The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Ultima Shadow]

You know, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Skyrim, but this game get's way to much wrong in terms of plot.

Well, there is more than one reason I could play for nearly 40 hours before I continued on the main quest after doing the first couple of missions. And it was just like that in both Morrowind and Oblivion too. The storylines in these games rarely gets you hooked.

Though I guess I'm less bothered by this than you are. To me, even the main quests are all about exploring new places, fighting new foes and plundering graves for ancient artifacts etc. When I first saw the trailer for Skyrim, my thoughts weren't really:

"omg! A main story with dragons!"

...but rather:

"omg! A huge world to explore, with dragons!"


So while I do agree the story isn't worth paying for, I certainly don't regret paying for the game itself.




Edit:

Also, both the Enchanting and Smithing skills are so broken. Especially Enchanting though. And that's WITHOUT using the loop-thing Necro mentioned. Not only does the enchantments you can make with 100 enchanting skill make all the expensive amulets and unique artifacts look bad, but it's the best money-making skill in the game as well. =O

And Destruction could really use some balancing. One second it's totally awesome, then it's "okay" and then it kinda sucks compared to pretty much everything else. I mean... why even bother placing a Fire Trap if it's only going to chip away 2% of the enemy's healthbar?

The Destruction skill really should have increased the damage rather than decreasing the casting cost of the spells. I'm getting the PC version when there's a mod that fixes this. Because even the Expert and Master spells can't keep up at all when playing at the difficulties above Adept and at higher levels. How could they not realise something so obvious such as "set damage vs level-scaling" not working? =O

[Yeargdribble]

It sounds like I could easily drop 60 hours into this game and then look back and wonder what the smurf I spent my time on. Kind of like how I look back on all the non-storyline related things I did in FFXI. I think I'll spare myself the potential lost hours and pass on this one.

I know exactly what you mean. My experience with MMOs made me knee jerk against things that took lots of time and I started playing games to finish. I still do to some extent, but FFXI in particular soured me to wasting my gaming time.

But, I think I went to far just out of some reactionary sense. Since taking a good bit of time off and playing lots of single player experiences I found that I was often pushing myself to finish things I didn't enjoy much and it was essentially the same thing as FFXI.

I've now learned to just enjoy the journey rather than the conclusion. That's what TES games are for me. Ultima put it great. The main story is not the point. It's just a great open world that I have fun having fun in. I don't care what I've accomplished at the end of the day but rather that I had a good time accomplishing it (or not accomplishing anything).

This is how I managed to put nearly 1000 hours into Oblivion all told (in little bursts over the last several years) and don't feel like I wasted my time. I've played games with 12 hour single player campaigns where I feel like my time was more wasted and I certainly have finally grown weary of JRPGs. I once loved that it took me 80 hours, but I realized in retrospect that most of that was grinding so that I could feel accomplished and be awesome. I don't have the time or desire for that any more.


I now can look back fondly on FFXI and though it was a huge waste of time and life, I realize that in large part I was enjoying much of the experience even if it had no ultimate goal. TES games allow me a lot of that but with the ability to pause and walk away if I need to.


If it's not for you, that's fine. But if you think you can enjoy a game where the gameplay is the reward rather than the ending, you might like it. But hey, you might just not like the FPRPG thing. I never could get into FO3 because I wasn't a huge fan of the setting even if I liked the gameplay and writing. Different strokes I suppose.

That said, I've had good experiences trying games that were out of my comfort zone that I didn't really "get" but were popular. GTA IV was an example and it blew my mind how much I ended up loving it after having wrong impressions of it from the outside looking in.

[Necronopticous]

Yes, I understand why people like games. I meant this game in particular! It seems like it was the most anticipated game of the holiday season and is getting GotY mentions. I am wondering why there is a 4 page thread on this game rather than on, say, Skyward Sword.

In all seriousness, I think the primary appeal of these games is exploration. You are essentially dropped into a giant meticulously crafted world with no real spoonfed goal and the ability to do a large number of things. It is a overflowing barrel of content with at least something for basically everyone.

You mention Final Fantasy XI, and you can certainly draw some parallels between MMORPGs and these games, but I think the difference you will find here is that your actions in the game actually affect the world of the game which highly bolsters the feeling of progression.

[Madame Adequate]

Probably because we've played Zelda a dozen times before whereas a new, interesting Bethesda world to explore is pretty awesome and, well, new

Also I dunno about the Skyrim plot 'cause smurf the main plot in a game like this, but if you think Bethesda can't write plot you've clearly not played enough Morrowind.

[Jiro]

Having a lot of fun being a Bosmer chick and shooting the smurf out of folks with arrows.

[Madame Adequate]

Bosmer.

Filthy N'wah

[NeoCracker]

You know, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Skyrim, but this game get's way to much wrong in terms of plot.

Well, there is more than one reason I could play for nearly 40 hours before I continued on the main quest after doing the first couple of missions. And it was just like that in both Morrowind and Oblivion too. The storylines in these games rarely gets you hooked.

Though I guess I'm less bothered by this than you are. To me, even the main quests are all about exploring new places, fighting new foes and plundering graves for ancient artifacts etc. When I first saw the trailer for Skyrim, my thoughts weren't really:

"omg! A main story with dragons!"

...but rather:

"omg! A huge world to explore, with dragons!"


So while I do agree the story isn't worth paying for, I certainly don't regret paying for the game itself.




Edit:

Also, both the Enchanting and Smithing skills are so broken. Especially Enchanting though. And that's WITHOUT using the loop-thing Necro mentioned. Not only does the enchantments you can make with 100 enchanting skill make all the expensive amulets and unique artifacts look bad, but it's the best money-making skill in the game as well. =O

And Destruction could really use some balancing. One second it's totally awesome, then it's "okay" and then it kinda sucks compared to pretty much everything else. I mean... why even bother placing a Fire Trap if it's only going to chip away 2% of the enemy's healthbar?

The Destruction skill really should have increased the damage rather than decreasing the casting cost of the spells. I'm getting the PC version when there's a mod that fixes this. Because even the Expert and Master spells can't keep up at all when playing at the difficulties above Adept and at higher levels. How could they not realize something so obvious such as "set damage vs level-scaling" not working? =O

Exploration gets boring though. A lot of the ruins just look to much like all of the others in some cases, so exploring them gets dull. The Dragons get boring since they all look so similar. And smurf are there a lot of Necromancers in this world.

And I mean a lot. There is a lot of unnecessary repetition in this world. Same goes with the Drewmer and zombie fish elf looking things, I forget what they were called.

Explore to long you just see the same stuff over and over.

[Yeargdribble]

@Neo
This certainly can be the case, but it applies to almost every game. Skyrim is loads better than Oblivion. Oblivion almost literally did have the same 3 or so types of cave over and over. I've found a good deal of variety with the caves in Skyrim and some of them have really stunning interiors with giant waterfalls or a crack that opens to the sky allowing tall trees to grow in a ray of light.

I find this game very rewarding to just not fast travel around all the time as well. There's stuff happening out on the roads and often quests will find you simply because you're wandering around outside.

I recently decided to make myself walk to a particular unvisited location rather than fast traveling to the nearest point and walking from there. I got so sidetracked by dragons, NPCs that started quests, bandit strong holds that piqued my interest and interesting trails I wondered about. It took forever to get where I was going, but I had so much fun (and finished some extra quests) along the way.

[NeoCracker]

@Neo
This certainly can be the case, but it applies to almost every game. Skyrim is loads better than Oblivion. Oblivion almost literally did have the same 3 or so types of cave over and over. I've found a good deal of variety with the caves in Skyrim and some of them have really stunning interiors with giant waterfalls or a crack that opens to the sky allowing tall trees to grow in a ray of light.

I find this game very rewarding to just not fast travel around all the time as well. There's stuff happening out on the roads and often quests will find you simply because you're wandering around outside.

I recently decided to make myself walk to a particular unvisited location rather than fast traveling to the nearest point and walking from there. I got so sidetracked by dragons, NPCs that started quests, bandit strong holds that piqued my interest and interesting trails I wondered about. It took forever to get where I was going, but I had so much fun (and finished some extra quests) along the way.

I agree it is loads better then Oblivion, I can't stand playing that game.

ANd yes, a lot of the areas looked very pretty, Markarth I believe it was, the town built into the Mountain, is easilly my favorite town in the game. Very fun design, and a lot of fun quests. I had more fun there the any where else in the game.

And I can't really agree with you that the repetitive nature applies to almost every game. Again going back to New Vegas, the many different Vaults you could delve into felt a lot more unique then the natural caves of Skyrim, which is kind of strange given Vaults are basically man made human storage areas.

As far as enemies though, it does tend to suffer from a similar problem as Skyrim. I'm coming to except that is just something that is going to happen in this style of game. I'm not to fond of it, but I can give it a bit of lenience given the area being constrained to just the country.

There are also a lot of times where you can't do things make no sense you can't do. For example, involving the Markarth abandoned house.

(SPOILER)You go in, and dude you are with is driven crazy and wants you dead because of the Deadra Lord, I believe it was Malag Baal, but I mess up their names a lot. He lets you go and wants you to bring him a priest guy under pretense of cleansing the shrine. Why can't yo help him cleanse the Shrine? Why are the only options 'Ignore Quest' or 'Beat the old man to submission as he is trapped in spikey cage?

I also don't entirely realize why Random Tomfoolery is such a big reason to get this game. Don't get me wrong, the insane amount of side stuff is awesome, but I am out to do battle with (SPOILER)The smurfing World eater, a Dragon strong enough the only way the Anctient Nords won was by perverting the Power of Shouts into Dragonrend and aid of a smurfING ELDER SCROLL! and I'm suppose to find more satisfaction in punching a bunch of savages in the nuts and rifling through there tit? It just feels like the guys who made this game chose shenanigans over plot, yet anywhere you go in the world is trying to make this whole dragon thing out as a big deal.

Which is in and of itself hard to take seriously when I'm rather confident I found multiple randon bands of nameless dick bags who could probably solve this problem without my assistance. (SPOILER)The Soul absorbing this does make you necessary to get rid of the Dragons, true, but it's something no one in this world seems to know, outside a select few, yet still the world seems to think it needs you?

And this last one is just a minor annoyance, but still story related.

(SPOILER)Really, I'm just stuck with a twenty smurfing pound Elder Scroll I'll use once? So by doing the main plot I effectively LOSE twenty pounds of space in my Inventory? smurf yo Bethesda.

[Loony BoB]

I enjoy the game for the exploration aspect alone. Not that I don't enjoy other things about the game, but I would play this game without those things just so I could walk around and explore the overworld and the dungeons. They're stunningly beautiful. I really do love how this game rewards exploration. My favourite things are the little ones - Meeko's Shack, for example. Awwww.

[Dignified Pauper]

Question, why do all the NPC Vendors only ever have 700 gold on them! I need them to have more money so I can finish furnishing my home in Solitude.

Yeah... I bought the biggest house in the game. uJellies?

[Quindiana Jones]

I was excited for this game, I bought this game, I enjoy this game. Though I'm still "This is awesome! *fapfapfapfapfap*", I can't help but notice it's exactly the bloody same as the other two.

Not in that way, no. I mean that it hasn't done anything out of the ordinary. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim: graphics are some of the best around. M.O.S: huge world. M.O.S: great voice acting, but repetitive. The list goes on. It's a really weird complaint to have, if it even is a complaint. But when I am playing Skyrim, I lose a lot of hours. It's brilliant and fun and amazing. But as soon as I leave I don't have the hunger pangs that I used to get with Morrowind and Oblivion. I honestly don't know if I'll even play this more than once. Although everything is new, nothing has changed: it's the same kind of new.

Smithing and Enchanting are hilarious, though. Ground those mothersmurfers straight up to 100. Did someone say free Master Destruction spells? Oh, and how much damage does your bow do? Holy crap.

EDIT: Also, where the bloody hell is Spellmaking? Easily the funnest part of Oblivion was making your own ridiculous spells. They've improved the gameplay only to reduce the fun!

[Loony BoB]

I honestly don't know if I'll even play this more than once.

The mods will come and you will have your new content/gameplay. *nod*

EDIT: Also, where the bloody hell is Spellmaking? Easily the funnest part of Oblivion was making your own ridiculous spells. They've improved the gameplay only to reduce the fun!

I never got the full effect of this in Oblivion, I guess. I mean, you can only change the time/intensity of existing spells. What's so ridiculous about that? When I heard about spellmaking in Oblivion I got all sorts of insane ideas but then I found out it's not spellmaking, it's simply spelladjusting.

[Yeargdribble]

@Neo

The fact that there is no urgency is just one of the conceits I'm willing to deal with to enjoy a game with so much side stuff. This is hardly a new thing. You can spend forever d**king around in Zelda games while you're supposed to be saving a princess or something else important.

I think there would be value in some urgency, but I think that has explicitly become a non-aim of TES games because, in general, it's what players want.

@Sir Hatt

I do get the pangs for Skyrim. Actually playing any of TES games gives me pangs for all of them. It just makes me want to jump in and go back over some lore stuff. I never made a point of grinding my skills up. I mean... first grinding isn't fun and from what I hear, once you have highly level smithing or enchanting, the game ceases to be fun because you're an almighty god that can smite anything with a cough. To each their own, but it takes a lot of fun out of it for me. I might as well just put it on easy and then use console hacks to give me all of the best gear in the game.

I've heard of other people missing spellmaking too, but I haven't. I like that the system makes sense and scales based on skill rather than you having 12 iterations of the same spell. Not to mention how difficult it was to manage spells in Oblivion once you have 12 iterations of 20 spells. It seems that most people who miss spellmaking miss the min-maxing which, like the above, kills a lot of the fun for me.

In regards to spellmaking, I'm also glad enchanting works as it does. It's more rewarding to get enchants from armor your disenchant for me personally.

[Shattered Dreamer]

from what I hear, once you have highly level smithing or enchanting, the game ceases to be fun because you're an almighty god that can smite anything with a cough. To each their own, but it takes a lot of fun out of it for me. I might as well just put it on easy and then use console hacks to give me all of the best gear in the game.

I totally agree with Yeargdribble on this point. I'm at level 33 at the moment & I enjoy that the game is still a challenge in certain places. I admit there is nothing quite like 1 hit killing all the enemies in a dungeon then 4 or 5 hit killing the boss at the end but if that happened in every situation I would get very bored very quickly.

My smithing & enchanting both sit at about 50 each & this has happened at a natural pace as I have played through the game. I almost have a full suit of Ebony armour which I have smithed to superior & enchanted with various perks I've picked up along the way, 4 daedric artefacts (a helmet, a mace, the wabbajack & Mehrunes razor), & various weapons with different enchantments for different enemy types. I also have more than half of the games Shout's & a restoration skill of 60 plus & destruction of about 45. I'm a werewolf! I'm close to mastering my first skill with One handed sitting at 97. What is so great about all this? It happened without have to grind for a single second!

I have never understood grinding in RPG's for the sole purpose of making your character into a God & then laying waste to game. The only time I grind is when I'm to weak to complete a quest or defeat a boss. I enjoy RPG's for the "journey" or "struggle" & the story & by over grinding I think some gamers are missing half the fun of most RPG's.