Why Skyrim sucked for me and how i could have enjoyed it more.

[SerithVC]

Skyrim. World without wonder. World where dragons are not so much a threat, but an annoyance. A world that is visually dull. A world that is barren and bleak.

So I have finally decided to give Skyrim another chance. On my first playthough, I beat Alduin and put the Stormcloaks back into power. After all was settled and I was waiting for a continuation of the plot where I would get to fight against the Nazi-Elves that wanted the Stormcloaks and the Imperials at war with each other, I started doing quests to see if any of them were entertaining. Some were, most were not. Eventually I got annoyed with they world, mostly because after all the things I had done in skyrim, i had finally committed the move unforgivable of crimes. . . I killed a chicken. The people of Riverwood became feral and just began attacking me unrelentingly until i had no choice but to kill them all. After that little fiasco I had such a huge bounty on my head because i defended myself that i had near constant bounty hunters and guards attacking me, which led me to a killing spree so intense that the game no longer spawned npcs. No more random people coming up to me to kill me, no more monsters or animals, no more dragons, everything that wasn't immortal was dead.

This time, I'm trying to find good things about Skyrim as i play it, but am only disappointed by the lack there of. Graphically the game is still great, but visually it's so bland. There are a few areas with some good visuals, but they are few and far between. Even without me having killed everything, the world is surprisingly empty. The emptiness is more shocking considering i have both DLC as well as the main game. The game treats us like were stupid. It gives a 'puzzle' but it also gives us the answer by almost shoving it in our faces. It doesn't really let us play our own character without penalty, especially when it comes to wearing armor since they are severely unbalanced. Hunting and Crafting are jokes. Crafting has no options to it which is disappointing when armors have different variation of appearance yet you can only make one of of those and hunting is just lame since the animals can detect you even if you have maxed out sneak and light armor that's made for sneaking. So far, the most enjoyable part of this game on this playthrough has been the time i was out in the wilderness, found a cabin, and decided to go in and see what was there. I was at first disappointed that it was just a single bandit and some rather crappy items, but then it happened. The holy grail of adventure game items.

As I was on my way out, and just about to open the door, I saw it. It was just sitting there, a note pinned to the wall by a knife. I reached out and took it, reading it twice since I hadn't seen the shelf it mentioned with the items behind it. It took the note and went back down the stairs to the basement and looked around, just about missing the switch beside on of the shelves. Now I was excited. I pushed the button and took out my wooden sword. I began sneaking down the passage and actually enjoyed exploring the place. This is what skyrim needs more of. Not lame dragons. Not this very pin point quest marker, but something that gives directions and you have to explore and sometimes even research and listen to people and take notes to find. Something like skyrim or oblivion if they were merged with a game like MYST. Not go kill the bandits in this cave that you've never heard of until now but know the exact pinpoint location of.

 

[Vern5]

Basically, you want Skyrim but with Morrowind's approach to world design. Unfortunately, that game could never be. Skyrim was developed at a AAA level so Bethesda would need to cater to all types of gamers in order to get back the money they spent on development and that means appealing to the very lowest of brows in gaming. Skyrim was designed to look pretty and to be functionally simple; a fantasy adventure that could appeal to TES fans and dudebros at the same time.

What you want is "Skyrim For Smart People" and this could never be.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Basically, you want Skyrim but with Morrowind's approach to world design.

Have you actually played Morrowind? over 50% of the map was barren ashlands with nothing in it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

and combine it with requiem

Nice save game bloat there, your better off using SPERG.

-World where dragons are not so much a threat, but an annoyance.
-I was waiting for a continuation of the plot where I would get to fight against the Nazi-Elves that wanted the Stormcloaks and the Imperials at war with each other,
-The people of Riverwood became feral and just began attacking me unrelentingly until i had no choice but to kill them all.
-which led me to a killing spree so intense that the game no longer spawned npcs. No more random people coming up to me to kill me, no more monsters or animals, no more dragons, everything that wasn't immortal was dead.
-It gives a 'puzzle' but it also gives us the answer by almost shoving it in our faces. It doesn't really let us play our own character without penalty, especially when it comes to wearing armor since they are severely unbalanced. Hunting and Crafting are jokes.
-but something that gives directions and you have to explore and sometimes even research and listen to people and take notes to find.

-Dragon were never a major threat, they are a species of animal, much like all others, except tied to the gods via their connection to akatosh.
-the thalmor were never a major part of the main plot or skyrim, or the cause behind anything.
-Yield, put away your sword, if you have a bounty under 100, which killing a chicken gives, putting away your sword will cause all enemies to stop attacking and guard will let you pay your fine.
-Its literally impossible for the game to stop spawning generic NPCs unless you use mods.
-The puzzles are MADE to be easym if you had read the in-game books you would have known those puzzles were meant to keep the draugr in, not people out.
-Why would you need to take notes when you literally have a map that you can pull out and people can just point to a location and say "I know the bandits who took me stuff are here"

 

[SajuukKhar]

requiem does a lot of stuff. Mostly making skyrim almost impossible to beat without real effort.

While at the same time using almost nothing but artificial "give enemies 100000 HP and make them do equal damage" stats, while ignoring any sort of logical, lore friendly, or good gameplay design.

I mean, i get why some people like that, it panders to the "mu secret club" nostalgia of the early mid 90'S CPRG crowd, but its TERRIBLE if you want an acual well made game mod.

SPERG + Dual combat manage to make the game harder by actually chaning the numbers of perks/making you hate to take more to get really good, and bymaking enemies do some more damage, but also by making them do stuff like block, and power attack, and move out of the way of attacks, thus increasing the difficultly without going into pure stupidity mode like requiem does.

If you want a fair and balanced gameplay, SEPRg + dual combat is the way to go, if you want dark souls "its hard because everything has a million HP and can kill you in two hits" type gameplay requiem is OK, but you could just turn the game to legendary mode and get the same effect.

 

[Vern5]

Basically, you want Skyrim but with Morrowind's approach to world design.

Have you actually played Morrowind? over 50% of the map was barren ashlands with nothing in it.

I've been playing and replaying Morrowind since it came out. For the record, the Ashlands isn't barren if you know what to look for. For example, the Northern coast of the Ashlands (East of the Urshilaku camp) is littered with old Dunmer Fortresses, Ashlander burial grounds, and at least two Daedric ruins. All of these areas are filled with tough enemies and amazing loot. If you had actually played Morrowind, you would be aware of these things, too.

Anyway, what I meant by world design was more about Bethesda's old methodology rather than what they actually put into their world. Morrowind didn't hold your hand when it came to quests or finding anything. In fact, Morrowind was a little abusive when it came to directions, generally forcing you to wander in order to figure out where anything is. However, to balance that out, Bethesda actually put in interesting things to stumble across. Like caves filled with minor Daedra that turned on their summoners while excavating a buried Daedric tomb filled with Ebony and Glass artifacts. Or smuggler dens that turned out to be fronts for Sixth House cultists.

My point is that Morrowind didn't hold your hand the way that Skyrim does. In Morrowind, You were forced and encouraged to discover all sorts of crazy things. Skyrim, on the other hand, is happy to point out the things you need but leaves little to discover. Whether this is good or bad is just a matter of opinion, though.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Anyway, what I meant by world design was more about Bethesda's old methodology rather than what they actually put into their world. Morrowind didn't hold your hand when it came to quests or finding anything. In fact, Morrowind was a little abusive when it came to directions, generally forcing you to wander in order to figure out where anything is.

You are aware the only reason NPC gave directions in Morrowind was because the map, you know, the thing your character has, was to primitive to actually show detail.

Directions in a RPG with a map make literally no logical sense, its like being in the middle of new york, holding a map, and then having some guy tell you the directions to where you need to go, instead of just having him point on the map where it is.

That stuff was removed in games in general was because it makes no logical sense. It was difficulty born solely out of limited computer graphics technology, and not any sort of logical, "this difficulty actually would logically exist in a world", and not out of any sort of good game design.

However, to balance that out, Bethesda actually put in interesting things to stumble across. Like caves filled with minor Daedra that turned on their summoners while excavating a buried Daedric tomb filled with Ebony and Glass artifacts. Or smuggler dens that turned out to be fronts for Sixth House cultists.

So you mean the same thing Skyrim did in like half its dungeons?

Its been counted before, Skyrim actually has MORE locations like that then Morrowind did, even without the DLC.

 

[Vern5]

SNIP

You can't compare a map of New York (Which has clearly labeled streets) to a map of Morrowind (a dirty volcanic island filled with death). If I told you there was a party in the middle of the Australian outback that you were invited to and pointed at a random spot of desert on the map and told you to go there, would you be able to find it without directions?

The map and directions in Morrowind were perfectly functional IF you followed the directions to the letter. I rarely got lost. However, when I did get lost, I would usually stumble across some tomb or rogue Telvanni fort filled with cool stuff that made me stronger. Even when I was completely lost, I was still having fun.

Skyrim does have more locations than Morrowind but the price of having more makes them all bland. There's only so much creative work the Bethesda team can do at once. Also, one major gripe I have about Skyrim's more interesting location is that some of them have their interesting portions locked off or not spawned until you have activated the associated quest or reached some arbitrary level limit. Skyrim was keeping things from me, things I could have been having fun with if Bethesda had accommodated exploration rather than just being led around by the nose by a map marker.

By the way, don't point at Skyrim's map marker system and tell me that's logical. It's expedient but it's hardly realistic. A magical compass that points towards places, objects, and people and can track them across all of Skyrim with pinpoint accuracy. We don't even have that kind of GPS accuracy in real life. Not yet, at any rate.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Without very crucial perks, you end up dying a lot. You can't be a jack of all trades like in vanilla skyrim.

Its mathematically impossible to be jack f all trades in vanilla skyrim either, unless you either cheat or break RP.

All skills in Skyrim, with the except of weapon skills, which add 3 damage to the best weapons, after going from 15 to 100, goes literally no actual power increases to said skill, all skill power is given via perks.

On top of that, there are over 250 perks in Skyrim, and only 81 can be obtained in a single playthrough, and. unless you metagame, you wont make it past level 50-55ish unless you break RP and meta-game, as the average build is only 5-6 skills.

So, at most, you will get 1/5 of the total perks in the game, as long as you follow your RP.

-Werewolves
-robots
-mythical creatures

-How does that make sense? Werewolves are literally nothing but flesh and bone, they dont even have armor, their "HP" should be very low if anything. They are, and should be, glass cannons, super easy to take down, but do high damage per hit.

-4000+ year old dwemer machines that have been undergoing constant exposure to metal decay shouldn't be that hard to take down, hell, jamming a pipe into an important gear should break them easily, like most real world machines.

-As for mythical creatures, they are animals, literally, and should logically go down like other animals, and in some cases, easier
--Trolls: Literally flesh and blood like any other animal
--Gaints: same thing as trolls
--Spriggians: literally moving WOOD
--Skeletons: literally nothing but bones, which already break like nothing even when surrounded by flesh and muscles that haven't had ages to decay
--Draugr: pretty much the same thing as spriggian just with old resulted iron armor, except the Deathlords who wear an ebony armor variant.

Again "MUH SECRET CLUB" mid 90's RPG design thayt ignores any sort of logic, lore, or believability to make what is artificial difficulty defined.

Also, one major gripe I have about Skyrim's more interesting location is that some of them have their interesting portions locked off or not spawned until you have activated the associated quest or reached some arbitrary level limit.

By the way, don't point at Skyrim's map marker system and tell me that's logical. It's expedient but it's hardly realistic. A magical compass that points towards places, objects, and people and can track them across all of Skyrim with pinpoint accuracy. We don't even have that kind of GPS accuracy in real life. Not yet, at any rate.

No dungeon in Skyrim has a player level lock on it.

As for other dungeons "WHY WOULD MAGES FROM THE COLLEGE KEEP THEIR DIG SITE SECURED!" because that logical, and would actually happen. Realistic game worlds wouldn't let you just walk into every location on the map, as some people would actually keep them locked up for reasons.

As for the compass, that exists because even with Skyrim's more advanced graphical design its difficult, or outright impossible, to show the NPCs actually pointing on your map, without outright hijacking your game controls for a moment which is a big no no, so there needs to be some way to mark down where NPCs pointed to for quests and stuff, not to mention that a character in a RPG is not you, and thus, your inability to not be able to keep track of multiple locations NPcs have told him to go would not apply to the game character, who does.

 

[Vern5]

Its mathematically impossible to be jack f all trades in vanilla skyrim either, unless you either cheat or break RP.

The average player breaks RP all the time and, with the addition of Legendary skills, are in the perfect position to gain all of the perks by just level grinding themselves into godhood

-How does that make sense? Werewolves are literally nothing but flesh and bone, they dont even have armor, their "HP" should be very low if anything. They are, and should be, glass cannons, super easy to take down, but do high damage per hit.

-4000+ year old dwemer machines that have been undergoing constant exposure to metal decay shouldn't be that hard to take down, hell, jamming a pipe into an important gear should break them easily, like most real world machines.

-As for mythical creatures, they are animals, literally, and should logically go down like other animals, and in some cases, easier
--Trolls: Literally flesh and blood like any other animal
--Gaints: same thing as trolls
--Spriggians: literally moving WOOD
--Skeletons: literally nothing but bones, which already break like nothing even when surrounded by flesh and muscles that haven't had ages to decay
--Draugr: pretty much the same thing as spriggian just with old resulted iron armor, except the Deathlords who wear an ebony armor variant.

Again "MUH SECRET CLUB" mid 90's RPG design thayt ignores any sort of logic, lore, or believability to make what is artificial difficulty defined.

Actually, werewolves are partially Daedric and/or magical. Lycanthropy, like vampirism, is a Daedric curse and has all of the associated benefits of being slightly apart from reality.

Also, Dwemer metal is supposed to be immune to corrosion and aging according to lore. The Dwemer knew how to smelt and they would usually combine their scientific practices with metaphysical manipulation. That's why Dwemer materials are so coveted... or why they used to be coveted until some ass at Bethesda decided it should be mid-tier.

Trolls benefit from a rapid healing factor and are just generally tough. Giants benefit from the sheer mass of tightly corded muscle, skin like granite, and bones like steel beams.

Spriggans, like skeletons, are magically animated and magic breaks all sorts of realistic conventions in its application. Magic: Why spriggans can heal themselves from death multiple times and how Skeletons can keep together without any kind of connective tissue.

All of it makes sense once you've sat down and really thought about it for more than one minute.

 

[SajuukKhar]

ever since bethesda implemented that, it can be exploited and very easily.

Dragons are magical creatures. They are actually daedra. this is heavily explained in the main quest, and only the dragon born can kill a dragon.

First off, exploiting the game is not playing to RP, and only the PLAYER's CHOICE, you want to cheat, that's fine, but that's your fault, ot the game's.

Second, no, dragon are not Daedra. Daedra are the spirits who chose not to partake in creation, which the dragons did, the dragons are creations of Akatosh, an Aedra, the literal opposite of a deara. Also note, Daedra cant create new life.

Thirdly, no, the MQ says only a Dragonborn can take a dragon's soul and keep it dead, its VERY possible for mortal to kill dragons, Harkon, Gormlaith, and Feldir, the three nord toungs who made the dragonrend shout killed MANY dragons, and none of them were dragonborn.

This is also proven by the fact you can speak to dragons while they are still bones in their burial mounds, when killed, they lose control of their body and eventually decay, but their souls remain attached to their bones which allows them to be raised by Alduin, hence why a Dragonborn is needed to kill them forever, so Alduin cant raise them again.

As for everything else
-Dragur still need BONES to move, and their bones are brittle and decayed, thus, they should break as easily as skeletons
-Werewolves being partially unnatural doesn't negate that hircine made them flesh and bone like everything else.
-First off, no book said robots can only be killed by frost magic, in fact, they say robots are nearly immune to frost magic. also, lasting a long time == immune to decay.
-Spriggians are believed, by flawed mortals, to be tied to Kyne, but this has never been proven in lore. Not to mention that, just as werewovles, the yare still made out of wood.

this is not a retcon, this is you not understanding the lore or false assuming that "touched by gods must mean indestructible fantasy creatures". TES usually ignores such creature designs because they are stupid fantasy cliches that aren't believable.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Maxing smithing actually takes quite awhile and unless yo uare hellbent on cheating most people wont do it more then once.

Secondly, I suggest you actually READ that article because it doesn't prove anything you say.
1. Dragons are not Daedra, Daedra are beings who didn't take part in the creation of Mundus, the Dragons, like their father Akatosh, did.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Loreaedra
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Aedra

2. Dragons can be killed by mortals, replay the part of the MQ where you use the ES to travel back in time and look at the nord heros, they kill dragons, and DON'T absorb their souls, why? because they aren't dragonborn.

Mortals can kill dragons, they just cant make dragons stay dead as a dragon soul remains bound to its bones and thus can be raised by Alduin.

3. There is no such thing as the eather in TES. Nor where dragons banished to it, as their bones and souls are in their burial mounds all across skyrim, as proven when you can talk to them in thier mounds before Alduin raises them.

Nor was Alduin, he was just cast outside times.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Congrats, I couldn't even get past the first couple of main story missions before quitting and uninstalling. Found it visually totally uninspiring and a chore to play. Odd since I've really enjoyed all the other Bethesda FPRPGs I've played but Skyrim gets a big fat "nope" from me. Not really sure how I could have enjoyed it more. Maybe if it could "Be Oblivion" instead.

 

[Vern5]

No dungeon in Skyrim has a player level lock on it.

As for other dungeons "WHY WOULD MAGES FROM THE COLLEGE KEEP THEIR DIG SITE SECURED!" because that logical, and would actually happen. Realistic game worlds wouldn't let you just walk into every location on the map, as some people would actually keep them locked up for reasons.

As for the compass, that exists because even with Skyrim's more advanced graphical design its difficult, or outright impossible, to show the NPCs actually pointing on your map, without outright hijacking your game controls for a moment which is a big no no, so there needs to be some way to mark down where NPCs pointed to for quests and stuff, not to mention that a character in a RPG is not you, and thus, your inability to not be able to keep track of multiple locations NPcs have told him to go would not apply to the game character, who does.

How is that logical? We can't possibly know how mages would secure an ancient Nord ruin or if they even would because they have never existed. Your logic boils down to "Everything is the way it should be and damn any alternate possibilities" Even if locations are locked up, why does that have to stop the player from exploring them? Why punish the player for exploring in general? Why settle for being dragged around by the map marker when you could be having your own adventures, making your own path? The OP's complaint was that the game leads you around by the nose and does not reward you for exploring, isn't that what we should be focusing on instead of your rabid fanboy grip on Skyrim's "flawlessness"?

Despite my complaints, I actually really enjoy Skyrim. Hell, I have over 300 hours clocked and still climbing since I bought the DLC during the Summer sale. That being said, I'm not about to say that Skyrim is without problems because it has tons of problems, problems that could easily have been remedied by the dev team back in 2010 so that people like the OP could actually enjoy this game to its fullest.

 

[SajuukKhar]

How is that logical? We can't possibly know how mages would secure an ancient Nord ruin or if they even would because they have never existed. Your logic boils down to "Everything is the way it should be and damn any alternate possibilities" Even if locations are locked up, why does that have to stop the player from exploring them? Why punish the player for exploring in general?

Because the world and its problems/event exists before you?
-Sarthaal was discovered by the mages before you joined the college, explaining why its locked.
-Karliah was using Snow Veil Sanctum as a base to attack the TG before you start the TG questline, which is why she locked it.

It has nothing to do with "punishing the player" its just making the world as it logically would be. In a realistic world not everyone would be able to magically get entrance into everything without first becoming friends with certain people. that is just realism/believability.

why settle for being dragged around by the map marker when you could be having your own adventures, making your own path?

Why let yourself be dragged around by the quest marker, its only your choice to follow it directly without stopping at all the locations between the quest giver and the destination.

The OP's complaint was that the game leads you around by the nose and does not reward you for exploring, isn't that what we should be focusing on instead of your rabid fanboy grip on Skyrim's "flawlessness"?

Dont even start that shit, I never said Skyri mwas by any means perfect.

Point out why certain things are logical =/= think the entire game is perfect.