Skyrim is worse than Oblivion in every way

[Drakron]

"Who put this green potion in my pocket? Nevermind I'm drinking it to find out!"

Would you prefer Todd's Apples approach that was used in Oblivion?

There is no interaction system with NPCs beyond talk or steal, putting poison on their inventories to poison then is better then nothing, as "un-elegant" it might be and I throw Wyrmlord post right at you, you could not poison people in previous TES games besides Oblivion's Todd's Poisoned Apples.

I suppose they could do it a bit more "elegant" by making specific poisoned items but you would still had to put those items in the NPC inventory for it to trigger or you could only poison some very specific items but either way, unless you could poison a bread on a NPC and see him eating and die (that is currently impossible) you people would still complain about it.

And what pisses me off is Obsidian gets a free pass no matter what shitty mechanic they use, I guess nobody complains about the lock-picking minigame as I would have thrown in your faces what they did in AP.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

And what pisses me off is Obsidian gets a free pass no matter what shitty mechanic they use, I guess nobody complains about the lock-picking minigame as I would have thrown in your faces what they did in AP.

How does Obsidian get a free pass? Half the people here didn't care for Alpha Protocol or New Vegas (or both), and the half that do (like me), still had criticisms and picked things apart.

Every time an Obsidian thread pops up, it simplifies to "Herp derp Obsidian, can't code a finished product and only gets Bethesda and Bioware's sloppy seconds", and the people defending it "Buggy, with certain returning concepts but so are the games from those two, and at least Obsidian tries, they certainly write better".


Edit: Who even comments on those interactive sequences anymore? Everyone knows they're shit from hacking to lockpicking to speech games. It's just what layer of time wasting fluff the activity qualifies for. Instead of arguing which game has the better mini-game, most of the time it's everyone asking to have skill checks back.

 

[tennishero]

obsidian gets 100% free pass

New vegas was amazingly well written- but the art direction was so fucking bad- and it was very boring

yes the writing still gave it 10/10 (thats how starved for well written games the last few years had been) but in every other area obsidian dont know programming basics 101

i hate infinity ward- but they know how to programm a fucking FPS to have a nice heavy meaty feel on the guns (in every other area they suck though- and dont get me started on how bad the story is written, how weak the lore is, how much i hate them for not making the game they really wanna make because they are scared)

fallout 3 on the gamebryo could have been so much better if they poached the design team from infinity ward (and thats the last compliment ill give them- only because i do actually like some of their early work)

 

[baronjohn]

Too bad the game doesn't react when you raise NPCs. Like when you kill the noble at her wedding, I raised her corpse and paraded her around in front of her parents and non-husband, but nobody cared.

Eh, I am going to go into lame fanboy apologist mood and simply ask, "Why do you think this series was meant to be realistic?"

Bethesda has obviously been going for realism over time. They're removing abstraction with every game because of what I call literalfags - people unable to understand that what you see on the screen is merely an abstraction. Even the Codex is full of literalfags complaining about wiki dialogues, NPCs standing around and to-hit rolls in combat. Given this push for realism is it too much to ask for some scripting realism? Is raising NPCs really so "fringe" that Bethesda shouldn't bother with it? I'm not asking for specific dialogues for every NPC, but some generic "How dare you work your vile magicks?! Guards! Guards!" response to parading someone's now-undead naked daughter around would be pretty fucking appropriate.

 

[Drakron]

I'm not asking for specific dialogues for every NPC, but some generic "How dare you work your vile magicks?! Guards! Guards!" response to parading someone's now-undead naked daughter around would be pretty fucking appropriate.

Because you are asking for the NPCs to recognize another NPC, they cannot ... they can recognize quest stages, fractions and the player but that is it.

There are limits to what can be done and so what they would do is simply prevent Death Thrall to work on races ... its easier to nerf to go around and waste days of work on something only a fraction of people will ever try (serious, who is going to Death Thrall a commoner NPC beyond for shit and giggles?).

The game is heavy scripted, its easy to make NPCs to rush out and stare at the dragon since there is a trigger but making a specific NPC to respond to a specific event is not some global variant, what you are asking is the same as specific dialogues for every NPC since that is the only way for a NPC to know the player Death Thrall their daughter ... hard to justify it when such time could be used at making quests.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm not asking for specific dialogues for every NPC, but some generic "How dare you work your vile magicks?! Guards! Guards!" response to parading someone's now-undead naked daughter around would be pretty fucking appropriate.

They do that. Some villages to the south really hate magic, and if you raise a dead or summon an elemental they will shout for you to kee your distance, that "nothing good comes from magic" and all that...

Instead of some "oh, you raised a dead" coment, it would be cooler to have all necromancer skill as illegal. Of course, that would require for th game to be playable as a hated outlaw....I didnt played it enough to be sure that's even possible.

 

[Drakron]

And necromancy is evil is Toddler.

 

[felipepepe]

And necromancy is evil is Toddler.

Ah yes, we are too grimdark and mature to have a game where the law forbids necromancy...

 

[Codexlurker]

Too bad the game doesn't react when you raise NPCs. Like when you kill the noble at her wedding, I raised her corpse and paraded her around in front of her parents and non-husband, but nobody cared.

Eh, I am going to go into lame fanboy apologist mood and simply ask, "Why do you think this series was meant to be realistic?"

Bethesda has obviously been going for realism over time. They're removing abstraction with every game because of what I call literalfags - people unable to understand that what you see on the screen is merely an abstraction. Even the Codex is full of literalfags complaining about wiki dialogues, NPCs standing around and to-hit rolls in combat. Given this push for realism is it too much to ask for some scripting realism? Is raising NPCs really so "fringe" that Bethesda shouldn't bother with it? I'm not asking for specific dialogues for every NPC, but some generic "How dare you work your vile magicks?! Guards! Guards!" response to parading someone's now-undead naked daughter around would be pretty fucking appropriate.

I facepalm everytime I read about someone complaining that they couldn't tell if they hit their ememy or not in Morrowind.

 

[Drakron]

Ah yes, we are too grimdark and mature to have a game where the law forbids necromancy...

Necromancy is only "evil" by a social convention were the dead are supposed to be buried and undisturbed, I can only think of D&D were Necromantic spells have/had the [Evil] description.

Of course since we are more often then not Tomb Raiding we can throw away the social convention in Vvardenfell that was filled with Ancestral Tombs and Skyrim that have plenty of Burial Mounds.

And that leads to the point of "Grimdark", the spell can easy animate a animal as well as a sentient being so why exactly its "evil"? The spell makes no distinction of something that was a Troll or that was a Nord ... it have to be seen by the prospective of who is using it, on what and why.

In short, its no more evil that casting a Fireball or using a trapped soul to Enchant a item.

Todder just made "Necromancy is Evil" just like Dragon Age 2 hilarious proved the Templar point by making pretty much EVERY FUCKING MAGE turning into a abomination ... all of Oblivion Necromancers ended up worshiping the King of Worms, this is far worst that being "Grimdark" as you are not really addressing the issue but sidestepping it by showing everyone that doing it was evil as "proof".

 

[crufty]

Skyrim npcs recognize when Pc is diseased

Having an undead thrall may not be much diff from a game state point of view

I think it's ok to point out patterns that could be improved



Making necromancy illegal would be the easy fix. Wander into city as thrall, it's a crime, guards go agro.

 

[DraQ]

Ah yes, we are too grimdark and mature to have a game where the law forbids necromancy...

Necromancy is only "evil" by a social convention were the dead are supposed to be buried and undisturbed, I can only think of D&D were Necromantic spells have/had the [Evil] description.

Of course since we are more often then not Tomb Raiding we can throw away the social convention in Vvardenfell that was filled with Ancestral Tombs and Skyrim that have plenty of Burial Mounds.

And that leads to the point of "Grimdark", the spell can easy animate a animal as well as a sentient being so why exactly its "evil"? The spell makes no distinction of something that was a Troll or that was a Nord ... it have to be seen by the prospective of who is using it, on what and why.

In short, its no more evil that casting a Fireball or using a trapped soul to Enchant a item.

Todder just made "Necromancy is Evil" just like Dragon Age 2 hilarious proved the Templar point by making pretty much EVERY FUCKING MAGE turning into a abomination ... all of Oblivion Necromancers ended up worshiping the King of Worms, this is far worst that being "Grimdark" as you are not really addressing the issue but sidestepping it by showing everyone that doing it was evil as "proof".

Ah yes, that was derp as fuck.
In MW you had Sharn, at the very least.

Too bad the game doesn't react when you raise NPCs. Like when you kill the noble at her wedding, I raised her corpse and paraded her around in front of her parents and non-husband, but nobody cared.

Eh, I am going to go into lame fanboy apologist mood and simply ask, "Why do you think this series was meant to be realistic?"

Bethesda has obviously been going for realism over time. They're removing abstraction with every game because of what I call literalfags - people unable to understand that what you see on the screen is merely an abstraction. Even the Codex is full of literalfags complaining about wiki dialogues, NPCs standing around and to-hit rolls in combat. Given this push for realism is it too much to ask for some scripting realism? Is raising NPCs really so "fringe" that Bethesda shouldn't bother with it? I'm not asking for specific dialogues for every NPC, but some generic "How dare you work your vile magicks?! Guards! Guards!" response to parading someone's now-undead naked daughter around would be pretty fucking appropriate.

Well, they have added abstraction of "doesn't matter how, just poison him", they have abstracted away primary stats, replacing various aspects of not very abstract and very commonsensical attributes like strength, intelligence, endurance, willpower, speed, with their aspects arbitrarily tied to health, fatigue and magicka.

I'd say abstraction is all well and that's the whole fucking problem with cRPGs, especially aRPGs.

If they instead of trying to make their games both simpler and more action like at the same time, tried to come up with reasonable parametrization of solid action mechanics into stats and broadening it to include non combat mechanics as well, we would have aRPGs that would be both, better RPGs and better action games.

I facepalm everytime I read about someone complaining that they couldn't tell if they hit their ememy or not in Morrowind.

Well, Morrowind could have used some miss/dodge/parry/failed to penetrate anims.

Skyrim npcs recognize when Pc is diseased

Having an undead thrall may not be much diff from a game state point of view

And if NPCs can react to specific NPCs as friends or families, they might just as well react to them being turned into undead abominations.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I just made this hierarchy of weapon damage. I'll start with the lowest damaging weapons to the highest damaging.

I am going to show the maximum damage that a character untrained in any weapons skills can do. You'll find the results interesting.

Greatsword - 48
Battleaxe - 50
Warhammer - 52
Bow - 57
Sword - 336
Waraxe - 360
Mace - 384
Dagger - 660

Yes, puny daggers do 13 times the damage of a warhammer. If you had maximum skill in stealth, and no skill in any weapons skill, then daggers rule the day. All these reflect the damage you can get from sneak attacks, and from Dark Brotherhood gloves. Dual-wielding sneak attacks are massively superior to everything else in the game.

Even if you were to eliminate results due to Dark Brotherhood gloves, the values would be still higher for one-handers and moreso for daggers.

Greatsword - 48
Battleaxe - 50
Warhammer - 52
Bow - 57
Sword - 168
Waraxe - 180
Mace - 192
Dagger - 330

 

[Majestic47]

So you swing the greataxe when spotted and draw the untrained dagger or bow when sneaking. Gotcha.

Does bow even take into account of Daedric arrows?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Oh crap, no.

Recalculating, I see that bows do 132 damage maximum. So bows are just short of One Handed Sneak Attacks, but you get the distance advantage of not getting caught, if it is broad daylight.

I can't believe I did a Two Handed playthrough with this game. A stealth-based character is superior to any weapons specialist, as I discovered when I recently opened a separate character for experimenting only.

Why work so hard to get an 80% damage bonus, when a sneak attack just offers a 100% bonus for nothing? Why bother with Two Handed, when any sneak attack with any One Handed weapon will do 15 times the damage, or 30 times when duel wielding?

Oh, and getting spotted does not even enter the equation. At moderate to high levels of stealth, such as 60+, you will never get spotted. You need 60 to get special sneak attacks for bows and one-handed weapons. And you need 80 for getting the 15X dagger sneak attack.

With a dagger sneak attack, you can even kill dragons instantly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKiIXfVPGsM

 

[Gord]

I can't believe I did a Two Handed playthrough with this game. A stealth-based character is superior to any weapons specialist, as I discovered when I recently opened a separate character for experimenting only.

Man, do you guys all have OCD or something?
Why do some people analyze a single player game like Skyrim to find the "best" (read most exploitative) build and then conclude that this is the only way this game is supposed to be played?

Obviously I am a larper after all when I try do play this games around a certain character type rather than the one character that uses the highest number of exploits...

Btw. while you're at it, don't forget to get muffled boots and invisibility spell (so you don't have to try while sneaking) and also level smithing and enchanting to 100 as fast a s possible. Then you can truly complain about how broken the game is.



P.S.: Get a bucket, too...

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

But that's it, Gord. A game shouldn't resort to larping to remain engaging.


But the way, LARPing is "Live action role playing".
Why do people of the Codex use it to describe people who choose a certain role and stick to it in a cRPG?
That ain't LARP. That's, well, roleplaying in a videogame.

 

[roll-a-die]

I've come to revise my opinion on Skyrim after about 10 more hours of play than I made most of my previous posts with, it's really quite a shitty game.


Here's the reason, and this is likely entirely pure preference, but I'll say it anyway. Good gameplay can make a flagging story seem good(In RPG terms think Knights of the Chalice or ToEE, in other genres think Deus Ex, where the gameplay, and general good design of the levels came together with a nearly terrible cliche story to make an awesome game.) A good story can make terrible gameplay seem fantastic, (RPG terms thing Planescape Torment. In other genres, think the entire genera of pixel hunter adventure games.) but a shitty story, combined with bar decent gameplay can't make a game decent.

In fact the terrible story, combines with the low end of decent gameplay, and makes you reconsider everything else. World design is flagging, all of the cities have basically the same theme, that of a 2 or 3 tiered city. Few houses, steps, nother few houses, steps, castle. They'd make more sense as fortress designs than anything else. The loading screens are atrocious, and Matt's Podcast really brought this up to me, they are so long, that they are annoying, but they aren't long enough you can legitimately complain about them before they end. It's like playing catch with a kid with moderate to severe palsy, "Come on, are you gonna go get the ball, OK I'll get the ball, OK then, you're going to get the ball." The models they show on them, are shitty, low res, and uninteresting. You wanna know what would be an interesting concept for a loading screen. A puzzle, you wouldn't have to do the puzzle, but the puzzle would be there to do as the game loads. Knowing the way bethesda thinks though the puzzle would be uninteresting as well, and there'd only be about 10 variations.

Anyway continuing on, the whole viking magic world of awesome fantastic racism filled nord with beards and manly chest hair and shouting and yelling and rapacious fist fights, and lack of milk drinking elves with their pansy ways of killing humans with magic. DOES NOT PORTRAY THE SOCIETY OF NORDS EFFECTIVELY AT ALL. Nords are racist, but you can walk into the Stormcloaks as a FUCKING ALTMER, and join right up, death to the empire and all that. Skyrim is for nords, but no one ever truly discriminates against your character for any reason what so ever. There's territorial conflict, yet no one says anything if you are the Thane of solitude and you walk into the Stormcloak city, Windhelm I think it's called.


Not only that but as far as I can tell, this is the first elder scrolls plot to differ from the core idea that made the Elder Scrolls game different from all the other fantasy games. That all of this high fantasy mayhem, arises from POLITICAL FUCKING INTRIGUE. Not really much of an issue to anyone other than myself or anything, and OH GOD I CAN SEE WHY SKYWAY IS SUCH AN ANGRY CUNT NOW.


This game, in every way, OTHER than gameplay, is worse than Oblivion. In all other respects if fails completely, PACING, fails, the entire game feels rushed, unpolished, and unpadded, general buggyness, do I need to say anything, this game makes obsidian games look like the modest east LA apartments to it's bombed out roach infested New York crack din. I am a person who can play Morrowind on only QUICKSAVES AND AUTOSAVES(For those of you who have never done this, it's highly not recommended) and not suffer a single issue, and I've literally fallen through the world several times, and I've had to purge the gates of Whiterun of doubles of doubles of doubles of an NPC I have had no interaction with previously to having to purge the gate of 13 of him the first time. I've murdered the SAME FUCKING WEREWOLF 11 times wandering around the world, and I've had enemies with quest specific loot fall through the world rendering me unable to WITHOUT CHEATING, complete a faction quest line. VtMB wasn't this buggy. KotOR 2 didn't feel this rushed and unpolished.


Fuck that was a frothing rage I didn't know I had in me. Just putting this out there.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Obviously I am a larper after all when I try do play this games around a certain character type rather than the one character that uses the highest number of exploits...

If I wanted to play a certain character type, I would simply purchase fancy clothing in Solitude's stores, wear Masque of Clavicus Vile during my entire session, purchase a house, and and sit down near the fire place to read the in-game books. Rinse and repeat for 30 minute sessions of Skyrim everyday.

After all, I can even rationalize it and say that it is unrealistic to play a man who seeks trouble or tries to get himself killed. Better to play a luxurious retiree.

Come ON. This is a god damn VIDEOGAME. You do stuff like min-maxing all the time. And when you win or break the game, you do the same for any other game or engage yourself in another hobby.

 

[Kraszu]

But that's it, Gord. A game shouldn't resort to larping to remain engaging.


But the way, LARPing is "Live action role playing".
Why do people of the Codex use it to describe people who choose a certain role and stick to it in a cRPG?
That ain't LARP. That's, well, roleplaying in a videogame.

It is about somebody who choose a certain role, and pretends that the game recognizes it like only walking in armour when the game mechanics allows you to run in it. The only difference between LARPing is that LARPing is done outside.

 

[Kraszu]

Obviously I am a larper after all when I try do play this games around a certain character type rather than the one character that uses the highest number of exploits...

If I wanted to play a certain character type, I would simply purchase fancy clothing in Solitude's stores, wear Masque of Clavicus Vile during my entire session, purchase a house, and and sit down near the fire place to read the in-game books. Rinse and repeat for 30 minute sessions of Skyrim everyday.

After all, I can even rationalize it and say that it is unrealistic to play a man who seeks trouble or tries to get himself killed. Better to play a luxurious retiree.

Come ON. This is a god damn VIDEOGAME. You do stuff like min-maxing all the time. And when you win or break the game, you do the same for any other game or engage yourself in another hobby.

But when min maxing is so obvious then what is the point? I see it as giving yourself some challenge that is arbitrary but at least it is recognized by the game mechanics. Not using enchantment, and smiting skills makes the game harder, you at least don't pretend that it makes the game harder. Now the game shouldn't have obvious exploits but isn't like we have so much good games to choose from to not make any compromises, and be forced to focus on good parts, and disregard the rest to get any enjoyment from it.

 

[Codexlurker]

Well, Morrowind could have used some miss/dodge/parry/failed to penetrate anims.

It should be obvious when the player doesn't hear a hit sound. There isn't even a need for a miss anim though. Miss could come up every time you fail at hitting.

 

[Gord]

Come ON. This is a god damn VIDEOGAME. You do stuff like min-maxing all the time. And when you win or break the game, you do the same for any other game or engage yourself in another hobby.

Sure, but I simply don't understand why you are coming to the conclusion that the min-maxing has to be centered around the damage output instead of a certain character "class".
Of course I try to build a strong character, but I do starting from a certain playstyle.
If I want to play a destruction mage, I use destruction spells, if I want to play a sword'n'board warrior, I'll do so.
The min-maxing is applied around the build I want to play, instead of creating a build around some min-max paradigm.

So these characters might not be the most efficient, but what do I care? The fun comes from playing the character I want, not from playing the same fucking character every time simply because he has the highest damage output.
It's not as if the game is PvP or balanced around the single most optimized build.

But the way, LARPing is "Live action role playing".

I know about the original meaning of the acronym, but the usage on the codex obviously has come to mean "someone who pretends to live a real life inside a cRPG". Also compare this.
Lately it seems to refer also to people that refrain from obvious meta-gaming or powergaming.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Metagaming is bad, obviously, but don't many RPGs have corrections to prevent them?

If you are playing World of Xeen and you know in advance which powerful item is to be found where, you will still not go there, because the enemies will instantly kill you.

It is (sort of) the same in Skyrim, in which it is a bad idea for a Level 1 character to be wandering around too freely on foot. He will not survive fighting two necromancers simultaneously. Or the first Hagraven that spots him.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

But that's it, Gord. A game shouldn't resort to larping to remain engaging.


But the way, LARPing is "Live action role playing".
Why do people of the Codex use it to describe people who choose a certain role and stick to it in a cRPG?
That ain't LARP. That's, well, roleplaying in a videogame.

We don't. "Roleplaying" means you're just playing according to your character (Playing as a barbarian? Pick fights, don't run away unless strictly necessary and refuse to use gay magic). But when you start to interact with npcs in ways the game clearly doesn't acknowledge (Playing as a barbarian? Collect hides and pretend you're offering them to the god of hunting), that's something else. Since in LARPing people gather around pretending to be doing something (acting), the expression was fitting enough.

Depending on how practical they are, some codexers may use it to describe any action they deem suboptimal (Yeah, I'm a barbarian, but I'll still run from fights and use magic because I like it that way). Check mondblut's sig.

tl;dr: If the game acknowledges your actions, you're "roleplaying", alright. If you're making up stories in your head, it's "larping".

edit: Bleh. Krazsu's explanation was shorter and simpler.