The no-hate thread about why Skyrim is bad

[DigDog]

nope? still the same.

anyway, at least spyder has his opinions on combat, and such, which although *completely* opposite mine, are valid; he likes what i dont, and vice versa. but i resent people who quote fetch quests as being important content.

And yes, i do like my games hard. i don't like the quest arrow, and that i can just follow it and that's all i need to solve a quest.

"sniping a mob" isn't nearly as refined a tactic as you could have in say, neverwinter nights (which i liked the first better than the second), with its host of spells (each with a different effect, if not for the few damage-only ones), skills and abilities.

for example, some mobs would spot you easier than others. depending on their Spot stat. which is what i mean by "skyrim hasn't got any - or almost any - stats".

and yes i played it. argonian called "prisoner"; made it to lev 50~, didn't enchant nearly stuff as much as i could have.

after getting to the thieve's guild endless quest, i tried a new char and made an orc on expert and then master. sure mobs will 1-shot you and you 1-shot them as well. sure, at first light armour can help you sneak but after a while it becomes redundant, daedric is the way to go. went mace with two damage effects. had black star. maxed out alchemy, enchanting, smithing, didn't bother with magic at all. no dual wielding but shield, just to get the extra bonuses. almost never bothered blocking.
on my second char i did read the wiki quite a bit.

just so that we're clear, when i needed to kill the two daedra (after the meherune's razor quest), it wasnt that easy. but i used my berserk (half damage taken double dealt), and two potions, and for 10 seconds i was a death machine. i think i might have been using the mace of molog bal, and was probably level 8 or 9.

then i pressed T and rested for 24 hours on the spot w/o using any food or shelter, and went inside to kill the two caitiff, with berserk again. woot on the rest anywhere recover everything mechanic.

my argonian char was funny though. when i got thrown into cidhna mine they gave me the "find a shank for what'shisname" quest, i just went "nah", summoned a daedra and got everyone else dead. great idea developers. make it so that i can summon stuff while moving and while getting hit. lol who cares about gear.

problems always the same though. when i needed daedra hearts and needed to get to the shrine of meherunes dragon, and couldn't find the access point, i simply rode my horse up a cliff until it let me up; cuz the game lets me do that.

if you also think it's ok that a game lets you pass a section marked "impassable" as long as you keep pressing forward, well .. meh. i don't think that's a good game.

 

[tedrodai]

Eh, I wouldn't call it a bad game even if it's a "diluted" RPG experience. So it's not an ideal RPG, but I'll still get some enjoyment out of it...when it goes down to 1/2 price anywho.

 

[thespyder]

What I find interesting is that at least some of your complaints about the game are shared with other "Better" RPG games. Bad pathing and stupid AI are pretty much universal as far as RPGs (and games in general) are concerned. This isn't a flaw in Skyrim, it is technology and programming.

I share your opinion in that more spells would be preferable. But then I really like diversity in my characters. And I like to be able to focus a given character so that he/she isn't generic like all others (see my rants on Diablo 3, which you would HATE).

I also get that you feel the vast majority of the conversations were meaningless. And quite a few of them were. But not all of them by any means. There is some information that you needed to complete the game. And there is some stuff that merely adds flavor to the world. Again, is it Shakespeare? NO. But it isn't as empty and useless as you make it out to be. Nor is it something that isn't shared by other games like Baldur's gate and Neverwinter nights.

One of your big things is "Arrow Quests". How have you gotten this far in CRPGs without encountering them at every turn? BG series had a BUNCH of them. Neverwinter nights also. Fallout 1-2 had an endless supply of them. Dragon Age Origins (which if you haven't played, I think it would be exactly your thing) had them as well. In fact, I can't think of a single RPG game (and I have played most of them) that didn't have at least some.

Your experiences with combat were different than mine. But valid. My HUGE problem with Oblivion was that very quickly you could end up with a character that was totally useless and having to face monsters (that auto leveled with you) that were unkillable by your skill set. Skyrim significantly improves on this. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But you should definitely check out some of the MODs. There are several that "Fix" some of the grosser issues with the balancing and combat.

In the end, I think that you are expecting it to be an FPS with Significant role playing elements. You want the combat to be as robust and balanced as something like Call of Duty. It isn't that. At all. Neither is it a party based RPG like ToEE or Baldur's gate. Which i gather is the other direction you would like it to be. It isn't either. And worse, it was limited because the developers wanted it to be capable of running on the Xbox as well. So it got some limitations that were unnecessary for a PC RPG.

But I do not think it is as "Factually Bad" as you seem to thing. It is ABSOLUTELY subjectively as bad as you think (from your perspective), but that isn't what you intended this thread to be.

 

[DigDog]

ok i agree and will restate my position; it could have been better. it could have been more challenging, and should have been made more complex than oblivion, rather than simplified. the developers could easily have avoided the "rest anywhere" mechanic (even beds would have been better) and with a couple improvements it would have been, to me and possibly many other RPG games, much better, like animated potions quaffing and all that insta-inventory thing.
Skyrim for me was a huge disappointment as i expected it to be better than Fallout and it wasn't, i thought F3's skill system and its choices had a much bigger impact on the game than Skyrim's free-for-all. I still would have made the combat more stat-oriented than keypress-oriented.

And the issues you talk about such as bad pathing, ofc they were there years ago but coders have tried to fix them as much as possible. Bethesda was expected to deliver much more. cut out the line "do you know what the problem with skyrim is" and "i was an adventurer like you" and you've almost got me playing.
And dont get me started on the Xbox-port kind of thing ..

 

[lavaheadache]

you don't have to play with the "rest anywhere" mentality. Stat-oriented combat would have made the game completely boring to me. The main thing that drove me away from all the early RPG's was the generic combat. I like my battles to rely on my button timing and unique skill rather than some turn based awkward swing of a sword that misses by a mile and tells me I hit them for 56hp and 12magic damage. Maybe I'm reading you wrong but those are reasons why I can't play any of the "good" rpg's.

 

[Zenoth]

My only "problem" with Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim is that I never end up completing them. I have never effectively completed any of them yet and I own them all. I ended up modding them for myself, by myself (very modest, humble mods) or I would constantly try to download community-made mods.

If not, I would quest a bit, usually doing side-quests, some main quests... then eventually feel overwhelmed by the sheer size (ironically) of the map, or the number of things I could do or would have to do... and the exact same happened with Fallout 3 (well I did finish two of the DLCs to the end).

If those games or any other similar open-ended world games were not already "streamlined" as they seem to be (or are) and ended up hardcore for elitists in which you'd screw up your whole character's progression just because you tripped on a tree branch and faced rolled your teeth down a hill and couldn't revert to a quicksave... no thanks. I'd play a "game" like that for maybe five minutes before uninstalling it forever.

 

[thespyder]

ok i agree and will restate my position; it could have been better. it could have been more challenging, and should have been made more complex than oblivion, rather than simplified. the developers could easily have avoided the "rest anywhere" mechanic (even beds would have been better) and with a couple improvements it would have been, to me and possibly many other RPG games, much better, like animated potions quaffing and all that insta-inventory thing.

I "Think" there is a MOD somewhere it restricts your resting in some capacity. You may wish to look it up.

Skyrim for me was a huge disappointment as i expected it to be better than Fallout and it wasn't, i thought F3's skill system and its choices had a much bigger impact on the game than Skyrim's free-for-all. I still would have made the combat more stat-oriented than keypress-oriented.

Although I found Skyrim extremely enjoyable myself, I think that Fallout (and New Vegas) was a much better franchise. It seemed to me to be much more focused, while still allowing you to free roam. And the dialogue was more interesting. I personally generally had higher expectations for Fallout 3 and wasn't disapointed. I still would have preferred Fallout 3 to have been an actual successor to Fallout 1-2, but we get what we get. Hopefully Wasteland 2 will give us that.

And the issues you talk about such as bad pathing, ofc they were there years ago but coders have tried to fix them as much as possible. Bethesda was expected to deliver much more. cut out the line "do you know what the problem with skyrim is" and "i was an adventurer like you" and you've almost got me playing.
And dont get me started on the Xbox-port kind of thing ..

I put down some of the failings of Skyrim to the Console porting issue. Clearly decisions were made to make it accessible to the general masses and therefore difficulty was limited and flavor and content was kept at a level that didn't make it too complex for more casual gamers. I think this is where you find fault as well.

I still loved Skyrim and consider it one of the best of the past 12 months. But I acknowledge where it could have been better. The sad bit is that I think the developers actually will move further away from what we want rather than closer. Just a guess.

As far as pathing and Bethesda, yeah. No, I didn't have that expectation. I knew it was going to be a console port and that was one of the things that would probably get skimped on. It's the nature of the business I am afraid.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I like my battles to rely on my button timing and unique skill rather than some turn based awkward swing of a sword that misses by a mile and tells me I hit them for 56hp and 12magic damage.

That's the very point of an RPG, though; you're playing a character who only has access to a limited portion of the overall control scheme. If you can do everything you're a god.

PnP your way:
"Oh, a god can grant prayers? Well I uniquely control my character to answer his own prayers."
"I uniquely control my character to search as well as a 30 INT level 20 Rogue will full ranks in Search."
"1 DEX wearing cursed full plate? I still uniquely control my character to Evade that fireball."
"Time Stop. I win."

 

[thejunglegod]

when i needed daedra hearts and needed to get to the shrine of meherunes dragon, and couldn't find the access point, i simply rode my horse up a cliff until it let me up; cuz the game lets me do that.

Dragon??? LMAO. Which dragon is that? I'm not trying to be a spelling/grammar Nazi, but the kind of statements you make only shatters the glass house that you live in. If you don't know that it is Mehrunes Dagon and not "Dragon", then perhaps you shouldn't "spacebar" your way through a game.# Forgiven, if it's a typo, which I'm assuming it is, but I wouldn't count on it#

And you like the two worst qualities about Oblivion the most. The conversation style which let you see the NPC's expressions prior to you saying it? I used to abuse that like carazy, changing from Brag to Joke just to see their expressions change every second. You have a problem with the time-advance part of the game on one hand and on the other, are ok with predetermined responses from NPCs?

And athletics? What was that useful for?

Swinging a sword while moving, what is the problem with that? Unless you've never been outside your house and never swung anything around. #Pardon me if I'm getting a little rude#

I don't know why you can't just leave it alone and play some other game. Get Myst 1-5 and replay them. Will be a good mental workout. And Oh, as thespyder mentioned, DAO would be the best game for you considering all the points you've put across. It has arrows pointing to objectives though, so i don't know.

 

[DigDog]

it's a pseudo typo. i have psycholgical issues with anyone stealing from hp lovecraft without paying their dues. the extra "e" is a mistake.

the speech wheel in oblivion forced you to chose based on a hunch and, or your knowledge of the character. AND it wasn't good at all, but it was an idea which should have bene made to work in Skyrim - you pick wether you want to be nice or to be a jerk to someone, and then you get a reaction. Instead you can never say anything bad in a skyrim conversation, which you could in Ob. Made you being more careful in what you said in Oblivion.

Athletics is what the rocketjump was in quake. it allowed you to get into places where you were "not supposed to go", like when trying to solve a thief quest, and the game was coded well enough that if you overcome or got around one of the quest sections, the quests would go on without bugging.

Suppose you need to break in an house to steal a gem. When you open the door a script will have the owner surprise you. You manage to get inside "somehow" and avoid the script; the game will jump ahead in the questline and allow you to just take the gem and carry on.
Skyrim isn't too different but questlines are much buggier if you try to go around them in any way. Sometimes, even if you do things properly but then again Ob was buggy as well.

Oh i have a bokken (have decided not to kill myself with a katana as yet) and i practice whenever i can, and i used to fence when younger. When striking you will rely mainly on your body muscles and not on your arm. You can't do a sideways swing and sidestep at the same time, unless you're hoping to slice soft tissue. Surely won't work against any sort of armour, not even leather.
Regardless, it's a way to let you play a first person game yet still rely on your stats more than the player's ability to dodge and fool mobs. Because with this mechanic in place, you would have to level up before you can take on enemies such as daedra lords and dragons. You would still be able to chose positioning, but you won't be able to simply fool the AI. Which is what essentially you do at Master since every dog and wolf does one-million hp per hit.
Have you ever thought about why FPS games such as CoD only allow you to sprint for a few seconds, or thought "geez, this US marine sure needs to go back to boot camp"? It's not because IRL people can only sprint for 5 seconds, it's because this is the only way that the sprint mechanic will work in a FPS without breaking the game. I'm not calling for slower movement because it's more realistic, but because i saw it implemented in earlier games and it worked better, now you'll have to take my word for it but games which are now too old to play had very good game mechanics for the time; actually back then, mechanics and gameplay made up practically the whole of the game.

Back a few years many players and even some magazine critics called out against devoting more effort to graphics rather than these two, and while it's made gaming more appealing to people who aren't "gamers as we know them", it was right in predicting dumbing down of games. Remeber Xcom / UFO enemy unknown? Rememer how pure awesomage that was and also how f* hard it was, and how much thinking and planning had to go into playing it?

And here is another reason why i'm upset; in the last nearly 20 years no company has dedicated as much effort to "our" games as they have to 3d action games; from (the awesome) Super Mario 64, graphics and 3d have taken over .. everything .. and strategy and the maths and planning involved in RPGs have disappeared. When a huge company as Beth releases a game on worldwide advertising campaign and calls it "RPG event of the year" i get all pissy .. cuz they are jacking the rpg name. If you think about it, Skyrim and DXHR are *way* more similar to each other in gameplay than Skyrim and Legends of Grimrock, or Planescape Torment, or Eye of the Beholder, or TOEE(which was good, but long .. and hard. man that game was both unforgiving and it didn't help you one bit).

Fallout 3 was a step in the right direction; i didn't like how they made everything too jolly and a bit silly (it was silly in F2 as well, but F2 was death with a side of silly, so it worked), and i would have made the whole of the game more "desolate" and less "like MTV, but with rads" (think Mad Max, or Gamma World); i was half hoping that Skyrim was going to be the "fantasy" STALKER, and i guess we can all agree that if they had made it that, it would have been awesome.

 

[Martimus]

Graphically the game disappointed me, since I had just finished the Witcher 2 before starting Skyrim. The UI and inventory management in Skyrim are just abysmal. Combat in Skyrim is simple and boring.

Even with these flaws, the game was still fun to me. Sure it isn't a great game, and is worse than the Witcher 2 in almost every way, but it is still fun and you can play it for countless hours if you get around the flaws of the game.

The leveling system where you get better at the things that you are actually doing versus the abstract experience points in older RPGs where you would get better at everything whether you used it or not is a major improvement. That said, the balance still isn't there after years and multiple games using that system.

 

[Phokus]

Graphically the game disappointed me, since I had just finished the Witcher 2 before starting Skyrim. The UI and inventory management in Skyrim are just abysmal. Combat in Skyrim is simple and boring.

Even with these flaws, the game was still fun to me. Sure it isn't a great game, and is worse than the Witcher 2 in almost every way, but it is still fun and you can play it for countless hours if you get around the flaws of the game.

The leveling system where you get better at the things that you are actually doing versus the abstract experience points in older RPGs where you would get better at everything whether you used it or not is a major improvement. That said, the balance still isn't there after years and multiple games using that system.

You can fix the UI and Graphics with mods:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3483703

I use SkyUI, Categorize Favorites Menu, and Thuumic (which allows you to do dragon shouts and other commands over your microphone). Total night and day difference in UI. I love, for example, how i can now favorite like 100 potions and it's categorized by potion type in my favorites menu. Makes potion use 100 times easier.

For graphics, you can turn it up a hundred notches with some of their texture/lighting/post processing mods (look in the same link above)... i haven't tried them myself, but i'm going to on my 2nd playthrough. You'll get nice graphics like this:

 

[Red Storm]

I will continue to "hate" (as in not play) Skyrim until I get a flying dragon mount mod.

 

[thespyder]

the speech wheel in oblivion forced you to chose based on a hunch and, or your knowledge of the character. AND it wasn't good at all, but it was an idea which should have bene made to work in Skyrim - you pick wether you want to be nice or to be a jerk to someone, and then you get a reaction. Instead you can never say anything bad in a skyrim conversation, which you could in Ob. Made you being more careful in what you said in Oblivion.

The problem I had with it was there was ZERO role playing associated with this mini-game. You made your 'Best (skill assisted) guess' to influence the person, irrespective of if you were playing that type of character. If you should be really good at intimidation (say an Orc Berzerker), but what would influence the person was charm or a humorous story, that is what you did. Can you imagine "The Hulk" being charming or humorous? It was broken and just really dumb (IMHO).

A better mechanic would have been if they gave a wider selection of communications branches and then added a random factor with modifiers based on various play elements such as race, stats and reputation. That at least would allow for some role play to the whole thing. Admittedly Skyrim didn't improve on it (except to remove the wheel, which is an improvement in my book).

Athletics is...

I think we all know what Athletics was "Supposed" to do. It was the implementation that was borked. If you ran everywhere (and who wouldn't? it takes terminally too long to get anywhere walking), your athletics skill continued to go up and up and up. That artificially inflated your level advancement and jaded it towards the stat that drove athletics. So you very quickly ended up 5th or 6th level yet were not advancing in your "Important" skills. You then had to fight much harder monsters without the appropriate balancing abilities.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

I spent 180 hours + in Skyrim. Loved it. I also spent maybe 200 hours in Oblivion with it's expansions, also loved it. But After that amount of time spent in them, I have a hard time playing them again.

I've installed Morrowind GOTY and installed The Morrowind Overhaul Package. Looks almost like a modern game with that mod package. Have not played it much yet though.

I also spent alot of time in Fallout 3 and it's expansions. Also Fallout New Vegas, but find that game somewhat boring.

 

[diesbudt]

I will continue to "hate" (as in not play) Skyrim until I get a flying dragon mount mod.

AMEN

 

[KaOTiK]

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.

No, FF 3 for the SNES was $80 when it came out. I remember very well because I wanted it for Christmas and my mom say I can't ask my grand parents for it because it was too expensive. So I instead ask for money from a bunch of people to buy it (fav game of all time!)

 

[diesbudt]

No, FF 3 for the SNES was $80 when it came out. I remember very well because I wanted it for Christmas and my mom say I can't ask my grand parents for it because it was too expensive. So I instead ask for money from a bunch of people to buy it (fav game of all time!)

I must admit FF3 on the SNES was one of the first and most enjoyable RPGs I have played. The sole reason I picked up FF 8 on Playstation when I saw it. And every other FF game since.

(Sadly I MISSED out on the final fantasy 7 period and have never played it past disk 1 (friends copy badly damaged at disk 2))

I did find a store that sold ALL old FF games... yet no 7.

And find a copy online costs an arm and a Leg.

 

[shortylickens]

No, FF 3 for the SNES was $80 when it came out. I remember very well because I wanted it for Christmas and my mom say I can't ask my grand parents for it because it was too expensive. So I instead ask for money from a bunch of people to buy it (fav game of all time!)

Then you are poor dumb bastard cuz in my neighborhood Target, Funcoland and KB Toys all sold it for way less than that. And it came down slightly after christmas.
Shame you didnt grow up in Minnesota.

 

[waggy]

Then you are poor dumb bastard cuz in my neighborhood Target, Funcoland and KB Toys all sold it for way less than that. And it came down slightly after christmas.
Shame you didnt grow up in Minnesota.

Then you got damn lucky. the cost of FF 6 SNES was $80 everywhere else.

 

[Wardawg1001]

Jesus I can't believe I wasted 5 minutes reading the entire OP, when it was clear after the first couple paragraphs that it was a bunch of garbage. Go back to your basement and be a dungeon master with the three people in the world you can find who still want to waste their time on that shit. In the mean time, stop trying to impede progress of good games like Skyrim because you never learned to adapt. I don't want any of your trashy ideas implemented in Skyrim or its successors:

-Bigger maps? Fuck you, I don't want to spend 20 minutes walking to the next town, I don't have that kind of free time.
-Time based quests? No thanks, I don't like to have to step on eggshells while I'm just talking to people, wondering if I'm gonna get some random quest that send me an hour in the direction I wasn't heading, and if I don't complete it in time the town burns down.

The rest of your complaints will mostly be handled with advances in technology, or you simply realizing you are your own problem. You cry about being able to trap a monster in the geography and take free pot-shots at it, while a few paragraphs before you were all high and mighty on your "your DM would never allow that" bullshit. Why don't you actually try playing this game the way a DM might force you to. Stop using BS exploitable mechanics and they no longer become an issue.

 

[zinfamous]

The biggest problem is its the same damn price since its been released and never moved a cent.

I paid $40 for it, on Steam, just before Christmas.

~250 hours later, I think I got my $$-worth.

 

[zinfamous]

No, FF 3 for the SNES was $80 when it came out. I remember very well because I wanted it for Christmas and my mom say I can't ask my grand parents for it because it was too expensive. So I instead ask for money from a bunch of people to buy it (fav game of all time!)

Poppycock!

I'm pretty sure that I (uh, my Mom via X-Mas ) paid ~$50 for FF2 and FF3 for each respective X-Mas.

 

[Phokus]

I paid $40 for it, on Steam, just before Christmas.

~250 hours later, I think I got my $$-worth.

Yep, i got it for $35 a few weeks ago, some got it for $30 at best buy.

 

[diesbudt]

As for the story in skyrim...that isnt even the main game. The storyline of your character is less than 5% of the content and the main meat of the game is the random encounters. If you help one side or the other in the civil war, characters in the game will sometimes pretend to be from the losing side and attempt to rob you. Characters recognise your skills or abilitiea and comment on it as you walk past. Find a cave and maybe get a new quest from someone standing outside. If younplay it for the first time nd walk around, you will discover more content than most games. Too many people abuse fast travel and miss a very good percentage ofngame content that randomly happens as you walk through the world.

I am getting ready to start a new game later, and I plan on doing 0, yes I said it, 0 fast travel. I will walk/run everywhere... and as I do so I will sing

"And I would 500 miles" the whole time.