They could have... but they didn't.


So then this idea of depth would be in numbers? Rather than in gameplay?

As I say, I'm fine with variety. But I want real variety. If it's just cosmetic variety then I'd rather Bethesda save their efforts for something else. Hell, I can think of even some cosmetic additions I'd rather have than "spears" and "crossbows" - high on the list are the seasonal foliage and the flow-based water shading from the video. Both are purely cosmetic, but BOY are they big cosmetic improvements. If it's just a question of cosmetic variations in weapons, I can use mods for something as simple as that.

But that's the thing - in that case you're only free to cosmetically make your character as you please, because none of the choices have any effect on gameplay. All the weapons will essentially be the same. Morrowind had less real variety and more cosmetic variety. Skyrim has reduced cosmetic variety in weapons, but more real variety, even if still small at present. Mods can take care of boosting the cosmetic variety, I'd like Bethesda to come up with ways to increase the variety in gameplay between weapons.

Yes, but less is still less. I would like the items to have more of a uniqueness to them and when I get a great gaming PC I will tailer that to how I wish.

I like having more options for roleplaying and outfitting ny character with what I wish, I will not let Bethesda think its ok to keel gutting the game and removing things from the series. I want more, I like cosmetic changes to ny characters but I do like unique gear and weapons. I liked the uniqueness that the other spell types and spell creation offered we could have had all these things in Skyrim. As u have said several times we do not have them because Bethesda feels its to spreadsheety, and that is asinine.

That does not make it ok.

They should have.

In response to the second part of your post it should be about both, more and gameplay.

I'd definitely love to see seasonal foliage, but that's the sort of thing that really needs to be on the table at the beginning of the design processes. So chances of seeing it are going to be limited to a separate world space in a DLC or the next game they make. Spears would require a lot less effort.

It is too spreadsheety, at least the attributes were. I don't have strong feelings either way about spell creation, I guess I just don't see its removal as the travesty that some do. But what kills me is the degree of angst and outrage over the loss of a couple cosmetic things - spears, crossbows - that had no effect on how the game is played. Hell, one dude was pissed that armor comes in four pieces instead of seven or ten or forty-two or however many pieces it came in back in Morrowind.

I dunno; that example in the video looked pretty damn good. I don't know if it'll ever see the light of day, but I don't know any reason why it would be tough to add after the fact. And spears would be easy to add - as a cosmetic addition. I'm just not all that interested in Bethesda using part of their limited development time to add spears and crossbows if they'll be mere cosmetic additions. I can think of some better cosmetic additions they could work on, and I can certainly think of some actual gameplay mechanics they could work on that would be far, far better.

Which bit of causality am I confusing now? You still haven't finished.

XD. Oh man. That is still funny to me. Have you actually played a game that required a spreadsheet?

I won't argue with that. The only concern they'd have to address is redundancy, as most of what they implemented are standard RPG ideas (criting, bleeding, and ignoring armor). Crossbows would really just be harder hitting bows that would require different ammo, they'd also be heavy which would restrict movement. Accuracy would probably be less than a crossbow and reload time would probably be higher.

Spears would have longer reach and would probably be quicker than swords, but slower than daggers.

That's honestly all I could think of. I've never held a spear, now have I ever shot a crossbow.

I think the attributes needed to be retooled not removed.

Spell creation not being in is an epic disaster to the entire system and that coupled with the loss of effects that added unique playing options has brought the system to its knees, I would have loved to see the old effects in Skyrim with spell creation.

I would like the option to piece my armor on how I wish, but my character and roleplaying value is a huge reason I play this game. My characters are why I play this game for thousands of hours and what your character wears and uses reflects them as individuals, and that to a lot of us is very important.

First sentence:
Are we referring to wars?

Second sentence:
You've never heard of min/maxing right? There are people who bust out their spreadsheets and calculators to find the best possible build for a character. There are spreadsheets on UESP for every game.

They could have added perk extensions in two handed for spears and crossbows in archery, I agree also they should be different, they should feel different and yes the crossbow should have different ammunition, and they should be in.

Oh, it looked beautiful. The problem is that to implement it properly, the world needs to be designed for it. Skyrim was not, so to implement it in Skyrim would be an absolutely massive undertaking. It'd require swapping out the trees and replacing the ground textures, setting up the timing, redesigning the weather system, changing the snow drifts so they can appear and disappear, etc.

Hence why I said the earliest possible chance is in a DLC. Now that it's on the table, a DLC's game space could be designed with it in mind.

Attributes were retooled, condensed and hidden in perks.

The OP explains this pretty well.

Spell creation though... well would be nice but would be redundant with Shouts.

Think the OP covered that too.

Would you even use Shouts if you could just make a stronger spell? The same reason people say they don't use daedric artifacts, because they can just make something better.

If spellcrafting was in, the argument would be :

Why do we even need Shouts?

I mean a game that actually required a spreadsheet even if you aren't an obsessive nut. You can find people calculating what is the best whatever based on game stats on most game wikis. Oblivion's scaling (which I've ranted about a lot here) was so broken you had to. Morrowind I just dragged around the difficulty slider if my multi-class character wasn't uber strong for getting x5 multipliers every level. And then fans addressed the multipliers and made it seamless such that there were no spreadsheets to be had!

We're referring to: "There is a logical fallacy in your own argument. ... [you are confusing association with causation]"
Association and causation of what?

Not all of them, and perks are clunky as hell. Agile rangers are [censored] in Skyrim because you cant get dodge chances until really high level and there's no speed bonuses to be had.
Did perks need to be so ... chunky? Perk bonuses from attributes with the fan-mod auto leveling were fantastically smooth.

I think saying "They should be in" is going a little too far. Modders could honestly implement spears, and crossbows, with perks, if they wanted. I dunno maybe I'm jaded by Minecraft (which never allowed the same access to code that Skyrim does) which had modders do some incredible things. There were tons of mods that had advanced AIs (well in comparison to vanilla minecraf), realism mods, towns, villages, storylines, even adventure maps that were almost exactly like Zelda.

Skyrim just has big booty mods, or nvde females... yes that's a huge understatement.

Yeah, it's called "Oblivion". There was no point to having pages of numbers to define your character. It was utterly pointless. It's only function was to allow people to sit and do the calculations to figure out how to get the most bang for their buck every time they leveled, and to find gimmicks to game the enemy leveling system. That's it.


Crossbows had much longer reload times. I wouldn't object to their addition, so long as they had some realistic differences from bows that made them unique. A crossbow would largely be shorter range, higher damage and very slow to reload. They would require different ammo. For the most part they'd be something warriors could shoot once at enemies and then drop and draw their melee weapon. It could have uses, but I could care less about them adding in pseudo-crossbows that fire as fast as bows. Actually, I'd be annoyed, because it would strike me as utterly ignorant.


I think their removal was excellent. They simply are an unnecessary mechanic for a computer RPG.


To its knees? Lots of people seem to be very happy playing mages, you realize.


That's fine, but what does that have to do with wanting the armor to consist of like ten pieces instead of four? Mixing and matching brought nothing but miserable results. Wearing a Daedric cuirass with glass greaves and a dwarven helmet and elven gloves and leather boots and hide pauldrons or whatever - you'd look like a crazy quilt.

The perks I view as an extension of a skill, not attributes.

The Thu'um is an ancient form of magic and I bet spell creation could work with it.

You can use Daedric artifacts for roleplaying reasons, for me its better if I do not restrict myself to more powerful gear.

I was addressing options in the long conversation we are having.

People who call Oblivion and Morrowind too spreadsheety make me laugh, goes to show how the new target audience fits with Skyrim perfectly. :\

Both games also had their own flaws, but atleast they had more variety and features. All the remotely flawed ones were simply thrown out instead of reviewed because that would take too much effort. So what we ended up with is ultimately a game with much fewer features, and I'm not sure how you can deny that when your interaction to NPC's is limited to 1-3 completely meaningless and generic dialogue options, when the magic system easily has half the amount of spells from the previous title with even basic utility ones missing, and when your equipment consists of a whopping 4 pieces.

But hey, atleast we got the really clumsy cinematic executions that forcefully take away your control over your character and most of the time display very glitchy animations.

No you didn't. I never efficiently-leveled a single level in Oblivion. There was no way I was gonna use such a bizarre technique to play the game. I want the numbers to be better hidden within the gameplay, I don't want to crunch a couple pages of numbers.

They gimped magic because of the shouts. Pretty obvious.

For some people a spreadsheet is necessary, or may not be necessary but is a lot of fun. Granted that population is probably small, but boy do they kill it in WoW.


You're claiming (to a degree) that the reason Bethesda gave up, or neglected the older fans (which we don't know) because they wanted money (something we also don't know). While money is always in their interest you're linking the two together without evidence for either. I could also argue for straw man fallacy, or attacking the motive.

You know, nobody has yet explained to me why they like their armor to come in ten pieces instead of four. Can anybody please explain this to me?

Fair enough.

I'll concede that the perks could certainly stand to be more diverse, specific, and skill related.

Attributes are hidden pretty good, almost too good... they should be a little more apparent or refined, well and diverse for that matter too. I wonder if the Thieve's Guild narrative was actually a referendum on attributes?