I read the first 3 pages of the thread, hopefully didn't miss anything TOO important on page 4 and 5, but here's my thoughts.


I am a strictly dedicated console gamer. I had never heard of the elder scrolls until morrowind came out for the original xbox. since then I've been an addict to the series. When my original xbox broke down mid playthrough on morrowind I went out the same day to buy a brand new xbox just so I could start over and keep playing. When oblivion came out my friends and I took a break from playing Halo at LAN parties to playing Oblivion in the same room. And when skyrim came out I went to the midnight release and have been playing since.

I see each episode of TES series as the natural evolution of the series. Each one improves upon the flaws of the previous game and adds additional things to the table.

For example: I loved morrowind but ever since i spent 2 hours searching for Milkwater cavern in it I will never hate on compass markers. If I ever want to explore now, I merely make it so I have no active quests and go off by myself.

I loved character development and attributes in Oblivion but when Skyrim came out with the perks it was more and better. I wish attributes were in the game, but the perk system really adds an entirely more complex form of character development then training and grinding skills until you got a +5 for the attribute.

Now i've kind of rambled, and I have a lot more reasons why I could say that I think that each game is the continued evolution of the series, but I'll summarize my point. No, I do not think that each game in the series, or "RPGS nowadays" gets dumbed down or not as good as the predecessors. I think that while yes, they have lost a few things from previous entries that I enjoyed, the core essence of the game is what makes an Elder Scrolls game and Elder scrolls game. It is a massive sandbox world set in the continent of Tamriel.

The elder scrolls will always be my favorite series because of that last sentence. And the truth of the matter is that even with what they stripped from oblivion, or morrowind before it not only have they added other content that brings the series forward and better, but they have also produced the best, most comprehensive form of RPG that I have ever experienced for its generation.


Finally, in response to a post on page 3 where someone said that the "RPG ERA is ending", i completely disagree. not only are more RPGS coming to market then ever before, but the quality as a whole of them as drastically improved. Even what i consider "B level" RPGS such as two worlds 1 and/or 2, Risen, kingdoms of amalur, etc are enjoyable and entertaing RPGS. I think the RPG era is just now getting started, more and more people play RPGS then ever before, the stigma against them gets less and less every day, and the quality and quantity of titles available has continued to grow.


That of course, is all my opinion.

supremacy-

morrowind was my first exposure to tes, as well.

1.) i like being able to get lost. i think not being able to get confused and disoriented in rpg's is poor design. the skyrim hud options menu is terrible. the lack of a journal and good quality and vague instructions and directions is a huge letdown. the gps is terrible if there's no toggles.

2.) perks are great. but, too many skills and perks in skyrim are useless, redundant and uninspired. NOTHING can add depth and customization to the pc like attributes. they GOVERN everything, including, perks and skills. not the other way around and they can't be replaced.

i honestly don't see how anybody that's played previous tes and the fallout games can fail to easily see how simplification, dumbing-down, streamlining and accessibility are affecting skyrim. "a mile wide and an inch deep" is the perfect description of skyrim.

as well, the era of pure rpg's is without a doubt coming to an end for consoles. though, i hope not. was there EVER a pure rpg on the xbox? the combining of the genres has to be financially motivated and i understand it. but, i don't have to like it.

imo.

@imseeingred


I should ammend my comment. you're correct in that a "true RPG" with dice rolls era may be ending, I was referring to RPGS as a whole. Action rpgs and wrpgs are becoming more and more popular than ever before.

You missed two pages of comments. That should be obvious.

*top commentator... literally*

Neither PC or consoles ever had "pure RPGs". If you want to get that nitpicky, you can only really get that experience with P&P games.

Strangely enough, I actually enjoy Skyrim. Is it simpler? Yes. Do I miss having to plot out what skills I want to use how many times a level so I can get the right combination of attributes so I don't gimp myself by level twenty? Not a bit. The things I enjoy about the previous games had nothing to do with any so-called complexity. A better combination of placed and levelled loot, like Morrowind had. Skyrim's a vast improvement over Oblivion in that respect, but not quite enough. Some better writing in parts (not that all of MW or all of OB was good, but they did have good parts. Just like Skyrim does). Not really complex, either.

I like the perks. Oddly enough, your attributes that defined the characters so much often led to the same in the end, where you'd be great at more or less everything regardless of what class you picked or what racial bonuses you had in the start. That +10 for Strength for being a Nord? Sounds good, but when the other guy can whack rats for two levels in various ways and become just as strong as someone a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier, it's not so special, is it? You were never limited or defined by TES attributes, you were just slightly more or less competent than the other guy. Unless you want to make it more Fallout-esque (where starting stats mean a hell of a lot more, and attribute gains mean sacrifing perks) I much prefer the current system.

Good post, I agree with about 95% of it.

I do see each Elder Scrolls game as a natural evolution of the series, and I do see each game fixing the flaws of past games, while adding new things, however each installment has also removed things.

In Oblivion, I believe that more was removed than added, however while Skyrim did remove a lot, I do think that it added more.

I totally agree with you that Perks are far more in depth and give way more customization than Attributes. I am not inherently against Attributes, but I think Perks are just so much deeper, and so much better.

And I honestly don't see how anyone who's played Skyrim can call it "simplified" or "dumbed down" from past games. This is from someone who extensively played, and loved Morrowind (it reset the bar of what makes a good RPG for me and completely changed how I look at video games - Morrowind is the standard by which I judge all RPG's, and Skyrim passed that test with flying colors)

Why is it okay to remove anything unless it's something that blatantly just doesn't work or is broken?


Deep? Lol.

+20% damage with one handed swords, x5.
Perk heavy armor so that you can run around in 100 pound suit of armor but it weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down at all
Zooming in with a bow slows time/gives you telescoping vision.

Yeah real deep. They are a boon for roleplaying, I don't know why we ever liked attributes to begin with.

Trust me when I say I am not saying this in an insulting way - but if you really did enjoy The Old Republic as much as I'm gathering from this post, then that goes a long way in explaining our difference in views regarding RPG's. I thought that Star Wars: The Old Republic was pretty close to absolute garbage, and I couldn't cancel my subscription fast enough.

And how are attributes any better? I'm sorry you need some magical number telling you how strong or smart your character is.

That's not the point. People are acting like perks are some great breakthrough or genius when in fact they really arent. If anything they should've been smarter about how they did perks, and just added them to the existing Attributes + Skills system like Fallout does. Again, what is Beth's fetish for taking stuff away?

Besides, perks as they are in Skyrim don't really provide you with more choices. It's illusory - here is the 'build' for the one handed perk tree for every single one of my characters who use one handed weapons. http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8821/perksy.jpg except switch out Bladesman for Hack-and-Slash once in awhile. If you tend to always pick the same perks for each tree, it's hardly customization - its routine.


I don't know, if you enjoyed KOTOR and like MMO's then it should be a perfect game for you. If you don't like KOTOR, or don't like MMO's then of course it's not. If you like KOTOR and like MMO's but hated SWTOR then I think you must have been on something. It may also surprise you to know that I play and enjoy both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. I also regularly play League of Legends, and most grand strategy titles from Paradox including Hearts of Iron 3, Crusader Kings II, and Europa Universalis 3. I also play RTS games from Relic including Company of Heroes and the Dawn of War series in every single one of its iterations. Furthermore I also enjoyed the Warhammer 40K: Space Marine multiplayer before I got fed up with the rampant lag.

So, trust me when I say that I have a large enough repertoire that you whether or not I like SWTOR isn't all that indicative. I also own and very much enjoy The Witcher, Metro 2033 (oh gosh I loved this game), Mafia 2, and Dead Island, which is a pretty broad range of games that could very loosely fall under the categorization of 'RPG'.

And Attributes are so deep? Intelligence = increases Magicka. Whoa... deep...

How is plopping points in Strength to increase your melee damage so much deeper than spending a perk point to get an increase in melee damage?

And those other examples you gave are examples of things that perks can do that Attributes can't - thus proving the point that perks are deeper than Attributes.

Name one thing that Attributes do that Perks don't. Because everything that is covered in Morrowind or Oblivion Attributes is covered with Skyrim Perks - and then some - the only thing not making the cut is run speed, but even a variant (related, but not the same) element is in Skyrim with sprinting. That is not a subjective statement, that is a provable fact. Melee strength, Health, Fatigue, Magicka regen, staggering, ranged damage, carrying capacity, even Luck, all of these things are covered with Perks in some fashion.

As for your other comment - well, considering that a game's resources are finite, and new things are being added in, sacrifices have to be made somewhere. I believe that Bethesda has at least been smart with their sacrifices in terms of what they have sacrificed. In the span since Morrowind, we've lost Medium Armor, Spears, Unarmored, Athletics, Acrobatics - many other skills such as Mysticism, Hand to Hand, Mercantile etc. still exist in some fashion. But what we've lost - while there are obviously people who like these things, I don't deny that - are probably what people are looking for the least when they are picking up an Elder Scrolls game.

You can argue that some of that stuff was broken or unneeded. Maybe Bethesda no longer liked what could be done with Acrobatics and removed it because it no longer fit their vision (they certainly did this with Levitate), certain things are redundant (3 armor styles?), others may not be the highest priority use of resources (Spears - especially when apparently it would take even more resources to get them to work properly with the new game mechanics), and some may very well have been broken (I have my reasons to believe why Spellmaking would not be compatible with the current game mechanics).

When resources are finite, you can't get everything you want.

That's the exact reason I did not purchase Mass Effect 3 and I won't. 2 strayed too far from the original for my taste. I wanted more RPG not less. Too many things get removed or streamlined and the games change from RPG to Action. It's all about the action and the fast pacing and hell, why not just make a first person shooter to begin with if you're going to go that way. I played ME1 multiple times. ME2 I played once and returned it. ME3 I'll never play. The franchise is dead to me now.

Dragon Age also was a huge let down. I enjoyed the first one a lot and was hoping the second one would get even better. Instead they took the absolute worst aspects of the first game and that was the second game. Blah. What the hell were they thinking? I played the demo and hated it and then read what everyone had to say and I didn't buy that game either.

I have to say Bethesda has gone that way to some degree but not so badly that I'm going to trash them over it. I just hope it doesn't simplify any further. If anything it needs to head back to the RPG roots and complexity it started with or at least find a way to blend some of that in so the series doesn't continue to devolve into another action clone.

I like MMO's and I like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but I didn't like Star Wars: The Old Republic, largely because it is ultimately just a clone of quite possibly my most hated game of all time, World of WarCraft.

WoW isn't my most hated because I necessarily think it's just atrocious, but ultimately I hate what it did to the MMO genre by turning MMO's in general in to a completely mindless mess.

I didn't see anything at all that stood out when playing TOR.

i honestly can't see how anyone denies its simplicity and whittling away of the nuts and bolts. there's nothing to skyrim as far as complexity or depth.

preplan a character, use a skill and pick a perk. all in a nice graphical world. that's it.

the fact that you still think perks give more depth and customization than attributes tells me all i need to know. attributes govern everything. perks and m/h/s don't replace attributes or provide just as much customization as attributes.

all of you who are sticking to your guns with this "don't need attributes" mantra are lacking common sense at this point. of course, we don't need them, but, they would completely alter the gameplay if we had them.

i'll try again:

in skyrim, if i make 2 of the same characters with all the same skill points and perks and m/h/s they are the same, right? this is blatantly obvious on purpose.

now, take skyrim with those same 2 characters and nothing different except the inclusion of attributes. those same 2 characters with 6 attributes that are all different or even just 1 different will (or, should with an appropriate system) have, right there, different experiences.

one with a strength of 10 will have perks that act much different than the other with it at 1.

and, don't give me this "strength is hidden behind or included in health and stamina" rationale. they cannot substitue for strength or endurance or speed or dexterity or constitution. speech doesn't substitute for charisma. they are way too vague for the FUNDAMENTAL attributes.

I'll peruse the most fun parts of your post.


Whoa Attributes + Skills + Fallout style perks = better than Morrowind.
But less Skills + poorly done perks = svck.

Well Bethesda does a crappy job with allocating resources then. As far as we can see spears are possible in the game, most of the technical work was already done for them in one week by some dedicated developer for the Gamejam video. Besides with all the work they did to code/script/test marriage, the work they did to get water flowing the way it does, the work they did on horses (talk about redundant)...Ugh. I wish they'd focused on improving/expanding what they already had first, and then they can wax creative and make dragons or more realistic fire or add in marriage or whatever else - but after they've gotten everything else straight. That means without removing stuff each time!

It's so silly. Bethesda takes teleportation spells from Morrowind out, and telekinesis and then realizes that Mysticism only has a couple of spells left. A sane person's solution would be to re-evaluate removing Mysticism's spells (is it really that hard to disable 'Recall' during encounters?), or get creative and dream up new spells in order to make Mysticism worthwhile. Instead, Bethesda's first reaction is always to cut something.


certain things are redundant (3 weapon styles? ) See what I did there?

Except it didn't work that way. TES Attributes were much more forgiving, and combined with the skills and the absolute joke of a class system led to every character being the same in the end anyway. Ex: Did you want to pick a lock? Then it forces you into Alteration or Security. While they could have changed it to Fallout-style Attributes where starting values mean something and attribute growth means sacrifing perks, I know the hardcoes would be railing just as much that Bethesda changed the traditional system to something else and how it's "not a TES game any more".

the implementation of a poorly developed attribute system is not the issue.

the fact that people can't see that attributes obviously govern everything else is.

it's their inherent properties. they govern and dictate and influence.

OT:

There are great RPGs out there, you just gotta know where to look! Many outstanding games are indie developed, there's http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=180, http://www.irontowerstudio.com/index.htm, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHYK_WIy5f8&feature=related, let's not forget http://www.grimrock.net/, you might also want to check thishttp://www.indiegames.com/play.htmhttp://www.indiegames.com/play3.htmhttp://www.indiegames.com/play.htmout as well.

Okay? And Morrowind is "pre-plan a character, use a skill" - even less than Skyrim's "pre-plan a character, use a skill, pick a perk"

So we're lacking common sense now? Okay - let me break this down for you to show that you're the one lacking common sense here, not me...


You just said that 2 character built the exact same way will be... exactly the same.

But let me go ahead and proceed to acknowledge that I get the point that you're trying to make - your point is just horribly flawed.

Let's take these warrior examples that you are using. If I am playing Morrowind, and I am making a combat oriented warrior character, I am going to use the Endurance and Strength Attributes, because those best fit my build and will make my character the best it can be at what it does.

Therefore, my character is really no different than any other warrior character of the same build, because we just took the same skills and Attributes. There is no difference here.

Compare that to Skyrim, where warrior characters will be taking perks in One Handed or Two Handed, for the same reasons.

The same lack of variety that you claim to exist in Skyrim, exists in Morrowind as well, because a warrior character is not going to take Intelligence any more than a warrior character in Skyrim is going to perk up their Conjuration skill.

Now, let's take the example of that warrior that does take Intelligence - he wants to be a tank mage. So we have a warrior now who is taking Strength and Intelligence so that he can deal damage, and summon creatures to fight alongside him. His Endurance won't be that highly beefed up because he's been focusing on Strength and Intelligence to damage and magicka.

Now let's toss that same character into Skyrim - where he again will pretty much be the same because, hey, he's putting his perk focus on Conjuration and One Handed, so he's not particularly focusing on his Heavy Armor skill.

But let's look at the other things that Skyrim perks allows him to do that Morrowind attributes don't - what kind of conjurer does this warrior want to be? Does he want to be a Necromancer, and raise the corpses of his fallen foes? Or does he want to command Daedra, and summon Daedra from Oblivion to fight for him? Or even still, he's been beefing up his One Handed skill, maybe he wants to put some synergy between that and his Conjuration skill, and start focusing on his bound weapons and making them better.

That's just the Conjuration skill. We haven't even looked at the One Handed skill yet. What weapon does he want to focus on? Maces? Axes? Swords? Does he want to dual wield? Does he want extra power attack damage? Does he want a rushing attack? Perks allow for all of this.

Now, for a real life example - let's take our 2 characters - my character, and the character of my best friend. We are both heavy armored, dual wielding warriors. But oh no no our characters are not the same. He is a much more efficient melee combatant than I, being an Orc for one, while I am a Breton, so he has a nice little racial power that comes in handy and helps him in combat (oh you see that! MEANINGFUL RACIAL DIFFERENCES that people say don't exist). There is also the fact that he perked himself heavily in his One Handed and Heavy Armor skills, where I branched out a bit, and perked myself heavily in magical skills like Conjuration, Alteration, and Restoration. So we ultimately had drastically different characters because of our perk selection.

If you put that in a Morrowind context, with skills and attributes, our characters would be pretty much the same because our Heavy Armor and Blade skills would be the same. We'd be just as good at it as each other because attributes simply don't offer the versatility that perks offer. If he was Strength and Endurance while I went Strength and Intelligence, he may live longer in combat than I, but ultimately, his damage dealing abilities and my damage dealing abilities would be 100% identical.

Perks allow for a greater versatility than attributes do, meaning that even when he and I both pumped up those "20% extra damage from One Handed Weapons" perks (I.E. - Strength), he was still different than I because he had a deeper perk investment in the skill than I.

Perks allowed our characters to be even more different from each other than attributes would have allowed for.

Because perks are deeper than attributes. The depth of the Strength attribute ends at "effects melee damage" (I am using that one effect for the sake of this argument, I understand that Strength did other things, such as increased Fatigue, as well as carry capacity) - the depth of the One Handed perks go beyond just the damage, and allow for true specialization within the skill.

and removes things that were important and loved and used in the past games just for the sake of change

You can buy unsprayed organic fruit ya know

Well I can't understand how you can see that in this way? I'm not playing other rpgs but in TES every sequel has been far better than any of the previous ones.

Even if no one else does, I'm gonna agree with you. I am struggling to understand how Skyrim is any "less" RPG than Oblivion was, or even Morrowind. They've removed the ability stats is the only thing I can think of. Oh no. No more awkward fiddling of trying to get a 5x multiplier on Endurance next time you level up

I loved Morrowind, just like I love Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, KoToR, Anachronox and the Mass Effect series (up until the final 10 minutes. Urgh). But I wouldn't call one of them any less RPG than the other, sure the mechanics of the TES series may change slightly with certain gameplay elements being streamlined but rarely is it made for the worse.
I honestly think that sometimes people get annoyed when RPG's actually have a good combat system, like they wont be satisfied unless its awkward and clunky and filled with invisible dice rolls.

I've also picked up on some people seemingly missing the ability to kill plot essential characters for the game to tell you "the thread of prophecy is severed" and that your game is up the creek. Right. I'm not sure why that, as an option, is missed.

I am genuinely confused though, I can't find anyone giving definitive examples of why its "less RPG" than Morrowind was. Please Enlighten

I agree with all of this, except Oblivion being better than Morrowind (referencing the "every sequel is better than the last"), I don't think that's the case.

But I wouldn't call it any less of an RPG however. I just think as an entire package, it's not quite up to snuff with Morrowind.

It is, however, still a great game, one of my top 3 all time.

But basically - they can't explain why Skyrim is less RPG than the other games, other than the fact that the numbers they want are gone. I posted earlier on this page even about all the things that perks do that attributes did, and even asked to name one thing that attributes do that perks don't, and that question went unanswered.

The responses typically come down to loss of attributes (and blatantly refusing to acknowledge that perks do the same things that attributes did, and cover the same areas), lack of questline options (as if branching quests was ever a thing in past Elder Scrolls games), and an apparent lack of in game consequences (again, as if that was ever a big deal in past Elder Scrolls games, and it also blatantly refuses to acknowledge the areas where the game does acknowledge your actions and choices, and instead focuses on some glitchy dialogue that sometimes has a guard, in passing, call you the new recruit to the College when you are the Arch-Mage).