My Issue with Dragon Shouts in Skyrim

[Clive Howlitzer]

I find the dragon shouts to mostly be useless and just a gimmick. I would have preferred other parts of the game were fleshed out instead of wasting time on dragon shouts.

 

[Piorn]

I actually like the concept of the dragon shouts, but they don't level up by being used. Whenever I have the choice then, I rather use my magic than the shouts because it levels me up in the long run.

 

[WolfThomas]

As others have said, Shouts are just dragon language. You only know specific words or phrases that do certain things. Even if a dragon didn't want to calm an animal, it could because of how powerful it's language is.

 

[Sudenak]

[

So, you'd rather have the world be actual scale and take hours to walk between cities, and have one hit from any weapon injure or cripple you, too? Games =/= realism, even a game's internal realism. Because if games were completely realistic, they would be shit.

It's not an excuse. It's one of the most basic elements of game design.

That's not what I'm talking about. I don't look at a game like Doom and shriek in horror at how unrealistic it is. I look at a game like Skyrim, which specifically talks about how awe-inspiring and powerful shouts are and then makes them on equal grounds with casting a magic attack outside of cutscenes as having the excuse of 'it's just a game'. If the game establishes rules and then ignores them, you can't use the excuse of 'it's just a game'. Bullshit. They made such a big deal about shouts, so why is it that shouts aren't all that special in gameplay?

At some point there has to be a line drawn here. It's called "Gameplay and Story Segregation [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mCUx43F96Gc]", at least by the TVTropes crowd. Granted, it can overstep a certain line, but that line is very thin and definitely undefinable. It's different for every game. You can't have every single cutscene and gameplay scenario perfectly mesh, which is why in Mass Effect cutscenes everything takes one bullet and gameplay sometimes requires a few clips.

Again, they based a good portion of their story around how amazingly powerful shouts were, and how impressive it was to be dragonborn. Neither of these alter gameplay at all; in fact, I ran around everywhere without completing the step that makes me dragonborn and gives me the first shout, and there's absolutely no difference in gameplay because of it. Short of the few places were it goes Zelda-style and requires the shouts to unlock a door, the shouts are no more useful than spells. This is contradictory to the story, and to how they advertised the game.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Yeah, okay, the damage shouts need to be upgraded, I agree with that. On the other hand, FUS RO DAH is devastatingly powerful, slow time is hilariously effective...

 

[RedDeadFred]

[

So, you'd rather have the world be actual scale and take hours to walk between cities, and have one hit from any weapon injure or cripple you, too? Games =/= realism, even a game's internal realism. Because if games were completely realistic, they would be shit.

It's not an excuse. It's one of the most basic elements of game design.

That's not what I'm talking about. I don't look at a game like Doom and shriek in horror at how unrealistic it is. I look at a game like Skyrim, which specifically talks about how awe-inspiring and powerful shouts are and then makes them on equal grounds with casting a magic attack outside of cutscenes as having the excuse of 'it's just a game'. If the game establishes rules and then ignores them, you can't use the excuse of 'it's just a game'. Bullshit. They made such a big deal about shouts, so why is it that shouts aren't all that special in gameplay?

At some point there has to be a line drawn here. It's called "Gameplay and Story Segregation [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mCUx43F96Gc]", at least by the TVTropes crowd. Granted, it can overstep a certain line, but that line is very thin and definitely undefinable. It's different for every game. You can't have every single cutscene and gameplay scenario perfectly mesh, which is why in Mass Effect cutscenes everything takes one bullet and gameplay sometimes requires a few clips.

Again, they based a good portion of their story around how amazingly powerful shouts were, and how impressive it was to be dragonborn. Neither of these alter gameplay at all; in fact, I ran around everywhere without completing the step that makes me dragonborn and gives me the first shout, and there's absolutely no difference in gameplay because of it. Short of the few places were it goes Zelda-style and requires the shouts to unlock a door, the shouts are no more useful than spells. This is contradictory to the story, and to how they advertised the game.

First of all, you quoted the wrong person. You somehow made me the author of a post that I quoted but I'll respond anyway.
Obviously the shouts aren't going to change the gameplay if you don't even use them.... They are an extra skill set that are like magic with some being more unique and powerful. They do make dealing with multiple enemies a lot more manageable which is something I'd always had an issue with in Oblivion.
The true impressiveness of being Dragon Born is the fact that you devour the dragon's soul. Shouts are a nice bonus and are a core part of the main story. They give you a combative edge that makes me feel like I can always best my opponent without making it too easy. The shouts aren't core to everything else because of reasons that I have already pointed out in an older post.
Sure the shouts aren't quite as powerful as depicted in lore but this is obviously for balance sake. Again, I will go back to my SCII example. Battlecruisers, in the lore, are massive ships that take an immense amount of power to bring down and cause insane amounts of damage. In the actual game, about 20 marines could take one down. This would be impossible in the actual lore but is necessary for balanced gameplay.

 

[Sudenak]

First of all, you quoted the wrong person. You somehow made me the author of a post that I quoted but I'll respond anyway.
Obviously the shouts aren't going to change the gameplay if you don't even use them.... They are an extra skill set that are like magic with some being more unique and powerful. They do make dealing with multiple enemies a lot more manageable which is something I'd always had an issue with in Oblivion.
The true impressiveness of being Dragon Born is the fact that you devour the dragon's soul. Shouts are a nice bonus and are a core part of the main story. They give you a combative edge that makes me feel like I can always best my opponent without making it too easy. The shouts aren't core to everything else because of reasons that I have already pointed out in an older post.
Sure the shouts aren't quite as powerful as depicted in lore but this is obviously for balance sake. Again, I will go back to my SCII example. Battlecruisers, in the lore, are massive ships that take an immense amount of power to bring down and cause insane amounts of damage. In the actual game, about 20 marines could take one down. This would be impossible in the actual lore but is necessary for balanced gameplay.

I'm sorry; it's been a while since I used this forum and I cut out the wrong name. >_> I swear that I never make mistakes. -cough-

Well, I mentioned in my original post that my particular play style made the shouts nearly useless to me; and it was very jarring that people awe-struck by me wouldn't give a shit if I shouted at them when I did use them.

I understand that the impressiveness comes from the soul-eating part. However, no one is ever particularly turned away from fighting you. You would think that the lowly bandit, after watching me kill and consume the soul of a dragon, would walk away. No, instead they charge at me without a single care about their life.

The point I was making is that the story bangs on and on about how incredible the shouts are, and indeed how powerful a dragonborn must be, that it just doesn't make sense that people don't at least give some pause, or that shouts don't make people flee.

Basically, it's extremely lazy to write the story, then realize that the story you wrote would make the game imbalanced, so instead of altering it you just split the gameplay and the story altogether.

Why not have shouts be incredibly overpowered, but be extremely draining and thus only usable in a few situations? Or have them carry a negative consequence (ie, your companion might be hurt by it as well)? Or maybe have the story be more about learning that the craft of shouting is dying, and that you being dragonborn might be a sign that it could return? A few minor tweaks to the story could fully explain why it's not as powerful (or justify over powering it without breaking gameplay).

Considering that my initial reply was to a snarky "it's a game, whaddya expect" type post, I'm quite happy that this got a small discussion going. Even if it was from a misquote.

 

[willis888]

Early on in the game, I needed to use Slow Time to defeat a much higher level Dragon Priest.

Dragonrend saves a little bit of time by forcing dragons to land sooner rather than later, and Whirlwind Sprint is useful for finding shortcuts.

The rest seem kinda weak. Why should I get close enough to Shout at something when a long range Thunderbolt will kill it faster?

 

[omega 616]

snip

They are your only two problems? Well to add to your second one why would a dragon need to summon a dragon or call forth 1 of 3 spirits with there own shouts?

My problem is the cooldown, I know these shouts are meant to be uber powerful so you can't just use them like flame with a million magicka but it's not like when people speak they have a cool down on their words. Going more into the skyrim world, as you are about to get your head chopped off the big scary dragon uses the storm shout, then another one, then the force push one all in the space of 20 seconds ... so how come he doesn't have a cool down? Mere mortals can't handle the power of a shout so they can only do them at least 30 seconds apart.