The problem is, the games are leaning towards those who like to play as the Demi-God. More and more with each game, imo.

All we really need are extra options. Can I become a trader? Can I become a guard? Anything not related to constant saving of the universe. Of course the option is still there, to be an all-powerful immortal being, but there are extra options for those of us who prefer to earn what we get, through roleplaying.

Leveling should also be significantly harder. Personally, I liked Morrowind's method of NPC training. We should have a hard time training our skills ourselves, or pay someone a lot of money to teach us.

Yeah, good point....

All three of these games:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
Deus Ex: Human Revolution

...seem to be about Great Hero saving the world, being the center of the story, etc.


(Again, I think there's a communication problem. Some people are talking about the entire concept of "being the Hero of the Story, or Not" and others are talking about "I don't want to get too powerful, and have no risk." Two utterly different topics. One is about role / story setting. The other is about game difficulty.)

Yes, they are. I like the concept of open-world RPG (despite its limitations, like game balance) and Skyrim has a lot of potential in this particular genre, but I don't like cliches, raising all skills to 100, joining all guilds, and such. There are many ideas that I like, but in other cases I am also trying to be honest. We can have different opinions, that's fine with me.

Look.

The Demi-God, Hero of the world, savior of our sins personas' are all part of the single player experience. Its the story. Its tradition. Its part of TES. I wouldnt expect to see any TES game where the main quest ended up in me being 2nd best or the Hero's sidekick or anything less than the center of the galaxy. Bethesda does a great job at crafting the stories that go in to the main quests in my opinion.


There are countless other things to do other than complete the main quest and be a hero. If its a matter of feeling 'overpowered' then you can adjust the difficulty. If you play the game on the hardest absolute settings and still say 'everything dies in one hit' or 'nothing ever stands a chance' then something is wrong. Personally that hasnt been the case with me. I dunno maybe Im just not hardcoe enough.

video games are full of cliches, every single one.

Soooo, they're leaning towards being a Demi-God, huh? You know, I'm pretty sure I know why Skyrim will incorporate smithing, woodcutting, fishing, cooking, and mining. Perhaps those are the "new" Demi-God style gameplay functions they wanted to add to make power gamers feel better.

In fact, I remember while I was facing Umaril in the sky over the Imperial City after my transfer to the spirit plane, I stopped and thought "Wow, this is pretty epic, but how much more awesome and OP could I be if I could also catch a big fish from the lake below to hang up in my house. Now that would make me a true god!".

/Sarcastic post is sarcastic. Extremely./

I'm sorry man, I just cannot see where you're getting your idea of how Bethesda is "trending", when they add things like chopping wood as a gameplay mechanic for the PC to spend his/her time doing.

Some people just dont know how to voice their opinions without an attack or whining.

And Im not directing that to the OP or anyone else for that matter. Just in general.

Meh, becoming a trader sounds like a mind-numbingly dull thing to do in a game, being a guard though would not be so bad, because it actually allows for interesting things to happen, still, it seems kind of trivial when there's a god trying to eat the world, but hey, if the game can let us mine, cook, and fish, I see no reason why being a guard can't be an option too.



Actually, I felt much more like a demi-god at the end of Morrowind than I did in Oblivion, partly because of the story, seeing as you're supposed to be the prophecied reincarnation of an ancient hero and all that, whereas in Oblivion, your just some random prisoner who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Uriel Septim implies there's some stuff about destiny and being chosen and all that involved, of course, but it really didn't seem like it would change the story at all if it took that out, the real chosen one was Martin. And in Oblivion, I never got nifty powers like immunity to disease for my troubles, I didn't even get any nice unique artifacts during the main quest, now, Shivering Isles sort of did that, but seeing as the powers you got for the main quest didn't work outside of the Isles themselves, the impact was somewhat diminished, though part of it was, I regret to say, due to mistakes made in game design, I'm of course refering to the level scaling used in Oblivion, I could never feel like a "demi-god" because no matter how powerful I became, the enemies would be just as powerful, whereas in Morrowind, in the end I was one hit killing Golden Saints.

And it's true as well that wood cutting and smithing does NOT sound like an effort to appeal to the "demi-god" mentallity to me. Then again, maybe Bethesda wants to let us roleplay as the God of Woodcutting.



True, and sometimes, that's because those ideas work, and getting rid of them would not be a good idea. Of course, this can be true for other mediums as well, but video games have their own set of cliches which often result from either gameplay or how it ties in with the story, due to their nature.

Totally agree. The chars I've enjoyed the most are those ones who are "nobody" (nobody in the sense of any great hero, or famous person, or whatever). I nearly always (with some exceptions) make them "nobility-born" in order to justify them owning a castle, but apart from that I give them little else.

As an example, my last Oblivion char is an Imperial Noble that has the right to become an Imperial Legion officer, but still he's sweating hard to gain his post (doing Legion missions, patrolling the roads, fighting telekinetic goblin shamans that stunts you by launching wine bottles at your head, etc.). Sometimes I survive a mission, sometimes not, sometimes I do but I get my ass kicked and I have to rest and cure myself. He's not a hero by right, and he'll never be, as at max he'll be a high-rank Legion member. And I'm happy with that. Great RP experience.

I also don't like to play a godlike character. In my opinion there should be other characters that can do stuff about as good as the player can, and some things even better. The player should need help from time to time, as he shouldn't be able to do everything himself.
Also the player shouldn't be the only triggerer of events in the gameworld. This would add immersion and replay value, but of course it's hard to make a sandbox game this way as there are so many ways players want to play the game.


There are 2 ways to make the game more difficult if you aren't challenged:
1. Up the difficulty. You usually need to do this if you powerplay instead of roleplay. This means exploiting everything you can (except cheat codes/console commands), and always doing the most effective things like equipping the best available armor.
2. Roleplay. Do what your character would do, don't use things your character wouldn't use. It depends how you roleplay if you need to adjust the difficulty or not.

Since I like to roleplay in a roleplaying game I choose option 2. I cripple my character intentionally by not using the most effective options available. This way I get the best possible experience, and I don't necessarily even need to up the difficulty level (I have to if I powerplay).

haven't read the whole thread so don't know if this has been posted yet, but in my view a core theme of the ES universe, is the ability for a mortal to become extremely powerful, and eventually perhaps even able to defeat a god. It should be something that is possible through massive amounts of playtime imo - if you want to play the lowly farmer or beggar or whatever you can, and by the same token you can work your ass off and become an extremely powerful being. It is something that is so blatantly core to these games, that I am actually surprised by the large proportion of people that are actually against it even being possible. -_-
The mind boggles

edit - by the way it is obviously not very fun to become super powerful and have no other being in-game able to challenge you - there should be other super-powerful enemies too, no matter how powerful you become.

Actually, didn't you hear? Bethesda leaked new info about a new Daedric prince - http://www.toymania.com/custom/Galleries/Joshua/Joshua6/PaulBunyan03.jpg

His Daedric quest will be EPIC. Also, I expect to see the blue ox when we get to venture to his realm of Evergreen Hold in an upcoming expansion DLC for Skyrim!

Also. Winning.

:sigh:

Every RPG I've ever known has involved the character getting stronger.

I WANT to be a hero and I WANT to be able to master everything.

I completely disagree with pretty much everything the op has to say.

I'd like to just say: "Fail," and move on but I hate when people do that.

I enjoyed reading this thread so far. My thoughts:

I personally felt cheated stepping aside for the final battle in Oblivion and not getting to fight you-know-who. With the right equipment I got to fight him in Battlespire - why not here? Why after everything did I not get to actually defeat the final boss myself?

There are mods to increase difficulty. I don't think this is a cop-out. The construction set is a major part of the game (sorry console players, but it is). If you want something more complex, and you can't do it yourself, then you just have to wait a little while until someone creates it.

I personally never felt godlike in either Morrowind or Oblivion. Par of the reason for that is that I don't use exploits. I never used the creeper, I never abused alchemy, I didn't hold down the sneak button and find a good spot, I didn't make sure to level the right skills in order to get the best multipliers, etc. I played how I felt like playing and had fun doing it. The devs continually work to balance the game. Sometimes they succeed and other times they do not. Oblivion's balance was in response to Morrowind's broken balance. It faltered in a different way, and from the previews it looks like that is being fixed.

Epics were never written about the average guy. The average guy gets a parable or something. Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Aeneas, Rama... those guys get epics. Those guys have long interesting stories. Even the Buddha, who was a pacifist, goes on a long, arduous and miraculous journey and becomes the hero. Bethesda sets up a hierarchy of goals in order to keep things interesting. Your immediate goal could be something like "get alteration to the next level" or "get X amount of gold" or "explore this location", while your short term goal could be "gain X rank in the thieves guild" or "progress to this point in the story". Your long term goal is, of course, to solve the game's main crisis. Without that final long term goal the narrative loses something, and you are essentially a wanderer wandering for the sake of wandering. I don't think that's interesting. Even though I do more exploring in these games than do I leveling, I still like having that main goal there and working towards some sort of big ending to the narrative. I don't play the sims and I don't want to play the sims. If you like the sims or any other genre, that's fine, but you're looking to the wrong series.

As for the idea that there should be some challenges that you just can't overcome - that's a pretty pessimistic thing to say in my opinion. There are challenges in the Elder Scrolls that you cannot overcome unless you want to. Just like in life, you don't have to do anything. You can literally wander around and pick flowers, ignoring all your weapon and armor skills, and you probably won't be able to kill the nearest bandit. In life, you can sit on your ass and do nothing, and indeed you won't be able to overcome any challenges there either. Now, Oblivion's leveling system was a mess, so it's understandable that there would be this perception that the devs think you should be able to walk right over everything. But Oblivion was just one game, and from what I read they are fixing that (in fact, they already fixed it in Oblivion 2: Fallout 3). About the people clamoring to fight multiple dragons, well, that's just a different perception of dragons. No matter what the devs decide to do in this regard there will be mods within the first week that do the complete opposite. If you enjoy playing the game as intended, you're set, and if you enjoy playing another way, you'll also be set.

To sum up, I'm in the camp of people who play these games to enjoy an epic, to face rising challenges, and to experience a narrative, along with exploring and mastering my environment (doesn't mean mastering everything, just finding a way to succeed the way you want to). I really don't want to come home from work, take a break from my classes, and experience and average guy doing average things. I just did that! If I want to go to a pub and get a drink with friends, then I'll do that in real life. I really have no desire to do that in a game. If I wanted to do manual labor I'd go to my parent's house and plant new trees for them! I wouldn't do that in a video game. If you want to do that stuff in a game, that's fine, but this isn't really the series for you then, sorry to say. You know what I don't get to do in real life? Fight dragons, liches, become a swordsman, rob nobles, go on the "hero's journey", experience a magical fantasy world, and so on. I wouldn't bother reading the Odyssey if it was about some average sailor doing everyday sailor stuff, and I wouldn't play the Elder Scrolls if it was about some guy having a day job, paying taxes, and trying to manage social relationships.

Hurray for understanding and compromise! I've been getting tired of people on this thread getting so defensive of how they want to play (OP included), without seeming to remember that they can do whatever the hell they want in Skyrim, and that Bethesda will NOT make TES a sim. It's a fantasy epic, not a sim of any kind. If someone can't tell that by the trailer, than there will be no convincing them of any logic whatsoever.

Also, humor is good, let's please remember to use it, and not get angry.

Anger attracts trolls. It also leads to hate. Which of course leads to the darkside.

Here is the deal: TES games are fantasy games in which you go from prisoner to savior. That's it. That is the premise.
If you want to play a game in which you do not go from zero to hero and become the baddest man (or woman) on the face of Earth, but remain a nameless face in the crowd, then TES games are not for you. Here is the setting for Skyrim:

So, given the setting of the game, if you are to A ) become the one dragons come to fear, and B ) fight the most powerful god there is, how can you NOT become the baddest man (or woman) on Earth? Even if say, the devs throw in a twist on the story, and in the end, you are slaughtered by Alduin no matter what ,and Nim is completely destroyed and that's the end of TES, you would still had to be the baddest man on Earth to face such a god and be the one who dragons fear. Or what? Do you want to role play just one fellow in the crowds, and at some point in the game hear that the Dragonborn saved the day, or see the entire world go in flames before you die and get the "game over" pop up?


On a side note, I also find disturbing (for lack of a better word) that, yet again, the focus of game play rant is all on, yet again, combat, as in RPG = combat. TES is not just about combat. Combat is a part of if, obviously, but it is not the entire game. TES games have great stories to be told, they have things to do other than just fight the next guy.

:rofl: Simple, yet effective.

Also, I think the people that have been watching this thread wondering where in the hell people like the OP are getting their ideas have finally posted some sensible responses. Good job, guys. We're winning. Like Charlie Sheen. :thumbsup:

So you are "the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!"

And you a candidate to be touched by the mighty Banhammer.



I'd say it's a bit more open than that. Or open at least in the sense that you can choose which type of "savior" you want to be (fighers' guild one, mages guild, from the whole province (Nerevarine/Champion of Cyrodiil...).

You can also be the opposite way, too, being a complete villain, although that implies that you must never begin the MQ, and mandatory join of certain guilds.

You can choose to do whatever you want, but the premise of the game is still that the main character is going to go from prisoner to savior of the known world, and therefore the mechanics of the game are geared towards that end. What you choose to do: not ever take the main quest, join/not join certain factions, be a mage, be a warrior, be a thief, choose to never level up, etc., that is the openness of the game. But at its core, the mechanics of the game will make you go from zero to hero. That is the premise of the game. If you don't want that, simply TES is not for you.

Unless you are the best. If there is absolutely no way I can beat someone than that is just crap.

If anyone wants to question the role of the player-character in TES they must first look at the primary narrative struggle that TES has centered around since Arena and that is the struggle between Fate and Chance, or the idea that what you do was predetermined, or if you are truly free to choose for yourself.

In fact, if you question why the series is called "The Elder Scrolls" it is because those scrolls hold the key to one's destiny within them. With all the astrological symbology on top of that it's pretty easy to see where this struggle comes to bear.

Even the game mechanics lend themselves to this central question, giving you a massive world to explore with many ways to approach many things, on top of a central narrative through-line and goal, and even the ability to shirk your so-called duties completely.

Now Morrowind differs from Oblivion in one major aspect.

[SPOILERS] from here on out.

In Morrowind, you are sent on a mission. In Oblivion you are drawn into the conflict. So let's compare the two and see where they lead.

In Morrowind you are 'brought from the Imperial city's prison, to Morrowind.' We're not sure why you have been chosen (or perhaps chose) to win your freedom through this task, or even why the Emperor and the blades would entrust you with something like this. We do discover there is a prophecy that the Blades are trying to fulfill. This of course brings into question the whole idea of prophecy in and of itself and whether these things are fated, or simply engineered (as Morrowind's main quest is) to happen. So your "job" is to basically convince a bunch of racist tribals that you are their second coming of their messiah so they'll give you the tools to effectively kill a mad demi-god. You are in this case engineering your own fate, but then, in retrospect, it makes you question whether that is just an illusion designed to mask the truth that you ARE this messiah and you were fated all along to bring Dagoth Ur to his end.

In Oblivion you are freed through what seems like pure chance, except for one minor detail. The seemingly grief-stricken emperor believes he has seen your face in dreams. Now we all know that dreams are never JUST dreams in TES, from the dreams of the PC all throughout the games, Morrowind especially, to that one particular quest in Oblivion where you literally enter someone else's dream-scape and rescue them. However, at first, these seem to be the ravings of an old, senile man gone mad with his world crumbling around him. So at that moment, when the Emperor decides to finger you as the 'chosen one' that gives Baurus just enough trust to let you A: follow them through the catacombs and B: take the freaking Amulet of Kings to Jauffre yourself without escort, one has to question again whether this is in fact fate, or simply chance that all these things unravel from here. What if you'd simply stayed in your cell and not followed them down the passageway? Then, however, you are only given the mantle of 'Champion of Cyrodiil' through your actions, not from some mark of fate, but only because you succeed in your task, which was never certain.

Regardless, Morrowind is the game in which the player has the most potential for god-hood, or at least, seeming god-hood, after all, you are trying to convince people that you're a god of sorts. Now you never HAVE to ever get that powerful in any game, you can always limit yourself, however if you play enough you will eventually be as good as anyone can be at everything, as long as you spend the time to practice those skills, and the money to enchant every piece of your armor and clothing as much as you can. Without cheating this can take a long, long time, but you have done it for some reason or another, but you must have had a goal in mind. You wanted to be the most powerful and be able to kill anyone in a single blow, this was your choice, you worked for this, and once you get there? You find that it's a bit lonely at the top and you've run out of things to do. I'm sure there are actually very few who have ever reached the point in Morrowind, where every quest is complete and every skill is maxxed out.

But then you have to think about the ordinary citizens of these worlds that are not striving to be the best or convince anyone they're gods. Most of them are simply going about their business, their mundane daily-lives, with nary a lofty ambition in sight. So then, why wouldn't you, who adventures all over the land getting yourself into the most perilous danger imaginable and somehow surviving, eventually become an adventurer of immense renown and prowess? The point is that it is up to you. You can't really complain about wanting to be a nobody if you are in fact following the paths laid out before you that will inevitably lead you to some modicum of fame and glory. You do have the choice to simply earn enough money for a house and do a simple job day-in day-out, if your role-playing mentality is strong enough for that, but then, one has to question what the point of playing a game like this is in the first place.

Role-playing games are not simply games where you play the role of someone else, that is then any and all narrative games. The genre is in fact defined by many mechanics. What you seem to be looking for is a sandbox game like Wurm, Minecraft or Mortal Online, where there is no compulsion toward greatness, only survival. In a single-player RPG, without the potential for a narrative character-shift, something as simple as going from naive to jaded, there is really no point to it in the first place. The potential is and should always be there, it is up to you what to do with it.

Just a few posts in, and I already see the ability to think in greyshades in a completely different light.
Or the ability to read things that someone else wrote - at all.
Or the ability to express oneself more clearly, which I'm probably also guilty of. :tongue:
Or the ability of not having to be superior to everyone else and still sleep well at night.


Anyway, I disagree that the essense of TES was in being superior to all other beings in existance.
After all you didn't take Dagoth Ur or Mehrunes Dagon head on, did you? You found other (might say sneaky) methods of dealing with them, or someone dealt with them for you. More of this kind of calibre is pretty much what I'm looking for.

Actually, I'm surprised that what I'm asking for is really made into such a big deal. There are thousands of NPCs and monsters that could be crushed to dust if encountered by the player, but the essense of TES is shaken in its very foundation if there would be 2 or 3 NPCs who could defy the player! <_<

Plenty of them could, that's what would make them hard to beat, but in the end, you beat them. That's the point of a game. To win (and have fungetting to that stage). There's no point in having an enemy that is unkillable.

Hmm... Very Mature.

You do realise that Skyrim is actually the game that I'm suggesting things for? I'm complaining at the the demi-god nature of the past games. Y'know what, nevermind... :rolleyes:



Hence the option to ignore these aspects of the game. All I'm asking is for things to be added, not for things to be changed entirely. If you aren't a fan of magic, should it be excluded from the game?

Anyhoo, if you would actually think of the possibilities, rather than the worst possible scenario that could ever come to mind, becoming a trader wouldn't just consist of sitting in a shop waiting for a client. I could go to a city, buy an item cheap from someone with a tonne of stock, and sell it for more to someone in need in some other city (ala Fable). Or I could manage something. Just look at the Farmer Mod for Morrowind. Great example.



Exactly why the levelling system of enemies needs work. Certain regions need to be harder than others. Of course, all regions would have thier lowly rats/wolves/bears, but I would also run into scary daedric ruins more often in these higher end regions. I think it would be best to have harder enemies the further I am from a town. (I don't think the guards and such would be too happy about a band of Daedra worshippers just outside)