh-uh. Already worked my butt off getting that far. Oblivion at least said "You were born under these stars" and had you side with Akatosh, but that doesn't mean you have to worship him. It never went "Kiss my butt or no cake for you". I might be a bit biased here being atheist, but I do argue that devs do need to consider things like this when making games. I look at it from the standpoint of "How would this go if it was put in the game". As well as "Would it offend anyone if it was". But mainly from the perspective of "Player choice".
Seems I got onto a few big things as well. But overall when it comes to the little things it just feels like the game isn't what it could be if it had been given more time and polish. And we all know no one really cares that much about dragon slaying at this point (it actually got old fast oddly enough. More main quest variety would help too). Also it's amazing how much some games can make us think about ourselves. Those with story at any rate. Little difficult to ponder about things in a game like Doom. *Rolls out the "Welcome demons" carpet and opens a portal to hell*.
TL;dr: Game needed more polish, player choice and less repetitive things to do. As well as more NPCs and restockable items.
