The no-hate thread about why Skyrim is bad

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Feb 6, 2007
16,432
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AP, I know what you are talking about, and I agree. But the key here is simple, I am disappointed that it has taken this long for prices to come down (they have not yet).


Most games drop in price quicker than this. I have been waiting patiently (and looking each weekend). I am at the $20-$30 range for most games I buy (less for smaller indies) so $60... when games like this cost $40 not too long ago (5 years?) is just too much.

New games haven't routinely debuted at $40... ever. New games on the SNES were anywhere from $50-70, PSX and Saturn games were $50, N64 games were $60-70, PS2 and Xbox were $50, PS3 and Xbox 360 have been $50-60. PC games have generally followed suit. I don't get this tendency to look at the past through rose-colored glasses as if game companies have somehow recently gotten greedy despite not raising prices on software for the last 25 years. And given how often brand new games are offered on sale for 33% or more off through Amazon, Steam, GoG and other places, this actually seems like the best time in the world to be a video game consumer.

My two cents.
 

PhatoseAlpha

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2005
2,131
21
81
I'm pretty sure after you account for inflation, the actual price of games has dropped. Ff3 for the SNES for example, launched at $80 in 94 - equivalent to $120 today.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
I'm pretty sure after you account for inflation, the actual price of games has dropped. Ff3 for the SNES for example, launched at $80 in 94 - equivalent to $120 today.

Are you talking about Final Fantasy 3?
No, it did not. It came out at 50 bucks. Final Fantasy 2 was 75 when it debuted.
Still dont know why.
 

wsaenotsock

Member
Jul 20, 2010
90
0
66
I understand the point of the OP's post. Yes, a game can not be a true the book RPG without making all combat and interaction dependent on the stats of the player. But why would you try to evalulate skyrim in this category when it has an FPS element. Just the fact that the game is in first person is a straight up giveaway that movement, speed and player inputs are part of the performance of your character. So consider that Skyrim (and really all of TESV and other modern RPGs) isn't really a RPG- its a FPS with RPG elements. I mean this is sort of like comparing starcraft to Civ.
 

Sulaco

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
3,860
44
91
While other games out over a year was $20 by then. You know what I mean..it has to be the longest running game that stays the same price in history of games. It came out Nov 11.

Jesus, whine and cry much?

It's a hugely popular, highly rated game. It's not going to be $20 for any length of time. Why? Because it's still selling well at $60.

Crying about it is pointless.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
not quite so; compare it to another FPS, say, gears of war. or serious sam. or max paine. alan wake. whatever you prefer.

in those games the 3d shooting is the core of the game and it's been balanced to give you a challenge; be it the number of medikits available, respawns, weapons available, etc...

in skyrim you can recover full hp everywhere. cast stun + damage spells. hide right in front of a mob. quaff potions instantly. use powers (berserk is sooo OP). use the voice. and so on. at level 1 you already have berserk, flame, a bow and sword, and the stunning shout. plus the potions you make from the stuff they practically throw at you.

see i started playing videogames when videogames first started existing. yeah i was alive well before pong and space invaders, and have lived through the era of really difficult gameplay. when i try a game, i will do my outmost best to beat it. if the game lets itself get beaten too easily to me, the game mechanics are broken.

there is a classic argument on minecraft after beds were made available. before, you had to endure 8 minutes of night each day, and while you could just stay holed up and wait, if you got bored or impatient and went out, skeletons and zombies kicked ur butt.

that was essentially 99% of the "survival" in survival mode. with beds, click on bed, perma-day.

so, people say, "if you don't like the bed, don't use it", and here is the beef. i am a person who does not accept that as a valid reasoning. it's in the game, i am meant to use it, i will use it to beat the game. in fallout, i will try to get a strong character and i will not instead get random perks .. because it's a game, and that's what you do when you try to beat a game.
Stuff that doesn't need "beating" ... isn't a game, to me. Not anymore than those hentai games where you watch the girls pose in bikinis, like DOA beach thingie what was it called.

look, half of the people here got me wrong; i love the exploration, to be able to go into any cave i want. what sucks is my interaction with the cave, what's in it, and how everything is just the same. all mobs are the same. yeah right, some breath fire, some move faster, but they all just do hp dmg; no rust monster is going to break my +1 sword. no curses. no diseases. (yeah lol, once. ) no stat affecting statuses because there aren't any stats. honestly gameplay wise Oblivion was better, you actually had to watch what you said to NPCs to not piss them off. thievery was a viable option. Athletics was great. custom spells!! weapons were well, already OP, but not so OP as to be ridiculous.

design choices are what makes a game or breaks it. most fantasy games will have you wearing one armor's texture or another; so if you are going to code in a loincloth, ffs can you take 3 sec to code in cold damage?

FYI there's a 3d game made by a bunch of bedroom coders which is like, 10 years old called Mount & Blade which although butt-ugly has far superior 3d combat to skyrim. AND it's got horses. and lances.

Skyrim's game experience for those who love it is primarely visual; sort of like Rez, but fantasy; and 3d. People like the way it looks, people even gimp their characters pretending the game has classes, so you'd have the thief who runs in light armour when he could just wear daedric. Fallout 3 has hordes of people who chose their armour based on what looks cool :/

Hey Crysis was great but the game was about killing stuff using your guns and your suit powers. It wasn't about walking through the jungle looking at the pretty flowers. Sure you can do that, but that's not what is called "core gameplay". That, assuming people like fetch quests ... then sure, they cal call sidequests "gameplay"; Summoner 2 had a lot of sidequests and you had better do some if you wanted to beat the game. I'm not calling for every game to be linear, but there needs to be linear sections enclosed in the free roaming to have any sense of time. Like GTA, which is far superior to Skyrim. You can wander around and postpone your main quests, but when you do start the missions, you're in a box, albeit large. you have goals to achieve. Namely, the defeat of Alduin and the fate of the Dovahkin;

and to all the people who have 100 hours and 30% completion .. WTFLOL? my skyrim ran out around 50 hours of game, with all quests done, all guilds beat, 100 in crafting, enchanting, magic, full daedric gear, all daedric artefacts worth having, etc.. get quest, fast travel, spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar through the talk spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar it's not like i actually have to pay attention because all i frikkin have to do is follow the arrow and kill the mob. spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar fast travel kill mob get new quest. i did the whole college of magic quest in maybe 2 1/2 hours. am i going too fast? sure, i'm going as fast as i can. i'm here to beat the game, not collect flowers.
 

Sulaco

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
3,860
44
91
get quest, fast travel, spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar through the talk spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar it's not like i actually have to pay attention because all i frikkin have to do is follow the arrow and kill the mob. spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar fast travel kill mob get new quest. i did the whole college of magic quest in maybe 2 1/2 hours. am i going too fast? sure, i'm going as fast as i can. i'm here to beat the game, not collect flowers.

Well there you go. All that wall of text, to basically say

"I rushededed through everything cuz I wanteded to beat teh game quick!"

See, what you don't seem to grasp, and that probably isn't worth pointing out to someone who can't seem to make a coherent point in anything less than 6 paragraphs, is that not everyone plays the game to rush through it and loot.
You basically admit to just fast travelling everywhere. Didn't you rant and rave about how small the world is, how terrible Skyrim is as an RPG compared to the ones of old, and you basically admit to playing like a 10 year old with ADHD.

You just need to learn to accept that other people are going to enjoy different things about games, and your opinion on what you like doesn't mean shit to people who don't have the same view. Some people like taking their time, like exploring this rich world and making discoveries along the way, and aren't in it to level up as quickly as they can and rush through dialogue.

Step down from your soap box. You don't like it, fine, but you're not changing any minds.
 

thejunglegod

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2012
1,358
36
91
Some people like taking their time, like exploring this rich world and making discoveries along the way, and aren't in it to level up as quickly as they can and rush through dialogue.
+1


OP, we get your view but please don't try to change the views of others. Just because you don't like a praticular style of gameplay, you don't have to play it.
Gosh that "spacebarspacebarspacebar" bit. Is that how you play Skyrim?? The whole point of TES is exploration and soaking in the beautiful music with the stunning surroundings of medieval earth. And if you are just going to "spacebarspacebarspacebar" through everything then i pity you.

And the whole point of playing a game is to beat it??????? WTF dude??
 

Pray To Jesus

Diamond Member
Mar 14, 2011
3,642
0
0
Well there you go. All that wall of text, to basically say

"I rushededed through everything cuz I wanteded to beat teh game quick!"

See, what you don't seem to grasp, and that probably isn't worth pointing out to someone who can't seem to make a coherent point in anything less than 6 paragraphs, is that not everyone plays the game to rush through it and loot.
You basically admit to just fast travelling everywhere. Didn't you rant and rave about how small the world is, how terrible Skyrim is as an RPG compared to the ones of old, and you basically admit to playing like a 10 year old with ADHD.

You just need to learn to accept that other people are going to enjoy different things about games, and your opinion on what you like doesn't mean shit to people who don't have the same view. Some people like taking their time, like exploring this rich world and making discoveries along the way, and aren't in it to level up as quickly as they can and rush through dialogue.

Step down from your soap box. You don't like it, fine, but you're not changing any minds.
:cool:
 

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,777
19
81
There is a reason I'm only left with JRPGs to play, if I'm looking to play an RPG. Everything else is so easy it's not worth bothering to install. I played skyrim for an hour, and then got bored. I recently played Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and played a full 7-8 hours that night.

Oh and guess what; I reached one of the final boss encounters, only to find out my characters were far too weak to win the fight, and that I had destroyed any chance of winning by messing up my characters' progressions. The game is brutal, just my kind of challenge.

I guess I'm in the minority though.
 

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
8,443
124
106
If I have to describe it in a sentence it would be "A mile wide but only an inch deep".

Oh, and put so little effort to the gameplay as they know modders will end up clearing up their shit anyway.
 

Pray To Jesus

Diamond Member
Mar 14, 2011
3,642
0
0
There is a reason I'm only left with JRPGs to play, if I'm looking to play an RPG. Everything else is so easy it's not worth bothering to install. I played skyrim for an hour, and then got bored. I recently played Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and played a full 7-8 hours that night.

Oh and guess what; I reached one of the final boss encounters, only to find out my characters were far too weak to win the fight, and that I had destroyed any chance of winning by messing up my characters' progressions. The game is brutal, just my kind of challenge.

I guess I'm in the minority though.

That shit doesn't fly in modern games. You will sell 50k units and wonder what happened.
 

Sulaco

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
3,860
44
91
Oh and guess what; I reached one of the final boss encounters, only to find out my characters were far too weak to win the fight, and that I had destroyed any chance of winning by messing up my characters' progressions. The game is brutal, just my kind of challenge.

I guess I'm in the minority though.

You had me, up until that.

See, that sounds horrendous. I've never played that game, so I have no idea if that's the way it is or not, but I've played JRPGs similar, where you have no way of knowing if you're going about things the way IT wants you to, until you reach a boss who can't be beaten because you didn't acquire Spell X, Item Y, or Experience Amount Z.

That is beyond mind-numbing. I LOVE JRPGs for the experience they provide, but that's just bad game design.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
There is a reason I'm only left with JRPGs to play, if I'm looking to play an RPG. Everything else is so easy it's not worth bothering to install. I played skyrim for an hour, and then got bored. I recently played Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and played a full 7-8 hours that night.

Oh and guess what; I reached one of the final boss encounters, only to find out my characters were far too weak to win the fight, and that I had destroyed any chance of winning by messing up my characters' progressions. The game is brutal, just my kind of challenge.

I guess I'm in the minority though.

WRONG!

No matter what you can always get each of your skills up to 100.
You may hit max level and no longer be able to PURCHASE skill points. You may hit max level and no longer be able to invest Perk Points. But you can always get skills way up there.

And I beat the main quest at a relatively low level just fine with Thunderbolt. Took a while and had to use lots of potions, but thats what makes the game epic. And if you made it to the end and never learned to carry potions with you, then I got little sympathy. You'd have to be day dreaming not to learn that.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
+1


OP, we get your view but please don't try to change the views of others. Just because you don't like a praticular style of gameplay, you don't have to play it.
Gosh that "spacebarspacebarspacebar" bit. Is that how you play Skyrim?? The whole point of TES is exploration and soaking in the beautiful music with the stunning surroundings of medieval earth. And if you are just going to "spacebarspacebarspacebar" through everything then i pity you.

And the whole point of playing a game is to beat it??????? WTF dude??

LOL see? am i getting hated because i'm better at the game than you? Am i getting hate because i realise that soaking in the beautiful music is pointless if the core gameplay is broken?

FYI i hated how in crysis the korean soldiers would take a clip to the face and not die; makes the whole "beautiful jungle" pretty pointless.

I would pay attention to the dialogue IF there was some aspect of gameplay involved in it, say, you were given clues about what you were supposed to do to beat a particular quest. In the whole of Skyrim there is just *one* quest where you actually have to listen to the dialogue and <spoiler> it's the one where you have to find the tomb of the ghost girl who died in the fire; well, she tells you "look for me behind this house" which is the house you're standing next to. You people have very low standards of what is good game design.

You can't beat Ultima, or Wasteland, without reading the dialogue text and analysing the clues. Following an arrow and killing one mob isn't enough to beat Blade Runner, and you won't get out of any AD&D game if you just click fire. The problem with Skyrim is that spacespacespace is all it takes to beat it. Which makes the whole "yeah, but it looks sweet" completely redundant.

it's not like i actually have to pay attention because all i frikkin have to do is follow the arrow and kill the mob.

funny how you edited this bit out. this is meant to be a no-hate thread where i explain why Skyrim is *factually* a bad game, regardless of how many people enjoy the non-game aspects of it. Keep the dirty tricks out of it.
 
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thespyder

Golden Member
Aug 31, 2006
1,979
0
0
not quite so; compare it to another FPS, say, gears of war. or serious sam. or max paine. alan wake. whatever you prefer.

in those games the 3d shooting is the core of the game and it's been balanced to give you a challenge; be it the number of medikits available, respawns, weapons available, etc...

in skyrim you can recover full hp everywhere. cast stun + damage spells. hide right in front of a mob. quaff potions instantly. use powers (berserk is sooo OP). use the voice. and so on. at level 1 you already have berserk, flame, a bow and sword, and the stunning shout. plus the potions you make from the stuff they practically throw at you.

see i started playing videogames when videogames first started existing. yeah i was alive well before pong and space invaders, and have lived through the era of really difficult gameplay. when i try a game, i will do my outmost best to beat it. if the game lets itself get beaten too easily to me, the game mechanics are broken.

there is a classic argument on minecraft after beds were made available. before, you had to endure 8 minutes of night each day, and while you could just stay holed up and wait, if you got bored or impatient and went out, skeletons and zombies kicked ur butt.

that was essentially 99% of the "survival" in survival mode. with beds, click on bed, perma-day.

so, people say, "if you don't like the bed, don't use it", and here is the beef. i am a person who does not accept that as a valid reasoning. it's in the game, i am meant to use it, i will use it to beat the game. in fallout, i will try to get a strong character and i will not instead get random perks .. because it's a game, and that's what you do when you try to beat a game.
Stuff that doesn't need "beating" ... isn't a game, to me. Not anymore than those hentai games where you watch the girls pose in bikinis, like DOA beach thingie what was it called.

look, half of the people here got me wrong; i love the exploration, to be able to go into any cave i want. what sucks is my interaction with the cave, what's in it, and how everything is just the same. all mobs are the same. yeah right, some breath fire, some move faster, but they all just do hp dmg; no rust monster is going to break my +1 sword. no curses. no diseases. (yeah lol, once. ) no stat affecting statuses because there aren't any stats. honestly gameplay wise Oblivion was better, you actually had to watch what you said to NPCs to not piss them off. thievery was a viable option. Athletics was great. custom spells!! weapons were well, already OP, but not so OP as to be ridiculous.

design choices are what makes a game or breaks it. most fantasy games will have you wearing one armor's texture or another; so if you are going to code in a loincloth, ffs can you take 3 sec to code in cold damage?

FYI there's a 3d game made by a bunch of bedroom coders which is like, 10 years old called Mount & Blade which although butt-ugly has far superior 3d combat to skyrim. AND it's got horses. and lances.

Skyrim's game experience for those who love it is primarely visual; sort of like Rez, but fantasy; and 3d. People like the way it looks, people even gimp their characters pretending the game has classes, so you'd have the thief who runs in light armour when he could just wear daedric. Fallout 3 has hordes of people who chose their armour based on what looks cool :/

Hey Crysis was great but the game was about killing stuff using your guns and your suit powers. It wasn't about walking through the jungle looking at the pretty flowers. Sure you can do that, but that's not what is called "core gameplay". That, assuming people like fetch quests ... then sure, they cal call sidequests "gameplay"; Summoner 2 had a lot of sidequests and you had better do some if you wanted to beat the game. I'm not calling for every game to be linear, but there needs to be linear sections enclosed in the free roaming to have any sense of time. Like GTA, which is far superior to Skyrim. You can wander around and postpone your main quests, but when you do start the missions, you're in a box, albeit large. you have goals to achieve. Namely, the defeat of Alduin and the fate of the Dovahkin;

and to all the people who have 100 hours and 30% completion .. WTFLOL? my skyrim ran out around 50 hours of game, with all quests done, all guilds beat, 100 in crafting, enchanting, magic, full daedric gear, all daedric artefacts worth having, etc.. get quest, fast travel, spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar through the talk spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar it's not like i actually have to pay attention because all i frikkin have to do is follow the arrow and kill the mob. spacebarspacebarspacebarspacebar fast travel kill mob get new quest. i did the whole college of magic quest in maybe 2 1/2 hours. am i going too fast? sure, i'm going as fast as i can. i'm here to beat the game, not collect flowers.

Yeah, really REALLY trying to get the thread of your focus. First you compare it to "Other FPS" only Skyrim isn't an FPS. So your comments on balance are ludicrous. Skyrim isn't even remotely an FPS. FPS maps are supposed to be limited in scope and balanced for every character to have an even and equal chance. This is an RPG which is a whole different ball game.

Then you say that Minecraft has beds which break the game. You are going to use them because they are in the game. If you put them in the game, you are supposed to use them, right? Only then you say that you don't use the one off perks in Fallout 3 because they don't make your character powerful. So here you ARE ignoring factors that were put in the game.

then you say there are no stats, only there are. mana is controlled by your stats. Damage with weapons are also controlled by your stats. You can't CHANGE those stats, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Back in the original DnD, you couldn't change your stats either.

Then you say no curses or diseases. I remember in playing Skyrim a bunch of times getting infected with diseases. They effect things like stamina and mana regeneration.

Kind of not sure about the rest. I take it there are details that you would prefer to be in, only you don't like the details that ARE in. Which is largely subjective. But valid I guess.

I did laugh when you said that 'Athletics' was great in Oblivion. That was the worst and most broken skill in the game. if you run anywhere, the skill goes up. If you run everywhere, you bork any build because you max out athletics and nothing else. it was the most complained about ability in Oblivion other than the auto leveling.

Then you don't like the conversation thing. I don't see it hugely different than most CRPGS out there today. Maybe different flavor, maybe more or less in depth. But certainly more than your FPSs.

At the end, you don't like the game. That is clear. And you want to share that opinion and presumably commiserate with others who feel that way. Looks like you are in the minority in that case. Certainly you can continue to beat a dead horse here and try to convert people who like the game to your camp. Or you can move on to a different game, one that you would better enjoy? Just a suggestion.
 
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SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
145
106
www.neftastic.com
funny how you edited this bit out. this is meant to be a no-hate thread where i explain why Skyrim is *factually* a bad game, regardless of how many people enjoy the non-game aspects of it. Keep the dirty tricks out of it.

And that right there is why your argument is completely invalid.

There is nothing "factual" about your posts, as it is all pure opinion. If it was a bad game, then everyone's opinion of the game would sync with yours, however they don't and the game is VERY popular. If it was a factually bad game, it wouldn't be popular.

The only hate here is yours, about the game. Any perceived hate towards you is simply hate that you're pressing your agenda so hard and are blind to the obvious.

It's simple: If you don't like the game, don't play it.
 

zijin_cheng

Member
May 11, 2012
183
3
81
Keep in mind that difficulty and reality does not constitute a good game. Remember that a lot of games were created to allow us to do something we could not have done in reality.

You say that a game is broken if its beaten too easily by YOU. Why you? Do you really think your experience with gaming is representative of gaming competence across the board? These games were made to fit the majority of gamers, developers would rather the majority of gamers would rather have a good time playing the game rather than dying and respawning everytime you see a mudcrab (or something crab) because they would sell more.

See, you are not representative of what the gaming world wants anymore therefore your gaming needs are not catered to. We like eye candy, we like being overpowered, we don't like to concentrate when listening to some NPC speaking, we like to wear different clothes and not have consequences, how many of you are there? 5 maybe, so no developer is going to make games your way anymore. (however, if you hated on Diablo 3, I would join you because I hate it too :)
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
Yeah I dont think he's posted any FACTS proving Skyrim is a bad game. He's only posted opinions and most of those are based in falsehoods or ignorance.

Nobody with a brain said its perfect, but a shitload of people are having fun with Skyrim despite its imperfections and thats not an accident or fluke.

And most of the complaints can be fixed with mods or simply choosing to not waste time picking flowers and looting shelves. In fact you could minimize looting to the gold in treasure chests found during quests and still be able to buy necessities.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
IMO Dark Souls deserves GOTY far more; ME3 is graphically better and although it has some issues regarding how the gameplay flows, at least it doesn't have horses walking up mountainsides or mobs getting stuck in the geometry;

My opinions are regarding some writing choices which i didn't like. But be that as it may, somebody can like them and that's ok i guess though i still would remind people that we have slowly drifted into accepting this kind of writing and we shouldn't have.

My view of what's factually wrong with the game is that the core - combat, the quest arrow, interaction with NPC - is at fault; the simple fact that you could edit your Skyrim to remove ALL dialogue and still beat every quest should be a clear indication that this isn't an RPG at all. There are no tactical or strategic choices to be made, everyone has the same character and access to all skills, and after so many hours and quests done, your copy of Skyrim will look just like everyone else's copy of skyrim; ask your friends and you won't find how one has locked himself out of a subquest, or how one manages to rip through a section full of undead because he has 3 priests while you have 2 wizards and can do another bit just as easy but are stuck at his bit. COmbat is just silly; there's a ridge near one of the mammooth camps that you can simply walk off of while the manny won't; so you pelt them with arrows, they will chase you (slowly) around the ridge, and you walk off; then they come down, you keep pelting, and walk up again the other way. Then repeat. The only mob i found that gives any trouble in skyrim on Master is the tigers. this ofc is before i even bothered to block attacks ...

here's a few pointers if you want to call your game a RPG:

1) have classes or skill limits; don't allow the character to have *everything* in the game, but rather be forced to make choices which will reflect in the gameplay later on. (wanna be a wizrd? ok, but you won't be very good with swords)

2) have dialogue and NPC interaction which carries information and importance in the plot; make the player think and deduce his course of action.

3) have levels or other forms of increasing power making characters stronger which leads to being able to beat more powerful monsters; make the characters do the fighting, based on said power, not the player.

4) allow for variety, not homogeneity.be prepared to code in a lot of stuff because every element you introduce, interacts with every other.

5) dont make the character overpowered!!

And while some moderates here accept that Skyrim is an FPS, some defend it yet as a RPG.
As far as combat goes, it's just wrong that the player determines who wins a fight rather than the character - which puts Skyrim solidly into the realm of arcade games, with some RPG elements.

And FYI elsewhere on these boards Skyrim is still passed on as the greatest RPG game of all times, which is what led me to write this long post.

Look there's a couple simple way the Skyrim can be fixed; first, make it so that while swinging a sword, your character cannot move sideways (you can't actually do that). same ofc for the mobs. a better move model would be nice, like ghost recon has for example.
completely redo all the level balance, redesign the mob location, eliminate scaling.
put back the speech wheel, all the spells from oblivion, and maybe add a few more.
eliminate character fast travel, redesign cart fast travel, implement horse fast travel and code in random encounters. (there's got to be some penalty for fast travel, or it's silly)
implement fast travel for internal locations.
no more quest arrow!!
less primary NPCs, more secondary NPCs. more interaction with primary NPCs.

regarding design choices (the "opinion" bit): i don't want to go through the NPC interaction formula every time i need to buy a packet of fucking arrows; i don't care about the alchemist' couple's children, i don't find them interesting, nor do i find their "fetch me 10 lollypops" quests interesting. don't let a naked orc walk in to the Jarl and say hullo buddy and pat him on the back, because if there's one thing which breaks the mystique is just that. i can piss on his sweet roll and the most ill get is a 10 gold fine. cut 90% of the dialogue cuz it's crap. often the less said is more (im not sure who said that but i think it was someone called spearchucker .. spearshaker .. shakesword? yeah, William Shakesword).

If it were me, i'd make all the design team play TOEE on hard until they beat it with all 9 alignements, as a punishment. There's a reason why every RPG game has followed a set of rules until now - mobs are stronger in the furthest places on the map, characters are limited, hidden clues, faction politics, buy&sell, locked areas, boxed events, etc .. and that's because they work as a game. They give you the challenge (not necessarely it being "hard", bu tmaking YOU think and making YOUR CHARACTER do the fighting) that is typical of role playing games. Vampire, Deus Ex, even two worlds do this far better, they just don't have the powerful graphics that bethesda can afford. And they are all in 3d.
 
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thespyder

Golden Member
Aug 31, 2006
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My view of what's factually (you mean subjectively) wrong with the game is that the core - combat, the quest arrow, interaction with NPC - is at fault; the simple fact that you could edit your Skyrim to remove ALL dialogue and still beat every quest should be a clear indication that this isn't an RPG at all.

you can't. No conversation means you wouldn't know who to talk to, or what to talk to them about. or what cities to visit or even why you can absorb dragon shouts. Point is, you would lose A LOT in taking out the conversation. The flavor and essence of the game as a whole would leave. Not to mention that you wouldn't know how that guard used to be an adventurer until he took an arrow in the knee.

There are no tactical or strategic choices to be made,

Bull. You yourself indicated that you could snipe tough opponents to death at low levels. That is a tactic. And a necessary one to take on powerful opponents at low levels. And yes, giants and dragons exist at even first and second level.
everyone has the same character and access to all skills,

At the beginning, yes. But as soon as you start leveling, you put skill and perk points into a given path. Which you need to do to open up more powerful abilities. You can become a stealth expert and do stuff that someone who isn't can't do. You can become a wizard and cast spells that someone who hasn't mastered the various disciplines of wizardry can't cast.

and after so many hours and quests done, your copy of Skyrim will look just like everyone else's copy of skyrim; ask your friends and you won't find how one has locked himself out of a subquest, or how one manages to rip through a section full of undead because he has 3 priests while you have 2 wizards and can do another bit just as easy but are stuck at his bit.

You want a PARTY based RPG pure and simple. Skyrim isn't that.

COmbat is just silly; there's a ridge near one of the mammooth camps that you can simply walk off of while the manny won't; so you pelt them with arrows, they will chase you (slowly) around the ridge, and you walk off; then they come down, you keep pelting, and walk up again the other way. Then repeat. The only mob i found that gives any trouble in skyrim on Master is the tigers. this ofc is before i even bothered to block attacks ...

You mean you can use tactics in the game? I thought you said you couldn't? Seriously, this is a problem with dumb AI,not with it being a(bad) RPG. I bet you have the same problem with Crysis or, and I know this for a fact, with Baldur's gate.


here's a few pointers if you want to call your game a RPG:

More specifically, these are what YOU (subjectively) want in an RPG. They are not the textbook definition and therefore not FACTUAL in nature.

1) have classes or skill limits; don't allow the character to have *everything* in the game, but rather be forced to make choices which will reflect in the gameplay later on. (wanna be a wizrd? ok, but you won't be very good with swords)

While I agree with this as being something that I enjoy, it is by no means a deal breaker. Nor does it break the Role play aspect. Merely that my (and yours) PLAYING STYLE are maybe slightly different than others.

2) have dialogue and NPC interaction which carries information and importance in the plot; make the player think and deduce his course of action.

You may not have found the Skyrim dialogue to be robust and enlightening. But this comment completely disregards it 100% which I hardly think is fair. Conversations took place in the game. You as a player learned things that you didn't know before you started such as who the players were, what the political situation was, what quests were available, even some of the resolutions of quests required you to get information. The Thieves guild quests in particular offered several different paths based on conversations that you had with people. Same with The Companions quests. Where they Dostoevsky? No. But there was a heck of a lot more conversation than you give credit for

3) have levels or other forms of increasing power making characters stronger which leads to being able to beat more powerful monsters; make the characters do the fighting, based on said power, not the player.

Did you play the game? Reading this, I am betting you didn't. characters have levels. They advance and improve skills along a given path. Monsters are more powerful in some areas and less powerfull in others. You are completely wrong on this one, plain and simple.

4) allow for variety, not homogeneity.be prepared to code in a lot of stuff because every element you introduce, interacts with every other.

Again, have you played the game? There are different abilities for different races. There are different tactics to combat like stealth, control, hand to hand and ranged combat. And monsters react to different things in different ways. There is significant flavor and variety of landscape across the world. Dungeons, and mountain tops. Open planes and city scapes. Have you played the game? Or mearly read about it?

5) dont make the character overpowered!!

Have you played Baldur's gate 2, widely considered the best CRPG around to date. There are classes and class combinations that are significantly overpowered. And some that are under powered. It is the nature of variation in these types of games. And to say your character is overpowered by default in Skyrim, I really think this, if nothing else, proves you haven't played the game. In my 100+ hours in the game, I got one hit killed a bunch of times. I had to run away even more times. Try taking on a giant at 5th level (or 25th for that matter) and see how overpowered you are. Try taking on a Daedra overlord at 15th level and see who is overpowered.

And while some moderates here accept that Skyrim is an FPS, some defend it yet as a RPG.

What are you talking about. Skyrim is an Action RPG. it is under no circumstances an FPS. It has FPS Controls, but therein ends the comparison. Period.

As far as combat goes, it's just wrong that the player determines who wins a fight rather than the character - which puts Skyrim solidly into the realm of arcade games, with some RPG elements.

So your stance is that a poor player who plays a powerful character should always win and a good player who plays a weak character should always lose? Something is wrong in Denmark here folks. Put this guy's analyst on danger money baby.

And FYI elsewhere on these boards Skyrim is still passed on as the greatest RPG game of all times, which is what led me to write this long post.

And there are people who say that DA2 was a decent game. People have subjective opinions. Some of them are wrong. Doesn't make you right.

Look there's a couple simple way the Skyrim can be fixed; first, make it so that while swinging a sword, your character cannot move sideways (you can't actually do that). same ofc for the mobs. a better move model would be nice, like ghost recon has for example.

Who did you train under in sword mastery? Because you can actually swing a sword while moving. Quite easily. And to significant effect.

Yeah, I was going to tackle the rest, but it seemed like a rant to me. Some of what you want is just plain insane. Some can be done with Mods and some are merely difference in style of play rather than being wrong.

But hey... You liked the conversation wheel (mini-game) in Obilvion? I thought it was the stupidest thing ever (next to Athletics). It required zero role playing ability at all. was the stupidist "Conversation" mechanic. Didn't allow you to Role play your character what so ever. And was about as arcady a mechanic as you could come up with.

And hey. I liked ToEE. There should be more games like that. But if you are going to compare Skyrim to ToEE, therein lies your problem. They are different styles of RPG. Learn to deal with variety and difference.
 
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SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
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www.neftastic.com
I love this thread... it just keeps on giving.

OP: Your definition of "RPG" is exceedingly narrow. It's like saying a "vehicle" must have 4 doors, a trunk, 4 wheels, a gasoline engine, a windshield and seats. In the real world, there are numerous designs that all satisfy the term "vehicle", and many don't even have any or all of the criteria I just listed.

You're artificially limiting the game based on what you like. That's fine, but for the love of god, stop calling your opinions factual. There's nothing remotely factual about them. You have a vendetta against Skyrim - we get that. Go play something else! Problem solved.

And by the way, what's wrong with swinging a sword while sidestepping? I can do it in the real world. Are you telling me you can't? There's a term for it - it's called a riposte. Go look it up.
 

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,777
19
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WRONG!

No matter what you can always get each of your skills up to 100.
You may hit max level and no longer be able to PURCHASE skill points. You may hit max level and no longer be able to invest Perk Points. But you can always get skills way up there.

And I beat the main quest at a relatively low level just fine with Thunderbolt. Took a while and had to use lots of potions, but thats what makes the game epic. And if you made it to the end and never learned to carry potions with you, then I got little sympathy. You'd have to be day dreaming not to learn that.

Huh? I'm talking about Star Ocean, not Skyrim.

I beat Oblivion with just Weak Fireball at character lvl 1.


See, you are not representative of what the gaming world wants anymore therefore your gaming needs are not catered to. We like eye candy, we like being overpowered, we don't like to concentrate when listening to some NPC speaking, we like to wear different clothes and not have consequences, how many of you are there? 5 maybe, so no developer is going to make games your way anymore. (however, if you hated on Diablo 3, I would join you because I hate it too :)

You're quite right, most people don't like the kind of games I do. But there are a few devs still around which make extraordinarily difficult games. Also, Diablo 3 is total garbage, I agree! I honestly believe Diablo 2 is a better game in every category you can judge games on.
 
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power_hour

Senior member
Oct 16, 2010
789
1
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Didn't think Skyrim was a bad game. Yeah it got boring, yeah it was kinda predictable, yeah it seemed a bit dull. But the visuals were decent, the combat was fun (to a point) and the openness (for a single player game) and modability seems to make up for it.

I think the OP needs to get laid more frankly.