7 Reasons why Skyrim thinks the Dovahkiin is retarded.

[Zenn3k]

in terms of the important NPCs not dying its because due to the radiant AI the can be killed by anything anywhere regardless of player actions, as such you would likely find your self in a situation where someone was killed a by a troll and now you cant complete the main quest. in fact their are mods which although for them to be killed but most people turn it off very quickly after testing it out

other than that i do agree with you on your other points

I really can't stand this counter-argument, especially because its flat out false.


The game knows if the player is killing someone, or if a random Dragon/Bear is killing someone. The game knows the difference.

How do I know this? Companions (not the fighters guild). They are immortal when fighting NPCs, they die if you deal lethal damage.

Immortal NPCs only exist to prevent quest breaking, the trade off is you can't BE an actual assassin. Personally, I felt it ruined the game.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

in terms of the important NPCs not dying its because due to the radiant AI the can be killed by anything anywhere regardless of player actions, as such you would likely find your self in a situation where someone was killed a by a troll and now you cant complete the main quest. in fact their are mods which although for them to be killed but most people turn it off very quickly after testing it out

other than that i do agree with you on your other points

I really can't stand this counter-argument, especially because its flat out false.


The game knows if the player is killing someone, or if a random Dragon/Bear is killing someone. The game knows the difference.

How do I know this? Companions (not the fighters guild). They are immortal when fighting NPCs, they die if you deal lethal damage.

Immortal NPCs only exist to prevent quest breaking, the trade off is you can't BE an actual assassin. Personally, I felt it ruined the game.

Actually, they aren't immortal at all. When a Companion goes down what happens is the enemy AI switches to the next target, usually the PC, saving them from extra damage. If your Companion goes down while say, a Mage has a shroud active, your companion can die simply due to the exposure of the AoE.

Heck, I've seen companions get killed as a result of stray arrows and magic projectiles.

Why they don't get insta-killed by Sync-Kills (like getting eaten by a dragon) is because they have an extra, invisible health reserve specifically for when they are downed. When they take the last hit point of damage they go down, but instead of dying like the PC the reserve kicks in and saves them (and the Enemies refocus their attention). The PC doesn't trigger this though, which is why you can accidentally kill a companion with a stray attack if their HP is low enough.

This is why Dragon Fighting is risky business with companions. Their Fire and Ice shouts do Damage over Time which CAN last through the save. I could be wrong about this but I think the Companions get buffs to their resistances when downed, which helps negate most DoT bar the highest level Dragons and Enemies.

I noticed this especially during an early version where the Resistance modifiers against magic weren't working. Companions seemed to drop really easy during this time.

Sometimes the AI bugs out and continues to attack fallen Companions which can very much kill them in no time. I have no idea why this happens, though it might have something to do with Aggression spells or the PCs stealth modifiers.

EDIT: I believe that "Pet" companions don't work the same as regular companions, which is why, despite the PCs best efforts to avoid striking them, Pets seem to die with alarming frequency (the leveling bug has something to do with this too).

 

[wintercoat]

in terms of the important NPCs not dying its because due to the radiant AI the can be killed by anything anywhere regardless of player actions, as such you would likely find your self in a situation where someone was killed a by a troll and now you cant complete the main quest. in fact their are mods which although for them to be killed but most people turn it off very quickly after testing it out

other than that i do agree with you on your other points

I really can't stand this counter-argument, especially because its flat out false.


The game knows if the player is killing someone, or if a random Dragon/Bear is killing someone. The game knows the difference.

How do I know this? Companions (not the fighters guild). They are immortal when fighting NPCs, they die if you deal lethal damage.

Immortal NPCs only exist to prevent quest breaking, the trade off is you can't BE an actual assassin. Personally, I felt it ruined the game.

Actually, they aren't immortal at all. When a Companion goes down what happens is the enemy AI switches to the next target, usually the PC, saving them from extra damage. If your Companion goes down while say, a Mage has a shroud active, your companion can die simply due to the exposure of the AoE.

Heck, I've seen companions get killed as a result of stray arrows and magic projectiles.

Why they don't get insta-killed by Sync-Kills (like getting eaten by a dragon) is because they have an extra, invisible health reserve specifically for when they are downed. When they take the last hit point of damage they go down, but instead of dying like the PC the reserve kicks in and saves them (and the Enemies refocus their attention). The PC doesn't trigger this though, which is why you can accidentally kill a companion with a stray attack if their HP is low enough.

This is why Dragon Fighting is risky business with companions. Their Fire and Ice shouts do Damage over Time which CAN last through the save. I could be wrong about this but I think the Companions get buffs to their resistances when downed, which helps negate most DoT bar the highest level Dragons and Enemies.

I noticed this especially during an early version where the Resistance modifiers against magic weren't working. Companions seemed to drop really easy during this time.

Sometimes the AI bugs out and continues to attack fallen Companions which can very much kill them in no time. I have no idea why this happens, though it might have something to do with Aggression spells or the PCs stealth modifiers.

EDIT: I believe that "Pet" companions don't work the same as regular companions, which is why, despite the PCs best efforts to avoid striking them, Pets seem to die with alarming frequency (the leveling bug has something to do with this too).

Either way, it still proves that the game can tell the difference between an NPC attacking something and the PC, since it would have to in order to correctly trigger the downed state. Just make it so that, when on reserve HP, they're unkillable. Since the PC can't trigger the switch to a downed state, you would still be able to kill them without worrying that they'll be killed by a random mudcrab stampede or something.

 

[teebeeohh]

1. I don't like quest markers much either, but in a big open world RPG it's necessary.

Really? Morrowind and the Gothic games disagree with you. It is very possible to have a large, open game with directions that don't treat you like a moron.

quoted for truth
and even if you decide to go with quest arrows, fantasy games give you much better options to do this than random floating arrows, hand me a magic crystal that does basically the same but makes sense in the world

 

[teebeeohh]

1. I don't like quest markers much either, but in a big open world RPG it's necessary.

Really? Morrowind and the Gothic games disagree with you. It is very possible to have a large, open game with directions that don't treat you like a moron.

quoted for truth
and even if you decide to go with quest arrows, fantasy games give you much better options to do this than random floating arrows, hand me a magic crystal that does basically the same but makes sense in the world

 

[Saviordd1]

1. I don't like quest markers much either, but in a big open world RPG it's necessary.

Really? Morrowind and the Gothic games disagree with you. It is very possible to have a large, open game with directions that don't treat you like a moron.

Funny you should say that with Geralt as your background, since the Witcher gives you quest markers as well.

Basically its a matter of personal preference, some of us like being able to go do our quests without solving a riddle as to its location. If that makes me a dumb gamer then fine, but at least I'm having fun in my way.

 

[FightingFurball]

Since we are having a Skyrim thread, I found a particular interesting piece of information

[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/541/g3u.png/]

 

[DoPo]

1. I don't like quest markers much either, but in a big open world RPG it's necessary.

Really? Morrowind and the Gothic games disagree with you. It is very possible to have a large, open game with directions that don't treat you like a moron.

Funny you should say that with Geralt as your background, since the Witcher gives you quest markers as well.

Basically its a matter of personal preference, some of us like being able to go do our quests without solving a riddle as to its location. If that makes me a dumb gamer then fine, but at least I'm having fun in my way.

It's not really about you, it's about us who want to do it. We just can't. It's pretty much impossible not to use the giant floating arrow in Skytim, as there isn't an alternative source of information - the NPCs don't often tell you where to go, you just get them "OH, would you deliver this to my son" or "I lost my thingie, would you go fetch it" and similar without saying where to go. And the quest log most commonly says "I was told to go to X" with no indication in which part of the map to even find it.

 

[DoPo]

Since we are having a Skyrim thread, I found a particular interesting piece of information

[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/541/g3u.png/]

*sigh* which is false. But thanks for perpetuating it for us, truly that was an amazing finding that we cannot do without.

If you're interested, the earliest mention of this is a GameFAQs joke thread [http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615803-/63592963] but somehow few months later everybody decided to go "Yup, legit".

 

[Amir Kondori]

1. I don't like quest markers much either, but in a big open world RPG it's necessary.

Really? Morrowind and the Gothic games disagree with you. It is very possible to have a large, open game with directions that don't treat you like a moron.

Funny you should say that with Geralt as your background, since the Witcher gives you quest markers as well.

Basically its a matter of personal preference, some of us like being able to go do our quests without solving a riddle as to its location. If that makes me a dumb gamer then fine, but at least I'm having fun in my way.

It's not really about you, it's about us who want to do it. We just can't. It's pretty much impossible not to use the giant floating arrow in Skytim, as there isn't an alternative source of information - the NPCs don't often tell you where to go, you just get them "OH, would you deliver this to my son" or "I lost my thingie, would you go fetch it" and similar without saying where to go. And the quest log most commonly says "I was told to go to X" with no indication in which part of the map to even find it.

It would have been really nice if Bethesda had allowed both play styles, but now that they focus on the console crowd before PC everything, for better or for worse, has been simplified and streamlined. Some would call it dumbed down.

 

[FightingFurball]

Since we are having a Skyrim thread, I found a particular interesting piece of information

[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/541/g3u.png/]

*sigh* which is false. But thanks for perpetuating it for us, truly that was an amazing finding that we cannot do without.

If you're interested, the earliest mention of this is a GameFAQs joke thread [http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615803-/63592963] but somehow few months later everybody decided to go "Yup, legit".

You sure? ^^
dammit...

 

[DoPo]

It would have been really nice if Bethesda had allowed both play styles, but now that they focus on the console crowd before PC everything, for better or for worse, has been simplified and streamlined. Some would call it dumbed down.

Indeed. I'd go with "simplified" - "streamlined" would imply it got too much in the way before and "dumbed down" would imply most people are against the quest arrows. I can definitely live with them, and I won't shake my cane and yell at the kids to get off my lawn quest directions but I'd still like the option of going without them. Sure, there are mods to fix the quests - that's all fine and dandy, but I don't think this is one of the matters that should need mods - you can't mod the console version, for one, so any console players are left out of the fix.

You sure? ^^
dammit...

It's the earliest reference I could find. And there is no other information to confirm about this supposed "real meaning" of the phrase. So yeah, I'd say I'm reasonably sure that comment that gets reposted over and over again is false. I still don't know how can some random piece of text on the Internet be, in fact, not true but there you go.

 

[Ulvenkai]

4. No one cares

You killed the evil world ender; Alduin! Guess what? No one gives two major shits. But they will tell you this..."I WORK FOR BELATHOR, AT THE GENERAL GOODS STORE!"

This has been my personal gripe with Bethesda "RPGs" since the early days of The Elder Scrolls and the problem continued straight through to Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim. Needless to say, the trend is unlikely to let up in their future games.

Bethesda make great worlds but then they just plop a bunch of NPCs, buildings and environments down and loosely link some NPCs together to form quests and spend the rest of their insane budget on celebrity voice actors to lull the fanbois and press in.

 

[FightingFurball]

It would have been really nice if Bethesda had allowed both play styles, but now that they focus on the console crowd before PC everything, for better or for worse, has been simplified and streamlined. Some would call it dumbed down.

Indeed. I'd go with "simplified" - "streamlined" would imply it got too much in the way before and "dumbed down" would imply most people are against the quest arrows. I can definitely live with them, and I won't shake my cane and yell at the kids to get off my lawn quest directions but I'd still like the option of going without them. Sure, there are mods to fix the quests - that's all fine and dandy, but I don't think this is one of the matters that should need mods - you can't mod the console version, for one, so any console players are left out of the fix.

You sure? ^^
dammit...

It's the earliest reference I could find. And there is no other information to confirm about this supposed "real meaning" of the phrase. So yeah, I'd say I'm reasonably sure that comment that gets reposted over and over again is false. I still don't know how can some random piece of text on the Internet be, in fact, not true but there you go.

I kind of want to plead truthiness here since it fits so much better than the literary meaning

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

When you've got a game title that is all about choices and a wild range of different ways to approach certain things, the limitations are what make things hard and hairy. If it wouldn't be for certain characters being given 'plot armour' or plain invincibility, you could easily get stuck.

I had pretty few hiccups in my hundreds of hours of Skyrim, but once I managed to sneak right into the face of that one mage dude that was not supposed to see me. So, he got hostile and attacked me. I fought back, killed him, and then that whole plotline/quest was pretty much smoked beyond recognition.

I had one door/gate not open on cue, and there was just nothing that could be done to open it, as the cue had already been issued. I got around it by turning to the console, allowing me to walk through the closed door, which 'fixed' things.

All in all, though, I must say that Skyrim is quite an impressive work of art, and I can only imagine that programming/overseeing it all must have been a nightmare.

 

[IronMit]

1. Quest markers

I know it's not a vast open world but I played Deus ex:HR again recently and turned off objective markers and covered the radar (because you can't just turn it off). The game is actually balanced so you can play it this way. I was pretty impressed that a streamlined action-lite rpg did this. The hub areas of hengsha and detroit aren't that big but it's still awesome.

It's a bit disappointing that Bethesda games with there convoluted rpg systems and quests ruined the best part about exploring open worlds by making objective markers/maps a necessity.

Remember in the original deus ex - finding a map and trying to figure out where you are - that was immersion at it's finest

 

[DoPo]

You can turn off quest markers dude, it is fairly simple and requires no mod. I am sure there are mods that straight up give you no quest markers at all.

You can, you just don't have any directions to go off on. You need a mod to give you directions you can, you know use and not rely on a giant floating arrow. What's hard to understand?

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Funny you should say that with Geralt as your background, since the Witcher gives you quest markers as well.

Well, for one, you can't really compare The Witcher to an open-world game anyway. It's all very small and focused to the point where exploration isn't a hugely key factor. Kind of like in a shooter, it will tell you where to go because open-ended exploration and discovery isn't exactly its intention. Also, did the idea that I just really like the character of Geralt cross your mind as to why he is my avatar? Upon seeing your avatar, I assume you really like the Garrus character, rather than think of certain gameplay factors in Mass Effect.

 

[J Tyran]

1. Quest Markers

That's more of a nod to playability than anything else. Skyrim covers several square miles and finding a particular door or spot, especially if you've not been to the dungeon before, can be a chore. I enjoy exploration when it's on my own terms. When it's forced, what it effectively achieves is wasting my time.

Far worse than that was the way some of the quest descriptions where flat out wrong, then you are stuck deciding "I am fucking up or is the quest busted?" and it was damn frustrating.