Sneak, archery, and lockpicking are things that everyone is going to do because of the way combat in the game is balanced.

-Stolen Goods: Why break something that was fixed in FONV? At least let us sell the stolen items to merchants from other cities!? But no.Bethesda is here to teach us right and wrong.After all,thieves are dagger wielding honorable warriors,they totally do not break in houses at night to steal stuff and sell them.And sneaking is for multiplying bow damage,definately not for taking items without the owner noticing it.Ah,and of course,pickpocketing is not for taking stuff out of one's pocket but putting poison in the big bad guys' stomach.

-Clairvoyance (the spell) : CHEAT.

You have 32 times more ram than the 360 has, COUNTING the 360's vram, which probably almost halves it.

The lockpick system is from fallout 3

What? Thieves are certainly not honorable and why should they break into houses if not to steal something? o.O

Don't use it then. It's a singleplayer game after all.

A couple of points (since wow, this thread just covers everything doesn't it? )

1) Remember to respect everyone's opinions - even if (especially if, actually) you disagree with them.

2) Discussion of child-killing (or child-harm, child-maiming - basically anything dealing with any sort of violence towards children in the game; directly or indirectly) is not allowed on this forum. Sorry, but those are the rules - it's just too much work to babysit a topic that brings it up, hoping that everyone is going to be mature enough about it to not get warned.

2) You don't know, of course, but wouldn't it be better if children are hardcoded and can't be modded in anyway? And even the option of creating them be removed from teh CS?

Agree with almost everything, except falling, which feels realistic to me. It certainly is immersion breaking to notice low quality textures (and having to load cities separately). And not because they appear obviously unrealistic, but because I am unable to avoid drawing the conclusion that constraints were placed to accommodate consoles. I know that is not Bethesda's fault, and it would be a terrible decision for them as a company to develop for PC only, but still, there it is there. Hopefully 4th gen consoles will give TES VI what it needs.

The leveling/skill system is I think the only major flaw in the game. I am attempting to play as an Orc Paladin(2H Hammers, Heavy Armor, Smithing, Restoration, Speech). I have been playing on Master difficulty from the very beginning, and in the majority of fights I have had so far (~40 hours of play, lvl 14) are impossible using only my 'core' skills, as I almost always have to perform a string of retreats, bow shots, and retreats. Which is all fine. In fact masterful. I love the intensity, the fear of running for my life, of turning to some desperate last resort. I feel great realism and immersion during these fights. But then, to level up due to advancements of Sneak, Archery, Lock-picking, is a very unsatisfying experience, and makes it nearly impossible to build the character I want to role play. The system seems to push me towards leveling all skills, and going out of ones way to avoid that breaks immersion. I guess they are just hoping we will max everything, and build classes with perks? I guess power gaming is the new can't miss component of role-playing?

Just to be clear, Skyrim is the greatest game I have ever played(I think better than Morrowind, never played Oblivion or TES I and II), which seems strange to say that after reading what I have just written. I would call it beautiful and brilliant. Visually, stylistically, emotionally a terrific work of art. But it could be better.

First off: Amazing game, way better than Oblivion (not that being better than Oblivion is difficult). I'd even go so far as to say this game is on par with Morrowind (high praise right there).

However, nothing is perfect, and some of the problems in Skyrim have been haunting it since Oblivion or even Morrowind.


First off, problems new to Skyrim:


Leveling System:

It seems in your eagerness to dump the old-fashioned leveling system, you forgot why and how the old leveling system worked. You see, there are certain skills that everyone is going to want or use (lockpicking is an example, in this game, archery and sneak also) and I don't really want my mage to pound through levels because I shot 4 people with a bow and snuck around a corner and then picked a lock. I want to level up off of my magic skills.

You know, the function that major and minor skills were for!

As it is I'm level 24, and none of my skills are above 60, because my archery, lockpicking, and sneak are dragging me down (i.e. making me level faster than I should).

Horses:

Horses in this game are [censored], and are the number one source of frustration in the game.

First off, horses try and fight things, which is kind of realistic I suppose, but it really becomes a function of how horseback riding works (or doesn't work, I should say). There's no way to do anything on horseback (not even talk to people, more on that later), which means you have to go through the painful process of dismounting to engage in combat, by which time enemies have already plinked away at your HP, or closed to melee range (bad for casters and archers).

Why can't I just jump off my horse. It's not like encountering combat out riding around in the world is unexpected, this is literally something designed into the game -- it's no accident I randomly get attacked. And it's not like there's any escape, wolves (for one) run as fast or faster than my horse at a gallop.

As horses fight things, one of three things happens:

1. They die, which is stupid and frustrating, and doesn't add anything to the game (I'll just reload my last quicksave which is less than 60 seconds ago because Elder Scrolls games are so crash-prone you get in the habit of fingering F5 when you aren't doing anything else).
2. They fight, which is game-ruining because horses do overpowered amounts of damage.
3. They run, which is stupid because they run ~100 feet in a random direction and you spend ~5 minutes looking for them...or you reload.

So unless you're lucky enough to see an opponent far off, if you're on your horse, you're in for frustration, period, full stop.

That really shouldn't've gotten out of betatesting.

Falling Damage:

You either fall and take no damage or fall and die instantly, what the...?

Pathing:

NPCs seem to have a difficult time figuring out how to swim.

My frost atronach and a cave bear had an interesting staring contest when on opposite sides of a river.

Also, NPCs occasionally get caught on terrain. It's not fun fighting a boss only to beat him because he got stuck on a pillar and I could stand 2 feet away from him killing him with Flames.

Bounty System:

Sometimes I'll randomly have a bounty even after killing all the witnesses. I also can't find anyway in game to check my bounty (as you could in Morrowind and Oblivion), so it's difficult to tell when this bug has occurred.

Clairvoyance (the spell):

This spell was a good idea, but was implemented wrong.

Now, problems carried over from Oblivion:


Contracting Ability Pool:

It seems that magic and not-magic are going in opposite ways since Morrowind. Whereas in Morrowind you had a dizzying array of abilities as a caster, and you really only had left click spam and pray to God you live as melee, now the options as a caster are contracting and the options as a not-caster are expanding.

Not to hate on the new magic system, I love it. I'm hating on the magic behind the magic system.

First off: No Open Lock? Are you serious? I'm a mage, I don't pick locks I just tell them to open and they do. I mean I can should gouts of flame from my hands without being burned, I can summon creatures and weapons from Oblivion, but I can't make a few pieces of metal reorganize so I can get through a door/into a chest?

I mean at least you guys make some kind of excuse for removing Levitate and Jump (beyond the "consoles don't have enough RAM to uncell cities", which is the obvious actual reason), what's the excuse here?

This ties into my first complaint (about the leveling system). As a mage I either have to level lockpicking (throwing off my level-to-skill ratio) or I have to just not get things inside chests (more of a non-option...).-

Moreover, removing spellmaking was dumb.

Hills:

What you can and can't climb is random and arbitrary. Sometimes I don't want to run around something in circles looking for a way up.

Fast Travel:

Despite the appearance of carriages, the game is still designed around fast travel. There's no mark, recall, or interventions. Saying that these spells caused unintended gameplay consequences because people could escape from combat is disingenuous. There are so many ways to solve the problem of mark, recall, and interventions being used as an instant, free escape mechanism that it's ridiculous.

Moreover, Recall had a fail rate unless you leveled Mysticism in Morrowind, so it wasn't like click this button and you escape, it cost a lot of mana with low Mysticism, it failed quite a bit, and if you wanted to level Mysticism (and miss out of something else) just so you could run away and run back, why is that a problem?

I mean seriously. As I've mentioned, this is an Elder Scrolls game, it's not exactly stable. People finger F5 compulsively. If people want to run away to a town, and walk all the way back, rather than just hitting F9, why do you have an issue with that?

Or, you could've actually fixed the problem.

How about Recall/Interventions causing a fade out of some duration, possibly with an incoming damage buff during that, or with incoming damage cancelling the teleport?

There you go, problem solved.

The new fast travel system is immersion killing, and people who want immersion aren't going to use it, which means long walks because for whatever reason you literally can't get out of northeast Skyrim via carriage, you have to walk to Solitude, Whiterun, or Windhelm.

Celled Cities:

Cheating hardware requirements for consoles is not good design.

Distant Textures:

I literally can't tell the difference between Ocarina of Time's distant textures and Skyrim's.

My $400 video card isn't amused.

Stolen Goods:

Somehow this shopkeeper know one bunch of flowers was stolen but the other wasn't.

NPCs that never moved and never slept in Morrowind was seriously less ridiculous than this. I'm kind of curious as to how whoever suggested this wasn't instantly laughed at and fired, never to work in the industry again, much less have his idea accepted and incorporated into four games.

Essential NPCs:

Essential NPCs in Skyrim are actually worse than in Oblivion.

It's kind of immersion killing to be able to commit a crime, clean up the witnesses, and get away with it, only to have one of the NPCs be "essential" and be totally screwed. Moreover, unlike in Oblivion, essential NPCs just get back up and keep beating on me, rather than being obviously knocked out (with a message) and then forgetting about me.

Again, how is the person that suggested this not only still working in the industry, but has their idea in four games?

Last, problems carried over from Morrowind:


Lockpicking:

Lockpicking hasn't been fun or engaging or meaningful in any of the games. In Morrowind you just kind of spammed lockpicks, in Oblivion you just spammed auto attempt (especially with the Skeleton Key which made the skill utterly meaningless), and in Skyrim you just get really good at the minigame.

I've gotten good at the minigame (nice rip-off from Thief 3 by the way!) so the level of a lock isn't meaningful. Less than 5 lockpicks later it's open and my skill isn't relevant. The lockpicks consumed also aren't relevant because they can be bought easily and plentifully and cheaply.

Clairvoyant Faction Ejection:

You went and put in a nice bounty system (even if it doesn't work sometimes, see above) only to have factions remain clairvoyant? I can kill a bunch of Windhelm citizens, clean them all up, and get off scot free, but if I setup a kill on a fellow College of Winterhold mage perfectly, I get instantly ejected from the faction?


All-in-all a beautiful game, I'm having a great time, and probably will keep doing so for 50-150 more hours!

However, lock picking may level your character, but that doesn't mean you should be spending perk points on lock pick. Save your perk points for when you actually level up your magical schools. No need to get mad about it. Also, there is a skeleton key in skyrim as well. Go out and get it and then you never have to worry about lock picking ever again.