» Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:06 pm - Guild quests are lackluster
I will not speak of the Mage Guild since I haven't completed that quest line yet, but as for the Thieves, Brotherhood, and Companions, I'm a bit disappointed. DB was the best of those three, and the Thieves quest was good, but they seemed far less well-paced than they did in Oblivion. There are less quests in each faction than there were in their Oblivion counterparts, and there really isn't a sense of progression. With each it really doesn't make sense why this guy who's only been with a guild for a short time should become the leader of a guild almost without question (though it does make sense in the DB's case). In future DLC, I would be happy if they expanded on the guild quests a bit; maybe adding questlines for the leaders of each guild to accomplish besides "go to person X who tells you to kill person Y, wash, rinse, repeat". After all, being the leader of a guild has to come with a lot of responsibility and having the quests all end once you become the leader is somewhat jarring.
- Caves. Caves everywhere.
I don;t think I can recall a single quest line that doesn't involve going into a cave or a Nordic burial site. It's not nearly as bad as was the case in, say, Dragon Age 2 where there had exactly 3 different caves that you run through 40 times. But even so, this game could have done with a bit more variety in its dungeons. To be sure, Oblivion had no more variety than this, but it isn't unfair to expect more with a new game. The ridiculousness of the amount of quests that sent you into caves really hit me when I went to the Bard's college and the initiation was to, wait for it, go into a cave and find something. Really? The initiation rite to be a bard is spelunking through monster-infested caves? I was hoping to get some levity in the bard quests that didn't necessarily involve dungeoneering, but no, it just amounts to another quest chain with caves. Skyrim is beautiful and has a lot of potential for different settings that quests can involve; I'd like to see more of those than just the underground part.
- Stealth overhaul?
In Todd's interview with Wired he suggested that they may use DLC to overhaul some game mechanics, and I for one would like to see some improvement to the stealth system. Crouching in dim light while an enemy is standing right in front of you and facing you, and still being undetected is really not a good example of intense, exciting stealth mechanics. I'm not sure how much of the core gameplay Beth would be willing to change, but maybe being able to hide in large containers, hang from ledges, etc would be good things to add if they were to buff up the AI's detection.
- Dragons too easy
I was really hoping for epic conflicts with dragons coming into Skyrim, but even now at level 50 and fighting elder dragons, the most challenging part of fighting a dragon is finding an area with enough open space for them to land before they fly away. It was really disconcerting how at a lower level I was far more terrified of the (generally) peaceful giants who have presumably been around for a long long time than I was of the ancient, legendary, killer dragons who everyone is crapping their pants over them returning after centuries of extinction. Please, please make dragon fights more challenging or introduce new dragons that are.
- Psychic people
An issue that was present in Oblivion is still somewhat present in Skyrim. I really like how if you kill all witnesses to a crime that you don't get a bounty, but another annoying aspect is how people will remark on some of your exploits or skills. For instance, if no one's ever seen me steal anything, why do guards call me a "sneak thief"? How does some random lady know that I am a good pickpocket? By nature of pickpocketing, wouldn't a far better sign of my exploit be that no one knows that I'm good at it? And how does a random guard know that I'm in the Dark Brotherhood, the most secretive guild in the region?
That's my two cents for now. Thanks for reading.
