Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I'd add a little of my opinions about Morrowind , Oblivion and Skyrim Debate.

Graphics: S>=O>M
Story: Hard to tell, all of them are too EPIC, maybe Morrowind is a little better in this factor
Magic: M>O>S (no spell making in Syrim, more effects ad schools in Morrowind)
Character system and development: M>O=S (in Skyrim lack of almost any depth (no attributes, no major/minor ab. etc) pisses me off, in Oblivion forced levels and other minor things.
World consistency (which big part is level scaling or rather lack of it): M>S>O -> in Oblivion it was blatantly annoying, in Skyrim it also prevails, more veiled but still.
GUI: M>O>S
Combat: Really depends on taste I guess , newer games have more flexibility with mixing magic/combat , but morrowind had different basic attack with the same weapon, but no power attacks.
Also some comments on Skyrim itself:
- Radiant StoryAI or how was it called is big shitpile. In principle it was to allow infinite quests, in real you do one of them and know how the rest will look like
- Dialogues are a little better than in Oblivion but still nothing memorable so far
 
Ilosar said:
Also, apparently level-scaling being gone is another lie; critters such as trolls, giants and dragons (I can somewhat understand the last case, however, they are simply too easy early game) ceaselessly get stronger as you level. Still absolutely no motivation to level past the point you get all the gear/skills/perk you want maxed (and no, 10 more HP when high level attacks do upwards of 100 won't help, nor will 10 more magicka when your spells barely tickle anything dangerous).
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Yes, the scaling is a bit better, but it's still bad.
I've just posted about it on the dex, let me quote it:

Scaling is screwed in my game. I mainly focussed on smithing so I could craft glass armor and later on that dragonscale armor (I have 84 in smithing at the moment on level 30) and put the rest of my points in destruction magic and light armor. Enemies one shot kill me wherever I go, even on the easiest difficulty it becomes a pain in the ass. I can't progress in any of the main guild questlines because the monsters in there (especially the bossmonsters) are impossible to kill.

The worst is

[spoiler:e02b29aaae]going into azuras stone to kill that fucker in there. There are Daedra mages in there who kill me from afar whithout me even seeing them, even with all protection spells up. Or the final boss in the labyrinthian (the quest to retrieve magus' staff) onehit kills me even on very easy - I can't even scratch him.[/spoiler:e02b29aaae]

It's pretty derpy and I consider starting up all over again.
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@brfritos: The quests are nothing to write home about, C&C is as good as nonexistant.

@.Pixote: To me personally it's way better than Oblivion, some aspects I like even more than Morrowind (the atmosphere, the norsk country etc).
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Ilosar said:
Dragon Age was a good example of a game that used both text and icons, so even if icons repeated themselves it was still intuitive and easy to use, hell the interface of that game in general seemed like one of the best in RPGs if you ask me.
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Good sorting options is also quite helpful. Actually Final Fantasy games have pretty inventory screens, granted they are helped by the fact that there aren't items with the same name that can do different things (enchantments or what have you).

Ilosar said:
Still absolutely no motivation to level past the point you get all the gear/skills/perk you want maxed (and no, 10 more HP when high level attacks do upwards of 100 won't help, nor will 10 more magicka when your spells barely tickle anything dangerous).
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There is something to be said for systems in which you don't do more damage and get (significantly) more health based on your level but rather get better at doing stuff (like hitting, access to better or more magic/abilities, etc.), thus making the game more loot based. I think it's particularly good for FPS RPGs. It's not an RPG but Devil May Cry is a very basic example of this type of thing in games. Fallout is another good example, minus scaling HP. Alternaty is a good PnP example.
 
Pretty much the best game I've played in the last 2 or 3 years. Everyone at my work obsessed with it... not getting a whole lot of work done. We spend more time talking about what we were doing the night before than anything else.
 
Well, at least they are reacting *somehow* - could be much worse.
 
I don't really see much problem with that. they reacted better than I expected, hell even commenting on the player standing nearby with his weapon drawn. what other game does this?
 
actually I think thats pretty awesome.

compared to ... you probably already know it ...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KN7cKO8-P0&feature=related[/youtube]
 
There is something to be said for systems in which you don't do more damage and get (significantly) more health based on your level but rather get better at doing stuff (like hitting, access to better or more magic/abilities, etc.), thus making the game more loot based. I think it's particularly good for FPS RPGs. It's not an RPG but Devil May Cry is a very basic example of this type of thing in games. Fallout is another good example, minus scaling HP. Alternaty is a good PnP example.
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Well, DMC is a slasher, so totally different mechanics. Not that it's not at all doable in an exploring/adventure game (see Risen), but it a) loses appeal to the casual crowd that wants an "I win" button, and b) requires a lot more effort from the developer to play smooth and feel natural. Adjusting HP of everything up is the basic lazy solution.
 
though Risen is a rather hand crafted game while Skyrim is more a sandbox.

Though I cant say that Risen was that great either. The first half of the game is awesome. But it gets very dull and boring after that part because the main quest line only repeats it self till you have to kill the super-bad-evil-villain. Oh you have to get in to that volcano! But you need 5 disks! OH! you managed to get to the volcano. But NO! You cant fight the big boss! You need to collect 4 pieces of the uber-armor and weapon ...
 
I wouldn't say half, but the game certainly falls apart in the final "chapter" and ending boss-fight. Some of the puzzle-spell thing near the end is ok though.
 
The explanation made to me about Elder Scrolls "Boss Fights" tend to boil down to this:

In Morrowind, you beat on a stationary target while Dagoth Ur yelled at you.

In Oblivion, you lit a glorified lamp.

In Skyrim, you just use a duck call over and over again while everyone beats on the "Boss."
 
Tagaziel said:
Reconite said:
Couldn't wear helmets either right? Or was that just Argonians?
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Both beast races couldn't wear full face helmets. Open were all good.
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Well I never played either in Morrowind so I didn't know the specifics. Just Imperial (because it was new to Elder Scrolls) and Dunmer. I still prefer Daggerfall for most things, but I do enjoy Morrowind's non-randomly generated landscape.
 
Got my hands on my own copy. Game certainly looks pretty and I do see that the game has quite some scope, however...

The leveling. is. FUCKED.

My god. Even though I abhorred the karma system and storytelling in Fallout 3 with all my being (more so with the former), I thought they did a good job making leveling up based on experience. However, in Skyrim I can definitely see how if you played around with things like Smithing and Alchemy a little too much for your own good to the point the game thinks you've neglected your combat skills, that guy could run into a situation where the game becomes unbeatable with the monster scaling.

Then there's Speech. Since in these games you level up skills by using them and some of the speech checks you need to have a certain amount of points in Speech, and, well, you can see the Catch-22 there. I suppose you could level it up by selling crap and getting trained, but selling stuff would take so goddamned long and I need to consider that I'm buying training for Destruction, Enchantment, and Alchemy (three of my focus skills).
 
aenemic said:
I don't really see much problem with that. they reacted better than I expected, hell even commenting on the player standing nearby with his weapon drawn. what other game does this?
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What? Yeah, it's a reaction, but it's a totally retarded reaction. First, the little girl says (very calmly), "Oh, what happened?", then turns away and stands still, staring into space in a random direction. The guards then run up and just stand there, with no reaction, for a good 10 or 20 seconds while the players twirls the body around in the air (god I still hate crappy ragdoll physics), before finally reacting. And their reaction would be appropriate... if it was a body sitting there not being twirled around in the air and dragged across the ground.

Then finally, they ask the player why he's standing(??) near a corpse with his weapon drawn... and then, quite calmly, say "Oh well ok just be good from now on" and that's that.

I dunno, maybe it's just me but the whole thing was awkward and completely unbelievable, which has been the issue with Bethesda's attempts at AI since Oblivion. I never felt the same playing Morrowind, despite the primitive AI that didn't react to much of anything except outright aggression. Maybe my suspension of disbelief was just higher with that game?
 
The good about Skyrim: Beth has finally realized that they're not good at making RPGs, so they simplified the system to be more FPS-like.

The bad: Beth still hasn't learned to make good user interfaces. That thing is just fucking horrible. They should've looked at the interface mods for Oblivion and learned from them. It still blows my mind how some random modder guy on the internet can create a better interface than someone who does this for a living for a very successful game developer.
 
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