thing is, how is someone who is dragonborn and kills the master dragon possibly gonna be a "nobody."

Apparently people dont know how to RP a nobody, if you want to be a nobody, you just gotta do no quests, and move from house to house all the time, cause you get no gold from not doing quests, although it would be better with hardcoe mode... then your just trying to survive.

Good post and totally agree I remember rolling a rogue the first time and only time in DA2 and shaking my head I WANT A ROGUE NOT A DAMN POWER RANGER.The game was horrible,shameful and a slap in the face to Origins fans.The reason the game was so bad was simple they went for a wider audience and catered towards the console.I do not have much faith in DA3 being any better myself time will tell.

That won't really help, for two reasons:

1) The XP needed per skill increase is sufficiently low at low skill levels that you gain access to tier-2 materials very quickly, even without things like dagger-spam. This means you won't be making lower-end items for very long, thus negating the limitation.

2) There is a large number of uncontested ore veins, from which you can mine a massive amount of materials that will let you power through the skill gains even while making nothing but cuirasses. These veins cover the entire range of metallic materials, so you'll always have something you can use to gain more skill.

Actually it is their job to make sure the game is balanced, as part of proper game design is making sure that even the most heavily-geared characters can still be challenged in combat. Whether that game is single-player or multi-player is completely irrelevant, since in both cases an unbalanced game will ruin the experience for a (potentially large) portion of the player base.

Now, the crafting skills in Skyrim (Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy) are not, in and of themselves, unbalanced, nor, necessarily, is combining two or even all three of them. What is unbalanced, though, is the fact that characters who do stack crafting skills exceed the top end of the difficulty scale by at least an order of magnitude, because something like that should never be possible in a properly balanced game. That is not to say that one should not be able to become incredibly powerful via use of crafting skills, since that's almost their entire point, it's that the game should calibrate the difficulty of encounters to suit the power level of the character.

In other words: if I craft an uberized Orcish Greatsword that, after adding armor enchantments, is doing 562 damage per strike without any damage enchantments on it, then the game should react accordingly and provide suitable opponents. This can also apply to armor, which would provide a good reason to over-stack AR in order to ablate Piercing attacks, such as mace-wielders with the associated perk (there are a few of these already, but their crappy weapons tank their output). The game doesn't do this, though, with the result that use of even one crafting skill can break combat wide open.



Crud, missed a quote.

@Dragon Bait: yeah, that probably would be the topic, although I suspect it wouldn't be quite as contentious as there tends to be more agreement on that front.

Really?

Then why do things like item duping, gold glitching, etc get removed via patches and title updates?

This thread is soooo 2004. But, I will just say that if you think Skyrim should be harder then you can make it harder yourself. Put the difficulty on master, play perma death, try roleplaying a character that is specialized in a role and not a master or god of everything, don't use health potions, if a lock is beyond you're expertise perk then don't pick it, make sure to eat/drink/sleep daily, don't use fast travel, don't ever use wait, don't exploit game mechanics to get rich quick and don't use trainers. If you beat the game playing this way then give yourself a pat on the back and move on to the next game and stop posting your nonsense here.

This +1
There are plenty of opportunities to play Bethesda games in any way that you wish, it's largely down to your imagination and your ability to apply that imagination in a practical way within the context of the game.
I would regard fast travelling as cheating, personally, but other people might be able to rationalise it in their game world. My character will not use trainers and will only look at maps in towns. She also vegetarian and won't wear any armour other than leather, or at the same level as leather.
All of these things I can use to make my experience better.
If what works for you is applying a [censored] ton of perks and "enhanced" weaponry and so forth then so be it but that's not really playing the game is it...?

Sorry, but that's just excuses for poor design, it is the purpose of the game design to restrict what your character can do. The game mechanics restricts and defines your character in terms of how your character is balanced against the game environment. In the end that is why you have any sort of mechanics to begin with.

Everything about something being 'optional' or you can 'restrict yourself' is just a cop-out for something not being properly designed and implemented. I do think that Skyrim has a lot of mechanics and design going for it, especially compared to previous TES-games where the incentive to simply develop your character through meaningless and repetitive grinding was even larger, but if someone points out that combat is too easy or not balanced, the answer isn't "well you can restrict yourself and not just hit back!" or "only use the lowest tier weapons" or something similar, because that is just absurd and counter-intuitive to how a reasonable gamer will approach the game.

I disagree.
I don't think anyone is saying that the game mechanics are perfect, but I don't think they are flawed in the way that you say.
To my mind the raison d'etre of TES games is to be as open and unrestrictive as possible so that you can play and approach them in multiple ways and RP them in a manner that suits you - i.e. you take the game as a canvas and paint it yourself, however you choose.
What you're describing are games more along the lines of Dragon Age where you are given a type of "pseudo-freedon" which is effectively no freedom at all in terms of decisions and outcome and approach.
Yes, you can exploit TES games but the point is to my mind not that you CAN but whether you SHOULD, in the context of, "how will this affect my enjoyment of the game?"
But it's really a question of not being able to please everyone - the game doesn't force the player to sleep or eat, the player can roleplay that however they wish, or make a mod for it. This is a good thing as it gives you choice. Is that shoddy mechanics? I don't think so. If the designers had forced you to sleep and eat, folk would complain about that because it restricted their experiences in the game - (and someone would come up with a mod to change that). Bethesda can't win however they do it, but I would suggest that an open approach will please more people than a more restrictive one.

First let me state for the record. I Love Skyrim !

What about your point of view? Twas a great read with some very good points.

Enough said. There were some missed opportunities by Bethesda, again though that is only my opinion.

By that logic we can just be given the 'option' at the start of the game to set any parameters and stats we want for our character, if you want to, you can have 100 base damage from start, 200% higher speed, 95% damage resistance...it's all 'optional' right? No I expect the game design to make me earn these things through accomplishing things inside the game, and if I am rewarded with all this without any reasonable challenge, to the point where I have to restrict myself, then the design is not properly balanced.

People want different things from their game, and that's why we have different games. Enjoy it for what it is or move on to a game more suited to your tastes.

Maybe you have to calm down and to go over your position and your anger.

This is a forum and everyone have the right to express his opinion,we agree with that.

But when you say "No, it's not.
It's a good game (very good at best), but that's it." yours isn't an opinion anymore,it sounds more like a dictate to me, tu sabe.

Or an objective denial of someone else's opinion,which is even worse - in my opinion of course

The game is "very good at best" for your tastes,a masterpiece or a complete failure for others,so ?

Then where we go if we discuss ad infinitum picking someone else's opinion as a starting point to judge a game ?

I'ts too easy to criticize on subjective views; in that way it's possible to denigrate even Dante's Divine Comedy or Mahler's 2th simphony,you know.

I disagree with a lot of it. But the part about combat is DEAD on. Why do the controls respond with such a delay? Its like the first thing I noticed when I played lol

except the part about it being worse than oblivion's. I think its way better, with the exception of forced 3rd person and no roll

Obviously not. What you've done there is to imply that I am using a form of reductio ad absurdam which is not the case.
There are implicit boundaries within the game world. This is a given. You can mod round them if you wish.
I think you'll also find that I said "as open and unrestrictive as possible" - which does not extend to completely.
In any case what you propose could in theory work as long everything else in game world was adjusted in proportion to you.

But we could argue this point into the ground and beyond. In my opinion Bethesda have made a game that is extremely open and allows you to inhabit a world with a considerable amount of freedom, and fair play to them, in your opinion it's a game that has flawed mechanics.

You folks make me feel like such a wimp. Maybe its people like me's fault its so easy for you, On adept I get my ass handed to me regularly and have to retreat and come back later when I'm tougher all the time. I guess you can pick any lock technically but I don't have the 40- 50 or so lockpicks to spare at level one it would pick a master lock. I don't begrudge people wanting a chalenging experience as lonfg as I can still have my wimpy gamer experience though.


You write well and I'm not energetic enough to engage in a long debate but I pretty much disagree with most of what you said, especially combat but thanks for the well thought out critique even if I feel you're on planet ten about it,

Double post. Sorry!

"Difficulty" is subjective at the end of the day. I just want Skyrim to think of more creative ways to make me feel challenged and rewarded. Nothing feels like it has any weight to it, any consequence. I don't feel like I'm building myself up from a lowly prisoner or small time adventurer. Few people akcnowledge my accomplishment, few people reference thay the civil war is over, not even the soon to be high queen Elisif, the moot never even happens which was half the point. THAT'S the real problem I have, it's not the difficulty, it's the lack of challenge / reward, the lack of weight behind what I do, and the lack of conseqiences and effect I can have on the world.

And before people say I'm "whining" I just want to say I DO love Skyrim and if you disagree with my opinion that's perfectly fine. The OP was just pointing out some percieced flaws in a game s/he likes, and so am I

I'm sorry you feel that way. Just because it's good design practice and/or that you believe it to be the basic fundamental of design, it doesn't make it true. Their job is to make a fun game for as many people as possible. If they couldn't cater to a specific group (however large that may or may not be), that's just something that they have to accept... And so should you.

Multiplayer games (especially MMOs) have more pressure to develop a more balanced game because they have to make sure that one player isn't ruining the fun of another player. It's something they can't control so they pay more attention to it. In some cases, there are people that are hired specifically for that task; crunching numbers to ensure as much balance as possible.

They're providing a toy for you to play with. They don't really care what you do with it so long as you're not hurting anyone with it. They'll listen to people's feedback for the next toy they make, but whenever they'll actually make those changes are up to them.

Because, when given the chance (because that's not always the case), every developer wants to fix and/or adjust their games.

I think most agree that the NPC commentary could be significantly improved in some areas, e.g., the greeting you receive from guards should evolve along with your accomplishments and you shouldn't be hearing the "watch your hands sneak thief" type comment once your Thane, the "fetch mead" comment if you're the Companion Harbinger, etc.

NPCs shouldn't be asking me ... for the hundredth time ... if "I'm new in town" when I'm already a house owning Thane in that town. I don't need to be asked if "I visit the cloud district much" every time I pass a particular NPC or be warned about harassing a dead bar maid, etc.

And the list goes on.

Obviously it's quite possible for the game logic to accomplish this, given that you do receive acknowledgement for some "accomplishments",e.g., "is that the Star of Azura ....".

I noticed the same thing in Oblivion and was hoping it would be rectified in Skyrim.

Personally, I'd prefer no greeting from run of the mill NPCs if Bethesda can't figure out a way to evolve greetings, etc. based on what you've done in the game.

I don't know what the source, e.g., game logic changes subsequent to the "voice acting" being done, of this problem might be however, it would be nice to have it fixed.

That being said, the level of annoyance generated by the NPC comment situation obviously varies among players.

If you have a moment, could you expand on your "lack of consequences and effect on the world" statement.

What ... beyond the above-mentioned NPC commentary ... would you like to see improved re: lack of consequence/effect on the world?

Prolly best thing I've heard so far on this thread.

Hate to break it to you, but I'm a designer currently in school and working for an indie company.

It is part of my job.

It's been discussed in many other threads by many people, but I'll try to sum it up. When I do the civil war questline, the only major thing that changes is the guards in each city. Half the reason for the civil war was the crowning of a new high king, never happens. I'm left feeling like nothing I did matters. I'm told to rid the world of the last of the stormcloaks, but the leaders are still essential and can't be killed.

the mages guild quest line is paced horribly. Everyone is telling you the end of the world is near and that you need to rush rush rush. That's all well and good, but if there's no pause in the action you feel like you need to do the quests NOW to keep it realistic. Now add in the fact that the quests themselves have little to do with magecraft and are basically JUST dungeon crawls and you have a poorly paced, un-magey questline. The other issue is the fact that buildup / payoff. A basic storytelling element is that for every buildup there has to he equal or sometimes greater payoff (as long as the payoff is realistically greater, another issue we'll discuss later). The questline builds up this amazing artifact that could change the way we look at mythology, magic, and power itself. Even an ancient order that hasn't been seen in centuries appears as a result of this find. You're waiting to a least get a CLUE as to what this thing is as you're told that you need to prevent the end of the world. All of a sudden, the obvious bad guy turns bad, you kill him and the ancient order takes the artifact away without asking and they somehow make you guild leader even though there are many people more qualified for a leadership position and you only went through one mage class. They built up the artifact and gave you no payoff, and they didn't build YOU up enough in terms of feeling like a powerful mage and made you achieve too much payoff for it.

The Companions questline is messed up to for the following reason: You do a training mission, complete one actual mission, and sudenly you're in their top secret clique of werewolves.

I'm sure I could find ways to explain this better, and I have many times in many other threads, but I hope this at least makes sense and answers your question a bit
Edit: In terms of improvements, it would be nice to see consequences for your actions. In Fallout New Vegas, I could kill a faction leader and it would change things or let me skip quests. Granted, it should he EXTREMELY difficult to do this, but there should be a sense of freedom and consequence associated with who you kill, what guilds you run with, and what quests you do. SOME things in the world SHOULD change. I'd go into more detail but I'm not home right now and using my phone. I'll explain more later if you want

Then it just boils down to opinion, because at higher levels, FFT was a joke with the right job skills learned. I balance out the way i level up my skills in Skyrim, not wanting to be a master smith and alchemist, and i can find challenge even on Apprentice difficulty.

Game, Graphic, or Sound Designer? I'm a Game Designer, myself, and learning Animations in my class right now.

@Psychotrip
Yes...you are right. I should not have used that word in my earlier post. It was uncalled for and I'm sorry.
It was not intended for anyone in particular but I said it and it was wrong.



Anyway...

When given the option of choices and limitation on themselves, many people just can't do it.
They need to have the game...or someone else...make, limit, or control their choices.

If you can't, won't, don't know how, or don't want to control the choices Bethesda has given you, well....it's your game.
But every argument and every complaint that some of you have with balance, over-powered, under-powered, god-like, crafting, exploits...whatever.....all of it can be controlled or limited by you and your choices.

You just think that the game needs to do it for you because that's what other games do.
Well...welcome to Skyrim. It's not like those other games.

Limit your choices if you want a "balanced" game. It's just like real life in that respect. We put self-imposed limits on ourselves everyday in order to succeed and survive. Those that can't control themselves in real life fail and blame the rest of society...which is why they need government, armies, and police to control and limit their choices....just like some of you need Bethesda to limit your choices and you blame them for your inability to do it in the game.