Skyrim Streamlining Removes Confusion, Says Bethesda

[Norendithas]

...except that the target audience of this game, by which I mean RPG fans, already know and understand the systems involved in an RPG. That's the beauty of creating a game in this style is that you can have the target audience be people who undestand and are experienced with the material already; you do not introduce new gamers to an RPG to start with.

Yeah, but that's not really a good long-term business plan. Only appeal to people who are already hooked on your genre? Publishers probably wouldn't like it if the developer said that during a meeting.

There's nothing wrong with making your game mechanics more intuitive. Even "hardcore" RPG fans have to re-roll characters a few times in the less intuitive games, which I'm sure is annoying (I wouldn't know, because I don't usually play RPGs).

Hence the reason why first-timers and new players have been mentioned dozens of times in any news Skyrim related. They're probably trying to appeal to more people with this one by creating something so badass, it can't possibly be disliked. At the same time, they're eliminating confusion for the new fans they home come in, and making it even easier for every already accustomed to the games.

While I can't say I like the game getting simpler because I like complexity, I can't say I don't like it. It is a smart move on Bethesda's part and I hope they are successful. =]

 

[RandV80]

Only problem I have here is that this:

For Skyrim, Bethesda has reduced the number of statistics and eliminated certain skills, like Hand to Hand. It wasn't about dumbing things down though, as Howard said that the Elder Scrolls game sold well enough without stripping the complexity out of them.

Is not directly related to this:

The problem, he said, was that previous Bethesda games had asked players to make choices on skills and classes before they had proper understanding of what they did, which was less than ideal. "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!'"

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 we'd like to sort of alleviate some of that. I also think the controls work better [too] ... it's more elegant."

Changing the way you build you're character so that you're not given a huge list of skills to choose from that you don't really know what they do (the loss of instruction manuals is becoming a shame now) to be less forgiven is fine. One example I can think of doing this is Guild Wars. When the game first came out they did give you the ability to re-arrange your stats & skills, but you had a finite amount of points to do so. A couple months in they completely did away with that and let you change things as often and whenever you wanted. And it really did work, the gameplay was built on having a ton of skills to choose from and this let you try them all out for your character class without having to start over.

Now that doesn't mean they said "hey no one's really using these skills, lets just get rid of them!" With the changes Bethesda are suggesting they are making in the latter half of the article they should be able to increase the amount of skills available, semi-useless ones and all. Now if they want to take out hand to hand that's fine, but lets face it all they're really doing is putting a spin job on it to try and lessen the anger from the fickle gamer crowd. Or actually that would probably never work regardless... so let's call it providing fuel for streamline friendly gamers to flame the angry crowd diverting attention from Bethesda by pitting gamers against each other. How diabolical!

 

[Zenron]

I like this. I've had it a few times when I've realised half way through that I had my starting stats completely wrong because I just didn't understand the game mechanics yet. I always thought it was kind of absurd for them to ask so many things before I even knew how things could really turn out.

You know who did this well? Dragon Age II. Now, before you start trolling me, here me out. They had that sequence before the game started where you were like max level and you could see what kind of things are the best just from that. It gave a better feel for what was going on.

 

[mad825]

Yes, and if you had a tutorial for every skill in Oblivion, it would be three hours long and be really fucking boring. I shouldn't have to take a tutorial for every skill in the game before I start playing. This way I can play as I go, and learn the skills as I play, instead of having a glossary on hand before I start. There is a tutorial in Oblivion, it just doesn't begin to scratch the surface of everything that is there.

I really can't see why people are defending classes and character selection. Elder Scrolls has always been about going where you want and being who you want in amazing worlds. This new system looks like it's set to take full advantage of that.

Oh, that's right, people just love to *****.

Hence the "optional" part, you choose what you want learn and when you want.

If it's too long/complex Then you "dumb down" the tutorial? there are 21 skills which can easily be broken down into 7 main points and placing the user into a consequence free environment (a playground) would make it more fun and can be experienced first hand without any commitments.

If you are stuck on understanding people's dislike to this choice that they made is because complexity introduces freedom at a cost in difficulty while simplicity introduces restrictiveness with little consequence thus makes it easier both in terms of gameplay and usage. Take ME1 and ME2 for an example.

I would rather have a complex game.

 

[funksobeefy]

I dont want to make one character at the get-go then not think about the skills. I want to make a million characters and nit pick the skills down to the finest grain to see what each is good at and such. Complexity is fun, and I think Oblivion was fine enough.

I hat e thinking the title will come true on my favorite series of all time

 

[themilo504]

dont use streamlining that word makes people angry. but i do agree my firsht knight character was a a mess....until my computer crased. i miss him.

 

[DaMan1500]

Thank god. I had to restart Morrowind multiple times because of stupid choices made at the begining.

 

[Magicman10893]

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.

The point isn't knowing what some skills do, it is more along the lines of not knowing how useful it would be. Maybe you want to be an agile Rouge and think that Acrobatics and Lockpicking are the way to go only to find out that jumping doesn't turn the tide of battle like you thought it would and that picking locks is a hard minigame that could be bypassed entirely by learning a spell in a skill tree that you didn't choose.

Plus with Oblivion's leveling up system, picking a skill like Acrobatics or Athleticism will raise your level faster than you are ready for and then you will be facing tougher enemies despite having weaker combat skills or equipment.

 

[blackdwarf]

love the idea that they have now, with no pre decided class. i do think that all the stats you had, will be put together. so that i will be more clear and hoefully more logical.

 

[Enrathi]

This will hopefully be a good thing, because the Oblivion system for skills/leveling was spitefully obtuse. If you followed the directions you'd end up with a terrible build for playing the way you actually wanted to. It would work a little while but as the enemies leveled up you'd end up under-powered simply because of the crappy way the level-up stat-increase design was done. In order to max out your stat gains at level-up you had to actually delay leveling up by playing in a counter-intuitive way that was contrary to what you'd built your character to do. It was a mess. I'm all for complexity but only if it leads to customizeable choices. Oblivion's complexity was just an incomprehensible mess where the beginning player had absolutely no idea what they were doing and would waste a TON of time.

This is the main problem I had with TES games. That's why I ended up waiting for someone to come out with a 5x mod (all skills you raised a related skill in got the full 5 multiplier) before I bothered to put any real time into the game. I never really did like TES convoluted leveling system, but I liked the games, so I ended up using mods to change parts I didn't like. But I feel I shouldn't have to mod a game just to find it playable.

 

[Mister Linton]

Anyone who wants their RPGs more complicated are using the wrong medium to play RPGs. Pen and paper D&D games still exist in almost every town. Go find your local dungeon master and stop whining that video games are being streamlined and not giving you obtuse redundant menus full of raw numbers and crap.

Games are not and should not be catered to your exact level of "dumbing down". If that's how you look at it, you are doing it wrong.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Is it necessarily bad to feel like you might have "messed up" your character build (provided it won't actually prevent you from finishing the game.) I always like the 2nd playthrough where I can fix my build as a result of this. If I have every opportunity to make that "perfect" character the first time through--I can respec all my stats whenever I want, the system is simple and transparent--then I'm probably not going to play the game a second time.

The holy grail of game design to aim for, IMO, is that any build will be able to make it through the game (perhaps on lower difficulties), but that there's enough complexity to allow you to build toward really awesome overpoweredness. All of my favorite games have this feature, where you always feel like you could be a little bit more awesome if you could just overcome (shortcoming). If I had just a little bit more health. If I did just a bit more damage. If I had just a touch more defense.

Your first character OUGHT to feel gimp compared to what you COULD build if you really dug into it. But they should feel able to get through the game challenges so you can see the end, at least.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

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.

The point isn't knowing what some skills do, it is more along the lines of not knowing how useful it would be. Maybe you want to be an agile Rouge and think that Acrobatics and Lockpicking are the way to go only to find out that jumping doesn't turn the tide of battle like you thought it would and that picking locks is a hard minigame that could be bypassed entirely by learning a spell in a skill tree that you didn't choose.

Plus with Oblivion's leveling up system, picking a skill like Acrobatics or Athleticism will raise your level faster than you are ready for and then you will be facing tougher enemies despite having weaker combat skills or equipment.

I second this. It was the same with the Fallout games in regards to Charisma. The skill is next to useless, and has been used as a dump stat since the first game. I learned this the hard way.

 

[infinity_turtles]

I'm confused. What does the more dynamic leveling system they've implemented have to do with taking out skills? I really don't get that. Seems more like it should allow them to up the number of skills in the game without gimping players. So, this is just PR than I guess, not an actual reason? Unless they took the skills out before changing to a dynamic leveling system, and just don't want to add the skills back in? I guess I could see that.

This explanation just confuses me. If it's misdirection it's poorly thought out, and if it's not there's a massive communication error.

 

[YawningAngel]

Oblivion WAS simplified. I can't see how anyone can sit there saying they made an unplayable character in Oblivion, because the game was very doable with a godawful build.

 

[Jandau]

I don't mind complexity, but Oblivion's stat mechanics were batshit retarded. When the optimal build requires you to pick major skills that you never use so you can better control your leveling, something is VERY wrong...