Grant of GAMElitist.com - "As said before, I do feel that Skyrim is a great game and I did enjoy playing it, I just don’t see it as the masterpiece people claim it to be."
(Culture, PC, PS3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Xbox 360)
Are you serious? You must be someone who only played The Elder Scrolls from the fifth installment. Nearly EVERY element of the game was stripped of all type of thinking.
The leveling system was simplified to the extreme. Bethesda, despite numerous criticism in Oblivion and Fallout 3 still decided it was a good idea to level the world with the players skills. The game also gets VERY repetitive with all of the fetch quests.
In my opinion, Oblivion with some mods installed, is probably better than Skyrim. Hopefully that changes soon with Skyrim modding. Although apparently Skyrim modding is extremely limited now. Modders have told me that it will be years before we will get serious mods and overhauls.
There are no longer multiple guilds for players to choose from. It's blatantly fighters, Mage, etc, with exception to choosing which side of the war to fight on, if either. They took away the idea of Houses, stripping away some of what defines your character and the politics he fellows. This was also missing in Oblivion, mind you. There was also warring between the guilds, meaning that your choices had a deeper impact on the world and people's attitudes towards you. It added to the whole experience and made your choices feel they had real weight to them.
They did indeed weaken the skill system. The new system basically rewards you for power-leveling skills that you have no interest in using.
In Oblivion, they streamlined the weapons skills, doing away with the one-hand/two-handed skills. This was fine, really. It still made for specific builds, with characters still choosing their weapon/weapons of choice. With Skyrim, they streamlined it even further, returning the one-hand/two-handed skills, but doing away with specific weapons. This is too much and weakens the idea of specific builds, ie the depth of character development.
They limited the player's ability to to don multiple pieces or armor in favor of full sets, with choice in boots and helmets, gauntlets. This limits the player in terms of enchanting as well.
Finally, both magic and enchanting creation were largely simplified and are only a shell of they were in Oblivion, let alone the in-depth systems they were in Morrowind.
I could very well be missing important points. It's been a good six months since I've played Skyrim and the specifics of the game are a little fuzzy for me. These were just some points off the top of my head, really.
You listed nothing that was wrong with the game at all and instead just continued to babble on about how everything is "dumbed down."
If you even played morrowind you would understand why they changed the leveling system, it was completely uneconomical in morrowind, there was skills for things you didnt even need in the slightest and skills NOBODY levelled yet as soon as they are gone everyone complains?
Its just a classic case of oh this games popular now, time to pull out the hate card even though I cant even properly explain why I hate it....I just do because the game removed skills I never used or weapons I never used.
@SlapHappyJesus
There are multiple guilds to choose from......they were not warring with each other in the skyrim story because they had no reason to and it wouldnt make sense as if youve done the guild quests you see why they are not against each other.
Skills such as acrobatics? mysticism? oh you mean those throves and throves of skills which were absolutely useless to anything gameplay wise? If you played Daggerfall wou would realise more skills =/= better. AND not to mention does it not make sense to use a skill to level it? does that not add depth to the game that you have to actually do something to get good at it instead of just spending cheap XP points on whatever you want to level up?
I fail to see how categorising daggers and one handed swords into one category makes the game "deeper" that just means i dont have a seperate menu to traverse or i dont have to level up "daggers" as a skill, call it more streamlined but its an improvement for the better if I want to switch my playstyle or build up midway through playing, something daggerfall and morrowind DONT let you do due to the unecessary intricacy.
Once again its down to convieniance, why do I need to customise something as menial as my bracers or shoulders? I dont see why that was a huge issue in morrowwind or oblivion as very few if any armours matched each other or looked aesthetic.
Morrowinds magic was not indepth at all, they tricked you into making it feel like it was indepth e.g with fire spells in morrowind there was so many unecessary variations that ultimetely shot out flames and set people on fire, that wasnt depth that was just a clusterfuck.
All I see is people complaining about how they took things out that were unecessary or extra variations of things that did the exact same thing.
While Morrowind was ambitious, it was so to a tremendous fault. Skill-ups in magic were a chore and required if you wanted to learn certain spells and in turn, create certain enchantments. It was a dull, boring grind that only ended in disappointment if you were out to make constant-effect enchantments for armor. And yes i do miss my game crashing constantly everytime I go to enchant something...
Overall SKyrim is a more practical game were the skills you learn actually affect your playthrough and actually have an impact depending upon what you choose to do.
SOme things in Morrowind were better like the politics and some things in skyrim are better like the combat (by a million miles). There is no "best" or winner between the two, its simple personal preference.
I was in the middle of breaking down your post until I realized it was pointless.
You asked for depth, and then when people give you examples, you simply pawn them off as needless, useless, or what have you.
Your "points" aren't points. They are nothing more than you posting the same tired arguments that every other Skyrim fan post when the game is called out as the casual title that it is, or you simply listing YOUR preferences as though it is true for everyone. That and simple bs that is less accurate and more just hard to debunk due to its wording.
As you've said, it comes down to preference. I like roleplaying games and the work you need to put into them. You like the ease and hand holding of action games, and the convenience of not having to worry about much more than swinging your sword and following a map marker. If you honestly can't see the difference between streamlining (Morrowind to Daggerfall) and dumbing down (Oblivion and Skyim), then that is you. Enjoy what you want to play, just don't be surprised when people like me continually call out the game.
You still have the choice to go play Morrowind and just because you dont like something doesnt mean it should be re invented. Its this type of snobbery and elitism that gets me.
Dont like it? dont play it.
And you keep going on about streamlining and casualisation like its a bad thing that daggers and 1 handed swords are in the same category because not everyone has 30 hours to level daggers only to find out they are ultimetely shit.
I'll just copy and paste from the last article I posted in.
Bland missions, lack-luster writing and story, characters with no personality, little player choice, shallow character development, weak gameplay, crap enemy and loot scaling (scaling in general).
While I did think it was better than Oblivion, I was very, very disappointed with Skyrim.
The series lost all of its depth and character post-Morrowind.
I find myself playing Fallout:NV more than Skyrim. I just can't get back into Skyrim and I don't know why. Maybe it will take some more half-way decent DLC's because that's what drew me back into NV. The temptation of more loot and weapon add-ons was too much to ignore. My name's Coleby and I'm a lootaholic. :D
EDIT: Overall though I did enjoy Skyrim very much and I might just pop in back in the PS3 after the new update to my ROM drops on XDA.
Really? I actually really enjoy Skyrim. The mods add so much and we're still getting some DLC down the line. It most definitely lived up to what I was expecting.
Skyrim was amazing, its a fantasy masterpiece, but people expect it to be a flawless game. It has problems, but its one of the greatest pieces of fantasy ever made.
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They dumbed down the mechanics and stripped all depth that previous Elder Scrolls games had.
thats the thing about these comments, they always say depth and dumbed down yet never say what is or explain why.
The leveling system was simplified to the extreme. Bethesda, despite numerous criticism in Oblivion and Fallout 3 still decided it was a good idea to level the world with the players skills. The game also gets VERY repetitive with all of the fetch quests.
In my opinion, Oblivion with some mods installed, is probably better than Skyrim. Hopefully that changes soon with Skyrim modding. Although apparently Skyrim modding is extremely limited now. Modders have told me that it will be years before we will get serious mods and overhauls.
There are no longer multiple guilds for players to choose from. It's blatantly fighters, Mage, etc, with exception to choosing which side of the war to fight on, if either. They took away the idea of Houses, stripping away some of what defines your character and the politics he fellows. This was also missing in Oblivion, mind you. There was also warring between the guilds, meaning that your choices had a deeper impact on the world and people's attitudes towards you. It added to the whole experience and made your choices feel they had real weight to them.
They did indeed weaken the skill system. The new system basically rewards you for power-leveling skills that you have no interest in using.
In Oblivion, they streamlined the weapons skills, doing away with the one-hand/two-handed skills. This was fine, really. It still made for specific builds, with characters still choosing their weapon/weapons of choice. With Skyrim, they streamlined it even further, returning the one-hand/two-handed skills, but doing away with specific weapons. This is too much and weakens the idea of specific builds, ie the depth of character development.
They limited the player's ability to to don multiple pieces or armor in favor of full sets, with choice in boots and helmets, gauntlets. This limits the player in terms of enchanting as well.
Finally, both magic and enchanting creation were largely simplified and are only a shell of they were in Oblivion, let alone the in-depth systems they were in Morrowind.
I could very well be missing important points. It's been a good six months since I've played Skyrim and the specifics of the game are a little fuzzy for me. These were just some points off the top of my head, really.
Ive played all the elder scrolls games.
You listed nothing that was wrong with the game at all and instead just continued to babble on about how everything is "dumbed down."
If you even played morrowind you would understand why they changed the leveling system, it was completely uneconomical in morrowind, there was skills for things you didnt even need in the slightest and skills NOBODY levelled yet as soon as they are gone everyone complains?
Its just a classic case of oh this games popular now, time to pull out the hate card even though I cant even properly explain why I hate it....I just do because the game removed skills I never used or weapons I never used.
@SlapHappyJesus
There are multiple guilds to choose from......they were not warring with each other in the skyrim story because they had no reason to and it wouldnt make sense as if youve done the guild quests you see why they are not against each other.
Skills such as acrobatics? mysticism? oh you mean those throves and throves of skills which were absolutely useless to anything gameplay wise? If you played Daggerfall wou would realise more skills =/= better. AND not to mention does it not make sense to use a skill to level it? does that not add depth to the game that you have to actually do something to get good at it instead of just spending cheap XP points on whatever you want to level up?
I fail to see how categorising daggers and one handed swords into one category makes the game "deeper" that just means i dont have a seperate menu to traverse or i dont have to level up "daggers" as a skill, call it more streamlined but its an improvement for the better if I want to switch my playstyle or build up midway through playing, something daggerfall and morrowind DONT let you do due to the unecessary intricacy.
Once again its down to convieniance, why do I need to customise something as menial as my bracers or shoulders? I dont see why that was a huge issue in morrowwind or oblivion as very few if any armours matched each other or looked aesthetic.
Morrowinds magic was not indepth at all, they tricked you into making it feel like it was indepth e.g with fire spells in morrowind there was so many unecessary variations that ultimetely shot out flames and set people on fire, that wasnt depth that was just a clusterfuck.
All I see is people complaining about how they took things out that were unecessary or extra variations of things that did the exact same thing.
While Morrowind was ambitious, it was so to a tremendous fault. Skill-ups in magic were a chore and required if you wanted to learn certain spells and in turn, create certain enchantments. It was a dull, boring grind that only ended in disappointment if you were out to make constant-effect enchantments for armor. And yes i do miss my game crashing constantly everytime I go to enchant something...
Overall SKyrim is a more practical game were the skills you learn actually affect your playthrough and actually have an impact depending upon what you choose to do.
SOme things in Morrowind were better like the politics and some things in skyrim are better like the combat (by a million miles). There is no "best" or winner between the two, its simple personal preference.
You asked for depth, and then when people give you examples, you simply pawn them off as needless, useless, or what have you.
Your "points" aren't points. They are nothing more than you posting the same tired arguments that every other Skyrim fan post when the game is called out as the casual title that it is, or you simply listing YOUR preferences as though it is true for everyone. That and simple bs that is less accurate and more just hard to debunk due to its wording.
As you've said, it comes down to preference. I like roleplaying games and the work you need to put into them. You like the ease and hand holding of action games, and the convenience of not having to worry about much more than swinging your sword and following a map marker. If you honestly can't see the difference between streamlining (Morrowind to Daggerfall) and dumbing down (Oblivion and Skyim), then that is you. Enjoy what you want to play, just don't be surprised when people like me continually call out the game.
You still have the choice to go play Morrowind and just because you dont like something doesnt mean it should be re invented. Its this type of snobbery and elitism that gets me.
Dont like it? dont play it.
And you keep going on about streamlining and casualisation like its a bad thing that daggers and 1 handed swords are in the same category because not everyone has 30 hours to level daggers only to find out they are ultimetely shit.
Bland missions, lack-luster writing and story, characters with no personality, little player choice, shallow character development, weak gameplay, crap enemy and loot scaling (scaling in general).
While I did think it was better than Oblivion, I was very, very disappointed with Skyrim.
The series lost all of its depth and character post-Morrowind.
EDIT: Overall though I did enjoy Skyrim very much and I might just pop in back in the PS3 after the new update to my ROM drops on XDA.
Dude, if this game had a vagina I would have been fucking it back when it first came into my life.
Game blew my balls away with how fun and immersive it was.
Game is awesome. And I've played TES since Daggerfall. :-P