For sometime now I've been thinking about why Skyrim isn't that exciting after a few hours, especially in comparison to previous titles.

The Quests:

The entire problem with Skyrim is the quest choice. Take the individual guilds for example, the Champions Guild, the College of Winterhold, the Thieves and the Dark brotherhood. All these guilds have quests that are extremely forgettable and the lines are actually very short.

One of the biggest problems with the quests is that they seem to have no effect on the world. It's as if the inhabitants of Skyrim are absolutely stupid and don't have any interest in any event. The final Dark Brotherhood quest was an absolute anti-climix once you completed it, ok, you killed the Emperor, but his guards were weak and his ship was barley defended, and then if you assassinated him, it's as if no one cared... because nothing changed.

The College of Winterhold quests could see a melee user become Arch-mage in a matter of hours without using many spells, the quest line was completely forgettable and short, and again, once you became Arch-mage, no one cared and they still treated you as if you were some trainee mage. The Champions Guild quests were again, forgettable and nothing really happened. They were much shorter than the Fighters Guild quests and much less exciting. The Thieves Guild quests weren't interesting at all, and compared to the quests of Oblivion where you had to steal an Elder Scroll... the quests weren't that thrilling in Skyrim.

I think the problem with the guild quests is that no one outside the guilds cared about what happened, moreover, the events only seemed to concern the guild and no one else. This really made the entire story for each guild become rather mundane and less thrilling.

But lets look at the main quest line...

Again, no one cared apart from the main characters. We're supposed to fear the dragons but they're easy to defeat and unlike the Oblivion crisis where cities were destroyed and huge gates were spawning invading demons, emperors assassinated, the Imperial City under siege... Skyrim's main quest line wasn't at all thrilling and I didn't feel attached to many characters.

Of course Skyrim had a few good quests, but even the Civil War quest line was boring. I didn't really care who won or lost because nothing happened after the completion to make me want to care. There was even a glitch where the fallen Ulfric would always remain there in his captured palace.

Map:

I feel that the map of Skyrim, whilst incredibly detailed, is a lot less interesting than Oblivion's. Oblivion had one huge city that had so much going on and lots of different people. It had different districts. But Skyrim has no main city and I think all games need a center point of interest. But even then, the other cities had so much character too them and the buildings felt a lot nicer.

I feel as if the cities in Oblivion had more character and purpose to them.

This is of course a few reasons why Skyrim is rather boring at times, i'm sure there are many more reasons. But Skyrim also had many technical problems as well which ruined the experience of an RPG. Did any of you experience this?

But Skyrim has better graphics.

Of course it can be boring, just like every game.

The landscape is horrible boring, yes. Everything is grey. Riften has the most colors and that is not saying much.

Exactly why Skyrim is better to the current fans. A high ranking Bethesda employee said that "people who say graphics aren't important are lying." That was probably Pete Hines, backed up by Todd Howard.

http://www.oxm.co.uk/26489/bethesda-people-who-say-graphics-dont-matter-are-lying/

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/todd-howard-claims-graphics-are-important.80528/

And then they released bs Photoshopped screenshots, which are very hard to find now if they still exist.

Graphics are important to an RPG, but you can't just have amazing graphics and a terrible plot line. For me, Oblivion's graphics were incredible for its time, but its story was also incredible, it was world changing. Whole cities were destroyed, a bloodline of an empire gone, a sinister order trying to destroy the world... then Skyrim just has a few irritating dragons flying around that can be defeated easily.

Skyrim's quests were as if no one actually cared.

< Isn't having any problems with boredom even after all this time. And I play on 360 so no mods needed either.

Did you play Oblivion?

I did, I also played Morrowind. I'm still having no troubles at all with Skyrim because I don't nitpick every little flaw.

This right here. I also dont nitpick. I enjoy the game when I play and dont look in to every single minor thing that could be flawed.

I haven't played Oblivion or Morrowind but I can see applying the same criticism to those storylines and saying it's boring: 'oh the world is about to end, the emperor is dead, demons are invading, who can save us....'

I think the exciting part of the game is not the story/quests but its ability to suit your mood - wanna be a tank, an assassin, a werewolf, a vampire, a werid mix of several? Anything is possible (don't forget changing the difficulty level as well) you just have to discover it for yourself. I think imagination is what keeps the game interesting which may be asking more of some players than they can handle.

Regenerative health and armor and weapons not getting damaged or broken in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim bores I want to heal myself with healing potions and healing spells after a fight and I want to repair my armor and weapons after fights like in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion I just can't stand fighting NPC's and when I run away from them for a short time to counter their attacks my health starts healing where is the fun in that? Imagine if you have no regenerative health and when you fight NPC's when you move around the NPC's your health doesn't regenerate so you have to drink health potions or use healing spells.

Anyone else agree? I really hope Bethesda Game Studios does not add regenerative health in The Elder Scrolls VI and brings back repair to armor and weapons.

I think it's all about the player. Before I actuated started RPing in Skyrim yes it was boring after a few hours but now it's hard for me to stop playing. If all you do is power play through everything with no thought or consideration as to why your doing what your doing its bound and inevidable to become tiresome.
Like I said, it all depends on the player.

This is in the wrong section. There are no spoilers allowed in the General section. It says so right at the top of the forum.

As to the OP, I will both disagree and call your argument inherently foolish. Almost everything you said is your simple opinion of what is "exciting", "challenging" or "forgettable". All of these things are your opinion. There is no objective test you could perform to verify these claims because others might believe differently. However, I'll still try to reply to what you said.

You start by doing exactly what I talked about. Excitement in in the eyes of the beholder. I personally found many of the quests in Skyrim to be exciting.

Once again, you claim that the quests are "forgettable" and that that is a reason why they are worse than the previous titles. Fine, maybe you forgot about them. I didn't. So what you said means nothing because it's completely subjective. Them being "short" is not evidence of their quality. In fact, with the Thieves Guild and Companions, you have the potential for unlimited quests. These quests will be different from what was offered in previous games, but, once again, it is a subjective quality that cannot be claimed to be "better" or "worse".

This is a classic claim that I find extremely hard to understand. You say that the quests don't have an effect on the world. OK. I would be inclined to partially agree with you with that. I would say that in RPGs in general, there haven't been many titles where you can have an effect on the gameworld. Skyrim isn't free of this. However, at the beginning of your post, you said that you would be looking at all of this in relation to previous titles. and that is where this statement because bogus. Do you really think that your actions in Skyrim have less of an effect on the world that the previous games? Really? Have you played Morrowind? If not, I direct you to http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Hortator_and_Nerevarine. You must meet with the leader of the Temple and convince him to allow you to meet Vivec. You have to dodge attacks by the Temple Ordinators through all of this and some previous quests as well. And none of this, none of this, is affected EVEN IF YOU ARE THE CURRECT TEMPLE ARCHCANON! You could have completed the entire Temple questline and had the previous guy retire, and you still have to talk to him! The Ordinators will still attack you even if you are the leader of the Temple! In fact, there is no difference between completing this quest as the head of the Temple as well as the leader of a Great House and several guilds, and a simple peon who just walked off the boat. The people will treat you no differently. And you want to claim that the previous titles had a great impact on the world? Ridiculous. At lease in Skyrim you can avoid redundant quests depending on some previous actions. I won't go into detail because, as I said, this is the wrong section. But look up the main quest to discover how you can do things differently depending on your other actions. You will certainly find more than Morrowind.

The same could be done in Oblivion. I could say "In Oblivion, the Mage's Guild quests could see a melee user become Arch-mage in a matter of hours without using many spells," and I would be completely correct. I have actually done so a few times in the past. To criticize Skyrim for this in comparison to the older games makes no sense, because they too fell victim to this. The rest of your post is not worth replying to because it is all opinion. Maybe I didn't find stealing an Elder Scroll that interesting. Just because you did doesn't make it a better game.

This simply isn't true. I won't say any more because of spoilers, but seriously, look into the College questline. What you're saying is not true.

This is all simply opinion. What you personally felt while playing the game is your feelings alone. They be objectively verified or falsified. Maybe I did fear the dragons, and you didn't. So? That's just a personal opinion.

Once again, all opinion and not commenting on why this makes Skyrim a worse game.

I agree about taking away regenerating health but I'm glad that they took away weapon degradation. I saw it as nothing more as a boring chore that I occassionally have to do. They didn't even really degrade fast enough for anything to ever break on the battle-field except for a handful of rare times. The times it ever happened to me is in the low double digits.

The Skyrim map is... bad. It is utterly stupid to have this damn Google Map Satellite image. And the clouds cover it and it's an overall immersion breaker. We should have just had a plain map like the ones we find on the tables and hanging on the walls. However, I fail to see how that could be labeled.. "boring.'

As far as the cities... You are talking about the seat of Tamriel. The White Gold Tower. The home of the Emperor. It should be the grandest of all the lands. That's why it has separate districts. Besides, you must remember we're talking about knuckle dragging frostbacks here. It's the best they got to work with.

Well I hate the fact that there is no armor and weapon degradation I mean in real life in the medieval times people had to stitch their armor back together with pieces (scrap) of leather or if the armor was made of metal they would have to pound it again and again on an anvil to fix dents or if the metal had holes in it they would have to smelt pieces of metal back onto it and their weapons they would have to sharpen them if the blade got dull or if the handle broke they had to do temporary fixes until they could get a brand new weapon.

So wouldn't this of been more fun? To actually make repairs like in real life not just some weird repair where you click on a repair hammer and it just repairs your armor and weapons. I mean imagine seeing your armor and weapons degrade in real time then repairing them in real time I think it would make the video game much more enjoyable.

If they could make it very realistic I could see it more fun, but unfortunately I have doubts they would be able to get it like real life without something messing up lol.

It'll probably just be another click it to fix it easy fix thing, though one can hope it would be something more.

Edit: Hmm but then again they did add movements into skyrim such as watching your character hammer swords out at the forges while you are at the menu. Maybe they can expand on that and make it into something interesting.

Well I believe they can achieve this with The Elder Scrolls VI since it's going to be released on PC and the new consoles coming out. Since I am a PC gamer only I have mods that actually add armor and weapons degradation and some crafting mods actually add animations where you can actually see your character stitch parts of armor when damaged it looks kinda weird and the person who made that one crafting mod says he or she will make the mod have the ability so you can see yourself actually get dents in metal parts of the armor and actually use hammers and anvils and smelts to fix them all in real time and weapons actually will be getting animations for when the handles or the blade itself breaks. Sadly the modder does not know how to make weapons dull yet he or she is trying to find a way to make the animations seem realistic and not weird and buggy.

The armor and weapons getting damaged in the mods I have is known as Locational Damage. Use Google or something so you can understand what I am talking about. Don't look at the links that say you get hurt or whatever look at ones that show stuff breaking click first link.

So I am pretty sure if modders on PC were able to make mods that add this level of realism for broken armor and weapons for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim then Bethesda Game Studios should be able to do this much better with The Elder Scrolls VI .

Why would we need regenerative health in Skyrim when we can drink infinite potions in the inventory menu, even on legendary? But man, look at the graphics.

Not talking about Legendary difficulty I am talking about like Easy difficulty or other difficulties that have regenerative health. I play on Hard difficulty and Legendary difficulty.

Agreed and it sounds like "Back to the Future" but seriously all the series has its faults and plus points and what i would like to see is a grand amalgam of all the plus points and drop all the silly nonsense that starts to creep in with OB and grows in Skyrim but i expect i will get flamed for that. Still you don't just ditch everything and start afresh, surely Beth can see that whilst they made massive strides in graphics it has been at the expense of other features which were worth keeping. Lets hope (forlorn i think) that they combine the best of all worlds with the new consoles capabilities.

But in the this real world i expect profit is all they care about.

Agree with the OP. Our actions have no affect on the world whatsoever.

I completely agree with the OP when it comes to questlines and guilds the only quest line that I somewhat enjoyed was dawnguard and that is only because the npcs actually had a sense of character.

Plus the pacing in the guilds is horrible and the college? I personally think they could do without a "epic" quest line it could of been taking lessons are researching ancient lore instead of dealing with a "threat".