Oblivion was the all time low for me. Skyrim is almost as good as morrowind (but lack the amazing lore). But every time I feel like playing morrowind i start it up, and discover that the gameplay of morrowind is ... old... :/

Think of it as charity to trolls.

I guess it's still the "Season of giving and sharing"... well, at least until after the 1st of January.

I was speaking to a friend about this last night. I was asking him for his advice on how we modders can improve the game along with his thoughts about the game as a whole.

He responded that he felt that Bethesda really didn't want to make a game for the fans of the game to begin with, because they knew we(the fans) would buy it anyway, so they
made the game aimed towards people who wouldn't normally buy the game. The market he felt they were trying to tap into is the whole Call of Duty player market, and were doing
so by:

A - Removing all of the micromanagement elements (Str, Agi, Dex, Def, along with merging armor choices)
B - Removing weapon choice or variation (newer weapons/armor are always better similar to Call of Duty)
C - Adding a perk system in place of RPG elements(also like CoD), etc.

Then they focused on making the game visually impressive(pretty magic/pretty landscapes), and didn't stress improving the elements that have been problematic with the series but are
core to the gameplay, ie: Melee Combat Gameplay. Melee combat's main focus for improvement seems to be the whole visual element: Gory Decapitations, constant fancy kills, etc. But
in the end you're still just flailing around a cardboard sword and shield. Besides, what CoD player is going to use sword and shield anyway? Long range needs to be good! Thus magic is
good, looks good, and plays good.

What he came to the conclusion about it was that Beth didn't really want to make an RPG to begin with, but more of a game for casuals since the RPGers would definitely buy the game. So
instead of a true RPG you get an Action Game wrapped in the illusion of an RPG. Besides, once you get bored of the combat, you can always just spawn cheese wheels and roll them down
a mountain. Beth is all for that it seems.

After saying all of that though I still love Bethesda as a company since I too am part of the group of mindless fans who will buy their game anyway. So in that respect, I can't really complain.
But instead of making excuses, I just have to look at the reality for what it is.


Edit: Wow now that I think about it the CoD similarities don't even end there. The power for your skills is never in your "skill value", all of the power is in the perks. Todd Howard said so himself,
however a lot of the good perks are "locked off" and the only way you can get to the good perks is to play a lot. If you don't play a lot you'll always be weak because you wont have those perks
that you need in order to do heavy damage.

In Call of Duty when you start off, your character is weak. In order to really get stronger you need to get better guns but more importantly you need to get more perks. Most of the power of your
play is in the perks. But the only way you can get to the perks/guns you want is to play a lot. If you don't play a lot you'll always be weak because you won't have those perks you need in order
to do heavy damage (see a trend?).

I started playing Elder Scrolls in 2002 with Morrowind and loved it immediatley. I was kind of dissapointed that Oblivion was "limited" compared to Morrowind, but in the end liked it anyway, altough I still think Morrowind was the better game,at the time it came out. I don't see that Skyrim has been that limited in comparison to Oblivion though. The cut some things out, but added others. Skyrim is different, but in my opinion not dumbed down.

In general I think that "limited" explains what happend with the Elder Scrolls series better than "dumbed down". How is the e.g. removal of Spellmaking a sign for "dumbing down"? One could completly ignore that aspect of the game in Morrowind and Oblivion anyway, if one was too "dumb". It wasn't necessary to use it and therefore I see removal of Spellmaking in Skyrim more as a limitation. Someone also said, that the reduced size of cities is a sign of "dumbing down". I don't get that either. Are big cities only for smart people? Don't think so. I would say that almost every gamer (casual and nerd) would enjoy bigger cities, but the reason Beth made them smaller are different ones.

Some of those lmitations were for the better, and some for the worse. But as I don't see a lot of them in Skyrim compared to Oblivion, I'm not worried for future ES games.

Also, on that note normally I would agree and use it as an excuse, but after playing Dark Souls, I have to really disagree about using it as an excuse.

Dark Souls is in my opinion, the epitome of RPG: It has a huge expansive beautiful world, lots of RP elements, excellent combat (and not just on any one part, every aspect and weapon related to the combat is
fleshed out very well), there's treasure to find, lots of flash WITH substance, you can customize your character however you want, it has a really deep and interesting story, etc. It does all of those elements well, and I'm sure the budget
for that game was much less than Skyrim's. Dev time was probably smaller as well. When DkS devs were creating/managing the game they focused on the gameplay elements, rather than chasing what's popular,
and decided to make the game they wanted to make(It's actually their company's policy!), and it came out pretty much flawless in my opinion. The amount of glitches in the game are pretty small in number, and the
gameplay content value is of a very high quality.

(By the way this isn't to spawn up a whole Dark Souls vs Skyrim debate, I'm just using it as an example since the games are supposed to be in the same genre ie: Fantasy Medieval RPG's)

So as a result instead of making excuses for Skyrim's problems, I just look at it as the way it really is. I personally like both games for different reasons. But I feel that Skyrim really had more than enough
time and inclination to improve their previous game's gameplay elements and combat. But there's still too many issues with it. AI is dumb. Combat is still flailing around at enemies made of smoke
who never react to damage. Enemies hit you and you ignore it like a boss. It's a whole lot of mashing buttons, and praying for victories; it's just so mindless.

Honestly, how many of you were disappointed at how fast your first dragon went down, be honest. I was really beyond disappointed. Like the dragon was visually impressive(like I said before). It flew around pretty, it blew fire pretty, it ate a guard pretty, it roared pretty, hovered in the air pretty, all of that stuff. But when it came down to fighting the damn thing, it went down in a few strokes. Total buzzkill.

We modders can improve all of these elements too but, it's like...can you still still credit Bethesda for additions that modders make that probably should have been there from the beginning? I personally say no, and instead
look at the game for what it is, rather than make excuses for it.

And yet another of these threads. Beth must be crying over their mountain of gold.

Fixed it.

How can you defend all of the dumbing down, unless you're a casual?

Here we go again, the arrogant "vet" saying his opinions are more important than the new player.

No athletics. Where's my other armor pieces? Marriage is dumb. The questlines are a joke. What happened to spears? Crossbows? Why do skills keep disappearing and choices continue to dwindle? No reputation system is aimed at casuals. Gutting of spellmaking is one choice that will never be forgiveable. They've lost touch with the community.

Threads like this make me cry.

In what way, Skyrim is less? How is Skyrim not an RPG? How is Skyrim more "dumbed down" than Morrowind? What is it in Morrowind/Daggerfall that made it "deep" and it's missing in Skyrim? What new additions are there that cannot take over the old things?

No seriously, what?


I played a game quite a while now, and the more I play it, I'm more and more convinced I'm playing a completely different game people talk about here. Magic doesn't svck, not even on higher levels, faction quests are hardly "short" only if you just skim trough them without a second thought and just fast travel everywhere, there are many interesting NPCs with unique dialog, the quests vary from random fetchquests from more detailed scripted ones, every area is unique, level scaling does not ruin the game, actually level scaling is not even close to the one in Oblivion, characters are actually unique with the Perk system, picking perks do matter and can radically change your character, they define you like attributes would...

It's the same thing in the end, only the way it works is different, there is no big conspiracy about "causal" games, how is this any more casual than the rest, how is raising one number adds any more "depth" than what we have now?
No, again, this is just pure ignorance, not seeing the forest from the trees, being stubborn about the old ways and if ANYTHING is different then it must svck.

What bothers me is how once bethesda gets something right they change it.

Bartering in morrowind was great. Now its total trash. I have to buy/sell one item at a time now which makes it way harder to trade items for obvious reasons.

The magic system in oblivion was cool. I could use a weapon and a spell in one hand. Now i have to pause the game everytime i want to switch between a weapon and a spell.

Hotkey system in oblivion was great for the consoles. Now i have to pause..

etc.

I blame it on Fallout.

Argh.

Okay, I'm not gonna reread five pages of argument and probably shouldn't even bother posting in this thread, but somebody answer me this: has the position of the OP and supporters been shown to be: "Bleh, why did they get rid of A, B, C, D and E, DURNED CASUAL-GAMERS, DURNED BETHESDA, WTF?" and A, B, C, D and E are all things that were in Morrowind but are not in Skyrim?

What!?
Just, What!?

Hey you! Don't mock Morrowind!
If you do, you will be a labeled a mentally challenged dumb child who is also a casual gamer

How do I know this? It has happened to me, so I guess I'm just a Child even though I still play Daggerfall today.

Heh, I'm probably going to get more [censored] for this but even with its repetitiveness and copy and pasted land, I enjoyed Oblivion.

LOL reboot huh? they have sold more copies of skyrim then any other game they made.

UH HUH BUT WHAT'S MORE IMPORTNAT, MONEYS OR SATISFYING THE ALMIGHTY CULT OF MORROWIND-WORSHIPPERS? ALL HAIL MORROWIND! IF IT WASN'T IN MORROWIND, DON'T ADD IT. IF IT WAS IN MORROWIND, DON'T ELIMINATE IT. ALL HAIL MORROWIND!

yea, fallout 1 and 2. and, kotor1. lol! i have played and own all 3 and though they were good AT THE TIME but are horrible today. i occasionally go back and try to play them but can barely get past the initial beginnings of the games.

yet, even right now i play morrowind just before going to bed and look forward to it...

Only reason they sold more copies is because they sold out to the casuals.

sigh

You just never tire of it, do you?

It is absolutely rude to generalize anyone who enjoys this game as a "casual" (okay, you caught me, I spent 2 grand on a laptop for this game... I'm a TOTAL casual.). After reading every post you've made in this thread the only advice I can give is that its likely time for you to move on to other games since Skyrim clearly isn't doing it for you. Oh yeah, and stop assuming that your opinion on the game is factual because its not, nor is anyone who disagrees with you somehow less entitled to an opinion than you are.

I would be happy with a game that didn't have broken quests, broken side quests, lag issues, corrupted files, etc. I mean I just had Skor resurrect at the end of the companion quests. The bard quest, hell I stay away from those items like the plague, not to mention how the Characters from the college are bugged. With the College of Mages, I only hope I don't find a book that is on the list from Urag gro-Shub. Because if I do before having the quest it stays in my inventory forever. The truly sad thing is I'm on my 9th build and have yet to finish the game due to all the bugs, glitches, and broken quests. I'm very disappointed in Bethesda's lack of QA testing of this game. After this title, I wouldn't trust anything Bethesda puts out. Their lack of taking responsibility for their actions of releasing a broke title is truly unforgivable.

Do you think that Oblivion was a better game than Skyrim? If not then why the hell are you complaining that the series is getting worse now, four years after its release when a better sequel has just come out?