Given the trajectory of the series (and Bethesda games in general) I have this creeping fear that it's going to be even more watered down than Skyrim is. It seems like with every game Bethesda releases they strip away RPG elements and dialogue and "streamline" everything, effectively making their beloved RPG franchises into action-adventure games like they did with Fallout 4. What are the odds they turn it around and actually make the excellent first person open world RPG the series deserves?
My dream is for TES to get it's own New Vegas, a return-to-form RPG from an outside company that actually knows how to write an interesting video game
Sorry I'm with gamingcirclejerk on this one, I don't really care about "dumbing down" or griping about "streamlining".
When I play a game I only care if I'm having fun, and honestly I have fun with skyrim. I don't really give a shit about "RPG elements", walking simulators are relaxing. Yeah I'm a casual.
(I'm gonna get slaughtered for this opinion)
I don't even mind the walking simulator thing, but I don't know why with Skyrim specifically is so easy to notice the "stitches in the fabric" as it were, the world feels soooo makeshift. The thing I remember the most in Skyrim is the College of Winterhold, I always do the magic guild questline in morrowind, so I had to do this one. It's hyped in books as "the center of magic" in Skyrim, and there's many books that keep referencing Winterhold and magical breakthroughts around Winterhold keep popping up in descriptions. You walk very far until you reach Winterhold and from afar you see this ominous castle, really cool looking harry potter-ish castle, you enter and see that the entirety of the school is five guys shooting spells at the wall. One of the guy gets in the way of someone shooting an ice beam, shouts in pain and shortly after resumes walking to nowhere in particular.
It's perhaps some sort of uncanny valley effect too I guess. I mean it's obvious that NPCs in Morrowind REALLY have nothing to do except walk back and forth, and most share the same dialogue pool, but I dunno, something in Skyrim didn't stick the landing and I don't know what it was. I think the subplots happening beneath the surface in Morrowind help you flesh out the world in your imagination, we should go back to lengthy text exposition, maybe.
Almost everything just felt super small in Skyrim to me, or at least the town stuff and actual civilization.
Maybe this is gaming as a child syndrome but I remember the Imperial City or whatever feeling really massive, which put the smaller settlements in the world in perspective. I think with Skyrim also it feels like the technology should be able to do more somehow, in older games everything feels somewhat cohesively limited, while in Skyrim suddenly shit just feels smaller and more limited than their potential.
The small cities are one of the biggest disappointments in Skyrim IMO. They did a decent job of making them feel bigger, but I remember walking around Whiterun the first time and being like "uhhh this is it?"
I also wish there was some more interesting spell selection (the shouts were cool at least) and that the weapons felt more different. I was able to fix those with mods, but I really shouldn't have to.
That's fair, I'm not denying that there are flaws with the game, and the factions are a major one. I'm just pointing out that the game is still fun despite its flaws and ultimately the enjoyment is all that truly matters to me
I think TES should stick with radiant AI, the world would feel a lot more dead without it. I feel that oblivion did it better, there were more NPCs with more complex schedules.
I have fun with games like Skyrim too, I'm not saying it's unplayable garbage or anything. I've got like 400 hours in it. I think probably my biggest gripe with both Skyrim and Oblivion is that they feel extremely railroady, you start the game and it's immediately like "holy shit you're the chosen one go save the world" and then you've got the main quest breathing down your neck the entire game while you try to enjoy side content. Compare that to Morrowind or New Vegas, where you're dropped off via boat or walk out of Doc Mitchell's with a plot thread you can choose to follow, or you can choose to entirely fuck off in a different direction and join or guild or do whatever else you feel like. When one of the most popular mods for both Oblivion and Skyrim dramatically alters the intros of the games to cut that shit out I feel like Bethesda should probably learn a lesson from that
Adding on to this to say that I think the reason NV sticks out so much to me is that it gives a huge amount of freedom to build the character you want to roleplay, both in it's systems and it's story. Non-combat skills like Medicine and Barter actually feel impactful outside of their small niches by affecting how your character can speak to people. Compare that to Skyrim where your character options feel like melee, ranged, or spells. The speech skill is a total joke. Any character can complete any questline in the game. A 2h wielding barbarian can become headmaster of the college of winterhold. Nothing matters. I just want them to bring meaningful skills back :doomjak:
Questlines should get locked off based on decisions and other questlines IMO, if they cant make the character builds interesting enough to feel different and meaningful this at least would force some kind of character identity just based on what you've actually done in the game, rather than always being the archmage, head of both the dark brotherhood and thieves guild at once, noted war hero who decided the political fate of Skyrim etc etc etc but this time you use a bow in actual gameplay instead of a sword. Like the Thieves Guild arent going to see the fucking Archmage stroll up and go "Hello fellow law breakers, how do you do?" and not instantly think that this is some kind of trap to fuck over the guild.
And yes self imposed restrictions exist but I have no self control, Im a dummy with ADHD if I see a quest the game lets me do Im going to do it, and the average player doing the game first time isnt going to have meta knowledge of what quests to avoid in order to keep a coherent character going either. Bethesda are so fucking lucky to have their modding thralls making their games replayable in an interesting way because otherwise there really isnt a huge reason to replay Skyrim unless you missed something by accident, everything just kinda feels the same.
I think most people really like Skyrim dude, don't worry. It's watered down, but it's tolerable. Fallout 4 and 76 are the games people really seem to hate.
You've completely missed my point then
No, I just replied to you with words i meant for another poster further down the thread on accident.
Regardless, I do think Fallout 4 and 76 are the games that get the most ire.
Well regardless, all I'm saying is that I'm tired of "dumbing down" and "lowest common denominator" discourse
Not that it'll stop me from having my casual fun (obviously not defending beth btw, I'm basically saying "let people enjoy things")
Oh yeah, im not going to shit on somebody for Enjoying something like Fallout 4, I liked it enough myself. I just would have preferred for my tastes for it to be more like Oblivion or New Vegas and I hope ES6 is more like those games.
Not going to attack somebody for enjoying something though.