The Simplification of the Series, when do you give up?

[CBR JGWRR]

TBF, they affect how effective skills are and the regeneration rates, how fast you could move, how NPC's viewed your character... Certainly not useless.

[Br3admax]

All things the skills themselves now do, no?

Look I like stats, I'm just saying they could have be implemented better. I do infact disagree with their removal.

[CBR JGWRR]

Well, there is no way in the base game to change how fast your character moves in Skyrim, or how high they jump...

I don't mind their removal - the games equally enjoyable whether they're there or not.


Although, for example, I do think a dremora wielding a sodding great big sword with maxed out strength and Blade skills should be doing a lot more damage than he does in game. At level 1 he one-shotted his enemies, now he has to take 2, 3 hits to kill the normal enemies he encounters...

That's what I most dislike about Oblivion myself.

[dzio]

@Musicman - I don't mean that a game has to be hard to be enjoyable, but if you make it too easy, you don't get the feeling of accomplishment from it. Or at least I don't. If I wanted something that lets me win without any effort at all, I'd stick with Windows Solitare.

And I'm not so much bothered by the idea of removing the attributes in Skyrim, as I am with disconnecting the skill advances from the character's actions. That's been the whole point of TES and the most brilliant thing about it - you get better at things by doing things. It worked with skills and it worked with attributes (you use your brain a lot - you can raise your Intelligence high, you smash things - you can raise your Strength). But now you can spend a few days stealing things and sneaking about, and then go and choose to raise your Magicka and pick a Block perk for no apparent reason. Yeah, there are limits for perks, because you can't pick a perk for a skill you have at 20 and are not using at all, but it still doesn't feel organic, or natural, or whatever you want to call this core TES concept.

[Musicman247]

Ah! I see now what you mean about the skills. I guess I never even imagined putting a perk point into a skill that I didn't use. I think you could go back to the "you can do anything" comment to explain it.

I would point out, though, that perks are dependant on skill level as well, so you might be able to get that first perk in the Block tree, but unless you keep using the block skill you won't be able to put any more perk points into it.

[dzio]

I know, but think about it - you can raise several skills in one level, but you can only pick one perk. So my theoretical sneaky thief could raise her Sneak and Lockpicking and a bit of Illusion, and then pick Sneak. And for the next level she goes hunting and gathers some ingredients for potions and does some brewing. But when she goes up a level, she still has those points from the previous level and she could pick a Lockpicking perk, or even something she's raised four levels ago, even though she hasn't touched that skill in days/weeks of gametime. If they must create a "traditional" level system, it should work organically, based on players choices limited by character's experiences, not just the former.

[Zephyr]

If a character raised a particular skill four levels ago, then that skill increase is part of his/her experiences. And to your previous post, it's not odd to raise Magicka after going around stealing things since there's no direct correlation between the skills and the attributes.

[dzio]

Yeah, it's part of their experience, but if you do something for a while in May, it's not going to suddenly improve your abilities in August, while you're still crap at it in June and July. You'll get better at it right then, in May. And the lack of correlation is not something that makes sense logically, it's the game mechanic that was implemented.

There's this great mod for Oblivion, that makes you level as you go, without having to sleep and pick the stats to improve. They just do, because you do stuff. And you get special perks (the abilities you get with getting a skill to Apprentice, Journeyman and so on) the moment you get good enough at something, not when you feel like it.

[Br3admax]

That's not how it works in real life. You don't truly learn something until you go to sleep. That's how the brain works.

[dzio]

Oh come on, we're not talking about making the games work like the human brain. That's ridiculous. It's always going to be simplified and inaccurate. I just want it to be logical.

Also, not true. If I spend all day learning to play a song on a guitar, I'll be a better guitar player by the end of the day. If I study some French in the morning, I'll be able to repeat some phrases in the evening. Sure, it will all get nicely tucked in into my long term memory when I go to sleep, but I'll get some benefits right away. And I most certainly won't get better three weeks after doing it, with no change between now and then, which is how Skyrim perks work.

What I mean is, just because you have to make it simpler than the reality, it doesn't mean that you have to make it nonsensical.

[Musicman247]

Maybe perks are just you asking the gods for a boost.

But in real life breakthroughs can come at any time, and aren't dependent on whether you're using that specific skill at the time.

[Br3admax]

Nope, you never truly learn, notice I said trully, it until you go to sleep. There's a reason why "Sleep on it." is a phrase. You're just recall STM, and that is not knowing. Also last time I checked, knowing happens in the brain. And perks do not work that way. Perks are like using past experience to form a sudden epiphany.

[dzio]

Sudden epiphany twice a day, every day? That's how Dovahkiin's brain works? I get that you can have a sudden lightbulb moment unrelated to anything you're doing right now, but it seems that in Skyrim a large part of learning happens that way.

Without turning this into a discussion about neurobiology (because probably none of us is competent to do that and it's OT), I just wanted to say that I dislike the perk system and I think it's an example of simplification of TES. It's one step away from "you do it, you learn it" towards "2000XP for killing a troll" and from something I feel is a core concept of TES towards an arbitrary, simplified mechanic. I'm not saying that's something that would make me give up on TES on its own, but if there were other changes I wouldn't like, that could be the one thing that tips the scales for me.

Musicman: I'm not on good terms with the Gods.

[Musicman247]

You're Dovahkiin, so you're pretty much part god already.

/explainseverything

[Mattbott]

Perks are like using past experience to form a sudden epiphany.

maybe a return to leveling up after sleep is called for? Or perhaps you can't access some perks unless you are taught or read them in books?

but this is making the game more complicated and counter the current trend

to answer the OP, if the game gets much simpler i would start thinking twice about it's number one status as RPG computer goodness

especially if they are not going to give us legendary amounts of dlc any more

[Dunmerdude]

The current system was introduced because the system used in III and IV was pretty broken. The best way to level was to game the system for X5 multipliers. The new system is meant to create an organic class system where you become better in the skills you use, the Perks add player choice to your development while encouraging specialization.

While it might not be perfect (Some perks are worthless, some are brokenly overpowered.) I still feel it beats the old system.

[Lymond]

Interesting post. For me, Skyrim is my favorite elder scroll game. I enjoy the lore. It provides context for how I think about the role playing part. Still, the action, combat etc is what draws me in. I really liked the story line and guilds in Oblivion.....much better in my view, than Skyrim. But the perk system, graphics and basic game play is in my view much better....enough so that I can accept the lesser storyline.

Loved Morrowind, my first Elder Scroll game....and really the first non-sports based video game I ever got immersed in. I am oldish. AARP eligible but still working and lacking in lots of spare time. For me to find a video game I would devote more than an hour a day to it had to be very, very good. Morrowind was good enough to suck me in. Oblivion was even better...for me. Skyrim gets it just right for me.

Hoping personally that they stay the course....keep and expand upon the lore, keep the perk system.....and ideally improve upon the story line, guilds, etc.

[farore]

Although quickly going through the ranks of the guilds is annoying to me, it would take a lot for me to quit the series. I'm too immersed in the lore and evolution of the series, the history everything about it. Its like my second world. It would literally have to become on of those games where every quest leads to the next, that doesnt have a free roam world, such as fable. I hate having all this beautiful terrain but you only have specific paths you can. Thats what it would take.. I definitely hate how simple it has become, literally not having a birth sign or choosing traits, I hate that, but it isnt enough. I don't see how it could get much worse though.

[VirtualWeasel]

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[VelothiConservative]

Well, mr. KryptonianBlood, I think Skyrim is a very good game in many respects, and not at all as dumbed down as many say. Most things can be explained, and aren't very bad decisions at all. I'm actually rather okay and even glad that armor pieces have been simplified as they are now. Greaves and pauldrons, as well as the distinction between the latter and gauntlets/bracers was in my view, just messy. It saves time when making the models and textures, and it's quite frankly more realistic. You'll find that most armor doesn't actually draw a line between the main piece and the pauldrons, and the greaves, and I like that it's reflected in the game. And then there's the relative symbolic importance of each part.. It's easy to see why gloves and boots are of importance, but have you ever heard of any legendary pauldrons or greaves? No. Because they are very superflous and generally unimportant, and a waste of time really. I think the current number of armor pieces is ideal, and it won't likely change thankfully.

Regarding the removal of the attribute system I can understand that given that the previous system didn't work very well. But the concept of attributes is still very good, even though they failed to implement it earlier. What they should have done is to make it better, not do away with it. And that wouldn't be hard at all as there's a nearly perfect attribute system in fallout's SPECIAL system that could just be translated into TES. with the bonus of including the very important, but previously neglected, perception, whilst removing superflous speed.

Skyrim's quests are actually very good and detailed. They plentifully better than anything we've seen before. The problem is just that there's mostly only such detailed quests which carry the faction plot forward, and no less important generic quests, or other things slowing down the pace of the plot. Thus, you find yourself being accepted into the circle etc awkwardly fast. The problem thus isn't with Skyrims very good quests per se, but the absence of enough smaller radiant quests. It would be nice if there were more go-kill-people-at-camp quests that were needed to be completed. or anything really, so the story isn't hushed as it is now.

But generally, I don't think Skyrim has been simplifiying in any negative sense (excpet attributes and skills). Mostly they've just done away with confusing things that weren't working well or didn't make sense. Like athletics and acrobatics, and greaves. and that's an improvement.

[OblivionDuruza]

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While I love Jingles to bits, I think that he takes the complete wrong approach in that video series, and I have to say that I strongly disagree with him.

The first of my two main issues with the video is that he focuses on pointing out the flaws of the previous games (most of them mechanical) rather than establishing the strengths of Skyrim as a standalone title.

The other issue I have with it is that it takes the form of a rebuttal to Samyoul, whose arguments themselves weren't quite the strongest.

I see the series as having improved mechanically quite a bit, but I do have to agree with Jingles' own admission that in doing so they've lost part of their old charm. Still, generally speaking I will acknowledge that the series has not so much 'dumbed down' mechanically as it has been improved from a gameplay perspective (I certainly wouldn't be keen for fast travel or quest makers to be removed).

That said, where the series has been 'dumbed down' is in the world design and the storyline. I remember back when Bethesda resisted fan calls for dragons and other generic western fantasy elements, and I remember when the franchise featured the more unique and engaging elements of the lore. Certainly, Skyrim, for me, trashed a fair bit of the pre-Skyrim lore, and although it gets away with it because it didn't retcon anything strictly speaking, it still feels a little sickly for me to think of Thu'um as 'Dragon Shouts' or the Old Holds as Stormcloaks. I mean, really, why do the 'true Nords' of the Old Holds worship an Imperial rather than the traditional Nordic pantheon? To me that feels a tad too sloppy for me to accept, and seems to suggest that the macro elements of the story Bethesda wanted to tell in Skyrim overrode the micro elements of the world that Skyrim was to be.

Further, we went from Morrowind's diverse and at times conflicting set of factions, which added a real depth to the world and a lot of replayability to the game, to Oblivion's one faction per character archetype, to Skyrim's rebranding of the Oblivion model crammed full of other storylines. We went from a range of Imperial and native factions that covered various aspects of the lore that surrounded the contrast and conflict between Empire and Dunmer, to a Mage faction that also tried to be a Thalmor storyline, a Fighter faction that was little more than a glorified werewolf questlne (the outright shortest of the factions, I might add), the Thieves Guild (the faction I enjoyed the most simply because it actually felt like a Thieves Guild questline, despite cramming in elements of a Nocturnal story), and the Dark Brotherhood in all its over-hyped-from-Oblivion glory. Even Oblivion's factions felt unique and independent in comparison. The Mages Guild story focused on the fight against Necromancy, the Thieves Guild focused on the Gray Fox and the Fighters Guild focused on the threat posed by the Blackwood Company to the Guild itself.

Bethesda had the opportunity to show the same sort of contrast that Morrowind had in moving away from the Imperial province once more, but for whatever reason the game chose instead to focus on telling us that there was a conflict, rather than showing us (the whole Civil War questline essentially shoves in our faces the concept that has reoccurred throughout the series, rather than letting NPC dialogue and other subtleties, which do exist in the game, tell the story for us). We could have seen a conflict between the Imperial Fighters Guild and the Companions, much like the Camonna Tong and Thieves Guild in Morrowind, or the Telvanni and Mages Guild. We could have seen the Jarls and Nordic Clans play a larger role in the game world, emphasising the benefits seen by some thanks to the Empire, and the animosity felt by others towards it due to the negative impacts that it had had on them.

Sure, Skyrim plays like a far superior game, but Skyrim feels like a much inferior world, and not just compared to Morrowind. It's for that reason that I have to disagree with Jingles.

[farore]

I always kind of just assumed that the game became more simplified because the time went into other graphical or mechanichal details. Like in Morrowind the graphics were worse so maybe less time was spent there and more time on other details, and like that video said the npcs just stood there or walked around the same spot all day. I'm sure it took a lot of time making every npc have a schedule. Honestly, look at all the glitchy problems in skyrim.. If they made the next game as expansive as Morrowind, seems like the glitching would be a lot worse. Although in my opinion that should not effect choosimg major and minor attributes, or your birthsign..

[VirtualWeasel]

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While I love Jingles to bits, I think that he takes the complete wrong approach in that video series, and I have to say that I strongly disagree with him.

Oh [&@%!], that video belongs to Jingles?
I honestly had no idea.

[Musicman247]

I'm not sure it's the same Jingles.

[OblivionDuruza]

It is indeed the Jingles who once frequented the forums here. He still hangs around on certain parts of the web. He started his YouTube channel about the same time he was leaving the forums and I've followed his progress the whole way through so far. It's really quite something to behold.

I think overall he makes a fair point that Skyrim is not strictly speaking 'dumbed down' as far as the game itself as a game goes, and in that he acknowledges that he still does enjoy Morrowind more (for many of the reasons I alllude to). That said, I'm certainly not suggesting that Skyrim is a bad game either.