Skyrim Streamlining Removes Confusion, Says Bethesda

[Azaraxzealot]

previous Bethesda games had asked players to make choices on skills and classes before they had proper understanding of what they did

...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.

Edit:

I quite like having complex systems in my RPG's. Hence why i enjoy games like the NWN series (which tbh isn't that complicated but still a hell of a lot more so then oblivion was)

Luckily I have other stuff to contribute, so I am able to just say 'This.'

Also, your avatar is hypnotic

some people who THOUGHT they were RPG fans were immediately disheartened by the telepathic guards, the idiotic scaling level system that NEVER made you feel like you were getting any stronger, and the lack of any sort of tutorial to get anyone who had never played an elder scrolls game up to speed.

honestly, anyone who hates the fact that it's being made simpler so more people can enjoy it is just suffering from an extreme case of "STOP LIEKNG WAT I LEIK!" and just wants to have some sort of exclusive club where everyone who doesn't understand the extreme complexities of building EXACTLY the character you want and just being able to enjoy the game without it slapping you in the face every 2 seconds because you didn't remember X,Y, and Z at ALL times (even in the midst of something intense).

just stop being so elitist and assholeish and start realizing that this means more people can enjoy what you enjoy and thus you'll be able to converse with more people about it. there's nothing better than a good experience you can share with everyone, and it's elitists like the ones saying "People thought Oblivion was complicated? good god..." and "FUUUUUUUUUUU-! Y IT NO BE COMPLEX? WAAAAAH! RUINED 4EVAAA!" that make people WANT to write off gaming as nothing more than a niche hobby and WANT to pass legislation against video games. because you don't allow any entry to anyone who won't enjoy it EXACTLY the way YOU enjoy it.

 

[Sartan0]

Basically it boils down to replaying the older ones maybe with Mods to make it more fresh or buying the new one and accepting the changes. For myself I am taking door #3. Not buying any of them since 2. Just not to my tastes.

 

[Dr_Horrible]

previous Bethesda games had asked players to make choices on skills and classes before they had proper understanding of what they did

...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.

Edit:

I quite like having complex systems in my RPG's. Hence why i enjoy games like the NWN series (which tbh isn't that complicated but still a hell of a lot more so then oblivion was)

Luckily I have other stuff to contribute, so I am able to just say 'This.'

Also, your avatar is hypnotic

some people who THOUGHT they were RPG fans were immediately disheartened by the telepathic guards, the idiotic scaling level system that NEVER made you feel like you were getting any stronger, and the lack of any sort of tutorial to get anyone who had never played an elder scrolls game up to speed.

honestly, anyone who hates the fact that it's being made simpler so more people can enjoy it is just suffering from an extreme case of "STOP LIEKNG WAT I LEIK!" and just wants to have some sort of exclusive club where everyone who doesn't understand the extreme complexities of building EXACTLY the character you want and just being able to enjoy the game without it slapping you in the face every 2 seconds because you didn't remember X,Y, and Z at ALL times (even in the midst of something intense).

just stop being so elitist and assholeish and start realizing that this means more people can enjoy what you enjoy and thus you'll be able to converse with more people about it. there's nothing better than a good experience you can share with everyone, and it's elitists like the ones saying "People thought Oblivion was complicated? good god..." and "FUUUUUUUUUUU-! Y IT NO BE COMPLEX? WAAAAAH! RUINED 4EVAAA!" that make people WANT to write off gaming as nothing more than a niche hobby and WANT to pass legislation against video games. because you don't allow any entry to anyone who won't enjoy it EXACTLY the way YOU enjoy it.

Okay, after this post, I am DONE with this topic. No more Skyrim posts for me until release.

First of all, Oblivion was the perfect example of a BAD RPG. Just getting that out of the way. Okay action game, bad rpg.
I have no problem with people liking what I like, I try not to be an asshole or an elitist. My problem is that making things simpler is the worst possible way to attract new fans, because you will alienate old fans who grew up with the genuine rpg complexity of Morrowind or even Daggerfall. I'm not saying the franchise is ruined forever, my post was not angry or whiney about 'consolification' or whatever people are yelling about. I just think that if what they want to do as the developer is attract new fans, that doesn't mean they should ignore and push away the old ones.
...
Okay, I'm done. Bye bye, thread!

 

[Tdc2182]

I honestly cannot understand Nostalgia that makes people this small minded.

If this was an MMO where it having thousands of diverse characters so as to force people to team up, I might understand.

But this is a Singleplayer game. The RPG elements are still there. Every design choice they have made only makes this game more user friendly. User friendly is a good thing. Don't you remember?

A good thing

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Doesn't anybody read manuals anymore ?
Gee

 

[Stavros Dimou]

previous Bethesda games had asked players to make choices on skills and classes before they had proper understanding of what they did

...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.

Edit:

I quite like having complex systems in my RPG's. Hence why i enjoy games like the NWN series (which tbh isn't that complicated but still a hell of a lot more so then oblivion was)

Luckily I have other stuff to contribute, so I am able to just say 'This.'

Also, your avatar is hypnotic

some people who THOUGHT they were RPG fans were immediately disheartened by the telepathic guards, the idiotic scaling level system that NEVER made you feel like you were getting any stronger, and the lack of any sort of tutorial to get anyone who had never played an elder scrolls game up to speed.

honestly, anyone who hates the fact that it's being made simpler so more people can enjoy it is just suffering from an extreme case of "STOP LIEKNG WAT I LEIK!" and just wants to have some sort of exclusive club where everyone who doesn't understand the extreme complexities of building EXACTLY the character you want and just being able to enjoy the game without it slapping you in the face every 2 seconds because you didn't remember X,Y, and Z at ALL times (even in the midst of something intense).

just stop being so elitist and assholeish and start realizing that this means more people can enjoy what you enjoy and thus you'll be able to converse with more people about it. there's nothing better than a good experience you can share with everyone, and it's elitists like the ones saying "People thought Oblivion was complicated? good god..." and "FUUUUUUUUUUU-! Y IT NO BE COMPLEX? WAAAAAH! RUINED 4EVAAA!" that make people WANT to write off gaming as nothing more than a niche hobby and WANT to pass legislation against video games. because you don't allow any entry to anyone who won't enjoy it EXACTLY the way YOU enjoy it.

You are wrong,Oblivion has a tutorial.
It was actually so large it got annoying,popping text every few seconds to tell you how to do that or not,because I HAD ALREADY READ THE MANUAL!!!
Tutorials are spam that stop you from the action.

 

[Stall]

Skyrim fans are so incredibly obnoxious. They either counter claims of simplification with "LOL NOSTALGIA GOGGLES" or "LOL U JUST DON'T LIKE CHANGE". First things first, nostalgia has nothing to do with wanting a complex, in-depth game. In addition, making a game simpler isn't necessarily making it more user friendly (at least not in a positive way). It is more than possible to make a deep stat system user friendly. IN addition to the claims that nostalgia is the only reason someone would WANT an in depth stat system, some individuals feel that depth and complexity in their character design are essential to roleplaying. People fail to understand that there is more to roleplaying than just conversation choices and adventure. The nostalgia argument is tiresome, repetitive, and cheap for ANYTHING. It's one of the single most painfully cliche and moronic ways you can counter something, and I sincerely just wish people would drop the whole nostalgia crap.

The whole "change" argument just makes me want to pull out my hair. These people use such horrible logic by confounding "change" as a whole with "change I do not agree with, and see as negative progress in the series growth". Dear god... how someone can be so STUPID to actually believe an individual who sees the alternation in Skyrim as negative and counterproductive to the series' growth as an RPG hates change is just beyond me.

Bethesda has this incredible talent of alienating more and more of their fans. It happened with Oblivion, they did it with the old fans of the Fallout series, it is happening again with Skyrim, and will most likely happen with TES6. The lack of commitment Bethesda has to its core and original fanbase is downright appalling-- few develoeprs have turned their back more on their original fanbase more than Bethesda. I can't wait to laugh at all the people who bought Skyrim, and get mad when TES6 is even more alienating and watered down... delicious, delicious irony.

No more Skyrim threads for me. I can't put up with Bethesda defense force anymore. I'll get Skyrim when the GOTY edition is 5 dollars on Steam, or I'll just buy it used or pirate it out of spite and protest... maybe I'll buy it used since some developers have claimed the used market is more damaging than piracy.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Old news. He's made the same statement before, and you guys have reported on it.

 

[Zydrate]

I did agree with this part;

... 'Who do you want to be, what powers do you want?' [Players think,] 'I don't know, I haven't played yet!'"

And yet, That's what Tutorials are for! In most RPG's (Been playing Dragon Age 1 and 2 lately), I always create a "dummy" character that I play the intro section on, learn the controls, menus, etc... THEN I start making my real characters. I understand the plan, but you don't need to remove features to do it. I didn't like how Spears have gone into non existence from Morrowind to Oblivion. And now we have no Hand to Hand? I have an unarmed character on Oblivion and they work just find.

How else is one going to fight when they get disarmed. Are we going to prod things with spoons?

 

[scar_47]

Picking skills was easy after a few hours you figured out you'd screwed up and start again, it wasn't the skill descriptions but how they affected gameplay along with other useless skills like lockpick along with how the leveling system was implemented made character creation a convoluted mess. Just because you understand what a skill does in game doesn't mean its not a poor choice take science in new vegas it's really only useful up to 50 points half its total value after that your wasting points to hack literally 4 or 5 times in the whole game as opposed to fallout 3 which was litered with high level hacking I was familiar with 3 and didn't really find out I'd wasted a precarious 30 skill point roughly 4 level worth of points until about halfway through the game. Most of the changes I've heard of I eith agree with or don't care about.

 

[Baldry]

But I got into The elder scrolls through oblivion and it wasn't that complex...at all!

 

[duchaked]

I'm down with whatever. I mean, I'd still want an RPG to BE AN RPG, but I like how Bethesda is indeed trying to improve on the game and not just dumbing it down. I know people disagree but I'm liking what I hear right now.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

I quite like having complex systems in my RPG's. Hence why i enjoy games like the NWN series (which tbh isn't that complicated but still a hell of a lot more so then oblivion was)

One of the more complicated games i play is EU3

I am fond of complexity too but I also understand the difference between complexity and convoluted.

Ya, you could say that you wanted to improve certain skills for Oblivion upfront and know what they do but then you find out... Well damn, everything is leveling all of their stats every time I level a couple of skills multiple times. So you have perfectionists who go back and set up a character with all main skills being things they don't do often while they work on leveling up skills they want to use on the side. Or the poor saps who wanted to be fast and agile with Acrobatics/Athletics finding themselves gang raped because their weapon and magic skills simply can't keep up with how fast their legs are leveling up the world.

And before anybody says it, no, picking acrobatics and athletics shouldn't be punished as main skills. Yes, it was stupid in Oblivion but you didn't find that out until the minotaur/ogre orgy showed up while you were still using silver weapons. Luckily, it never occurred to me to put those as main skills.

I am just hoping that the streamlining doesn't lead to other problems. I have plans, after all.

 

[Vindestructable]

Its not a console "port" I believe they are actually making the console version first and then "porting" it to PC

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

They haven't removed any 'Real' Complexity, all they've done is trim away useless cruft! Jesus Christ, people.

 

[Exosus]

This is the same game they've been running on us since the last time they made a game I didn't regret purchasing (to wit, Morrowind). Anyone who found Morrowind confusing has earned a good bit of my contempt, but anyone who found Oblivion confusing shouldn't be allowed too close to heavy machinery for their own safety.

 

[MasterRahl]

Talk about bringing out a cannon to kill a mosquito... and then blasting a whole in your wall that causes your building to fall on you, killing you in the process.

The complexity is not the problem with Oblivion. Disagree w/ me if you want but the problem with that game was the bad level-up mechanic. You were rewarded for not growing.

The enemies leveled up with you, that's not bad. You also pick your primary skills as the ones you think you're going to use, that's not bad. You level up when your main stats increase 10 times. This is the fail part.

You get primary attributes with your skills, I don't need to explain this, I'm sure everyone knows about this. My point though is you get 10 to your attributes, less since you have to choose 3. I think I averaged about 4-5 points per level. The better option is to pick skills you don't use for your main. That way you can get up to 15 points per level, and end up with a much stronger character.

How intuitive is that? Not until you've played it a few times.

So, what I would love to see in Skyrim is:

1) Different leveling up system (experience works very well).
2) More weapons to have more diversity and broader game play.

Otherwise everyone is just going to have a sword and healing spells in The Elder Scrolls X.

(I really loved playing unarmed in those games =( )

 

[Scrustle]

That's the impression I always got from the game. There's no less depth, it's just cutting down on unnecessary complication. I was kind of upset when they said they got rid of Mysticism, but they still have all the stuff Mysticism was useful for in the game.

 

[vivster]

well it sounds good enough
and i really had to start over oblivion for a number of times... not because i didn't know what character i wanted but not knowing what skill would be good for him

then again they could screw it up

but then again i will buy it regardlessly
just give me a big new open world to explore with at least as much content as oblivion and i will be very happy
so far all the changes they did from oblivion were changes for the better

 

[Akisa]

If all else fails someone will make a mod along the way that will do what the developers don't.

How much you want to bet there is going to be no mod tools? Remember companies who were supported by mods are now turning their backs.