30 min vid about the dumbing down of The Elder Scrolls franchise

[Stun]

All ES games after Arena project that tourist vibe. I'm not seeing the distinction between Morrowind and Skyrim on that front.

[Namutree]

 

 

If you consider making the skills a talent tree instead of a linear progression to 100 and consolidating them from 21 to 18 depth, sure. The skill perks are mostly the same as they had been with the exception of new ones to highlight Skyrim's new combat features.

 

Compared to the old system it certainly does have more depth. Back in Oblivion you could just raise all your skills to 100 and receive the full benefit of said skill. Now you actually have to decide how you spend your limited perks. With Skyrim two characters with the same level and the same skills raised could skill be radically different characters based on how perks were spent.

 

With Oblivion's skill system everyone turns out the same (Skill wise). Not so with Skyrim. So yeah, the skill system is definitely more in-depth with Skyrim.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Namutree

[Mangonel]

All ES games after Arena project that tourist vibe. I'm not seeing the distinction between Morrowind and Skyrim on that front.

 

 

 

 

If you consider making the skills a talent tree instead of a linear progression to 100 and consolidating them from 21 to 18 depth, sure. The skill perks are mostly the same as they had been with the exception of new ones to highlight Skyrim's new combat features.

 

Compared to the old system it certainly does have more depth. Back in Oblivion you could just raise all your skills to 100 and receive the full benefit of said skill. Now you actually have to decide how you spend your limited perks. With Skyrim two characters with the same level and the same skills raised could skill be radically different characters based on how perks were spent.

 

With Oblivion's skill system everyone turns out the same (Skill wise). Not so with Skyrim. So yeah, the skill system is definitely more in-depth with Skyrim.

 

 

If you completely ignore the major/minor skills and the soft cap on character levels major skills impose and the fact all combat skills have damage modifiers based on their respective governing attribute, sure. In Oblivion attributes are part and parcel with the skill system so you can't just ignore that and say Skyrim has more depth.

 

Saying two different archetypal chars in Oblivion with 100 in a skill without considering attributes is like saying two different archetypal chars in Skyrim with 100 in a skill are the same without considering perk selection. Perk selection was added to try and fill the customization gap they made when they gutted the attribute system.

 

Two characters of the same level with the same skills can be just as different, if not moreso, in Oblivion as they can be in Skyrim. Skyrim does to an extent let you make poor choices just as its predecessors, you can be a warrior who puts all his points in magicka and skills 2hers, just as you can decide to ignore you're +5's to strength and level up +1's to int/willpower/personality in Oblivion.

 

If you only look at viable level up selections, which is what matters, Skyrim and Oblivion are similar. The major difference being that in Oblivion and Morrowind what you actually do on a level by level basis matters in how you level up your attributes whereas having been dumbed down to health/stamina/magicka in Skyrim they do not, its a choice of 10/10/10 no matter what you do.

 

The level-by-level differences in Oblivion/Morrowind add both depth and flavor. What you do, and when you do it, in game has a direct impact on what your character eventually becomes. This also inherently increases the differences between two archetypal chars of the same char and skill lvl as neither two would have done the same things in the same order to reach the same outcome even when the end skill and character level totals are the same.

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling#Raising_Attributes

 

Example 1 illustrates my point. What 3 attributes the player decides to pick make each character different on a level by level basis even if they're going for the same archetype. The differences between optimal and sub-optimal-but-viable skill ups and attribute selections make the effective difference between characters even more pronounced at higher levels.

 

Even if you decide to lock attributes and health/stamina/magicka selections, such that both chars make the same selections in order to focus more on skill differences. Such as always pick Str/End/Spd and always level H/S/M at a 2/2/1 ratio, the fact that the order in which you gain your skill ups in Oblivion matters makes for greater differences in characters.

 

So no, Skyrim does not have more depth in its skill system than Oblivion.

[Namutree]

 

All ES games after Arena project that tourist vibe. I'm not seeing the distinction between Morrowind and Skyrim on that front.

 

 

 

 

If you consider making the skills a talent tree instead of a linear progression to 100 and consolidating them from 21 to 18 depth, sure. The skill perks are mostly the same as they had been with the exception of new ones to highlight Skyrim's new combat features.

 

Compared to the old system it certainly does have more depth. Back in Oblivion you could just raise all your skills to 100 and receive the full benefit of said skill. Now you actually have to decide how you spend your limited perks. With Skyrim two characters with the same level and the same skills raised could skill be radically different characters based on how perks were spent.

 

With Oblivion's skill system everyone turns out the same (Skill wise). Not so with Skyrim. So yeah, the skill system is definitely more in-depth with Skyrim.

 

 

If you completely ignore the major/minor skills and the soft cap on character levels major skills impose and the fact all combat skills have damage modifiers based on their respective governing attribute, sure. In Oblivion attributes are part and parcel with the skill system so you can't just ignore that and say Skyrim has more depth.

 

Saying two different archetypal chars in Oblivion with 100 in a skill without considering attributes is like saying two different archetypal chars in Skyrim with 100 in a skill are the same without considering perk selection. Perk selection was added to try and fill the customization gap they made when they gutted the attribute system.

 

Two characters of the same level with the same skills can be just as different, if not moreso, in Oblivion as they can be in Skyrim. Skyrim does to an extent let you make poor choices just as its predecessors, you can be a warrior who puts all his points in magicka and skills 2hers, just as you can decide to ignore you're +5's to strength and level up +1's to int/willpower/personality in Oblivion.

 

If you only look at viable level up selections, which is what matters, Skyrim and Oblivion are similar. The major difference being that in Oblivion and Morrowind what you actually do on a level by level basis matters in how you level up your attributes whereas having been dumbed down to health/stamina/magicka in Skyrim they do not, its a choice of 10/10/10 no matter what you do.

 

The level-by-level differences in Oblivion/Morrowind add both depth and flavor. What you do, and when you do it, in game has a direct impact on what your character eventually becomes. This also inherently increases the differences between two archetypal chars of the same char and skill lvl as neither two would have done the same things in the same order to reach the same outcome even when the end skill and character level totals are the same.

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling#Raising_Attributes

 

Example 1 illustrates my point. What 3 attributes the player decides to pick make each character different on a level by level basis even if they're going for the same archetype. The differences between optimal and sub-optimal-but-viable skill ups and attribute selections make the effective difference between characters even more pronounced at higher levels.

 

Even if you decide to lock attributes and health/stamina/magicka selections, such that both chars make the same selections in order to focus more on skill differences. Such as always pick Str/End/Spd and always level H/S/M at a 2/2/1 ratio, the fact that the order in which you gain your skill ups in Oblivion matters makes for greater differences in characters.

 

So no, Skyrim does not have more depth in its skill system than Oblivion.

 

My point is that things aren't dumbing down. You just insist they are without a basis. I get it; the attribute system was simplified. As you have already recognized Skyrim's skill system was enhanced to compensate for the simplified attribute system. So guess what? IT WASN'T DUMBED DOWN. It was a shift in focus. Depth was moved away from attributes and placed into skills. That's not dumbing down.

 

I would readily admit that the attribute system in Oblivion has more depth than Skyrim; too bad you can't just admit that the skill system in Skyrim has more depth than Oblivion.

 

Yes, I'm aware that skills in Oblivion affect your level ups. Once again though; this has been compensated for by the perk system. I should also note that perks can make your character more different than the attribute system does. In fact the only attribute choice that even really matters is whether or not you choose to raise Endurance early on.

 

 

 

The level-by-level differences in Oblivion/Morrowind add both depth and flavor. What you do, and when you do it, in game has a direct impact on what your character eventually becomes. This also inherently increases the differences between two archetypal chars of the same char and skill lvl as neither two would have done the same things in the same order to reach the same outcome even when the end skill and character level totals are the same.

 

In Morrowind it had barely any depth. You almost have to try to not be level 300-something with 100 in all attributes within ten hours of playing the game since the game offers master trainers for every skill which are easy to find since there is one for every skill. That is; unless you are willing to exploit the game and use good ol' drain skill if you are too lazy for finding and paying the master trainers.

 

As for flavor; I guess that's subjective, but I'd venture to say that Skyrims offer of knocking people down with my shield and slowing down time for enemy's power attacks is a bit more flavorful than a minor attribute modifier for an attribute that will be 100 soon anyways.

[Stun]

If you completely ignore the major/minor skills and the soft cap on character levels major skills impose and the fact all combat skills have damage modifiers based on their respective governing attribute, sure. In Oblivion attributes are part and parcel with the skill system so you can't just ignore that and say Skyrim has more depth.

So your definition of a game's depth is.... character skills and attributes...? Edited January 9, 2015 by Stun

[500MetricTonnes]

 

All ES games after Arena project that tourist vibe. I'm not seeing the distinction between Morrowind and Skyrim on that front.

 

 

 

 

If you consider making the skills a talent tree instead of a linear progression to 100 and consolidating them from 21 to 18 depth, sure. The skill perks are mostly the same as they had been with the exception of new ones to highlight Skyrim's new combat features.

 

Compared to the old system it certainly does have more depth. Back in Oblivion you could just raise all your skills to 100 and receive the full benefit of said skill. Now you actually have to decide how you spend your limited perks. With Skyrim two characters with the same level and the same skills raised could skill be radically different characters based on how perks were spent.

 

With Oblivion's skill system everyone turns out the same (Skill wise). Not so with Skyrim. So yeah, the skill system is definitely more in-depth with Skyrim.

 

 

If you completely ignore the major/minor skills and the soft cap on character levels major skills impose and the fact all combat skills have damage modifiers based on their respective governing attribute, sure. In Oblivion attributes are part and parcel with the skill system so you can't just ignore that and say Skyrim has more depth.

 

Saying two different archetypal chars in Oblivion with 100 in a skill without considering attributes is like saying two different archetypal chars in Skyrim with 100 in a skill are the same without considering perk selection. Perk selection was added to try and fill the customization gap they made when they gutted the attribute system.

 

Two characters of the same level with the same skills can be just as different, if not moreso, in Oblivion as they can be in Skyrim. Skyrim does to an extent let you make poor choices just as its predecessors, you can be a warrior who puts all his points in magicka and skills 2hers, just as you can decide to ignore you're +5's to strength and level up +1's to int/willpower/personality in Oblivion.

 

If you only look at viable level up selections, which is what matters, Skyrim and Oblivion are similar. The major difference being that in Oblivion and Morrowind what you actually do on a level by level basis matters in how you level up your attributes whereas having been dumbed down to health/stamina/magicka in Skyrim they do not, its a choice of 10/10/10 no matter what you do.

 

The level-by-level differences in Oblivion/Morrowind add both depth and flavor. What you do, and when you do it, in game has a direct impact on what your character eventually becomes. This also inherently increases the differences between two archetypal chars of the same char and skill lvl as neither two would have done the same things in the same order to reach the same outcome even when the end skill and character level totals are the same.

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling#Raising_Attributes

 

Example 1 illustrates my point. What 3 attributes the player decides to pick make each character different on a level by level basis even if they're going for the same archetype. The differences between optimal and sub-optimal-but-viable skill ups and attribute selections make the effective difference between characters even more pronounced at higher levels.

 

Even if you decide to lock attributes and health/stamina/magicka selections, such that both chars make the same selections in order to focus more on skill differences. Such as always pick Str/End/Spd and always level H/S/M at a 2/2/1 ratio, the fact that the order in which you gain your skill ups in Oblivion matters makes for greater differences in characters.

 

So no, Skyrim does not have more depth in its skill system than Oblivion.

 

Keep in mind that Oblivion's skill system was completely buggered from the start.

 

Major skills increased faster than minor skills, and you levelled up by raising your major skills. Every time you gained a level, you would get an attribute increase; which attributes were increased and the amount they were raised was dependent on how how much you had raised their related skills.

 

Unfortunately, if you played the way the game intended, that is, choosing your major skills to be the ones you used most frequently, then you would level up far too quickly to get any significant attribute boosts. Since nearly everything in the game levelled up with you, that meant that you might actually be getting weaker than everyone else with each level you gained! The solution was to pick as your major skills the ones whose increase could be controlled, allowing you to postpone levelling up until you had raised your minor skills high enough to get the maximum attribute boost.

 

The fact that the levelling system does the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do tells me that Bethesda completely lost the plot between Morrowind and Oblivion. Skyrim "fixed" this problem by completely removing attributes and major/minor skills (sort of like how Mass Effect 2 "fixed" the flaws of its predecessor by completely removing features such as the inventory). Of course, it's still possible to make yourself weaker by levelling up if you raise your non-combat skills enough to trigger the level scaling mechanism.

 

Level scaling is really the worst "feature" ever to grace the RPG genre.

[Mangonel]

 

 

All ES games after Arena project that tourist vibe. I'm not seeing the distinction between Morrowind and Skyrim on that front.

 

 

 

 

If you consider making the skills a talent tree instead of a linear progression to 100 and consolidating them from 21 to 18 depth, sure. The skill perks are mostly the same as they had been with the exception of new ones to highlight Skyrim's new combat features.

 

Compared to the old system it certainly does have more depth. Back in Oblivion you could just raise all your skills to 100 and receive the full benefit of said skill. Now you actually have to decide how you spend your limited perks. With Skyrim two characters with the same level and the same skills raised could skill be radically different characters based on how perks were spent.

 

With Oblivion's skill system everyone turns out the same (Skill wise). Not so with Skyrim. So yeah, the skill system is definitely more in-depth with Skyrim.

 

 

If you completely ignore the major/minor skills and the soft cap on character levels major skills impose and the fact all combat skills have damage modifiers based on their respective governing attribute, sure. In Oblivion attributes are part and parcel with the skill system so you can't just ignore that and say Skyrim has more depth.

 

Saying two different archetypal chars in Oblivion with 100 in a skill without considering attributes is like saying two different archetypal chars in Skyrim with 100 in a skill are the same without considering perk selection. Perk selection was added to try and fill the customization gap they made when they gutted the attribute system.

 

Two characters of the same level with the same skills can be just as different, if not moreso, in Oblivion as they can be in Skyrim. Skyrim does to an extent let you make poor choices just as its predecessors, you can be a warrior who puts all his points in magicka and skills 2hers, just as you can decide to ignore you're +5's to strength and level up +1's to int/willpower/personality in Oblivion.

 

If you only look at viable level up selections, which is what matters, Skyrim and Oblivion are similar. The major difference being that in Oblivion and Morrowind what you actually do on a level by level basis matters in how you level up your attributes whereas having been dumbed down to health/stamina/magicka in Skyrim they do not, its a choice of 10/10/10 no matter what you do.

 

The level-by-level differences in Oblivion/Morrowind add both depth and flavor. What you do, and when you do it, in game has a direct impact on what your character eventually becomes. This also inherently increases the differences between two archetypal chars of the same char and skill lvl as neither two would have done the same things in the same order to reach the same outcome even when the end skill and character level totals are the same.

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling#Raising_Attributes

 

Example 1 illustrates my point. What 3 attributes the player decides to pick make each character different on a level by level basis even if they're going for the same archetype. The differences between optimal and sub-optimal-but-viable skill ups and attribute selections make the effective difference between characters even more pronounced at higher levels.

 

Even if you decide to lock attributes and health/stamina/magicka selections, such that both chars make the same selections in order to focus more on skill differences. Such as always pick Str/End/Spd and always level H/S/M at a 2/2/1 ratio, the fact that the order in which you gain your skill ups in Oblivion matters makes for greater differences in characters.

 

So no, Skyrim does not have more depth in its skill system than Oblivion.

 

My point is that things aren't dumbing down. You just insist they are without a basis. I get it; the attribute system was simplified. As you have already recognized Skyrim's skill system was enhanced to compensate for the simplified attribute system. So guess what? IT WASN'T DUMBED DOWN. It was a shift in focus. Depth was moved away from attributes and placed into skills. That's not dumbing down.

 

I would readily admit that the attribute system in Oblivion has more depth than Skyrim; too bad you can't just admit that the skill system in Skyrim has more depth than Oblivion.

 

Yes, I'm aware that skills in Oblivion affect your level ups. Once again though; this has been compensated for by the perk system. I should also note that perks can make your character more different than the attribute system does. In fact the only attribute choice that even really matters is whether or not you choose to raise Endurance early on.

 

 

 

The level-by-level differences in Oblivion/Morrowind add both depth and flavor. What you do, and when you do it, in game has a direct impact on what your character eventually becomes. This also inherently increases the differences between two archetypal chars of the same char and skill lvl as neither two would have done the same things in the same order to reach the same outcome even when the end skill and character level totals are the same.

 

In Morrowind it had barely any depth. You almost have to try to not be level 300-something with 100 in all attributes within ten hours of playing the game since the game offers master trainers for every skill which are easy to find since there is one for every skill. That is; unless you are willing to exploit the game and use good ol' drain skill if you are too lazy for finding and paying the master trainers.

 

As for flavor; I guess that's subjective, but I'd venture to say that Skyrims offer of knocking people down with my shield and slowing down time for enemy's power attacks is a bit more flavorful than a minor attribute modifier for an attribute that will be 100 soon anyways.

 

 

Is there a way to respond to someone so they'll get a notification I replied without quoting them?

 

I insist things are becoming dumbed down because they are. You say I have no basis, yet while I'm providing examples to illustrate my point, you just keep repeating "Skyrim has more depth". Unfortunately that doesn't make it true.

 

I kept my point narrow since you were trying to make a point about skills from Oblivion to Skyrim specifically. If we broaden the topic to character advancement systems as a whole the Skyrim enchanting system immediately comes to mind. If you look at Morrowind's enchanting, Skyrim's is a joke. You go from actual spell creation to an easter egg hunt where all you do is scale the relative power of the effect. The system would be right at home in WoW.

 

My problem with 'admitting' skills have more depth in Skyrim is that in Oblivion they're part and parcel with the attribute system. The skills in Skyrim just took the perks you'd get from leveling said skill and abstracted them into a tree you put points into. I don't see how putting a coat of paint on an existing system adds depth.

 

It may add a more meaningful sense of achievement to some, being able to slot that skill-lvl-75 perk rather than getting it passively. The vast majority of the nodes in Skyrim's perk tree provide no meaningful impact on how you play, they're mostly damage modifiers. But boy-o-boy you get you put a point into something so that must be depth right?

 

What are you talking about level 300-something in Morrowind? The soft cap for character level is 78. Did you even play the game?

 

Yes, Skyrim had combat advancements. Oblivion also introduced RadiantAI which was great. Neither of which where based on having character advancement as a whole being dumbed down and were likely features designed to be added independently of what attribute/skill system was decided on.

 

 

And for Stun my definition of depth is the amount of meaningful choices a game provides. Specifically in regards to character advancement for this discussion.

 

 

We selected our major/minor skills, whose progress was dependent on what we did in the world. The order and degree of progress determined attribute progression which in turn governed the effectiveness of skills.

 

We now have Skills and base-stats where the progress of the base stats are completely independent of skill progression and have no effect on skills whatsoever.

 

Regardless of what Namutree thinks, two characters of the same char and skill level in Skyrim will not be radically different unless you're intentionally making contradictory choices at level up. IE two warrior archetypes but one allocates everything into magicka, just because they can. Mind you, Morrowind and Skyrim both let you be that kind of next-level-bad if you really wanted to as well.

[Namutree]

@Mangonel I think this is a good way to respond without having to quote me.

[SKull]

Here... scrub this video to 4:00 in and you'll see exactly why I complained about the guy in the rebuttal video to "dumbing down" going on about how he likes quest markers and how quests that tell you where to search for something is, as he says, "archaic design that has no business in modern games." (para.) I lost any and all consideration of respect for his position on the "dumbing down" when that came out of his mouth. 4 minutes in, this guy makes it so clear nothing else needs to be said.

 

 

Thanks for that link. He`s a smart guy and says it very well. What he says about the joy of discovery is so spot on. To my mind it`s the most important aspect of any game, regardless of genre. And it should not be sabotaged for players by hand holding. Even if it`s just something like a puzzle game or a chess simulator it still applies because you want to move to the next puzzle or the next CPU opponent to see it and find out if you can beat it. If you are constantly telling the player exactly what to do, including with quest markers, you`re removing discovery as an element of the game. I can remember occasionally being semi annoyed at having to draw game maps on grid paper to avoid getting lost back in the 80s and 90s, pre auto map days. But at the same time, the first time I managed to beat a game BECAUSE I had had the patience to do this (Dungeon Master) it was a very good feeling. When player intelligence (Knowing where things are, where you are in the game world and what you`re supposed to be doing there) is increased because of player activity rather than developer activity it makes for a much more satisfying gaming experience. Developers used to hide subtle clues about the finer points of playing the game, and usually you missed most of them. They didn`t pause your game to give you step by step instructions.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxNNp2Y6YTM

[SKull]

I have never understood what people mean when they talk about gameplay.  To me gameplay is the overall "feel" of the game.  From the first character build to the final battle or confrontation.  Arcanum had both real time and turn based combat.  I mostly played in turn based.      I have no  idea what "system" of combat Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim have but have played those games for hours and enjoyed them although Oblivion and Skyrim IMO have no real story theme.

 

I also like city builders and when I find one I like I switch off and play those.  I was familiar with the PnP D&D games.   I guess I am just  bothered by the emphasis I am seeing placed on D&D rules or systems that I am seeing.  In ovation or evolution may not always be good but sometimes it means the difference between survival and extinction.  Following in the footsteps of tradition or clinging to the past can be stifling.

 

I am a long time member of a fan-site forum set up in 2000 to support the infinity engine games specifically at the time BG 1.  D&D rules have to be learned.  Many people came on the forum confused frequently asking what AC was and not understanding that it was a minus figure.  The lower the number the better.  Someone finally made a thread listing the spells in order of usefulness with discription. 

 

My point is that there is no perfect game, no perfect spell system, no perfect combat system etc because we each like different things.  There is simply no way to please 100% of the people 100% of the time.  I do not expect to be 100% happy with PoE but from what I have read and played so far I think I will be at least 90% pleased and maybe even more.  I will be happy.

 

Definition is available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

 

It`s a relatively vague term, and increasingly so as games become more complex. The quality of gameplay depends entirely on genre and what particular game we`re talking about. If you`re playing a racing game, bad gameplay would be inappropriate textures you could drive through, unresponsive vehicles etc. Annoying music would not be bad gameplay.

Bad gameplay in an old platform game might be things like impossible jumps, platforms that you fall through because of bad programming or spontaneous reversal of movement controls without warning. But what might bad gameplay be in Obilivion and Skyrim? I would argue that the ending of Oblivion is an Oscar winning example of awful gameplay. Instead of the expansive and engaging world you have just been playing in you`re now stuck clearing portal after portal after portal until you just quit in disgust or develop an ulcer. It was bad enough the first time. But obviously because the game was so large you needed loads and loads of these bad portals to make the ending proportionate to the game. It was barbaric torture and therefore terrible gameplay. More or less the same thing can be said about the dragons in Skyrim; big and impressive, the first five times or so. After that they became a video gaming equivalent of seagull parents divebombing you during nesting season; annoying and loud but not much of a threat. Which begs the question of why they are there at all. Having a major selling point of the game be entirely pointless and trivial the way the dragons were in Skyrim qualifies as bad game play too, quite apart from the discussion of skills etc already on this page.

 

In general though, gameplay in an RPG sense is perhaps the hardest to pin down. i think this explains why there is so much confusion among developers these days on how to do just basic things like loot, skills, character development, inventories and customization. You`d think this stuff would have been sorted by now but it keeps getting tinkered with, and what`s worse slashed altogether in the case of Bioware.

The basics of it is in risk-reward relations, both of an individual fight or quest line and for the game as a whole. If a fight is seriously hard the players need some suitable reward for surviving it. And if it`s very easy some pennies or some trash. If you tinker with this by making gear and other treasure too hard to find, like in Diablo III on inferno (When it launched. I haven`t played it since) then you make the game, or at least the part of the game concerned with gear, pointless. If you make it too easy to find so the problem becomes what to do with it all (WoW after TBC) that also makes the gear part of the game pointless. This equals bad gameplay. Removing the inventory altogether like Bioware have done might technically not produce bad gameplay, but instead it changes the genre so the game is no longer really an RPG. To anyone who likes RPGs therefore, removing inventories also gives bad gameplay.

The second primary gameplay element in an RPG is character development. It needs to be deep, in the sense that you could put all your points in strength but you`d be a moron and a klutz as a trade off. Any RPG that doesn`t force such tradeoffs on the player is a bad RPG. If you allow the player to be great at everything, like Oblivion and Skyrim did, that is bad gameplay, because it negates the process of character development altogether. What`s the point if you`re just gonna end up with a heroic cookie cutter guy anyway? Not letting players assign their skills and attributes, like Diablo III did, is also of course terrible game play. It`s no longer doing what an RPG game is supposed to be doing. Most RPG games made since about 2008 are amazingly shallow in some or all of these aspects. They look deep to the confused but are in fact just wide. Lots of places to go, absolutely nothing to do once you get there.

Above all a game might have some bad gameplay but not be altogether bad, which is the case with Oblivion and Skyrim in my view. There is good gameplay as well in both of those games. It`s just that the bad gameplay is either so totally unecessary or sabotaging the RPG genre that it makes them pretty bad RPG games. Again, if you like RPGs they are not the best games in the world for these reasons. If you want an example of a game that has only bad gameplay and no good gameplay, try either Big Rigs ("Driving" "Simulator" (Sorry, but both of those words are lies when describing Big Rigs)), Custer`s Revenge (Technically a shoot`em up, where your goal is to rape tied up native American women) or the political activism game called Ethnic Cleansing, an FPS game in which the goal is to shoot black people and Jews before they can take over the world. Here`s a video in case you don`t believe me.

My point is that games that are entirely bad are rare. That`s not what we`re talking about when we say that TES has bad gameplay.

 

PS: And don`t give me the pseudo evolutionary waffle some people seem to buy into please. RPGs have degenrated, not evolved. You don`t evolve platform games by removing the platforms and giving the player a jet pack. You abolish the platformer genre. And it`s the same with all the "conveniences" forced on RPG fans over the last decade or so.

 

Don`t worry now. Just 69 more portals to go and you`re done!

 

Is there a Mrs Jones in this apartment?

 

Doing a Carl Lewis long jump act instead of pressing a button as instructed.

Edited February 5, 2015 by SKull

[cosmin]

i would go further, even the bug fest of older elder scrolls daggerfall was better, it featured all the lands and a dozen temples, way more items, a story that came to you - as you were atacked as a means of summoning, way more clothing - magical underware anyone....

 

and not to mention the drm - morrowind came with serials and no drm on goty the rest are steam, even the colection morrwing.

 

i would love to see your take on mass effect and dragon age.