Player vs NPC power disparity, and why it is broken : V - Skyrim

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:45 am

They don't realize how broken the combat is because no one has produced a game like Tes with proper combat. And without a comparison most people won't see thee issue for what it is

yeah I mean think of how hard it would be there are so many ways a player can approach a situation in most RPGs these days as for skyrim there's so many ways to fight you can use so many skills for combat and do so many things I think that instead of combat they should focus on quests because that's how you improve a game like this but skyrim has it's quests department lacking and makes up for it in dungeons honestly if the next TES is going to be dungeon based I want to see a complete revamp in the combat system if its more quest based I wouldn't really care.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:47 am

I am pretty sure NPCs have perks. Some arrows will stagger me, for instance, which is a Power Shot perk.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:16 am

I am pretty sure NPCs have perks. Some arrows will stagger me, for instance, which is a Power Shot perk.

Some NPC's do... but oftentimes it's just a couple of them. If you are facing a level 30 bandit, he/she should have 29 perks... and pretty damn good equipment, if appropriate (boss, lieutenant, etc.)
-Loth

PS A good balancing mod will not necessarily boost every single bandit's inventory, but will definitely boost their skills/perks so they act like they're level 30 instead of a level 5 with 10X more health. :smile:

Imagine how cagey a one-on-one fight could be when you're facing a bandit chief with 100 armor skill and 5/5 +armor perks... as it is now, this never happens.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:09 am

The other issue I believe is that melee and bow are simply too good in comparison, which makes it look weak.

True, at least for certain bow related perk combos. Effectiveness with the bow should be reduced up close for aware enemies. You wouldn't be able to find the "weak spot" when things are up close and personal, the enemy would know about that weak spot themselves and keep it out of reach.

Stagger perk - reduces in effect with distance. Less chance the closer they are.
Critical - reduces in effect with distance. Less chance the closer they are. IF they are aware of you.

Currently the bow pretty much gives you all the positives (effective and ranged with stagger and critical chances), with no penalties. Fighters have to get close, in which they have to rely on high defensive skills. Mages have to rely on not being alone and be able to keep their distance, otherwise they get complains about being too weak. Where is the negative on the archer? In all other games, archers such when cornered and are unsuitable for melee combat. Let armor penalize the archer - the more the armor weights (both heavy and light), the less effective the bow become up close.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:58 pm

i dont know for sure but ive been decaped and chased by ppl with raised bows and sheilds, so id say they do have perks, the lack of anyone using smithing is annoying tho, ppl have enchanted stuff but no smithed stuff. also way cant you pay some1 to smith/enchant your gear?!

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:07 am

True, at least for certain bow related perk combos. Effectiveness with the bow should be reduced up close for aware enemies. You wouldn't be able to find the "weak spot" when things are up close and personal, the enemy would know about that weak spot themselves and keep it out of reach.

Stagger perk - reduces in effect with distance. Less chance the closer they are.
Critical - reduces in effect with distance. Less chance the closer they are. IF they are aware of you.

Currently the bow pretty much gives you all the positives (effective and ranged with stagger and critical chances), with no penalties. Fighters have to get close, in which they have to rely on high defensive skills. Mages have to rely on not being alone and be able to keep their distance, otherwise they get complains about being too weak. Where is the negative on the archer? In all other games, archers such when cornered and are unsuitable for melee combat. Let armor penalize the archer - the more the armor weights (both heavy and light), the less effective the bow become up close.

Wouldn't both of those actually be more effective at close range, as the arrow is at maximum speed and momentum right when it leaves the bow? It should have a lower chance at close range, but the Critical perk should do more damage on a person you manage to gut shot at point blank with a fully drawn bow.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:26 am

The thing is, that in the end....many poor design decisions were made or migrated unaltered from previous titles.

The new Perk system, among other things made the all too common mistake of increasing things by multipliers and percentages, when logically they are the worst way to increase attributes/statistics due to their scaling. It makes things more difficult to manage and check, increasing some value by 100%, instead of assigning a static number increase that can easily be tested and adjusted.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:03 am

No game is perfect although you are Dragonborn so maybe that's one reason and 3 years is still a short time to develop an RPG and game world the size of Skyrim.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:34 pm

I am the Dragon born I have slayed many dragons and you expect that lowly bandits will be almost exactly like me? What does dragon born mean nothing to you?

The entire point of being Dragonborn is to be the ultimate dragon slayer. It does not mean that you're a demi-god, and that no other living mortal comes close to matching your power. Why would you even want to play a game like that? It's a fantasy world, but it still has to be realistic to a point, else there's no challenge and little fun.

Bethesda has always had this problem. Always. Divayth Fyr is a 4,000-year-old Telvanni wizard with fearsome power, and you were able to slay him easily once you've advanced enough in the game. Seriously? That breaks pretty much everything, as the only sense of power you have is you > everything, which is completely boring (and entirely lore-breaking).

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:14 pm

Agreed.
It still baffles me how a "ordinary" user can notice all these flaws, while "professional" reviewers still praise it as the holy grail of RPGs.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:18 pm

The "ordinary" user pays to play, and continues playing. The "professional" reviewers get paid to play the game, which they got for free, usually only for a few hours, and are probably given an incentive to give good marks.

What should baffle you, and everyone else, is how a multi-(b?)million dollar company has such crappy QA.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:49 pm

I am pretty sure NPCs have perks. Some arrows will stagger me, for instance, which is a Power Shot perk.

I've been hit by one with the axe bleeding before too.

And one that had the Block-Slow Time during power attack thing, or the best parrying Iv'e ever seen, cause they staggered me out of nowhere every power attack.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:50 am

has been a pretty glaring issue in most of the TES games,

Pretty much defeated your own argument with that in your opening statement I'm afraid.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:42 pm

I am the Dragon born I have slayed many dragons and you expect that lowly bandits will be almost exactly like me? What does dragon born mean nothing to you?

Dragon born means you have the ability to absorb dragon souls to prevent Alduin from resurrecting them. Nothing more. Besides, my character is around level 35, and the only dragon she's seen is the one in Helgen. She knows nothing about this dragon born stuff, yet she is playing by a completely different ruleset than the NPCs.

It's okay to be a hero, but within reasonable limits. Enough of this super hero stuff.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:00 pm

Agreed.
It still baffles me how a "ordinary" user can notice all these flaws, while "professional" reviewers still praise it as the holy grail of RPGs.

The professional reviewer (as long as he's not just some ordinary guy getting paid to write a review) knows how to criticize games. The ordinary user does not. Criticism is a skill.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:54 am

Pretty much defeated your own argument with that in your opening statement I'm afraid. :wink:

Not really. Just because they've been apathetic towards it before, does not mean they should continue to do so just because they always have. It is a poor stance to take, especially when we take into account that they have only gotten bigger as a business with our help. With greater budgets, personnel, and time, it is not unreasonable to expect better.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:06 am

The professional reviewer (as long as he's not just some ordinary guy getting paid to write a review) knows how to criticize games. The ordinary user does not. Criticism is a skill.

Skill matters little here. A loyal TES fan is going to know better than some fool who routinely reviews games from franchises such as Call of Duty, Battlefield and Halo. TES is different. It's unique. Or it should be, anyway. It's not supposed to be an ~~watered-down RPG~~ action-adventure that holds your hand while you hack, slash and breath fire (though it's really more like a burp).

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:22 pm

The professional reviewer (as long as he's not just some ordinary guy getting paid to write a review) knows how to criticize games. The ordinary user does not. Criticism is a skill.

And yet it is so rarely used these days, even if the flaws are so obvious.
Why is that?

Back in the days when I still read gaming magazines, reviewers were hesitant to give more than a 8,5 to the most amazing games.
Nowadays the newest CoD rehash is sure to get a 9.0+ rating and even perfect scores are common.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 3:32 am

I hear ya, man... this same disappointment happened with a number of other games in the past, and will happen again in the future. I will say this: at least gamesas cares enough to release mod tools.

That really, really matters, man. So many other companies wouldn't dream of such a thing. The fact of the business is that you can't make everything "perfect" for everyone's tastes, because that definition is a little different from one person to the next. I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that love Skyrim just fine as it is. But this is the kicker: Beth cares so much that they actually release the tools to change their game that they spent God knows how much money and time developing just so that players like you and me can make it even better for ourselves. That is pretty damn bad-ass, if you ask me. Get ready for countless new quests/places/items/monsters/spells/game mechanics or what have you because of this attitude... that they have the balls to share their code like this, and even make it easy for us to change. That's not lazy, man... that's courage. :smile:

Chin up, soldier... and let's be thankful for what we can get. It's a hell of a lot more than other companies are willing to do. :smile:

I'd love to mod the hell outta Deus Ex 3, but they're never gonna give us dev tools for it.
-Loth

This, most assuredly this!

Even though DAO/TW1 came out with an SDK, mods did not come out at the same level as NWN 1/2 and Beth games did, mainly because the SDK itself had such a steep learning curve and did not support every gamer's potential as a modder. Which is why Bethesda is the ONLY game company out there that fully supports the modding community! (TW2 claims that they'll release an SDK, but if it's not user-friendly, then it will be dead in the water.)

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:49 pm

Releasing a CK doesn't absolve them. They had a lot of things right with previous games, but changed it all up so they could make more money. The burden of making their newer games as good as the older ones shouldn't be on us. it should be on them.

I don't think there have ever been NPC's that were as powerful than the main character in any TES game (the Tribunal, Divayth Fyr, and that annoying Bosmer in Mournhold come close, though you're able to overtake them quite easily with time), but Oblivion and Skyrim are proof that Bethesda is certainly headed in the wrong direction. The "powerful" NPC's in Skyrim, who are usually described as fearsome and awe-inspiring, are annoyingly weak, even on Master difficulty.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:50 pm

Releasing a CK doesn't absolve them. They had a lot of things right with previous games, but changed it all up so they could make more money. The burden of making their newer games as good as the older ones shouldn't be on us. it should be on them.

I don't think there have ever been NPC's that were as powerful than the main character in any TES game (the Tribunal, Divayth Fyr, and that annoying Bosmer in Mournhold come close, though you're able to overtake them quite easily with time), but Oblivion and Skyrim are proof that Bethesda is certainly headed in the wrong direction. The "powerful" NPC's in Skyrim, who are usually described as fearsome and awe-inspiring, are annoyingly weak, even on Master difficulty.

Yes, that is an issue. It has always been a problem of scale and presentation. Our character simply is always far too "special". For whatever reason, we end up being this nigh unstoppable thing that has to disappear between each game or else we potentially destabilize our next character so to speak.

It's really quite disappointing. We have all these figures of history and lore, heck even Alduin as an example...who should be powerful, terrifying even to our character, yet are just push overs. It gives the world a greater sense of meaning in my opinion, if there are at least a few, characters...that not even we would want to get on the bad side of.

And despite the fact we were meant to defeat Alduin in prophecy, he is still our antithesis. The opposite end of the prophecy. He should have in every way, been the dragon equivalent of our character.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:12 pm

For those not familiar with table top Rpgs, this might not be familiar to you. But video game main characters have the same sort of relationship to NPC's as PC's in tabletop rpg's do to their NPC's. There are lot of discussions on rpg forums about how young PC's grow in power and start approaching the strength of much older NPC's because of XP, which doesn't apply to NPC's. It's the same in video games. NPC's are static stat blocks while PC's have dynamic growth. Stuff like level scaling works somewhat to counter a small portion of that, but it's doubtful that a video game will ever really reach some sort of platonic ideal with that. In part it's a feature not a bug do to what I usually call protagonist power. PC's get the equivalent of 80's action movie training montages. NPC's don't.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:38 pm

Broken? No. Perfect? No.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:38 am

NPC's have destruction magic damage that scales. Why don't we?

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:28 pm

NPC's have destruction magic damage that scales. Why don't we?

Because NPCs follow a different ruleset from players. If they didn't, they would have either left NPC mages as weak, tweaked melee/stealth/archery to be more in line. or they would have adjusted it because it would have been extremely obvious.