The Push for "Simplicity" in Gaming... : V - Skyrim

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:33 pm

...

I love how everyone only looks at what is taken away, not what is added.

<_<

Agree. Never satisfied with anything. I think I need anger management classes. I've never been more angry in my life since I joined this forum and have read all the bull crap about this game being bad and flawed and yada yada. Jeez.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:39 am

Maybe certain genres of video games but not video games as a whole. Some of the best video games ever have been pretty simple.

Hear, Hear.

I don't know how many hundreds of hours I'm going to put into various Skyrim characters, but I'll still have a long way to go to catch up with Pac Man...

Power Pellets? More Like Over-Power Pellets.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:15 am

Im huge fan of the civilization series.Played everyone of them since civ I on the early 90s.

I played Civ IV for years. But I couldnt play Civ V for more than a couple months...just because they removed a lot of things, theres no religion, spys, corporations, public health, vassal states etc.

I can see why you compare civ with TES, but I dont agree.

Skyrim is not worse than Oblivion, actually is a lot better. I miss somethings from Morrowind, but I cant say that TES has been "dumbed down" over the years.

But always look to the bright side, TES and Civ are MOD friendly, so if you are not happy right now, just wait a little. Soon enought there will be good mods that will bring back the complexity you miss. Also, Civ V is already a lot better than it was on release because the devs implemented some ideas from mods. Skyrim will do the same.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 3:58 am

Unfortunately it's driven by the need to not make a loss on the development of a game. If your game is so complex as to appeal to too few people, and complexity generally means greater cost, then you will ultimately generate a loss. If a game cost ￡30m to develop, ￡30 million to market and Xm to maintain then simple math dictates that you will need to sell Y copies to break even. The easiest way to appeal to a larger audience is to remove complexity and niche ideas and generalise them for a larger audience. Personally I think the greatest threat to gaming is homogenisation not dumbing down/simplifying.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:12 am

Okay..let's see what we lost..

One school of magic. ( I think just one)
Attributes.
Spellmaking.
Greaves.

Unless I'm missing something, and I probably am. We barely lost anything.

Basically we lost a ton of options.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:20 am

I like having to use my brain. I have it for a reason.

No, complexity doesn't do that, not even close.

Basically we lost a ton of options.

Hardly

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 11:19 am

It reminds me of how diehard Pen and Paper roleplayers used to look down on the Live Action roleplayers because of the simplified rule system.

Simplification was required in order to maintain flow of the game and remove luck based skill checks.

Morrowind was the last pen and paper based TES. Oblivion started a transition and .. frankly, did it badly. Skyrim has balanced this much better into a live action RPG.

Does this make it less of an RPG? .. no. Personally, if you rely on numbers to define a character, it makes you less of a roleplayer.

Hows that for elitist?

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:06 am

@OP

Every time i read about a game being "simplified", "mainstreamed" or "dumbed downed", i immediately think about Civ IV ==> Civ V. It's funny you mentioned it.
And it's a trend that goes way beyond the Morrowind vs Oblivion/Skyrim debate. And when i read people telling others that they just don't understand the "new deep complexity of the game", it makes me laugh (even though it's not funny at all). Because that means that every game franchise that i enjoyed for many years are suddently taking this "new complexity" turn, and that i'm just too utterly stupid to understand how awesome they have become.

In the meantime, i'm glad there are still some great niche game developers out there

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:43 pm

There can be simplicity, without making something simplistic.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:04 am

If being able to create distinct characters is called "complexity", then yes, Skyrim lacks complexity.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:18 am

Basically we lost a ton of options.

Not really, and spellmaking is the only one I think should have stayed.

Greaves? Who gives a damn about greaves?

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 2:07 am

TES VI. - Skyward [censored]
Let's greet the perfect MMO"RPG" for 12 y.o simple minded douchebags. Main features: 0 complexity, SIMS-like marriage for more fapping opportunities ^^

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:27 pm

Not really, and spellmaking is the only one I think should have stayed.

Greaves? Who gives a damn about greaves?

Well, yes, really.
Look up my other posts if you want to. I'm not going to write down a wall of text with obvious things again.

Oh, and I'm not talking about greaves.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:33 am

I could go on and on, there are so many ways in which Skyrim is a more complex game than the previous TES. Is it perfect? No. Far, far from it. But it is a major step forward in the area of character building and combat for Bethesda, not just from Oblivion but, yes, even Morrowind.

Agreed in terms of Character Development, but not in terms of the world. If you take a look at how many guilds there where in Morrowind, how they interacted with each other, how becoming a member in one guild caused others to not like you anymore or like you more, how becoming guildmaster in one guild equalled stopping the quest line of another from progressing any further, it has been dumbed down way, way, way too much.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:55 am

I believe with most of what the OP said, but let me try to 'polish' - for lack of a better word - a little: simplicity is good where things need to be simple, and only there.

The best example I can come up with: Daggerfall's Character Creation. It is just the most interesting of all. Here is where you can actually do what you want. This gives each character his own life - weaknesses, strengths, personality, etc... (obviously, lets assume skills are not bugged, eh?).

Now, simplicity could play a role in Daggerfall (or Oblivion, much criticised for) in level up mechanism - instead of having Primary, major, minor, misc. and a 'complicated' formula, just divide these in 'class' skills (= major) and 'non-class skills' (minors). Each ten point rise in class skills = + 1 lvl. Distribute attribute points in fixed amount of 6 (e.g.) any way you want.

This is simple, and easily done, and one way to keep one excellent aspect of one of the best games (versatility) untouched, while simplifying another aspect where no one wanna do the math or other reason....

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 8:58 am

Simple games for simple minded...

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:14 pm

Sometimes streamlining can be good. Stats I can do without, for example. I really think there is a time and place for it. Just look at the horribly convoluted skill grid in Path of Exile. However, I often fear it's just out of simple laziness. Dragon Age 2 is the biggest offender in recent years. If they claimed they wanted simplicity/streamlining, it'd be a flat out lie, because simply put, they just wanted to be able to release a new game in less than a year. A great RPG isn't made in a year.

As for Skyrim, I'm more or less okay with it, but Morrowind still provides a better experience only because everything isn't handed to you (the world isn't baby safe) and there isn't a giant obnoxious arrow telling you where to go. I don't care what features are or are not in the game, I just wish developers didn't treat me like a 10 year old. It's honestly insulting that devs would think the average gamer requires such assistance, but I guess 10 year olds do play these games too...

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:18 pm

What do you expect from a generation that regularly drinks flouride on a daily basis and gets their mercury injections on a yearly basis.

Of course the game industry is dumbing down its content as well as every segment of the entertainment issue because the people are being dumbed down.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:02 am

I never owned a console and have spent less than an hour playing anything on them, so I don't know much about video games. Most of the console games were arcade type games when I got into PC gaming, and I never cared for those.

What I remember about early PC games is that there was a bar to entry. Although developers tried to make things sorta simple, back in the DOS days you pretty much had to learn a few things about computers to even get the games to run. Fair or not, this kept some people from enjoying, say, Ultima 4 or Daggerfall.

Having to learn how to deal with computer memory and drivers, create those game floppies to boot the system so I could play the games I wanted, pretty much left Joe SixPack out of the gaming market. Now, of course, that's all changed and everyone can enjoy the games.

Times change, but a lot of the complexity that earlier games had is gone now. When anyone can play 'em, they're built so everyone can.

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 10:39 pm

When I ponder some of the design choices that went into making Skyrim, and more importantly some of the very comments by developers of the game, I'm struck by a central theme. "Simplicity". I have seen this concept making significant headway in the video gaming industry over the last few years, and frankly I don't like what I see. A recent franchise which made the "simplicity" leap was Civilization 4 -> Civilization 5. Features are removed for various reasons, but most boil down to making the game easier to play or understand.

I understand that companies exist to create a profit, and maybe this drive for simplicity is simply the result of what the market wants. In the past video games were enjoyed by less people, arguably the more "scholastic" type of individuals. It certainly wasn't "cool" to play video games when I was a kid. Now video games have been brought to almost every market segment pushing the cultural and age envelope to all extremes.

If you look through some developer interviews and what not, the impression you get for the removal of things such as character attributes, spell making, health/magicka/stamina amounts that aren't divisible by 10, weapon types, branching dialogue, quest NPCs not being essential immortals, unique and interesting placed loot etc. is that they want as many people as possible to be able to master the game.

All of this is very unfortunate for those of us who enjoy building and developing a successful RPG game character. The have explicitly tried at every turn to ENSURE that whatever character you play is a total success, impossible to mess up. The problem is that really takes the joy out of actually being a success. Putting any intellectual effort into properly building a character in fact just breaks the game as even the hardest difficulty is a joke.

Thanks for reading.

The average human is a simple-minded fool. Don't expect them to like anything that actually requires them to think.

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:23 pm

No, complexity doesn't do that, not even close.

Hardly

How didnt we loose alot of options in Skyrim? Making the Character development 10x simpler, removing the wast majority och spells and effect, character types more limited, choices and quests more bland than ever in a TES game, quest markers etc

You dont get more for less!

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:21 pm

Okay..let's see what we lost..

One school of magic. ( I think just one)
Attributes.
Spellmaking.
Greaves.

Unless I'm missing something, and I probably am. We barely lost anything.

Also, weapon degradation and repair skill.

The number of things removed is small, but they have a big impact on the game; moreso than making the game a little prettier.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:00 am

When I ponder some of the design choices that went into making Skyrim, and more importantly some of the very comments by developers of the game, I'm struck by a central theme. "Simplicity". I have seen this concept making significant headway in the video gaming industry over the last few years, and frankly I don't like what I see. A recent franchise which made the "simplicity" leap was Civilization 4 -> Civilization 5. Features are removed for various reasons, but most boil down to making the game easier to play or understand.

I understand that companies exist to create a profit, and maybe this drive for simplicity is simply the result of what the market wants. In the past video games were enjoyed by less people, arguably the more "scholastic" type of individuals. It certainly wasn't "cool" to play video games when I was a kid. Now video games have been brought to almost every market segment pushing the cultural and age envelope to all extremes.

If you look through some developer interviews and what not, the impression you get for the removal of things such as character attributes, spell making, health/magicka/stamina amounts that aren't divisible by 10, weapon types, branching dialogue, quest NPCs not being essential immortals, unique and interesting placed loot etc. is that they want as many people as possible to be able to master the game.

All of this is very unfortunate for those of us who enjoy building and developing a successful RPG game character. The have explicitly tried at every turn to ENSURE that whatever character you play is a total success, impossible to mess up. The problem is that really takes the joy out of actually being a success. Putting any intellectual effort into properly building a character in fact just breaks the game as even the hardest difficulty is a joke.

Thanks for reading.

I agree with you 100%. While I do think Skyrim is an amazing game, I do miss a lot of things from Oblivion (attributes, damage to your gear, spell making...) and from what I hear about the previous TES games I wish I would have heard of them back when I was addicted to WoW. (which I ended up quitting because of this same reason) They are trying to make games that appeal to the lowest common denominator rather than keeping it complex and challenging.

» Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:40 am

Not really, and spellmaking is the only one I think should have stayed.

Greaves? Who gives a damn about greaves?

The ones who grieve over the greaves

Spoiler

I've been wanting to use something to that effect for a little while now

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 10:41 pm

I do miss some of the storytelling and things you could do from previous games, but some things have gotten better as well. The leveling system was needlessly convoluted in the older games. Worrying about stuff like weapon degrading was just a total chore and annoyance, and i'm not sad to see it go. I do miss custom spellmaking and the variety of spell types (Raw 'Damage' as a destruction subset, draining spells, etc) in prior games, but at least in this the spells are visually different and have different sorts of uses. The favorites list is a huge improvement over the hotkeys from previous games, honestly. I don't even really miss stats - I thought I would, but in TES they're really unnecessary.

What do you expect from a generation that regularly drinks flouride on a daily basis and gets their mercury injections on a yearly basis.

Of course the game industry is dumbing down its content as well as every segment of the entertainment issue because the people are being dumbed down.

Don't forget your tinfoil hat.