Elder Scrolls V Bugs

[TheOneBearded]

I must be the chosen one because I did not encounter any game breaking bugs and I bought the game on release day. Not a single freeze or crash either. PC version.

Damn Jensen, did you hack the game to make it run smoothly on the PC? Games on the PC are the ones where all the bugs are usually and quickly found.

OT: I bought it on the first day for the 360 and I didn't get any bugs other than the NASA Giant and the random, greedy dragon that doesn't want to give up its soul. Same thing happened in Fallout: NV - everyone was bitching about the bugs, but I never got any.

 

[Atmos Duality]

What would a normal levelling be in a TES game?

Really shitty, convoluted and prone to breaking any sense of gameplay balance.

 

[Starke]

Even "qqq" is slower to close down the game and everything.

You sure about that? I tend to use qqq to quit out of the game normally because it's near instant.

There's that one basically game-breaking bug where instead of leveling normally you have to grind every single skill individually. Oh, wait, that's just the leveling system.

You mean, like every TES game? Doesn't it actually make sense that you become better at butt-kicking by kicking butt, not by doing something completely different, like shopping, and then choose to level up your butt-kicking skill by 5 points?

Not every. It's actually absent from Arena.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

There's that one basically game-breaking bug where instead of leveling normally you have to grind every single skill individually. Oh, wait, that's just the leveling system.

Hahaha, yeah, that's the bug where you increase your level by actually getting better at the things you do instead of getting arbitrary levels just because you killed X number of wolves.

Oh, wait, that's intelligent game design, not a bug...

Stupidity aside, OT:

I keep having issues with Dragons not giving me their tasty, tasty souls when they die, and not skeletonizing like they should.

So it's intelligent to have to build 1,000,000 iron daggers before you can make more stuff? Because that's great fun! Same with enchanting and alchemy. Not so much alchemy. It's fine for the other skills, but it really should have been done differently for those three. Practicality and gameplay should always trump that kind of nitpick.

Except they fixed Smithing in Patch 1.5 to increase your skill proportional to the value of the item you create, so now forging better equipment levels you up faster. Which is right in line with Alchemy and Enchanting, so if you feel you're levelling too slowly, make some more valuable potions or enchanted items.

That patch hasn't fixed it at all. It still takes just as long, no matter what you make. You should not have to grind at all in any game. Alcheemy is slightly different, because you always need more potions, but for enchanting and smithing, you have to make a lot of pointless equipment and enchantments to create the better equipment and enchantments to level up quicker to build the better equipment and enchantments. It's just a boring pointless grind.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Except they fixed Smithing in Patch 1.5 to increase your skill proportional to the value of the item you create, so now forging better equipment levels you up faster. Which is right in line with Alchemy and Enchanting, so if you feel you're levelling too slowly, make some more valuable potions or enchanted items.

Or download a mod that lets you do what any decent RPG system of this type does and put points directly into your skills of choice on level-up. All the TES system adds to the basic leveling model is what essentially amounts to a ludicrously clunky interface.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

Although to me I thought that Skyrim was really fun and cool but what I didn't like the most about it is the enornous amount of bugs it had. For example I wanted to get married, I went to the city and they told me to talk to a man named Marmal, so I went there and he wasn't there for the whole time I have been there. Also the time when I went to pick up my sword and it just dropped.

A friend of mine had a similar issue. He ended up going to the nearby Inn and accidentally stumbled upon him. May not be the case for you though.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Because "Yay, I killed a wolf! Now I'm better at making potions!" makes absolutely no bloody sense. There's your argument.

Neither does: "I got mauled by three wolves! Give me about 3 minutes to walk it off!" or "I spent an hour sneaking behind this really unobservant dude! Now I am Sam Fisher!"

 

[Chairman Miaow]

There's that one basically game-breaking bug where instead of leveling normally you have to grind every single skill individually. Oh, wait, that's just the leveling system.

Hahaha, yeah, that's the bug where you increase your level by actually getting better at the things you do instead of getting arbitrary levels just because you killed X number of wolves.

Oh, wait, that's intelligent game design, not a bug...

Stupidity aside, OT:

I keep having issues with Dragons not giving me their tasty, tasty souls when they die, and not skeletonizing like they should.

So it's intelligent to have to build 1,000,000 iron daggers before you can make more stuff? Because that's great fun! Same with enchanting and alchemy. Not so much alchemy. It's fine for the other skills, but it really should have been done differently for those three. Practicality and gameplay should always trump that kind of nitpick.

Except they fixed Smithing in Patch 1.5 to increase your skill proportional to the value of the item you create, so now forging better equipment levels you up faster. Which is right in line with Alchemy and Enchanting, so if you feel you're levelling too slowly, make some more valuable potions or enchanted items.

That patch hasn't fixed it at all. It still takes just as long, no matter what you make. You should not have to grind at all in any game. Alcheemy is slightly different, because you always need more potions, but for enchanting and smithing, you have to make a lot of pointless equipment and enchantments to create the better equipment and enchantments to level up quicker to build the better equipment and enchantments. It's just a boring pointless grind.

I'm sorry, who said you had to grind? Did Bethesda include a person to hold a gun to your head in the collector's edition of the game? Who says that you even have to touch Smithing or Enchanting at all? Given how much loot the game hands to you, you're never hurting to find something with awesome enchantments. If someone wants to minmax like a good little twink, they have to put in the extra effort.

Wow, the passive-agressiveness.

No, but maybe I WANT my character to smith or enchant. I now cannot do that unless I grind the hell out of it. Nobody says you actually have to be able to use magic or melee or ranged in Skyrim, but if you had to attack a dummy with those skills for hours to improve them, you would sure as hell be complaining.

 

[Justyn Stahll]

My companions
They are thick as bricks and Lydia managed to get stuck in the ground and wouldn't stop shouting there was an enemy around...there was none, anywhere, and I couldn't fat travel away because of the stupid game thought there was an enemy...

Captcha : Gung Ho, I tried Lydia and that ended with you in the side of a mountain

 

[Vrach]

There's that one basically game-breaking bug where instead of leveling normally you have to grind every single skill individually. Oh, wait, that's just the leveling system.

Hahaha, yeah, that's the bug where you increase your level by actually getting better at the things you do instead of getting arbitrary levels just because you killed X number of wolves.

Oh, wait, that's intelligent game design, not a bug...

Stupidity aside, OT:

I keep having issues with Dragons not giving me their tasty, tasty souls when they die, and not skeletonizing like they should.

So it's intelligent to have to build 1,000,000 iron daggers before you can make more stuff? Because that's great fun! Same with enchanting and alchemy. Not so much alchemy. It's fine for the other skills, but it really should have been done differently for those three. Practicality and gameplay should always trump that kind of nitpick.

Yeah, it's called learning the trade, you don't go designing something complicated until you have the simpler stuff down. Also, your hyperbole is really stupid considering how fast and ridiculously easy it is to level smithing, it's just a few smiths per point and since they make profit, you can just keep buying the materials from the town blacksmith and selling them back, it takes 0 effort (personally, I just leveled it naturally as I picked up mats in the world)

OT: Had (and still do I think) the bug where I can't buy the house in Windhelm due to the quest not starting right. Aside from that, had the backwards flying dragons when they were a problem, though it was sorted in days and that's about it.

Oh and right now with the new beta patch I have the issue where when I press Esc, the sides of the screen outside the menu flash green like crazy. But being a beta patch, doesn't really count

 

[Riddle78]

There's an odd crash to desktop,and the odd invulnerable enemy that needs to die (I'm looking at you,Alduin!),and some minor graphical bugs with the execution moves,especially some of the more awesome ones for two-handers when you're near some scenery. But nothing too bad. The invulnerable enemies can be fixed right up by restarting the game.

Captcha: Good for nothing. The game isn't good for nothing,you foul,foul spam-bot slayer!

 

[Kahunaburger]

Saying you want to smith or enchant the best gear in the game without having to work for it,

And herein likes the problem with TES leveling.

Where a good leveling system would scale your character's power based on gameplay that's actually fun - dungeoneering, questing, and the like - TES scales several aspects of your character's power based on grinding for ingredients, then clicking through menus. It's essentially [url-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFCZMEwl_K8]planet-scanning[/url]. Quoth Egoraptor: "What? Huh? What? What? An element in a game wasn't made solely for me to have fun? Oh... no... that's... no..."

Neither does: "I got mauled by three wolves! Give me about 3 minutes to walk it off!" or "I spent an hour sneaking behind this really unobservant dude! Now I am Sam Fisher!"

Oh, as opposed to "I spent five hours killing wolves in the forest, and now I'm strong enough to kill a dragon" that comes from a standard levelling system?

No, they're all equally unrealistic. Which is why simulationism is not a good excuse for the TES leveling system, because it doesn't actually simulate anything.

 

[piinyouri]

The Shield Charge bug is possibly one of the worst ones that isn't a quest bug.

 

[Eamar]

Right at the beginning, after the dragon shows up and you escape being executed, when you run into the nearby tower and then the dragon smashes through the wall, thus advancing the plot...

Yeah, the dragon never smashed through the wall. I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. Right at the beginning of the fucking game. Had to start over, and that was just the first of many (to my mind) completely unacceptable bugs. Suffice it to say Skyrim and I didn't get along too well.

 

[DoPo]

Even "qqq" is slower to close down the game and everything.

You sure about that? I tend to use qqq to quit out of the game normally because it's near instant.

Yes, I get a (minor) delay with qqq - a half a second or so. A CTD doesn't get that, you can literally miss it if you blink at the right (wrong?) time. But what really annoys me is that there is no indication whatsoever of something going wrong at any point before or after the CTD, aside from suddenly staring at something that's not the game.

So far, I haven't seen a single convincing argument for TES leveling vs. selecting skills at level-up.

Because there isn't one. I mean, the idea behind the TES levelling is cool and all but the actual execution is beyond horrible. I'm fairly sure it is possible for the concept to work in a video game, but certainly not in the way Bethesda have been tackling it so far.

 

[Dr Jones]

There's that one basically game-breaking bug where instead of leveling normally you have to grind every single skill individually. Oh, wait, that's just the leveling system.

I like that leveling system :C

 

[Jynthor]

I've had plenty of bugs, but to be honest, I don't mind that much thanks to the modding community and the console.

But yeah, sometimes they're funny.
There was this one time when I killed a dragon and when I returned later, its skeleton suddenly lied on a different place with its legs in the air.
Or this time when Lydia glitched out and started spinning around.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

There's that one basically game-breaking bug where instead of leveling normally you have to grind every single skill individually. Oh, wait, that's just the leveling system.

Hahaha, yeah, that's the bug where you increase your level by actually getting better at the things you do instead of getting arbitrary levels just because you killed X number of wolves.

Oh, wait, that's intelligent game design, not a bug...

Stupidity aside, OT:

I keep having issues with Dragons not giving me their tasty, tasty souls when they die, and not skeletonizing like they should.

So it's intelligent to have to build 1,000,000 iron daggers before you can make more stuff? Because that's great fun! Same with enchanting and alchemy. Not so much alchemy. It's fine for the other skills, but it really should have been done differently for those three. Practicality and gameplay should always trump that kind of nitpick.

Except they fixed Smithing in Patch 1.5 to increase your skill proportional to the value of the item you create, so now forging better equipment levels you up faster. Which is right in line with Alchemy and Enchanting, so if you feel you're levelling too slowly, make some more valuable potions or enchanted items.

That patch hasn't fixed it at all. It still takes just as long, no matter what you make. You should not have to grind at all in any game. Alcheemy is slightly different, because you always need more potions, but for enchanting and smithing, you have to make a lot of pointless equipment and enchantments to create the better equipment and enchantments to level up quicker to build the better equipment and enchantments. It's just a boring pointless grind.

I'm sorry, who said you had to grind? Did Bethesda include a person to hold a gun to your head in the collector's edition of the game? Who says that you even have to touch Smithing or Enchanting at all? Given how much loot the game hands to you, you're never hurting to find something with awesome enchantments. If someone wants to minmax like a good little twink, they have to put in the extra effort.

Wow, the passive-agressiveness.

No, but maybe I WANT my character to smith or enchant. I now cannot do that unless I grind the hell out of it. Nobody says you actually have to be able to use magic or melee or ranged in Skyrim, but if you had to attack a dummy with those skills for hours to improve them, you would sure as hell be complaining.

If you want your character to smith or enchant, then you have them smith or enchant. If you want to smith or enchant better things, you work on getting better at smithing and enchanting.

Saying you want to smith or enchant the best gear in the game without having to work for it, is like saying you want to be able to kill Alduin right after leaving Helgen.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying I want it to be FUN to work for it. Not pointless. Did you completely miss the whole dummy analogy?

 

[Starke]

Even "qqq" is slower to close down the game and everything.

You sure about that? I tend to use qqq to quit out of the game normally because it's near instant.

Yes, I get a (minor) delay with qqq - a half a second or so. A CTD doesn't get that, you can literally miss it if you blink at the right (wrong?) time. But what really annoys me is that there is no indication whatsoever of something going wrong at any point before or after the CTD, aside from suddenly staring at something that's not the game.

Huh...

I know that calling faulty data from the database (the .esm file) will cause an immediate process termination in some cases, but it should be exactly the same speed as a qqq.

There should be an unofficial patch out there that deals with these, I know there's one for New Vegas and Fallout 3, and I believe the same team put one together for Oblivion. (And, no, I don't mean the Unofficial Patch mod.) I'll see if I can dig up the Nexus link.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Because there isn't one. I mean, the idea behind the TES levelling is cool and all but the actual execution is beyond horrible. I'm fairly sure it is possible for the concept to work in a video game, but certainly not in the way Bethesda have been tackling it so far.

I could possibly see it working if it was much more general - like improving your magic would also increase alchemy, and improving your axehandling would also increase smithing. Much as it pains me to say this, maybe Fable had the right sort of idea with an XP pool that could be spent on all skills and XP sub-pools that could be spent on specific sorts of skills. I dunno if that would actually work at all in practice, though.