Skyrim Streamlining Removes Confusion, Says Bethesda

[Arehexes]

I think -four- skills have been removed. Dear God, people. Four. And what are these four?

1: Hand to Hand - Okay, who really cares? Hand to Hand was useless in Morrowind and Oblivion anyway.

2: Mysticism - yeah, hasn't really been so much 'removed' as 'integrated into other spell lists' Why? Because Mysticism wasn't it's own magic set, it was just 'Yeah, all this other crap over here...'

3: Acrobatics - Okay, so I don't have to bunny hop everywhere? What's the downside?

4: Athletics - So now at early levels I don't move at a snail's pace? What's the downside?

The point is that they keep removing skills. Sequals are supposed to ADD or IMPROVE, not remove all the time. Consider how many skills the Elder Scrolls had. Then they removed a bunch from Morrowind in Oblivion. Now more from Skyrim. So what? come Elder Scrolls 6, we'll only have three: Weapons, Armor, and Magic? Because Bethesda will have removed them all?

To be honest do you really need to have skills in punching things, or how about running or jumping in a mostly first person rpg.

 

[k7avenger]

Wish they let you colour your armour, red glass armour would be awesome. Wonder if they will have wolf and bear armour in Skyrim? They had them in the Bloodmoon addon, nothing like hunting and killing 20 or so bears just to make armour that had standard stats. hee hee.

Ah, that is where mods rear their beautiful faces.

EDIT: To the guy above me: Can you think for a reason that they SHOULDN'T be in? Just because they include a skill, doesn't mean that you're forced to take it. Don't want acrobatics, then don't pick it, but why deny someone else that choice.

 

[k7avenger]

It doesn't make it worse. I mean it's still an elder scrolls game. But its like saying that there were too many choices, and instead of doing a proper job of explaining the choices and their consequences, you just went "screw it" and started tossing them out the window. I personally think that athletics was a fairly...worthless skill, but I never wanted to deny someone the option of taking it if that is how they wanted to play. You're just going around putting restraints on everyone's character for some short term gains.

Yes, mods can do wonderful things, but you can't mod what isn't there, and if its not there, it has to be added in, a task which often times falls to the modders. Yes, we're getting new shiny skills and abilities, but your getting those whether you want them or not. No mater how hard you try now, what mountains you scale, what adventures you undergo, you're not going to be able to punch out that bandit.

 

[Epona]

I forget where I saw it but I saw a video of someone choosing perks in Skyrim and the first thought that came mind was: "That looks like the Crystarium from Final Fantasy XIII". That's not a compliment either.

 

[k7avenger]

But they are adding stuff back. Again, and like you, from what I read, they might be taking greaves, but they're adding more sets of armour. They might be taking athletics, but they're adding perks and Shouts.

And my question was not only to you personally (and sorry if I seemingly singled you out), but to the seemingly very loud amount of people that keep saying the game will suck and be dumbed out because they took 4 relatively useless skills.

Though I can't debate their usefulness with you (its as you say, they are kind of worthless in my eyes as well), I don't think that provides enough justification to just remove them suddenly. Why can't we have hand to hand in ADDITION to shouts? There were perks in Oblivion, so that's not exactly breaking new ground.

And believe me, I'm not saying this game will suck, far from it. I'm just as excited as the next guy. But removing options and then saying its okay because we put this and that in to replace it, doesn't exactly lessen the blow of losing the options in the first place. (This may be a slight over exaggeration but...) A new puppy doesn't exactly make you feel better when your dog dies...even if you knew he was kind of worthless.

 

[Epona]

I forget where I saw it but I saw a video of someone choosing perks in Skyrim and the first thought that came mind was: "That looks like the Crystarium from Final Fantasy XIII". That's not a compliment either.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izIKymAODt4[/youtube]


This? Looks like regular skill trees par for the course with most rpgs, just presented as constelations.

Which seems out of place in an Elder Scrolls game. Oblivion had small perks but they were passive and could be ignored (ie, a Journyman of Armorer could trade in broken equipment for full price or something like that).

I gotta tell ya, I didn't like the Sphere Grid in FFX and I liked the Crystarium in FF XIII even less. I do hope it only LOOKED like the Crystarium and doesn't actually play like it.

I also hope it doesn't boil down to Dragon Age/WoW skills, choose a super move that is really no different than they last super move you chose but it adds another pretty icon to your action bar.

 

[Epona]

I think they look at games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 and see the changes and simplification and dont want this to happen to Elder Scrolls.

But also i admit they havnt given much info on Skyrim yet so i will wait and see. Its still going to be a first day buy for me and i will still play the crap out of it.

I truly don't think it will. With ME2, I stand by my statement that streamlining made it better. It's less stats based, but stats based shooters are hard to implement unless you rip off V.A.T.S. As for there being less weapons in the game... I can say I truly liked having to carefully choose between only two pistols, where one has a bigger ammo clip, and the other trades that for firepower. ME1 fell into that annoying category of "new is always better" that is a staple of some rpgs.

Dragon Age 2 is a different beast altogether, but I'd say whatever problems were with that game, they had little to do with the changes they made to the gameplay and more with the fact that they rushed the game a lot. A more dynamic world, a lot less environmental repetition, and the game would have been fine. Some people would have liked the story, some would not, but gameplay wise, there would not be much to criticise.

TES, on the other hand... it's harder to make the case for streamlining with a game that boasts so much stuff. Again, it's premature, but thet're talking weapon crafting, enchanting, mining, woodcutting, more skills and perks, and actually claiming that there's more items. All this while they not only keep modding abilities, but are also talking of expanding them to consoles. There's nothing in the game that seems to be scaled down from Oblivion, and they also seem to be correcting their earlier flaws. Which is why I think people are seriously overreacting with this one.

Making an RPG less stat based isn't an improvement. Many people liked ME2 better than ME1 but it depends on what camp you come from. If you like shooters more than RPG's then ME2 is better than ME1 but if you are the reverse, then ME2 is not an improvement. I am in the second camp.

Bioware simply removed things people didn't like instead of improving them, like the MAKO and the inventory (though the inventory was much better on the PC version). Has the game industry run out of ideas and is now removing stuff to appear innovative?

Anyway, I hope Bethesda isn't doing that but everytime I hear something new about Skyrim, it's about what they are taking out, not putting in and what they are putting in amounts to what other WRPG's and MMO's have been doing all along. What are we gonna hear next? That Skyrim has an action bar?

 

[Epona]

Also, if the idea of removing "choosing your skills" is to avoid confusion, how is adding perks that do the same thing (with a lesser degree of control) any better?

Honestly, if choosing your skils properly requires a restart, won't the perks be the same? How do you know which perks suck and which ones don't until you try them?