Eh... there is very little depth in Skyrim, actually.
And that makes me a sad panda.

The absolutely worst thing about this game is the puzzles. My god are they easy. I mean, did they even try?

I would say there is a great deal of depth in the game. The setting is very deep, with a lot of history you can absorb, and then interact with. I love the companions. I didn't think I would use them, but I've found them to be enjoyable. They make comments at times that just feel right. The options to craft, mine, cut lumber, harvest. Each one, on its own, is not too deep, but as a system, they add depth.

The quests and questlines. I have found that many of the side quests have options and alternative solutions. You do not have to follow the quest marker and do what the journal tells you. You can, and it makes things simple. Or you can evaluate the situation and find alternate solutions. You can talk to different people, and get new ways to solve quests. Even some of the main questlines are like this. People complain of hand holding, but its your choice if you want to take that hand the game is offering you.

There is depth in the way you approach combat. You can use many different tactics to clear dungeons or handle encounters. It's flexible.

There is depth in the npc's and how they react to you based on things you have done, both minor and major. Also, how they react to each other.

This is Elder Scrolls. It's about playing how you want to play. The game can be very simple, if you approach it that way. Very straightforward and linear. Do what you are told, follow the bouncing ball. If that is what you want, that is great, this game is for you.

But this game is also for you if you don't always follow orders. If you think about situations, and try alternate approaches. If you want to stray off the beaten path, and not follow the neon pointers, that's ok. The game will let you do that.

So you get out of the game what you put into it. And yes, it can be as deep as you want. It just happens to be the most accessible Elder Scrolls game yet.

It depends on where you are looking. I think they did a fairly decent job, but there is always room for improvement. I'm going to refrain from making any comparisons with other games.

At character creation, things seem fairly shallow, but once you start making a variety of characters things get a little deeper. Granted, I do think that class variety could be quite a bit deeper, but this is somewhat limited in how the Skill vs Perk is set up, as well as a fairly limited quest variety. You can still make some very interesting characters, but I think there is quite a bit of room for improvement here.

The other area that needs a bit of work is in the quest/story department. Quest lines are very short, impersonal and lack a lasting impact. Dialog options are quite shallow as well. The quests are still fun, and accomplish their goals, but again, I think certain areas could be improved upon.

The setting is one area where I think they really worked on and did a great job. Everyone has their own views on the current events with the war, which really grounds the world and the people in it into a believable setting in which you can run around an be a hero. The design of the world, layout of where everything is, layout and design of many of the dungeons, and layout of some of the cities are all very well done, even if said cities feel a bit small (which really doesn't bother me TBH).

Complexity is NOT a good thing if it causes players to just get confused and frustrated (save me the casual gamer line, you know what i mean). Secondly, complexity for complexity's sake is a bad thing aswell. If you can make something easy to understand then why would you not?

Depth: hard to pull off this one, how do you pull off an in depth story/world without the player thinking it's just a jumble of information that doesn't relate? It takes clever writing and quality writers to make this possible; and well, Bethesda's track record isn't very good in this department.

When I first came to TES series with Arena from Xeen or whatever it was in the M&M series, my first thought was "another mindless hack & slash."

It still is, but has gotten prettier over the years for what that's worth.

The complexity is in the UI, and the depth is to be found in the waters of the northern sea region.

:flamethrower:


Seriously, though, there is very little depth and complexity.

Basically, this game is enjoyable because it is shallow but broad. You can do much of what (viz, virtually 'whatever') you want to do.

You get very few choices, and your choices don't affect the game much, either.

It's like this:

If you need to look for the complexity, you don't get it. If you get it, you don't need to look for the complexity. Seriously. If you're not paying attention to story tie-ins, etc., to what people are saying not just to you, but to each other, well, you're going to miss an awful lot. Now, if your idea of "complexity" is to have all of life's little details mapped out and utilized, good luck. There's not a game out there that will ever satisfy you. No thanks, I don't want to make room in my pack for toilet paper.

Haha, that reminds me of what happened right after I got my Whiterun house. I just bought it, checked it out, then went to get it decorated. When I came back, there's a guy right inside my front door! It was like he got caught doing something, so he immediately walked past me and exited. I was quite shocked... and still feel relatively insecure. His name was something like Grunir... the guy who assists the Breton in the general store, I believe. He always did creep me out!




My problem isn't so much about the hand-holding, even though I don't care for it. My problem is that there is no alternative guidance. It seems as though a lot of the quests don't even give you general directions. Finding the quest objective a complete shot in the dark without the quest arrow. Not to mention quests that spontaneously appear whenever you randomly pick up an object in a random cave. I picked up some books in one cave, then my journal says "Return to [NPC]." I have never even heard of that NPC before... or knew that he wanted those books. It didn't even tell me where he was! It ended up that he was in the Ratway tavern under Riften. I had never even BEEN in the Ratway before!




Agreed. Making something complex for complexity's sake is not a good thing. But that doesn't mean that a complex game design can't be simple to play. To the player, combat can come down to two numbers, damage dealt and damage resisted. That doesn't mean there can't be dozens of numbers going into the calculations to determine what those two main numbers end up being.




Right now, food seems about as useful as toilet paper. It takes me longer to go to the menu and find an apple to eat than it does for my health to regenerate more than the apple would restore. I just don't understand it.