Skyrim Streamlining Removes Confusion, Says Bethesda

[mikev7.0]

Good.
Besides im sick of people complaining that streamlining is ruining games.
It makes me shake my fist I tell you!

I feel the same way. I'm an experienced RPGer (I mean I read the manual an' everything), but I really took it to heart when everyone I talked to said the best thing about Oblivion was that it let you play any character you wanted to or could think of, so I re-made one of my favorite D&D Fighter/Mage/Thieves.

Um, Oblivion might take me awhile....

(All I really wanted was a Ranger who could heal, carry more stuff, see secrets and through illusions. It turns out that's tougher to make than I thought.)

 

[Jimbo1212]

What Bethesda was trying to avoid, he said, was putting players in a situation where they felt they'd made bad choices. "What happens in Oblivion is you start the game, play for three hours, and then think 'I want to start over, I chose wrong.'

So damn true.

 

[mikev7.0]

Whichever camp you might fall into though, it's hard to argue that removing confusion is a bad thing. You can build amazing systems, but if no one can figure out how to use them, then the effort is wasted.

This only applies when you accept that the system they're streamlining was indeed confusing. Streamlining a confusing system is good, streamlining a complex one isn't necessarily. A couple days ago I read the Skyrim Fan Interview [http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1207390-skyrim-fan-interview/] and I was a little sad to see that most answers showed it was going to cut down on (to me) interesting options/choices. There were a lot of questions asking "is X going to be interesting/deep/complex like in Morrowind, or will it be more simple/streamlined like in Oblivion". It's not really surprising, but almost every answer was "like Oblivion".

There's still a lot to love though.

Hey, thanks for linking that Jordi, that was a lot of information that I didn't already know. I admit I'm intrigued about the whole "Dragonborn" idea especially since the reason I probably won't beat Oblivion in time to buy Skyrim is thanks to a current obsession with Divinity II. Maybe I should replay Oblivion the same way I started replaying Divinity II. That is, no multi class creative crap, just stick with the Dex and go full on Ranger. I'm not sure Oblivion will let me do that though since I create/use potions very often. In Divinity II the Ranger has a skill that gives them a certain bonus percentage to the effectiveness of your brews, while when I do that in Oblivion it gives me a +4 multiplier for raising intelligence which just puts me further down the magic path which is not really what I want. Especially when there is no handy survivalist skill that I use as much that will give me that same level of bonus but to Dexterity. I think Bethesda is right to monkey with the skill system (it needs it) but I'm not sure just deleting "confusing" skills is the way to go. Oh well, with the change to acrobatics, at least now I won't jump to everywhere I go.... ^ ^

 

[mikev7.0]

Man, computer gaming is just so hard! I want to be able to whine and flail at the keyboard and win the game!

Ok, that's obviously hyperbole, but c'mon, worried that people are confused by skills? Sounds like they need better documentation. But I guess that would then require a manual, and they seem to hate doing that these days. Or they'll do it, but then charge you $30 for it as part of the hint guide.

I, too, await these changes with cautious optimism, but I'm really tired of these games fixing what wasn't broken.

Except Oblivion has probably the most broken leveling system ever in a triple A RPG, bad enough that people avoid leveling to being with.


The skills system was very broken. A game where you can conceivably level up by pressing "w" has flaws in the design. I don't think the skills were confusing per se, but they were utterly useless for anything but exploits. So a overhaul of the leveling system is a good thing because, it *was* very broken. Even when we understand the mechanics, it's all to easy for us to, for example have sneak as a primary skill and level up when we don't want to and not control the way the character progresses. Or decide to be a mage and choose all three alteration skills and see that though that is your MAJOR progression path, it goes more slowly than skills you did not pick, because you can leave say alchemy out of the main skills, level it up ad aeternum by eating everything that shows up and not gain the 10 points necessary for a level up. Did what I write sound pointlessly confusing and counterintuitive? That's Oblivion's level system for you.

If what they're doing is focus more on leveling for ACTIVE skills whuile passive skills run under the hood and are governed by atributes, it's a much better system, akin to fallout, but retaining the trademark feel of TES.

I just can't see how anyone can say that it was not broken, to be honest.

Quoted for Queenesque accuracy Sir/Miss!

That's basically the entire reason I'm waiting on Skyrim. I want to see how this shakes out first.... Also it lets me know that I am not alone in that feeling. I've been playing this series since Morrowind and it's always felt a bit like you described to me.

 

[mikev7.0]

Meh. Skyrim still seems like Oblivion 2.0
That may not be a bad thing for some of you but for me, a person who grew on Daggerfall, is most atrocious insult you can do to a series. I am still waiting for the day when someone does a RPG on the scale of Daggerfall. Upgraded graphics be damned, if they even get the gameplay right(improve upon it) then I would play the game even if it had the graphics of Wolfenstien.

Hey! Wolfenstein doesn't deserve that! ID made that game not only look really great but it also has many colors in it that aren't brown. I actually have a tendency myself to lean toward sapphire blue mostly. Anyway, I consider myself really fond of a good RPG and ID still rather play Wolfenstein then try to dig myself out of the hole I've dug in Oblivion thank you very much!

In fact, I think Rage will be what I get into, not Skyrim. (Online vehicular battles in the vein of Steve Jackson's Car Wars?? Yes, please take my money, take it now. Give some to Mr. Jackson while you're at it!) Hey how much you wanna' bet when I drive it will make me better at actually driving as opposed to the Oblivion equivalent of skilling me up at the repeated horizontal oscillation of an hourglass? (Which naturally will lend +4 to my modifier to Wisdom when I level! What??)

I will say this for Oblivion: It was well named.

 

[Marcosn]

I for one would say it's a good thing, the amount of times i've restarted games such as Oblivion or Fallout because i made a wrong choice at the beginning is wayyyyy too high and i do think that there is a limit to how complicated the game should be but it is a fine balance because you don't want it to be "streamlined" so much that it's missing half of its mechanics... No matter what though i'm going to buy Skyrim and i WILL enjoy it!

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

The beauty of Bethesda games is no matter how much the company fails at making a compelling game as long as the engine works the modding community will fix everything in a year or so.

What happens in Oblivion is you start the game, play for three hours, and then think 'I want to start over, I chose wrong.

I'll tell you what happens. What happens is the player knows you made a good game because his choices actually matter have an effect on gameplay.

Unlike mass effect 2 where none of your leveling choices matter at all.

 

[mattaui]

Man, computer gaming is just so hard! I want to be able to whine and flail at the keyboard and win the game!

Ok, that's obviously hyperbole, but c'mon, worried that people are confused by skills? Sounds like they need better documentation. But I guess that would then require a manual, and they seem to hate doing that these days. Or they'll do it, but then charge you $30 for it as part of the hint guide.

I, too, await these changes with cautious optimism, but I'm really tired of these games fixing what wasn't broken.

Except Oblivion has probably the most broken leveling system ever in a triple A RPG, bad enough that people avoid leveling to being with.

The skills system was very broken. A game where you can conceivably level up by pressing "w" has flaws in the design. I don't think the skills were confusing per se, but they were utterly useless for anything but exploits. So a overhaul of the leveling system is a good thing because, it *was* very broken. Even when we understand the mechanics, it's all to easy for us to, for example have sneak as a primary skill and level up when we don't want to and not control the way the character progresses. Or decide to be a mage and choose all three alteration skills and see that though that is your MAJOR progression path, it goes more slowly than skills you did not pick, because you can leave say alchemy out of the main skills, level it up ad aeternum by eating everything that shows up and not gain the 10 points necessary for a level up. Did what I write sound pointlessly confusing and counterintuitive? That's Oblivion's level system for you.

If what they're doing is focus more on leveling for ACTIVE skills whuile passive skills run under the hood and are governed by atributes, it's a much better system, akin to fallout, but retaining the trademark feel of TES.

I just can't see how anyone can say that it was not broken, to be honest.

I suppose it's a matter of what is broken and what is a design decision, but I'll never fault anyone for simply not agreeing with what a game's design decisions were. I agree that the leveling issue of monsters auto-matching your level in power always felt strange, and the way skills were raised did seem somewhat arbitrary in some instances. I made several characters before settling on the one I liked, and then by that time I was comfortable with the leveling mechanics to know just how and what I wanted to do. That experience itself was part of playing the game and learning the system, and it didn't turn me off to it. I was able to make some characters that leveled quickly, and others that didn't, depending on how I wanted to play the game at the time.

I did like Fallout, too, so if they head more in that direction, I'll be prepared to enjoy it.

I'm all for playability trumping excess complication, but I feel that things have been shifting in a very rapid way towards excessive simplicity at the cost of gameplay, like in Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2, just to pick a couple. It bothered me far more in the former than in the latter, mostly because of the different roots (RPG versus FPS with RPG elements).

 

[DVS Storm]

AND I'm really sick about people saying that games are getting streamlined even though it means that developers will remove a mechanic that was pointless or didn't work.

So I'm really sick of people saying that their if their opinion of a game mechanic is low, then everyone else should agree and be glad to see that mechanic removed.

I think back to Mass Effect. Most people hated the MAKO so Bioware replaced it with planet scanning. I would not call that an improvement and let's not even get started on Dragon Age 2, things like that are what people fear.

You are right. Developers shouldn't listen to the players too much and try to change the game based on what the people say, because then we get planet mining(metaphorically speaking). I should have been more clear in my post. What I meant was simply that skill like speechcraft(or was it mercantile?) should be removed and maybe your speech skill could be raised in the level-up screen(I hope that I'm not completely wrong, since it has been a while from my last Oblivion session).

 

[Epona]

AND I'm really sick about people saying that games are getting streamlined even though it means that developers will remove a mechanic that was pointless or didn't work.

So I'm really sick of people saying that their if their opinion of a game mechanic is low, then everyone else should agree and be glad to see that mechanic removed.

I think back to Mass Effect. Most people hated the MAKO so Bioware replaced it with planet scanning. I would not call that an improvement and let's not even get started on Dragon Age 2, things like that are what people fear.

You are right. Developers shouldn't listen to the players too much and try to change the game based on what the people say, because then we get planet mining(metaphorically speaking). I should have been more clear in my post. What I meant was simply that skill like speechcraft(or was it mercantile?) should be removed and maybe your speech skill could be raised in the level-up screen(I hope that I'm not completely wrong, since it has been a while from my last Oblivion session).

I didn't care for either of those skills either but they did me no harm being there. I have no doubt that there are people who took pleasure in leveling those skills to get better prices and more information out of people without bribing them.

Speaking of speechcraft, I hated that minigame so I ignored it and just bribed people to get their disposition above 70. The lockpick minigame is another that I ignored. I just used auto lockpick and kept resupplying my lockpicks.

Ya know, I think I hate minigames..but that's another topic.

 

[Beesejar]

I'm thinking that I will give the game a benefit of a doubt before I get up in arms over this.

 

[Uncreation]

This is sooooo much bullshit. Yeah, streamlining, right? Someone should the people making this game that streamlining does not mean just cutting out stuff, it mostly means optimizing, offering better data/explanations, etc.

But, whatever, i've stopped playing big name rpgs for years. Indie rpgs might have graphics like they've been made 10 to 20 years ago, but they have the complexity and mechanics that the mainstream ones have lost some time ago. Oh, well.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

Then maybe show the players the impact skills can have before they get the chance to take them!?

I really don't see the complexity with how Oblivion did it. If you want to use a blade, you take blade skill, if you want to use an axe, you take axe skill, you want tougher heavy armor, you take heavy armor skill, you want to block better, you take block skill. It was more or less self-explanitory with the little descriptions.

The only "advanced" part was magic. As an RPG player, I can tell you that the first time you play a new game without knowing the mechanics, you NEVER... EVER take the magic/tech based character because it'll confuse the hell out of you. That's why if there's a reccomend option, it always ops for Fighter. Why some games even tell you "we suggest this class if its your first time."

Besides, magic is easy to understand once you figure out how the system works.


As far as I'm concerned, this is due to time/budget cuts, and laziness, NOT "trying to make more accessable to new audiences"

*pissy mood*

 

[badgersprite]

I wasn't saying that Bethesda was still after the hearts of hardcore cRPG players, though I wish it was, but considering how simple the skillsets in Oblivion were, it seems obvious to me (and pretty much everyone I know) what skills do what already. After all, what the skill is is in the name; do you want to pick locks? choose lockpicking. Want to jump? You sound like an acrobatics guy. Like sneaking? I suggest Sneak.

If Bethesda really wanted to make the game better, there are a lot of things that could be streamlined to good effect. For example, how about their awful interior design? some streamlining would actually be welcome there.

Except if you did do that, you wound up leveling too quickly and it was impossible to get the +5 attribute bonus for all the attributes you wanted to increase when you level up, which was a bit of a nightmare for min-maxers like myself. If you wanted a speedy sneaky archer type and chose all your main skills from the Speed and Agility group, you'd be lucky to get even +2 to your main attributes, and your skill level would be so far below the enemies that your character became useless.

That's why people needlessly had to re-roll a character a million times; because in order to be the best character, skill selection was actually vastly counter-intuitive. I found the best way to make a character was to pick seven skills (one linked to each attribute) that I rarely if ever used or ones that leveled very slowly. I'm the kind of person who actually enjoys needless busywork in gaming, but even that drove me nuts after a while. Being able to just pick up and play without having to save scum and pull your hair out every time you realise you made a stupid character decision twenty hours ago is a welcome change.

Unless people were playing on the easiest difficulty settings. Then you had no consequences whatsoever. I'm getting the feeling a lot of people did that.

Even though I'm way late to this thread, I wonder why it's so hard for developers to figure out the "crap, I made a mistake and now I need to start over" problem. The issue is permanence in character development - and the solution is reallocation of stats/skills/perks over time. If you start off as a melee fighter but end up wanting to play an archer, the game should allow you to shift a perk/skill/talent every so often such that, over the course of several "levels", you can effectively "fix" your mistakes in the natural course of gameplay.

I agree with you there. It does feel like they're targeting the wrong areas in an effort to fix the problems of Oblivion. Changing the leveling system and the way skills impact upon your level is fine, since that was the screwed up area, but removing skills? That seems like cutting your nose off to spite your face. I'm guessing that hand to hand is still an option and will just be linked to strength, but still, I can't lie that it feels like they're taking away an option to play a certain way. Like, I know that acrobatics is technically a useless skill, but damn it I want to play a character who can jump around town from rooftop to rooftop and leap over tall buildings in a single bound, and I'll be bloody pissed if I can't.

 

[DirgeNovak]

"In our games or others' games, they give you a character menu and say, 'Who do you want to be, what powers do you want?' [Players think,] 'I don't know, I haven't played yet!'"

That is the naked truth. In every single RPG I play, I play the intro at least 3 times, if not more, to choose how I want to play. It's so annoying.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to pre-order Skyrim right fucking now.

 

[Custard_Angel]

The only thing I can think of is the shift from Morrowind to Oblivion that saw the loss of numerous armour pieces to just have greaves, body armour etc. and also the reported shift from Oblivion to Skyrim where there are now suits of armour rather than pieces of armour.

It makes me kind of nervous that in whatever follows Skyrim will just have classes where you become a full archer in leather armour or a full fighter in platemail or a full mage in robes.

Streamlining is good, but variety is better.

Revamping the alchemy system in Oblivion was an excellent choice because it made the system more workable and less fussy. Removing half(?) of the spells wasn't such a good option because it reduced the players chance to be creative with their approach to magic use.

 

[Nazgual]

See look, Bethesda is just trying to make the game better. This reminds of how people whined about the loot system being removed from Mass Effect 2, even though it was just annoying and didn't add anything to the first game at all.

This is before people found out in ME2 you're stuck with the same shitty weapons the whole damn game. I'll rather have a loot system then deal with being stuck with the same garbage gun the whole time. Also removing things don't make a game better, it's making them work better is what they need to do. Like with hand to hand you know how badass it would make you feel if you took down a fucking dragon with just your bare hands... Well you won't now because it been removed. Streamlining is a bad thing when they take out gameplay possibilities. Anybody new to RPG's should know good and well Skyrim is a game they'll be in for the long haul. They'll end up get confused regardless of what Bethesda thinks, that's how you learn in an RPG by being confused and solving your own problems. To me I'm fucking tired of publishers thinking gamers aren't smart enough to choose what we want to do. So what is hand to hand or some other combat skill is shit compared to sword and shield. I still want those skills in so my experience isn't the same as everybody that else that plays.

Hahaha you very mad. I can think of DOZENS of things in games that shouldn't have been in them at all. I'm tired of gamers whining about every single thing they decide to change when its probably for the better. And...why would you want to fight a Dragon with your fists? Considering they are likely to be airborne more often then on the ground, good luck hitting them. If I was able to take down a Dragon with bare fists as a normal humanoid that would make the Dragon seem kind of insignificant instead of powerful.

 

[TheDooD]

See look, Bethesda is just trying to make the game better. This reminds of how people whined about the loot system being removed from Mass Effect 2, even though it was just annoying and didn't add anything to the first game at all.

This is before people found out in ME2 you're stuck with the same shitty weapons the whole damn game. I'll rather have a loot system then deal with being stuck with the same garbage gun the whole time. Also removing things don't make a game better, it's making them work better is what they need to do. Like with hand to hand you know how badass it would make you feel if you took down a fucking dragon with just your bare hands... Well you won't now because it been removed. Streamlining is a bad thing when they take out gameplay possibilities. Anybody new to RPG's should know good and well Skyrim is a game they'll be in for the long haul. They'll end up get confused regardless of what Bethesda thinks, that's how you learn in an RPG by being confused and solving your own problems. To me I'm fucking tired of publishers thinking gamers aren't smart enough to choose what we want to do. So what is hand to hand or some other combat skill is shit compared to sword and shield. I still want those skills in so my experience isn't the same as everybody that else that plays.

Hahaha you very mad. I can think of DOZENS of things in games that shouldn't have been in them at all. I'm tired of gamers whining about every single thing they decide to change when its probably for the better. And...why would you want to fight a Dragon with your fists? Considering they are likely to be airborne more often then on the ground, good luck hitting them. If I was able to take down a Dragon with bare fists as a normal humanoid that would make the Dragon seem kind of insignificant instead of powerful.

You still gotta get close to the dragon with a sword. trying to kill it with a bow you better have surplus of arrows. Overall the point of killing a dragon with your fists making what seems powerful, insignificant. All the Demon's Souls I played it's fun just to play around with the system given. Why should I just use effective tactics in a game all the time? It kills replay value for me. There's no need to remove anything in a system what they should do is make everything work effectively.