I'm gonna make a confession that is kind of hard of me to make:

I am not enjoying Skyrim as much as I thought I would.

Now that the dust has settled, and the awe of something new and shiny is over, I feel Skyrim has less to offer me than what Oblivion and Morrowind have.

I know, I know, I can see all the signs clear myself. I am turning into the Morrowind-fans I've critiqued myself for years. To my defense, I still think Skyrim is an awesome game. It's absolutely great, I will certainly buy Dawnguard, and I will play it more, and enjoy it. It also had some great features that were lacking in older TES-games. In some areas, it is beyond any doubt superior to any other TES-game. I'm not denying or arguing any of that.

But the game feels a bit... shallow. And I feel bad that Skyrim hasn't been able to give me more than that. It's a great game, but it's so clearly a game. Action-based, beautiful grapics, great gameplay additions - but it feels shallow and limited compared to both Morrowind and Oblivion.

If I want a fun, entertaining and action-based game where I fight dragons and be a Dragonborn, I play Skyrim. If I want to delve deep into a different culture, filled to the brim with nuances, thick atmopshere and complex political differences, I play Morrowind. If I want to disappear into a different world and roleplay as anyone and anything, I play Oblivion.


I think that last paragraph sums up TES for me in a nutshell..

But I am certainly open to the possibility that I might change my mind later on. There is, after all, a lot in Skyrim I haven't done yet. I will write a small list over the points where I find Skyrim a bit limited. (This is a very subjective list, and is only meant to be my own opinion, not stated facts).

1. Locked AI-scenes that force you to stand still, listen, and participate in the main quest (for instance, first time you meet the Jarl of Whiterun, and the start of the game). It is certainly immersive for doing the main quest for the first time, but after that it feels forced and breaks the immersion of other characters.

2. All the Jarls sitting in the exact same position in their thrones/chairs. This baffled me even on my very first playthrough - I haven't seen anything like this since the days of Daggerfall! Having all Jarls pose in the same position makese no sense to me at all, and breaks immersion again.

3. The alchemy/enchanting/crafting menu system. This might not make much sense to anyone but me, but I'm having issues with how you jump "out of" the game and into a new menu system for doing those activities. I much prefer having it straight in the main menu, like with Morrowind and Oblivion. As it is now, it feels a bit... artificial. Also, I love the fact that you can cook, but I wish it had some proper use. Either having quests where you can sell your dishes to the Inns for a fair price, or having to eat once a day to keep health up (optional toggle in the menu).

4. The animal puzzles in the dungeons were great to begin with, but when it was repeated in so many dungeons, it broke immersion. Granted, repeatable dungeons have been an issue in all TES-games, so I won't fault Skyrim too much for that. They do overall have great dungeons.

5. Simplification. Yes, I am going to bring it up. Skyrim had fewer skills, fewer spells, no classes and no attributes.

6. The simple-aspect also shows in the quest log. The "Misc"-section was horrible. The feel of a quest was completely lost when it was diminished to a one-liner under a "Misc"-header. It really broke the feeling of being in a vast world. It was also easy to forget where the quests where, and what it was about, with no back story and no explanations.

7. Guilds. I didn't like the guilds at all, compared to Oblivion and Morrowind. Not because the stories or quests were bad in themselves (and I particularly loved the random quests!), but because they felt like any other questline, not like a proper guild. And it was a great letdown when the Legion and Stormcloak ended up being just the same story from two different angles. You were basically doing the same thing twice. That was cheap.

This is from the top of my head right now. It may seem like a long list, but again I am not saying the game is bad. Only that those issues are making it more shallow for me. I feel limited and steered in a way I never did in MW or OB. Fewer spells and having to "equip" the spells, and no spellmaking also make the mage feel nerfed compared to the other games.

But Skyrim was also better than any of the other games in several ways. Better graphics (naturally), a world even more stunning than Cyrodiil, better animations, better faces, crafting and cooking, dog comapanions (!), companions in general, random quests, more nuanced law system, more realistic wildlife behaviour, capturing butterflies and picked plants actually showing being picked... there are probably more too, but that was also from the top of my head.

So, yeah, a great game. But at this moment in time, I find it too limited and shallow compared to MW and OB.[img]http://www.zanshaadocks.net/forums/Themes/Concrete_20rc3/images/icons/modify_inline.gif[/img]

I think the biggest problem with Skyrim is that the majority of quests were dungeon crawls, if they had more quests where you just talk to people and did some actual thinking to complete the quest, the game as a whole would have been a lot more memorable.

The second biggest is the simplification,I will never forgive them for removing attributes.

and oblivion and morrowind was shallow compared to daggerfall

Personally this along with daggerfall is my favourite TES , i think skyrim is superior to morrowind and oblivion. Oblivion felt like i was always doing things just to get skills , in skyrim i'm just playing and having fun , it feels far more natural and less gamey. And the world is amazing and huge. I've had a lot more fun as a mage in skyrim than oblivion or morrowind.

Quests were also linear. Are there any quests in Skyrim that offer a peaceful option?

Really? I thanked them.



You can intimidate/persuade certain people to avoid brawls and a few fights. Nothing specific comes to mind.

off the top of my head, there were those mara quests, but other than that, no.

This was rather well said, and I have similar thoughts as well.

I love Skyrim and loved Dawnguard, but some things just do not make it feel like a TES game. I did not really agree with being forced to be in a guild just to get a shout, but other stuff like the atmosphere just seems off.

Also, too much simplicity.

dont get me wrong here, but I'm currently playing morrowind (have completed five different faction quest lines) and all i can say is, that is the way it have always been. morrowind is a great game and all, but, its always a dungeon crawl

I've heard mods add in some of those things...so if you have a decent computer(which I don't ), try getting it for the pc and downloading some mods that fix the things you don't like. Its my opinion that Bethesda designed Skyrim with mods in mind after having played through it many times myself.

The way to level attributes was horrible, but removing them all together went too far.

what mara quests?

Hm, really? I never played MW, but I heard there were far more ways to complete quests than in Skyrim.

Go to the temple of Mara in Riften, the priests has a few quests.

sure, you could always bribe a person to avoid the potential dungeon crawl, when people talk about morrowind its mostly nostalgia

I was hoping Dawnguard would offer some interesting radiant quests but they are all the same old formula.

Morrowind was a great game...but Skyrim wins hands down in terms of choices in combat.

Oblivion wins hands down for having the funniest combat dialogue:
"By the Nine Divines! There's a psychopath on the loose!" lol

"you fight like a pregnant cow"

Is it just me, or did bandits have big egos?

PSSSST~~!!

You know a Bethesda-published game that offers as much depth (potentially more) as Oblivion and Morrowind?
Fallout New Vegas.

Now go buy it, I promise you won't be disappointed.

New Vegas is the best Fallout game... based on the Gamebryo Engine. Fallout 1/2 will always be the best to me.

Yes, this. Attribute removal really hurt the game for me.

The problem with attributes in older games was just that they were clunky in their implementation...not that they were entirely useless.

What Bethesda did was say, "Hey our attributes are boring so lets get rid of them entirely!".
What they should have said was, "Hey our attributes are boring so lets make them exciting!".

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A game that does attributes amazingly well for example, is the Dark Souls/Demon's Souls series.


Stats are setup like this:

- Any stat can be increased on level up.
- Each stat you have: (Str, Dex, Int, Endurance, Vit, Resistance, Faith) each do something different and in a deep way.
- Strength affects your damage with strength based weapons, and affects whether you can equip a weapon based on its weight. Swords, axes, maces, etc go in here.
- Dexterity affects your skill with most weaponry, and affects your damage with weapons that require finesse such as Rapiers, scimitars, spears, and bows.
- Magical Spells also have Intelligence requirements to be used...and so on.

- Each weapon has various stat requirements based on the type of weapon and it's weight.
- If you're not strong enough to wield a weapon you will swing it in an awkward way and do no damage.
- If you don't have enough Dex to wield a weapon but you have enough strength, you'll wield it properly but it will do very little damage.
- Most wands will require Intelligence to do damage (affects magic damage) and strength (to hold it). While a straight sword will require Strength (to hold it) and dex(to wield it with enough finesse).
- Stat requirements vary from weapon to weapon, so you can become a specialist with individual weapons and weapon types based on your playstyle.

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But basically Dark Souls is setup so that attributes are intertwined closely with your character and your character choice in an interesting and immersive way.
They affect the gameplay directly and make it more exciting and fun, and more about being the character you want to be, and fighting the way you want to.

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Skyrim COULD have been like that!

Imagine for a second, that for you to be able to wield a Dwarven claymore, you didnt just have to have the weapon.
You also had to be strong enough to wield it and also have the minimum amount of skill with swords to do proper damage with it.

Or imagine if magic damage increased as you increased your intelligence, but it could affect how many types of spells you could actually use and wield...stuff like that.

In that way you'd feel tied to your character and their progression, along with the weapons they used and the type of playstyle you were using.

How immersive and fun would that be?

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Instead though all we get is perks, skills that dont do anything, and allow every person to equip any item at will.

I still remember when I saw a pissed off old lady go to a dead executioner's corpse, picked up his huge axe and ran after me with it. Hilarious but a huge immersion breaker.

spot on , daggerfall was the exact same . No matter what people claim the games havent simplified or changed all that much. Sure some things have simplified but they also got more polished and in my opinion more fun. A game like oblivion became work planning a character , so much time spent doing things that werent fun . I laugh far more in skyrim than any other TES game. Daggerfall still my favourite though.

Everyone prefers diffrent TES games , one thing i'm happy with is that they still making them and they still great

I wish you could tell Alduin that.

It might look shallow because of the changes that were made to the gameplay, but, in terms of the story it tells, was it shallow?

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/tes-games-storyline

It's the only thing that counts to me and we'll know about that after the last add-on has been released.

eh, well, the details are a lot more remarkable in the later tes games, the storylines of the older gamers had more content because of the large amount of dialog, but som where more uninspired, like Arena and daggerfall. Morrowind had an Original storyline.