As some stated, i share the same opinion.. the biggest deal for me right now is the reaction to blows.. because its not understandable why its not there.
Like another guy said in his video, its funny how the game only recognized mass impact when the player was blocking but never when he wasn't blocking.
So not blocking is actually more beneficial in terms of not getting staggered which makes no sense.

AHHHH HE SAID OUTSIDE..... HE MUST BE SILENCED :cold:

What?

Sounds like your bandit works for CSI: Skyrim.

If you (I'm assuming you aren't a law enforcement official for now) were sitting next to your buddy, chatting about that latest mugging, enjoying a relaxing night in your cave, and then BAM your buddy falls to the ground dead. Would you:

A- Immediately bend down and examine the corpse, quickly calculating the angle of entry and the trajectory of the arrow, then drawing your trusty sword and setting out after the ambusher?

or

B- Take a moment to process the fact that someone just dropped dead in front of you, and start looking for the invisible enemy who is just about to shoot you?

I don't know how the AI will be in the final release, but that moment seemed incredibly well-constructed to my eye.

You know, people speculated that the constant VATS finishers in Fallout would be annoying, but they really weren't that bad.

So, I don't expect it to be annoying here.

@Original OP: Think it is stupid how people jump all over you for your
criticism. I don't agree with all the points you made but I don't fault you for stating your impressions.




And this post just shows you that some people have sense. He answered some of the concerns in a valid way, rather than jumping all over the OP.

Who cares. It's going to be an awesome game so stop nitpicking and ruining the hype for others and ultimately ruiningt for yourself if you keep judging everything

it would be immediately apparent which direction the arrow came from as A: you could probably see the arrow B. even if you didn't see it, you wouldn't need to examine the body to know where it came from, it would be immediately apparent (to me at least, i assumed it was common sense), as if he falls to the left, this must be due to the force of the arrow hitting from the right. To pretend this would require any thought let alone investigation is absurd.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you've never been in anything remotely resembling a combat situation.

First, he didn't see the arrow. Hence the whole surprise-death thing.

Second, if we're going to get into the real-world physics of the fall, watch Mythbusters. The body wouldn't fall in a way that indicated where the arrow came from. And if it did, you're talking about processing information in a split second and being able to make that judgment. Either way, once the body's on the ground, the direction of the arrow is no longer easy to determine due to the changed angles of the body and arrow. Your entire "realistic" reaction is based on a person who is used to people dropping dead in front of them all the time and has the ability to instantly determine cause of death and trajectory of a missile they never saw.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you've never been in anything remotely resembling a combat situation." yes that's certainly going out on a limb considering you know nothing of my age, gender, nationality... well anything actually except the fact that i believe i could easily deduce the direction of the attack, which seems to suggest the opposite...

"he didn't see the arrow" as i've already stated, whilst i don't think you can just decide this, he wouldn't have had to.

"once the body's on the ground, the direction of the arrow is no longer easy to determine" yes i can see how this may be problematic (if true i don't magically know what mythbusters episode you're talking about so can't comment) for anyone trying to investigate the crime days later, but this is irrelevant as the npc witnessed the whole thing!

"Your entire "realistic" reaction is based on a person who is used to people dropping dead in front of them all the time" i'd imagine armed bandits in the skyrim universe are quite used to this yes.

there's nothing more to say on the matter, you would have frozen in that situation and i would have acted, so that's what we each expect from the npc. It might actually be nice if not every npc acted the same way i.e. the npc in question froze because he had a low courage score, whereas an npc with a high intelligence (yes i know attributes have been removed) would take cover and one with a high aggression score would charge wildly.

I think you're imagining this from the point of view of an observer. You're not actually imagining the situation. Really picture it. Talking to your friend. Chatting about your day. In a dark cave. You hear a quick whistling sound echo around the cave. Your friend drops to the ground. You do not have time to see the arrow enter their shoulder. They are literally there one second, then gone the next. I don't care how much of an "action" man you think you are, you wouldn't have the ability to figure out where the shot came from. And you have about 2 seconds before you get shot.

Just asking you to actually engage with the situation from that point of view, not from the point of view of the "eye in the sky".

Look, not wanting to blow ones own trumpet but i always found things trivial at school, it seemed odd to me that the other kids couldn't figure out in minutes what was blatantly and immediately obvious to my mind, this is the same thing. That's why i agree with you, maybe some npcs should react like cattle as it's a truer representation of the broad spectrum of people you might encounter, i just don't think all npcs should react this way.

And "compared to the market right now" is really what matters, at least for now.

Maybe next generation we'll get somewhere on the curve where a good size amount of people don't care, but we're not there yet. I just wish Bethesda was baking all of their high poly models into displacement maps so the high end DX11 pc guys could use them.

Okay, can people please stop making this ridiculous point (no offense meant)? It's just bad AI design, and we have seen the same kind of behaviour in every iteration of this demo. It's not like the devs meant for him to "be in shock", they just made it that NPCs can only react if they can see the PC, or attacker in other cases. They seem to lack a routine for unclear situations with less data. He doesn't even scream or show any emotions that confirm that he's in shock.

Also, being frozen in fear is something you mostly do when you, say, see a car coming towards you and you have no chance of surviving.
Being a bandit standing guard and watching your friend get killed should make you do either take cover and try to figure out where your attacker is, OR make you panic and run for your life.

Ergo, there is a differance between being the subject of a hazardous action and being a beholder to said action.

Please discuss.

I must tiredly ask once more as to why I see again and again the same inflammatory language from the same intolerant devotees to Skyrim. Repeatedly, I read comments that disparage any concerns (even if they are qualified) or calmly delivered opinions, call the OP a whiner, demand that the individual in question "adjust their hype meter", and even go so far as to suggest that he/she is a "buffoon". We then have to deal with the canned responses of, "YOU CAN'T JUDGE THE GAME" and "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. SKYRIM IS GOING TO BE AWESOME". The first exclamation obviously adds no substantive response to the OP's specific points, while the latter provides an irrelevant and self-centered interjection. Now, given all the unwarranted hostility and immaturity, I would surely expect the OP to have written a childish and inflammatory post as well. Rather, I am given personal anolyses with specific examples for my convenience. Is the OP masterfully eloquent? I wouldn't say that. Is he or she undoubtedly correct? Of course not! However, as any other individual on a discussion board, he/she deserves the rudiments of courtesy and respect. The fact that he/she has maintained a friendly, hell, even conciliatory tone in subsequent posts only further emphasizes how unwarranted the close-mindedness of some community members can be. For those who don't happen to know any better, one can express disagreement without hostility. Furthermore, the expression of concern, at least in my humble opinion, is testament to the game's strong following. I love to anolyze, pick apart, and even criticize what media we are given, not because I hate Bethesda and all fans, but because I think criticism is an excellent vehicle for eliciting change and because improvements can always be made. This doesn't suddenly mean I am an ignoramus who isn't completely awed by the unbelievably rapid progress of computer technology on a daily basis. And I pre-ordered the game to boot! Bury your hatchets and give these poor moderators a break.

I don't want to be rude, I don't want to be labled one way or the other. My problem is I don't see how any good comes from post after post , thread after thread about the same things. It is well known that this was a set up demo to give Beth something to show at the cons. Please explain to me how it helps anyone to pick apart a video that for all we know is nothing like the game when it ships? Who does this server ? All I see are lots of if this if that if if if. It doesn't sound helpful to me, it sounds like people flexing egoes .

Actually reminds me of how people on bioware forums were acting right before Dragon Age 2 was released; the blind optimism can get kinda silly afterawhile, right up to chanting "less is more, less is more" like a mantra.

Even recent games like Deus ex handle stealth detection much better, at least they react accordingly when they see their allies getting shot down and would actively search for the player. As opposed to Skyrim standing there and looking dumb. Could be intentional though, to make "stealth" even easier for the COD crowd :flamethrower: I mean, if guards can react to a dead body in the streets then it hardly be difficult to set ai to a cautious state when dead faction members are nearby or sounds of weapon fire. It just makes stealth look dumbed down, unrealistic (past the suspension of disbelief) and even broken - overpowered in some cases.

Look! Its this thread again... With the exact same complaints as the last three!

Lets not forget! The condescending holier than thou types who can't stand discussion that doesn't share their opinions about a *video game* :flamethrower:

I have one thing to add about stealth its one thing to hear a bullet flying at you its another entirely to hear an arrow. Magic should break stealth and allow detection, shouts of course, light spells and torches since its the same as a flashlight. Should the guy have reacted more seeing his buddy die sure but this is an rpg not an fps, its not a huge deal. I will say I agree its bad AI for him not to react more but its hardly the end of the world and may have been fixed.

I don't think CoD is easy, play online or the single player on veteran and see how many times you die. This trend of hating CoD and anyone who plays it feels really condescending after a while.

And none of this game seems like it's made for CoD players.

I would agree with this. Having played Halo, Cod and TES I think that they are all different games and can't be compared. Now if you are comparing fallout 3 to CoD. Sure I see a few similarities. But ultimately they are different games and should be treated as such.

That's a bit of an over-simplification, and honestly, I feel, a bit of a misdirect. If anything, how an enemy reacts to stealth-killed allies that it's noticed are more important in a game like Skyrim where Stealth is a valid character choice and path for the player to take, rather than in a linear FPS where it's more likely to be a set-piece that is controlled by set-in-stone scripts that dictate when and how the player can break stealth.

Without threads like these, what is the alternative? A bunch of people throwing down 5-worded posts about how infallible the game or Bethesda is? "This game is gonna rock!" "Yea, epic!" "I can't wait." "Me too." "Looks great!" "There's nothing at all wrong with it!" Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. What kind of a discussion board would that make for?

OP makes some valid points in his critique of the demo. Alpha, beta, delta, victor, whatever. Scripted, non-scripted, whatever. All I know is that this is what BGS is presenting to me in September of 2011 as gameplay video. Therefore, I can only assume that what I'm seeing in this gameplay video is what I will see if I play the game myself in 2 months. If they don't want me to think such a thing, then they shouldn't put scripted gameplay of an outdated build onto their website. I'm just saying.

As for my own critique, the combat mechanics look like they're right out of Oblivion, and that's disappointing to me. I expected improvement over its 5-year old predecessor. Mounted combat, locational damage, more realistic reactions to being stuck with a weapon, etc. Basically, a "big jump" from the last game, as it was a big jump from the game before it. Sadly, I'm not seeing it. No, I can't go start my own company and make a better game. I have neither the ambition nor the talent. It's their job to make the game, it's my job to discuss it and potentially buy it. We all have roles to fill.

I can live with many of the things pointed out in the demo. If nothing else, it'll be a new story in new surroundings. There are lots of other things that sound cool, so I'm trying very hard to focus on those things. If nothing else, watching the demo several times has affirmed a couple key beliefs. One, if they're going to force 3rd person finishers, then they should force 1st person finishers as well... just to also annoy the 3rd person players equally. Two, I hate everything about the HUD with every ounce of my being. Three, I really hope we can mute Dova's voice, because those 3 repetitive "took damage" grunts are really, really, really annoying.

Luckily, mods can probably "fix" my biggest complaints I see in this demo. I'm happy about that at least.

I learned from this demo that I'll only be using third person to look at my character, and for nothing else.