Choosing a shout you want from any wall is the most idiotic and pussiest way of playing a game. You sound like you like playing skyrim on easy.

I don't think it has anything yo do with Permanency. It's more that it offers you choice. It also spats the User on tyo exploring the world. Basically, what you seem to be saying is that you dislike having to explore (Or put the effort in) in order to gain certain bonuses. It makes me wonder if you haven't somewhat missed the point of the game...




This statement is based on pure guess work and personal opinion. There is no suggestion from Bethesda that this was ever the case. It certainly seems unlikely.




It's not assuming gamers are morons. It's giving the user choices and challenges, as opposed top handing things to them on a plate. What's wrong with that exactly? I mean getting to some of those word walls is tough. Some of the Dragon Priests guarding are fricking ridiculous to beat early on in the game. The Word is the reward for beating them.

It sounds to me that you are the kind of person who just wans crazy godlike powers from the off, instead of having to work to achieve them. If you want that then I'm sure there's a mod for you out there somewhere. But frankly, where would the fun be in that?

Yes this has been mentioned several times already . How would he choose which shout he wants? Perhaps the same way he chooses one of the three standing stones outside Helgen. Why wouldn't he just learn them all in one go? Perhaps absorbing a rune word's knowledge consumes the wall's magic.

As for the exploration, there are already many rewards for exploring, which I already mentioned. And don't get me started on fixed loot . Let's leave that can of worms tightly sealed.

Its too late already. This post is not going to change the way to unlock shouts. Why do you play skyrim? Do you play on pc? if you do, you can use the console commands, mods and creation kit to make you a lore unfriendly, power starved god if you like. Maybe you can make a mod where you can unlock all the shouts without moving your character? Lore unfriendly gods sure do that.

I'm sorry for the OP because now his word wall argument is pretty much made invalid. I hope he can take it. (EDIT: He could! It's good to see people who can admit they didn't know everything!)

Whilst I do agree with him a little. Clearly perk trees and standing stones are there so that you don't need to stick to the character you created at the start (and you pretty much can't even create a character anymore). In other words, this game doesn't care anything about to what kind of individual you've been born and grown this far. It lets you modify yourself on the fly.

I think the word walls are actually taking different direction compared to perk tree or standing stones. The latter two have optionality, but the word walls are seemingly random, at least, and contain less hand-holding. How come that random reward and optional reward BOTH are limiting player's freedom?

But, again, I agree that there's this linearity and hand-holding that seemingly make this an easily approachable game for "the masses". With Skyrim, Beth don't respect veteran TES players' demands on things like complexity, difficulty and limiting your character to only certain strengths (so that the char has weaknesses, too). And yes, if there was any "character building" to be done to begin with, I, too, think that the word walls could have all the shouts in them, and player just needs to pick what (s)he likes without knowing the possible consequences. How it's now done, with actual runes that mean something, is a good way, though.

TES VI: ???

"We have decided that it is too frustrating for players to make moral choices in quests or to pick factions so in this new game we will have a reset button, so if you did a quest in one way and you did not like it, you will be able to re-write history and choose a different path."

My feelings on removing early game choices.

Okay so OP wants a huge giant big wall with all the dragon words in it. Then OP only choose which ones he will read and which ones won't...

Hmmm.. That's sounds too lazy to me.

god some people are really selfish. Bethesda dont want to listen to old tes players complaining about the difficulty. This is a new generation of gamers, the old generation are not as appealing as the new generation.

Exactly.

Was my OP unclear? Most of you seem to be missing the point, so I do wonder. I don't know how I can make it clearer though. edit: I added the remainder of this reply to the OP so hopefully it's clearer.

What you said is true on the first play-through, but on subsequent runs, you already know where the different shouts are, so if you want shout A, you HAVE to go to dungeon B, C or D. But what if I decided to start my travels exploring the Pale and all those dungeons are on the opposite side of Skyrim? Well then I'm screwed out of a possibly roleplay-build-defining shout until very late in the game. It's akin to having to travel to Riften just to be able to 'unlock' the sneak tree so you can become a thief. How annoying would it be if all your thieves had to travel to Riften straight out of Helgen?

Several of my characters actually have travelled straight to Riften from Helgen, ignoring Riverwood and and Whiterun until much later in the game. Took me less than an hour to hike out there through the mountains, purely following in-game road signs for an RP route.

This is an open world game. Go where you want.

If you want a certain shout or a certain type of armour, then hike out and get them!

Do the work.

it still sounds like you arent bothered with exploring. Reread what you just posted.

I've done that too. But how would you like it if you had to do it every time you wanted to play a thiefy character? What if you wanted to go to Solitude straight out of Helgen but to become a thief you had to travel to Riften? THAT is the problem. Admittedly, a much worse problem than the word walls, but I'm just trying to make my point clearer.

Boom.

It's what I've done with ALL my Thief based characters (Three in total).

Straight to Riften, join the Thieves Guild from the start to access the perks of the job.

I really don't see the problem.

I created an Imperial legion character and wanted a closed Legion Helmet. I knew that I'd found a Sjrine with one of those by it in another playthrough, so that's where I headed from Helgen.

In another playthrough I wanted to play as a Vampire from the off, so I found one of the few vampire lairs which wasn't directly linked to any questline and got myself infected.

What's the big deal?

I never thought I would see a thread like this in a Skyrim board. The Standing Stones and Word Walls are placed the way they are to encourage exploration, with the more powerful Words of Power being placed in the most difficult dungeons, like Forelhurst.

If you could just go up to a Word Wall and pick which shout you wanted then you could just go to the super easy dungeons and get all words for Storm Call or Become Ethernal, it would be ridiculous. Despite claiming that you hate handholding this method of yours is the epitome of handholding.

I don't know if I agree with what you said about the fact that you have to go to Dungeon A to get shout X, but I do like the idea of when you get to a word wall you learn one word of a shout of your choice, so from the beginning you choose which shouts you learn. To explain the reasoning about one word per wall the wall could crumble after you learn a word, so you cant learn more than one word per wall, but I do like that idea. That said having all shouts available on the walls from the get go would be a bad idea, maybe have it so you can only learn the first word on some walls, second words on others and finally the third word on harder to find and greatly defended walls.

As for being forced to go to a specific location for a specific shout, I don't think it is as bad as you make it out to be. Sure you are forced to go to Dungeon A for Shout X, but at the end of the day, you chose to play that build, its not the developers fault you chose to play a build that forces you to go all over the place. Again, I agree with having multiple choices of what word you learn at a word wall, but without that, its down to you. If you don't want to go to Dungeon A to get Shout X, but you need Shout X for your build then you have the choice, go for the shout or not. Bethesda couldn't anticipate that you would want to get that particular shout at a low level but also explore an area miles away from its location. Sorry mate, you have a good idea, but I don't agree with what you are saying about Bethesda defeating "the game's 'total freedom' paradigm". If anything, by creating a specific build that needs specific shouts, you are defeating the games total freedom paradigm.

lazy gamer and pointless thread.

Still, knowing where they came from, they ought to include something that not a single starting gamer could pass.

But no. It's all the same hack and slash. Not even hidden artifacts or anything. The Dragon Priest mask thing was closest to what I can think of; heck, it didn't even start with a violently-overproduced drumroll and a big text in your face!

QUEST STARTED: THE DRAGON PRIESTS
- Retrieve all the Dragon Priest Masks *gives away map markers*
- Bring them here *gives away another marker*
- Profit!

Pretty much what I said. Let me save you some time and post his response. "More difficult shouts? The most powerful (unrelenting force) can be unlocked very quickly, so I don't think the difficulty in obtaining shouts was ever a concern on Beth's part"

I know, I was really disappointed that there were so many map markers in Skyrim. I was annoyed as well when I found out the Esbern, the Greybeard (I forget his name) and 'your friend' tell you where word walls are in Skyrim as well. I'd rather just hunt them down on my own, whilst exploring.

Heaven forbid that an NPC shold reveal some kind of information to you!

Let me put this way :
Words walls spread across the Skyrim because of there was Ancient Nordic (Aka Nords ancestor) worshipping dragons not only in ONE PLACE. They are spread all across Skyrim. Bleak Falls Barrow, Ansilvund, Angarvunde, Dustman's Cairn, Frostmere Cyrpt, you name it. Remember there are not only one Nordic Ruins in Skyrim. That explained if there was Ancient Nordic not only worshipping dragons in one place with 'ol huge giant wall in it. See my point?

For me, I prefer having to explore Skyrim for stuff. Even cities.

I didn't really like how bottle-fed and easy Oblivion's travelling was, I see Skyrim's as a big improvement.

Well obviously following routes is not a problem for you, but it is a problem for players that enjoy freedom, which is the reason I created this thread.


Hidden artifact. It would indeed be great to be randomly exploring and finding a Staff of Facemelting instead of, you know, going to the Dungeon of Facemelting because you know the staff is there. It is for a similar reason that I'd rather just go off exploring whatever area of the map I feel like and, upon chancing on a word wall, be able to make a choice as to what shout I want to learn that best fits my roleplaying, instead of having to go to the Dungeon of Shout So-and-So. It's a similar concept.

Anyway, I have to go make lunch. Thank you to the (very few) posters that actually understood my point, even if they didn't completely agree with it.

edit:
Freedom of exploration, not gameplay features. Sorry, should have made that clear in the thread title.