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.

It's about fun. Some find your game fun, and millions of others find your game tedious. There's room for both in this world, but don't expect your game to be "popular".

I personally think simplicity is a good thing, and I know lots of people disagree with that. I play games to have fun, complexity for the sake of complexity is stupid. If something that used to take me five clicks to do, now only takes me two, I consider that to be a good improvement.

I disagree with developers removing features to make the game simpler though.

Missed the entire point of the OP. Ohwell.

the nerd in me is nostalgic for punishing old style games when you die if your torch runs out and you didnt bring a sandwich. But mostly I like that games are streamlining the user experience in a number of ways that make a game fun.You gain and lose with either method. I did think that TES would always be "hardcoe" with the first three iterations, but they surprised me with their approach lately, which isn't necessarily bad.

Simple games for simple minded...

I find Skyrim tedious, and have stopped playing it completely now. What the OP has suggested isn't really complex by any extent, it's just enough to add a lot more depth to the game, something that previous games did just fine.



Attributes aren't complexity for the sake of complexity, they're an important part of character building, and their removal makes the whole RP experience count for less because now there is very little at all difference between picking a Nord or a Wood Elf other than his scale and face.

..I noticed on the Fallout forums people are now worried that they'll remove weapon degradation from that series too, and I'm one of them; weapon degradation is a nice feature in TES games, but in Fallout games it's essential to the atmosphere. Removing it wouldn't be removing complexity for the sake of complexity, it'd be removing the 'soul' of the game for the sake of simplification.

The fact that there are so many simple and easy games out there is what made me love a game like morrowind... oblivion made things a little more mainstream, but skyrim has taken it even further.

I fear for TES VI: Fable 4 being released...

Well said, OP. You're absolutely right.

So why is complex better?

...

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

<_<

The problem lies in multiple areas that scale outside of video gaming itself.

Look at our form of lifestyle, the society in which we live (USA, Canada) is a society bent on living well, living good. You want to have enough money to afford the luxuries in life. The problem is, you need to make that money. Unfortunately, streamlining games means adapting them to fit a wider audience, so you sell more games, make more profits. Unfortunately, this also means catering to the masses on some level. Right now the masses like grinding practical skills. This is why we dont see a Morrowindesque speechcraft system. Speechcraft is a very niched expertise. It helps you out in some areas of the game, but a sword will get you more results overall.

The game is balanced around its main emphasis. To be fair, Morrowind had a lot more to do about storytelling (NOT LORE, STORYTELLING). It gave characters who wanted to be merchants, speechcraft experts more dynamacy and more to do. Oblivion and Skyrim have emphasized a more streamlined view of gaming, action. This improves things like Magic, Combat, Stealth, but degenerates from other less popular areas such as Speechcraft. SO why did I bring up money-making.

In fact, video gaming is not doomed. Video gaming is probably still 10-15 years away from mainstream but it is slowly creeping up. One day, hopefully, youll watch and enjoy video games like you enjoy hockey. However, this means the more developed forms of gaming, enjoying gaming like a story or DnD campaign will become rarer. It will be hard to find a game that caters to everyones style of play (The TES Series).

Ugh not this nonsense again.

Skyrim is more complex than Oblivion. You have more choices and variety when it comes to character building, and your character will never be a completely undefined master of all trades like you were at high levels in previous games. You have to consider so much more than just what skills you're going to use. You have to consider what specifically you're going to use them for. For example, someone who uses Illusion may only spend a few points in the tree because they're only going to use it for stealth enhancement rather than the variety of mind affecting spells.

You also have more options in any given situation in combat, with a higher % of those involving some amount of tactical consideration by the player than Oblivion's options. There is controlled shield/weapon bashing, various methods to kite or close gaps with your shouts, you can mitigate damage with timing but it's not as trivial as dodging was in Oblivion. etc. etc.

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.



When it comes to dialogue, I can agree we have pretty limited options. But the same was true for previous games. If you go back and play Oblivion or Morrowind right now and examine it's dialogue outside the context of your fuzzy memories and nostalgia, you'll realize your character was still pretty much a mute quest accepting robot with very little personality. The fact that we have an option to tab out of any conversation with NPCs and walk away in Skyrim is actually quite an improvement on it's own.

You answered your own question. Gaming has gone mainstream.

An average mainstream gamer doesn't want to screw around with something like Das Schwartze Auge (German answer to AD&D). It is a beautiful system, but you need to (gasp) learn the rules, and do some (gasp) math to play it. There are trade-offs and implications of choices, which means you have to think, and thinking, like, hurts my head, man! People don't want to stare at character sheets and worry about options and choices. They want to FUS RO DAH some FREAKING DRAGONS like NAO!

That by the way applies to both console and PC gamers of modern age, you're both guilty as sin and you know it.

PC gaming of yore was like the Internet of yore. Comparatively few people engaged in it, and they shared similar mindset that favored slower pace and greater complexity. Nowadays everyone wants to play, and most people want quick gratification and don't give two ships about how complex the underlying mechanics are. To quote a lulzsec twitter post, we find, we nom nom nom, we move on to something yummier.

Welcome to the Facebook generation.

Oh knock it off.

This game isn't simple in the least, frankly Oblivion's leveling system svcked. Half the time I wouldn't even put points into things because it got beyond tedious.

You people are the worst thing about gamers, next to the non-stop complainers(well that's you) and the PC Master Race elitists(which share the same belief that consoles are ruining things).

Just go away.

There really isn't a lot added though; the game looks nicer, we have dragons, we have the ability to choose to equip two weapons at the same time and we have a half decent perk system; but that gets old fast and what you're left with after that is a game with very little depth.

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

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.

I agree, simplicity is ruining games, look at Fable III now currently the biggest joke of the RPG genre, I liked it when games were complicated and it took months to master, but games today you can complete the main questline (or campeign) in 5 hours and max out your characters abilities in 3 days or less.

While essentially I agree, that the trend towards simplicity, or to be kinder "streamlining" games is a concern to me.

I do object to a certain extent in your definition of creating a character however, I certainly do not put any intellectual effort into "properly building" a character by your definition, because I define character by personality and motivations, rather than perfect statistical economy. For instance, I never went for the +5 in oblivion, because I went solely off what made sense at the time.
In some areas, the "streamlining" has actually made my life easier in making a character, I'm not tied up to a statistical number, I am more than a number! Some simplification, or more to the point, complete removals remove variety.

Some simplifications seem like sheer laziness, such as lack of quest options. Options help define character through your decisions.. so many quests have no decisions other than "do as you're told". These sort of simplifications worry me MUCH more than the stats and skills removal.

Finally, if you want to know why the game is being simplified, read any thread 9 pages long, and take note how many people even bothered to read the opening post at all instead of just the title. Its a terrifying exercise.

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

I have read a LOT of topics on this forum that contradict what you are saying here. Many people are upset that their characters are not succeeding because of the choices they have made. It might be easier to succeed, but it's not 100% guaranteed.

Also, I think your statement about "properly building a character" is exactly what devs want to avoid. There should not be a strictly defined "proper" way to play, you should be able to play it however you want and have it be fun. Maybe not every path leads to an ultra-strong dragonslayer, but as many paths as possible should lead to a fun experience, whatever that might be.

The game should unfold naturally and not punish you for not doing 12 hours of research on a wiki to make sure you get exactly enough long-blade level-ups before you hit the bedroll to max out your strength. In order to allow for that, there must be numerous paths to success which you seem to equate to simplicity. Doubtless, there are people that enjoy keeping spreadsheets open to min/max their guy but I'm willing to bet there are many more people that just want to play the game; who would hate to have to keep all that information in their heads all the time. I used to love doing that stuff myself, but after so many years and so many games I really would just rather have a good time instead of trying to break down all the minutia for hours so that I can prepare to have fun later.

Too many of the complaints being made suggest it is the gamers who have been "dumbed down" and not the game itself.

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword

Or people who just want to relax with some entertainment after a hard days work, I hope it never becomes too simplified, but a balance is needed between complexity and entertainment.

Amen.

There needs to be a "dismissive eye-roll and wanking gesture" emoticon for every blowhard elitist who doesn't recognize progress when they see it.

"Plumbing is for mainstream sheep. Half the fun in taking a dump is putting on my boots and coat and dashing to the outhouse."