Antiwarprofallout
It Wandered In From the Wastes
I joking there about the stereotypes attributed to this forum. Yes, I was wrong, no I do not think you folk are irrational or wrong.
Elder Scrolls Six predictions
- Thread starter Antiwarprofallout
- Start date
It Wandered In From the Wastes
R.Graves
Confirmed Retard
actually none of What you said was wrong but it didn't really make sense as an arguement.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Well saying there are no negatives to disabling quest markers in Skyrim is wrong. You definitely cannot play the game that way and you would be hard pressed to find a quest that can be completed without quest markers due to the lack of dialogue giving directions and the terrible world map.
People come to NMA, sometimes get called out for saying something that is incorrect, and then immediately run away to reddit or someplace and complain that NMA is the meanest place ever lol.
R.Graves
Confirmed Retard
I had forgotten that post. I suppose that's objectively wrong but I was referring to a different post.
Antiwarprofallout
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Well when I meant that there's no negative I meant more that there was no other negative than that. I was assuming the hypothetical person doing this wouldn't care about how hard it would be to navigate because if they did they wouldn't deselect the quest.
R.Graves
Confirmed Retard
When someone deselect a quest it's because they don't wanna Do it. Can we stop this now? Cuz if this threads gonna stay derailed i could just bring up my kinks again.
Antiwarprofallout
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Alright, we can end this little derailment on this note: Give us directions, Bethesda.
Also, I hope there's jungle elves from that southern continent.
Also, I hope there's jungle elves from that southern continent.
RangerBoo
Resident Schizo Poster
Oh God no. Dragonborn was the worst. With the overuse of Lovecraft, the Mary-Sue NPC's CoughMiraakCough, the infuriating main story that gave players no RPG options or choices and Hermaeus Mora being the unquestioning and omniscient God NPC who, more or less, was Emil's mouth piece and self insert character who insulted players endlessly. "Oh you want multiple options to complete the main quest and for your free will to matter? Fuck you you dumb shit! Your doing things my way! Bwhaha!"
Dragonborn was garbage. Never have I felt so much hatred and disdain towards a DLC. It is on my list of the worst DLC ever made, right next to the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC.
Antiwarprofallout
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Something that made me question Dragonborn's internal logic was how a omniscient god needed your help getting knowledge from a fishing and whaling (horking?) village.
Predictions: You'll need to help Mora get the knowledge of a camp of loggers. You have no choice in this.
90% of the NPCs will be unkillable and the ten percent that aren't are all merchants
A DLC will add attacks on cities by hopelessly outnumbered and weak enemies that will target merchants
Predictions: You'll need to help Mora get the knowledge of a camp of loggers. You have no choice in this.
90% of the NPCs will be unkillable and the ten percent that aren't are all merchants
A DLC will add attacks on cities by hopelessly outnumbered and weak enemies that will target merchants
Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
Closest thing I can assume you're referring to are the Maormer, and they're kinda assholes to the rest of Tamriel (doesn't help that almost every time we've heard of them visiting Tamriel, it's to fuck shit up.)
It isn't the worst DLC. It's the best of Skyrim's DLC, to be honest. The worst of Skyrim's DLC is Dawnguard, or as I refer to it, "You brought the Falmer into this, they can apparently live for thousands of years (unless I brain-farted) and yet there's only a grand total of two members of this fascinating and mysterious culture, you have to kill one because he's an evil asshole (who apparently didn't pray within three days of infection despite being the fucking religious leader of the Falmer,) and the other is so bland you'd think he watches golf on TV while eating mayo on white bread. And that's not even the stupidest part of the whole thing."
At least Dragonborn had nostalgia value. Dawnguard is the Fallout 3 of Elder Scrolls DLC.
This is actually an issue with the series as a whole, namely with the barrier between Nirn and Oblivion. Basically, the Daedra have very limited influence on Mundus because Akatosh told them to fuck off and "sealed shut the marble jaws of Oblivion" with the Dragonfires. Later on, the statue of Akatosh in front of the Temple of the One basically served the same purpose. Mages can summon and bind lesser Daedra, but it's a little bit trickier to summon a Daedric Prince in their full form. In fact, it's literally impossible. (That big, red giant that appeared at the end of Oblivion? That was the avatar of Mehrunes Dagon. That was a fraction of his full power.) That's why the Princes need champions and worshipers and that's why they put their fancy artifacts on Nirn.
Hermaeus Mora might, at some point, have been able to just take the Skaal's knowledge... But because of the sealed barrier between the two worlds, Mora simply can't (especially if we believe that the All-Maker is protecting them from Mora.)
TL;DR Hermaeus Mora doesn't have the ability to just take the knowledge because a). Akatosh and b). maybe the All-Maker.
RangerBoo
Resident Schizo Poster
But it wasn't good nostalgic value. It was insulting. In the Bloodmoon expansion you were able to be a badass and beat a daedric prince at his own game. You get no such opportunity in Dragonborn. You are told you have no free will and must do what Hermaeus Mora, ie Emil, says. Even though its not great, I will say that Dawnguard was the better DLC just for the sole reason that it wasn't as insulting.
Antiwarprofallout
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Dawnguard was annoying because you had to have that one vampire chick with the American accent on your side if you were on the vampire hunter side.
Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
I actually probably would've been upset had Hermaeus not been a manipulating bastard. He's a Daedric Prince. Even the nicest of them are still assholes (the two nicest, Azura and Meridia, are both still jerks.) Hermaeus is not meant to be nice in the slightest. I expect him to be manipulative, demanding and just an all-around jerk.
Plus, honestly, I don't expect to kick Daedra ass. With Bloodmoon, Hircine is setting up, if not you, then somebody to win. I've always believed he was holding back. If Hircine didn't want you to win, you would not have won. And you weren't even on his plane of Oblivion, where he's basically omnipotent. Most of your dialogue with Hermaeus is in Apocrypha, where if he wanted it, he could smush you into little, tiny Dovah-bits. And the Dragonborn is way more powerful than the Nerevarine is.
It's not ideal, and I would've much preferred to have more RP options, but they, for once, tried to limit the player's power. They showed restraint. They went way too far in doing so, but they tried to make sure the player couldn't kill a god.
She's, at least, somewhat entertaining. Also, she follows you even if you side with the vampires.
Black Angel
Grand Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus
I watched that one, but haven't watched the second one. In that video, though, he kind of missed the point. Take what I'm gonna say next with a pinch of salt since the last time I saw that video was months ago around the release of Fallout 4. Basically, for him, quest markers are necessary in Skyrim because the direction aren't as detailed as it was in Morrowind. Yeah, that's why. He gave an example that NPCs in Morrowind, all of them only got the same thing to say, never mind the fact that the writer just need to step up his writing as to not have ALL of the NPCs say the same thing, while retaining the detailed dialogue when giving directions. Just see his comment sections, people are calling him out for being okay with the dumbing down of the series (that is, if the comments aren't drowned out by Bethesdrones).
RangerBoo
Resident Schizo Poster
But in Oblivion you were able to defeat Jyggalag so it is not impossible to defeat a Daedric Prince so it is not improbable for the player character to defeat Hiricine in Bloodmoon. Hell in the ESO you are able to defeat Molag Bal in his realm after you imbued yourself with the power of the Divines. Hermeaus Mora and his dialogue just existed to mock the player. "Oh you want choices in a RPG? Too bad! Your doing things my way bitch!"
I don't think Bethesda at all tried to restrain the player in Dragonborn given the Shouts and other powers you receive which pretty much makes you a God. They just dropped the ball and got so far up their own ass with that DLC.
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Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
Very different circumstances. At that point in SI, you had just mantled Sheogorath. Had Bethesda shown things as they happened in lore, your power would not just have been game-breaking, it would've been game-shattering. It would've broken the game so much, the pieces could've been collectables in Skyrim. Jyggalag didn't stand a fucking chance.
Yes! You just got imbued with the power of the Divines! And, again, specific circumstances allowed for Molag Bal to be weakened enough to be defeated. He wasn't at full strength. You had the power of the gods who created Mundus. That put you on equal footing.
Compare to the final fight against Hircine. The Nerevarine is not powered by a god. He is not mantling one. He isn't even Dragonborn. He's just a regular old mortal with a nifty prophecy (I mean, he's got more going for him than the Eternal Champion or the Agent) but somehow he defeats Hircine. The only way that could happen would be if Hircine wanted a fair fight. Had Hircine not held back, he could've stomped the Nerevarine into Oblivion.
It should also be noted that Hircine fights you on Nirn, while Hermaeus is always in his realm of Apocrypha (except the one or two instances you see him as a few floating tentacles.)
What would you expect such a being would do? Play nice? "Oh, it's okay. I don't mind if you go against my wishes. It's not like this is my plane of Oblivion, where I'm all-powerful and stuff. It's not like I'm known to be manipulative. It's not like I'm a fucking Daedric Prince! You go on and openly defy me. That's alright." Yeah, it's not great that you don't get choice in an RPG, but there's not much the writers could've done about that without making Hermaeus a pushover.
RangerBoo
Resident Schizo Poster
The Dragonborns in the ES lore are pretty much demi-Gods. They are the sons and daughters of Akatosh. So them going up against a Daedric Prince should not impossible. This is just another case of Bethesda not giving a shit about their own lore and throwing it out the window. There is a reason why people, such as myself, hate it when you make omniscient and unquestioning God NPC's when you established in previous games that they can be beaten. Remember Mass Effect 3 and the Star Brat anyone?
Also the Nerevarine was known as Nerevar the God Killer in his previous life so it makes sense that with a name like that that he can challenge godlike beings like the Daedric Princes. Again this is Bethesda not giving a shit and throwing everything out the window.
I feel you're getting this backwards mate ... which quest in Skyrim and/or Oblivion allows you actually to role play? If you can find 5, that would be already A LOT. And I am generous here, when I say role playing I mean different outcomes for your quests. We all know that really good role playing can come trough writing. But nowadays it's already role playing when you give people 2 binary choices between good and evil. If you're lucky there is a third one, that is basically the good choice but with insults/sarcasm and called a gray choice.
Point is, this one quest where you HAVE to follow the will of a god, wouldn't be a drama if it was the exception. Exceptions can be exciting! But sadly, as far as Bethesda goes, those kind of quests are the rule. The system is usually always the same, the setup always similar and what you do in those quests, is also most of the time same as well. Either killing someone or killing someone and finding something.
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Finally I could watch videos (I had an hour to spare while I was out and went to a public library), so I can finally comment
.First thing about this video (Why the Elder Scrolls isn't Dumbing Down) is that the guy attributes the first reason people think that TES series are getting dumbed down is... Nostalgia!
Nostalgia is pretty much the desperate argument and after I watched the first video (The Elder Scrolls: Dumbing Down) and the guy said quite good and precise facts (both good and bad things about the Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim) the answer from the second video right from the start is: "Nostalgia goggles! People don't compare the "real old games" with Skyrim, they compare their "Idyllic version of old games" that they think they were because, Nostalgia Goggles!". I could say the same about this second guy, he doesn't compare the real old games with Skyrim, he compares his "sucky old games" version instead... See? This argument fails at the start because I have no way of proving he thinks the old games are really bad just because he doesn't like them or because he hasn't played the games for a while.
The other thing he says is that "come on guys, the teams who made the games are different and have different philosophies" most of the talented writers who worked for Morrowind left after the game released. So cut them some slack.
This does nothing to disprove that TES series has been dumbed down, and in fact seems to point that it was dumbed down because the writers weren't as good. On an interesting note:
Ken Rolston was the Lead Game Designer of both Morrowind and Oblivion.
Craig Lafferty was one of the main producers of both Oblivion and Skyrim.
So many of the important people worked on two or all of the games from Morrowind to Skyrim... Took me 3 minutes to google and find that out. I bet if I continued to search I could find other people who were in the same team on each of those games. This video guy doesn't even do any research before spewing lies.
Next point is that Todd Howard's team does not have to worry about sales because it doesn't matter if the games are good or bad they sell a lot. Which again proves the point of the first video which said "TES is getting many things dumbed down to appeal to a larger audience so they sell more games and make more money". So this guy just confirmed the other guy point.
Next point is "Important characters can't die" which he says it's true but it wasn't made to appeal to casual gamers. It was so the NPCs wouldn't get killed accidentally by the world and it's dangers and so the player wouldn't lose quests. This is bullshit (pardon my language), because for example Fallout 3 already had essential characters and still some characters that
were part of some quests could be accidentally killed and the game would still go on. It would also be easy to prevent important characters from getting killed accidentally and in fact in Skyrim many of these "Important characters" are already safe from those dangers, they are indoors and spend all day indoors (like the Jarls) where there is no danger of them getting accidentally killed by the wilderness or radiant attacks. Which means that it was purposefully made so the only thing that could kill them would be if the player caused a fight in there. Third thing, it would have been very easy for Bethesda to make this important characters just have a "coward personality", the Creation Kit (and GECK in Fallout 3 and NV) show us that we can assign personalities to NPCs and Creatures, one of those is coward (or something similar, I can't remember properly) which makes the NPC run as soon as an enemy or combat starts in the vicinity of them. Another point is that they can just accidentally fall from high ground. Again that is easy to prevent, characters can have a set path they follow and there is also Navmesh which all Bethesda games since Gamebryo use to tell the characters where they can or can't walk or stand, they also have what I call "action markers" which tells characters where they can sit or where they can lean on a wall or sleep or any other idle action. I could go on about how that makes no sense when you know how Bethesda games are made and which tools and techniques Bethesda use to make their games but that would just make this big wall of text into a super giant wall of text... And I am quite known for rambling too much already
.Then he uses the old saying of "If you want something, then use mods!" which is again just making excuses for why something is or isn't possible in a game from the get go. Which again does nothing to disprove that TES games have been getting dumbed down, in fact it kinda in a way proves it "oh the game is so dumbed down that I have to use a mod to make it less dumbed down".
Next point was "The faction system does nothing in Morrowind". He goes about how the only thing that the faction reputation affects is how the NPCs react to you...
that to me is how reputations within factions should work. He also goes about and says that we can easily overcome the consequences with that faction by simply throwing a bag of gold or bribe people. (first that is how you make someone that doesn't like you to help or tell you want you want, you bribe them, second that does not affect the reputation, it only affects that NPC and only for that bit of the dialogue. Bribing someone will not make them or the faction like you from now on.). Then he goes on about how if someone who doesn't like you will start liking you if you join their faction. This is only half true. If the NPC really dislikes you, then joining the same faction will just increase their liking you a bit and for them to like you more you will have to actively help your faction by doing quests, or help other "allied" or "friend" factions. This will slowly make everyone in those factions start to like you more (even the first video shows tables of how quests and player actions make some factions like and other factions dislike the player using a numerical value: "do this and these factions will like you +3 and these +2 and these +1 and these will dislike you -1" and so on). He also then shows how the player could join different houses with different ideologies. But he forgot to mention that if you do too many things that will lower those factions reputation they would stop talking to you and wouldn't let you join anymore.Then when he goes to Skyrim he defends that we can join all the factions because it makes sense, how would the other factions know which others we had joined?... Talk about double standards
. "Walking around in Morrowind fell like you have a whole political bumper stickers attached to you" to me that is one of the reasons why Morrowind was less dumbed down, the higher you would rise in a faction, the more recognisable you would get and the more the NPCs reacted in favor or against you. In Skyrim it doesn't matter that you are leader of all the factions and on top of that you are the Dragonborn and yet no one acknowledges it unless it is related to a quest or something. That my friends is dumbed down.He says that the first guy is nitpicking examples when he just nitpicked examples too but it made it worst because it generalised those examples so much that they became half truths (or maybe 1/4 truths).
"In many demonstrable ways the consequences of player's interaction with different guilds, groups and organisations in Tamriel have actually became more realistic and believable as the games progress. And that is something I don't even remotely consider dumbing down. Quite the opposite in fact.". Opinion is not fact and also he says "In many demonstrable ways" while he only mentioned 2 or 3 and they are not even good ones (he mentions like I said that organizations wouldn't know which other ones you had joined and that if you cause troubles for some they will send thugs to attack you or send the dark Brotherhood) while dismissing and hand waving all the points from the first video.
Game quest and journal. He says something like this "For everyone who says they like the immersion of exploring and finding the quest locations, I point a woman in morrowind that gave you complicated and confusing directions to kill some mudcrabs; because the first time I did that quest it took me hours to find the place. The quest marker would at some point become a necessity" and also something like "When players remember a NPC not by what she looks, spoke or had an interesting personality, but only because she gave such broken quest directions, you fail as a game designer." That was one NPC in the entire game, and to be honest it sounds realistic to me, some people suck at directions
. Not to mention that most NPCs in Skyrim and many in Oblivion are not remembered by their personality, what they say or looks either, because they are so bland and superficial/paper thin. But hey guys, this is why a quest marker exist and it is not dumbing down... As others pointed out before, even if we disable the quest marker we will not have any idea where to go to do the quest, it was so dumbed down they didn't even had to write directions (some people might mention that it would cost way more to pay voice actors to say these new lines, but I say they could have just hand you a piece of paper with directions or a crude map. You know like they do in Skyrim with the "Go and kill these bandits" radiant quests).He continues "This isn't about to appeal to the casual gamers, it is to make easier the life of all players." Wait, doesn't that show it is a dumbing down? Even if it is not to appeal to the casual gamers it is definitely a dumbing down. Dumbing down is making things simpler and easier so it makes life easier for the players (whether they want it or not), and if it is not really aimed at the casual gamer, then how come only the not casual players complain about it?
"I am a hardcore gamer. I played every TES games since Morrowind and I enjoy having a quest marker."... He also does not seem to know what hardcore gamer is... I am not a hardcore gamer and I played TES games since Daggerfall and probably have hundreds of hours in Daggerfall even before Morrowind came out... And I definitly do not consider myself a hardcore gamer. "There is nothing dumb abour getting rid of a feature of a game that is quite simply broken.". He considered the entire quest directions system in Morrowind broken because he couldn't find a cave for one side quest. He doesn't mention any problems with any of the other hundreds of quests in Morrowind, but yeah it is totally broken, yeah... Also no mention of the journal system, he says nothing about how the journal system was dumbed down.
About the dialogue, he says there is less characterisation because most NPCs say the same thing about the same subjects, it is copy paste. And he admits there is more dialogue in Morrowind than Skyrim but there is overall less lines of dialogue... That is not really true. And anyone who played both games can see easily. There are way more NPCs in Morrowind and many of the generic ones say the same about some subjects, but they still usually have one or two subjects they say differently. There are way more non generic NPCs in Morrowind too, and they all have their own dialogues. Morrowind dialogue is more extensive because of the advantage of not have voiced NPCs so each reply is several lines of dialogue, while in Skyrim each reply is usually one or two lines.
I am not going to say that the Morrowind dialogue is better than the Skyrim one (that is a matter of opinion, and I like and dislike things in both dialogue systems) but it is clearly a more simplified version that we see in Skyrim. Skyrim's system it is made to be fast, short and don't delay the action for too long. I myself consider that a dumbed down version of the dialogue system, but again I am not saying it is better or worst, it is just dumbed down, made more simplified, require less memory and it is less time consuming.
He then goes to say that Whiterun has a lot of unique personality characters and that Morrowind didn't. Even though there are a lot of memorable NPCs in the whole of Morrowind, but the thing is, even if we can identify the personality of the characters, it all falls short after you talked to most of those Whiterun memorable characters because they only have 2 or 3 lines and no matter what you do or how much time it passes, they always say the same thing over and over and some things make no sense saying twice, for example "Have you been to the cloud district? Of course not...". He also says that charactrization is the key here, but he doesn't mention all of the wrong things with the characters in Skyrim. For example someone asked this on reddit: Why is everyone in Whiterun so abominably mean?
And they are right, these NPCs personalities are so bland and fake that they are set in stone, they never say or react differently no matter what it happens in the world around them. For example we can shout in the middle of towns and all we get is a guard asking us to stop it because it scares the people... While the people still act, walk, have chit chat with eachother while we are "FUS RO DAH" right next to they ears. He also says "Call of Duty has better characterisation (then Morrowind) most of the time".
How can someone take this guy seriously?Again I say, all this does nothing to dismiss that the dialogue system has been dumbed down.
I could go on and ramble more and criticise what he says, but I have pretty much exhausted my time in the library and I have an angry looking librarian girl staring at me for a bit now... Librarians scare me....
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