Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Black Feather]

Got my hands on my own copy. Game certainly looks pretty and I do see that the game has quite some scope, however...

The leveling. is. FUCKED.

My god. Even though I abhorred the karma system and storytelling in Fallout 3 with all my being (more so with the former), I thought they did a good job making leveling up based on experience. However, in Skyrim I can definitely see how if you played around with things like Smithing and Alchemy a little too much for your own good to the point the game thinks you've neglected your combat skills, that guy could run into a situation where the game becomes unbeatable with the monster scaling.

Just grind up on the non-leveling unnamed Animals and Bandits ... and with the magic you can level up without killing, in fact i always loved that about TES.

The good about Skyrim: Beth has finally realized that they're not good at making RPGs, so they simplified the system to be more FPS-like.

Nope. The system looks dumbed down at first glance, but actually you have to specialize your character through perks, which is imho a much deeper character progression than previous TES. In previous TES, the characters were different at the start of the game (attributes etc), but in the end everyone had everything on 100 anyway, in Skyrim it's the other way around.

Oh and i like the clairvoyance spell. Seems a bit more authentic if a divining spell shows the way than a damn marker on the map.

 

[aenemic]

I don't really see much problem with that. they reacted better than I expected, hell even commenting on the player standing nearby with his weapon drawn. what other game does this?

What? Yeah, it's a reaction, but it's a totally retarded reaction. First, the little girl says (very calmly), "Oh, what happened?", then turns away and stands still, staring into space in a random direction. The guards then run up and just stand there, with no reaction, for a good 10 or 20 seconds while the players twirls the body around in the air (god I still hate crappy ragdoll physics), before finally reacting. And their reaction would be appropriate... if it was a body sitting there not being twirled around in the air and dragged across the ground.

Then finally, they ask the player why he's standing(??) near a corpse with his weapon drawn... and then, quite calmly, say "Oh well ok just be good from now on" and that's that.

I dunno, maybe it's just me but the whole thing was awkward and completely unbelievable, which has been the issue with Bethesda's attempts at AI since Oblivion. I never felt the same playing Morrowind, despite the primitive AI that didn't react to much of anything except outright aggression. Maybe my suspension of disbelief was just higher with that game?

well, the thing is that the type of AI you seem to expect, where the NPC's react realistically to any action the player takes, simply doesn't exist. it would be wonderful if it did. to a certain extent, of course. a lot can be said about Bethesda's naive way of writing dialogue, and especially one-liners, but that's a different matter. at least they've made the NPC's reacting towards a dead body, and not only that - the guards will question you if you seem like a suspect.

NPC's taking into consideration exactly how the player moves and interacts with objects is pretty unrealistic. it can probably be done, but I can imagine the resources needed are simply way out of proportion to even be considered. and for it to work realistically, there'd have to be so many scripted events and loss of control of the player character that it'd probably be a real drag after a while. just think of all the ways you as a player could affect the dialogue and actions of the NPC's in a scenario like that in the video - it's simply impossible and unrealistic to expect that every possible outcome would be taken into consideration. so for the scenario to play out more realisticaly, it'd have to be more of a scripted event where the player can't move or act.

Bethesda's AI is notoriously bad, but in Skyrim it's pretty apparent that they've at least tried to improve upon it and learn from some of the most obvious mistakes of Oblivion. who knows, in time they might even be able to realize their goal of a truly "radiant AI". but in such a free-form game as Skyrim, there will always be players who will try to break the AI and take advantage of it, and there will always be ways to do so.

Nope. The system looks dumbed down at first glance, but actually you have to specialize your character through perks, which is imho a much deeper character progression than previous TES. In previous TES, the characters were different at the start of the game (attributes etc), but in the end everyone had everything on 100 anyway, in Skyrim it's the other way around.

I agree. it might feel simplified at first, and in some ways it even is. but only in good ways if you ask me. sure, attribute scores would be nice to have, but the way they worked in Morrowind and Oblivion is really one of the biggest issues I had with those games. it was way too easy to take advantage of and it was way too easy to fuck up your build if you concentrated on the wrong skills and didn't train your attibute scores correctly. they could have kept them as static scores slightly affecting skills and other stats or something.

as for the skills, they're not perfect but I love how they work now. perks make all the difference between character builds and you really have to plan your character ahead. there's still room to screw up your build, if for example only levelling enchanting and alchemy like someone said above. but if you do, you honestly only have yourself to blame. this isn't an economy/trades simulator, it's a game with tons of fighting so you better lay some focus on your fighting abilities. and the perks really give purpose to focusing on certain skills instead of trying to max everything. and lastly, I don't actually know what the level cap is if there even is one, but I doubt you can take every perk there is so you're gonna have to make choices.

in the end, the system rewards you for picking a "class" and sticking to it, and in a way punishes you for dabbling in areas you might not need. the previous games rather punished you for picking the wrong combination of primary/secondary skills and forced you to train skills you weren't even interested in to get high attribute increases.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Got my hands on my own Just grind up on the non-leveling unnamed Animals and Bandits ... and with the magic you can level up without killing, in fact i always loved that about TES. map.

Actually exactly this is somewhat the problem.

Imagine you get to smithing/forging, persuasion, stealth and lock picking raising those stats to a high level which are not directly combat related like magic and the fighter skills (swords, hammers etc.) leading to a faster "level" up where you end in situations where some enemies have the level for a "usual" level 20 player. So you can somewhat screw up your character if you don't know about this problem.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

in Skyrim I can definitely see how if you played around with things like Smithing and Alchemy a little too much for your own good to the point the game thinks you've neglected your combat skills, that guy could run into a situation where the game becomes unbeatable with the monster scaling.

Welcome to what happened to my first game of Oblivion, only I heavily leveled the speech skill. Yeah, that was fun. I personally don't find their experience/progression system fun at all. It sounds far cooler than it plays to level up skills by doing.

but if you do, you honestly only have yourself to blame. this isn't an economy/trades simulator, it's a game with tons of fighting so you better lay some focus on your fighting abilities.

One of the big things that is generally said about TES games is that you can "Go anywhere and do anything!" The sandbox element is presented as more of a focus than it actually is. It's not anyone's fault for taking Beth and their supporters at their word if they don't know any better. It's also a problem that is easily fixed by Beth, all they need to do is make enemies scale based on the sum of your combat skills or your highest combat skill.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hello all,

I probably should go through the various pages of this topic to make up the general mindset but my question is simply this; can people here recommend Skyrim?

I am really looking for a game in which I can spend several hours into after my disappointment with Halo CEA but the thing is; I am not really a fantasy fan.
I prefer science fiction games but there hasn't been any release that really appeals to me, hence why I am looking into other genres.

 

[PainlessDocM]

I don't really see much problem with that. they reacted better than I expected, hell even commenting on the player standing nearby with his weapon drawn. what other game does this?

I do, this game gets perfect scores and when someone mentions or shows some flaws he or she gets ridiculed, is asked to compare it with other titles or is simply told that mods will iron out the ugly parts. How is this acceptable in a full priced 2011 release that gets hailed for its "advanced Radiant AI" while in reality it seems to be little more than an improved version of Oblivion/ F3 in that regard? I'm not saying this game doesn't have any merits (or that criticism is met with ridicule on this particular forum) but I don't understand the seemingly blind praise and apologetic attitude it receives across the board.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOY-_-WTZyI[/youtube]

Am I insane for expecting something better than that?

 

[aenemic]

I don't really see much problem with that. they reacted better than I expected, hell even commenting on the player standing nearby with his weapon drawn. what other game does this?

I do, this game gets perfect scores and when someone mentions or shows some flaws he or she gets ridiculed, is asked to compare it with other titles or is simply told that mods will iron out the ugly parts. How is this acceptable in a full priced 2011 release that gets hailed for its "advanced Radiant AI" while in reality it seems to be little more than an improved version of Oblivion/ F3 in that regard? I'm not saying this game doesn't have any merits (or that criticism is met with ridicule on this particular forum) but I don't understand the seemingly blind praise and apologetic attitude it receives across the board.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOY-_-WTZyI[/youtube]

Am I insane for expecting something better than that?

the AI in that video is bad on a whole different level than in the other video. I responded to the AI in that video alone. in general I agree with what you posted above, the games don't deserve the high scores they keep getting and it's annoying how people can look the other way when it comes to bad AI and bugs just because it's a Bethesda game.

 

[Ohaimerk]

I guess you're saying it's great on a social level but terrible on a combat level then?

 

[Crni Vuk]

One of the big things that is generally said about TES games is that you can "Go anywhere and do anything!" The sandbox element is presented as more of a focus than it actually is. It's not anyone's fault for taking Beth and their supporters at their word if they don't know any better. It's also a problem that is easily fixed by Beth, all they need to do is make enemies scale based on the sum of your combat skills or your highest combat skill.

Or they could simply make a proper RPG where talking actually can be used effectively. - Diplomacy if you want so. You probably will not be able to finish the game that way because you will need Friends to do the "dirty" work for you. But a character with high speech skills should be good in making friends no sadly such things require inteligent writting and even more inteligent quest design. Both things Bethesda never learned in the last 10 years.

 

[aenemic]

I guess you're saying it's great on a social level but terrible on a combat level then?

I never said anything was great in the first place. I simply didn't mind how the NPC's reacted to the dead body and I explained why I don't expect them to behave like sentient beings.

 

[Ohaimerk]

Got it. When I go to the store and kill an old lady I'll expect a comment from security about my weapon as I wave the body in their faces

 

[Makagulfazel]

The game's not perfect. Here's my list of things I think are neat-o compared to its predecessors:
- Enemies hide behind the things in the environment if you try to ghey them with arrows from an unreachable place.
- Enemies will switch targets if they can't reach their primary target easily.
- Difficulty is awesome. Level 38 and I still get whopped by some enemies. Actually gives me an incentive to buy/make different types of gear(potions, armor, jewelry) for different occasions.
- No longer has wikipedia-esque dialogue.
- Dragon fights/animations are smooth.
- Perks allow for different character builds in the end game.
- Better NPC/Quest reactions(Hired thugs, couriers giving messages from people that are upset with choices I made earlier in the game).
- No moonwalk diagonal running(hehe).

There's stuff I don't like: Should run better on crossfire 5850s, fuckin' UI functionality, weird bugs(Couldn't hit or provoke 1 dragon, NPCs teleporting). But all-in-all, it's a pretty amazing game. I was worried a bit about it being similar to Oblivion, but it's painfully obvious that they learned some lessons from their time developing Fallout 3 and have improved as developers even further. I have no qualms with it receiving 9-10 reviews from critics and users alike.
I would spend more time nitpicking if they were becoming worse, not better, at creating games. Aenemic has penned my exact thoughts on the AI. If you exploit the fact that the AI won't have human-like intellect, what the hell do you expect? Name -one- game that can do what you guys expect from Skyrim.

EDIT:
I have had 3 Crash-to-desktops and once all the trees were a blue color with a blobish shape. I'm using Xtreme-G drivers, though, so going to try the official to see if that can help with my graphical problems.

 

[aenemic]

thank you, someone actually gets my point.

on a whole I agree, it's such a step up from Oblivion that I think they deserve some praise and I prefer to speak of the positives of the game so that people may at least try it before judging. that said, Bethesda need to hire new writers. seriously. even this is a step up from Oblivion, but there is still cringe-worthy, childish and sloppy writing all over the place. the Jarl of Markarth telling me everything in the city is made of stone, even the beds - while standing next to his wooden bed - for example. might seem like a minor thing, but there so many such apparent disconnects between the writing and what you actually experience in-game that it gets pretty annoying.

and then there are the bugs... at first I wondered if I was lucky because I didn't really have any noteworthy bugs at all, but over the last couple of days I've witnessed plenty. only one quest-breaking bug so far, but even the small ones do get annoying after a while:

- general UI buginess
- 10 bottles of wine in my inventory that I can't get rid of because one or two of them are quest items and can't be dropped, sold, stashed or used.
- Lydia getting stuck in the "almost dead/begging for her life" stance and crawls after me along the ground.
- shopkeepers losing all their money when I quick-load.
- getting stuck in the shopping menu after selling something.
- telepathic guards that somehow know I'm a "sneaky thief" despite me never getting caught stealing. hell, they even sent some bruisers after me in Whiterun. three guys attacked me outside the city and one of the had a contract for me from the Whiterun Guard. I checked to see if I had a bounty, which I did not.
- npc's movement getting hindered by the smallest of objects. especially annoying when it's a companion.
- telling Lydia to "wait there" over in the distance, and exiting order-mode only to have her immediately turn around and walk back to me.
- items going invisible. I suspect this has something to do with the physics. first time I saw it was on a table where I could pick up items that simply weren't there. when I picked up one of them, the rest sort of dropped down on the table and became visible. second time, it was the other way around - I picked up an item, only to have a few items nearby go invisible.
- a couple of dragons refusing to acknowledge and attack me. they just soar through the skies above, even following me, but just won't come closer. I'm thinking this might be scripted though?

there are more. many more.

 

[Walpknut]

I don'tget why are some complainign about the first video (not the one with the arrows, that was pretty dumb) you want a stealth kill be met with either no reaction or getting peopel hostile even if you succeded in making it stealthy? The guards run up to you because you look suspicious with your sword drawn.
Now the game has lots of flaws, but is one of the best Big releases to come out thsi year (THIS YEAR AND ONE OF remeber that).

 

[lmao]

+ Storyline is way better than Oblivion, although not as good as Morrowind. I wish they'd set a game somewhere as interesting as Vvardenfell again, instead of generic "stone castles, steel armor" fantasy crap, but they did a decent job with the whole Nordic culture vs. Imperial/Elf thing.
+ Towns feel slightly more unique than in Oblivion. I like that there are little villages and homesteads dotted all over the map, as it feels more realistic than Oblivion, which was just a bunch of cities that were all identical.
+ Dialogue is mostly okay.
+ Dark Brotherhood and Companion storylines were great.
+ Truly beautiful scenery.

- Still only four kinds of dungeons: tombs, caves, forts and Dwemer ruins. You can expect to see the exact same kinds of monsters in each setting. If you go into a tomb, you know there will be undead. If you go into a Dwemer ruin, you know there will be Falmer. It's all so predictable, and every dungeon feels like every other dungeon of that type you've been to before.
- Voice actors are godawful for the most part.
- Thieves Guild and "Mages Guild" storylines were horrible.
- Leveling system is still bullshit. An RPG game with no experience is a travesty.
- They gutted your options to an appalling degree. No more stats, no more spellmaker. Magic selection is atrocious, particularly in the Destruction tree. Illusion has become pointless. There's no more Unarmed.
- The interface is atrocious.
- Dragons are the Cliff Racers of TES V. At first they're a challenge, then they're an annoyance.

Mods will probably fix a lot of this after awhile, but that doesn't mean Bethesda isn't really lazy or just plain stupid. To be honest, I never played vanilla Oblivion. I waited until there were tons of great mods for it to play it, so it's a little weird to be playing a totally brand new Elder Scrolls game.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Or they could simply make a proper RPG where talking actually can be used effectively. - Diplomacy if you want so. You probably will not be able to finish the game that way because you will need Friends to do the "dirty" work for you. But a character with high speech skills should be good in making friends no sadly such things require inteligent writting and even more inteligent quest design. Both things Bethesda never learned in the last 10 years.

Actually they should probably just cut out the non-combat skills since my experience was that they never added anything but annoyance. The "use it to improve it" system is particularly bad for a speech skill. As for crafting, why should the player have to grind through crafting in order to make something worthwhile late in the game if they've never needed or wanted to make anything before then?

Cutting the non-combat skills would also make the focus of the game a lot more clear to the player, since new comers to the franchise might actually think that they could beat the game with dialogue or not realize that upping crafting skills will mean that they'll die as soon as they get into a fight with anything. No, grinding up combat skills on crap enemies is not a solution as it's plain not fun.

I have no qualms with it receiving 9-10 reviews from critics and users alike.

How can you say that a game with that many atrocious bugs, including crashes to desktop and hardware compatibility issues, and with that shitty of an interface can deserve a 9-10? Are the combat, dungeons, writing, quests, etc. really up there for the best on the market?

 

[Surf Solar]

+ Storyline is way better than Oblivion, although not as good as Morrowind. I wish they'd set a game somewhere as interesting as Vvardenfell again, instead of generic "stone castles, steel armor" fantasy crap, but they did a decent job with the whole Nordic culture vs. Imperial/Elf thing.
+ Towns feel slightly more unique than in Oblivion. I like that there are little villages and homesteads dotted all over the map, as it feels more realistic than Oblivion, which was just a bunch of cities that were all identical.
+ Dialogue is mostly okay.
+ Dark Brotherhood and Companion storylines were great.
+ Truly beautiful scenery.

- Still only four kinds of dungeons: tombs, caves, forts and Dwemer ruins. You can expect to see the exact same kinds of monsters in each setting. If you go into a tomb, you know there will be undead. If you go into a Dwemer ruin, you know there will be Falmer. It's all so predictable, and every dungeon feels like every other dungeon of that type you've been to before.
- Voice actors are godawful for the most part.
- Thieves Guild and "Mages Guild" storylines were horrible.
- Leveling system is still bullshit. An RPG game with no experience is a travesty.
- They gutted your options to an appalling degree. No more stats, no more spellmaker. Magic selection is atrocious, particularly in the Destruction tree. Illusion has become pointless. There's no more Unarmed.
- The interface is atrocious.
- Dragons are the Cliff Racers of TES V. At first they're a challenge, then they're an annoyance.

Mods will probably fix a lot of this after awhile, but that doesn't mean Bethesda isn't really lazy or just plain stupid. To be honest, I never played vanilla Oblivion. I waited until there were tons of great mods for it to play it, so it's a little weird to be playing a totally brand new Elder Scrolls game.

I wholeheartly agree - wanted to list my pros and cons but you already did the job.
The winning points for me are the beautiful scenery, the general bit more "mature" atmosphere, music and such. The gameplay on lower levels is fun on higher difficulties (after that the game breaks itself) and the crafting is fun. But that's about it.. If you know one quest, one dungeon, hell, one npc, then you know all of them. They are all the fucking same. Dungeons are always one large corridor just with varying length, theme and monsters placed in. "Quests" are only excuses to go to aforementionend dungeons. NPC are badly written, you could talk to a wall and would have the same result.

It's by no means a bad game and a big step up from Oblivion, but that's not a hard thing to do given how much of a turd it was.

@ Dutch Ghost: Knowing your tastes in gaming a bit better since we chatted a bit, I don't think the game is for you. :/

 

[Xellos]

The winning points for me are the beautiful scenery, the general bit more "mature" atmosphere, music and such. The gameplay on lower levels is fun on higher difficulties (after that the game breaks itself) and the crafting is fun. But that's about it.. If you know one quest, one dungeon, hell, one npc, then you know all of them. They are all the fucking same. Dungeons are always one large corridor just with varying length, theme and monsters placed in. "Quests" are only excuses to go to aforementioned dungeons. NPC are badly written, you could talk to a wall and would have the same result.

That is probably the best summary of the game in this thread. I would add that there are a lot of inconsistencies in the world/npc behavior that just break the feeling for me. Example: blackmailed Argonian in Riften, when I walk near him he mumbles "how dare you appear here after what you did ? get away", I start dialog and he says "Oh welcome, what can I do for you my friend". Or who would have placed healing mixtures in tombs, people there are dead already. Or shopkeeper stuff level scaling which I mentioned before. Or dragon having less health than snow bear .... Many small things like this make the world non-believable.

 

[Token-not-found]

+ Storyline is way better than Oblivion, although not as good as Morrowind. I wish they'd set a game somewhere as interesting as Vvardenfell again, instead of generic "stone castles, steel armor" fantasy crap, but they did a decent job with the whole Nordic culture vs. Imperial/Elf thing.
+ Towns feel slightly more unique than in Oblivion. I like that there are little villages and homesteads dotted all over the map, as it feels more realistic than Oblivion, which was just a bunch of cities that were all identical.
+ Dialogue is mostly okay.
+ Dark Brotherhood and Companion storylines were great.
+ Truly beautiful scenery.

- Still only four kinds of dungeons: tombs, caves, forts and Dwemer ruins. You can expect to see the exact same kinds of monsters in each setting. If you go into a tomb, you know there will be undead. If you go into a Dwemer ruin, you know there will be Falmer. It's all so predictable, and every dungeon feels like every other dungeon of that type you've been to before.
- Voice actors are godawful for the most part.
- Thieves Guild and "Mages Guild" storylines were horrible.
- Leveling system is still bullshit. An RPG game with no experience is a travesty.
- They gutted your options to an appalling degree. No more stats, no more spellmaker. Magic selection is atrocious, particularly in the Destruction tree. Illusion has become pointless. There's no more Unarmed.
- The interface is atrocious.
- Dragons are the Cliff Racers of TES V. At first they're a challenge, then they're an annoyance.

Mods will probably fix a lot of this after awhile, but that doesn't mean Bethesda isn't really lazy or just plain stupid. To be honest, I never played vanilla Oblivion. I waited until there were tons of great mods for it to play it, so it's a little weird to be playing a totally brand new Elder Scrolls game.

I wholeheartly agree - wanted to list my pros and cons but you already did the job.
The winning points for me are the beautiful scenery, the general bit more "mature" atmosphere, music and such. The gameplay on lower levels is fun on higher difficulties (after that the game breaks itself) and the crafting is fun. But that's about it.. If you know one quest, one dungeon, hell, one npc, then you know all of them. They are all the fucking same. Dungeons are always one large corridor just with varying length, theme and monsters placed in. "Quests" are only excuses to go to aforementionend dungeons. NPC are badly written, you could talk to a wall and would have the same result.

It's by no means a bad game and a big step up from Oblivion, but that's not a hard thing to do given how much of a turd it was.

@ Dutch Ghost: Knowing your tastes in gaming a bit better since we chatted a bit, I don't think the game is for you. :/

Dungeon architecture isn't a game breaker for me, random loot is.

Oblivion dungeons were generic as fuck, if you explored on you knew them all, but that was not game breaking for me, game breaking was the fact that they ALL had random loot, no unique special item , not even a generic item placed at a fixed location.

So my question: is loot in Skyrim randomly generated, is all of it that way or just most?

In morrowind it was fun to explore because you never knew where the next piece of daedric armor was so you could complete the whole set or a unique weapon or something.

I don't remember if the dungeons were unique or not ( i do have a mild form of brain damage though)

I'm interested in non-quest related dungeons.

 

[Surf Solar]

There are very few dungeons with fixed loot at the end, most of it is random.