The hero mentality of TES : V - Skyrim

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:48 pm

There's a difference between challenging and impossible. You'll want the encounters to be in the first category, because the second is just aggravating, not fun and unrealistic. There needs to be a way to win the situation ALWAYS, but nobody said that it has to be easy.

So basically the main message of this thread, with removing all the unneeded reasoning: "make the game harder plz"

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:55 am

Where's the fun on looting a castle if none can detect you no matter what you do? "Ey, I'm sneaking a fully-guarded courtyard at daylight but, since I have 99 in sneak no one can see me!"

Where's the challenge on kill in three hits, but be able to almos sleep when six minotaurs are smashing your brains out without almost damaging you?

Where's the inmersion when you can wipe an enterely village with a single fireball-spell, but then some shepherd ask you to bring him some towels from his brother's hut?

haha you smokin bro????

No seriously though. Wtf are you talking about.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:56 am

I can see the point and am agree with you; it's not about OMG I'M SURRENDER BY RATS!!! NEITHER THE CHAMPION OF OBLIVION COULD OUTSTAND THIS!!!11, it's about a little of plausibility; even Conan faced challenges :tongue:

Where's the fun on looting a castle if none can detect you no matter what you do? "Ey, I'm sneaking a fully-guarded courtyard at daylight but, since I have 99 in sneak no one can see me!"
Where's the challenge on kill in three hits, but be able to almos sleep when six minotaurs are smashing your brains out without almost damaging you?
Where's the inmersion when you can wipe an enterely village with a single fireball-spell, but then some shepherd ask you to bring him some towels from his brother's hut?

It's just some plausibility, as said before. Being able to lead every single faction in game is not only absurd, but senseless, becoming the INMORTAL GOD OF WAR seems to be boring if there isn't any challenge to face.

Want to be the best in all ever in Skyrim? Then hit the console and cheat; where's the point on that?

But all you examples (hyperbole notwithstanding) are subjective. We are talking about entertainment here. How one chooses to entertain oneself is one's business. In the US, ask a NASCAR fan what's the point of seeing 40 cars turn left for 4 hours? Personally, I don't see the point and find it boring, but millions of Americans will tell you it is exciting and highly entertaining, so they choose to turn to the NASCAR channel and watch it.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:15 pm

So basically the main message of this thread, with removing all the unneeded reasoning: "make the game harder plz"

But only for the parts of the thread that are talking about gameplay-power ("I want there to still be challenges / to not be overpowered"), rather than plot-power ("I don't want to be a Heroic Paragon, I want to be just another actor on the stage!")

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:16 am

In a video game, where unfortunately life will always be somewhat linear....I see no point in trying to excel at anything if the end result is me being less than the best.

Does a nascar driver become a racer with the hopes of being in the top 25? No. He or she enters races with the hopes of being the best. Same goes for anything...sports, business, life in general. When it comes to video games (especially TES) I dont play with the hopes of being anything less than the best at what I set out to do.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:02 am

I'm with OP a long way. I hope 'dragonborn' will not be very easily attained. Becomes a little much very fast. Of course it is what is the point of the main quest, but I've always liked it if it is not 'the only thing' in the game so to speak. That, in my opinion, is what makes an ES game great; the main quest and becoming the famous hero is only part of the journey. :tes:

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:57 pm

I am consistently disappointed in the black and white way everybody approaches game mechanics. The second someone says they want to have some limitations on their power, everyone cries out, "Just because you want to be an everyday Joe, it doesn't mean anything should change! TES is about being a hero!" There are more than two options here, it is a continuum of a power. The question is where you sit along that spectrum. The OP never advocated being a regular Joe, he questioned whether we should be the strongest thing in the universe. That isn't to say you will not become ridiculously strong, but rather that there might be something that exceeds your power. You can even be the strongest "hero" in the game without being the strongest figure present. There is a reason, for example, that the Gods exist in TES. They allow for something greater than your character both in power and in influence. They decrease your power within the game-world, is that necessarily a bad thing? Of course not, it makes the universe feel more real and epic in scale. You cannot directly defeat the Gods, you are attempting to deal with something beyond your power. The OP was suggesting that this should be a bit more predominant within the game. Maybe you enter some catacomb searching for treasure, find a powerful amulet, and in doing so awaken a lich you cannot damage. Realizing you are doomed in direct combat, you are forced to escape the catacombs, avoiding his minions. When you finally escape, you return to the world where you can smash bandits around like flies. That disparity would be great. You can still feel extremely powerful, while simultaneously struggling against forces even greater than yourself. Maybe this deadly lich in a secret catacomb just has to be run from. This doesn't ruin your experience, but just makes the world feel more mysterious and awe-inspiring. I would feel a rush escaping with treasure from such an environment. I would have my cake and eat it too. I think situations like that would make the end-game more interesting and add to the atmosphere of Skyrim. Perhaps this lich is bound to the catacombs, from which it derives its power. In this way, your hero is still "the hero", yet encounters interesting situations. You would be left with tons of interesting questions. How does the catacombs transfer power to the lich? Why is the lich bound within the catacombs? You could try to scour the world in search of answers to these types of questions. These are the sort of situations where Beth's writing team could get really creative and give Skyrim both history and majesty.

You all are obviously free to disagree with me, but I would like to hear why situations like the one I described would detract from the gameplay. I'm not as active as a lot of people here, but I think someone could make+monitor a great thread about possible situations where you are outmatched and how they would fit into the gameworld. I like to think of it like the creatures in the bottom of the ocean. Some of them are just mind-boggingly large or powerful. However, they live on the fringes of the world and have to be sought out. In this way, you can live your life without ever meeting such a creature, but should you ever seek them out, they will give you the feeling that the world is more mysterious than you will ever grasp.

Feel free to give your feedback.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:04 am

As a role-playing video game i don't think you should be limited as to what role you play, I know what i want to play varies day-to-day dependent on my mood. Sometimes I want to be the underdog struggling against impossible odds, savoring my victory over every seemingly impossible task I accomplish. Other times I want to be the incarnation of destruction, leaping from mountain to mountain cutting down enemies in a single blow. I think the elder scrolls as a series handles both situations wonderfully. For example when you start out in Morrowind, there is a huge unfamiliar land sprawling out before you and in 20 minutes you could find yourself getting slowly pecked to death by cliff racers, but by the end of the game you can wander into a town and cut down all the city guards in a matter of seconds.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:48 pm

Ugh. This is going no where.

Why doesnt the OP just post his ideas for how to improve the game. Then, we will take turns picking it apart/agreeing/fighting with people who disagree/posting funny comments.

There seems to be so much confusion about what this topic is even about. So Yun, end the back and forth bickering and give some ideas as to improve whatever it is your complaining about.

Yeah, uhuh. Almost 100 posts, so it's time we start talking seriously?

But okay, I'll try to give an example of what I had in mind. It may require to read the whole wall of text though, so please don't bother if you're going to stop in between.

So there's Mr. Ancient Lich with his plenty of treasures sitting around in his cave studying magic stuff all day long. He doesn't care much about 'em vandalizing dragons, being all hidden and comfy in his little cave, just enjoying a delicious glass of wine while reading another of his thousands of ancient book of magics.

I'm asking that the game is putting me into a situation where challenging this lich to a duel would be a mistake or at least unwise. This creature has dedicated not one a single lifetime but several of those to the study of magic.

I'd like to experience this encounter without the premise of knowing that I can beat him up - even if not, I know I'm just going to come back in a few days when I'm stronger or have better equipment. This doesn't leave me with the slightest bit of anxiety or feeling of challenge.

This doesn't yet mean that the lich should cheat to maintain invincibility as the essentials in oblivion did, to make sure there's really no way to beat him. It may have been necessary in oblivion but it was no doubt lame.

But saying that the lich would be just very hard to defeat is absolutely meaningless. We would have assumed that to be the case for the dragons or Alduin or surely some other strong monsters in Skyrim as well - and we beat them anyway.

I'm expecting this lich to use the wisdom and knowledge he refined over hundreds of years. I'm expecting him to wield some strange/strong magic, that I haven't encountered so far. It may be slightly discouraging that you can't cast these spells yourself, but you're not flying around breathing fire as dragons do either. You didn't have 1000 years on your hand to research these kind of spells either, so give Mr. Lich some credibility.

Anyway, his constant exposure to magic made him almost immune to it - and to my dragonvoice as well - which makes me so special in the first place. But well, too bad that his body doesn't even hold much meaning, as long as his phyllactery is secure. So he's just going to revive in one of his dozens of minions that he carefully prepared for the eventuality of being beaten once.

So I settle for the next best step: devise a cunning plan to rob him of his riches. Distract him and snatch his stuff - approach and offer him an exchange of sorts - find and damage his phyllactery which will make him disappear for some time which will seriously piss him off and let him haunt you in some other way - like create minions that are out to get you, even after his true death. A 1000yo old lich surely could come up with some ideas and the means to implement them.

In the end, even if we in fact allow a 1% chance to defeat this foe - we may have realized by now, that it is not really worth the trouble.

This lich has no direct impact on anything else in the game. He's just there to test your other skills aside beating up things. He can be just one measly little sidequest of this whole game, that otherwise lets you be heroic, epic and just perfect on every single other occasion.

Were it not for those little reminders of our mortality we'd be giving in to the barbaric mindset that the only inevitable solution to every conflict is to dispose of your adversary. If TES is really about freedom of play then is this really too much to ask for?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:52 am

Yeah, uhuh. Almost 100 posts, so it's time we start talking seriously?

But okay, I'll try to give an example of what I had in mind. It may require to read the whole wall of text though, so please don't bother if you're going to stop in between.

So there's Mr. Ancient Lich with his plenty of treasures sitting around in his cave studying magic stuff all day long. He doesn't care much about 'em vandalizing dragons, being all hidden and comfy in his little cave, just enjoying a delicious glass of wine while reading another of his thousands of ancient book of magics.

I'm asking that the game is putting me into a situation where challenging this lich to a duel would be a mistake or at least unwise. This creature has dedicated not one a single lifetime but several of those to the study of magic.

I'd like to experience this encounter without the premise of knowing that I can beat him up - even if not, I know I'm just going to come back in a few days when I'm stronger or have better equipment. This doesn't leave me with the slightest bit of anxiety or feeling of challenge.

This doesn't yet mean that the lich should cheat to maintain invincibility as the essentials in oblivion did, to make sure there's really no way to beat him. It may have been necessary in oblivion but it was no doubt lame.

But saying that the lich would be just very hard to defeat is absolutely meaningless. We would have assumed that to be the case for the dragons or Alduin or surely some other strong monsters in Skyrim as well - and we beat them anyway.

I'm expecting this lich to use the wisdom and knowledge he refined over hundreds of years. I'm expecting him to wield some strange/strong magic, that I haven't encountered so far. It may be slightly discouraging that you can't cast these spells yourself, but you're not flying around breathing fire as dragons do either. You didn't have 1000 years on your hand to research these kind of spells either, so give Mr. Lich some credibility.

Anyway, his constant exposure to magic made him almost immune to it - and to my dragonvoice as well - which makes me so special in the first place. But well, too bad that his body doesn't even hold much meaning, as long as his phyllactery is secure. So he's just going to revive in one of his dozens of minions that he carefully prepared for the eventuality of being beaten once.

So I settle for the next best step: devise a cunning plan to rob him of his riches. Distract him and snatch his stuff - approach and offer him an exchange of sorts - find and damage his phyllactery which will make him disappear for some time which will seriously piss him off and let him haunt you in some other way - like create minions that are out to get you, even after his true death. A 1000yo old lich surely could come up with some ideas and the means to implement them.

In the end, even if we in fact allow a 1% chance to defeat this foe - we may have realized by now, that it is not really worth the trouble.

This lich has no direct impact on anything else in the game. He's just there to test your other skills aside beating up things. He can be just one measly little sidequest of this whole game, that otherwise lets you be heroic, epic and just perfect on every single other occasion.

Were it not for those little reminders of our mortality we'd be giving in to the barbaric mindset that the only inevitable solution to every conflict is to dispose of your adversary. If TES is really about freedom of play then is this really too much to ask for?

bravo...?
my vote is for lich king, so long as he is presented in a way that makes sense (some reason he isn't terrorizing the world at large).

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:41 am

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0509b&L=realms-l&P=2681

Speaking of lichs, I found the text that a long time ago inspired me to my current mindset.
Perhaps it can express a few things better than I can.

Yes, it is Dungeons & Dragons and not TES, and a bit of familiarity may probably help to really understand it.
It revolves around Larloch, some uberlich of the Forgotten Realms (I think) and someone commenting on what why it wouldn't be such a great idea to mess with this lich.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:37 pm

:banghead: This
:banghead: is
:banghead: NOT
:banghead: about
:banghead: playing
:banghead: a
:banghead: boring
:banghead: peasant

I was only asking to introduce a few concepts of imperfection to the game.
Because being invincible and perfect is BORING.
Do people even read the posts or just pretend they have read what they wanted to read?

The same thing could be say of your replies. Because people are not trampling all over themselves to agree with you, it doesn't mean they don't read what you posted.

Example:
You first posted :

Let me clarify that my interpretation of what a RPG actually means, is only to pretend to be a different person in a different setting.

I highlighted different setting.. for one, I don't play video games to pretend I am the pixelated character in front of me.... and two, as many people already expressed, the setting of TES is that you will go from zero to hero.

Look at the dialog of Oblivion, you walk around and NPCs hail your character as the Hero of Kvatch, the Arena Champion, and the Champion of Cyrodiil. Arena Champion you can skip, but to advance in the game, to play the MQ, you must become the Hero of Kvatch, and you became the hero of Kvatch because you kicked butt: if you decide not to fight and let the others fight, they all die, and you are still stuck with fighting and killing every enemy in Kvatch . There is no dialog where NPCs see you coming and say "oh, that's the guy who got his butt whipped in Kvatch". So, as you can see, the setting of the game is that you will be a kick-butt hero Of course, you could be an evil hero, a goodie-2-shoes hero, a neutral hero, and archer hero, a mage hero, etc etc etc, but the setting of the game is, you will be the hero, and the hero is a hero because he did something exceptional, in the case of TES, the hero kicks butt.

You also posted:

When were you last struck in awe after encountering these things? When did you face a strong enemy in Morrowind and didn't think "Meeh, so I'll just come back in an hour and kick your ass"?
...
But I say go one step further - if some players like to be reminded of their place in the world, then add a few credible opponents for this as well, which are so way above your head that defeating them is not in the realm of possibility anymore

Well, let us go back to the setting. In Oblivion's setting, your place in the world is, you are the Champion of the World, so it can't happen that you'll find someone you can't defeat- it wouldn't make sense within the setting of the game. In Skyrim, it can't happen either, as the setting says your character is the one dragons are going to fear and you will fight the dragon god, it doesn't say you are one of the dudes the dragons fear, nor does it say this other dude who's stronger than you or a better fighter than you is going to go against the dragon god because he has the best chance to save the world.

You also posted these couple of nuggets:

Take Skyrim's dragons for example - and how little respect players have left for the challenges in a game.
Some time ago you would normally have considered taking on a dragon as serious business. Yet on these forums the cry for fighting multiple dragons at once is not such a rare sight.
...
How much pride can you feel about beating something that was meant to be beaten?

Serious business? Respect? PRIDE? Are you serious? It is a game that takes place in a world where people shoot fireballs out of their hands and you walk among lizard people and cat people;you ain't getting the Nobel Peace Price or discovering the cure for cancer.

So, what's the logical conclusion here?
The logical conclusion is, as many have pointed out, that TES games are not for you because the setting of TES does not agree with your... taste in video games. If you remove the "zero to hero" concept out of TES, then it is not TES anymore, just like if you remove the apple from the apple pie, it isn't an apple pie anymore.

Frankly, I don't recall any game that plays on a similar medieval-like setting where the main character is an anti-hero, or someone who's "reminded his place in the world" and just part of the supporting cast. I remember games in the 90s like Asylum or I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, where the setting of the game wasn't zero to hero, just a series of moral choices, especially I Have No Mouth which the outcome was your inevitable doom, but you walked into doom being either righteous, morally corrupt, or morally ambiguous. Or anti-hero games like Noctropolis, Ripper, Black Dhalia, the Gabriel Knight series, or the Tex Murphy series.. but you'll be hard-pressed to find those themes nowadays

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:04 am

As a role-playing video game i don't think you should be limited as to what role you play, I know what i want to play varies day-to-day dependent on my mood. Sometimes I want to be the underdog struggling against impossible odds, savoring my victory over every seemingly impossible task I accomplish. Other times I want to be the incarnation of destruction, leaping from mountain to mountain cutting down enemies in a single blow. I think the elder scrolls as a series handles both situations wonderfully. For example when you start out in Morrowind, there is a huge unfamiliar land sprawling out before you and in 20 minutes you could find yourself getting slowly pecked to death by cliff racers, but by the end of the game you can wander into a town and cut down all the city guards in a matter of seconds.

This ^

Also.... I agree... Ancient Liches should be tough [censored]s. Like Gaenor tough

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:47 pm

So yeah, just make him very very strong...

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:28 pm

haha you smokin bro????

No seriously though. Wtf are you talking about.

That's kind of a serious answer. /clap.

... Maybe you enter some catacomb searching for treasure, find a powerful amulet, and in doing so awaken a lich you cannot damage. Realizing you are doomed in direct combat, you are forced to escape the catacombs, avoiding his minions. When you finally escape, you return to the world where you can smash bandits around like flies. That disparity would be great...

Meec! Error.

Many people would say "Ey! I MUST be able to kill it. That liche must have AWESOME items, since it's so powerful!!!"

Sad, but true.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:13 am

I am consistently disappointed in the black and white way everybody approaches game mechanics. The second someone says they want to have some limitations on their power, everyone cries out, "Just because you want to be an everyday Joe, it doesn't mean anything should change! TES is about being a hero!" There are more than two options here, it is a continuum of a power. The question is where you sit along that spectrum. The OP never advocated being a regular Joe, he questioned whether we should be the strongest thing in the universe. That isn't to say you will not become ridiculously strong, but rather that there might be something that exceeds your power. You can even be the strongest "hero" in the game without being the strongest figure present. There is a reason, for example, that the Gods exist in TES. They allow for something greater than your character both in power and in influence. They decrease your power within the game-world, is that necessarily a bad thing? Of course not, it makes the universe feel more real and epic in scale. You cannot directly defeat the Gods, you are attempting to deal with something beyond your power. The OP was suggesting that this should be a bit more predominant within the game. Maybe you enter some catacomb searching for treasure, find a powerful amulet, and in doing so awaken a lich you cannot damage. Realizing you are doomed in direct combat, you are forced to escape the catacombs, avoiding his minions. When you finally escape, you return to the world where you can smash bandits around like flies. That disparity would be great. You can still feel extremely powerful, while simultaneously struggling against forces even greater than yourself. Maybe this deadly lich in a secret catacomb just has to be run from. This doesn't ruin your experience, but just makes the world feel more mysterious and awe-inspiring. I would feel a rush escaping with treasure from such an environment. I would have my cake and eat it too. I think situations like that would make the end-game more interesting and add to the atmosphere of Skyrim. Perhaps this lich is bound to the catacombs, from which it derives its power. In this way, your hero is still "the hero", yet encounters interesting situations. You would be left with tons of interesting questions. How does the catacombs transfer power to the lich? Why is the lich bound within the catacombs? You could try to scour the world in search of answers to these types of questions. These are the sort of situations where Beth's writing team could get really creative and give Skyrim both history and majesty.

You all are obviously free to disagree with me, but I would like to hear why situations like the one I described would detract from the gameplay. I'm not as active as a lot of people here, but I think someone could make+monitor a great thread about possible situations where you are outmatched and how they would fit into the gameworld. I like to think of it like the creatures in the bottom of the ocean. Some of them are just mind-boggingly large or powerful. However, they live on the fringes of the world and have to be sought out. In this way, you can live your life without ever meeting such a creature, but should you ever seek them out, they will give you the feeling that the world is more mysterious than you will ever grasp.

Feel free to give your feedback.

This would rock, with one stipulation. I could find out the "how," "why," the lich got their power from the catacombs and I could, though a HUGE side mission, disconnect the lich from that power, and destroy it. Essentially, I'm perfectly comfortable with monsters that I cannot kill with pure "power" be that sword, magic, stealth, but instead must kill through problem solving, research, environment. I would much prefer a deus ex machina contrivance for anything I cannot kill at all, over some grand story attached to, say, the lich, where in the end, I still could not kill it. Let the things I cannot kill remain gods or things blessed by gods. I don't want to uncover a huge, awesome story about an immortal that just cannot be killed, because, it cannot be killed. I'm the hero damnit! I'm here to kill bad things. If I'm an anti-hero, I'm here to kill everything and take everything (I know many versions of bad, just giving one) so I'd generally like to be able to kill the mega-evil, uber-powerful lich in the catacombs of evil power. Just sayin', hearing about it, and not killing it, would bug the hell out of me. To reiterate, I'd be HAPPY to find something I couldn't just hit with a sword and kill. Something that required thought, planning, research, companions, special items, what have you. But to be forever unable to kill that baddy? No. That would just bother me. If I were playing a Frodo type character, who will save the world through determination alone, sure, I'd leave the lich alone and never consider attempting to kill it unless chance forced me to it (shelob for instance in TLOTR) but as a rule, I'd avoid conflict and run a lot. But I don't want to play as Frodo. I typically want to work my way up to the Hercules, demi-god level of power.

Sure, I'd love for the option to be there to play as Frodo. If the level scaling hadn't been completely warped in Oblivion, you could have (properly). I know you could win at level 2, but you'd never encounter anything strong, even to sneak past.

I believe that this will have been fixed, and people can play a less powerful hero and get away with it. But I also want the option to become a demi-god level hero. And in my demi-god level of heroism, I don't want to find anything I can't kill if I put enough thought into it.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:24 am

Spoiler

After observing some of the communities reactions in the time I've been here, I've been somewhat surprised by the mindset of quite a lot of people, which I'm summing up as:

"I am the one and only hero of this world. I should be some kind of badass walking pwnage-machine. Any limitations in my skills are taking away my rightful freedom of crushing anything that looks funny at me."

Exxagerated as that may be, I realize most of us will feel in a similar way, because we might think that this is what an RPG is all about after all: getting stronger and all that. Let me clarify that my interpretation of what a RPG actually means, is only to pretend to be a different person in a different setting.
It doesn't imply having to be the superstar of that setting, it doesn't imply having to get stronger at all - although some character development is usually considered a given.

My thoughts on why this actually could be a bad thing:

Wanting to be the center of attention or being a I-can-do-it-all-perfectly is not something I consider very natural.
We may enjoy hardships when we can overcome them, but sometimes real drama is made by not being able to overcome those hardships and still finding a way to deal with it.
Accept the fact that some challenges in life are best avoided. Experience the implications of not being able to rescue that damsel in distress.
What would have happened if you couldn't save Martin Septim in time? Doom the world (and yourself - because otherwise you'd only be villain instead) and give it your best shot - see how long you can survive against the invading daedra armies.

The mentality is also belitteling the environment, lore, and especially the opposing NPCs.
Because we are not talking commoners, bandits, soldiers or regular monsters here.
Cities, kings, lichs, dragons, and halfgods alike - no one is safe from the greed of the player in a TES game.
When were you last struck in awe after encountering these things? When did you face a strong enemy in Morrowind and didn't think "Meeh, so I'll just come back in an hour and kick your ass"?
How much pride can you feel about beating something that was meant to be beaten? There is no possible failure - every obstacle only means a timely delay. Trudging around the world and grinding rats for one more hour is the idea of a challenge nowadays.

Take Skyrim's dragons for example - and how little respect players have left for the challenges in a game.
Some time ago you would normally have considered taking on a dragon as serious business. Yet on these forums the cry for fighting multiple dragons at once is not such a rare sight.

Now, I wouldn't suggest to make Skyrim a harder game in general, as I can accept that not everyone may agree with my principles.
Some people lately had ideas about making optional challenges: High level bosses that will not stand in the way of any important quest, just loitering around in some remote cave and waiting for the most daring players. This is not a bad direction but I can only partly agree with that - because it still means these are enemies that are meant to be defeated - even if only by very skillfull players.

But I say go one step further - if some players like to be reminded of their place in the world, then add a few credible opponents for this as well, which are so way above your head that defeating them is not in the realm of possibility anymore. They can be encountered but require that the player adds a few rational skills "behaving unprovocatively, bribe or avoid" to his skillset (crush or crush later). Otherwise enjoy all hell being let loose - on yourself. And the best reward - if any - being to survive and escape without losing more than an arm and a leg.

Please discuss.

Well said, sir :thumbsup:

I'd fancy myself playing some sort of übermaster-kill'em-all character types on a killing spree every once in a while, but with a game like TES, those kind of play-style loses its charm pretty quick. But there's nothing wrong of playing the from zero-to-hero types, it has its reward but something to reminds us that our character weren't always this perfect makes the experience more engrossing, in my opinion. And any self-imposed challenge is good; I like self-imposed challenge, and figuring out the way to get around it. Something that I hardly even bother/dare of doing in the real world.

edit: but at the end of the day, the wisest of the game developers should realized that they should cater both sides of preferences. It's not impossible, really. Personally, I'd look down on people who doesn't appear to pay any respect to the hard works of the designer team who lovingly crafted the game's setting (especially detailed ones like TES), but really: let people play any way they want to.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:05 pm

That's kind of a serious answer. /clap.

Meec! Error.

Many people would say "Ey! I MUST be able to kill it. That liche must have AWESOME items, since it's so powerful!!!"

Sad, but true.

The OP posted an interesting idea, maybe you could temporarily cripple the monster through some erudite knowledge you acquired. Meeting this lich once could start you on an informal quest to gather information, whereby you end up drawing upon lore and rumours in an attempt to beat the enemy. You may be able to raid his treasure without actually being capable of defeating him. this type of situation gives you a difficult, but not pointless goal. In this way, the lich is not just a figure that exists purely to kill you without giving you any chance to do anything about it. Instead, you must simply approach the lich differently than other enemies, in the same way that you can't just kill the Gods, but instead just disrupt their plans.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:00 am

Snip

Its a single player RPG, if you want to play that role play it, no ones going to stop you. And good luck. But don't worry on how someone else is going to do their character. If they want to be the uber hero let them, I myself like playing that everyman guy who will stay away from the main quest as much as possible and run away from dragons.(saving dragon slaying for another playthrough)

But yeah I want some big baddy that rediculously difficult to kill, but not impossible to. Also add a few mind-spinning puzzles and traps and that could work too.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:33 am

First off, thanks. I'll take that as a compliment.

It was one ^^

@Yun: Amazing post. Truly amazing. It made me reconsider some things and put other on a new light, but when it boils down to it, we're not at the point that we can be TRULY absolutely immersed in a gameworld. Thus, we're set in a given scenario with a bunch of rules. Having something unbeatable would hardly remind me of my character's mortality, specially when I can easily quick save/quick load. Rather it would present itself as yet another rule, that I'd add to every other I had gathered thus far. Instead of "I should take better care of myself, there are truly dangerous things in this universe", I'd think "Oh well, I can't kill him now. I'll try it after some levels", and when I came back and failed once more I'd say "That's bull, he's an unbeatable character. Might as well leave him alone or sneak past".

Which is OK. But it doesn't change the fact that there's an expansive storyline being built for Tamriel that involves great changes in the reality surrounding our characters, with them being catalysts. The Hero mentality is there, regardless of personal preference for anonimacy.

A hero is supposed to get stuff done. BE it by sheer strength or cunning, he's supposed to use whatever is at his disposal to reach his goals, determined by the game's storyline. I totally get your point, but it seems more like a mechanical argument than an ontological one, since it affects gameplay more than the overall mentality behind the relations beetween your character and the game world.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:07 am

/end ~~justified~~ rant

That's a bit uncalled for. Making sweeping insults about people (including fellow users here) based on using a perfectly valid word because you don't like it isn't really necessary. The irony is that you spent paragraphs explaining how you hate the word cliche because its overused and its overuse has resulted in its loss of proper function. If only there were just one word we could use to describe an expression, concept, or phrase that is overused to the point of losing value, so that you could express yourself without spanning paragraphs and spewing out thoughtless rage.

If you want to discuss the subject, try expressing your opinions on the subject rather than your expert opinion on people who use specific words, of whom I'm sure you're all well acquainted.

On topic: The lore is already set, so there really isn't going to be much change in themes. The PC is probably going to have some crazy dreams and we're already aware that on some level they're the 'chosen' one. However, I think it should be clear that there are forces greater than the PC out there, and if you follow the lore you would probably notice that a lot of the things that happen are just the Gods jostling for position amongst each other. I thought this was well done in Oblivion, where if you were to attack a certain powerful being he would leisurely teleport you into the sky, most likely resulting in long fall and a juicy landing, but I guess we all know how that ended.

Another example of this is the character Mannimarco who was a character of great infamy in past ES lore, but in Oblivion was quite easy to defeat. If the player was familiar with past lore, this would be confounding as they would have expected Mannimarco to be vastly more powerful than the PC. So far in that, many players are convinced that you don't defeat the true Mannimarco.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:47 am

Another example of this is the character Mannimarco who was a character of great infamy in past ES lore, but in Oblivion was quite easy to defeat. If the player was familiar with past lore, this would be confounding as they would have expected Mannimarco to be vastly more powerful than the PC. So far in that, many players are convinced that you don't defeat the true Mannimarco.

Yeah, that was so disappointingly easy. More prep, harder to kill, by far.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:35 am

It was one ^^

@Yun: Amazing post. Truly amazing. It made me reconsider some things and put other on a new light, but when it boils down to it, we're not at the point that we can be TRULY absolutely immersed in a gameworld. Thus, we're set in a given scenario with a bunch of rules. Having something unbeatable would hardly remind me of my character's mortality, specially when I can easily quick save/quick load. Rather it would present itself as yet another rule, that I'd add to every other I had gathered thus far. Instead of "I should take better care of myself, there are truly dangerous things in this universe", I'd think "Oh well, I can't kill him now. I'll try it after some levels", and when I came back and failed once more I'd say "That's bull, he's an unbeatable character. Might as well leave him alone or sneak past".

Which is OK. But it doesn't change the fact that there's an expansive storyline being built for Tamriel that involves great changes in the reality surrounding our characters, with them being catalysts. The Hero mentality is there, regardless of personal preference for anonimacy.

A hero is supposed to get stuff done. BE it by sheer strength or cunning, he's supposed to use whatever is at his disposal to reach his goals, determined by the game's storyline. I totally get your point, but it seems more like a mechanical argument than an ontological one, since it affects gameplay more than the overall mentality behind the relations beetween your character and the game world.

My hope, which may or may not be shared by the OP, is that these situations would lead the player to approach problems in a new manner. When faced with an enemy that you cannot kill (at least in the normal sense of the word), the player is forced to adapt and think up a new strategy for dealing with the situation. I think the advantage to such a scenario is that it opens up whole new situations. In this sense, I don't think the player will just say "oh, that's bull". If handled properly, they could still emerge "victorious" in a sense, just using a different strategy. What this does is change the default response from "just kill something, take its money," to something new. Another idea I had was that the enemy itself is invisible to the player. For example, say the player enters a cave, and unbeknowst to him, the cave is inhabited by a dangerous necromancer who has established many traps to kill him. The necromancer can be heard and/or glimpsed, but never directly confronted. The necromancer could lock the player in rooms full of daedra, poisonous fumes, or other traps. The player, who cannot directly kill the necromancer, can nevertheless overcome the situation and escape (possibly with the treasure contained within). Oblivion had a somewhat similar quest, based off the short story "the most dangerous game", where the player was lured onto a deserted Island and locked in a cave where thrill-seekers would pay to fight gladiators. My point is that these quests don't have to end with the player killing all enemies. Victory/success can be achieved merely through escaping a dangerous situation or defeating an enemy in another way. If done properly, these situations will affect the your mentality, should you seek them out. What they do is break the thought process that all situations should be handled by killing an enemy. Straight up encountering an invincible creature with no backstory that is infinitely powerful isn't good. The trick is to devise interesting scenarios such that the enemy feels natural within the world. Only then will the character add to the gameplay experience.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:36 am

My hope, which may or may not be shared by the OP, is that these situations would lead the player to approach problems in a new manner. When faced with an enemy that you cannot kill (at least in the normal sense of the word), the player is forced to adapt and think up a new strategy for dealing with the situation. I think the advantage to such a scenario is that it opens up whole new situations. In this sense, I don't think the player will just say "oh, that's bull". If handled properly, they could still emerge "victorious" in a sense, just using a different strategy. What this does is change the default response from "just kill something, take its money," to something new. Another idea I had was that the enemy itself is invisible to the player. For example, say the player enters a cave, and unbeknowst to him, the cave is inhabited by a dangerous necromancer who has established many traps to kill him. The necromancer can be heard and/or glimpsed, but never directly confronted. The necromancer could lock the player in rooms full of daedra, poisonous fumes, or other traps. The player, who cannot directly kill the necromancer, can nevertheless overcome the situation and escape (possibly with the treasure contained within). Oblivion had a somewhat similar quest, based off the short story "the most dangerous game", where the player was lured onto a deserted Island and locked in a cave where thrill-seekers would pay to fight gladiators. My point is that these quests don't have to end with the player killing all enemies. Victory/success can be achieved merely through escaping a dangerous situation or defeating an enemy in another way. If done properly, these situations will affect the your mentality, should you seek them out. What they do is break the thought process that all situations should be handled by killing an enemy. Straight up encountering an invincible creature with no backstory that is infinitely powerful isn't good. The trick is to devise interesting scenarios such that the enemy feels natural within the world. Only then will the character add to the gameplay experience.

But that's different from removing the hero mentality from the game or having enemies you cannot defeat. Also, as you point out, there already are quests in past games where the outcome of,or the solution to the quest wasn't necessarily that the main character killed someone. No one is going to argue against having that sort of variety in quests, and given that we have seen this type of quest in all TES games, I am sure there will be some quests of this nature in Skyrim

What people are arguing, myself included, is that the hero mentality cannot be removed from TES, or else it is no longer TES, but some other game, which I may or may not want to play.

Now, the idea you propose, the idea of an "enemy" you can never directly confront, but keeps eluding a direct fight, or just say, a direct confrontation with you, that can be interesting, sort of like the TES version of Dr. Moriarty.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:54 pm

There was ONE thing poor Bethesda was never prepared for.....

People wanting to roleplay nobodies.

LMAO yep.

Every time I come to this board I spend the majority of my time shaking my head.

Seriously, go buy the Sims if you just want to do nothing. I want to destroy people and I want the dragons to defecate themselves in fear every time they see me.