Hi,

been playing this game in this summer, bought it a bit before June. Buried hundreds of hours in vanilla and modded gameplay. This game is fantastic, it most notably improved a lot on combat. There are, however, several issues with this game, mostly in the role-playing aspect. I started this series from Morrowind, I played it so much back in the day that I knew the game pretty much by heart. I did some work on Oblivion, however, I never got to finish the game properly. Now Skyrim - oh boy.

I love the combat system and content wise, the dragons, although, without a mod that makes dragons scary they are quite feeble.

On to the game's shortcomings:

Quest journal - oh brother That is disappointing in more ways than the obvious design of it. The quest objectives are limited, there is no definitive description what the player needs to do, because everything is remedied by the magical arrow that shows your character where you have to go. Essentially the game is about following the arrow like a dog on a leash. The arrow is the sweet meat whose scent you can smell from miles away, even when they are deep below the surface, over snowy mountain tops across the land of Skyrim. Does that seem possible to you? Not to mention even though you are a petty criminal sentenced to death by the heading, your character,a seemingly uneducated lowly ruffian, has the most intimate knowledge of the entire land, for when somebody mentions a location you know exactly where to go.

- Thankfully there is a mod called Even Better Quest Objectives and by using that mod I can safely deactivate the quest arrow and explore the world on my own. Sadly, I still know where everything is immediately after I talked to someone about something and they mention what you are after is somewhere in a place called so and so and they, of course, know exactly where it is on the map, too. What a surprise.

The prior problems started in Oblivion, though, the quest journal system is by far, the best in the series. I just generally dislike the game being built around showing the player what to do and where to go. Initial tutorial is essential, of course, but holding the player's hand is making the game feel a bit like a chore. Instead, I would have a catalog (quest journal) of sorted information (quests) not telling exactly how many steps there are to the quest, rather give pointers, Possible locations Or make the player ask around about things related to the source information - make it more engaging.

The NPCs are boring and robotic. The player can't insult, appease, be apathetic, angry or anything with the NPCs with Actual results. There is no reaction, everybody is the player's friend. Also, it comes back to the quest system, as well - quest-related NPCs cannot be killed or otherwise antagonised, much like the "so and so is unconscious" in Oblivion, however, the player did have to work at getting to some of the NPCs better side to get on with the quest. To further improve the quest system, once an essential NPC to the quest has been killed or irreversibly infuriated with the player, the player must find an alternative way to start / carry on with the quest Or the quest simply can't be done or finished at all. It would also be rewarding to see many of the big questlines, especially the main quest, take many different directions based on the player's actions and how they have shaped the world around them.

Speaking of the player's influence on the world - it shouldn't be so that the Dragonborn is instantly regarded by anything and everything a force to be reckoned with. After all, you start as a mere prisoner sentenced to death. The player should work towards being famous or infamous, known throughout the land, notorious for so and so actions. Why should someone like Lord Harkon of the pure blood vampires even deal with someone like you, why shouldn't he just order his batallion of vampires to rip you to shreds? I mean, who are you to him? Helping him recover something shouldn't put you in good graces with him just like that. Also, if the player is a werewolf, a thing according to TES Lore, utterly hated by vampires, if you show up on Harkon's threshhold with that rabid stench about you, should he even blink and second guess himself?

The world does not punish nor Reward the player, the world Caters to the player. That is not good. By not rewarding, I mean there is no real incentive to go dungeoneering to find, say a piece of Ultra rare glass armor, perhaps, according to what is only a rumor in some book you found giving rough description of where the cave was when you can just level up and sure enough you can find that loot in level-adjusted chests or you can simply craft it at one other forge, no problem.

- Thank god for the Morrowloot mod, which brings back the rewarding aspect of finding rarer items.

The world's economy is also out of proportion - gold coins have no real value. I will eventually stack up hundreds of thousands of Septims and for what? In fact, where did it all come from? Where do merchants always get the gold they have? It makes no difference if we use a mod that alters the time their stock refreshes - the fundamental problem remains - where does the money come from? Where does it go? A healthy economy is one where money exchanges hands and trades flow - the only trader is the player and the player doesn't trade all the time and only the player can affect merchants' stock so where do they get new provisions and how do they turn profit to keep trading in the first place if they buy off alll the useless junk the player has indiscriminately?

What Morrowloot does not remedy however, the prices and multi-directional usefulness of the uber loot. Say you found a piece of daedric armor, not only is it suppose to be worth a boat load of gold it could also be disintegrated at an enchanters desk, if one has the skill, to unlock one of many unique/way more potent, but not overpowered enchantments to be used only once on a piece of armor of your choice.. Rewarding. You should not be able to sell a piece of Ebony armor to some lowly merchant in a laid back shop for 3000 gold. In Oblivion, one had to find Umbra and kill her through some miracle and claim her Ebony set and wicked soul trapping sword for their own. Of course, in terms of rarity and pricings, the vanilla Oblivion suffered the same drawbacks, however, due to its extensive mod database, quite easily fixed.

There is a video on YouTube that speaks to this issue [I cannot post links, however, I recommend to watch it, as there are very good points brought up] Search for "The Elder Scrolls : The Dumbing Down"

Although he approaches it differently and speaks more about the decline in rpg gaming in general with the examples of Bethesda's TES series, I find a lot in common between our arguments.

This is not to say as an insult toward Bethesda, they have gotten a lot right - in fact, there's something to take away from each game, however, I, too, feel Oblivion is the weakest one. What Bethesda got right for sure, they released this game. I enjoy this game a lot, but sadly, I feel the game currently, modded or vanilla, boasts perhaps 2% of its real potential, 5% tops with mods- I suppose it's why they call it potential.

I definitely look forward to seeing the next TES release - the person in the mentioned youtube video says it is naive to believe Bethesda will deliver a fulfilling RPG TES game due to the catering to casual gamers, however, it's somewhat prejudiced to think that "Casual gamers" can't appreciate a good in depth video game. In fact, he used a picture of 2 children to illustrate the supposed casual gamer, however, I find that more appropriate for a "immature player".

Also, I just signed up to these boards, so don't throw the tomatos and other veggies for my first, undoubtedly triggering post

Cheers

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1501073-the-dumbing-down-of-skyrim/ You'll find that a lot of the stuff on this forum is criticism.

This is simply not true. I once told Idolaf Battle-Born that I prefer Grey-Manes, so now everytime I see him he says "I should bash your face in for what you've done."

But seriously, I agree with everything you said in your post. Few months back I watched the video you mentioned and thought it made some good points, even though it had a mean tone against casual players. But then I watched a video response that tried to explain that Skyrim isn't dumbing down, and that actually made me join this discussion here in the forums.

I agree with much of what you said. I have over 2000 fun hours playing Skyrim, so do not think I do not like the game

Most of your complaints can be linked to "Voice Overs." In order to have a dialogue with some semblance of depth, you would have to triple (or more) the voice over work to account for the possibilities. You can not ask guards (or other NPCs) for general lcale directions because that would add 10-50 voice over lines to the game for each NPC. You can not have multilpe replies to dialogues because that again, would add about 10 more lines of voice over work with each dailogue. Voice Over work is not cheap.

But today's players demand voice overs in their video games. They also like seeing cut scenes. Why? I am not sure. For me, both voice overs and cut scenes usually take me out of the feel of the game.

The journal is another sore spot with me. What a load of crap they made that.

Anyway, in spite of these setbacks, I still find Skyrim enjoyable. However, if the series goes further in the direction Skyrim went, I will pass on TES future games.

You could ask directions from guards in Oblivion, at least in Imperial City. And Skyrim had 2 voice actors for guards, or 3? But I guess it has something to do with the cities in the games, they felt smaller and it was easier to find what you're looking for, directions weren't necessary most of the time.

Obsidian managed to have a fully voiced and deep game (New Vegas) by hiring cheaper voice actors. There are tons more lines per NPC than in Skyrim, and the voice acting there is better than in Skyrim IMO. Mainly due to the better co-ordination and script notes.

How many actors did NV have? I never noticed them using the same ones for multiple npcs.

According to http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fallout:_New_Vegas_voice_actors, around 72 for the vanilla game. Some of them have appeared in Friends or M*A*S*H, so they're quite big.

They did a great job. NV easily has the best voice acted npcs in any game I've played.