Step in the wrong direction with skyrim : V - Skyrim

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:04 pm

There are a few major gameplay problems with this type of play. I thought them obvious but as it appears i misjudged, i will elaborate briefly.

Without classes, you level so fast as you increase all the skills though various use. This levels u up. If the skills you increased do not help you in combat, such as lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneak (if you arent a stealth character), or if you level many skills but none of them very high, such as 15 skills around 50, your pretty much stuffed. Enemies will level up yet you will be incapable of dealing with them effeicently. With classes, you can pick a few skills which you want to focus on, and have them level faster. You can then feel free to still use the other skills without fear of levelling too high. In skyrim, i completley avoid the magic skills. I would love to use them, but cant as they will level me too fast and leave me useless in dungeons. This, i feel is a terrible restriction and i see it makes hybrid classes impossible.

For a second, this new system feels so boring and lifeless. Your character has no identity, nothing that defines him/her. The lack of attributes cant be compensated by perks. I dont see a perk for better jump heights, I dont see a perk for better running speeds. Stamina boosts increase carring capacity, but this isnt good if you want to be a mage and put your points in magika. The attributes were like a record of your characters progress in the world, without them it just feels unrealistic.

As for spellmaking, it did make spells better in the last 2 games so why not this one? I made spells that had over 7 effects in oblivion. I varied magnitudes, durations, combinations and the like for different situations, and i feel that my mage character was very fun to play because of it. He could take out enemies with the same speed as combat or stealth characters, which i found fun.

I have to say that I completely disagree with this point of view:

If you pick one style of combat, and get every perk that relates to that style of combat, and only those perks, you will have a lot of unused perk points left over. How much you have left over depends on your style, but at some point you are going to have to branch out.

So this means that if you branch out earlier and pick up your combat perks mixed in with your non-combat perks you are not losing any theoretical combat viability.

And, meanwhile, there are perks you can pick up from quests, and of course dragon shouts, and you have a rich world available to you, giving you a variety of creative approaches to problems...

(And... I hope you are using the warrior stone, if you feel that magic and thief skills are leveling too fast?)

Anyways, if the previous elder scrolls games were to your taste and you do not feel like getting into this one... maybe you are just getting old? There's a real world out there, also...

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:00 am

Ok. But, then... why post incessantly on the forums of a game that you are so disappointed with? I mean, honestly, I'm curious, so enlighten me. Dragon Age II was one of the worst games I ever played, but I didn't go on the forums and try to spoil it for those people who DID indeed enjoy the game. Instead, I put the game on the shelf and allowed it to collect dust, which I'd argue is definitely a more sensible and mature thing to do. Just my opinion.

The point that you quoted is actually not so "bloodcurdingly irrelevant" after all. Its a fair point. If you prefer one game to another, its only rational that you should then go back to playing the preferred game. I didn't lose much sleep over my disappointment with Dragon Age II, I simply went back to playing Origins. So sad to see that others are less capable in this regard.

Hey, I'm one of those who utterly HATED Dragon Age 2. I've never even joined the forums just to tell them how I thought their game svcked.

But Dragon Age 2 is just a crap game, beyond hope. Now, Skyrim.... Skyrim is a fairly decent and fun game already - only that it could have been so much more. So it's fair for the author of this topic and for people like me to be in these forums and bring our complaints.

The thing i dont get is people saying 'oh ive played 60 hours and am level 20'... how do you guys level so slowly?

I seem to level at a ridiculous rate without even crafting. Even things like selling and buying levels me, making potions levels me, picking pockest and locks level me. I hate that i level so fast but am i just expected to stand around with my hand on my cawk?

Same here... I'm level 16 and I haven't really done much.... I didn't remember leveling so fast in other Bethesda games?

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:02 pm

Sry, but this is bogus.

And the bogus is this bloody post.

Everything you mentioned, EVERYTHING, can be changed and determined by perks and skills.
Mage can cast spells more often? Overall high magic skills, magic regeneration perks.
Hitting faster? One-handed perks.
Being a better shot? Archery skill.
Magic resistance? Alteration perk.
Better dodging? Light armor perk.

No difference whatsoever, it's just that some people tend to forget that the main thing your characters were described were not the attributes, but the skills. Your mage is not a mage because he's smart, or your warrior because he's strong.

Honestly, this "dumbed down" argument don't make any sense when you do the same exact thing as before

There are NO real reasons why would attributes fix everything, why would it make the game deep and... a REAL RPG!

No, really, why?

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:25 pm

I agree completely with pretty much everything you've said, Arfien. The RPG aspect has definitely fallen out of The Elder Scrolls with Skyrim.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:59 pm

And the bogus is this bloody post.

Everything you mentioned, EVERYTHING, can be changed and determined by perks and skills.
Mage can cast spells more often? Overall high magic skills, magic regeneration perks.
Hitting faster? One-handed perks.
Being a better shot? Archery skill.
Magic resistance? Alteration perk.
Better dodging? Light armor perk.

No difference whatsoever, it's just that some people tend to forget that the main thing your characters were described were not the attributes, but the skills. Your mage is not a mage because he's smart, or your warrior because he's strong.

Honestly, this "dumbed down" argument don't make any sense when you do the same exact thing as before

There are NO real reasons why would attributes fix everything, why would it make the game deep and... a REAL RPG!

No, really, why?

there is really no need to be so agressive at someone who is stating their opinion. Its rather childlike to start forcing your opinion onto others because you believe that it is the only correct one.
Your argument does have some good points, yet you have failed to counter a few in the article that is supposedly "bloody bogus".
I am yet to see a perk for faster run speed, which is a really large dissapointment for me. My rouge oblivion character had a speed of 120. This allowed him to run speedily away from enemies without taking hits that surley wouldve killed him rather than training his blovk or armor skills.
He also had an acrobatics skill of 100 and an agility of 160, so he could jump very very high, especially when using skooma. This allowed a greater degree of mobility, allowing him to gain vantage points for archery. Furthermore, it made the game a lot of fun, if a tad unrealistic, to be jumping 3 metres constantly between cities.
The stamina in skyrim is judged by putting points into it, so a mage will likley have a low stamina as they need more magika. With attributes, it was a combination of 3 different attributes, one from each dicipline (combat, magic, stealth) that increased fatigue, so no matter what character you decided to roleplay, he would have sufficient fatigue to play enjoyabley. This becomes even more important in skyrim with the lack of variable run speed and the reliance on sprint. I would find travelling with a mage very tedious as his stamina (thus sprint time) is very low.

The addition of attributes wont fix everthing and make it a "real rpg", but it does give a semblance of realism and complexity that many users desire. A mage is not going to train for hours with his axe to do more damage, yet wouldnt that extra damage come naturally if he worked out and increased his "strength" attribute, if he had skill with the weapon or not? It also allows better hybrid characters, as many of the perks you mentioned fall into skills that that character hasnt trained yet may still desire. For example, imagine if a mage wanted a high dodge or a warrior a high magic resistance? In morrowind they would just have to spend a few points into agility or willpower. In skyrim, they are forced to train a skill such as light armore or alteration which does not fit their play style just to get the perk. I think this would be very tedious, and it would mean many wasted perks as you climb the tree.