I've played dozens of hours of skyrim already and not been to even half the cities yet. I've loved every minute of it and havent gotten the slightest bit tired of playing it yet.
That being said, there are some aspects of the game that REALLY bother me.
1. dragon corpses don't despawn in towns. I've encountered one dragon in a town so far, just about a week after I started playing skyrim. another couple of weeks later, and the corpse of that dragon is still laying right in the middle of whiterun. It was cool fighting the dragon in a town, defending the citizens and watching their reactions to the attack, but now its just a major eyesore. Every time I make a trip to town, there it is. It also has an annoying habit of teleporting all over town, chaning its position in the town seemingly every time I re-enter the main part of town. I mean, do they ever despawn or does it just take a really, really long time?
2. Kill animations. Not the ones you perform on enemies to finish them. Though kind of sloppily animated, they are still badass and everytime I kill an enemy with one I feel giddy. I'm talking about the ones enemies perform on you. I can't count the number of times I've been in a fight, watching my health bar to make sure I have plenty of health left so I don't die, when all of the sudden the view switches to first person, and I'm automatically killed. No chance to block, no chance to activate a healing spell, no chance to open the menu and use some potions, just instantly killed. The worst part is that this often happens when your health isn't even that low. I've had it happen when my health has been up to over half of my max health. That's just messed up. Also, this usually tends to happen after its been a while since I last saved, so I lose a lot of progress. I know its mostly my fault for not saving more often, but why should I expect to die when I still have over half my max hp left?
3. Magic is useless as a long range weapon. For starters, the novice level spells are literally useless at long range, since they have a constant cone effect at a short range out in front of your character. Ok, fine. They're the games basic spells, you would expect them to have their inadequacies. However, the next level of spell is almost equally as useless. Not that it isn't powerful enough or that it doesn't have long enough a range, but it moves somewhat slow, and npcs are godlike at dodging them. I will aim spells right at them, and they immediately dodge to the side right after I throw it at them. There's no way of leading them, because they stand still right until I cast the spell at them. Once in a blue moon I'll hit at long range, but pretty much all the time I need to move in to close to mid range to have a good enough chance of hitting something. the next level of spell after that has a nice area of effect damage where the spell strikes, and does high damage, but it also uses up a huge amount of magic. I can usually only cast a few dual spells of it before I'm out of magic, so if I don't hit all the enemies or miss a shot, it doesn't work well. However, with the destruction perk that makes dual casts stagger, spells work really well at mid range, which I enjoy using.
4. unkillable npcs. Ok, I understand that it is vital to the integrity of the story that some npcs remain alive, so I can accept that there are a few people I can't kill. The problem with unkillable npcs in this game is that there are so damn many of them. I typically play a good, heroic kind of character, however sometimes when I'm ready to quit playing, I'll make a last save, then massacre a town just for the heck of it. (not saving again afterwards of course). This is problematic in skyrim however, because of the vast number of unkillable npcs. I'll go through a town, slaying all in my path, attracting more people to fight and kill all the time. The problem is, a good number of the people I kill don't stay dead. Because of the large number of unkillables, I eventually gather a pretty large posse of people trying to kill me, none of which I can kill myself. So basically I lose. Sure, you can attack them, and make them fall down for a while, but they don't stay down for long, maybe 15 seconds? Definitely not long enough. They just keep getting back up, and eventually overwhelm you. Not fun.
5. Paths. Is it just me, or is it really bothersome trying to get to a lot of places? I really enjoy the gameworld of skyrim, the scenery is beautiful and its amazing getting to climb tall mountains and see the rest of the land from up high. While cool, the mountains also make traversing the land very troublesome. Often when trying to make a straight line for distant places, I'll find there's an entire dang mountain right in my path, and can't find the way around it or through it, if any. It's fine for stuff like towns that are at a more normal ground level and that have main roads running through them, but for out of the way places that you need to get to for quests, and exploration, or to kill dragons and find word walls, it can be very difficult. Finding that steep path that will get you up a mountain range can be hard, many of them not connected to any main roads, or hidden from view by rock formations, forests, or other structures. This problem could be easily fixed, if the game map were updated to highlight pathways to and from places, but I doubt that would be added to the game. maybe a mod?
I could go on with other grievances, but those are a lot of the main ones I dislike. All in all though, I love the game. It has provided many hours of entertainment and immersion, and I look forward to many more.
Thanks if you actually read that whole wall of text.
