Will Skyrim be remembered?
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Oh, my bad. I didn't realize you specifically meant what else could you do in combat. For that, I direct you to my earlier issue with the Forsworn mage. Y'know, changing up your style, as Skyrim completely allows for it. If you can't see a reason to go beyond what works for you, tried and true, then there's really nothing I can tell you. You have to possess at least an inkling of inspiration yourself. Skyrim gives you all the tools, but no one can force you to use more than one of them, other than yourself and your imagination.Athinira said:
If you're saying that being able to do what you do makes Skyrim faulty, I'd point out that in BG2, once I got my character outfitted pretty well, I could just wail on everything with my beefiest attacks, fall back on healing potions, and rinse/repeat ad nauseum, much like you describe in Skyrim. Luckily, I took my own advice up there and learned to vary it up myself. I couldn't very well blame the game for allowing me to munchkin my way through it, that was my decision, until I decided to change it up and add my own spice.
Oh, I think the one lasting thing about Skyrim that will set it apart is the idea of the Dragonborn him/herself, and their innovative (in an action-y rpg) shouts. This helps give Skyrim an identity all its own. And of course, like its predecessors it has it's own little idioms that will make their way into the collective gaming conscience... until they take an arrow in the knee, of course.Tin Man said:
But again that brings up the point of why bothering in the first place. Any game-related action you take as a player is going to lose a lot of weight if you're doing it just for the sake of it rather than because you NEED to do it. To quote Yahtzee: "You CAN, but why would you want to"?King of the Sandbox said:
You CAN make the combat into something that resembles second-rate rocket science, but there is no benefit from it 99% of the time, so why bother. It's like attempting to give one the self-satisfaction of being clever by outsmarting an enemy, only to realize that the enemy is basically mentally retarded, and that you could have outsmarted it with merely 10% of the effort you just wasted, which makes you the dumb one.
You see, the excuse that "no one can force you to use more than one of them" doesn't hold up, because this is what a game should do. It SHOULD force you to be creative, because if it doesn't then there is no challenge, and if there is no challenge, then the games overall quality is going to be lower. Period.
And by 'creative', i don't mean that the game should force you to use a clever combination of everything (melee, magic) etc. because forcing players to mix up every skill in the game definitely isn't a great idea. I mean that each individual element should have more tactical options AND requirements. Skyrim needs less monsters overall, but it also needs more difficult encounters and more ways of dealing with them that doesn't involve just sticking to the same hack-and-slash or Fireball-their-face option.
...which I'm going to point out is blatantly false.
Baldur's Gate 2 has a lot of enemies where you, if you want to take the hack and slash approach even with the best gear in the game, still NEED to do things to make them viable. Some mages had spells that made them immune to magical weapons along with spells that could kill you instantly (and time stop, and many other things), so you needed to break down their defenses and more often than not the Cleric spell Death Ward to make sure you didn't get gibbed, and I'm sure i don't need to remind you of the ridiculous amount of mages that was present in Baldur's Gate 2. There is a reason that the most required spell in Baldur's Gate 2 is considered 'Breach'.
Dragons typically needed a fear-counter, unless you wanted your characters to run around completely helpless, and against Vampires you either needed a Paladin or some other protection against level draining, because even if you killed them you would be severely hampered afterwards. There was constantly encounters with enemy mages and clerics who would mind-control your party. Then you have Mind Flayers doing the same thing along with hold spells, beholders who could dish out high amounts of ranged damage (which got rather difficult when they were in numbers) and even Imprison your characters, and I'd like to see you deal with Kangaxx the Lich by just whacking him to death. And that's just the individual monsters. Then there are the special encounters which consist of a wide variety of enemies with different abilities.
These are just a few of the many examples of encounters in Baldur's Gate 2 that you couldn't hack and slash your way through with healing potions (and definitely not if playing on any of the harder difficulties). In general, it was only most (not all) of the sidequests to the main story that had a low tactics requirement, and even then you had to be a reasonably high level party to do it (getting the Celestial Fury late in the game is a breeze, while defeating the army in the guarded compound when you just emerged from Irenicus Dungeon is an entirely different thing). In fact, i haven't read a single strategy guide in Baldur's Gate that tells you to just go whack on most of the enemies until they drop. Every single of the harder monsters had a section detailing how to deal with them, specific weaknesses they had etc. If you could just go up and whack them to death, even with the best gear in the game, this wouldn't be necessary in the first place.
i see it as the new gta 3 for rpg's, a game that will be held up as something to strive for or work from, not a bad thing in a lot of ways.
When Arena came out, people were asking: "Will Arena be remembered?"
It wasn't. The last TES game anyone talks about is Daggerfall, though I'd hardly say that qualifies it as "remembered". No one even discusses Redguard anymore, which was one of the best TES games.
It wasn't. The last TES game anyone talks about is Daggerfall, though I'd hardly say that qualifies it as "remembered". No one even discusses Redguard anymore, which was one of the best TES games.
/salutesTin Man said:Good old King of the Sandbox, ever vigilant member of the Skyrim Defence League =p.King of the Sandbox said:
I have to concede, you do make a good point with the Dragonborn and the shouts thing, that does give it something of a unique flavour. It's about time one of the ES games came out with something unique
Indeed. Can't let my fan cred be slackin', yo. Plus, I honestly feel this game deserves it.
Trust me, I got through a lot of the stuff in BG2 just by smashing it, then, if that didn't work, splashing it with a spell or such that would make smashing work, then proceeding directly to the smashing of said it.Athinira said:
I honestly and truly do feel bad for fellow RPG fans like yourself, who seem determined to limit themselves in such a freeing game, though.
And since I really don't think we're going to change each others minds here, since we both seem very adamant about our positions, we'll call it a draw. Fair enough?
Bolded the important part. You actually HAD to do something to make the smashing tactic work.King of the Sandbox said:
I also got through a lot of content in BG2 by smashing it, but i typically had to at least pre-buff, prepare and DO something to make it work.
I'm not limiting myself. The GAME is limiting me.
Listen, RPG fan or not, a game needs to challenge, else most people will find that part of the system stagnating. I don't limit myself because i want to. I limit myself because there is no reason to expand.
If the game fails to give me a reason to expand, you can't just say it's my fault for not wanting to. It's a lack in the game, not me. I don't control the fact that doing something for its own sake isn't satisfying to me (and, as i would like to point out, isn't satisfying to a great many people).
I'm not arguing with you to try to change your mind about Skyrim being a great game. I'm trying to make you see that there is much more room for improvement than you would like to admit, which is why i don't consider the game benchmark material.
I'm much like Yahtzee, in that i hate seeing wasted potential, and what pains me is that Skyrim could have been so much more. Just because it's good, doesn't mean it can't stride to be perfect (or at the very least better), and in my opinion, instead of sitting here telling me that the combat system is good, you should go tell the developers that you want the combat system to be BETTER in Skyrim 2 (or whatever the hell the next game in the series is going to be called).
And this is why i diametrically oppose calling it benchmark material, because it didn't raise the bar in many aspects of it's gameplay when it should have. Skyrim allows for a lot of playstyles, yeah, but most of them lack any real depth, which is my problem with the game. The best analogy i can find is that the combat system reminds me of Spore from EA: A vast game that takes you through MANY stages of how life began, but at the end of the day the gameplay in each stage lacked depth and was shallow. Fortunately, combat isn't all what Skyrim is about, which is what makes it good, but that particular part is still shallow.
We should always strive to improve upon what isn't perfect, especially when it's a thousand miles from perfect. And the fact is that if Skyrim had an engaging and intense combat system where thinking replaced backpedaling, it could be 10 times as addictive as it is now. Imagine that for a minute, will you? The game you already love being even more engaging. I'm avtually afraid you might quit your job or school if that was the case!
)
It would be if the quests had some actual variety to them in what to do and how to handle it, but as it stands it will simply be remembered as a competent open-world dungeon crawler.
Nothing more.
Nothing more.
I'll conceide to the last point, that improvements could be made, but hell, I could say that about anything.Athinira said:Bolded the important part. You actually HAD to do something to make the smashing tactic work.King of the Sandbox said:
I also got through a lot of content in BG2 by smashing it, but i typically had to at least pre-buff, prepare and DO something to make it work.
I'm not limiting myself. The GAME is limiting me.
Listen, RPG fan or not, a game needs to challenge, else most people will find that part of the system stagnating. I don't limit myself because i want to. I limit myself because there is no reason to expand.
If the game fails to give me a reason to expand, you can't just say it's my fault for not wanting to. It's a lack in the game, not me. I don't control the fact that doing something for its own sake isn't satisfying to me (and, as i would like to point out, isn't satisfying to a great many people).
I'm not arguing with you to try to change your mind about Skyrim being a great game. I'm trying to make you see that there is much more room for improvement than you would like to admit, which is why i don't consider the game benchmark material.
I'm much like Yahtzee, in that i hate seeing wasted potential, and what pains me is that Skyrim could have been so much more. Just because it's good, doesn't mean it can't stride to be perfect (or at the very least better), and in my opinion, instead of sitting here telling me that the combat system is good, you should go tell the developers that you want the combat system to be BETTER in Skyrim 2 (or whatever the hell the next game in the series is going to be called).
And this is why i diametrically oppose calling it benchmark material, because it didn't raise the bar in many aspects of it's gameplay when it should have. Skyrim allows for a lot of playstyles, yeah, but most of them lack any real depth, which is my problem with the game. The best analogy i can find is that the combat system reminds me of Spore from EA: A vast game that takes you through MANY stages of how life began, but at the end of the day the gameplay in each stage lacked depth and was shallow. Fortunately, combat isn't all what Skyrim is about, which is what makes it good, but that particular part is still shallow.
We should always strive to improve upon what isn't perfect, especially when it's a thousand miles from perfect. And the fact is that if Skyrim had an engaging and intense combat system where thinking replaced backpedaling, it could be 10 times as addictive as it is now. Imagine that for a minute, will you? The game you already love being even more engaging. I'm avtually afraid you might quit your job or school if that was the case!
Look, where we really disagree here is the "using what the game gives you" point. You say you have no need to, because the game doesn't make you. Well, good, I say. I don't want it to MAKE me do anything. It's counter to what I love about the game. That's something more for Uncharted or Gears of War. In such a versatile and freeing game as Skyrim, however, sometimes it's fun to try out new tactics. Here, here's an example...
>A mammoth, chasing me with a bloodlust because I just killed what I suspect was its mate.
>I run like hell, because, y'know, mammoth.
>I reach a cliff while backpedalling and hurling arrows.
>I remember Tremors.
>I place a fire rune on the edge in front of me, wait until the beast charges, then quickly dash out of the way.
>Elephant goes plop at the bottom of the ravine.
>Much fun and joy is had by changing my tactics and giggling at crumpled fuzzy elephant body.
See what I'm getting at? Instead of crunching numbers and hit point to DPS ratio and all that stuff, I had an adventure, on the fly, role-playing.
That's all I'm trying to say.
well, nothing missing that the modding community cant add or fix. if they finally get the modding tools, as is wit hall beth games. and skyrim needs quite a lot of things.omicron1 said:
but with some modding pollish, a metric fuckton of bugfixes, and some dedication, its going to be a titan to remember.
Skyrim will be remembered as a game that could have been so much better. It's going to suffer the same fate as Oblivion, aging horribly with a bitter aftertaste of despondency and obstination. It'll happen, trust me.
On the bright side, at least we know that the TES games cannot possibly get any simpler, so next time we can expect a game that's actually an RPG. If Bethesda doesn't fail miserably (quality-wise, not popularity and economical wise) on their next TES installment like they did on their last two major projects, then that would the game that would be remembered as a true classic.
Or better yet, just outsource the next game to a competent development team. Obsidian Entertainment would be a good place to start.
On the bright side, at least we know that the TES games cannot possibly get any simpler, so next time we can expect a game that's actually an RPG. If Bethesda doesn't fail miserably (quality-wise, not popularity and economical wise) on their next TES installment like they did on their last two major projects, then that would the game that would be remembered as a true classic.
Or better yet, just outsource the next game to a competent development team. Obsidian Entertainment would be a good place to start.
And what I'm trying to get at here is that you might as well just have shot fire at it and it would be dead.King of the Sandbox said:
Lets imagine something else for a minute: That your fire spell is too weak to actually kill the Mammoth, because well, y'know, a Mammoth is a big enemy that doesn't easily die. Now you actually HAVE to use some of the tactics you just described yourself, and all it took was to make the enemy too strong to be defeated with your simplest attack. See the difference?
The point I'm making is that all that creative thinking you just used yourself should be REWARDING, in the sense that it should be more effective if you can manage to pull it off. Currently it just happens to be less effective because shooting fire is simply too easy. When against a difficult foe, simply shooting fire should be your last resort. It should be your last ditch effort to survive a difficult encounter if everything else fails, not your 'go-to' method if you just can't be bothered with the rest. That's what gives the combat depth and meaning., that you sometimes are FORCED to think under pressure, rather than being free to choose it at all times. It adds tension, and tension equals excitement.
Sure, you should be able to use fire on the weaker enemies and get by, else getting through the game would take 750 hours instead of 250. But the game SHOULD put up some enemies that you have to get more creative defeating. This creates interest.
This a million times.CodeOrange said:
I fully hated Morrowind and Oblivion. I think Skyrim is a "good" game.(ive put in roughly 120 hours) Thats it. Just good. It isn't amazing, and it sure as hell isn't innovative or groundbreaking. Its watered down and streamlined enough to make it more accessible to more people. To increase sales.
There is nothing new of value in Skyrim. They added nothing new to the genre or games in general. (dragons are just another mob you end up one shotting, get a grip)
"Without a doubt, this has been our most ambitious project ever," said director Todd Howard. "
If this is the case, Skyrim should be considered a massive failure. Almost every feature in Skyrim is lacking something. Almost as if they purposefully didn't flesh them out. (my moneys on DLC)
It saddens me to see people thinking that Skyrim is "innovative" or "groundbreaking". I can only assume that they are either simply ignorant of whats available, or a simple minded fanboy.
All it does is reinforce another developers lackluster effort.
I don't know. It is good but it isn't amazing. It's not even technically a very good game and little about it is very memorable. It will probably have a largish hardcore following long after it has gone by but I don't think it will be remembered much by the larger game playing population.
Yes he can. Let's wait after the next wave of sequels/releases and take a shot everytime you read something along the lines of "like skyrim but with better combat". Not "Like Dragon Age..." or "Not like Two Worlds 2..."
Then do kindly point me to a game that does what Skyrim does. If possible, one that does it better. Because I've been searching since Oblivion and never found it.
I definitely think so. For starters, there will probably still be people playing it 10 years from now. The reason games have been remembered in the past is that there weren't as many good ones as now, so any game these days will have a lot of competition. But I still think Skyrim will stand the test of time, it's very unique and has a legendary history, plus it's a genuinely wonderful game. I think so far it'll stand out in TES, as it is the best selling and most well received of the series. However, Oblivion was a launch game for one of the biggest consoles, so that may overshadow Skyrim in the end.