Goofguy said:
This, 100% absolutely this. I was made Archmage for the College of Winterhold and I was definitely the worst mage of all the members there. I did the bare minimum amount of magic to get accepted in to the College and I completed all subsequent quests using my overpowered Archery and Sneak. I didn't even want to be the leader of the College and it certainly didn't feel like I earned it.
And being made Harbinger of the Companions still had me doing ***** work for my subordinates... uh what? How the hell does that work?
I've got to echo this sentiment in both respects. The lack of actual skill tracking in Skyrim kinda killed immersion in some of the faction quests. "Congratulations, you're the archmage" rings very hollow when your highest magic skill is still below 20.
Similarly, if you're going to be made the leader of any of the factions, for the love of Talos make the player feel like a leader! You become the Listener, the
only Listener, the sole link to Night Mother and through that the way the Dark Brotherhood learns of the Black Sacrament...and what do you do? Run up to the Night Mother and then perform the jobs yourself. Yeah,
NO. Oblivion handled the role a LOT better. The Listener hears and conveys the words of the Night Mother to the Speakers, who then arrange for the contract to be fulfilled. It makes you feel like you're the one pulling the strings rather than the errand boy. I mean honestly, if the Listener is to hear the contracts and fulfill the contracts himself/herself, what is the rest of the Brotherhood for? Why does Brynjolf feel more like he's doing more of the Guildmaster's duties than you? Why can someone who deals exclusively in melee combat be considered master of the Mage's College? It's annoying, really.
On a different note: I can point to several graphical issues in Dragon Age that just tick me off, some more obvious than others. On the more obvious end, the blood spatter is just plain lazy. You get hit by any blood and every part of you is speckled with it...which remains there until you leave the area entirely, without the characters so much as wiping off their faces. That's a minor annoyance in its own right, but lore renders it a downright stupid error. Much of what you fight in that game is darkspawn...and darkspawn blood is toxic. Your characters even say "watch out for their blood!" during combat, yet somehow they forget this warning the moment their blades hit enemy flesh. This gets even more annoying when you look at how...thoroughly everything gets coated. Your sword has speckles of blood all along it...including on the handle. You know, the part you were gripping while you cut into that enemy? The one part that logically shouldn't have gotten sprayed at all?
Less obvious is a problem that is all but invisible unless you're in the right environment. Take a look at
this picture of Morrigan. Specifically, look at her hair. The back of it. Note how the normally invisible rectangles that were used to make her hair stand out against the background. A similar problem can be noticed with Wynne's hair against the right backdrop (I believe I first noticed it when I saw her standing in front of her shimmering door-ward in her intro quest). Bugs me to no end. We see a similar, albeit inverted problem at certain points of Psychonauts. What I refer to is points where you can see the outlines of the rectangles used because the 'invisible' parts weren't fully erased. In Psychonauts, this is perhaps most evident in the level "Gloria's Theatre", on the nightmarish versions of the actors, particularly in the mouth region. You'll notice some white lines floating above the lower teeth and below the upper ones. This is the area where the UVWs for the rectangles used to make the teeth were not fully erased. Again, annoying.
