"We're Making It Accessible to a Wider Audience."

[Kahunaburger]

Also if you stick only to the road you aren't going to be doing much of any of the exploring the game touts itself as having.

At the beginning, your goal isn't exploration, it's hunting down the guy who shot you in the face and gearing up along the way. Exploration is for when you have a couple of levels under your belt and a decent set of equipment.

If they wanted to make the game linear they should have made it linear. Don't make an open world game and then force a liner path on top of it, that is just plain shitty game design.

Can't easily go absolutely everywhere right away =/= linear.

 

[SajuukKhar]

At the beginning, your goal isn't exploration, it's hunting down the guy who shot you in the face and gearing up along the way. Exploration is for when you have a couple of levels under your belt and a decent set of equipment.

Needless railroading of the plot, and a violation of being able to roleplay =/= good game design or a justification for other bad game design.

Can't easily go absolutely everywhere right away =/= linear.

Not being able to go anywhere beyond your IMMEDIATE left and right = linear.

 

[ResonanceSD]

In most cases it means "we're dumbing it down because there are a lot more dumb people in the world and we want more money"

Just look at new Hitman.

And the new Mass Effect, and Dragon Age 2, and what brink tried to do, because TF2 was too hard for people.

 

[SajuukKhar]

It's not even worth arguing with the Bethtards. All they care about is having a big open sandbox to wander around in, without anything being too difficult.

Actually I wish Bethesda games were more difficult, but there is a difference between difficulty and outright punishment.

Difficulty is being able to beat something but it being a challenge to do so, punishment is placing enemies you have no chance of beating on all sides besides the path they want you to take.

 

[SajuukKhar]

You can thank their god awful level scaling and terrible rpg mechanics/game balancing for that.

The level scaling isn't that bad, they just need to add more outliers for harder enemies, it would hardly be a big change.

Secondly their RPG mechanics are quite good. Compared to Fallout "you can use a gun the entire game but somehow never get better at it unless you throw points in it during level up", Skyrim's "you use it you get better at it" is a vast improvement.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Secondly their RPG mechanics are quite good. Compared to Fallout "you can use a gun the entire game but somehow never get better at it unless you throw points in it during level up", Skyrim's "you use it you get better at it" is a vast improvement.

The Elder Scrolls leveling system is the perfect example of why streamlining needs to be done intelligently or not at all.

The goal was to create a skill system that would organically spec characters based on how players played the game. Players quickly learned that the optimal strategy was to meta-game the shit out the skill system, grinding some skills and religiously avoiding others. So you wind up with a system that was conceived as convenient and organic that ends up being cumbersome and artificial in actual gameplay.

Let's put it this way: if I want to get good at mind control, I would rather hit the +illusion button ten times on the level up screen instead of wandering around the (admittedly exquisitely designed) landscape for an hour casting illusion spells on everything I meet. Or, worse, spamming the dreaded Light 1 Pt. for 1 Sec. on Self spell for 10 minutes.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The Elder Scrolls leveling system is the perfect example of why streamlining needs to be done intelligently or not at all.

The goal was to create a skill system that would organically spec characters based on how players played the game. Players quickly learned that the optimal strategy was to meta-game the shit out the skill system, grinding some skills and religiously avoiding others. So you wind up with a system that was conceived as convenient and organic that ends up being cumbersome and artificial in actual gameplay.

Let's put it this way: if I want to get good at mind control, I would rather hit the +illusion button ten times on the level up screen instead of wandering around the (admittedly exquisitely designed) landscape for an hour casting illusion spells on everything I meet. Or, worse, spamming the dreaded Light 1 Pt. for 1 Sec. on Self spell for 10 minutes.

Besides the magic skills, which everyone knows magic in Skyrim was broken as fuck, I cant think of a skill I would religiously avoid because they were all useful.

What you described is more of a fault of the magic system being broken as hell, then the leveling system.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The Elder Scrolls leveling system is the perfect example of why streamlining needs to be done intelligently or not at all.

The goal was to create a skill system that would organically spec characters based on how players played the game. Players quickly learned that the optimal strategy was to meta-game the shit out the skill system, grinding some skills and religiously avoiding others. So you wind up with a system that was conceived as convenient and organic that ends up being cumbersome and artificial in actual gameplay.

Let's put it this way: if I want to get good at mind control, I would rather hit the +illusion button ten times on the level up screen instead of wandering around the (admittedly exquisitely designed) landscape for an hour casting illusion spells on everything I meet. Or, worse, spamming the dreaded Light 1 Pt. for 1 Sec. on Self spell for 10 minutes.

Besides the magic skills, which everyone knows magic in Skyrim was broken as fuck, I cant think of a skill I would religiously avoid.

Assuming you want an optimal character, anything not related to your build. In basically any other RPG, you could just choose not to spec the skills you don't want to spec.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Assuming you want an optimal character, anything not related to your build. In basically any other RPG, you could just choose not to spec the skills you don't want to spec.

Besides Light/Heavy armor, and One Handed/Two handed/Bows, which you should really one have one of each and even then its easily possible to work multiple weapon types into your build and not get screwed, the other skills sans the magic which admittedly is broken were all useful.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Assuming you want an optimal character, anything not related to your build. In basically any other RPG, you could just choose not to spec the skills you don't want to spec.

Besides Light/Heavy armor, and One Handed/Two handed/Bows, which you should really one have one of each and even then its easily possible to work multiple weapon types into your build and not get screwed, the other skills sans the magic which admittedly is broken were all useful.

The point is that the game imposes an opportunity cost in terms of combat ability for doing anything not related to your core build. That seems like the opposite of what a game about hiking/LARPing/flower picking should be doing - the system should encourage, not discourage, experimentation.

EDIT: for clarity.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The point is that the game imposes an opportunity cost in terms of combat ability for doing anything not related to your core build. That seems like the opposite of what a game about hiking/LARPing/flower picking should be doing - the system should encourage, not discourage, generalists.

So your saying that you should be able to do well in the game by not doing anything well at any particular skill at all?

 

[Kahunaburger]

The point is that the game imposes an opportunity cost in terms of combat ability for doing anything not related to your core build. That seems like the opposite of what a game about hiking/LARPing/flower picking should be doing - the system should encourage, not discourage, generalists.

So your saying that you should be able to do well in the game by not doing anything well at any particular skill at all?

No, I'm saying that a game about trying things out shouldn't impose an opportunity cost for trying things out. "Generalist" is probably not the best word for what I'm trying to say - a better way to phrase it would be "Elder Scrolls leveling punishes experimentation." It's not that the game makes it harder to specialize if you spec a bunch of skills, it's that the game makes it harder to specialize if you use skills you don't intend to specialize in because it assumes that using a skill means you want to train that skill.

 

[SajuukKhar]

No, I'm saying that a game about trying things out shouldn't impose an opportunity cost for trying things out. "Generalist" is probably not the best word for what I'm trying to say - a better way to phrase it would be "Elder Scrolls leveling punishes experimentation." It's not that the game makes it harder to specialize if you spec a bunch of skills, it's that the game makes it harder to specialize if you use skills you don't intend to specialize in because it assumes that using a skill means you want to train that skill.

Funny I found that to be more the case with Fallout then I ever did Skyrim.

If you don't religiously put points into lockpicking,science,and speech in Fo3 and New Vegas you get fucked over hard, want to try out something different? too bad you just screwed yourself over because you only have a limited number of points and you need to put as many as possible into those 3 things as soon as possible or your fucked quest wise.

At least in Skyrim no one forces you to level up giving you time to re-level your main skill in-case you spent to much time leveling side sills.

It isn't a perfect system but its not as balls punching as New vegas was.

 

[Bostur]

No, I'm saying that a game about trying things out shouldn't impose an opportunity cost for trying things out. "Generalist" is probably not the best word for what I'm trying to say - a better way to phrase it would be "Elder Scrolls leveling punishes experimentation." It's not that the game makes it harder to specialize if you spec a bunch of skills, it's that the game makes it harder to specialize if you use skills you don't intend to specialize in because it assumes that using a skill means you want to train that skill.

Funny I found that to be more the case with Fallout then I ever did Skyrim.

If you don't religiously put points into lockpicking,science,and speech in Fo3 and New Vegas you get fucked over hard, want to try out something different? too bad you just screwed yourself over because you only have a limited number of points and you need to put as many as possible into those 3 things as soon as possible or your fucked quest wise.

At least in Skyrim no one forces you to level up giving you time to re-level your main skill in-case you spent to much time leveling side sills.

It isn't a perfect system but its not as balls punching as New vegas was.

In FO3 and NV you can try things out without putting points in the skills. In the TES series trying things out and putting points in the skills is the same thing. So by experimenting the player commits to that style, maybe unknowingly. The player can avoid leveling up, but knowing that leveling up is sometimes a bad thing, is a TES speciality that is far from obvious for a player new to the franchise. In most RPGs leveling up is a good thing.

The Fallout games have a lot of viable approaches. You probably can fuck yourself over but you don't have to focus on lockpick, science and speech. You don't need to complete every quest, hack every computer and loot every lockbox. The player will miss out on certain things by specializing, but thats the case no matter how the points are spent. It's a system of real choice instead of the artificial choice that has become commonplace in many other games. You can't have it all but you can try out a different approach with another character, adding to replayability.

 

[Kahunaburger]

In FO3 and NV you can try things out without putting points in the skills. In the TES series trying things out and putting points in the skills is the same thing. So by experimenting the player commits to that style, maybe unknowingly. The player can avoid leveling up, but knowing that leveling up is sometimes a bad thing, is a TES speciality that is far from obvious for a player new to the franchise. In most RPGs leveling up is a good thing.

^This.

And that is why I think people would be much more fine with RPG mechanics than devs think they are - if they're okay with RPG systems as counter-intuitive and grindy as Oblivion's or Skyrim's, they'll be okay with a more straightforward RPG system as well.

 

[SajuukKhar]

In FO3 and NV you can try things out without putting points in the skills. In the TES series trying things out and putting points in the skills is the same thing. So by experimenting the player commits to that style, maybe unknowingly. The player can avoid leveling up, but knowing that leveling up is sometimes a bad thing, is a TES speciality that is far from obvious for a player new to the franchise. In most RPGs leveling up is a good thing.

The Fallout games have a lot of viable approaches. You probably can fuck yourself over but you don't have to focus on lockpick, science and speech. You don't need to complete every quest, hack every computer and loot every lockbox. The player will miss out on certain things by specializing, but thats the case no matter how the points are spent. It's a system of real choice instead of the artificial choice that has become commonplace in many other games. You can't have it all but you can try out a different approach with another character, adding to replayability.

The thing is though is that unless you spend hours grinding some other skill in Skyrim, like magic if your mostly warriorish, it really wouldn't affect you during level up.

I play mostly a rouge like class with bows and light armor as my main two skills and I have spent entire levels just leveling destruction magic with only one or two increases to my main weapon/armor and have never had it made it impossible to kill things after level up because 1 level doesn't change the monsters and you just spend the next level leveling up your main skills.

You have to try pretty hard to screw yourself over in Skyrim.

Contrary wise in New Vegas if I don't spend mot of my skill points leveling the big 3, science, lockpicking, speech, I find myself arbitrarily denied access to so much content i don't see why I would continue playing the game. Not leveling up those 3 skills is like not doing the loyalty missions and getting the Normandy upgrades in ME2, yeah you can beat the game but why bother if you lose everything.

If New Vegas changed the way those 3 skills worked into something like
-You can attempt to pick any lock regardless of your skill, like Skyrim.
-You can attempt to hack any computer regardless of your skill, like Skyrim does with lockpicking
-Speech gives you a % chance not a definite yes or no ability to persuade someone

Then I would agree with you that New vegas offers the ability to experiment. but as it stands now its either put your skill points into those skill or turn off the game becuaase there goes 1/5 of the content.