Couldn't agree more with what the OP said, especially the Morrowind comment, that game is severely overrated.

Isn't that now what the hardcoe people consider casual now and not what it should be which is like me just don't play it obsessively but still enjoy and love the game and maybe don't roleplay to the extreme but still do to a lesser extent.

edit: you seem to be the same style player as me (We are apparently not taken into account in the casual v hardcoe arguement)

i agree with you on the fact that morrowind wasnt all that spectacular now that i look back on it i suppose most of the people that like it play on pc and have more mod files then the actual game size itself.

Yes it most certainly needed to change from what we did in the previous games. Attributes caused too much problems in terms of leveling, Scaling was a huge problem, The magic system was dull and uninspiring, etc.

We will see when the next TES comes out........which will be after this game is modded, patched, DLC'd, ck'd, etc.

Skyrim is a base for many great things to happen........

I expect somebody else addressed this - I only read to about halfway down page 3, so sue me - but I think the OP's tone is a reaction to the sort of "hardcoe" or "serious" gamer that pats himself on the back for being so serious about his games and allows that to come through in his posts. It's rare that people openly brag about how "hardcoe" and "serious" they are about playing computer games, but if you're gonna complain endlessly about how Skyrim is "dumbed down" and "tailored to the casual gamers" and is "CoD with swords" and the like, you're just concealing your bragging withing a complaint. It just comes across as saying "It's so annoying that other people aren't as serious about TES as I am."

Well, the game isn't dumbed down. Sure, they didn't bother making things like eating and sleeping necessary, because (1) they never really have and (2) those activities aren't really fun to simulate. It's just a hoop to jump through, and not a fun one for most people. I suppose anything you're required to do by the game is a "hoop" in some sense, but all hoops are not created equal. Having to go to various places and fight dragons and Draugr Deathlords to learn new Shout Words is a hoop, I guess, but it's one that pretty much everybody enjoys. Having to go find loot in dungeons or fight bandits in order to get enough money to have a house is a hoop, but people like the reward (the house) and they enjoy the hoop - the fighting. The number of people that enjoy tinkering with cooking more than once or twice is fairly small, I think, and I don't think there's many people that would find the activity more rewarding if it were required by the game, even in an optional hardcoe mode. I fully get the point of immersion, and I wish that only the System and Magic menus paused time as a means of aiding that immersion...but cooking is a bit different. There's not a lot of payback for cooking, other than hearing a crunch or gulp sound when you eat your griled leeks or tomato soup - and that's really not enough to make me want to bother collecting potatoes, cabbages and apples when I'm working my way through a dungeon. Yes, that's only my opinion, but I'll go out on a limb a bit and suggest that I'm probably in the majority on that one.

Anyway, to get back to the main point - people need to quit acting betrayed if the game is streamlined in certain ways to appeal to a wider audience. The game hasn't been turned into Angry Birds by a zillion miles, and neither has it turned into Call of Duty. I've played all kinds of games on all kinds of devices, starting with Space Invaders, Asteroids, Gauntlet and Marble Madness back in the seventies and eighties to Combat and Defender on the Atari 2600 to RBI on the NES to Halo on the Xbox to Reach on the 360 to the entire Civilization series and Master of Magic and the entire Master of Orion series on PC and Angry Birds and Words With Friends on my iPhone. Skyrim hasn't become something besides an RPG and nobody has betrayed anything and "casual" gamers haven't "ruined" TES, so there's little point in the endless [censored]ing about players you consider less 733+ than you and your undoubtedly MAD SKILZ.

That said, @ the OP: If you have the time and enjoy fantasy in general, I do suggest you take the time to read the occasional book. They aren't long and they collectively are quite interesting, and flesh out the backstory. Also, about that whole "99%" reference...well, no point in getting into a political discussion, right?

What's the matter? Someone stole your sweet roll? j/k

Like what's the matter with this game is that it illustrates just a few things that are wrong with the world today. Take those sweet rolls for example. I haven't seen any that size since Cinnabon went out of business. You remember those? Those 1500 calorie each diet busters that you could smell down at the other end of the mall and were right next to Mrs. Field's Cookies? And then there's those buckets full of those "boiled" pastries with fillings? Look I usually pop this game in around 10 PM. Then I see these things everywhere. I get hungry. I'm on a diet. I have to suffer. It makes me mad and I have to go out and kill some Thalmor, dragons, or just go turn into a werewolf and savage stuff.

Some of the books are actually kind of intresting, I laughed my head off after reading the marksmanship lesson.

Cannot agree on one point: "Game is not dumbed down"....... I will rephrase it: Game is dumbed down since Arena / Daggerfall.
Now, it's just "jump in the game"......go, go, go, go, go.....run!!!!!!!! hurry!!!! Race through the game as quick as you can.
Why is game dumbed down since........ because features are added that make me say to myself, " Do the devs think I 'm dumb or something?"
And the biggest one is hold my hand while I race to the end of your game.

So in answer to all of this: I am forced to impose rules on myself so that I feel like I am ELITE.

THERE , I said it. ELITE. For those that don't want to feel ELITE, then keep the game on ADEPT,
and not impose rules that restrict gameplay.

I don't like people imposing rules on me, but I don't mind imposing rules on myself.

Master
No rest
Walk everywhere

All of the above cuz the game is simple, and easy for the masses., but as long as it makes me happy, that's all that counts.

And to the OP, if that's all that makes you happy, then all the power to ya'.

Ok, you rant as a casual gamer, CONGRATS! *gives cookie* but YOU play YOUR way, everyone else plays THEIR way, get over it, That goes for ANYONE hating on other peoples styles of playing, IT DOESNT MATTER. kthnxbai

No, they just want more money so they simplify the game for the people who have never played Elder Scrolls before and the fan base don't always like it. it's nothing new though, quite a few devs have screwed over their fan base in favour of making the game more generic for they money bags.

There's no hate.

Everyone plays how they play. We are in the same Skyrim boat *(can't believe I just said that)

Excuse me dear sir. But if youre posting on the forum, youre not a casual gamer. Just faking. Casual gamers dont even know what this is. As such, your arguments are invalid.

Those greedy developers, how dare they make games that are profitable!

CoD is one of the best if not THE best selling game series of all time. Can anyone say that CoD is a deep, thoughtful and complex game by any stretch of the imagination. If you say yes then you need to talk to someone who has actually handled firearms and been in combat because you are clueless then. Arma 2 is a game that sold far fewer games but is widely considered to be superior by people who actually have experience in this stuff because of all the options you have at your disposal. Just because a game sells alot doesnt mean its a fantastic game. All it means is that a bunch of people saw the commercials that were played over and over and all the web ads popping up all over and decided they wanted that game and to it and they played for a little bit and have since moved on to another game. Thats fine if they want to just make money but if the next TES game is even more shallow than Skyrim then i will no longer consider bethesda a good game developer, just really good at the mercantile skill.

I'm fine with that and the fact that a lot of top devs are still in business off the PC platform but some developers drain money of you for the fact that they can like a greedy corporation. DLC's are a good example of this and some game devs or publishers have a fair policy on this sort of thing. I think charging for maps is disgraceful, especially when they are based off the single player version. Maps used to be free and maps that where not based on the single player zones. BF3 did a map rehash and that was stretching it but at least people who brought the the SE version got it for free, now that's fair but charging half more than a quarter of the price of the game for some maps is just greedy.

You can make money by being fair and moral but now days that's rare to see.

Oh indeed there are some publishers and developers who dont want to move forward and are simply milking its audience for all its worth. One only has to take a look at the CoD series or WoW to see that innovation is dead in these titles and its little more than rehashing of old work.

However in this respect I laud Bethesda's efforts with Skyrim. They had man berries the size of melons when they decided to revamp completely the skill system and character development. While it may not be 100% perfect, its a damn good effort and its bringing some innovation to the series and the genre as a whole. The fact that some are complaining about the change is natural, people are always afraid of change and go to great lengths to keep the status quo.

The fact that Skyrim has sold so well indicates that the old trite systems in previous games put a lot of people off the title. Everyone is entitled to play the game, and no-one should begrude Bethesda trying to bring more players to the title. For without new players the series would stagnate to the point of death.

What...exactly did they revamp about the Character progressions and Skills? honest question...because Skills advance no differently than they did since Daggerfall and the Perks imo from a obersvational standpoint aren't much of a step up.

Skills still cap out at 100, are still effected by disease, are even more percentaged based than in the past and have pretty much been marginalized by manual perks. so I'm interested in hearing what exactly is revamped. and pretty much what mr biggles worth said. in what way is trimming the skill/options etc etc having man berries (in the good sense) and why does that matter to people who've never played the series before and are jumping in. cutting stuff isn't exactly a selling point in a game.

and why does that equate to "casuals" being happy? since...such things are not even a fleeting thought to those who are just in it to get it, whoop stuff and get out?

Skyrim selling lots of copies had nothing to do with the old trite system as you put it. Any eight year old could comprehend Oblivion and that game itself was a huge seller. Oblivion getting rid of attributes and spellmaking has nothing to do with having big man berries. It had to do with the philosophy of "less is more" it turns out that in this case, less is just less. They believed that by removing more and more things that people would somehow just ignore it and just focus on the improvements they did make to combat and magic (leaving out spellcrafting removal). Everyone has far fewer options in skyrim than in any other TES game. I am seriously worried about Fallout 4 now because in FO3 they showed they could make an awesome world and had decent quests and had usable companions on top of having some very good writing. Skyrim is a step back in those things. Someone summed it up nicely when they said that Skyrim was Oblivion 2.0.

I throuroughly enjoy Skyrim when im just wandering around exploring im having fun with the improved combat and magic. Whenever i have to do a quest or talk to npcs then i remember the things they took out or didnt bother to put in that were in past games.

Well in Oblivion you picked a class and that was it, you were locked in with those skills for eternity and only those skills would level your character. Sure you could use minor skills but they never advances your character (leading to exploits). Perks were automatically given as you leveled without the ability to choose them and many were often unwanted or not required. Leveling scale was also a major problem in that you were never "above the curve" as it were, the enemies were always comparible to you. Also without having plenty of knowledge of the system and planing you level ups accordingly characters were often far underpowered for a given level. It meant many players had a real rough time getting to grips with it.

The current system has at its heart flexibility. The player is never "locked in" to any style, or "class" and can freely choose how the character develops without needing to spend hours/days/months learning the system and how to get the best out of it. You are free to choose when were and how the character develops, which style you use at any time can change and you can adapt the character to any situation.

Complexity for complexities sake is never a good thing, especially when a simpler and more robust effort can do the job and be understood by almost everyone in a short space of time. The new system gives players much more choice in developement of the character. It is just unfortunate that certain aspects of the system are not perfect or are underwhelming in their implementation or we would see much more diverse characters than any previous TES title.

One has to wonder if the goverment were to simplify the taxation system would people then complain of it being "dummed down"?

I don't need Complexity for Complexities sake, but I'd sure as hell enjoy more options. I didn't shed Tears for Majors and minors if they weren't going to make "class" matter more than so be it, off with its head. but effectively Skyrim hasn't made me do anything different, just has me finding out I can't do things I normally liked to do. no I'm not Numbers guy and I don't crunch stat variables etc etc.

If you're referring to untethered do what you want at anytime with no restrictions, I'm unsure how that was difficile in the past, you still plays as you want then as one did now. just with alot less things availible to do, if you do not feel this way excellent its not a worthwhile feeling. but Skyrim I feel really isn't raising any bars as far as TES is concerned. Other games? sure its the only open world RPG rocking peoples world right now vs other games, but I really don't care about other games atm, and for me thats how its been for the most part.

So when stuff goes missing in a series I primarily play in my gaming time, yeah gonna notice.


Simplify has many cannotations

Streamlining, not as many. when you streamline, you remove 4 steps to do the same thing between two processes.

In Skyrim, the Steps AND the product have been removed. and ponder this for a moment. if you're gonna streamline, prey tell why you're keeping the same boorish system if it was so much trouble in the first place? you know an ACTUAL revamp, not rehash ;p

Seriously..........did you not see all the threads about people becoming gimped cause they levelled up their smithing and enchanting to early? As for flexibility what a bunch of hogwash. Don't get me wrong i happen to like the idea of limiting your character to a certain number of skill but to say that Skyrim is more flexible is just flat out wrong. If you screwed up your character in oblivion you could still level up your other skills even if it took longer and end up with what you want. In Skyrim, once you invest a bunch of perks in a skill you will not have the chance to put them in another skill you want and and there is a finite number of perks available. Perks also account for the majority of the power behind skills so simply levelling up all you skills isnt going to solve the problem. Skyrim is far less flexble than Skyrim.

And i will defy anyone to show the game of Oblivion to your average kid and tell me they couldn't figure it out. If people were stumped by Oblivion i have to wonder how they managed to even dress themselves in the morning.

funniest post all day

We have to keep in mind also that there is a time/money aspect to all development. A large number of the customer base for previous TES games almost never used certain options or took certain actions that were in the game. So in subsequent titles developers have to make a time/money decision on keeping those aspects. Is it worth it in time and money to develop and implement features when they are almost never used? Most developers will say no without hesitation and cut everything that isnt used by 95% of the target audience. Beth at least keep hold of previous ideas and try to refine them to make them more appealing and therefor more useful to the player. Somethings though they simply needed to change so that some of those unused aspects could make way for newer options and designs.



Really? So you knew from day 1 that in order to get +5 Strength at level up you had to use strength based skills almost exclusively for that level? Or you knew exactly what perks you were going to get from each skill, when and where and how they were implemented in the game? Or you knew that X stat meant +/- y to the background mathmatics?

Of course you didnt.

Me personally, of course I did because i played Morrowind. It wasn't an issue for long anyways because i used kobus levelling mod which came out within a couple of months of release. The game plays pretty much the same way whether or not you min/maxed your oblvion character anyways. In Skyrims case since perks are the majority of the power of a skill if you dont have alot of perks in a tree it will ALWAYS be far inferior to a skill tree with several perks.

Even if you didn't know about it the first time it should have only taken you a few level ups at most to figure it out, it's not rocket science. One of my nephews played the game on his xbox when i he was nine years old and didn't have any problems with the game. What you are suggesting is that because some people are incapable of understanding some very basic, elementary gameplay mechanics that a nine year old can figure out, that all of us should have to put up with a "simpler" system.

I am also pretty sure that most people used spellmaking at one point or another, not just 5%.