Good lord, this.

I just about died when I return with Karliah and the Bosmer (forgot his name) and instantly convinced everyone that Karliah was not evil based off of a transcribed (and thus easily faked) note from a long-dead thief. So, so bad. And that's just one of many terrible events.

Oh my god, that is hilarious. Now I remember being rubbed the wrong way during many moments of that questline. I think the worst offense for me was being forced to sell my soul to Nocturnal, for absolutely no good reason other than to progress the quest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddtqyVeolb0 I actually made that for the Skyrim forums, but I figured it's relevant here, too.

That's not so much to do with RPG mechanics, but nevertheless, I think the difficulty of a game is pretty important regardless of the genre. In Skyrim's case, damage resistance as the one and only defensive stat and factor is just a terrible idea, ESPECIALLY when the scope of the damage resistance is 0% to 80%. They either need to cap the resistance at something MUCH lower like 40%, or just adopt damage threshold as the alternative.

New Vegas is much more interesting. Sure Skyrim is a RPG world filled to the brim with life, but New Vegas is a post apocalyptic stuck-in-the-fifties retro futuristic RPG game.

Off topic, but is a mage build feasible at all. I'm hoping to be able to finish the game since I, in a temporary mental disorder, bought it back in the day. Melee and archery are mind numbingly boring, couldn't finish the game those ways.

Yknow, I will actually give Skyrim credit and say magic builds are the most fun. Dunno why, but there's a sense of progression there you don't really get from the other two.

Having said that though....are you asking if it's doable without dying or just doable in general? And on what difficulty?

Issue with a mage build is you'll quickly find yourself with 0 magicka and you're dealing abysmal damage compared to the other character types. You can NEVER have enough magicka, but the moment you focus solely on magicka, obviously you're a oneshot.

And on top of that, you can't really level your skills as fast as you'd like. Alteration, conjuration and destruction can typically only be leveled during combat. For example if you're sneaking up to a group of enemies and you put on your magic armor with alteration, that doesn't actually count towards leveling your alteration because you're not in combat yet. The result is you'll find yourself spamming spells as you travel to level their skills. Destruction also levels DAMNED slow and it's DAMNED weak; the only thing that makes destruction at all viable is Impact, which lets you spam stagger on enemies. (but they still take ages to kill)

So tbh, I can't say if mage was actually fun to PLAY or rather it was fun having all the different toys to tool around with and fun from a perspective of character progression, since the character was definitely weak so every single perk was a welcomed improvement I desperately needed, with the character slowly going from "pathetic" to "pretty damn good." Been a while since I played one. With mage, you will be spending some time running from enemies and waiting for your magicka to regen, and assuming you keep putting points in magicka because holy crap do you need it, you'll die quickly so you're constantly on your feet. But it's sort of an opposite problem in that now the game can sometimes be too hard. I actually distinctly remember a fight vs a Volkihar vampire and it's thrall that was the most frustrating **** ever. Why? The thrall used a bow, the vampire spammed magic attacks. A SINGLE hit from either was enough to kill me. This forced me to basically summon something, HOPE it drew fire, then absolutely spam Impact on one or both of the enemies to keep them stagger locked.

Ok, doesn't sound very fun that way either.

I was thinking about a sneaky mage with as little point blank combat as possible on expert or master difficulty.

As I'm trying to point out on the Skyrim forums now, the problem is Skyrim lacks a middle ground. You're either too strong or too weak. You're either never ever ever dying or coming close to death, or you're being locked into killcams and insta-killed without the game offering you any way to avoid this, or you're oneshot by arrows that, let's be real here, you can't dodge forever.

And you're being called a troll because of it.

I don't really care, tbh.

Ad hominem attacks don't prove anything. To me, even if they appear like they're not listening or disagree, the truth always resonates with people and rings true, even if it takes some time.

Mind you, I'm not so arrogant as to say that what's my opinion is the truth. I simply take the stance of "if it's not the truth, someone will be able to provide a counter-argument that shows this," and thusfar it hasn't happened. Totally ready to be proven wrong, it's just that currently, it doesn't look like that's happening...

That says more about them though.

Trolling is a deliberate attempt to provoke an emotional response.

So Longknife, your argument is emotionally damaging to them.

Just read that forum.

*Facepalm*

*Facedesk*

*Facewall*

*Face-Nokia*

Virtual larpers galore. Gimp, gimp, gimp, "roleplay".

Yes. I went there. I face-nokia'd. The highest level of facepalm there is. That's how painful it was to read that forum.

Well turning the argument around and simply challenging them to suggest a SUPERIOR system or to point out flaws in the one I suggested seems quite effective. Up to now they've just been trying to tell me I'm playing wrong, now I'm suggesting a way both myself and them can play the game "right" if certain changes are made that in no way interfere with their playstyles.

Did they make a part 3 of that thread?

I did. Because I realized I might be able to make them quiet down if I simply challenge them to point out flaws within my own suggestions instead of trying to point out flaws with Skyrim's current system.

None of them have really posted yet.

And once the debate starts in that thread, it gets closed and deleted due to debate.

This, I put a lot of time into skyrim done everything of note in one playthrough and got the platinum but there is no compelling reason to go back so I haven't played it in over a year...

But with fallout new vegas I done everything of note and got the platinum... and yet I still play it regularly I still unearth interesting dialogue or find out something I never knew about the factions of New Vegas and there motives.

Skyrim is like oil that burns brightly but quickly runs out while Fallout New Vegas is like a wax candle that burns brightly far far longer.

OP, you've managed to nail my experience with just these words.

I mean, if you want dragons in your game but you don't want to be the Chosen One, Lord & Saviour Of Them All then you literally have to ignore the Greybeards' call for you and pretend that fax never made it through.

I feel very fondly about Skyrim and consider it a landmark RPG, deservedly, but I have no problems saying that the actual RP aspect of it is poor. RPing is built around characters and a social network and your ability to act within it, and Skyrim just doesn't have these things. The world is massive in scope but the characters are often depth-less (and god does the overuse of voice actors emphasise it). A large part of the problem, which I don't see mentioned that often, is that there is seriously no diversity in dialogue options. You can ask everyone some one or two basic questions, and usually if you get into a conversation chain you have literally one option. There isn't even any variance in how you say things - everything has to be imagined if you want to roleplay, from relationships with NPCs to social standing to decisions made.

The very fact that there is an average NPC and dialogue in any given area (in a city it's usually someone wandering about that you can say something like 'tell me about this place' to) is an indication that no serious thought was put into allowing the player to craft an image for themselves and interact with people as such. Usually the only differences are for random fetch quests. Guilds and race are really the only things that give you a sense of character, and even those have just superficial impacts on your treatment.

NV on the other hand pretty much forces you to be specialised in both ability and character, which some may not like but for me made for the most awesome and immersive experience. Skyrim's a good game, but it's best suited for those who want to explore a big world and do anything and everything, not for those who are into in-game RPing.