Skyrim Streamlining Removes Confusion, Says Bethesda

[Versuvius]

On the one hand, I feel the outrage is blown out of proportion.

On the other hand, "streamlining" has somewhat ruined the RPG genre for me.

Classic RPG: Weapon, Shiuld (If applicable) Helmet, Body armor, Gauntlet/ring.
Modern RPG: Weapon, Accessory Type 1, Accessory Type 2.

I call the modern RPG method "the FF7 formula" because that was the first game I played to have such a dumbed down equipment system. I blame it for me being the only one to care about defense these days. People got used to it and because of it, RPGs have degenerated into "kill them first, kill them fast" which is a crappy formula since it renders things like poison and other DOTs useless.

That said, let's look at Morrowind.

Helmet
Torso
Gloves
Shield
Right Pauldron
Left Pauldron
Greaves
Boots
Robes (you could wear them over armor)
Rings

Now let's look at Oblivion

Helmet
Torso (includes pauldrons)OR Robes
Gloves (Several robes negate gloves)
Greaves (Cannot be worn under robes)
Boots (Several robes negate boots)
Shield
Rings

Now let's look at Skyrim

Helmet
Body (Chest, Greaves, and Pauldrons as one item)
Gloves
Boots
Shield



You see my point. They diminish the customizing from too many angles. First off, via enchanting, Morrowind had more potential, as they also removed more effects like Levitation, HP regeneration, and the like from Oblivion (You could cast an HP regen spell but couldn't get passive gains from armor) Secondly, from an aesthetic standpoint, what if you only wanted, say, a single heavy pauldron on your robe, atop light armor? I was rolling with that for quite some time, actually.

Streamlining IS bad, and you can blame the modern mindset of gamers for it.

This. Streamlining is all well and good, simplifying to a degree, is fine if the game was horrendously complex and unintuitive. But cutting content, choices and skills...shouldnt it be up to the player to decide if they want it or not? When it comes to the skills if acrobatics/athletics is useless to you. Dont choose it. Those of us who like to play destruction magic/monk type character...let us use it! We dont have weapons like quarterstaff to use so hand to hand is also good. Now not so much. As for removing things like armour slots or lumping "body" into everything really does irk me. Are fans of TES series really too lazy to mix and match their gear for a non generic look they like (shoulder pieces being not part of the armour?) or are you, Bethesda, fishing in the market for fans over other genres that dont have this kind of depth for each individual character? This while a good business plan for MOAR MONEY it feels to me like selling out. But i suppose big business nowadays doesnt have pleasing existing customers to the full as a perogative. Im still going to get it on release and lose half a year of my life though.

Edit: Also. A progressive trend of losing content, it may well eventually begin pissing off the people who didnt like those particular aspects. What happens when aspects YOU DO like get cut? In theory you should be standing for the principle of the thing.

 

[EHKOS]

Well if you didn't cut off my sentence, I would go on to explain that when changing a game for new people it can sometimes fuck with the formula of the game enough to make fans have a sense it feels different. And to spit in the face of the loyal people who have followed their games, just so they can sell a few more discs, is a a terrible thing.

If I'd included the latter half of your sentence, mine wouldn't have made any sense. "[killing] a game's primary community." is pretty obviously a bad thing

Anyway, they've never spat in our faces. Some games do it wrong, but so far I've seen nothing that negatively changes the formula in any dramatic way.

What exactly don't you like about it?

Besides the removal of customization in the armour, it gives the chance to make way for more cuts. It doesn't have to be Skyrim, it doesn't have to happen in one game. If they let their standards become looser then later on they could do it again. What I'm worried about is that the quality will start slipping over time to make way for new players.

 

[ZenMonkey47]

Pity they took out hand to hand. Every RPG needs its own magikarp.

pitiful damage at lvl 1, but at level 100... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep6Xnrkumys

 

[kouriichi]

I wanna be an Ax wielding psychopath. So i play as an Ax wielding psychopath, and i get better at it?

I love you Bethesda youve never done wrong by me.

 

[Nurb]

People complain about "pure" genres being watered down, and then defend further "Streamlining" of a series that already had gotten less and less complex. Whether thats a good thing or not is up for debate.

Bottom line:
"We want as much money possible, so we're making it less complicated for mass appeal"

You can't fault them for wanting money, but it's at the expense of the series to the point it'll be like every other "Action RPG" out there, just with a different costume. Not that it matters to me, Oblivion was boring and bloated on a heavy graphics engine that cried when it had to render more than four things at once in the evironment.

What people should be arguing about is the limits advanced graphics engines put on gameplay... we've gone backwards. Instead of environments and number of things onscreen growing like it was, the industry has gotten to the point environments and number of things on screen is restricted by the push for better graphics on more expensive engines and it's made those numbers shrink over the last 9 years.

Remember when there was 64-128 multiplayer matches just 5 years ago? ARMA or Operation Flashpoint had a map that was twice the size of Oblivion's and it required people to actually use transports. Now we're back down to 8-12 or 16 at the very most like back in the late 90's early 2000's. There's some news for you, we've sacrificed progress in gaming for shiney visuals.

 

[Semitendon]

I love RPG's. Oblivion, KOTOR, and Mass Effect 1 are some of my favorite games ever.

I feel tense every time an RPG company says they are "streamlining" "simplifing" or "making it accessable to new players".

To me, an RPG is a game which allows mass exploration, has hundreds of details and variations of equipment, has a multitude of side quests in addition to it's main quest, and contains a leveling system complete with skills and powers. The more intricate the RPG, the better it is.

The problem is, games like Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2, and others have cut back on the details.
In Dragon Age 1 there was your armor, and your three companions armor. In Dragon Age 2, your companions have armor but they have a very limited, single use upgrade. A total loss of 75% of the available equipment selection ( higher if you count the concept that the armor was composed of mutiple pieces and add members not currently being used)

In Mass Effect 1 the guns had equipment pieces, ammo types, and differences between mutiple gun types, and the armor was also varied between types. In Mass Effect 2 armor is virtually nonexistant, and the guns have gone down to 6 or 7 types that have no detailed variation or ammo types.

Both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 are inferior to the orginals, in fairness the games had other problems besides what I have mentioned here, but in the end it was the eliminating of a substantial part of the RPG experience that made the games a fail.

Thus far, Bathesda hasn't completely butchered their RPG lines like Bioware did, but with statements like the OP, I am becoming increasingly more concerned that Skyrim will not be the great successor to Oblivion that I was hoping it would be.

 

[Booze Zombie]

You'll be too busy casting magic with one hand and doing other stuff with your second to box with both hands.

Unless there's a crazy martial arts somewhere in this word designed around having one hand tied behind your back.

Edit: How it effects the streamlining to remove confusion? Well, it would be confusing seeing someone punch out a dragon with one hand and have a glowing fireball orb in the other.

Well, I am meant to be playing a pretty amazing character. Maybe he is strong enough to push his fist through a dragon's skull?
Anyway, I'd be doing one-two punches and then switch over to magic and back to fists. It'd be a good laugh.

 

[EHKOS]

Well if you didn't cut off my sentence, I would go on to explain that when changing a game for new people it can sometimes fuck with the formula of the game enough to make fans have a sense it feels different. And to spit in the face of the loyal people who have followed their games, just so they can sell a few more discs, is a a terrible thing.

If I'd included the latter half of your sentence, mine wouldn't have made any sense. "[killing] a game's primary community." is pretty obviously a bad thing

Anyway, they've never spat in our faces. Some games do it wrong, but so far I've seen nothing that negatively changes the formula in any dramatic way.

What exactly don't you like about it?

Besides the removal of customization in the armour, it gives the chance to make way for more cuts. It doesn't have to be Skyrim, it doesn't have to happen in one game. If they let their standards become looser then later on they could do it again. What I'm worried about is that the quality will start slipping over time to make way for new players.

The armour wasn't about streamlining, it was about the rendering systems. Even so, I really think you're overreacting.

I prolly am, but if a game tries to be more of something then it is going to be less of what it was originally. Don't fix what ain't broke.
But meh. Nice mental spar though

 

[gigastrike]

I totally agree with Bethesda when they say Oblivion made players choose what they wanted to do before they even played the game. It was a mess.

 

[Captain Pancake]

I'm assuming this means a more fallout 3 esque system? Then I don't see any problem.

 

[Gitty101]

This is why mods were invented, though from the sounds of things it doesn't appear they're doing anything too radical. To be honest it'll probably be fine.

 

[Blaster395]

There is a difference between complexity and depth.

Complexity makes something harder to learn for no reason.
Depth means that your choices have strategic meaning, there are many choices available and taking the right choice in the right situation is essential.

You can have depth without complexity.

 

[Nokterne]

This sounds good to me, starting a new character in Oblivion is incredibly annoying, you shouldn't have to make a chart to figure out if your character will level effectively.

If I use my sword, I should get better at sword fighting. I shouldn't have to work on my blunt weapon and hand to hand skills as well if I don't want to, it just adds tedium.

 

[SailorShale]

I actually love complicated skills and whatnot in RPGs. I almost died of joy when I saw all the skills in Daggerfall when I got to play it. It's part of the fun figuring out what works and what doesn't. At least, to me it is. Even if you're character isn't the strongest, then it fits. It's all part of RPGing.

The only thing I'm afraid of, is just a basic of warrior/mage/thief with no wiggle room. Oblivion did that. All the characters had the exact same options because they kept decreasing skills and cutting things out. Which makes me nervous about Skyrim, but I'll remain hopeful

 

[his1nightmare]

The wrong aspect of this statement is, the time isn't wasted if others can't understand shit, as long as you still look at your character and think, BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL --

Well overall I'm not quite sure how to think about this fact, but I know one thing, unlike almost every other company Bethesta ALWAYS delivered an incredibly awesome game with every TES, and if they came to this conclusion after thinking, as it seems, for quite a while which way is the better one, I'll believe in their words when they say the game will be awesome.
I never had problems with restarting over and over characters in TES3/4, but some skills like hand to hand really just -no one- used/uses.

 

[DracoSuave]

People in this thread:

1- People outraged that they won't make a viable hand-to-hand character, while ignoring the fact that was never a possibility in any ES game.

2- People defending Oblivion's outrageous leveling system for any reason, ignoring the fact it was broken as hell

3- People with a lick of sense.

Which are you?

 

[Kahunaburger]

This sounds good to me, starting a new character in Oblivion is incredibly annoying, you shouldn't have to make a chart to figure out if your character will level effectively.

If I use my sword, I should get better at sword fighting. I shouldn't have to work on my blunt weapon and hand to hand skills as well if I don't want to, it just adds tedium.

That's IMO entirely a product of Oblivion's leveling system. This stuff isn't remotely a problem in Morrowind. But apparently nobody told the Skyrim devs that because their solution is to derpline vs. fix (i.e., remove) the loot/monster leveling system.