Skyrim is bad as an RPG, but would have been decent as an action adventure: Discuss

[Legendsmith]

This is all demonstrably false.

Thank you!
You understand.

 

[sabercrusader]

I agree, Skyrim is a pretty sucky "RPG". However, that doesn't mean it's a bad game. If somebody came up to me and said Skyrim was the worst RPG they've ever played, then I'd respect and see the valid points in their opinion. But if they came up and told me that Skyrim had no exploration at all or that it was linear, I'd want to punch them in the face for their stupidity. But, back on-topic. The main jist of it is, that while Skyrim is a crappy RPG, you have to look past that and judge it on the fact that it's a good game overall, not a good game for any specific genre, though it's a great action-adventure game.

 

[Machocruz]

I'm more confused why there's those debating if a game is an RPG or not and why that matters so much?

Isn't Zelda a action adventure RPG?

No, just action-adventure. There is no RPG component. Getting better swords. collecting items, and more life bar were never the sole property of RPGs. Action and adventure games have had them for decades. Zelda is no more RPG than Metroid or Ninja Gaiden

As far as Skyrim, it does enough to fall into the CRPG category. It's just a very primitive RPG with an 80s level of sophistication.

 

[viranimus]

OP.

Basically you are tripping over the transition Bethesda has made in trying to turn what they are known for, RPGs into a genre that can be molded into a Call of Duty production structure and for the last 3 years running Bethesda has been increasingly rewarded for modifying Activisions production values to fit in an RPG format.

Its bad enough and it will only get worse as long as consumers keep fanatically approving of it. Its entirely possible that it can get to the point that gaming will be made so vapid that it makes television seem as intellectually stimulating as books in comparison. So when 3 million plus fans line up begging for cashiers to take the regional equivalent of 60$ in exchange for the regurgitation of narrative tropes drawn from Oblivion, Fallout 3 and NewVegas In a box built out of the gameplay mechanics of a modified 9 year old Gamebryo engine, then Bethesda (and the industry as a whole) will see this rehash/regurgitation as something that gets rewarded, and thus like Pavlovs dog, begin salivating at all the tasty profits to be had as they conceptualize how they will be able to do it again.

So the problem is your looking at it from the wrong point of view. Your seeing it as a gamer wanting depth, when you should be looking at it from the perspective of a CEO who doesnt care if the game has awesome dragons or is filled with pastel colored ponies so long as the bottom line of Lowest overall production cost vs highest maximum return on investment is maintained while finding ways to further reduce production costs along the way. If you look at it in those eyes, then it makes perfect sense why char development in Bethesda games is typically more flat than a warm, bored and unexcited Kiera Knightly and is likely going to stay that way.

Its not a bad game, but it is guilty of some very VERY bad things.

 

[Joccaren]

I've never played the RPG you mentioned, but the party system seems very similar to BioWare's usual RPG formula, especially in Dragon Age, which has the very same confrontations between companions that could lead to approval from one and dissent from the other. I do believe that character development is a great way to manifest role-playing in a game, but that and player choice are not the exclusive elements of role-playing. Though your character in Skyrim is not shaped so much by your interactions with NPC personalities, you develop a sense of character just from how you play the game. You can become murderous, heroic, crafty, wizard-y and a whole plethora of other adjectives, but you are admittedly more required to connect the dots yourself than you would in a BioWare RPG, whose NPCs' reactions you can use to gauge the kind of character you're creating.

That is actually wrong. The party system is not at all similar to Bioware Party systems.
In Skyrim, you either:
A) Become Thane of a big city and get given a companion (Your Housecarl) Who will sit in your house until you ask them to follow you.
B) Hire a mercenary to follow you, who just sits in a tavern until you hire them
C) Get into a fist fight with someone, beat them up then you have suddenly been 'A good friend to me' so they will follow you wherever.
At no point is there any opposition or goals of any of the character companions. Honestly, no matter what you do, the companions will just do it to. No care. They don't even acknowledge each other exists. It probably doesn't help that they are all spread across the world and won't follow you if you've got someone else following you, but they are in no way similar to Bioware companions. Hell, they manage to be more useless than Bioware companions, and that's hard.

Actually, ou can still use the NPCs and the world as a reflection of the character you're developing, only in a shallower way compared with Mass Effect, Kotor or Dragon Age. Obviously if you join the Dark Brotherhood, you'd probably feel more villainous. Then if you became a cannibal, you'd feel a bit creepy. And though principle player choice in quests often amounts to either accepting or denying them, it's still a way to shape the morality of your character. Obviously these aspects are not very thorough in Skyrim, but like someone else said, it's a technical limitation. BioWare is known for massive worlds and excessive questing and the time spent on developing such probably comes at the cost of better characters.

The thing is, you could do all this outside the game anyway. You want your character to be a villain, you'd play that right from the start. What you would carry these actions out for is to get the NPCs to notice that you are evil. They almost never will. Sometimes one guard will take a break from his adventurer rant and say 'Oh, your the Harbinger of the Companions. I am honoured to see you'. That is the extent of it though. As someone pointed out in another thread, they were the Dragonborn, had slain Alduin, were leader of the Thieves guild, had assassinated the companions, were the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, the Thane of Whiterun, Falkreath, Markarth, Solitude, Riften, Winterhold, Dawnstar, Morthal and Windhelm, the Champion of Molag Bal, Namira, Merhunes Dagon, Azura, Nocturnal, Meridia, Sanguine, Pyriet (Or W/E he is) and other Daedra, had won the civil war for the Empire, yet he went into the Companion's house to join up with them and the guy said 'Are you sure you want to let him join? I've never even heard of him!'. That character had supposedly never heard of the person that Emporers would bow down to, that was the most accomplished man in all of Tamriel, who had saved the world and earned the favour of the gods themselves. He had not heard of him. The world in Skyrim does not react to you.
Look at Mass Effect. You go somewhere, they'll normally say 'Oh Crap, Shepard's here!', or another remark if it is unlikely they have seen your face. It is easier for Mass Effect as you were semi-famous to begin with. The world feels like it reacts to you though. In Mass Effect, you become a Specter and new people will give you quests because of your special skills. In Skyrim, everyone just treats you like an errand boy. The world does not react in the slightest. Hell, Mass Effect even managed to carry it across between games, Skyrim can't do the same within the same game.


OT: Yes, Skyrim fails as an RPG, but semi-succeeds as an action adventure game. It fails in the action part, as that would require the combat to be interesting, balanced and fun. It is basically a hiking sim with random encounters. Similar to how Minecraft is a mining and building sim with mobs. Minecraft isn't classified as an action adventure game too often, because the 'action' isn't really there, and before 1.8 there was little point to adventure.

Everyone argues about what an RPG is, and many say 'Game RPGs and PnP RPGs are different'. I would disagree. There are few, if any, true game RPGs. There are many games with RPG elements, but that does not make them an RPG. Its like how in Skyrim you can use a bow to shoot people, or shoot them with spells. Does that make it a first/third person shooter? No.

Skyrim is an adventure game with RPG elements more than an RPG. It is similar to Mass Effect in this regard, though for different reasons. In Skyrim, the world does not react in the slightest, the writing is bad, and there is a focus on player skill rather than levels (Though levels do help, as has been said they are an end to themselves rather than a means to an end).
See the example above for non-reacting world and bad writing.
For the skill instead of levels thing, think. In Skyrim, does shooting your bow to kill someone have more to do with your level in Bowmanship, or how well you can aim a bow and kite. With only base level bow, I managed to kill a giant at level 5, and the three mammoths with it. How? I ran, kited and aimed. In an RPG, your skill should not determine how well you do, but your character's skill. This is the same problem as in Mass Effect. Your character's skills will make it easier to perform tasks, but they are not required. A level 1 can pick a master lock with their own skill. In an RPG, that lock would be utterly unpickable, unless that character made an extremely god luck role. You play the role of the character, making its decisions. You are not actually the character, performing all its actions for it. That is an RPG element that is usually forgotten these days. It is why I consider Dragon Age more of an RPG than Mass Effect.
The interactive world doesn't need to be massively interactive, just enough to actually seem alive. Skyrim went in too skimpy, whilst Mass Effect and Dragon Age would not be too badly hurt by a little less. All that Skyrim would need is a few extra voice files, and triggers to activate those voice files, and some random events to happen other than dragons and random travellers. Contrary to what was said earlier, new animations would not be needed. Characters in Skyrim don't actually have proper animations when they are talking. They just face you, and for some of them their mouths will move. Not too hard.
This would result in people recognising your achievements. The companions dude would be reluctant to let you in, not because he doesn't know you, but because you seem better suited as a mage or thief than a warrior. Or that you seem better suited to the easy life of the Thane's than that of a warrior. Or that you worship Daedra. Or a mix of the lot. If you kill Alduin, it would give him incentive to let you in. Just a couple of extra voice files, and some if/then/elses + variables. Nothing more. If this were are WC3 map, I could add that in in 10 minutes flat. Probably less. I understand that this is not, and thus would probably take longer, but I doubt it would be immensely hard. Knowing Bethesda, it would screw something else up, but it shouldn't tie into anything but those other variables based off whether you are the Archmage, the Thieves guild leader, ect. Whilst not necessary for an RPG, it is necessary for a good RPG. It would be akin to if guns in an FPS did nothing, and the health regen countered them entirely unless a stream of bullets was ran into that person at all times for a minute. It would be a bad FPS. Some might prefer that style, but it takes away from one of the core themes of an FPS title: Action. There would be little.

Simply because it has health and mana bars, levelling and an inventory does not make it an RPG. BF3 has them. Health and stamina instead of mana, it has levels which unlock things, it has an inventory more than ME2 has, with your guns and attachments in it, though it is a very efficient and streamlined one.

Skyrim is a bad RPG, but a good adventure game. It is the reason I will likely only do one playthrough. Though you supposedly get very different experiences, I already feel like I have tried everything the game has to offer. (And I likely have. Its suffering from that Deus Ex 'Jack of All Trades' Syndrome that Yahtzee described. Whilst you start off with one thing in mind, you become an expert with almost everything eventually).

 

[Legendsmith]

-snip-

I agree with everything you said as it is what I have been trying to say. I really appreciate your contribution to this thread. Thanks.

 

[Javarock]

Let's have a look at a Sandbox action RPG; Mount & Blade Warband.
In that game, the player can accumulate followers who actually have personalities. They talk to the player about various locations, giving insight into their own personal histories. They interact with each other in positive and negative ways. In addition, the player him/her self must interact with them. If two followers are disagreeing then the player has to reprimand one and support the other, because they will bring their disagreement to the player since ingame he/she is the leader of the warband. If you choose to support one over the other, they will become unhappy and may even leave. Any significant character can be interacted with and has a like/dislike relationship slider. Cities and towns can also like or dislike the player. There is an actual element of roleplaying. I had a friend who plays the game describe his game in great detail, as if he was telling a story.

In contrast you still have a limited option of choices in how to respond, And if I recall correctly they had a system without voice actors for that. Which means less cost and a ability to add more options. It's not really a valid option since the same thing applies. That and the fact that once you play it for awhile, It seems repetitive in nature, At least with dialogue options. With winning a spouse boiling down to Winning Tournament/Finding new poem.

And as to the part about it being like a story, I can say the same nature to you, There are people who went back to the orphanage where the killed the old women and left food to be their character. It's about defining your character by yourself which is done in either, to be a true roleplaying experience. And mount and blade, Being around much longer naturally has more of those stories.

You can only put so much in a game, And with Skyrim being a broader game and offering that freedom, Options were spread more sparsely.

That said the real roleplaying I see within mount and blade is when you define your character yourself and make a story. You can do the exact same thing in Skyrim...

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well RPG is a wide open term of "game with meaningful choices", now how do you do that to the fullest extent... not easily, so most devs now just roll with RPG light.
Back in ye olden days of Baldur's Gate you got the full meal, now they just go with one good course and the rest is smeared thin.

Mass Effect does characters and story, Diablo(and clones) do the items and combat, TES does open world exploration, Dark Souls does kick you in the balls boss fights till you cry like a little girl, ...

 

[Legendsmith]

That said the real roleplaying I see within mount and blade is when you define your character yourself and make a story. You can do the exact same thing in Skyrim...

Yes you can, but it is a far shallower endeavour.

 

[Tsaba]

The thing is, you could do all this outside the game anyway. You want your character to be a villain, you'd play that right from the start. What you would carry these actions out for is to get the NPCs to notice that you are evil. They almost never will. Sometimes one guard will take a break from his adventurer rant and say 'Oh, your the Harbinger of the Companions. I am honoured to see you'. That is the extent of it though. As someone pointed out in another thread, they were the Dragonborn, had slain Alduin, were leader of the Thieves guild, had assassinated the companions, were the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, the Thane of Whiterun, Falkreath, Markarth, Solitude, Riften, Winterhold, Dawnstar, Morthal and Windhelm, the Champion of Molag Bal, Namira, Merhunes Dagon, Azura, Nocturnal, Meridia, Sanguine, Pyriet (Or W/E he is) and other Daedra, had won the civil war for the Empire, yet he went into the Companion's house to join up with them and the guy said 'Are you sure you want to let him join? I've never even heard of him!'. That character had supposedly never heard of the person that Emporers would bow down to, that was the most accomplished man in all of Tamriel, who had saved the world and earned the favour of the gods themselves. He had not heard of him. The world in Skyrim does not react to you.

Vignar Gray-Mane, you make him jarl..... does that not affect the main story line?

My point is Skyrim isn't perfect and if they had to sit there and go through all these things to make sure it was, the game would never see the light of day.

What is the definition of a RPG, seriously, until that is made clear this "debate" will go in circles.

 

[Zakarath]

Hm, people seem to keep getting hung up on limited companion interactions. I don't have that problem, as I work alone.

Also, you really make me WTF at claiming skyrim is not an RPG. You create your character, You play him/her as you so desire, you can influence your story by choosing things like taking a side in the war (or not), joining or avoiding certain guilds, siding with the greybeards and Paarthurnax or the Blades...

Bioware's approach to RPGs basically is putting you on rails and giving you a set of mini-adventures that comprise the game. They have much more depth in how they respond to your character, because dialogue is their focus, and you have much less freedom to act, so it's much easier to map out responses to your actions. With Skyrim, There's just too many variables for that. Additionally, when you play a Bioware game, you're playing Bioware's story. You have a little room to influence things, but the story itself won't change much with multiple playthroughs.

Skyrim is on the other end of the spectrum; it's purpose is to give you your own story, though how you play your character. True, there are less seemingly impactful choices you can make compared to Bioware's standard, but that is because while Bioware is giving you all these seemingly deep choices, they're also working behind the scenes to keep the story still going to the same place no matter what choices you make. Bethesda's just more upfront about that aspect.

 

[Jesustron]

I don't understand. Roleplaying = playing a role, right? You can do that in Skyrim far better than in other games. I play an elf assassin who despises himself more than his targets for what he's become. He hates himself more after each contract, but the only release of anger he knows is taking on more. He prays for forgiveness after each hit and even leads evidence at each crime in hopes the authorities will trace it back to him and execute him, giving him the release he refuses to pursue himself. He turned to the Thieve's Guild in hopes of finding solace in taking from the undeserving, but has found nothing but corruption and greed. He found a purpose, at least for a time, in restoring the Guild back to it's core values. When that's done, he hopes to become a minstrel and bring enjoyment to people, rather than the death, misery and fear he brought in the past. Is that not deep character definition?

 

[Vrach]

(Original Thread title: Skyrim shouldn't be classified as an RPG: Discuss)

This thread was brought about by the following post:

For me it is a tie between Kingdom Hearts:Birth by Sleep(for better controls and combat systems than the console offerings) and the Elder Scrolls:Skyrim(Because its freaking massive and the executions).

You're judging the best RPG a role playing game by it's combat system and size?
For shame!
What you are doing is akin to judging a car by the quality of the seats and ignoring the rest of the car.

The combat system is how you control your character 95% of the time (yes, even outside combat, considering the movement system is completely integrated into it and very few things [pretty much only finishers] actually depend on whether you're in or out of combat), so if you're gonna compare it to a car, unless you have some weird sort of seat that lets you drive with your arse, it's more comparable to how the car handles on the road - and last I checked, that was a legit item of interest when choosing a car.

The size is directly correlative to the freedom given to a character (doubly so in an open world game), which is crucial for roleplay in my book.

And you'll excuse me if I ignore reading the rest of your post, kinda lost interest between this quote/response, the title and a post that's way too long for me to read at 10 in the morning after NY's, so lemme just answer your title question with a no.

Skyrim, and Elder Scrolls in general for that matter, at least dating back to Morrowind (I've no experience with previous games, though from what I know, Daggerfall at least falls in the same category), is brilliant as an RPG. It gives you a clean slate for your character, letting you invent a backstory for yourself entirely; aside from a quick initial intro, it gives you complete and utter freedom to do everything within the confines of the physical world and the tools you have in it; and it doesn't force a focus on a single overarching story, allowing you to pick from several different things or invent something yourself. This is basically a big ass world and a "go nuts" card and RPG wise, that's as good as it gets for me.

If you don't know how to use an open world to roleplay in, that's your problem, not the game's. Same goes for your heavily rose tinted glasses, might want to take them off sometime and check if you can still see without them or if the few merry stills your brain holds of older games is all that's left of your sight.

 

[guitarsniper]

Although I agree with the OP on this point, i'd just like to point out the tiny little pet peeve of unless someone is a khajit or an argonian, they're like as not to end up looking like "male suit of armor of type X" or "female suit of armor of type X". all the effort that I at least put in to having an awesome looking face for my characters is totally wasted. The fact that you can't really tell what race your character is most of the time is in and of itself a problem.

 

[Vault101]

my probelm Ive said before..Ill say it again

its a personal thing, I just cant get into it because the game doesnt care what or who I choose to be, I cant express it in anyway

its all about freedom vs focus..and I guess I just prefer focus, I like to be able to have a clear sense of my charachters goals

and this is really just a probelm I have with elder scrolls..I loved fallout 3 and fallout NV so I dont see why this is has to be a problem

 

[Vault101]

People seem to think ROLE-PLAYING means leveling and stuff like that. Take a second and read this again: ROLE-PLAYING.

It doesn't get any more role-playing than Skyrim. You can be whoever you want and make choices you think your character should make. You don't have to do anything you don't want to if it suits you (or if that's how you interpret your character). TES games are the only games that embrace the actual definition of a role-playing game. You are your character and you have more freedom than in any other video game series.

Just look at what you can do in Skyrim. You're this Dragonborn character, right? You can be one of 10 races. But that's not the point. The point is, if you want to make a Dragonborn that doesn't give a fuck about being a Dragonborn you can do that. You don't have to do any of the main quests to have fun in this game. You still have this huge, beautiful open world where your character can do things he wants. Don't care about the civil war? Fine, don't join any of the factions involved. Find something else to do. No other game lets you do that. In other "RPG's" you have to progress through the story. One of my favorite newer RPG's is Dragon Age: Origins. But it's a linear game. It's not a real RPG because you don't have a choice in being a Gray Warden out to save Ferelden from The Blight. You must progress through the story when you play that game. And it's like that in most RPG's these days. They are still good games, but I think developers don't truly realize the meaning of the term role-playing. Bethesda does.

dragon age not a real RPG? are you kdding?

I think somone said here, that role playing is a two way street, sure I can be what ever I want, but the game doesnt care, and therefore I find it hard to care

thats why I prefer dragon age x100 YES the basic strucure is there (become grey warden defeat archdeamon) but there is ALOT of stuff you can affect through your actions, alot of ways your charachter can be....its just within a framework, it has focus and I like that (like fallout 3 had more focus)

I sort of see bethedesa games as more "jack of trades, master of none" type games, they want to give you everything, but you come out feeling like its all spread very thin

and Im not saying Im right or wrong, because some peole totally dig that aspect of elder scrolls, and thats fine. Just like I totally dig the focus in games like dragon age, mass effect or even NV (and doesnt NV show that you dont have to sacrifice charachter interaction for freedom?)

 

[Imbechile]

there isn't much room to incorporate multiple ways to do every quest or have a ton of dialogue options.

And that's why older games are better children, not because of nostalgia.