Skyrim: I think it's overrated. Or am I totally missing the point?

[Lightknight]

Sorry i don't see the distinction between a great experience of one hour and a great experience of 20 hours. What if the time scope of the one hour experience dramatically enhances my enjoyment of it? Brevity is the soul of whit, as it has been said and i don't think quantity by necessity equals quality.

If the shortness of the game enhances your experience, then you are also ascribing a value to length of play. It's just inverse to my subjective valuation of it. To say this would to give credence to my including return on investment per hour spent enjoying the game. A game that goes on too long ceases to be a great game. So please don't get me wrong, the emphasis isn't that the game is long. The emphasis is that you enjoyed it for a long time. The game could literally be 30 minutes long. Like the Stanely Parable. It's a pretty darn short game. But I played it over and over and over again because it was so much fun.

Then there's games like Limbo that I played through one time but they continue to haunt my memories in a delightful way of a well written story that sticks with you. Those kinds of games can outweigh longer games because of the quality of the story.

So please understand, I'm only considering time spent enjoying the game as one metric. I would rather spend $60 on Skyrim and enjoy it for 138 hours (what Steam says I've played it for) than spend $60 on say, Limbo. Both are great games in my mind, but one is more valuable than the other to me.

If less than a dollar per hour played is an indication of a quality game, then 0 bucks per hour hour played straight out the gate must blow your bloody bollocks off. Euphoria from the first femtosecond.

A "great" game that is F2P is better than a "great" game that cost money to play, yes. Where great is a similar ranking of quality. Just as a shitty game that is F2P is better than a shitty game that cost money to play.

But it's only one metric. If someone produced a game like Skyrim for free then yeah, I'd marvel at it.

 

[norashepard]

Without mods, I definitely do agree and wonder what people could possibly be doing past about the 50 hour mark. Once you get to about level 20 you may as well be god, so there's no point to combat, and once you finish all the main quests (thieves guild, companions, etc.) the rest of the quests in the game aren't particularly exciting or fun, so there's not much reason to go on. And if you start over with a new character, there's only a small amount of difference that makes.

WITH MODS, however, and here mods mean actual mods and then player-imposed rules/roleplaying, the game is a different beast entirely. Install a mod like Requiem and suddenly the game is a lot more intense, and survival is a lot more difficult and fun. Install a mod like Interesting NPCs, and suddenly you have a reason to tromp all over the country side to meet new people and explore exciting quests. Try and play the game using only three skills, or pretend you're actually a Thalmor agent, and you've got a more rich experience.

That's basically how I view it. I played it a lot without mods, but it just wasn't my thing. After I installed a couple though, playtime jumped from 80~ hours to well over 800. So I guess yeah, base Skyrim is overrated. But I feel like a lot of people aren't talking about base Skyrim.

 

[deathbydeath]

So if hours per dollar is the deciding factor on whether a game is good or not, i suppose all F2P games must be wholly amazing?

This. Time played/money spent has never and will never equate to quality. If anything it contributes to the "games as boxed product" mindset that is currently a thing.

Speaking of boxed products, that's the only metric in which Skyrim has marginal quality. The civil war is a joke, all the interesting intrigue stops when the game starts, the Nordic aesthetics were well executed but not strikingly unique, and the plot is about as interesting as a brick wall. The combat is a joke, there is no character creation, there is no character building (from either a mechanical or in-universe standpoint), and in fact the only good systems in the game are the crafting ones (even then the items you can craft in them didn't tickle my pickle). So, considering the 200+ GOTY ALL YEARS awards it got, it is overrated. Doubly so since Bastion came out in the same year.

And yes, I am bitter that I dumped 200+ hours into the game by downloading 3rd-party armor mods and companions to play dress-up with, how'd you guess?

 

[Saelune]

You had it with your first point. Its not your cup of tea. People forget that games are not all for them. I don't like RTS games much. Loved original C&C and StarCraft, but those are the exceptions. Doesn't mean the best RTS games are overrated, I just don't like them.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

It's definitely over rated. Its a huge world full of the same 100s of copies of the same dungeon, and all of the quests just send you into those dungeons to kill things with a terrible combat system.
However, the amount of hours played it takes to realize that does make it better than a lot of games.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Is it overrated? I don't know ask the people on my friends list on Steam who still pop up "...is playing Skyrim." 2 years later, and have been for pretty much every month of those two years. I don't feel its overrated, it may not be everyone's cup o' tea and not Dark Souls (which apparently means something to some people but I don't get off on masochism like others do, even though I play the DS series). Skyrim is kind of something you can make your own play through meaningful or not. I've personally got a collection of screenshots that I've turned into a vacations in Skyrim album, because I'm unable to afford a real world vacation anytime soon (like within 10 years soon unless something changes drastically).
I mean thats just one aspect of Skyrim that I love.
Really I think Bethesda is pulling a trick on us PC players though. They release a functional game, with tools to edit the fuck out of it and release it into the wild. 10,000+ mods later... fuck you for making me itch and twitch till I checked out skyrim.nexusmods... just fuck you.
I really have a weakness for the idea of modding. If Dark Souls allowed this, I think I'd like it more, but first they'd have to have a decent fucking PC port. By the way I'm aware there are mods for DS, but its nowhere near the same thing.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Seeing as how you spend such a huge amount of the game fighting, i dare say that that is a pretty big strike against it imo. Most all quests and problems are solved by pummeling baddies with your sword and shouting at them, and yet the combat system is boring, sluggish and broken.

That's not exactly on topic, but viable alternative, more peaceful ways of achieving your goals would be something I'd very much like to see from the next Elder Scrolls VI. Seeing that it is a game series all about the freedom to do what you want, I think it would befit it very well.

I don't see though how you could design a really good combat system without abandoning the first person perspective. I mean, how are you supposed to fight several enemies at once in style if you see so little of what's happening around you?

 

[The Enquirer]

I actually started with the PS3 version, but those loading screens were killing me. So I played the rest on PC. Much better if I do say so myself. The snow amazed the hell out of me by the way.

Granted the game has a wide unumber of glitches but the Ps3 version is pretty gosh darned bad. It wasn't at all optimized for the system.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I'd say if people are making threads asking if Skyrim is overrated a full two years after the game has come out as frequently as they do, it's not overrated.

The game is very malleable in its play style, mods or no mods.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Wow. OK. Didn't realize so many people had this burgeoning hate for The Elder Scrolls.

I liked it. A lot. Yeah, it's not that deep but I loved some of the quests, and they're different enough to keep me invested. People say this about Skyrim: Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. But you know what? It's so freaking wide and presents itself so well that it doesn't really matter.

It's also an insane game for roleplaying. I do think it is a little too quest-centric though. For example in order to become a Werewolf, you have to go through the Companions. If you're role-playing, you might not want to join the Companions at all but if you want to be a werewolf then you're forced to anyway since that's the only option.

In that particular example, I think I know why they did that, they wanted it to be a surprise. But there you go.

Also I see a lot of complaining about the combat saying it's shallow... You want to know what else has shallow RPG PvE gameplay? WoW and a whole lotta other RPG's. Skyrim gets a free pass in my book though simply because it allows for so much. Really boring presentation? New Vegas. And everyone loves that game. You know what? I didn't like it. The setting is just as bad as Borderlands. Actually probably a little worse.

While Borderlands had a lot of samey looking levels, they were offset by the fact that the ruins scattered around them were really cool looking. This seems kinda smalll as well but the background scenery was really nice too. Probably where Gearbox got the idea to make those cool looking backgrounds now fully explorable in the second one.

Sorry, I kinda lost track there but you get the idea. Though it may be shallow, Skyrim has enough things that were executed solidly enough and it's so BIG that it almost doesn't matter at all.

 

[AgedGrunt]

It's a damn beautiful game, with great music and lore.

Pretty much how I feel, but for the all the popularity, raving fans and lavish praise the game enjoys, that's just not good enough IMO.

Even pardoning the atrocious console version and factoring in that it was my first entry into TES (worth noting: I agree with those that lament Skyrim is a part of the "dumbing down" phenomenon; I felt it treated me like an idiot), it was just very bland, very depressing and, after long plays of FO3 and New Vegas (which Skyrim woefully copies in sandbox style) I simply grew tired of being another wastelander in a different time period with even worse game design.

 

[DSK-]

The mods more than make up for the negative issues one might have with the game. Some of the quality, effort and depth of many examples is absolutely unreal. May it long continue.

 

[dyre]

Skyrim's a pretty decent game made into an excellent game with copious use of mods, but I must say that although I've probably logged 100+ hours into it, my enjoyment/hour statistic was lower for Skyrim than it was for almost any other game that I enjoyed. Sometimes I play Skyrim and I feel like I'm just doing things without knowing why.

My main gripe with the game is that almost all the plotlines were somewhere between boring and awful. I guess the Dark Brotherhood one was pretty decent, but the main plot, the Romans vs Vikings plot, the Mage's Guild plot, the werewolf mercenaries plot, the Thieves' Guild plot, and a bunch of other major sideplots were varying degrees of bad. I don't understand why, with all that money spent on a beautifully designed world, they didn't just spend a bit more money on a better writer.

 

[Lightknight]

So if hours per dollar is the deciding factor on whether a game is good or not, i suppose all F2P games must be wholly amazing?

This. Time played/money spent has never and will never equate to quality. If anything it contributes to the "games as boxed product" mindset that is currently a thing.

Oh man, spending 100 hours on a game that is merely "ok" would be terrible.

Please keep in mind that by "length of the game" I mean time spent enjoying it. I am not accounting for individual who force themselves to sit through shit for some personal inability to stop when they realise they're bored or not enjoying it. Skyrim isn't 100+ hours because that's how long to play the game. You can be done with the main quest in just a little time pretty easily. It's 100+ hours because there's a ton of bonus stuff to do if you want to.

 

[Bruce]

The Elder Scrolls is a series where you get what you take in with you. Most of what makes it good is what you build up in your head, rather than what is actually presented to you.

That means if you hit it with a particular frame of mind it is absolutely amazing. But you have to be in that frame of mind otherwise it is going to suck and suck hard.

Morrowind was one of the most boring and bland RPGS I have ever played - and yet it still has its fans because they hit it in that frame of mind while I didn't.

So I am not too sure if I can say any game in the series is overrated or not. Skyrim, is just like the others in the series in that it is a sandbox - you bring your own fun to it.

 

[Racecarlock]

Oh wow. You made this thread because of professional scores?

Why do people care so much about professional scores these days? I mean, there are so many different people you can go to. User Reviews on websites, youtube people like angry joe and jim, our escapist people, let's players, and if they don't convince you, find some direct silent gameplay to judge it directly. It won't be the same as playing, but still.

I don't know what I could say. I could say that the music is epic when walking through the mountains and forest, but that's just my taste. I could say I really like fighting the dragons, but that's still just my taste. I could say I like wandering around and finding different areas, learning new spells and leveling up, and even just the combat itself, but that's still my taste.

I don't like underrated and overrated because they're both too often used to say "Those people like a thing I don't like too much" or "Those people don't like the things I like enough". Spout shit at me all day over "Professional Reviewers" and stuff, but that's just how it is. Also, pro reviewers do not have an obligation to share your opinion. Get over it.

 

[Flutterguy]

I've played the series since morrowind. Skyrim is my least favourite of the three games I've played.

It no longer has the cryptic leveling system, the ability to accidentally screw oneself by killing the wrong NPC/losing items.. Although I can understand broad mainstream appeal says remove anything hard to grasp in more then a few seconds, they are sorely missed. It is no longer difficult, and other modern games do sword and shield gameplay better anyways.

However the lore, companies lack of shitty games and my own nostalgia will keep me buying anything Bethesda releases.

OT: Dark Soul's is a great game, currently my favourite. Likely because it is the only RPG to come out in over a decade as challenging, cryptic and fun as Morrowind was.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Why do I keep seeing comments about Skyrim that go "This game is overrated! I only played it for a hundred hours!"

You got a hundred hours out of this game man! What's the average game going to give you these days? Eight hours? Sixteen with another play through?

Any game you can play for a hundred hours must be doing something right!

 

[Tom_green_day]

Oh, our weekly Skyrim-bashing thread is it?
Personally I think that Skyrim is the greatest game of this generation. Not my favourite, that title goes to Fallout 3, but it's definitely in my top 5. I had never played a TES game before and I'm not a fan of fantasy but it blew me away. Actually you know I said generation? I seriously think I mean all time. I play on PS3 and I think that game was perfection. Hooray for diversity in taste!

 

[CountryMike]

I loved (*really loved*) Oblivion and Fallout 3 but Skyrim not so much. It lacks soul and exploring gets boring fast as everything looks the same and nothing suprises me. Story isn't interesting either. Characters are dull and lifeless. A shame really because Fallout 3 had all those things. Fallout 3 is a billion trillion times beter the Skyrim. I was expecting so much more from this game.

edit: That doesn't mean it's a bad game. It's not. It's good, just not as good as Bethesda's previous games. It's not a step forward like F3 was.

I don't remember how much I played Oblvion & F3, but I spent 175/180 hours on New Vegas and "only" 40 on Skyrim or so