Game News Five Changes from Oblivion to Skyrim

[Begriffenfeldt]

 

[Excidium]

Kill it with fire!

 

[SharkClub]

3D Pig Disgusting

 

[DraQ]

The system lacked differentiation/specialisation. A thief was more a case of being a mediocre alchemist/fighter/whatevs, than a case of being an outstanding thief.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but it's not TES. Maybe Wizardry 8 with its hideously powerful rogues, or BG1 where everyone was an archer. In TES (pre oblivious) non-custom thieves could fight relatively well with daggers and short swords, using light armour, but the majority of their skills were non-combat in nature. If combat skills bothered you, you could create your own class template marginalizing combat skills and putting more emphasis on non-combat ones. It would still be playable though of course requiring different approach (as long as you wouldn't just train your thief into a mage/fighter).

The problem with TES was always the lack of incentive to specialize, not lack of specialization - if the system didn't allow you to max out everything (which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds as in MW it normally happens around level 60 while you can beat the game and major quests around level 30) it would be much better.

The system lacked Cool Shit™. Thieves couldn't go slit people's throats, fighters couldn't cut them in half, and wizzers... Well, maybe apart from flying in Morrowind, magic has always been kind of uninspired in TES.

Partially agreed, but only partially. There was backstabing in DF and sneak attacks in MW, fighters were definitely formidable in melee, albeit without specific cool abilities and magic could use more customizability and deeper mechanics, but the basic idea of building your spells was sound, while the selection of effects was pretty impressive, and not limited to just killing targets with different particles. Most spells in, say, Wizardry 8 could be expressed in term of effect+modifiers of TES and the selection wouldn't look all that impressive - about the only truly interesting ones (in terms of mechanics) were toxic cloud/noxious fumes and hypnotic lures.

And levitation was also present in Daggerfall.

The levelling mechanics sucked. I really shouldn't need to clarify why anyone with half a brain considers previous TES levelling mechanics to be some of the very worst video gaming has produced so far.

Worst? Hell, no. RPG genre is bursting with bad character improvement mechanics.
I'm not saying it didn't suck (duh), but that's mostly due to the various loopholes it created, not the general concept which is among the soundest to be found in the genre.

Moreover! While some might disagree I am very much of the opinion that TES & other action games are not RPGs.

Same with Fallout and other tactical games (and man, what a shitty and monotonous tactical game it was!).

Role playing games, at least to me, are games where players assume the identities of their characters and act through them. Which means that just like a psychotic horse-eating dwarf character's dialogue choices shouldn't involve teenage girl-like pony worship, combat performance shouldn't involve the player's skill.

You're speaking of (thankfully) entirely fictional* genre of CGGs (Char-Gen Games) where player creates character then whatches passively how the game plays out.

At least to some extent, TES games have always been player skill based, rather than character skill based.

So are all the other RPGs out there, with the exception of those balanced towards player being completely at mercy of random factors and those that were so simple that victory involved no skill.

In both TES and, "proper" RPGs (say Fallout or other Wizardry) I control positioning and call actions, in both TES (pre oblivious) and "proper" RPGs character stats determine success or failure of those actions and parameters controling movement.

Whatever, I guess my point is this: a popular definition of insanity is to do the same thing over & over, expecting different outcomes. Bethesda has tried to make their characteristics system work 4 times now and have failed pretty damn hard every time. I'd be far more worried if they hadn't dumped the entire concept by now.

My counter follows: a popular** definition of evolution is to do roughly the same thing over, except for replacing/altering the parts that don't work, expecting better outcomes.

Bethesda's main problem is that instead of replacing they just keep throwing the parts away. Wrong parts too.

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A fan may say 'You removed my eight attributes!', and my answer is, which ones do you want? They're all a trickle down to something else. Now when you level up you can just raise your Magicka. In Oblivion you have to raise your Intelligence knowing that you're Intelligence raises your Magicka." .

Okay, so what do I do if I want to increase, say, my speed or carrying capacity?

That's what perks are for.

And those perks would be associated with which skill?

"In Oblivion you have your eight attributes and 21 skills. Now you have 18 skills and three attributes. What we found is that all those attributes actually did something else. A fan may say 'You removed my eight attributes!', and my answer is, which ones do you want? They're all a trickle down to something else. Now when you level up you can just raise your Magicka. In Oblivion you have to raise your Intelligence knowing that you're Intelligence raises your Magicka."

The hilarious(ly stupid) thing about Howard's reasoning is that he can't see past the combat angle. "Well," he says, smarmily, "you only used intelligence to level up your magicka." That's right, Todd, because you guys programmed it that way. More to the point, you never put anything in the game to make intelligence anything other than a second-hand bump for other shit. You never had, say, dialog checks dependent upon intelligence, or weapons dependent upon a strength requirement, or persuasion checks dependent upon a personality requirement. It's like you guys never even thought about that shit, like it never even entered your empty fucking heads.

In short, Howard is right for all the wrong reasons. Instead of building complexity into the game, they're "streamlining" it out. Gah whatever, more of the same old bullshit.

Standard neobeth treatment - simplify into redundancy, declare redundant, discard.

And there were stat checks in Morrowind dialogue. They were admittedly few, but present - mostly referencing speechcraft and intelligence. I don't count direct mechanical effects of stats here, nor faction requirements either, but in terms of mechanical effects they were also far from one-trick-ponnies Todd tries to portray - intelligence influenced enchanting and alchemy, agility - virtually all thieving skills, to hit, dodging, blocking, fatigue and knockdown resistance, willpower - magic success formula, fatigue and saving throws against certain effects and so on. Strength requirements were implicit as the depended on maximum load you could practically carry, but there was nothing preventing them from being made much more pronounced, for example by making strength factor in the fatigue consumption formula that was already based on weapon weight and so on.

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I've got no interest in TES these days anyway, but if I had, I doubt that I'd be concerned about this change. He's right in that the skills they cut did nothing useful in game, aside from decreasing the tedium of running. Yes, I guess if I was interested in the game I'd prefer that they did something cool with acrobatics, and build quest mechanics around athletics, but I don't know many crpgs that do that with acrobatics/athletics anyway.

I wouldn't mind cutting auto-success skills like athletics, acrobatics and all armour skills, provided retaining their functions using attributes (agility and speed for different aspects of acrobatics, endurance and speed for different aspects of athletics, armour just built around mobility-protection trade off with desired balance depending on class build - lightning fast jumpy dodgy monk wouldn't want plate to hinder his main asset) - the attributes went missing, though.

There's a difference b/w a broken mechanic that needs fixing, and a random mechanic that doesn't actually do anything relevant.

And I actually agree with his comment on the stats. TES games have no crpg mechanics outside of combat, crafting and exploration. There's never been 'int' checks on dialogue or quest options turning upon primary stats.

Why do you lie? There were very few stat checks, but they existed and worked (see Suran escaped slave quest). The mechanics was there, but instead of being expanded it was reduced into redundancy (oblivious) and discarded (rimjob).

Due to this simple factual error, the rest of your post loses most of its relevancy.

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As a customer who's been to our restaurant before, you're probably used to choosing different meals from the menu. Now, the menu is gone, because what we found is that all those meals actually did something else. A fan might say 'You removed my soup, roast, salad, pudding and other meals!', and my answer is, which ones do you want? They're all a trickle down to something else. Now when you come to eat, you just get the nutrients such as protein. Before, you had to eat meals made of meat knowing that your digestion would eventually extract protein from it.

We spent some time reviewing our process, and we clearly saw: We're not actually good at cooking. Our soups were bland, our roasts were cardboardy, our salads indistinguishable from plastic potted plants, and the pudding - well, let's not even go there. So we thought real hard, and we figured it out - all those meals are just intermediaries, and human digestion turns them into base nutrients which are actually useful. That's why when you come to our restaurant now, we just give you a cup of sugar, a cup of lard, a cup of protein powder, a multi-vitamin tablet and a glass of water - that's the real stuff, that's why people eat in the first place! Figuring this shit out and having the courage to charge people for it is why we're the leading Western restaurant chain.

Howard says it's a natural evolution and makes it sound sensible. I'm not really bent out of shape about it because it doesn't sound like there'll be a lack of decisions to make. Customers have the ultimate freedom to make the nutritional equivalent of any meal they want using these base ingredients, and even some new combinations which were previously impossible. And that's just the start.

You see, each customer can package the results of their meal-building and present it to food critics. These are hidden in the depths of serving halls at stone slabs called tables. When you string different nutrients together and feed them to food critics, it produces magical abilities called CriticBarfs. You can make critics barf while screaming out force waves, slow their perception of barfing time and crazier stuff depending on how much effort you're willing to put into finding ingredient combinations and food critic tables. After observing and remembering the exact CriticBarf each individual combination produces, you can later induce these barfs in yourself, and use them to overcome challenges in unique new ways!

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*) In before Dungeon Siege.

**) A scientific definition would lend more detail to certain aspects of the process.

 

[Claw]

To bad many morons/bethfans fail this INT check, now the third time... howard is full of shit

Ha-ha! There is no INT check in Skrym!

 

[Bahamut]

To bad many morons/bethfans fail this INT check, now the third time... howard is full of shit

Ha-ha! There is no INT check in Skrym!

Because it doesent have any INT, its a dumb gameafterall duh

 

[Tycn]

Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get the stats back as DLC. $5 each.

 

[Claw]

Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get the stats back as DLC. $5 each.

That would actually make alot of sense. Bethesda are experts at making their customers pay extra for pointless crap.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

3 dogs? Who is this 3 dogs? Is that in the restoration patch?

Obviously Sulik isn't black, but lots of people dress up as stuff that they don't have the 'right' skin colour for. He's the right size/proportion for Sulik and he's carrying pretty much the right weaponry. Just change the hair, strip off some of the clothing and give him a sledgehammer and you'd have it, except for the skin colour.

I presuming that we're not all secret fanboys of some crappy Bethesda game here, and none of us would have heard of their obscure characters, so who else other than the VD and Sulik could it be?

You dont have to be a Bethesda fanboy to know FO 3. Though if I really had fun with FO 3 I might be a Bethesda fanboy.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Dialog modifiers in morrowind? Is that what the bitching is about?

Who gives a shit!? Bethesda did a shitty job back then! Why focus on something they are not good at? Make me better dungeons to explore, give me shiner shit to collect and avoid the dialog shit. Leave RPGs to people that can fucking make them (like OE). Bethesda can make a pretty good hiking simulator: let them do that.

 

[Melcar]

Everything goes in the wasteland.

 

[DraQ]

Dialog modifiers in morrowind? Is that what the bitching is about?

Who gives a shit!? Bethesda did a shitty job back then! Why focus on something they are not good at? Make me better dungeons to explore, give me shiner shit to collect and avoid the dialog shit. Leave RPGs to people that can fucking make them (like OE). Bethesda can make a pretty good hiking simulator: let them do that.

Not good at that either, since somewhere between 2002 and 2006. Next thing you will ask for the best chargen ever.

 

[SkepticsClaw]

Haha, I love you guys so much. This place is pure entertainment.

This certainly seems to be a simplification of the mechanics from an abstraction to a more clear and explicit development path. Rather than increase abstract 'attributes' which then knock-on to the actually important mechanical layer, it seems they've decided to strip out this middle layer and make the player's interaction with the ruleset more explicit. Now you directly interact with the core elements of your character: the perks are things that you can do, your skills define how well you perform game actions, and your attributes define the resources you have to do them.

This is less complex but to me more elegant, GIVEN THAT THESE ELEMENTS BE PROPERLY FUCKING INTEGRATED. What I want from Skyrim is this:

1) Big open world with interesting things to see and do
2) Combat which is at least partially interesting or exciting
3) Increasing skills that give you an appreciable advantage and unlock new content which you wouldn't be able to get otherwise
4) Choices in character construction that lead to uniquely differentiated characters
5) Phat loot.

If Bethesda accomplish those things this game will be good. If they do not, this game will be shit. If reducing the attributes and skill list allows them to better accomplish these goals rather than having a large quantity of broken shit, then I will be pleased. If they both reduce the attributes and skills AND leave what's left as a bunch of broken shit, I will be displeased.

Being Bethesda it will probably be the latter, but I hold out a folorn hope that this new system will a fruitful redesign.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Dialog modifiers in morrowind? Is that what the bitching is about?

Who gives a shit!? Bethesda did a shitty job back then! Why focus on something they are not good at? Make me better dungeons to explore, give me shiner shit to collect and avoid the dialog shit. Leave RPGs to people that can fucking make them (like OE). Bethesda can make a pretty good hiking simulator: let them do that.

Not good at that either, since somewhere between 2002 and 2006. Next thing you will ask for the best chargen ever.

Fallout 3 was a god damn good hiking simulator. Massive from Oblivion. If they keep doing that they'll get to the point of surpassing Daggerfall.

 

[Orgasm]

2) Combat which is at least partially interesting or exciting

Press a BUTAN AWSOME HAPPENS!!!

 

[.Sigurd]

2) Combat which is at least partially interesting or exciting

They already confirmed that will be the same shit like Oblivion, aka click as fast as you can to see the character swing his arm like a retarded trying to hit a mosquito.

 

[.Sigurd]

 

[SkepticsClaw]

2) Combat which is at least partially interesting or exciting

They already confirmed that will be the same shit like Oblivion, aka click as fast as you can to see the character swing his arm like a retarded trying to hit a mosquito.

Wasn't that Divinity 2?



Anyway, what you say is possible. There do seem to be some updates from what I've read, such as active blocking, dual-wielding, quick switching between weapon/armour combos and so on. There's also the open question of how the perk system will integrate with the combat to allow for different combat build styles, or whether it will just boil down to button mashing in any case. Plus there's the 'Dragon shouting', which could conceivably add a new dimension.

We'll see if any of that comes off. Skepticism is healthy and justified but I'm not going to leap to conclusions before the evidence is in.

 

[.Sigurd]

2) Combat which is at least partially interesting or exciting

They already confirmed that will be the same shit like Oblivion, aka click as fast as you can to see the character swing his arm like a retarded trying to hit a mosquito.

Wasn't that Divinity 2?



Anyway, what you say is possible. There do seem to be some updates from what I've read, such as active blocking, dual-wielding, quick switching between weapon/armour combos and so on. There's also the open question of how the perk system will integrate with the combat to allow for different combat build styles, or whether it will just boil down to button mashing in any case. Plus there's the 'Dragon shouting', which could conceivably add a new dimension.

We'll see if any of that comes off. Skepticism is healthy and justified but I'm not going to leap to conclusions before the evidence is in.

The interview where Todd talk about the combat system has been posted here in the Codex I think.
Yes, there's dual-wielding (for shields too!) but I think that will end being almost like one-wielding, just more DPS.

About the "Dragon shouting" I think that will be no more than spells for no-mages (oh wait there's no more mages!) where you determine the effect and intensity by the type of shout, the order and how many times (being 3 the max to unleash a shout I think). While it looked completely retarded at first now I have hope that something interesting will come out of that.

 

[DraQ]

Massive from Oblivion.

Getting lost in a bathroom after having several too many would be massive over oblivion.

simplification of the mechanics from an abstraction

Does not compute.

Simplification is always towards more abstraction - either good abstraction (when you want to sacrifice detail for scope) or towards abstraction-gone-wrong, or, in other words, bizarre retarded shit with not even passing semblance of the things it stands in for.

Rather than increase abstract 'attributes' which then knock-on to the actually important mechanical layer

You've got it all ass backwards. An abstract attribute is something like HP - with no actual real-life or in-universe counterpart. Strength or intelligence are very concrete attributes with clearly defined non-game counterparts.

They seem to be going oblivion again, trying to make more actiony by making it more abstract - I expect similar results.

Removal of attributes does not make a game better in action department - attributes determining carrying capacity, hitting strength, movement speed or magicka reserve still have to exist in engine and work just like they did before from an action perspective. Making them global constants, however (with an exception of intelligence renamed to magicka and thus deprived of much of its in-universe meaning apart from unchanged action relevance does make the game worse RPG. And changing the system drastically means you can no longer benefit from your past experience.

If you make a game that is just as bad as an action game and much worse as an RPG, it's simply worse game overall.

and your attributes define the resources you have to do them do not exist.

Fixed.

1) Big open world with interesting things to see and do
2) Combat which is at least partially interesting or exciting

Unlikely after oblivious.

3) Increasing skills that give you an appreciable advantage and unlock new content which you wouldn't be able to get otherwise

Unlikely given oblivion, 100% completion consoletard whiners and levelling speed.

4) Choices in character construction that lead to uniquely differentiated characters

May be possible and the only improvement barring the unified wielding mechanics that pretty much mirrors what I suggested just after oblivious came out (not taking any credit, just pointing out how bloody obvious improvement it is).

5) Phat loot.

Level scaling will keep everything equal or lower to your character and all other content is being further reduced, so unlikely.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Massive from Oblivion.

Getting lost in a bathroom after having several too many would be massive over oblivion.

Yeah I know, it didn't take much to improve over Oblivion. My point is while they did, they did so relatively significantly. They also let OE make Fallout: New Vegas instead of doing it themselves. More , mmm? Granted, Skyrim is going to be another hiking simulator but they have the capacity to make a good one. Anyways, my point is stop bitching about them doing an actual RPG: they always sucked at it and it took Oblivion to make it apparent.

 

[MacBone]

I'm surprised they still have 18 skills. I thought they'd be down to two or three by now.

 

[DraQ]

I'm surprised they still have 18 skills. I thought they'd be down to two or three by now.

Easy. They need to simplify them into redundancy first before declaring them redundant and removing them.

 

[Claw]

As much as I appreciate the "Intelligence was really just good for Magicka" arguments, I cannot help but see this:

The first (C)RPGs I played very very simple. Some CRPGs had just Strength, Agility and Intelligence for Melee, Ranged and Magic combat. Over time, the RPGs I played become more complex and offered many different, interesting mechanics.
And now Bethesda is reducing their "RPG" formula to Health, Mana, Stamina which is - considerably - less complex than the first RPG I ever played in my life, on the C64.

Maybe the system is more elegant, but it's not much of an RPG. And since this is the RPG Codex, I find it silly to say we shouldn't complain about that here.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Maybe the system is more elegant, but it's not much of an RPG. And since this is the RPG Codex, I find it silly to say we shouldn't complain about that here.

It is silly to say we shouldn't complain because that would be suggesting we should complain at all. It's clearly becoming less and less of an RPG. Doesn't the codex not allow discussion of Mass Effect 2 on the RPG board?