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.

I agree. I almost always play the weakling in Beth games, intentionally keeping my endurance down so I have a pitiful amount of health. It makes an encounter with anything much more exciting, as there is always a chance of dieing.

In fact, I modded my fallout game recently to make headshots always kill, even on the player, and torso shots did five times the damage.

Having the player be less overpowered just makes for a better game experience.

for this issue it's kind a two way road, some people have a better experience being the weakling and having a challenge, others prefer to play their character as a demi-god, and others invent a completely different play-style alltogether.
the way i see it, that range of choices are a large part of the charm in the elder scroll games.

So basically, you want a survival-horror/RPG hybrid, except without the horror. So that you can fill the shoes of a random person and do whatever you want to in the game, but always know the world is dangerous and scary, and you should just try to stay safe or under-the-radar to avoid inevitable mutilation at the hands of some malevolent force hiding in a distant lair?

Hmmm....well that sounds more like something you could RP, because that's not how Bethesda makes games. K, thx, bye! :thumbsup:




LOL, jk. But really, it seems to me that you don't understand some core points about being the PC in a TES game. First off, you "start off" as an unknown person, but you always eventually become the hero, because you were destined to be so. TES is built around a universe of predestination, therefore that's how we fit into the bigger picture. Especially Skyrim, considering you are the prophesied last chance at stopping the apocalypse, which was predicted thousands of years earlier. Secondly, you never become unstoppable, seeing as how you can be killed by a group of 10 city guards at the highest levels if you're not careful. Not to mention the greater point that you never get to just "throw down" with anything. You can't just walk along like, "Hmmm, I think all the gods need to die today", and walk into the Aetherius and kill them all, destroying the universe. Thirdly, you can and always will be able to play exactly how you want since it's an open world RPG. Therefore, you don't have to fight, or level, or be anyone spectacular if you don't feel like it. Since you "play by doing", if you do less, you'll only limit yourself. But there are plenty of people who do that with pleasure to satisfy their RPing goals.

To sum up, I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make here. :confused: Or if you just wanted to express your opinion about the subject. That's ok, I guess.... :tongue:

Great topic :thumbsup:
I also don't like this "I want to be a God" mentality.

I'm fairly certain he just wanted to express his opinion. I don't want Beth to make any changes based on my specific wants, especially if they don't coincide with the rest of the fans wants.

The great thing about TES games is that you can play the weakling if you want to, and have an entirely different experience than someone who plays the all-mighty hero.

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


People wanting to roleplay nobodies.

What's "natural" varies by game and setting.

A "Heroic Fantasy" game should have a Hero? at the center of it.

A "survival horror" game should have someone who is capable of barely scraping through by their ingenuity/toughness/determination.

Etc, etc, etc. - it all depends on the defined scenario. What rules of drama the authors/developers have set up, how the universe works, and so on. This is why different games are attractive to different people - it's not just the gameplay, it's how the in-game "universe" is defined. Some people like being "Joe Everyman, caught up in situations beyond his understanding". Some people like being The Hero?. And, of course, it helps that the rest of the game fits the chosen structure as well.

The Elder Scrolls games I've played so far (admittedly, the only ones I've played through are MW & OB) seem to center around a Destined Hero - so, being Super Amazing Guy? Ok, that's the way this series is.


(And then there's the lesser things world details... like the fact that, in the Elder Scrolls universe, the "path of the hero" apparently has to start in some sort of prison setting. )



...still, most games have you gain "power" of some sort as you go along. Either as a sign of progress, or to enable you to confront larger or different challenges. (A survival horror game, for instance. Or a Half-life style shooter - you gain power by finding better weapons & supplies. A platformer like Metroid or Ratchet&Clank, you gain new movement abilities, letting you access new areas of the map. An RPG, you gain HP/MP/stats and/or equipment and/or skills, allowing you to fight bigger enemies. Racing game, you earn money to spend on better & faster cars or modifications.) I guess in basic "text" adventures like Zork, you don't gain "power".... you do get new items, but they're usually just puzzle pieces for the one of the things you need to get past.

So if your character is not the greatest hero the world has ever seen, it means that he is nobody?

yeah ive seen this as well and its kind of disturbing. are there really that many people out there who svck at gaming so bad that their character needs to be virtually invincible and one shot kill everything? what is the difference between having a character with more health and takes less damage at the same time smiting the most powerful monsters with only a few blows or spells and using god mode. i dont see any major difference. morrowind let you become godlike to early in the game unless you modded it and oblivion you were always safe from dying since everything was scaled to you. it was horribly boring knowing that you were always going to come out on top in a fight. no thanks, im actually good at games and i dont want skyrim designed around those people that svck.

Lolz, apparently he's such a powerful, popular, wealthy guy IRL that he just wants to "live the simple life" in Tamriel. :rolleyes:

I guess it's just a matter of preference, though, because I'm so awesome IRL, I just try and match that in TES games, personally. It's always really hard, but luckily Skyrim will let me make my PC look almost as good as me, have roughly the same musculature, and be pretty good with most forms of medieval weaponry. B)

So, we're getting closer to how it should be. Obviously we need a real-life simulator set in Tamriel just for the hell of it!!!

Pretty much yeah. Might as well roleplay Joe NPC if thats the case.

I like to role play a person playing a role in a role playing game.

Better than you? I doubt that.

In response to the rest of the thread, i present you a song:

O-O-O-OOOOOPIIINIIIIOOOOONS

We have different wuh-huuuuns

:biggrin:

You're too easy.

Im just gonna leave this one alone.

Certainly not. Nor would I imagine your Khajiit of choice has nearly the athletic capability you do IRL, nor the ability to jump like a cat, nor the claws and canines that can eviscerate most people when applied properly, and of course no TES game will ever be able to reproduce the luxurious fur coat you undoubtedly enjoy in your everyday life. :thumbsup:

EDIT: Great song, btw. It really touched my heart.

There are some kind of games where facing threats that can't be defeated can be good, such as say, Amnesia, where you have no way to kill the monsters, your only option is to run, or hide, and that works so well because that game is a horror game, and in the end, I found myself being scared by the monsters far more in that game than I was in many other horror games, because I could not just cut down any obstacle I faced, I always had to watch out when monsters were near, and I had to think about how to avoid them rather than kill them, it made them seem so much more threatening, and while that doesn't necessarily automatically make something scary, I'd certainly say that when it comes to monsters, they quickly stop being scary if you realize they're not a threat.

The Elder Scrolls, however, I do not see as being like that. The Elder Scrolls IS about being the hero, the main story is, anyway, I guess I wouldn't call someone who rises through the ranks of the thieves guild a "hero", not in the usual sense, still, in that case, it's kind of the same idea anyway, it's still about overcoming obstacles in the path to reaching some greater goal, it's just that said goal may change, and the methods of overcoming challenges may change. In essence, it's sort of like your typical heroic fantasy story, except interactive. The ultimate goal is a great one, you're not just trying to go to buy potatoes in the market here, I mean, sure, you can do that in the game, but that's not what the main story is about, nor are you trying to live the life of some average ordinary guy who just happens to live in a fantasy world, this isn't the Sims we're talking about here. You're trying to save the world or rise to the top of a given faction or something else like that. You start out as some person who isn't skilled at anything, but that's not so you can remain that way, it's just so that you can grow as the game progresses and become what you want to be. Now, the journey wouldn't always be easy, but would the Lord of the Rings have influenced as as it did if it HAD been possible to just walk into Mordor? I doubt it. Usually, successful stories require some level of drama, the story should make me feel like there's uncertainty as to whether the protagonist will succeed or not, of course, often, I can assume from the start that the protagonist will succeed, but I don't know that, and I certainly don't know how the protagonist will accomplish his goal, and that sort of uncertainty is good, after all, if I already knew exactly what would happen, than why should I take the time to see what happens next? In games too, there should be a sense that you might not necessarily succeed, just that whereas in non-interactive fiction, success or failure depends purely on the narrative, though the story implies uncertainty, in reality, the writers alreay decided what would happen, you just need to keep watching or reading to see, but in games, aside from the story, there's also the gameplay, you can let the player have a hand in determining whether the main character wins or loses as well, and that's where challenge comes in. Of course, the easiest way to allow the player to lose is for the player character to be killed, which generally means game over, and depending on the game, even if there are other ways to fail, doing so typically means game over, but some games may make exceptions, with some ways to "fail" instead just closing off certain parts of the game, causing the quest to end without a reward, or even change the future course of events, and I'm fine with Skyrim having that sort of thing, it's just that when it does happen, I want it to be because I made a poor choice, or I failed to do some task I was given, not because the game never gave me a chance succeed to begin with.

Now, that's not to say I want to be a god, it's okay if there are some things in the game that can threaten me, but I should still be able to overcome them, just that it shouldn't be easy, and I do NOT want to get through the game feeling like I accomplished nothing or that it was all meaningless.

Still, the Elder Scrolls series is also about freedom, and if you want to try to role-play some average person for whom things like saving the world are unattainable dreams, that's fine too, you might miss out on a lot of the game's content as it doesn't fit with what you want. Myself, I get enough of being average in real life, and if I really decide that I feel the need to be a different average person in a game, then I'll play the Sims.



That's different from what the topic starter seems to be saying, though. That's just making the game more challenging, and I'm fine with thar as long as it's not unreasonably so, however, that just means the game is harder, you can still win, and that's ultimately still your goal, it's just that reaching it is harder. However, what this topic seems to be suggesting is that there should be cases where victory is IMPOSSIBLE, or at least outside unfeasible, and you can basically only avoid or run from those situations.

Why don't you use cheats? You don't need to spend hours on waiting to become a God.
Oh wait, which are the most common cliches?
1. I am the savior of the world.
2. Dragons.
Don't worry, you'll have them both.

You're absolutely right.

And that song took me ten years. It better touch your damn heart.
Not only that, it should warm your heart, and toast your spleen.

Ima go lick mah butt now.

Want to be a nobody and be afraid of your environment? Want dragons to be epic and extremely dangerous?

Go play an MMO. My dude in TES is meant to smash everything around.

I agree with you a quite a bit OP. I find it more entertaining to be a player in a wider and more dangerous world than to be a complete demigod, so I use FCOM and other mods to make the world more threatening. It's just more satisfying to rise to great heights by the end of the MQ then to dominate everything easily.

Don't get me wrong, the PC shouldn't end up a total nobody no different from other citizens, they should be a big factor in the changing world, but it's not realistic to be the only factor.

However, I'm not so concerned with game balance in playstyles or anything because it really doesn't affect me much. I normally make one character of each weapon style and have a particular character I role-play, so I will do the limiting myself if say, sword and board ends up the best fighting style but I'm playing a duel wield rogue. I won't consider changing even if it's more effective because I play for character concept, not power-gaming beat the game as easy as possible.

Anyway, that's my mindset towards this stuff.

Well, that's not exactly what I said.
Isn't there more in between of being a useless nobody and being a hero that can accomplish anything he just wishes to?
Occasionally I want to face limitations - I want to experience the desperation of really fighting against the odds. Morrowind was better than oblivion in that regard, as at least for the few levels, you could put yourself into such situations by entering the wrong dungeons.

Fighting dragons in Skyrim is not going to be heroic from what I've heard so far. Taking on a dragon will be epic - but you're going to get all the help you need for it: destiny, dragonspeech, legendary equipment, etc. - with so much help you're not really a hero in my opinion - you're just using the powerful tools you were gifted.

And as I already said - as bad as it already is - I'm not expecting Bethesda to change from their course here. It's just about having more options.
No matter how good you are, there's always someone better - and I'm only asking to being able to meet these guys.

Amen.

Verry beautiful song Kahjiit friend!

Well, or dial back the hyperbole, and say "If your character is not a great hero......"



I think we have two different conversations going on in this thread. There's the people talking "Hero vs. Joe Everyman, Intrepid Nobody" and there's the people talking about "overpowered". Two different things.

A game can have a balanced difficulty (with some progression in challenge so that you need to improve your/your character's skills to continue), and still have you be The Hero?, Center Of The Universe!


Realistically, in most games with a large problem to be overcome, even Joe Everyman is a "hero".... after all, he's the one that's being controlled by the player instead of the computer. He's got something special on his side. Because, really.... if you could just sit in the first town practicing your Smithing, and while you were doing that, NPCs went out and solved the problems in the world? Wow, that'd be boring. Why would anyone want to play that game? Sure, NPCs should be able to manage some smaller things on their own.... but if there isn't some Task that needs you to complete it, there isn't even a game really.

(now, that Task depends on the game. In a cooking game, completing the meals is the task. In Tetris, it's getting a high score. But in a game with a whole world/etc? There'd best be a reason for you to be running around that world. Just playing Villager #10, who never leaves his village and just meanders through existance hoping that the town guards or Local Hero keeps the village from getting flattened? Boring. Hence, why I have no understanding at all why anyone thinks The Sims is a great game. It's all the same crap you have to do in real life. But you're wasting your precious entertainment time on it.)

I assume those games listed in your sig are ones you plan on getting. So why exactly is Skyrim there, might I ask? Just wondering, because it seems like you really disagree with the entire point of it. :confused:

It will be ironic when you get it, because Bethesda will get your money, even though you apparently don't respect their game developing ideas. I don't think they'll mind at all, though.

You know, you can always... Limit yourself.
Progression is a pretty key part of RPGs, and the lack of feeling rewarded after levelling up in OB with the level scaling was one of the main complaints