It seems to me that what people mean by "dumbing-down" is "removal of micromanaging aspects of gameplay", as in, quantifying character attributes into bloodlessly reductive real integers. Attributes, in other words.

If that's the case, I'm not really inclined to care.

That's all just game mechanics. Archaic mechanics at that, imported from pen-and-grid-paper games without the benefit of quad-core CPUs. In my opinion, managing stat numbers and placing bonemold greaves with an imperial chain cuirass doesn't provide for deep, vivid gameplay. That's just banaustic tedium.

Quickly: Define yourself.

Now, unless you're an android, AI, or just a very boring individual with a background in mathematics, I'm willing to bet that you didn't just list numbers. After all, how do you really quantify intelligence, willpower, or charisma? Even if you could with absolute precision, would that really mean anything to you as a human being? Would you feel happier, more alive, more fulfilled?

That being said, what concerns me is dumbing down in terms of character, setting, conflict. Oblivion was compromised in this regard. Character arcs were largely non-existent. Wacky Imperial China-Rome was rendered as sterile, white-bread Arthurian England. We never got the ideological, war-of-words confrontation between Mankar and Martin that the plot demanded.

In essence, I don't think we should mourn the loss of stat-heavy busy work. Character, writ-large, is far more important.

Bravo :clap: Incredibly well said, indeed

Good stuff.

I agree whole heartedly!!

How do you quantify charisma? You don't!

How do you define the charisma stat? As a coefficient of your speechcraft skill in the fascinating number-based game you're playing.


That wasn't dumbing down. That was being unambitious. Dumb to begin with. TES isn't a BioWare RPG. I love BioWare RPGs, and wish more games were produced in their style. I also like TES. I don't go on RTS boards encouraging the implementation of turns.

A masterclass in succinctness. :ribbon:

I would have loved this. I love Oblivion and I'm also looking for a great leap forward in the story-telling for Skyrim....deep undertones with moments that really touch me and make me think...and make me cry and make me laugh - feel something. I think we'll get it. It's been 5 years since Oblivion and there's some amazing writing going on out there. Skyrim has a bar to reach and I think they'll reach it and even get over it with lots of room to spare, maybe setting a new standard themselves.

:tes:

Great post and I agree with you, I hope the story arc for the MQ and character are deep and meaningful this time around.

Oh, you.

For me 'dumbing down' is not so much the numbers, but the options. For instance, buying a premade fireball spell that is permanently affixed with preset damage. If you want to kill something with it... you cast it. If the thing didn't die... you cast it again... and again. When a previous incarnation of the game allowed you to create your own fireball spell that did X damage upon impact, then you could tweak it to ignite the creature on fire. Maybe I could have added the option to paralyze the enemy within that spell at the cost of more mana... or maybe some lifeforce.

Nope... all those OPTIONS removed. You now must live with a plain jane fireball spell. That to me is what I consider 'dumbing down'. When a game has to be simplified because some people can't be expected to take the time to actually LEARN the system to get the most possible effect.

In the gameworld, people have to spend their whole lives in guilds and universities to learn how to cast the powerful of spells.... However, the "player" character only has the option of the most simplistic version of magic. That is 'dumbing down'. The removal of options and complexity of processes to make it a more simplified and QUICK way of doing things for certain players.

This isn't philosophy or psychology. It is a game. The abstract representation of numbers suits the system well enough. Since the computer cannot represent personality and ability in a realistic way, then numbers are a suitable substitute.

Though I do agree for the most part with your latter argument. I'd rather have a riveting story with 'streamlined' game play than an atrocious plot and more complex spells.

Agreed
I have preferences for gameplay mechanics and don't like everything that is being done in Skyrim but what made MW a great game was story and setting, and the way the 2 were intertwined. I have hopes that Skyrim will be a step up from Oblivion in that regard and if it is thats what will make it a better game than Oblivion, not the mechanics

Look at the demo THOROUGHLY, and you'll see that the spell's power isn't fixed now. You charge it, it does more damage. This makes WAY more sense than having cast the same fireball all day, and not even being able to focus in order to have a better one without first having bought it (yes, you BOUGHT spells you created. It was that dumb)

Also, spellmaking hasn't been OFFICIALLY removed. They're still messing with it. Just like they were still messing with horses before E3, and just like they're probably messing with werewolves and vampires as we speak

A game without game mechanics is a book. I like books. Many good books have very strong characters. They're not games, though, and tend to be pretty linear.

Before you shout 'Strawmaiden', I should mention that your argument does seem to lean toward eliminating ALL numbers from the system, and that includes the skill and attributes that still remain in the Elder Scrolls.

I agree, plot-wise the Elder Scrolls has fallen, from the 'starting with only a mysterious package and no idea what's to come' of Morrowind to 'Let's all kill dragons' coming up in Skyrim, there's been a LOT of lightening of the thematic load and mystery of the main storyline. However, the issue of weakening plot is in a totally different category to the lightening of scary numbers that poor players have to gaze at. <_<

Edit: Oops... I made a mistake, here. A game without mechanics could also be a movie.

what you are looking for is active casting cost - meaning the longer u cast the more powerful the spell

100% agreed. RPGs are evolving. The hardcoe RPG enthusiasts that play DND will be dissapointed, everyone else will get yet another Game of The Year contender. (as well as RPG of the Year)

How can you have complexity when everything is given to and handed to and all you have to do is play along?

Complexity means you have to think, you have to make decisions and those decisions must have consequences. Complexity isn't a GPS Compass that leads you by the nose and shows you everything around you when do you follow it. Complexity isn't removing spell making and forcing you to use the spells that you have no hand in creating. Complexity isn't removing classes, it's keeping classes and then fixing them so they work correctly.

The acronym RPG stands for Role Playing Game. Oblivion and now Skyrim is removing the R and the P and all you have left is the G. While the Game might be great, it's not going to allow Role Playing.

Let me add one more thing. Computer CPU power has no influence whatsoever on an RPG. Evolution in gaming shouldn't be tied to CPU power.

Aside from the fact that OP's view is presented, as far too many things regarding this game are, as a strict dichotomy, and an obviously false one at that, I find no particular fault with it. Clearly, story and conflict and choice and consequence have been sacrificed on the altar of accessibility (which I believe to be merely the altar of cost/profit in disguise), and clearly that's a loss. It's apparently OP's opinion that that's been the greater loss, and I'm not sure I'd disagree with that. I'd only point out that the numbers that he so scornfully disdains are merely the language necessary for a computer game to record, anolyze, manipulate and respond to the nuances of character, and that their removal inevitably undermines character in exactly the same way that the removal of conflict and consequence undermines story. Until computer games can recreate the world atom-by-atom, they're going to have to rely on a representation of that world, and that representation is going to have to be numerical. There's simply no other language a computer understands. And if that numerical representation is removed, the thing it represents is just as effectively removed.

I say down with false dichotomy. We shouldn't lament the loss of character complexity OR the loss of story and conflict and consequence, nor should we demand one OR the other. We should want - nay - we should expect both.

Bravo! The TES forums are turning in to the pre-release Black Ops' ones!

"Interactivity" is not a mechanic. It's simply a part of games, just as pages are a part of a book. It's not something that games can do fundamentally differently. The range of that is the mechanics, such as open world and linearity etc.

I won't speak for him, but that's something I'm entirely behind. The reason Elder Scrolls is great in its RPG elements is that things go up as you use them as a euphemism for actual practice. It is the future of games, to eliminate all numbers, and Skyrim's making leaps and bounds towards that. Games should be defined by actions.

Very well written, and forward thinking.

If I'm understanding your point correctly, you are saying that propelling past the standard idea of "logical leveling" is not only beneficial but indeed necessary?
I am inclined to agree.

If you think that the Arthurian legends are sterile then your opinion is as ridiculous as your attempt to sound articulate. :facepalm:

Skyrim isn't real life and the characters in it are not living beings. It is a computer game (make on a PC, and made for PCs and consoles). And AI hasn't yet been created.

So the numbers are VERY important, because that is currently the only way you can differentiate characters . . . otherwise every character in the game would have the exact same abilities, for the entire game.

Attributes worked in the past TES fairly well (they just were not always implemented in the best way). So that is a known feature for me and one that I know works well (in my own games, and in being able to mod many things into the game).

I'm very concerned that mushing all the previous Attributes into just 3 Attributes is going to streamline this game in a way that will make it less of a TES game (less of a game period, and especially less of a RPG). I'm just not convinced that Fast Leveling and a bunch of Perk Bonuses are going to give us the same depth that we had in previous TES RPGs.

And before you all criticize me . . . this is what I honestly believe.
The thing is, no one here can be certain that I'm not 100% correct, as no one here has yet played the game.
After Skyrim is released, and I find out that I was wrong, that will totally make my day.
But I'm worried that I might not be wrong.

This is where I disagree.

In Oblivion, and really Morrowind too, every one of my characters was basically the same by the time they were higher levels. Eventually, my "barbarian" mastered Conjuration and Destruction just as well as my battlemage did. The lines between two seperate characters blurred more and more as you leveled up, and were basically gone at higher levels.

The numbers (Attributes) are not the only way you differentiate characters in Skyrim. You are forgetting the perk selection.

Oblivion characters: (I'm pulling these numbers out of my head)

Valen Dreth : Level 30
Attributes = all 100
Skills = All 100
Helath = 500
Magicka = 150
Class = Barbarian

Dralen Veth: Level 30
Atrributes = all 100
skills = all 100
health = 250
Magicka = 400
Class = Mage

Other than the Health/Magicka differences, these two characters are practically the same. Now let's convert these characters to Skyrim. (Again, numbers are from my head)

Valen Dreth: Level 50
Skills = (Who knows exactly how the skills will play out with the new leveling)
Health = 500
Magicka = 50
Class = Warrior
Perks:
10 One handed perks
10 Heavy armor perks
10 Smithing perks
10 Block perks
10 Archery perks

Dralen Veth: Level 50
Skills = (See above)
Health = 150
Magicka = 400
Class = Mage
Perks:
10 Destruction perks
10 Conjuration perks
10 Alteration perks
10 Illusion perks
10 Enchant perks

As we can see, like Oblivion, these two characters retain the Health/Magicka differences. But the first character is a highly specialized melee machine. He can Shield Bash, Shield Disarm, and a bunch of other Block stuff. He has specialized attacks with weapons because of his 1 handed perks. He can repair weapons and armor very well, as well as slow down time with his bow, for ranged attacks. Not to mention the perks for heavy armor.

The second character is a specialized mage. I don't know any of the magic perks, but I assume this character will be able to take down hordes of enemies with his magical abilities.

In Oblivion, the two characters at high level are practically the same. Whereas in Skyrim, they look very different. Again, I pulled all of this out of my head, but I assume that this is what it will probably look like.

@ HARVEYtheDAMNED,

Not everyone who plays TES games (or Fallout games) maxes out their skills.

I NEVER came even close to maxxing out all my skills in any of these games, which meant that my character always remained unique.

As I stated in my previous post (the part you are ignoring): The fault was not with the Attributes. The fault was with the way the Attributes were implemented.

The Attributes could been done just a bit differently, in a way that make them more important . . . by making Attribute point increases rare, and by tying the Skills more directly to their Attribute (limiting maximum skill points on their Attribute).