Grievances about Skyrim

[LordRoyal]

The inability to assign spells/weapons/armor to numbered keys. Yes this is just a nitpick of mine but come on.
The lack of variety of builds (Archer + Dual wield daggers; sword+shield; Two-handed; spellcaster) which demotes re-playability.

1. Add a weapon/spell/armor to your favorites

2. Press Q

3. While highlighting a specific item press a number key.

It's not stated anywhere but it is possible.

Also I dont understand "The lack of variety of builds". The game lets you play it however you want to. Can you please elaborate?

not that that's an issue, just saying that the assumption that Bethesda is so lazy that they want consumers to fix issues on their game is a falsehood).

I think what CodeOrange was implying was that no one played Oblivion vanilla and liked it, everyone played it with a ton of modifications. Hence that a lot of the problems that aren't bugs, like the lack of depth to companions etc would be fixed with modifications.

 

[Rol3x]

the lack of freedom and viability of caster enchants, otherwise its awesome

 

[Jareth43]

I have never played another Elder Scrolls game before, SO my only grevance is that it plays like Fallout 3. Almost exactly the same controls.

Im not holding it against the game, as Im pretty sure Fallout copied the Elder Scrolls, but still I can't shake the sensation of Deja Vu

 

[Ruwrak]

I find it stupid that, even though my character has two hands, I can only wear one ring.

What about you guys?

Ya know, I have been wondering about that too. I can understand a max of two rings (the magic properties influencing eachother to much otherwise) but only one? ...

HRm what annoys me is that when I do a sneak attack complete with animation and all on someone (last in line) the other instantly turn around and start blasting me while I am still in the animation. The animation would focus on the dead body for another 2-3 seconds which are precies when 2 - 3strong opponents are mashing into you. So yeah the quick stealth detection bugs me kinda.

Another thing. At some point things started to fall through the ground during a crucial Dark Brotherhood mission =/ Had to reload a save, pickpocket the item I could otherwise have looted from the corpse and -then- kill it. Minor annoyance but.. egh..

Rediculous hard enemies. Yes I know I'm not talking about the giants here. I'm talking about novice mages who seem to take the life outta me faster then a knife to the brain. I'm lvl 31 with 280 hp, so not so much a pushover in terms of health and whatnots. I also know my stuff (fire resistance potions with me wherever I go) and they just won't die. Flurry attacks (ring of +25% onehanded dmg, perks +80%dmg, flurry 50% more dmg etc.) just don't seem to make a dent. Freaking annoying.

And as petty as it sounds, noone cleans up the stuff that falls on the ground. Goblets, plates, cabbages etc just lie there in the Jarls Place. What a mess =/

I have never played another Elder Scrolls game before, SO my only grevance is that it plays like Fallout 3. Almost exactly the same controls.

Im not holding it against the game, as Im pretty sure Fallout copied the Elder Scrolls, but still I can't shake the sensation of Deja Vu

Well the Obsidian team -was- called into help complete a few features the TES team had a bit of time problems with. And I think they did a good job actually.

 

[lovest harding]

not that that's an issue, just saying that the assumption that Bethesda is so lazy that they want consumers to fix issues on their game is a falsehood).

I think what CodeOrange was implying was that no one played Oblivion vanilla and liked it, everyone played it with a ton of modifications. Hence that a lot of the problems that aren't bugs, like the lack of depth to companions etc would be fixed with modifications.

If that is true, the implication is wrong. I played thousands of hours of vanilla Oblivion (360 and PC) and didn't mod beyond minor graphical changes (sky changes to reduce the popping of the moons, better bodies, creature/weapon/armor textures). Neither did my friend (the only friend I have who played it on PC).
Making changes like you mentioned (adding 'depth' to companions) is based on personal preference. Calling a company lazy because a person simply didn't like how they created something (whether due to design choice or development resources) is flat out wrong (if that is what CodeOrange was in fact implying).

 

[Richardplex]

Shouts locking up. The fact that sword+spell is so ridiculously clunky and pathetic compared to everything else. Skyrim randomly crashing. Followers. The fact healing pots have no cooldown, thus the game balances around having such resources. Very VERY occasional texture glitches (very low definition paths/rocks, enemies randomly wearing pink tunics). Stealth once again showing why sneak shouldn't be something that can be levelled up. The fact that dragons are so much easier to kill than other creatures. The paltry drop height needed to kill you. Waterfall water being so much worse than other water.

For the most part though, brilliant game. Especially the music.

 

[Hisshiss]

Followers being able to die (Very hard, and a minor issue) is the most recent one, I also really don't agree with the magicka cost for almost all the higher rank spells, as they seem to be tuned to be almost completely unusable without either a retarted level of caster building or the 5 points in EACH magic tree for the half cost, 25 frikkin perks (Which is HALF of what you can get in the game at the soft cap). Hell, some of the coolest end game spells like the thralls just flat out cost too much mana to cast even once without those perks unless again, your sinking a collosal sum of extra magicka/cost reduc into your gear, its a frikkin huge buzzkill for my spellblade.


All of those things are minor gripes compared to the perk system itself. That thing is the blight of my existence. They took out automatic benefits of levelling skills in oblivion, stuck them into a shitty skill tree, and then give you about 50 out of the 220 perk points you need to get them all, so again if your a hybridish type that likes to dip into alot of skills, you get to eat shit .

I stand by the fact that if they just gave you a single skill locked perk point every 20 levels of that skill, the system would be perfect. You would get 5 points, and most trees only have around 10, just for actually buckling down and raising the stat, and then use your actual level to bolster the really important ones.

As it stands, it just makes me not ever want to raise anything but the most vital skills because they are gonna suck ass since I can't perk them anyways.

For the record I still give skyrim a solid 8/10, and I intend to play it for a decent while, atleast through december, but really, they couldn't atleast add a damn respec vendor? It's diablo 2 all over again, which was a nightmare -.-.

Edit: For the record I am told by my elder scrolls nerd friends that my issue with perks is about 20% valid and 80% diablo 2 induced emotional trauma. I am considering that possibility internally <.<. In my defence, it doesnt take 300 hours to do a diablo 2 playthrough.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

Combat is still fairly lame and the final kill animations are lame also. I get a killcam with my waraxe and it looks like I'm crushing them rather than chopping them.

That and the bugs...so many bugs. http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/internet-memes-lion-king-was-first.jpg

 

[Fiend13]

The difficulty curve is the wrong way around. While being pretty hard in the beginning it just got easier and easier for me (dual wielding swords) due to the insane scaling of smithing and enchanting (182 base damage swords in the end and that's without even using crafting potions).

Killed the final boss of the mainstoryline quest in under five seconds on highest difficulty which lacked a bit of epicness in my opinion.

Reading the other posts there seems to be a general balance issue regarding damage output if caster based specs die against opponents you just onehit as melee.
Still love the game to death.

 

[LordRoyal]

The difficulty curve is the wrong way around. While being pretty hard in the beginning it just got easier and easier for me (dual wielding swords) due to the insane scaling of smithing and enchanting (182 base damage swords in the end and that's without even using crafting potions). Killed the final boss of the mainstoryline quest in under five seconds on highest difficulty which lacked a bit of epicness in my opinion.
Reading the other posts there seems to be a general balance issue regarding damage output if caster based specs die against opponents you just onehit as melee.
Still love the game to death.

The difficulty curve being harder at the beginning of the game is usually something RPGs do. It's supposed to imply the player character isn't a rookie anymore and is actually a hero.

Morrowind, Final Fantasy VI, Baldur's Gate etc.

Hell I fondly recall punching a random guy in Morrowind and him beating me to death when I was at level 1, and then one hitting daedra much later on in the game. It's part of the fun of RPGs really.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Currently:
The PS3 save issue.

Seriously...10MB save?

Yep. It has completely stonewalled me too. I managed to play to 13 MB. That next patch better fix it.

 

[DanielBrown]

Just two things I can think of at the moment;
The framerate issues on the PS3 are driving me mad. Often have to turn off the game much sooner than I wanted to just because it became unplayable. A patch is coming to fix it, but who knows how long that'll take. I just want to finish the game now so I can start up Assassins Creed: Revelations!

Quests where you got to follow someone. Apart from them being really slow movers they also stop every time I get too close to them and then stare at me for a few seconds until they continue. Gets really annoying when it happens over and over... Guess it's my fault for being so close to them, but I want them to get a move on, damnit!
Also had a lot of problems during quests where I'm told to follow someone who then refused to move completely.

 

[Windcaler]

I think my biggest problem is that from the various companions you can get to help you most have no personality or really reason to follow you. My first companion was Faendal (sp?) the elf from riverwood whos in a love triangle with the shopkeepers sister and Sven. Faendal had very little going for him in ways of personality. Over time I grew board with him and told him to go home, then I started taking along Lydia, who turned out to be even worse.

Eventually as I played through the quests with the companions I got to know Aela quite well (so much so that were married now) and I like her personality and outlook in life, especially with her unique condition. I usually take her on my adventures across Skyrim now but Im also tempted to try and take Farkas or Vilkis along since both of them have the follow me option and both are unique characters

Second grevance on the list happens to come with Dragonplate armor. Right now Im playing an argonian warrior/archer and Ive had Daedric armor for a long time. Finally tonight I decided to sit down and work through those last 10 points to get Dragonplate but when I made it and put it on I noticed that even upgraded its worse then my upgraded Daedric armor. Unless Dragonplate has something else that Im not seeing its mathmatically worse in every way from what I have now and its left me wondering 2 things. First, why would they do that? Second, if I spent points to get Elven and glass armor to eventually make light dragon armor would the light dragon armor be worse then glass as well?

Third, having gone mostly Sword and shield with archery back up Ive found that Im just a little to tough then my Khajit assasin was who wore light armor and dual wielded daggers. It just seems like I cant die while playing the argonian but my poor Khajit had to heal up during and after every fight that he couldnt assasinate his way out of

Fourth, I have not played a magic focused character but from what Ive seen breaking out of Markoth's jail magic seems a little underpowered when compared to my melee/archery skills

Fifth, a UI that is just rubbish. Not only is it unintuitive and ugly it barely works a lot of the time. Fallout's interface was much better IMO since I only had to look at one screen to find all my character info. I didnt have to fumble through everything for half an hour to finally find out I had Ataxia. It seems like they could have added a disease symbol or something just above the health bar rather then sticking it in magic

Sixth, and similar along the magic effects line. On the Xbox version I can not for the life of me figure out what the different blessings do. Right now Im blessed by Talos and I dont have a clue what that does for me nor any idea what a blessing from Mara or Kyrnereth would do

Thats all I have for the moment but Im sure ill think of more as time goes on

 

[Fiend13]

The difficulty curve being harder at the beginning of the game is usually something RPGs do. It's supposed to imply the player character isn't a rookie anymore and is actually a hero.

Morrowind, Final Fantasy VI, Baldur's Gate etc.

Hell I fondly recall punching a random guy in Morrowind and him beating me to death when I was at level 1, and then one hitting daedra much later on in the game. It's part of the fun of RPGs really.

Whiile i completely understand and to some extend value your point it just got boring towards the end as i onehitted my way through pretty much any opponent.
Earlier in the game i had to kite opponents for over 10 minutes and a single mistake would have meant death. That gave me the feeling like i achieved something.

Of course i understand that proper scaling is incredibly hard to do in RPG's but there is a pretty easy workaround: Add an insanity difficulty level.

 

[LordRoyal]

Second grevance on the list happens to come with Dragonplate armor. Right now Im playing an argonian warrior/archer and Ive had Daedric armor for a long time. Finally tonight I decided to sit down and work through those last 10 points to get Dragonplate but when I made it and put it on I noticed that even upgraded its worse then my upgraded Daedric armor. Unless Dragonplate has something else that Im not seeing its mathmatically worse in every way from what I have now and its left me wondering 2 things. First, why would they do that? Second, if I spent points to get Elven and glass armor to eventually make light dragon armor would the light dragon armor be worse then glass as well?

I am guessing they added Dragonplate armor into the game as a novelty. Daedric has commonly been the strongest armor in TES games. Dragonscale armor, if the wiki is to be trusted is apparently better then Glass however.

 

[CodeOrange]

I can see the flaws and issues I have with the game even as a fan of the Elder Scrolls. I simply choose to not let the flaws bother/hinder/destroy an otherwise outstanding gaming experience, personally.

Sorry, but that's like choosing to ignore the sheer lack of ignorance a teenager or child might adamantly hold towards a serious issue because it's simply what you're interested in as well. Show some integrity, the lot of you. A more grotesque example would be perfectly fine if a video game character shot feces all over your screen, and people were fine with it because "it was realistic" or it was "immersive" or it kept "true to the original". "The way the diarrhea sludge hit my was just so technically brilliant so I'm just going to ignore that it's just plain disgusting". Not the best similes, but I wanted to communicate my point.

I have not seen a single issue that has 'critically scarred' the experience for me. Not in the least. I've had broken weapon racks, broken miscellaneous quests, textures issues (thanks to having it installed on 360), and disappearing lootable bodies.

Also, Obsidian developed New Vegas, not Bethesda. Bethesda's last game was Fallout 3 (and companions are definitely a step up from that game).

There will always be something that someone wants fixed/changed in a game. Bethesda can't simply continue postponing a game until some random indefinable time comes and some person with authority that doesn't exist can call it finished. It's a finished game. Nine times out of ten the game is being completed without any major issues (millions of people bought the game, compared to the thousands that are having serious issues/voicing complaints).
Bethesda is patching their own game, they aren't leaving it up to players to do that. Players take it on themselves (not that that's an issue, just saying that the assumption that Bethesda is so lazy that they want consumers to fix issues on their game is a falsehood).

Firstly, I would like to say that I know that this is a "finished" game with plenty of "features" that are totally deliberate. It's just that they WOULD have refined the game's core mechanics IF they didn't have their stupid little media stunt of a release date, probably. Most likely not but you see where I'm getting at, right? The game does look fantastic, sure and I was honestly astounded by the architecture and use of space in the [silver-blood town]. The streamlined menus and perks system works great with the cold lifeless aesthetics of the game which communicated the message that this wartorn land is in need of a messiah.

But for what the game does good, Skyrim does at least twice the amount of things that have been addressed in the past. Sure, you may argue that this is a finished game, with "9/10 of the people completing the game without any major issues", but what good is a game that's only 90% done? Or in this case, open to mods and patches. But that's just me. Other people can hold their own opinions, because they only play games to be humored, not because they want to become skilled in it or to see it evolve as an emerging art form.

Secondly, the culture of patching and Bethesda isn't something that I want to get into because I'm losing interest. Basically, Bethesda only hires the minimal amount of coders and programmers and whatnot to cut down on costs so the bigshots can save money, or so I've heard. This is why you can see modding communities still patching games such as Oblivion because it tends to get abandoned whenever the hype wears off.

Thirdly, I would like to thank everyone for correcting me on who created NV. Ironically this only serves to further accentuate Bethesda's ineptitude against their favor. Really I made this issue because I didn't care to research it. Speaking of not caring, this is a highly flawed game that shouldn't deserve the attention that it's been getting. No really, talk about hyped.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Inability to categorize things when you put them in storage is a bit annoying. And Frost magic is overpowered, which is annoying when you're fighting a mage.

 

[Spinhorse]

My problem is that dragons become too easy to kill after a while, and maybe too abundant - I have more souls than I can use, and the WOW OMFG A DRAGON feeling has all but faded (into sigh let's kill this thing quickly so I can fast traverl already)

 

[CodeOrange]

not that that's an issue, just saying that the assumption that Bethesda is so lazy that they want consumers to fix issues on their game is a falsehood).

I think what CodeOrange was implying was that no one played Oblivion vanilla and liked it, everyone played it with a ton of modifications. Hence that a lot of the problems that aren't bugs, like the lack of depth to companions etc would be fixed with modifications.

If that is true, the implication is wrong. I played thousands of hours of vanilla Oblivion (360 and PC) and didn't mod beyond minor graphical changes (sky changes to reduce the popping of the moons, better bodies, creature/weapon/armor textures). Neither did my friend (the only friend I have who played it on PC).
Making changes like you mentioned (adding 'depth' to companions) is based on personal preference. Calling a company lazy because a person simply didn't like how they created something (whether due to design choice or development resources) is flat out wrong (if that is what CodeOrange was in fact implying).

Who said that it's about being lazy? Bethesda isn't a lone person, it's a team of developers lead by a publisher (or so my basic knowledge from Extra Credits has led me to believe). I'm sure that many of the employees who worked under Skyrim were definitely doing the best they could. However, it is obvious that they were at least scrapped for time because of their stupid idea to release the game on a set date. Publicity stunt my ass, nobody cares! God forbid if the team was also understaffed and other extraneous variables which relate to a lack of resources.

But to be honest, I didn't mod Oblivion that much either, other than a game changing/breaking stealth mod. It really wasn't that bad of a game if you ignore the hilarious exploit pertaining to never resting, and the absurd amount of grind. But it's obvious that we're going to see complete reworks on the mechanics of on Skyrim in the first month of the game. The core mechanics do in fact lack that level of depth that is required to live up to it's fantastic setting. I invite you too to fix the game with mods if Bethesda doesn't do so themselves. Trust me, you, I and everyone will be better off for it in this case.

 

[CodeOrange]

Inability to categorize things when you put them in storage is a bit annoying. And Frost magic is overpowered, which is annoying when you're fighting a mage.

An addendum to my list of nitpicks: when you randomly stumble across an overpowered mage that takes out over half your hp with an (almost) impossible-to-dodge spell.