Resardiv
Herr Nordic Lost in Amerikat
Todd should just go outside instead.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Skyrim not having "fiddy character sheets" was the least of that game's problems.
Mr Fish
Slippy sloppy, The
Playing Skyrim now.
Starfield does have a lot of menu's an user interfaces so I guess this dude means that when you are ingame that there won't be popups of "paper sheets".
[edit]
Ok Skyrim's characters actually look like characters. The voice acting is better and the lack of topic dialogue for every single person means that their emotions don't flip on a dime. The world looks better and is actually aesthetically pleasing to look at and has distinguishing art assets that makes parts of the world far more memorable. The magic system is deeper and more interesting to play around with.
Apart from quest design I gotta say that after coming straight from Oblivion Skyrim is actually a lot better than it is.
However...
The game's balance is still scaled which means that your ability to defeat enemies is wonky at best and with the amount of combat that is in the game using the same attack animations over and over at the same types of enemies is getting repetitive after only like 15 hours of gameplay.
The learn by doing system is still crap but at least there are no major and minor skills now so you can level up as you please, this however also means that if you spend your time working on alchemy or enchanting or smithing or speechcraft (lol) then the enemies will scale up and up and up while your combat skills go underdeveloped.
The perk point system is an interesting addition however a big problem I am already running into at lvl 21 is that it takes so long to level up (as the higher leveled you become the more skill increases per level is increased) that it feels way too stingy. Unless you FOCUS on Illusion for charm and fear and such you might as well give up on those spells as creatures and people will be too high leveled the mana cost too high to waste it. Thinking that you can play around with it at your leisure is where the game will fuck you over. You WILL focus on the combat skills you plan to use for damage or your WILL suffer for it.
The same problem I have with Oblivion is that there are too many NPC's. Now, they look better, they sound better, but that doesn't mean that they stand out when you encounter like 50-80 of them in a city. Everyone has to have a name. Everyone has to have a role. Everyone has to have a routine assigned to them. That's a cute Bethesda design that I understand is meant to make the world feel more alive. The problem is that characters are underdeveloped and not really worth talking to. It also means that finding the NPC's that give you quests or interesting services (unless they are in store) is tedious as you'll have to go around and chat with everyone. At least in Fallout 3 you know that a generic NPC is just that.
The game is obnoxious with how forceful it is with shoving quests onto you. I am overloaded with quests and I've stopped talking to NPC's to receive quests ages ago. I just walk past someone and get a quest. Two NPC's are talking out of earshot and I get a quest assigned to me. I pick something up, quest. It's fucking irritating. Most of the time time quests are underdeveloped as well and just want me to do some annoying errand fetch quest.
Which brings me to the most important bit of criticism I have so far of Skyrim. See, yesterday I played it for like 12 hours (Day off from work, low energy zombie mode) and when I realized I had spent the entire day playing the game I asked myself "what have I actually accomplished?"
See, the game is designed in such a way that it microrewards the player. It is filled with distractions (far more so than Oblivion is) so doing the most simple task is bound to derail you into doing something else. And I used the teleporting console command specifically to get to quest dungeons to cut down on time!
In my eyes it is not about the experience you have while you enjoy the game but rather the experience of the game as a whole that determines whether or not the game is good. You don't have to 100% a game and you don't have to speedrun its main story. Just play the game as you want to play it as the game expects you to play it. And if the game is wearing out its welcome before it is over then your overall experience is going to suffer.
I'm already starting to feel this with Skyrim. The combat is turning repetitive and stale. Dungeons are unrewarding for the most part. Every time I come across ore veins I mine them even though I don't do Smithing "just in case" and it's another little time waster. Quests might have NPC's that feel like people (cardboard cutouts of people but still not swollen abominations like Oblivion) but the quest structure usually leaves me starved for content.
What am I playing the game for? The story? Hardly. The world? Eh... The combat? lol no. The RPG mechanics? What RPG mechanics? The gameplay loop? I'm getting bored of that already. The exploration? Oh jolly me, another Draughr dungeon, no.
- - -
But see here's the thing... I have a PERSONAL problem... One that I can't expect everyone else to relate to and which makes my experience and criticism of Skyrim biased. I have dysthymia, a deeper form of depression, which affects me in various ways and have for a very very long time. Not gonna go over all of it but it can leave me with very little energy and I can struggle with wanting to do "active" entertainment. It's easier for me to just sit back in front of something that microdoses me with dopamine through a gameplay loop where I can get lost in it like a drooling zombie.
And that's what I've done in the past. In fact, if I don't keep check on myself that is usually what I will normally gravitate towards as it is the least path of resistance. Bethesda games are good at that. Even if I don't really enjoy anything in the games that much the way that they are designed perfectly suits that kind of an addiction that I have, which means that I can easily get lost in a game I don't even enjoy. Why did I play it for 12 hours yesterday and waste the entire day on it? Because it was easy. Because it was the least path of resistance. Because it turned me into a drooling zombie that slouched into my gaming chair operating on a minimal level of energy.
That doesn't mean I enjoy the game, far from it. It just means I get sucked into it, will waste 100 hours on it and when I finally break out of of sheer maddening boredom I am furious with the game and myself for allowing it to take over my life.
It is unhealthy for me to continue to play this game.
So I will stop as I notice these signs ahead of time.
Take my limited criticism for what you will but I don't want to waste more time with this game. I have other more active entertainment to do that is far more fulfilling if I just get off my ass to do them.
Starfield does have a lot of menu's an user interfaces so I guess this dude means that when you are ingame that there won't be popups of "paper sheets".
[edit]
Ok Skyrim's characters actually look like characters. The voice acting is better and the lack of topic dialogue for every single person means that their emotions don't flip on a dime. The world looks better and is actually aesthetically pleasing to look at and has distinguishing art assets that makes parts of the world far more memorable. The magic system is deeper and more interesting to play around with.
Apart from quest design I gotta say that after coming straight from Oblivion Skyrim is actually a lot better than it is.
However...
The game's balance is still scaled which means that your ability to defeat enemies is wonky at best and with the amount of combat that is in the game using the same attack animations over and over at the same types of enemies is getting repetitive after only like 15 hours of gameplay.
The learn by doing system is still crap but at least there are no major and minor skills now so you can level up as you please, this however also means that if you spend your time working on alchemy or enchanting or smithing or speechcraft (lol) then the enemies will scale up and up and up while your combat skills go underdeveloped.
The perk point system is an interesting addition however a big problem I am already running into at lvl 21 is that it takes so long to level up (as the higher leveled you become the more skill increases per level is increased) that it feels way too stingy. Unless you FOCUS on Illusion for charm and fear and such you might as well give up on those spells as creatures and people will be too high leveled the mana cost too high to waste it. Thinking that you can play around with it at your leisure is where the game will fuck you over. You WILL focus on the combat skills you plan to use for damage or your WILL suffer for it.
The same problem I have with Oblivion is that there are too many NPC's. Now, they look better, they sound better, but that doesn't mean that they stand out when you encounter like 50-80 of them in a city. Everyone has to have a name. Everyone has to have a role. Everyone has to have a routine assigned to them. That's a cute Bethesda design that I understand is meant to make the world feel more alive. The problem is that characters are underdeveloped and not really worth talking to. It also means that finding the NPC's that give you quests or interesting services (unless they are in store) is tedious as you'll have to go around and chat with everyone. At least in Fallout 3 you know that a generic NPC is just that.
The game is obnoxious with how forceful it is with shoving quests onto you. I am overloaded with quests and I've stopped talking to NPC's to receive quests ages ago. I just walk past someone and get a quest. Two NPC's are talking out of earshot and I get a quest assigned to me. I pick something up, quest. It's fucking irritating. Most of the time time quests are underdeveloped as well and just want me to do some annoying errand fetch quest.
Which brings me to the most important bit of criticism I have so far of Skyrim. See, yesterday I played it for like 12 hours (Day off from work, low energy zombie mode) and when I realized I had spent the entire day playing the game I asked myself "what have I actually accomplished?"
See, the game is designed in such a way that it microrewards the player. It is filled with distractions (far more so than Oblivion is) so doing the most simple task is bound to derail you into doing something else. And I used the teleporting console command specifically to get to quest dungeons to cut down on time!
In my eyes it is not about the experience you have while you enjoy the game but rather the experience of the game as a whole that determines whether or not the game is good. You don't have to 100% a game and you don't have to speedrun its main story. Just play the game as you want to play it as the game expects you to play it. And if the game is wearing out its welcome before it is over then your overall experience is going to suffer.
I'm already starting to feel this with Skyrim. The combat is turning repetitive and stale. Dungeons are unrewarding for the most part. Every time I come across ore veins I mine them even though I don't do Smithing "just in case" and it's another little time waster. Quests might have NPC's that feel like people (cardboard cutouts of people but still not swollen abominations like Oblivion) but the quest structure usually leaves me starved for content.
What am I playing the game for? The story? Hardly. The world? Eh... The combat? lol no. The RPG mechanics? What RPG mechanics? The gameplay loop? I'm getting bored of that already. The exploration? Oh jolly me, another Draughr dungeon, no.
- - -
But see here's the thing... I have a PERSONAL problem... One that I can't expect everyone else to relate to and which makes my experience and criticism of Skyrim biased. I have dysthymia, a deeper form of depression, which affects me in various ways and have for a very very long time. Not gonna go over all of it but it can leave me with very little energy and I can struggle with wanting to do "active" entertainment. It's easier for me to just sit back in front of something that microdoses me with dopamine through a gameplay loop where I can get lost in it like a drooling zombie.
And that's what I've done in the past. In fact, if I don't keep check on myself that is usually what I will normally gravitate towards as it is the least path of resistance. Bethesda games are good at that. Even if I don't really enjoy anything in the games that much the way that they are designed perfectly suits that kind of an addiction that I have, which means that I can easily get lost in a game I don't even enjoy. Why did I play it for 12 hours yesterday and waste the entire day on it? Because it was easy. Because it was the least path of resistance. Because it turned me into a drooling zombie that slouched into my gaming chair operating on a minimal level of energy.
That doesn't mean I enjoy the game, far from it. It just means I get sucked into it, will waste 100 hours on it and when I finally break out of of sheer maddening boredom I am furious with the game and myself for allowing it to take over my life.
It is unhealthy for me to continue to play this game.
So I will stop as I notice these signs ahead of time.
Take my limited criticism for what you will but I don't want to waste more time with this game. I have other more active entertainment to do that is far more fulfilling if I just get off my ass to do them.
Last edited:
Morgan_
Duckerz
Honestly prefer Morrowind's UI for map/inventory. They should have two UIs based on if you are using a controller or mouse. Have something similar to Morrowind for non controller players.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Morrowind's UI and inventory is peak.
Resardiv
Herr Nordic Lost in Amerikat
Daggerfall, for maximum pain
Yeesh lmao. Bethesda gonna stick to this ethos until at least Todd also retires. Honestly, I think they'd be better games if they just dropped a lot of the RPG-esque pretense they seem to enjoy having. Not saying the games as they exist would be better but that they'd have a better game through designing it with some different goals to the more critical of their potential audience.
Is it? I remember when I first played Skyrim, I dabbled with the magic and felt like it was more straightforward than ever before so I didn't keep fucking with it. Maybe it is deeper than I thought but my early impressions of it was that it was basic.
The idea/promise that NPCs will have their own lives is a neat concept but yeah it's shallow as it can be in these games. Follow someone around and they mostly leave home, go to work, stand there for most of the day, walk a different path home and interact with other NPCs on that path and then go to bed lmao.
I think there was one or two in Oblivion that were somewhat interesting if my memory serves correct but I think they were also quest related NPCs but would visit certain areas either to get a higher likelihood that you'd interact with them or it was related to their quest. So not impressive. It's fine for when you're sprinting through everywhere but if you decide to pay attention and slow down too much you see how boring it ends up being lmao.
Mr Fish
Slippy sloppy, The
I don't think it's necessarily deeper in terms of effects but rather in playstyle and general 'feel' of using the magic system. Oblivion's is deeper in terms of effects but I could never create a functional useful fun spell with spell creation because the parameters were insanely stingy. Skyrim's is more fixed but the spells are identifiable at least. So I guess it isn't "deeper" really. Its magic system is a lot more presentable than Oblivion's.
I'd say both are fairly basic though unless you remove the parameters from spell crafting in Oblivion.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Some npcs in Oblivion do move around cities, but they are infamous for dying when traveling because of the random Oblivion gates.
Yeah like between cities? Cuz most of them have "schedules" in their cities but that's what I was referring to being really lackluster.
I kinda think STALKER games did this type of thing better because there's no pretense you should really pay much attention to the roaming people and squads besides identifying if they're hostile/neutral/friendly. It leads to good moments in the world where when you play again or compare it to others' experience of an encounter you can get wildly different results. I remember when I first played them, I had trouble at some checkpoint I had to get through and then years later I played through that section again and it was already an ongoing conflict there due to how mutants and other NPCs had pathed their ways there.