http://novaknows.com/skyrim-dumbed-down/

“Bethesda has a lengthy history of angering their existing fanbases. Morrowind angered the fans of Daggerfall, who claimed that they “dumbed-down” the series, Oblivion angered the fans of Morrowind for the same reason.”

-Me, “Review: Fallout 3” (November 23, 2009)

Could Bethesda be doing the same thing with Skyrim?

Daggerfall had 35 skills. Morrowind decreased the number of skills to 27, and Oblivion further reduced the skill pool to 21. Skyrim, the highly anticipated 5th installment in the Elder Scrolls series, looks to continue the trend of removing skills from previous games by removing Mysticism, Acrobatics, and Athletics, bringing the number of skills to 18. But Bethesda is going one step further than just removing skills this time, and for the first time ever in the series they are reducing the number of attributes, from 8 to 3.

“In Oblivion you have your eight attributes and 21 skills. Now you have 18 skills and three attributes. What we found is that all those attributes actually did something else. A fan may say ‘You removed my eight attributes!’, and my answer is, which ones do you want? They’re all a trickle down to something else. Now when you level up you can just raise your Magicka. In Oblivion you have to raise your Intelligence knowing that your Intelligence raises your Magicka.”

-Todd Howard on Removing Attributes

While it is true that attributes were never handled particularly well in the Elder Scrolls series, they could have fixed them rather than outright removing them. In the above quote, Todd defends the decision by saying that “they’re all a trickle down to something else”, but they could have been more than that. They could have, for example, made Intelligence effect the player’s dialogue options like they did in Fallout 3 as well as increase your Magicka.

This attitude of “If it is broke, get rid of it” is nothing new in the videogame industry, and isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. Mass Effect 2 did away with the previous game’s inventory system entirely, and ended up being a better game for it. But it does sort of make you feel like the developers are just being lazy.

However, this doesn’t seem to be the case with Skyrim, because even though they removed a few skills and attributes, in their place is a rather extensive selection of perks. Just like in Fallout 3, every time the player levels up they will be able to choose a perk, giving them special bonuses.

“There’s the skill Destruction, which covers a category of spells, and within Destruction there are perks for fire based spells.” “The easy thing for us … is to add more skills, that’s actually a lot easier. In the old games there was a skill and a number, but we didn’t feel there was progression. We really want to make you feel like you are getting better at this particular skill. And perks are the main way we do that now”

-Todd Howard on Perks

According to Todd Howard, there are currently some 280 perks (if you count the multiple levels of some perks) in the game to customize your character with. It remains to be seen how well the system is implemented (we’ll have to wait until November for that), but the addition of perks could make this the Elder Scrolls game with the single most player customization options, despite the removal of those skills and attributes.

So, to answer the question bluntly: no. No, Skyrim has not been dumbed down from Oblivion, though that isn’t really saying much. Will it be as hardcoe of an RPG as Daggerfall? Absolutely not. And you know what? That’s probably a good thing. Because a game like Daggerfall would just be too niche of a title to survive in today’s market. Also, I never really liked Daggerfall, and never want to see that style of game return.

All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. A great prototype Cylon once said that.

Why are people so offended in this topic?

Why can't you all just admit that yes Skyrim is good, but not as good as it could be...
(Like almost every game O_o)

You agree with me quite a lot. Ive actually suggested a degradation system that would degrade twice as slow as Oblivion with a NV style. With stronger damage, doing more wear. Although still twice as slow as in OB, or Morrowind. You wouldn't need hammers to repair, but the same items you used to make/upgrade the piece with in the first place. So theres basically no degradation unless you smith, or upgrade. That way it wont level if you don't want to and wont effect base, vanilla item stats.

As for auto health regen. I hate it. Its not too prevalent on the super health builds. But on Pure mages or builds that just don't do a lot of health, its way too fast. And I don't like Oblivion or Morrowind wait healing either. It should be handled like it was in Daggerfall.

As for the PR, it was more of a point of how Beth seemed to market the game with their wording the unreceptive, or person that might not be interested in ES, the games, or mechanics in previous games outright. Some were good points, like saying leveling was fixed (although it obviously fully isn't), but others were bad, like Todd Howard's public dismantling of spell creation fans dreams. Or how its "pick up and play" which one dev said.

I do not like the regain system its basically hand holding. Your health always is recharging, you could run away and your health and magic charges back up in battle.

The degradation was useful in battle against enemies and it was a gold sink. You could also use weapon and armor degradation. Your armor and weapon degradation made you think as a warrior or battlemage. We could have had degradation included in smithing.

Attributes need to be redesigned and set to where you can allocate points. Similar to Daggerfall maybe. Seti and myself was talking about that some time ago and it really sounded interesting. I think you distribute your attributes upon level up to whatever you wanted point by point. That would give us back strength for encumbrance, luck to effect everything critical hits maybe, and so on.

Spell wise we need spell creation. to open up our options as spell casters. It gave us choice and made us unique spell users. We used to be diverse now we are one dimensional.

The PR is a cash sink less goes into the game. They spend a huge amount of money in the PR so yes it is a sink, they did elaborate marketing for the game and that takes time away from the focus on the game.

Vampirism I have not tried yet.

PR isn't a cash sink, you have to spend money to make money. Everyone knew skyrim was coming out, Skyward Sword? Nope, never even knew when it was being released.

A coochy coochy coo!

They might have dumbed it down where they felt it was over-complicated and unrewarding. Who ever enjoyed sitting in the corner tapping the jump button 1000 times to level your acrobatics? But while some minor game play aspects have been dumbed down they have richened it up in other ways, like animations, graphics, sound and music, better character interaction and voice acting, gorgeous environment, etc. It certainly isn't to save money, Skyrim has 40 more people than Oblivions team, they simply didn't WANT those old features any more. And while I don't agree with all the cuts they have made, i'm fine with it as a whole because Skyrim is so much cooler than the older games, and I know modders will bring some of that back, so if I want it down the road it will be there.

It is an amazing game the world is very good. Graphics are not a big deal to me but they are a nice addition to be sure. I think it is worth voicing what you want back in the game.

Acrobatics was incredibly rewarding.

It was one of the best skills for a thief or assassin.

Yes, I did

Interesting way of incorporating degradation... that could add a better, more fluid way of leveling up black smith than current "make 1000x iron daggers".

I'm kind of lost on health regen because it is essentially non-existent as you level up in this game anyway... as for magicka, if it had no regen, destruction would either have to one shot just about all trash mobs, or I can't see non summoning mage being viable. Or I can see it working with magicka regen being built into destro/resto/conj trees so that mages can get it, but not everyone. But this is bit awkward to really comment on since Skyrim does feature ultimately broken late game "free cast" enchant mechanics which negates the whole magicka mechanic...

I think current "attribute" system of health/magicka/stamina would actually be really meaningfully deep if Bethesda knew how to balance to save their own skin...

Like if spell effectiveness scaled with how much points you put into magicka so that there would ideally be two way scaling with magicka, meaning you can use more spells with magicka and those spells become more powerful. This would be counterbalanced with health offering general resist to damage and hence overall survivability, and stamina scaling physical damage. Because right now it's all "put everything into health because nothing else matters". Grr just tossing some ideas around since the broken balance of every TES makes it hard to determine just how "deep" they were because they were all pretty easily exploitable :/

Its funny how you maintain this puffed up ego after whining about a video game. "It's not like it used to be." Boo hoo. HEY WAIT.. Why don't you start up a "Occupy Bethesda" movement. Use their bathrooms, that'll really tick them off. I hear those are effective. Can't be done on forums tho.... sorry.

[quote name='madmole' timestamp='1322981796' post='19622538']
They might have dumbed it down where they felt it was over-complicated and unrewarding. Who ever enjoyed sitting in the corner tapping the jump button 1000 times to level your acrobatics?

I never did that.

Are we allowed to petition for a "Constructive General Skyrim Discussion Thread?" Or maybe a designated complaints / suggestions section?

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