I was playing on Adept, had 100 sneak, and muffled boots.

I personally liked both Dark Brotherhoods, but after the Cheydinhal(misspell?) Sanctuary stuff was done, Oblivion's DB kinda svcked. It was like most of the contract side quests with Skyrim's DB. Run up, kill the guy, get some money. No excitement, like dropping a stuffed head on someone.

The chef thing...I had forgotten about that. See, there it is the problem with Skyrim. Such lacklusterness you start to forget your surroundings.

You are chosen by the Night Mother to be the Listener right away pretty much. It's destined.

In Oblivion? You pretty much killed anyone else that can be one.

Edit: To be clear, I think that rocked in Skyrim.

Exploration in Skyrim comes from the open world, the sights, and all the cool random sidequests and encounters. Not making me want to quit the game due to lack of a decent navigation system, and feeling relief when I eventually find the right frikkin path. (still love witcher 2)

U need to work on that, cuz thats kinda hard to forget.
" a giants toe? Really? Are u sure?"
How do you forget that?

See you see it as poor navigation. I see it as exploration.

Have you ever went hiking in the woods? Or have you ever been out in the open?

Hiking or being in the woods in real life, you're not always going to have the best navigation. And more fun comes from finding places that you stumble upon or when you're looking for something, stumble upon it.

Recently my friends and I went into the woods because heard of an old stove used for camping by some guy who had once mapped this place. We were just given directions and had a sorta clear path of where were going. We got turned around, but eventually found the stove.

That isn't poor navigation on the games part, its poor navigation on your part, imo. I can read maps well enough and fill out paths to find other paths.

I haven't read all the thread but I just read the OP and I thought - great post.

Bethesda have a winning format in their open world design - which in Skyrim includes some totally excellent artistic design and a really nice world with some really well designed environments - this shifts millions of units and gets them high praise. But I think their winning format is serving as a loincloth for their increasingly crap game design and shockingly bad writing.

And they do seem increasingly preoccupied with being 'epic' above all else. In TES VI we'll probably be turning into fire breathing vampire werewolves.

The problem is not every gamer is like you and a lot of people these days don't know how to read a map.



The writing isn't that bad, you are over-exaggerating things as for the game design is not crappy, its nowhere near crappy.

this

That isn't a flaw in the game then. I would consider that then "Dumbing down a game because people can't read maps". Not a flaw with the game or flaw in navigation.

heres the thing. For most, bethesda games are a genre of their own. For someone to come in and experience it for the first, minds are blown. Hence my first bethesda game was fo3 and no one can say its a bad game to me bc I wont believe them.

I think the biggest problems with skyrim is that it lacks the substance and variety mechanics to be played different many times with different outcomes and feeling like almost a different game. Yes u can replay as a rawrior, archer, mage, vampire, werewolf...but its the actual game stuff over and over. Morrowind, fonv, fo3 each had tons of situations that could be done 3 or 4 different ways and be different actual consequences and ingame stuff. I cannot count on one hand any situation in skyrim that can be done 3 or 4 different was not counting ur spec but actual different actions or dialogue acyions.

So lets confuse the hell out of people because they can't read a map and not make it easy for them? Sorry but that sounds completely stupid and its not "dumbing down a game" its being smart and knowing a lot of people these days can't read a map.

just because you can read maps doesnt mean any game that comes out should remove anything that helps navigation rofl.... some people dont want to be challenged and would rather just go to the marker. You can certainly take off quest markers and stop crying

I would agree, if there were actual invisible barriers in the woods, and if it wasnt for the fact that its a game, and decent navigation is a must for any RPG. The fact that there are so many people saying the same thing and videos on youtube on how to get to places in the game is a testament to its poor navigation system. Getting horribly lost in a video game isnt fun to most people. Its stupid. I wanna play the game and enjoy the mission, not waste an hour in between locations trying to figure out the way. The side quests sometimes didnt even get a frikkin arrow, which usually isnt a problem, except when the mission description is so damn vague, u barely even know where to start looking.

Wait, can't you turn them off anyways?

That's just like the argument against other features. "Just mod the game and stop complaining". Instead of actually acknowledging a flaw they make it a personal flaw.


Confuse. Learn how to read a map. It isn't that hard. The maps of Oblivion or Morrowind are not that complicated like a regular map. I do have problems with the 3D map of Skyrim. I would have much prefered the paper like map.


I agree with what you have summed up here.

Dude, the map in Witcher 2 is terrible. It equates to something a kindergartner colored in school. I can read a map just fine, and even I found it annoying.

this is my 1st elderscrolls game so i dont know about the others

you prefer a paper map over a 3d one? this is a person preference.... not a fault? rofl

I actually managed to ghost through that mission and kill the emperor without getting caught at all. It was pretty cool.
Though I have to admit the DB questline (just like all the others) seems to be able to be completed with any character which is a bit annoying. You can complete the Mages questline and the Thieves Guild with a warrior type. >_>

and you shouldnt have to learn a real life skill to play a video game such as map reading

Relaxed means take things slowly, pay less attention, not leave the ship at a standstill for months despite carrying the emporer.

quest markers? if thats it its because the their isnt a journal like oblivion and morrowind had and the details it tells you are vauge as hell without quest markers you would be lost

Skyrim is diverting and kills time I leave it installed and play it, it's fun tinkering with the ck infact that was one of the reasons I bought the game. But just as after bioware did da2 I'm not about to pre-order any more beth games.

The quests in skyrim really aren't that memorable I even forgot they let you kill the emperor until I read it in this thread. As someone else said come the next TES game people will be saying skyrim is better than whatever it is b/c I don't see this getting fixed. Some can say skyrim is great and more power to you enjoy the game. But they are moving further away from what I like to play so I simply won't play their games. I'll read reviews and watch let's plays and make a better informed decision before I buy one of there games or DLC again.

Just my opinion on it.

Ok but people don't find that enjoying, not everyone finds the things you find enjoyable and claiming its dumbing down the game because they want people to not be confused as hell is a BS claim.