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

[Sectan]

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.

I had downloaded a mod to hide the UI to try and get more immersed into the game. There was a quest to talk to some dude at the skyforge, which unknown to me, was around the corner and up a few flights of steps. The quest text did not mention any directions and none of the NPCs would even talk to me to give me directions. Trying to do any type of roleplaying in Skyrim was impossible since your character magically knew where everything and everyone was. It was either use to compass on the HUD or be lost.

 

[Vern5]

Given that all things that exist run off of mathematical probabilities and scientific responses to stimuli, literally no cause/effect reaction cannot be mathematical at its core.

So, you think that all opinions and thoughts are valid because the nature of their realization can be measured using mathematics...

I'm going to go do something productive now. Have fun continuing to lash out at the other people on this thread whose opinions of Skyrim differ from yours.

 

[Vern5]

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.

I had downloaded a mod to hide the UI to try and get more immersed into the game. There was a quest to talk to some dude at the skyforge, which unknown to me, was around the corner and up a few flights of steps. The quest text did not mention any directions and none of the NPCs would even talk to me to give me directions. Trying to do any type of roleplaying in Skyrim was impossible since your character magically knew where everything and everyone was. It was either use to compass on the HUD or be lost.

Pretty much, which sucks. It's weird when you think about how the compass knows more than the player at any given moment. There's no in-game validation for the psychic compass either. I've always wondered if "Quest-related Precognition" was the first sign that you might be Dragonborn.

 

[AT God]

Skyrim is interesting as a game to me because I truly do not care for the fantasy setting. Given that, I was unable to enjoy the plot, story, or any real interaction with characters because everytime they said a fantasy word I was reminded how I would so much prefer a different time and setting.

However, I still enjoyed the major world, variety of skills, exploration, and doing some of the quests at least from a game play perspective.

However, it wasn't until I played Dishonored last week that I lost a huge amount of respect for Skyrim. While both games were in development underneath Bethesda at the same time, the smaller, stealth focused game got the amazing melee combat mechanics and the huge open world epic got some of the clunkiest melee combat in a modern FPS game. I understand the difficulty of melee combat from a first person perspective and the difficulty of adapting a melee system that works for both giant monsters like dragons and small things like crabs but it is embarrassing how poor Skyrim's combat was given that Bethesda had its hands on a system that was so much better in house at roughly the same time. (This assumes Dishonored's combat system was at least functional when Skyrim came out, even if it wasn't, Skyrim's combat is still abysmal). Playing through Dishonored, I really got angry that the good combat system went into the game where combat is optional, while Skyrim requires combat to see and do everything and the combat system is about as complex as using the crowbar in Half-Life. Side note: I know there are more attacks in Skyrim but I beat the game melee only on the higher difficulty using the same tactic I use when out of ammo in Half-Life, run forward, attack with a left click, back away to dodge, and repeat, that should not be a possible way to beat a triple A game on a hard difficulty.)

Also, while the basic graphics of Skyrim were held back because they were optimized for the consoles, low saturation and heavily compressed textures, Steam and Nexus Mod Manager allowed the game to look beautiful with the right cocktail of mods and people still make the game look beautiful so the graphics at least were never a problem for me.

 

[SajuukKhar]

While both games were in development underneath Bethesda at the same time

Dishonored was made by Arkane Studios, not Bethesda.

The Bethesda you are thinking of is Bethesda Softworks, a publishing studio owned by Zenimax. The makers of the TES games, and Fallout 3, are Bethesda Game Studios, a separate development company also owned by Zenimax.

Two entirely different companies.

Dishonored's combat system was no more in BGS's hands then anything in Rage, or the new Wolfenstien, made by Id and Machine games respectively, both companies owned by Zenimax, was.

 

[spartandude]

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.

I had downloaded a mod to hide the UI to try and get more immersed into the game. There was a quest to talk to some dude at the skyforge, which unknown to me, was around the corner and up a few flights of steps. The quest text did not mention any directions and none of the NPCs would even talk to me to give me directions. Trying to do any type of roleplaying in Skyrim was impossible since your character magically knew where everything and everyone was. It was either use to compass on the HUD or be lost.

Pretty much, which sucks. It's weird when you think about how the compass knows more than the player at any given moment. There's no in-game validation for the psychic compass either. I've always wondered if "Quest-related Precognition" was the first sign that you might be Dragonborn.

Another thing that killed roleplaying in Skyrim is that the only tool the player had was killing.

 

[Machocruz]

Video RPGs in general seem to be heading towards "theme park" MMO philosophy, where it's about getting people through the content rollercoaster in an expedient and direct manner. It makes market sense considering the amount of money being spent on AAA games. The general audience do not have the same affinity for simulation aspects and flavor details that many RPG enthusiasts do. On the spectrum of Arcade-Simulation, Arcade has always been more favorable to the majority. Typical complaints of older ES and CRPGS usually regard combat (the preference almost always is for "visceral" real-time; the more arcade like, the better) and getting lost/not knowing how to progress, which comes down to patience. I did have trouble finding a couple places in Morrowind, so that is a thing that happens to players. The difference is that I don't mind that kind of thing. Even if I did, I see no point in excising something when you can fix it (better directions, more thoughtful world layout/landmarks, faster movement speed.) Well, Daggerfall dungeons are pushing it, but the issues there were a shitty map and lack of graphical nuance, not with dungeons being too big and labyrinthine.

 

[Vern5]

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.

I had downloaded a mod to hide the UI to try and get more immersed into the game. There was a quest to talk to some dude at the skyforge, which unknown to me, was around the corner and up a few flights of steps. The quest text did not mention any directions and none of the NPCs would even talk to me to give me directions. Trying to do any type of roleplaying in Skyrim was impossible since your character magically knew where everything and everyone was. It was either use to compass on the HUD or be lost.

Pretty much, which sucks. It's weird when you think about how the compass knows more than the player at any given moment. There's no in-game validation for the psychic compass either. I've always wondered if "Quest-related Precognition" was the first sign that you might be Dragonborn.

Another thing that killed roleplaying in Skyrim is that the only tool the player had was killing.

You could get by without killing too often. Using Illusion magic and having a follower do all of your dirty work makes the "pacifist" playthrough possible. Not that the amount of killing is reduced; something else just does it for you. I also find it odd that you don't have many options for diplomacy when dealing with bandits. You can rarely barter with them for safe passage but you can't, for example, bribe or persuade bandit chiefs into taking their gangs elsewhere.

I'm sure there's a mod for that somewhere...

 

[Mister K]

EDIT: Games that started as a mod? Sure, why not, DOtA 2 is fine. And itself doesn't require any mods, only free characters to be released by actual devs in the future.

What if those characters were released by people instead of devs? Would that bring your experience/expectations down?

No, I didn't mean it like that. What I meant when I was making this statement is that devs are the ones who are actually trying to prolong the life of this game and release free additional content.

As for everything else. Yes, I do prefer it when I actually have either well-made story with good gameplay or ABSOLUTE freedom like in P&P RPG's (I mean, why the hell can't I become the yarl of Whiterun by plotting clever scheme? Or something else, except for lvl up and slay everything that oposes you and get bounty for it). And I think TES 6 will be a lot better than Skyrim if developers concentrate on intensive (i.e. quality based) development instead of extensive (i.e. quantity based).

There is no such thing as absolute freedom in video games. They cant possible program every scenario you personally want. You can become the leader of the mages guild, the companions, the dark brotherhood, and the theives guild. You can also dictate who wins the civil war. These are all side quests mind you. Skyrim does have a lot of freedom just not the specific scenarios you would like.

I do believe the lore and story of Skyrim are quality. I found the stories and characters both very engaging and interesting.

But, really, who cares? You'll continue liking what you do, same goes for me. I'll continue with playing something more fitting for me and will avoid jumping on the TES 6 hype wagon in the future.

Right but I dont tell people that what you like is only good with mods and that the base game is a demo based solely on my preferences and not the merits of the game.

Either level some actual specific criticism you have with the game or move on. Quit making baseless general statements.

Okey-Dokey:
1. Lack of choice. I almost never got to pick my options to proceed with quest.
2. Barely existing RPG elements. I want to personally tinker with my stats, damnit.
3. In TES IV I could wield 2-handed sword AND cast spells. Here I can't.
4. Overall underpowerment of certain skill trees (2-handed, destruction, etc.).
5. Your enemies lvl up with you, which renders your development a bit pointless.
6. Bugs and glitches, obviously.

Also, judging by Your last sentence, You are a bit angry. There isn't really any need for that, especially towards someone random from the internet saying unpleasant things towards something asinsignificant as a game.

 

[SajuukKhar]

2. Barely existing RPG elements. I want to personally tinker with my stats, damnit.
3. In TES IV I could wield 2-handed sword AND cast spells. Here I can't.
4. Overall underpowerment of certain skill trees (2-handed, destruction, etc.).
5. Your enemies lvl up with you, which renders your development a bit pointless.

I would like to point out that
-TES hasn't been advertised as an RPG since Daggerfall, its been an action-adventure game, with some RPg elements, foremost since Morrowind. If you are looking for an RPG this isn't the game for you, nor is it supposed to be.

-Magic can no longer be used with melee weapons for balancing reasons. In past TES games magic was a "secondary" skill set that only existed to buff melee fighters, in Skyrim magic is supposed to be equal to melee weapons, not beneath them. It also introduces actual choice and consequences when it comes to playstyles, since you actually have to play a mage as a mage, and an actual warrior as a warrior, instead of just getting a free pass as a quasi battlemage no matter what you pick, like in past games, thus making playstyles more diverse.

-Two handed is probably the second most overpowered physical weapon type next to a sneak dagger playthough, especially because many blocking perks effect it, meaning you can negate large parts of two handers poor blocking power, while still using the best damaging weapons in the game.
-Destrustion magic is super OP if you use the stagger perk. You can perm stagger any enemy in the game, making you literally untouchable. also the lightning storm spell is a low cost master level spell that can murder even legendary dragons in seconds.

-The way leveled lists in Skyrim work is that around 50% of enemies you fight will be weaker then the version at your level, even at level 81 you will fight the level 15 draugr 50% of the time, whereas the next highest make up about 30% of the remainder, while the highest level makes up about 20%.

You will always get to see how you leveled up, since the formally strong draugr who were at your level, when you are now level 15, are the ones you can plow through with ease now that you are level 50 or w/e.

Admittedly it could be tweaked better.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I think the thing that always took the wind out of the sails for me in regards to Skyrim and TES in general was all the freaking fighting. TES, at its core, is an adventure game; it's mainly about exploration and discovery. It's about finding new locations, whether they be towns, dungeons, temples, etc and delving into them. However, too much of that is bookended by tedious slogs of hacking and slashing. Fighting never goes beyond that either, except maybe for the occassional spell or Shout, but it's not complex nor is it something that rewards twitch-reflex either. I'd often slide the difficulty to easy just so I wouldn't have to deal with fighting being more than a temporary annoyance. Bethesda never have understood that they need to either make the combat actually interesting or downplay it. You'd think after four previous games they would have gotten the hint by now.

 

[randomsix]

The daedra are more perfect than mortals, and that's all that matters. Since its only mortals or immortals. They don't die and their skill is legendary. Its the entire reason the oblivion war was so devastating. They are perfect little soldiers that can't die, and that's what makes them perfect. An infinite army that only gets stronger as time goes on.

If the gates weren't shut, mundus would be gone entirely.

This isn't quite true. The hist trees and argonians of black marsh were kicking so much ass that Dagon had to close the portals in the region to keep his realm from being invaded.

 

[Drizzitdude]

So basically you want to play Dragon's Dogma. Google it, thank me later. There actually is exploration, problem solving, focusing on bringing the right tools for the right fight and you are rewarded for taking the more difficult paths and exploring often. Dragon and drake fights are tough and you will get your ass kicked around a lot to start off. Magic is unique and spells have plenty of various effects and unique animations, there's plenty of classes and roles to choose from and if you can get over some minor plot holes you will have a great time. I would high recommend you get the "Dark Arisen" add on to the game as well, as it adds a lot more to the story as well a huge difficult dungeon crawl that actually gets more difficult as you beat it numerous times.'

Hell I think any game that is challenging enough to not only tell you that running away is not a problem, but encouraged is worth looking into.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

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.

Pfft! Ha hahahhahaaaa! Genocide over a chicken! ^^ This may be in the top ten best Skyrim stories I've ever heard.

See, shit like THAT is why I enjoyed Skyrim. Stupid hilarious shit like that.

OT: Why didn't you just reload your latest save? Unless you did something truly epic since your last fast-travel, you should have had an autosave pretty recently, so you could have simply reloaded before the unfortunate chicken slaying.

This actually happened to me fairly often, particularly when Dragons attacked the town. I was a mage, so I'd fight the dragon with magic. Every once in a while, I'd accidentally hit a village guard while killing the dragon that was eating them alive - usually I wouldn't even kill the guard, just wound him a little. And every time, they treated me like a criminal instead of a fucking hero for saving their stupid village from a dragon.

What did I do? Stopped helping. When dragons attacked towns, I'd ignore it and flee. Fuck the ungrateful bastards.

ANYWAY....

I also managed to pull a similar agro chain like you did. I tend to do a lot of blacksmithing - like, a LOT. Like, level Blacksmithign up to 100, then send it back down to 0 (or 1, whatever) and level it back up again a lot. And one of my favorite methods of grinding it was to make Dwarven equipment. Every 30 days, I'd go to the town with the Dwarven Museum and steal all the smelt-able metals inside (I'd also do the nearby dungeon with a ton of dwarven metal as well).

Anyway, one time, I got caught. I was being sloppy. I'd already finished all the quests in the town, so I was like "fuck it" and I fought the guards.

I killed every guard in town. Then I went to the smeltery, smelted my dwarven metal, went to the blacksmith, forged it, and sold it all to the blacksmith (until he ran out of money). None of the NPCs seemed to care (since I hadn't murdered any chickens) that I'd just killed 50 some guards. There was one unkillable guard who I just had to avoid, but if I knocked him out and ran, he'd lose track of where I was and it would take him a while to find me.

Whenever I come back to that town, all the (freshly respawned) guards try to kill me again. So I kill them again and sell their loot to the blacksmith (and buy any dwarven metal he has). And every 30 days, I go in, kill the guards, and rob the museum again too.

I get bounty hunters sometimes, but only ever outside of towns. And I kill them too.

So yeah... that's what I love about Skyrim. A random accident can lead to an awesome adventure or a hilarious story.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

I can tell this is hopeless, you are just randomly spewing things that make no sense, or are directly contradictory, for the sake of arguing.

-Fallout is not lighthearted, its using upbeat 50's era music juxtaposed against the grim apocalyptic wasteland only servers to further show the grim difference between the utopia the people in the 50's imagined the future to be, and what it is, but that doesn't make it lighthearted.

I suggest you look up what lighthearted means, but neither TES nor Fallout fit the bill in any way.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lighthearted

-Prophecy in TEs is not "just because" it follows patterns and symbolism in lore that go all the way back to the dawn era.

When the thalmor use their "heavy" armor its clear who wins.
and the empire didn't "crush" the elves, the elves crushed the empire.

-I suggest you look up the Battle of the red Ring
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Battle_of_the_Red_Ring#Battle_of_the_Red_Ring
Battle of the Red Ring, 4E 175. Titus II split his remaining forces into three hosts that surrounded the occupied Imperial City. After a long, bloody battle, the Aldmeri army in Cyrodiil was utterly destroyed and the Imperial City recaptured. Lord Naarifin was hung from the top of White-Gold Tower and kept alive for thirty-three days. Despite the resounding victory, Titus II realized the Empire was too exhausted to continue fighting. He negotiated with the Thalmor and signed the White-Gold Concordat, a treaty that gave the Thalmor free reign to stamp out the worship of Talos in Tamriel, disbanded the Blades, and ceded a large part of southern Hammerfell to the Aldmeri Dominion. Critics note that the terms of the Concordat are almost identical to those of the original ultimatum presented by the Thalmor prior to the war.

The empire utterly destroyed the Aldmeri Army.

and the nords tell you this,

Actually, no Nord in-game says anything of the sort.

Falmer have been gone, and we know nothing about their culture. yet a stone slab with their language on it in the middle of an occupied city is ignored. Dragons are a huge part of imperial history, and no one knows shit except the blades and even they are sketchy about it.

This is all blatantly false
-The giant stone slab of Falmer language in Markarth is being Studied by Calcelmo, he even says so.
-We also learn much about their culture from the Dawnguard DLC, where you can TALK TO A FALMER.
-There are TONS of tomes on Dwemer history and culture
--3 part Dwarves book series: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lorewarves_%28book%29
--3 part Dwemer Inquires series: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lorewemer_Inquiries
And here is a large article on the EUSP based from everything we know about the Dwemer from Morrowind - Skyrim
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lorewemer

And we know quite a bit about dragons also, since they existed all the way until Tiber Septim's time. You are confusing lack of knowledge on the dragon War with lack of knowledge about dragons in general.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Loreragons

We know quite a lot about all the vanished races.

wyverns and dragons are not the same thing.

I never said they were, I said Wyverns were a type of dragon, not that they are the same species as other dragons.

To say Rome is homogenous is to rewrite real world history so you won't have to admit that the empire is heavily influenced by Rome.

I never said either of those things, nor did I deny that The Empire was superficially influenced by Rome, I said it wasn't a direct copy-paste of Rome.

-Beast races with shaman knowledge is cliche
-They could have just went with dwemer but dwarven is heavily used by everyone.
-They still call the falmer the falmer
-Racist, genocidal elves are also cliche.
-Hammerfell is a desert and the information we have points to middle east.

-they dont use shamans
-THAT'S THE WHOLE JOKE. Dawrves is an entirely incorrect title, given to the Dwemer by the Giants, that is used because people are uneducated morons. People in TES use dwarves as a parody of the ignorant new players to the Elder Scrolls series who dont know the lore and don't know they arent actually dwarves.
-Actually, they called the Snow Elves Falmer, they called the warped mutant Falmer the betrayed.
-Elves are neither racist nor genocidal, they simply seek to end mortality so they can return to their original spirit forms.
-WRONG, part of Hammerfell is a desert, not the entire thing.
Also

Redguards are pirates, note the cutlasses and pirate vest things.

The entire game Elder scrolls Adventures: Redguard, was about pirates.

Face it. everything has already been done. TES is not unique its just another tolkein fantasy desperately trying to make itself different but still can't shake its influences.

Face it. You have no idea what you are talking about and are ignoring easily sourceable in-game books and documents in order to say "TES doesn't have X" when it very clearly does, and to homogenize everything down into D&D/Tolken stuff when it very provably isn't.

 

[LordDPS]

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.

It doesn't mean it will never be. It means that someone will have to step up to make it so.

Oh wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoETrlXkhfs

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-Nice strawman, I never said anything of the sort that Bethesda are some masters of literature.

-Its funny you say that because TIM CAIN, the creator of Fallout HIMSELF, said Fallout 3 got the lore, setting, and feel, of the series correct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XVW6qcuzM&index=3&list=PLB80BE2F400630467

-The gods fight to keep the mortal realm intact so that the lesser races can find CHIM, and ascend to a higher plane of existence then even they reside on. This is basic TES lore, and ties into the godhead, the towers, and everything else about the metaphysics of the series.

-The Hist aren't gods, they are sentient trees, and the Khajiit aren't the only ones who know the moon dance.

Also Shaman Knowledge is a name you made up, Its not a recognized trope name.
https://www.google.com/search?q=shama+knowelge&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&channel=sb#channel=sb&q=shaman+knowledge+tv+tropes&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial

-If you had actually played Skyrim, you would know that there have only been two lexicon stones ever found, and that both drive the users to insanity. They are not "everywhere", in fact, they are so rare only two have been found, ever. And people do understand how the robots and metal work, there are books about both.

-You are aware that it can take centuries to translate an unknown language? Especially when the only other language its written in is almost equally unknown. Even with modern technology, we still haven't translated many ancient languages.

-Wrong, Gelebor himself outright states people have come to him for centuries. Not to mention the Nords literally leveled all the Falmer ruins with magic during the Falmer purge the 500 companions wrought, there was nothing left to study.

-If no one cared to study, then why are scholars everywhere in every major city?

-They did figure out how to make crossbows, they did so ages ago, even before the events of Morrowind, which was 200+ years before Skyrim, they CHOSE not to use them.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Crossbows_and_Bolts

The Dwemer crossbow is an ingenious device that permits someone with only modest training and skill to fire a missile bolt massive enough to penetrate heavy armor. The Imperial Legion's mass-produced version is somewhat less effective, and most Imperial missile troops and hunters use the more popular short and long bows. - Garothmuk gro-Muzgub

Crossbows never became popular due to simple desire to use what was already known and everyone was trained with. This is Morrowind Era lore.

-One battle did not crush the empire, the war was many battles across Hammerfell and Cyrodiil, on the other hand, the ENTIRE AD army was crushed by the Empire in a single battle.

You should read up on the great war
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Great_War

Might as well make the Thalmor Nazis, oh wait.

If you think the Thalmor are Nazis you really have no understanding of the lore.

-Everywhere has pirates, however, the Redguards fit the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, in outfits, weaponry, and ship design, not middle eastern pirates, and the point was, to call them "the middle east" is to entirely misunderstand the lore behind them.

 

[SajuukKhar]

It doesn't mean it will never be. It means that someone will have to step up to make it so.

Oh wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoETrlXkhfs

That project will never be completed, much like MorrOblivion.

Its also HIGHLY illegal to make.