Elder scrolls- two steps forward, two steps back?

[SajuukKhar]

While in Skyrim you somehow feel weaker as the game progresses compared to that warrior guy over there. Spell Creation could fix this because you could create spells equal to the warriors damage or even greater than if you want to go that way. Spell making gives you freedom that the mage lacks, well he atleast lacks freedom in my opinion, however it would still be more freedom.

I will admit that Skyrim's destruction magic system is broken. However, spellmaking is not needed to fix it.

To fix Skyrim's destruction magic it needs to
1. Scale as you level your destruction skill, as sword damage does when you raise your one-handed skills. This would cancel out the additional damage swords have
2. Have +destruction damage enchants

an exploit is an exploit whether is is easy or not. Those who won't won't. Plus it is as ingle player game. What the fuck does it matter if I use an exploit. also to paraphrase your argument, an exploit of the spell making system is only done by someone who exploits, and that is thier choice to use exploits.

If you are going to exploit, then there should at least be some consequence for it. Being the "smith anything to X" god exploit requires you spend many perk points, if they could create a similar system for spell making, requiring you to spend many perk points in order to be able to exploit it, I would gladly accept it.

There is also the fact that such exploitative spellmkaing ruins the believability of the world. If making a spell that could one-hit kill Vivec, and immortal god-king, was possible, then Vivec would have been dead long ago. A game's systems should at least somewhat reflect the lore of the world, or else you end up creating a game that doesn't match the world the game itself is trying to pass off.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Action games have been around forever.

Except during the time when technological limitations prevented action heavy RPGs from working well.

The only person who is "spewing nonsense" are people who deny the reason why D&D is the way it is.

D&D the boardgame only exists in the form it does because it is impossible to accurately simulate a person's ability in a boardgame, and thus the use of proxy systems is needed, not because it is some holy-pure-and sent by god-perfect RPG system, and had it been possible to accurately simulate a person's ability in a boardgame, there is no doubt it would have been made that way.

and video-games that use the D&D system only do so because
1. Video games were unable to do large scale RPgs in any other form and not suck chunks.
2. Because people hate change and will cling onto systems, no matter how outdated, simply because they are more use to it, and not because they are more "deep" or "complex".

And that will never stop being fact.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Fact only in the world of Khar.

Actually its fact in the word of anyone who takes an objective look at D&D, its systems, and why its systems exist in the form that they do.

 

[Thoric485]

I'd say it's two steps forward, one step back, which is far better than most long-running video game franchises. And it has a very active modding community to inject additional variety and complexity into the games.

 

[The_Lost_King]

While in Skyrim you somehow feel weaker as the game progresses compared to that warrior guy over there. Spell Creation could fix this because you could create spells equal to the warriors damage or even greater than if you want to go that way. Spell making gives you freedom that the mage lacks, well he atleast lacks freedom in my opinion, however it would still be more freedom.

I will admit that Skyrim's destruction magic system is broken. However, spellmaking is not needed to fix it.

To fix Skyrim's destruction magic it needs to
1. Scale as you level your destruction skill, as sword damage does when you raise your one-handed skills. This would cancel out the additional damage swords have
2. Have +destruction damage enchants

Ok Yes that would fix the Destruction damage, I will admit that.However, it still wouldn't be as fun as it would be with spell making. Like I said it lacks the freedom.

an exploit is an exploit whether is is easy or not. Those who won't won't. Plus it is as ingle player game. What the fuck does it matter if I use an exploit. also to paraphrase your argument, an exploit of the spell making system is only done by someone who exploits, and that is thier choice to use exploits.

If you are going to exploit, then there should at least be some consequence for it. Being the "smith anything to X" god exploit requires you spend many perk points, if they could create a similar system for spell making, requiring you to spend many perk points in order to be able to exploit it, I would gladly accept it.[/quote]
Well the higher damage speels usually use a lot of magicka so you have to be a pretty hight level to use them unless you are using other , enchanting exploits which you need perks for. Happy?

There is also the fact that such exploitative spellmkaing ruins the believability of the world. If making a spell that could one-hit kill Vivec, and immortal god-king, was possible, then Vivec would have been dead long ago. A game's systems should at least somewhat reflect the lore of the world, or else you end up creating a game that doesn't match the world the game itself is trying to pass off.

You could easily replace spellmakingwith smithing and 1 hit spell with a million damage sword.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Well the higher damage speels usually use a lot of magicka so you have to be a pretty hight level to use them unless you are using other , enchanting exploits which you need perks for. Happy?

They tried that with Oblivion's spell making system, and people were still able to make spells that paralyzed people for like two full minutes, and did 10 damage a second each second for those two minutes, and that cost nearly nothing.

You could easily replace spellmakingwith smithing and 1 hit spell with a million damage sword.

Smithing by itself doesn't make swords OP, 100 smithing skill+dragon smithing perk, can only take a Dragonbone sword up to 75 damage, and even with 3 +25% smithign items, it only goes up to 100, which is low considering most higher level Drauger have 1000+ hp, many higher level Falmer have like 900, and higher level dragons have 3000+. Smithing+alchemy+enchanting exploits combined with a butt ton of perks, and potions, and enchanted objects,make smithing OP. But each of those skills in itself isn't.

There also is a very large difference between just making a overpwoered spell, and power gaming with a bunch of specially made items and potions in order to do something like smithing exploits.

 

[zehydra]

The only thing I disagreed with was the Skyrim stat/perk trees. I much prefer that system than the arbitrary increase in points to particular skills. Morrowind had a terrible stat system.

 

[WoW Killer]

Not to mention the fact that
-Axes do bleed damage
-Maces have armor piercing powers
-Swords do bonus critical damage

Well I wouldn't dwell too much on those differences personally, as they're all passive effects. More important for me is that say a Sword and a Greatsword are genuinely different playstyles, and whether you use a shield or not is a mechanically different thing. This wasn't true in Morrowind.

While in Skyrim
you somehow feel weaker as the game progresses compared to that warrior guy over there. Spell Creation could fix this because you could create spells equal to the warriors damage or even greater than if you want to go that way. Spell making gives you freedom that the mage lacks, well he atleast lacks freedom in my opinion, however it would still be more freedom.

The problem I had with spell creation was that there was little use in moderation. If you have 100 Magicka then there's no point in making a spell that costs 50 Magicka and two shots a target as opposed to a spell that costs 100 Magicka and one shots them. It felt like a very linear exercise like "I've got an extra 10 Magicka now, I'd better recreate all these identical spells making them a bit more powerful". I would like to see a proper spell creation system for future games, but it's not like the old system was anything to cry about losing. It sounded like a great idea, but it didn't actually do anything mechanically different.

The only thing I disagreed with was the Skyrim stat/perk trees. I much prefer that system than the arbitrary increase in points to particular skills. Morrowind had a terrible stat system.

Just to reiterate: Yes! This was a big deal for me, and I know I'm not the only one.

If we're on the subject of D&D, has anybody played much of DDO? That's the most mechanically faithful video game representation I've seen. It might not be the best example of RNG versus skill mechanics though, as it has its own problems aside from RNG. If you start to introduce bigger numbers from the inevitable power creep into the D20 system then you start to see a lot of the mechanics break down. But that isn't the RNG basis bringing it down, and other RNG based mechanics would still work out.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Well I wouldn't dwell too much on those differences personally, as they're all passive effects. More important for me is that say a Sword and a Greatsword are genuinely different playstyles, and whether you use a shield or not is a mechanically different thing. This wasn't true in Morrowind.

I get what you are saying, I was just trying to show that, on top of one handed, two handed, dual weilding, etc. actually being different in Skyrim, there is another layer on top of that in giving weapons special effects like that, that add onto the increased diversity of weapons.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Plus I want to be able to make cool spells liek a flame spell that can calm people down.

That is exactly why they removed it. Smithing/Enchanting/Alchemy exploits only just take the already existing mechanics to higher levels. Spellmaking allows for abusive new mechanics such a damage while calm spells to be made.

Hey, what can I say, I like having interesting choices that can exploit the system. I like finding creative new ways to solve problems and conquer challenges. That is kind of the point of the emergent gameplay that RPGs do so well.

OT: Yeah, the Elder Scrolls series likes to experiment and change a lot with each entry. I really like that about them though; unlike many games, they are not averse to change, sometimes radical change, and no two games in the series are alike. I really wouldn't have it any other way. Still, I would like it if they merged all the most interesting/best parts of previous games into one big game, but oh well. XD

 

[Baralak]

-The back story was neutralised and bland. The main storyline was incredibly generic. Whereas morrowind had grey areas of "did vivec realy kill nerevar?"

Vivec admits to killing Nerevar in the 36 lessons of vivec
/quote]

Yeah, but the books in-game are 99% propoganda, and not entirely true.

 

[Burst6]

Yes, very much. Every melee weapon in Morrowind was the same. They had different damage amounts for different attacks, but you always used the most powerful attack at each and every opportunity regardless of the weapon (and there's even an option to automate this). So you only have three distinct mechanics: melee, archery, and magic. Three mechanics. In Skyrim you have six distinct mechanics: two-hand, sword/board, duel-wield, battle mage, archery, and magic (not even including one-hand + free-hand). But still you get post after post lamenting that Greatsword and Greataxe don't have separate progression bars, or that Spears aren't in the game any more.

The thing i hate most about oblivion and skyrim is that they're in a very very uncomfortable position.

While earlier games had a lot of RPG depth, the modern games removed all that depth and made a very half assed attempt to include action. The combat is basically skilless and usually boils down to going up to someone and hitting them repeatedly, so all those nice new melee styles that are available mean almost nothing. The only difference between most of the melee weapon types is whether you're trading damage for the ability to block well.

In a lot of action RPG's the weapons are very different. In, say Dragons Dogma, the sword and shield lets you attack faster, climb monsters quicker, attack while defending at the same time, taunt enemies to attack you, hold enemies in place while doing large damage, easily take down flying enemies, do evasive attacks and more. And this is only for one class. Another class can use their shields to enchant weapons, reflect attacks with magic fireballs, place magic sigils on the ground, summon rock spikes to impale enemies, etc .. A greatsword gives you wider attacks, easy knockdown hits, powerful counterattacks, and massive damage charge attack.

Yes skyrim got new mechanics, but they aren't anywhere near the levels of depth that most other action RPGs have gotten to and they don't make up for the loss in RPG elements.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Well the higher damage speels usually use a lot of magicka so you have to be a pretty hight level to use them unless you are using other , enchanting exploits which you need perks for. Happy?

They tried that with Oblivion's spell making system, and people were still able to make spells that paralyzed people for like two full minutes, and did 10 damage a second each second for those two minutes, and that cost nearly nothing.

You could easily replace spellmakingwith smithing and 1 hit spell with a million damage sword.

Smithing by itself doesn't make swords OP, 100 smithing skill+dragon smithing perk, can only take a Dragonbone sword up to 75 damage, and even with 3 +25% smithign items, it only goes up to 100, which is low considering most higher level Drauger have 1000+ hp, many higher level Falmer have like 900, and higher level dragons have 3000+. Smithing+alchemy+enchanting exploits combined with a butt ton of perks, and potions, and enchanted objects,make smithing OP. But each of those skills in itself isn't.

There also is a very large difference between just making a overpwoered spell, and power gaming with a bunch of specially made items and potions in order to do something like smithing exploits.

No there isn't. The difference is one is easier. That is it. You still don't have to uuse it so it doesn't matter if it is op or not because it is a fucking single player game! People play how they want and it doesn't affect you that there is an exploit. you don't have to use it. It won't hurt you in any way.

While in Skyrim
you somehow feel weaker as the game progresses compared to that warrior guy over there. Spell Creation could fix this because you could create spells equal to the warriors damage or even greater than if you want to go that way. Spell making gives you freedom that the mage lacks, well he atleast lacks freedom in my opinion, however it would still be more freedom.

The problem I had with spell creation was that there was little use in moderation. If you have 100 Magicka then there's no point in making a spell that costs 50 Magicka and two shots a target as opposed to a spell that costs 100 Magicka and one shots them. It felt like a very linear exercise like "I've got an extra 10 Magicka now, I'd better recreate all these identical spells making them a bit more powerful". I would like to see a proper spell creation system for future games, but it's not like the old system was anything to cry about losing. It sounded like a great idea, but it didn't actually do anything mechanically different.

Well then use it in moderation . If someone else doesn't use it in moderation and you do it doesn't matter. it is a single player game, this is Skyrim not TSO.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Yeah, but the books in-game are 99% propoganda, and not entirely true.

This however was written in code and later confirmed by one of the series lore writers.

"He was not born a god. His destiny did not lead him to this crime. He chose this path of his own free will. He stole the godhood and murdered the Hortator. Vivec wrote this."

No there isn't. The difference is one is easier. That is it. You still don't have to uuse it so it doesn't matter if it is op or not because it is a fucking single player game! People play how they want and it doesn't affect you that there is an exploit. you don't have to use it. It won't hurt you in any way.

Single-player games should at least have some attempt at balance, or at keeping the high level exploits out of the hand of people without having them first have to do a lot to get ot them.

The "its a single player game who cares about balance" excuse is a bad one, because it ignores the fact that gameplay should reflect the lore of the world to some extent, or else the game becomes unbelievable with itself.

 

[Joccaren]

I've been to those sites before, and frankly, they are worse then the Morrowind nostalgia people, they are everything wrong with videogame players nowadays.

Those "hardcore" RPG sites are filled with people stuck in the past, using obsolete systems, and hating on the current gen because it is different. they are the "old man who hates the younger generations music" stereotype defined.

Dice-roll combat only exists in the D&d board game because you cant recreate real-time combat against dragons IRL, games had a similar limitation during the old-days, which is why they needed it, but those technological limitations are gone, and thus it isn;t needed. Similarly, attribute systems only exist in D&D boardgame because the boardgame cant accurately simulate your powers, game also had a similar limitations, which now, no longer exist. D&D, and its ilk, are only "complex" because technology sucked so much to where it couldn't properly reflect a player's ability so they have to create proxy systems to simulate it.

However, due to technological progress, those proxy systems are no longer needed, and making games in that style just because you like it more is only the same as using a old 1980' brick cellphone and calling it "complex" because it is harder to use, sure its more complex, but that's only because its so out-of-date.

I have no desire to see the return of old-school RPG systems that only existed due to technological limitations outside of a few niche retro games. I would much rather play an RPG based on MY ability, not come computer throwing up RNG BS that takes most of the game out of my hands.

Whilst a number of things get blown out of proportion on those sorts of sites, RPG mechanics are not just 'Old outdated systems that only existed because technological limitations'. For one, even in the early days of gaming we had doom and its ilk. Games where you were in first person and fighting enemies. Were they as immersive as modern equivalents? No, but if you wanted to make a game about fighting dragons and things with your own skills it was possible.
You actually hit the reason a lot of people like these systems right on the head in your last paragraph. What happens isn't up to their ability, but based on their characters ability. If you don't want to have to have fast reflexes to do well at the game, or want to have to spam buttons to get anything done, the old style RPG concept is more for you. You don't have to do all the fighting, you don't have to be pro at killing dragons, you just have to design and lead someone who is. Designing all the stats and such to allow your character to do this is part of the fun. Whilst it may not be to your taste, its hardly a worse, out of date game mechanic because of such.
Its like saying manual cars are old and out of date, and should stop being made because we have automatics now. Sure, that's your taste and opinion, but others have their reasons for preferring the other side.

 

[Smolderin]

Oh my god...this again.

Of course what can I do right? My opinion goes against the majority. Most people think their games are being dumbed down with each installment and yet whenever I play through games like Skyrim, all I am seeing is improvement after improvement. The combat? Great, it's versatile, and allows you to play how you want. The story? Morrowind was good but it's story was much to long, Oblivion's was to short, but Skyrim hit the perfect length. The world itself? Beautiful and varied from snowy mountains, to vast caverns and forests. My favorite aspect is still in the game to, the books which contain all that beautiful lore.

And yet I see all these people complain and complain about each new installment. It's something like a tradition. For all the games improvements on the last installment, the last one is still for some reason unanimously better. Excuses and explanations abound to on why this is so, and yet no one focuses on the positives. Where Skyrim is concerned, the positives clearly outweigh the negatives. But in the end this all just my opinion..an opinion people have a good habit of calling me out on for, but an opinion nonetheless.

I just wish people would get the veil out of their eyes and focus on the good instead of the bad. Bethesda's games have their flaws to be sure but with each game, they ultimately achieve what they set out to do. People only say it's 1 step forwards (or in this threads case, 2) but 2 steps back, but I really do think its because they put to much emphasis on the negatives aspects of the games.

I'll stop now since I'm most likely opening up a can of worms here. No matter what I say people seem to feel so strongly about what is wrong with Bethesdas games that no matter what I say, there views won't be changed, but oh, they will definitely respond and fight me to the death in a verbal war to prove that I am wrong. But yet all I hear is *wah wah wah wah*.

So please, do go ahead and keep it up guys. Me, I'll just go ahead and enjoy Bethesda's games as they get better and better.

(*This is more of a 1 time statement, so feel free to respond but I won't be answering...but then again for some that is basically just a green light for people to get in a last word...and I know how people love to have the last word.*)

 

[SajuukKhar]

That's just plain not true. Augmented flame is just a different amount of damage, ecactly what you're dismissing from Oblivion. Either say hi to all these guys:

Vanilla game spells did not encompass all of those damage levels, and the vast majority of those level could only be made via spell making, which is an entirely different system in itself.

I was discussing pure vanilla spells in Oblivion, to vanilla spells in Skyrim.

Whilst a number of things get blown out of proportion on those sorts of sites, RPG mechanics are not just 'Old outdated systems that only existed because technological limitations'. For one, even in the early days of gaming we had doom and its ilk. Games where you were in first person and fighting enemies. Were they as immersive as modern equivalents? No, but if you wanted to make a game about fighting dragons and things with your own skills it was possible.
You actually hit the reason a lot of people like these systems right on the head in your last paragraph. What happens isn't up to their ability, but based on their characters ability. If you don't want to have to have fast reflexes to do well at the game, or want to have to spam buttons to get anything done, the old style RPG concept is more for you. You don't have to do all the fighting, you don't have to be pro at killing dragons, you just have to design and lead someone who is. Designing all the stats and such to allow your character to do this is part of the fun. Whilst it may not be to your taste, its hardly a worse, out of date game mechanic because of such.
Its like saying manual cars are old and out of date, and should stop being made because we have automatics now. Sure, that's your taste and opinion, but others have their reasons for preferring the other side.

Doom however could not support an open-world RPG like Skyrim successfully without playing like crap, and looking like crap.

Doom didn't even have directional targeting, your gun was always in a locked position, and couldn't be moved up or down.

I really don't see how people can enjoy a game that isn't played by them but played by a proxy created by them. That's like making a clone of yourself to watch a movie, and then watching him watch the movie. Why not just watch the movie yourself?

Or like making a clone of yourself to read a book for you, whilst all you do is puppet his arms to make him turn the pages, and move his head up and down so he reads all the lines on the page. Why not just read the book yourself?

D&D style RPGs lack player involvement in most of the game's systems, and consist mainly of making a proxy, then watching the computer control most of your proxies actions against NPCs while you sit there and watch it throw randomly generated numbers at itself. Which pretty much defeats the entire purposes of it being a game.

 

[beastro]

I just think that Bethesda kind of... always do some things worse than what they had before.
I can't remember if i played morrowind or oblivion first. I played skyrim soon after it came out. I played daggerfall after i did 95% of skyrim. I couldn't get into daggerfall. you're welcome to skip parts.

Daggerfall to Morrowind went along with the dumbing down of computers games that took place at the beginning of the last decade.

Oblivion to Skyrim and beyond is thanks to TES game snow being ported console games and the trend of adding The Sims type minigames and features to games.

I could be part way through a ruins, see my next level approaching, and have to stop everything, head back to town, and start the whole spamming cantrips or falling from buildings routine so that I wouldn't lose a few stat points. This was not immersive.

Then why did you do it?

It's unnecessary beyond getting max stats for sake of max stats.

I'm a freak when it comes to preparing for new games thanks to growing up on Final Fantasy and other games where if you missed out on a lot you couldn't get back to if you didn't know about before hand. Reading up on Morrowind ages back I nodded thinking it was REALLY important to squeeze every stat out... until I played it and after the initially challenge found my guy dominating on max difficulty regardless.

Thanks to that I forgot that BS and when Oblivion came around I played it at my own pace and focused entirely on being a sneaky assassin with no magic use (Always loved Atronach sign and never found the lack of mana use from no mana regen a problem).

There are less weapons in Skyrim because you can do MORE with them then in past game.

it destroys the sense of progression in gear.

Reminds me of playing the Neverwinter Nights single player story and only getting upgraded gear and weapons pretty much once per chapter with the rest of the game just being a tedious, uninteresting slaughter fest.

That's not to say that previous TES games were good about gear, but they certainly were better than Skyrim.

Also in Dragon Age: Origins, mages were still able to feel powerfull and feel more powerfull at higher levels and this felt like true arcane force and you actually compared yourself favorably to that warrior guy over there. While in Skyrim
you somehow feel weaker as the game progresses compared to that warrior guy over there. Spell Creation could fix this because you could create spells equal to the warriors damage or even greater than if you want to go that way. Spell making gives you freedom that the mage lacks, well he atleast lacks freedom in my opinion, however it would still be more freedom.

TES is a welcome change of pace since most RPGs have magic users being the OP classes.

You you ever played Everquest in it's Golden Age you'd know how much of a pain in the as it was to play a melee or hybrid in a game where casters dominated every aspect of the game besides the ability to tank raid mobs.

Casters are also, imo, boring. I tried playing them in TES and I find it extremely unengaging just like EQ casters beyond a handful of classes with a lot of flexibility like Necromancers. It's thanks to that game that I go out of my way to play melee classes now, and using Dragon Age Origins as an example, the only reason why I even touched casters in it at all is because the game provides the Arcane Warrior build where I can be a hybrid.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

That's what happens when you get about 4 or more years between games in a series- fairly substantial changes are made in each one.
I don't know if it's nostalgia that makes people feel so strongly for the older games in the series though?

 

[beastro]

That's what happens when you get about 4 or more years between games in a series- fairly substantial changes are made in each one.
I don't know if it's nostalgia that makes people feel so strongly for the older games in the series though?

Maybe that's the problem. The changes are too dramatic.