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I don't like Skyrim; Now I've done it...
Topic Started: Dec 7 2012, 11:10 PM (3,109 Views)
ViperKang
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So what you're saying, Inferno, is that love CAN bloom on the battlefield?
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BrigandMarx
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infernocanuck
Dec 8 2012, 08:33 PM
You realize, DJNuma, if we keep staring at each other, we run the risk of falling in love...


i'll leave now,so i don't pollute the debate longer.
Edited by BrigandMarx, Dec 8 2012, 08:56 PM.
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Piph0
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Milkman
To Inferno,

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

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Well, I should have qualified this ahead of time. My goal, in my last post, and in this post, isn't to "convince" you that you are wrong. You don't like Skyrim. That's fine. Nothing I'm going to say is going to change your mind. However, you did start up this debate either because you want readers to understand the pros and cons of the game, and/or you want to reflect and articulate exactly WHY you don't like the game.


Wound no more my friend! My goal is to learn and to understand.

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If all battles are the same, then there is no difficulty. Every battle feels the same. There is no hard, there is no easy, because there’s nothing to compare it to. If the challenge remains totally constant throughout the game, the “challenge” degrades as the player gains personal experience with the mechanics, learns patterns, develops techniques, etc. It gets stale, and the player never feels like they’re getting stronger and growing as their character.



I'd agree with you if that's what happens in Skyrim. In my personal experience, every battle in Skyrim -doesn't- feel the same. Chopping down a bandit is much different then fighting a dragon. Let's say there is a difficulty level in all the beasties in Skyrim. 1 would be, say, a skeever, and 10 would be, say a dragon. You can reach difficulty level 1-10 when you're level 1. But, when you're level 20, that difficulty level now shifts to say, 30-40. So, there is still a range of hard. There is still a range of easy. Leveling enemies with you ensures that the game doesn't get oppressively hard, and it doesn't get disgustingly easy. Ironically, it's the leveling lists that -prevent- combat from going stale, as you so claim.


I meant monster to monster, like Dragon to Dragon or Bandit minion to Bandit minion. If you find a bandit camp, you will find bandit minions and a bandit leader. When you level up, so do the bandits. I'd like to say, if you fought one bandit camp, you fought them all. I'm sure someone well point out that they're different, which is true, but missing my point. If you did, please read this paragraph over again.

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The frequency is, in my experience, two “important quests” and at least three “sub-quests.” But the real problem with this is that it stifles exploration. It feels like the more I explore, the more I get penalized.



I would argue that you don't get penalized all that much. You still explored the area, right? You still got everything within it? So, all you can't do is that quest. Is it broken, well, yeah, sure. And it should be patched (if it hasn't already). You know what the alternative is? The alternative is putting up invisible walls in areas, where you can't explore, until you trigger a quest. THAT is penalizing the player, and that is stifling exploration. The very fact that you could do what you did shows that Skyrim doesn't hold your hand, nor does it say, "Don't explore yet, we're not ready!" The very fact that you can go into areas previously reserved for quests shows the openness of the game. I wouldn't call that stifling.


I feel like you’re skirting around the fact that this is a legitimate issue. What you're saying about closing off areas so that players can't get to them until they get a certain quest is something that actually happens in the game already. The Mage Guild’s quest path is riddled with them, the main quest is practically full of it, the Dark Brotherhood is definitely that way, the Thieves’ Guild, and a few misc quest. There's not a lot, just wanted to make note of them.

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Exploring in Fallout 3 actually has a chance to advance your quest progress. You can go into Megaton, find Burke, blow up Megaton, and the game will still allow you to continue Moira’s book, because you can find her elsewhere. That’s how much they thought about quests. If you go to Megaton, run up to Moira and blow her brains out, the game will let you know that you have killed an important NPC and failed a quest (that you might not have even gotten yet!) as a result. Skyrim doesn’t provide for that.



This is nitpicky, but I don't care. You realize that there are other quests in Megaton other then Moira's book quest? Helping Leo Stahl no longer get addicted to drugs. Helping Lucy West find her brother. If you blow up Megaton, you lose those quests, you lose that XP. I would rather have a game that says, "Do what you want, but you might mess things up later, that's the consequence" then, "Do exactly what we want you to do, when we want you to do it.".


The point of the post was to show that exploration and quest flexibility can be done and done well. I would also like to point out killing Lucy West doesn't end that quest.

Ok, I said:

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Imma just gonna type down key points that I didn't like in Skyrim.

- Enemies and items leveling with you.
- Exploring sometimes make quests un-completable.
- Unique items' usefulness
- Glitches (The ones that are constant)
- Interaction with stories and NPC's


Then you said:

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You'll have to be much more specific with this one. I mean, what do you mean by "usefuleness?" You mean, for your particular character? What about all the other people who have different characters, different play styles, and come across the equipment at a different time? They might have a use for them. And besides, you can sell most of the items in the game, so... it still has a use. As gold, so you can buy something that suits your character better.


Then I said:

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“Usefulness” is useful to use, not to sell, not to look pretty. There’s a huge laundry list of why a whole bunch of the unique items wouldn’t fit with any character. A straight to the point example that blankets a majority of unique items in the game is that there are better ones that you can make, which aren’t unique.


Then you said:

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Squee beat me to this, so I'll leave the benefits of crafting to his post. But, I will say this: How can you honestly say that -no- player, anywhere, would have use for an item that you find "useless". Maybe they role-play. Maybe, they're a proud Nord, and will only use weapons of iron and steel? Maybe they're a pyro, and they will only use weapons with a fire enchantment? Once again, maybe they will come across the same item you did, but at a different time. Saying "There are a whole bunch of items that won't suit any character" is a bold claim. Such bold claims require a huge amount of evidence.


Ok...I said what I don't like, which included Unique items' usefulness, you asked to to be specific, I explained what I meant by Usefulness, then...

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How can you honestly say that -no- player, anywhere, would have use for an item that you find "useless".


I never was speaking for everyone. Just for my own thoughts and opinions.

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The glitch with Deputy Weld is a ragdoll glitch. That’s a really simple glitch, and only affects immersion, not the actual game itself. I was more talking about glitches that consistently break quests, break areas, break progress. A glitch that is almost guaranteed to happen if you do a certain thing (dismiss Illia, accept a quest after you’ve done what the quest requires, etc).



Gonna pull out some evidence for my next claim, here. Fallout 3 is -riddled- with game breaking bugs. And not just "cosmetic, immersion breaking" ones, that you so claim. Here is a list of confirmed bugs in Fallout 3:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_bugs

Bugs that -crash the game-. Bugs that remove NPCs (how are you going to turn in quests?) Bugs that have followers -attack and kill you- Note, that's these aren't even quest-related bugs. There were so many quest-related bugs, they sent all of those bug reports to each and every quest section.


I believe the argument was Glitches (The ones that are constant). I may have been unclear. To be clear, this is what I thought of when I think of a constant glitch: a glitch that always happens if you do blank, not what may happen, definitely not how many there can be. If you thank pu'in' Fallout Tree buuuugs in hrrrr is gonna do sum-mmm, you got anotha thaaaang comin'. -snap snap-

(I'm sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes [except for that one, right up there])
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infernocanuck
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I... kinda don't get why you didn't actually acknowledge that Fallout 3 had some constant glitches, and the evidence I showed, and I don't get why you went with a stereotypical black-woman snapping her fingers in my theoretical face, but that's fine.

I'm kinda done comparing Fallout 3 and Skyrim. I still maintain that some "problems" in Skyrim can be found in Fallout 3, but if you don't agree with that argument, then that's fine.

In the next day or so, I'll try and articulate the reasons why I think Skyrim is a fantastic game, and how it can stand on it's own.

For future reference, you might want to be careful on how you word the topic. "I don't like Skyrim" and starting a debate about that kinda makes it feel like we're trying to convince you that you should like Skyrim. I frankly don't care if you like Skyrim or not. However, if it was titled, "This is why I don't think Skyrim is a good game" it would give us something more to go on.
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Piph0
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Milkman
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I... kinda don't get why you didn't actually acknowledge that Fallout 3 had some constant glitches, and the evidence I showed, and I don't get why you went with a stereotypical black-woman snapping her fingers in my theoretical face, but that's fine.


Out of respect, I will give my views on Fallout 3's glitches. I've been through some really shity problems with the technical side of Fallout 3 (PC). One time I had to quick-save though an area because of memory leak issue, I fell though the floor a few times, had plenty of floating objects like body parts and what not, and things I have not encountered/recall but read in that very wikia. Heck, the game still crashes to this day. (Why? I have no idea.) It does help to have a save any time you want feature, with the crashes that is. I've played Fallout 3, I don't even know how many times, and know more things about it then most, but I seriously can't recall any consistent quest breaking glitches. I'm sure they're out there, though.
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Vosoros
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You know a good game for enemies not leveling with you? Risen...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Silver-Risen-Xbox-360/dp/B002ACOWSM/ref=sr_1_75?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1355044540&sr=1-75

I liked many of the mechanics, comparitively. It seems as though game-makers are afraid of taking inspiration from other good games these days, pursuing the best game possible.

Anyway's, for those of you who haven't tried Risen...give it a bash.
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Huzzahfortimelines
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Vosoros
Dec 9 2012, 04:18 AM
You know a good game for enemies not leveling with you? Risen...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Silver-Risen-Xbox-360/dp/B002ACOWSM/ref=sr_1_75?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1355044540&sr=1-75

I liked many of the mechanics, comparitively. It seems as though game-makers are afraid of taking inspiration from other good games these days, pursuing the best game possible.

Anyway's, for those of you who haven't tried Risen...give it a bash.
I've tried Risen: Pirate version... does that count?
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Vosoros
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Huzzahfortimelines
Dec 9 2012, 08:58 AM
I've tried Risen: Pirate version... does that count?
You mean Risen 2? If so, I couldn't say if they remained true to non-leveling enemies, which puts certian areas of the game (practically) off-limits until you cultivate the means as you level.

:-/
Edited by Vosoros, Dec 9 2012, 10:38 AM.
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DJNUMA
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Minor League Commissioner
... oh god...
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TheEdnar
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Not really sure if this is in keeping with the idea of the thread, but just some thoughts on what could improve on the problems Piph0 has with the game. Also, before I get started, I need to say that the progression from Morrowind->Oblivion->Skyrim has for me been Awesome->Kinda Good->Meh. :)

1) Uniques usefullness. I agree with Piph0, in that Uniques should be useful. I don't agree they should be solely statwise greater. Bigger numbers don't mean more fun. How about instead of going up, one went to the side. Uniques that have comparable, maybe even slightly weaker numbers, but do something that enchanting or smithing doesn't allow you as a player to do with the regular items. This is difficult since they made the enchanting and smithing so friggin' OP and capable of giving any item in the game basicly any effect. I don't honestly have any suggestions on how to do this, aside from cosmetic changes or some funny quirks (maybe make your blade talk to you like Lilarcor from BG2). Maybe making a druid staff which makes slain enemies sprout a growth of some harvestable material if you deal the final blow in melee? The munchkin will still want to craft his own gear, because numbers, but this kind of special effect will appeal to the RolePlayer in us. Which brings me to the second thing.

2) Interaction with NPCs. What interaction? I agree with Piph0 completely, though he doesn't go far enough. The assumption the game makes seems to be that if you talk to someone you want the quest. You (almost) never want to know who you're doing the quest for, nor if you want to do it for the other side instead, or if you want to haggle for the reward, or if you want to antagonize said NPC straight away for suggesting to your ultra-lawful Paladin that he might want to burn down an orphanage. This kind of thing is a symptom of huge, openended worlds, but still they could've at the very least added some options and variety to a few of the dialogues pertaining to quests. Partly I feel the problem is also that everything is voice acted. Take a look at an older RPG like Fallout or Planescape. Those had huge dialogue trees built into them for the important NPCs, which actually felt like conversations instead of pressing buttons on a quest giving machine. But making voice acted bits for such huge dialogue trees for umpteen NPCs all throughout the game, kinda doubt many game companies would bother.

There's a lot the game gets right. It's pretty, it's atmospheric through visuals, music and sound effects. The world is huge, and exploration feels interesting (untill you begin to feel that there's nothing left to accomplish by it)
Where it fails utterly, at least for me, is by not making me care. I rarely do anything for anyone because I need to or want to, I do stuff because I happened to stumble upon it and there might be lootz. Very rarely if ever does the game succeed in making me care for a single character or faction in this huge world. And I'm the guy who almost friggin' cried in ME3 when some of my favorite people got killed, or when I realized I had to sacrifice my FemShep for the greater good. I know it's not a fair comparison, since the other is heavily story driven and linearish, and the other free roaming sandbox playground, but still, would it have killed them to add maybe like half-a-dozen persistent, interesting characters with motivations, personalities and agendas with which you interact in ways other than "here's the next kill ten rabbits and bring me back their pelts-quest, chopchop" to which you can answer "sir,yes sir!" or just walk away and ignore the quest in your quest list for all eternity.

Okay, getting a bit ranty. I'll just leave this here, run, and never come back to see how badly my views got crushed. Also, not very good at debating, so sue me.
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