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

[littlealicewhite]

No, I don't think it's overrated, but then again I don't get bored easily.

Have you explored the entire map? Done all the faction questlines? All the side quests? Tried out as many character builds as you can think of? Tried the DLC? (Dragonborn and Dawnguard might help shake off that tedious feeling.) Played the game on Legendary?

As for the control issues.... I'm sorry, but maybe the UI just isn't for you. Have you tried remapping the controls?

 

[The Great JT]

You don't think it's that good, that's fine. I will not begrudge you for not enjoying a game I enjoy.

 

[loc978]

...can't help with the samey dungeons (though they are actually fairly varied within their theme)... but if you want challenging combat, install Duel Combat Realism and Dragon Combat Overhaul (for which I recommend Run For Your Lives!, which makes civilians run from dragons instead of trying to tank them), then put it on master from the start. I've modded the crap out of my install (only got it last month), and as yet I've managed to fight 20ish dragons to a stalemate, after which they run away. I've only killed 2 in 41 hours of gameplay.

Of course, stat and movement penalties from hypothermia and starvation go a long way toward impeding my combat readiness in that game as well. It's probably a lot easier without Frostfall and Realistic Needs and Diseases... but from the gameplay videos I've seen, it's still a whole lot harder than vanilla (which I have never, and will never play. I've been completely turned off of Morrowind and Oblivion by playing vanilla... I guess the standard TES formula really doesn't appeal to me).
Oh, I've also banned myself from using potions in combat (unless I've managed to hide behind a something for more than 10 seconds safely). It's a personal thing, and there are no gameplay mechanics to back it up, but as far as I'm concerned in Skyrim, healing potions in combat=cheating.

As for the need to mod a game being an argument for that game being bad... on that basis, I'd call every open-world game ever made a bad game, even the ones I absolutely love... and especially all of the GTA games after 2 (I still have no idea how people enjoy them on consoles. Seriously, none).
I don't think I've enjoyed an unmodded RPG since the infinity engine days.
...and now I even mod those.

 

[littlealicewhite]

The fact that you need to modify the game, and that people are on this thread calling it "vanilla" without the modifications on PC should say something. I don't know how people play this game on the consoles.

It's one of the worst games that I've ever played in my long history of gaming.

I still play Skyrim to this day on Xbox 360. I don't know how you can *not* like this game. It's apparent you don't, I'm not saying otherwise, it just baffles me.

The levelling system feels intuitive, the combat is tense and engaging, the world is *huge* and *interesting*, and I like several of the NPCs: Paarthurnax, Jarl Balgruuf, Emperor Titus Mede, Karliah and Cicero to just name a few.

Did you know that within Skyrim there are 10 kinds of fungus, 7 species of fish, 9 types of insect, 4 varieties of bird, 30 individual species of plant and 14 mammals? These are all interactable. How someone could *not* find that fascinating just boggles my mind.

I understand that you have different taste in games that I do. But please understand that people can enjoy Skyrim, even "vanilla" Skyrim.

 

[Aesir23]

Yeah, it is a pretty overrated game. It's not a bad game but with the amount of praise it gets you'd think it was the messiah of gaming. Considering I've never seen a game quite so broken upon release, it kind of boggles my mind.

That said, I believe I'm about to render my own confusion null and void by saying that, rage inducing bugs aside, with the addition of mods I still find it to be quite a fun game. Bethesda is great at supporting modders and it's those mods that can really make the game fun.

It's still not the messiah of gaming and, like you, I don't believe Skyrim deserved the praise it got but it's a decent game. Granted, part of my dislike for this praise was seeing Skyrim get a pass on a lot of things I've seen other games get torn to shreds for but from what I'm seeing in more recent threads about the game, that was just the honeymoon phase.

 

[Olas]

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.

The fact that people are playing and talking about it years after it came out only proves that it's popular, which overrated games tend to be.

Also, 2 years is hardly a milestone for that matter. People are still making threads about Half Life 2 which is going on 10 years now, and don't even get me started on Nintendo.

 

[beastro]

TES games with worthless without modding, hence why it should only be played on the PC. With that said, juggling mods is as much a curse as it is a blessing - I was to revisit FO3 and NV, but getting all the mods I love to work together is too much of a hassle for someone as laid back as I am.

What that said, it's better than Oblivion, but too much of it is like Oblivion that it feels like a facelift to me - I enjoyed Oblivion more because it was such a change from Morrowind in almost every way, especially the setting, but Skyrim lacks that. Keep in mind I played through Oblivion back in 2006 with a card that didn't support it and was only able to get it to work by working through game files and reverting the graphics back to Morrowind level quality and it was near unplayable when I went into Oblivion itself due to lag.

Exploration is enjoyable in small doses and especially over the main map, but dungeons get boring quickly, though there are exceptions, however I found myself more caught up in exploring Oblivion's dungeons which were a good upgrade from Morrowinds which were not only most empty, but very bland.

Another thing I noticed was Sykrims blander set of loot. Not that Oblivion was full of it, but it had a tad bit more variety.

TES combat needs to be dropped completely and redone in the mold of Mount and Blade where direction of attack and block are key - that also means the return of thrusting and piercing damage whose lack since Morrowind had annoyed me to no end even though I know why it was removed.

Dragons? Again, why you should buy PC - when they get tiring, just kill them via console commands whenever they pop up.

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

I wouldn't call it hate, more frustration over the lack of innovation the series has had to the point where it feels like it's devolving in the areas people love the most with most attention being giving to stretching out what graphics the Gamebryo engine can give.

The drop down in features was huge between Daggerfall and Morrowind, but Morrowind more than made up for what it improved upon, but Oblivion was a step down and Skyrim has little over it and feels blander, imo.

TBH, it more than any other series has that feel sports games in its slow, near lack of evolution.

 

[Fearzone]

It depends on the venue.

If you are a PS3 owner and played the PS3 copy, I can totally understand not thinking it is a particularly good game.

If you played the XBox version, I would still admit you are getting an okay experience. Still great in a lot of ways but also with some limitations.

If you played an un-modded PC version, then mainly you were playing the XBox version with better graphics.

If you play a modded and optimized PC version, the experience was sublime. 100/100.

Holy bejeezus I was in this scene of giants and a mammoth and bandits fighting a dragon at night around a bonfire, sabercats drawn into the fray, and the mammoth was running around with its hair on fire, while me and Lidia and whatever andronachs were just trying to make the best of things among the three-ring circus. Whatever complaints one might have about the interface and controls and whatever, where else is that going to happen and looks as good as it did? That was Skyrim.

 

[sXeth]

Overrated is very subjective of course. Skyrim however, does have flaws that range from bad, to crippling to unplayable. Dozen patches later, and you can still easily glitch quests into unfinishable states, including the three main ones. Combat is fairly monotonous, the AI is ludicrous, the difficulty setting could be used as a textbook definition of "damage sponge". The main virtue often espoused is the PC mods, which should be noted, are in no way part of the game that was released, or reflective of any effort on Bethesda.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm not sure how you determine whether something is overrated or not, but I certainly don't think as highly of it as many people seem to.

Overrated should be a function of "I think this game received a significantly higher estimation than it deserved."

Which is part of why people decry its uselessness. Anything I like less than others can be overrated.

I think it gets enough hate to balance my expectations of the game with the praise.

On the other hand....

If you play a game for 100 hours, enjoying 70 of those, I'd say it is probably a pretty good game.

One of the heads at Criterion once talked about this, how they could track the in-game time for Burnout Paradise and they'd see people complaining that they hated it but were at 50-60 hours, and the response was like "sorry we couldn't entertain you more...."

I find it baffling that someone can complain about getting 100 hours and enjoying 70.

 

[The Feast]

Overrated? Honestly, I have more fun playing Oblivion without even modding it. But Skyrim? I can't even imagine playing the vanilla game right now with hundred mods that have been implemented. The only problem is Skyrim is very mod-sensitive and every mod can break the game. I have to agree that the game is overrated when they promise me adventures but all I got is errands. Every quest and combat feels too easy for the vanilla game. At least Morrowind and Oblivion is hard.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

It has some things I wish it'd done better, but I still thoroughly enjoy the game. You don't, and that's a shame for you, if only because you could have spent that time confirming your dislike on games you did enjoy. Oh well.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

It has some things I wish it'd done better, but I still thoroughly enjoy the game. You don't, and that's a shame for you, if only because you could have spent that time confirming your dislike on games you did enjoy. Oh well.

I never said I didn't like the game necessarily. I'm just not very happy with it. Remember, I played through 100 hrs, plus some change, and about 70 hrs of which I pretty much enjoyed. My over all opinion is that the game doesn't meet it's ratings... thus making it "over rated". So I started this thread to see what other people thought. =)

 

[Jusey1]

The point is to roleplay and exploration. The game itself is really only for specific people and to the rest can easily be annoying and bored.

Heck, someone earlier mentioning about maxing out on his character and saying something along the lines of "I got nothing else to do then!" (The funny thing is, there is NO max limit. You can reset skills)... But the thing is, you roleplay. Every time you play the game with a new character, it will be different base on what character you are trying to play as.

Maybe you do wanna be the normal iron-using Dragonborn warrior? Or maybe be the Master Wizard of House Telvanni who is studying Solstheim? Or a Heavy Crossbow Paladin of the Dawnguard? Heck! Go and be a monk and not once ever hit an enemy (Which is hard, btw)!

There are a lot of things you can do and you can even control how things are done. Heck, people follow specific rules to make the game harder or more interesting... DiD? (Dead is Dead). Basically, when you die... You die. No reload. Delete the character and start anew... Or never level up, always staying at level 1. Heck, don't even craft! There is a lot of things you can do to control how hard/fun the game can be...

Some Notes:
The highest difficulty is Legendary, not Master.

The requirement for a Dragonborn is that the Dragonborn needs to absorb the soul. Otherwise, the dragon can be just resurrected again. Also, I rarely fight dragons. I've been playing Skyrim for the last 4 days and hadn't came across a dragon yet... Killed many bandits and vampires though. Specifically vampires since I'm playing on a Dawnguard character.

Combat is never a strong point of Bethesda's but I honestly don't care. I like it!

I also play Skyrim on the Xbox 360 and refuse to get it on computer since I do not like Steam. And honestly, there aren't many mods for Skyrim I care about. The normal graphics in Skyrim I think is simply amazing anyways...

Oh and something about dungeons... Skyrim is the first game in the series with handmade gameworld, including the dungeons. Yes, they may look similar in ways but every dungeon has an unique map and NEVER repeats. Unlike in previous titles, like Morrowind or Oblivion. (Oh god. Back when I modded Morrowind, I went thru all the dungeons and had a good "sky view"... Jez. If you really think Call of Duty "copy-paste" is bad?...).

-snip-

Honestly, I think Skyrim is the best TES game with Daggerfall second and Morrowind third. BUT Morrowind definably has the best quests.

My thing with Morrowind is... I CANNOT PLAY IT WITHOUT MODS! Skyrim I can actually play happily without mods. Morrowind, NO. I need specific mods before I can even enjoy Morrowind.

It's not overrated. Everyone knows it's not as good as Morrowind

[sub] Kinda kidding but seriously, play Morrowind[/sub]

Same thing as above. (I've played all major Elder Scrolls games from Arena to Skyrim)...

Note: Jagar Tharn is best main villain.

 

[WeepingAngels]

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

Does anyone else feel that Skyrim is overrated?

It's not really that beautiful, it's alot of gray and white. At times, I thought the color had gone out of my monitor.

Skyrim was overrated before it even came out. People screaming about "dragons woohoo" were everywhere. It was if they had never seen a dragon in a game before. People were screaming "Game of the Year" before it even came out.

 

[Joccaren]

Overated?
To hell and back yes.

People praise it to kingdom come, but it is really quite shallow and boring. As noted, the Dragonborn is nothing special. Combat is so simplistic its actually hilarious, Questlines are short and rather plain. Voice acting is flat. Dragon Fights are anything but epic. Basically, the game does a great job of putting a lot of stuff into its world, it just does nothing with it, which is highly disappointing.

The only reason I've still got it installed is so that I can mod it. Already got all the graphics mods I can handle [A good 50-100 of them last I checked, over 20Gb of files. Its bigger than the game install now =P], and am making my own gameplay modifications to make it actually interesting. Without mods though, Skyrim is just... Meh. 6-7/10 agreed. Points for a large world, but that's about the only thing that sets it as better than average. Everything else is, at best, competent, and often even that's an exaggeration.

 

[NiPah]

Why bring "overrated" into this? Is it that surprising your view isn't the norm? It'll be a cold day in hell when someone plays a game they don't enjoy and then doesn't automatically think everyone else who enjoyed the game must be wrong.

Here's a tip from the pros, if you find yourself not enjoying a game don't push on for 30 more hours, there are worse things to be in life other then a "quitter".

 

[gamernerdtg2]

The fact that you need to modify the game, and that people are on this thread calling it "vanilla" without the modifications on PC should say something. I don't know how people play this game on the consoles.

It's one of the worst games that I've ever played in my long history of gaming.

I still play Skyrim to this day on Xbox 360. I don't know how you can *not* like this game. It's apparent you don't, I'm not saying otherwise, it just baffles me.

The levelling system feels intuitive, the combat is tense and engaging, the world is *huge* and *interesting*, and I like several of the NPCs: Paarthurnax, Jarl Balgruuf, Emperor Titus Mede, Karliah and Cicero to just name a few.

Did you know that within Skyrim there are 10 kinds of fungus, 7 species of fish, 9 types of insect, 4 varieties of bird, 30 individual species of plant and 14 mammals? These are all interactable. How someone could *not* find that fascinating just boggles my mind.

I understand that you have different taste in games that I do. But please understand that people can enjoy Skyrim, even "vanilla" Skyrim.

You forgot to mention that the combat is actually terrible, you don't have to level up, and people forget who you are - even after you go through a traumatic ordeal and they invite you to sleep in their house overnight. LOL the combat is "tense" because melee combat is awful. I'm talking about the 360.
You're assuming that we don't have the same taste because I hate Skyrim, but I'll bet we like some of the same games. My taste is quite broad.

I'm old school. I could put up with broken aspects of a game if it was a decent game. The focus of Skyrim is not combat, nor is it the story, nor is it the interaction between you and NPCs. It's about getting lost in a huge world without linear restrictions...and I really believe that it's better served on PC. The keyboard and mouse would be infinitely better than a console controller. I wouldn't recommend Skyrim to anyone. I see the appeal of most games that are popular, but Skyrim actually makes me angry that it's so bad. And I've played my fair share of bad games.

As to the fish, fungi, and animal species, that's all wonderful. Seriously. I like games that offer a lot to interact with. But Skyrim makes me feel like I'm a spastic tank, with two diseased arms that can't hit their intended target. Even if there were 10 thousand things to interact with, I can't stand the way your character feels in that world. In 2013, there's no excuse for a game that actually needs mods to be decent. It's a very strong, polarized stance I'm taking, but there you go.
I'm like this with no other game, except Metal Gear Solid (which is way better than Skyrim, but I still hate it).

 

[Lightspeaker]

And just plain avoid archery - without stealth it's all but useless and with stealth it's utterly ruinous to the mere idea of difficulty.

Had to log in to reply to this. Whilst I agree with pretty much the entire rest of your post I have to object to this. In Oblivion Archery was literally pointless, yes. Hell even with stealth it was pretty awful I found. I tried playing primarily with bows as a stealthy assassin in Oblivion but pretty much 100 times out of 100 it was easier to just sneak up with my maxed out sneak and lop somebody's head off with my sword.

But in Skyrim...oh by the Divines in Skyrim...I found Archery to be damn near fundamentally broken and overpowered as hell. My first character was an assassin but I got bored with him and with vanilla Skyrim so I slapped in some mods to add in a new race, make everything look better, improve companions, add some new animations, etc and started up a "ranger" type of character going with bow/one handed/light armour but not stealth. With the Zephyr bow and a high enough archery skill she looses arrows at nearly one per second and kills almost every basic enemy in one or two hits. Few things could even approach without dying under a wall of arrows. Honestly, felt like Legolas in Helm's Deep.