Almost by definition you can say, with quantifiable proof, that Skyrim is not a 'great' RPG. People tend to think that since Skyrim itself is a game they've enjoyed, perhaps even a 'great' game, then it must also be a great RPG because that's what it's billed as. This simply is not the case though.

Compared to previous Elder Scrolls games it's got less player choice in quests, apparel, skill sets, and joinable factions. It also has more linear outcomes to conversations, quests, and interactions. Skyrim has unabashedly shed its RPG elements in favor of better visuals, better combat, and better accessibility for the average player - these too are facts that no one disputes, but some people will argue that they were in fact improvements over the 'tired' or 'obsolete' character systems used in previous games and RPGs everywhere. Maybe so, but it only goes to illustrate that TES is moving away from being an RPG to more of an action-adventure play-land. What happens if next game they get rid of skills entirely? Would TES 6 be an RPG then? If you say yes then we get to the point where there's nothing separating Skyrim from Tomb Raider except for an arbitrary, self-decided label imposed by Bethesda.


Again this simply isn't reality. Skyrim in no way 'returns to form', it's ruthlessly, categorically different in so many ways to previous games. And you can argue that this is a good thing, but it's just not true to say that Skyrim is a better RPG than previous games, or that it's more 'Elder Scrolls-ish' than previous installments. It may be a better game overall, but not a better RPG.

There have been lots of threads explaining this. Skyrim is a fantastic game, but like all of its TES predecessors it has some deep flaws (lack of immersive HUD, lack of dark dungeons option, lack of meaningful NPC directions on how to complete quests, inconsistent NPC comments on the PC progression through the game world, lack of meaningful consequences to PC actions, guilds that let you become leader way too easily, etc., etc.). Most of this can be fixed with mods, but console players cannot mod.

There is no substitute for a TES game, so if open world exploration style roleplaying is your thing, then you are stuck playing Skyrim and its predecessors, warts and all.

Skyrim is a great game, there is no denying. But I don't see how it can be considered an RPG with all the traditional RPG elements stripped out.

One could argue that it's an RPG because you take on the role of the player character, but by that logic, Pacman could be considered an RPG.

They did not have to axe attributes just to fix the levelling system. I don't miss the awkward leveling system from prior games either but I do miss attributes.


I like immersion too. Put yourself in a console player's shoes for a minute. Pretend you don't own a PC suitable for gaming and you either don't have the money for one or you don't have the technical knowledge/patience to deal with all the headach PC ownership brings (virus software, issues with Steam we are always hearing about, mod conflicts, programs to manage mods with weird incomprehensible names like Wrye Bash, etc.)

Now try to understand why it would be extremely frustrating for a console player to play a game that forces you to choose between immersion ruining screen clutter (including a GPS compass with red dots that broadcast enemies locations and icons that broadcast unknown locations and a sneak icon that magically lets you know if you are "hidden" or not) and going completely HUDless (which means that you cannot see the "invisible" health/magicka/stamina bars, you cannot see the binders of books, you have no idea what your quest reward was, etc.). Very annoying choice to have to make on a game you love to play. The more you love the game, the more annoyed you become by having to make this choice. Are you starting to see where the venom is coming from?

Such options like an immersive HUD would not have been hard for Bethesda to implement, but instead of doing so, they just give console players the short shrift.

There are plenty of other things I would like to see changed in Skyrim, but I promise, cross my heart, if Bethesda will just give us an immersive HUD in a patch, I will never say another negative thing about Skyrim so help me Akatosh. I don't give two skeever tails about new kill cams, but an immersive HUD would be priceless.

In terms of GAMING. RPG defines a genre and sub genres.

People often try the "RPG means PLAYING A ROLE" and use that to define RPG games. That is a bogus argument. By that shallow argument, Sonic the Hedgehog is an RPG because you are playing a role (ok bad example since bioware made a Sonic RPG)

RPG in gaming specifically and classically means a game with what have been come to be known as "RPG mechanics" Stats, classes, levels, gear, loot, epic stories, the list of features goes on and on. A game doesn't HAVE to have all the features or certain ones.

Some people will argue that Dragon Age II for example is MORE RPG than Dragon Age Origins because you "play the role of Hawke" but that is a silly argument from people who refuse to understand the obvious differences when talking about videogames vs. books. Clowny LARPers and fan fiction dolts "pretend I am Hawke" when playing DAII and to them it's "MORE RPG"

That's not how genre works in videogames. The actual gameplay and feature set are the end all be all. The story, the characters, the graphics etc.. that doesn't define a genre. Even Racing games now have stories and characters.

But in general game genres are defined as a convenient way to GROUP games. Just like any genre of art, it's simply a way to conceptually group things.

That way you can say things like "I prefer RPGs over FPS shooters". And people know what you mean. The fact that Call of Duty has "RPG features" now doesn't change the fact that as a genre, people still know what CoD is and it's obviously a military shooter and not a true RPG.

By contrast, something like BOrderlands being a true hybrid game could easily land in RPG genre or FPS genre.

With that said, Skyrim, I believe is still in the RPG genre, although I also agree it's creeping closer and closer to True Hybrid and almost action game.

It's easy to keep SKyrim labeled as a RPG tho, mostly because there are fewer and fewer true RPGs released now. Even tho Skyrim is "less RPG than Morrowind" it's still "More RPG" than something like Bioshock.

Sadly tho, the RPG genre is dying. It's like Punk Rock. What is called "Punk" these days is really a hybrid of mainstream pop music, bubble gum rock, emo schlock, and boy band style looks.

It's like, you can listen to Green Day and be forced to still call that Punk, but the reality is the Green Day "Punk" is the watered down 3 chords and a fake brittish accent mainstream record sales version. Comparing something like American Idiot to Husker Du's Zen Arcade, and they don't sound anything even remotely close to the same genre of music.

Comparing Skyrim to say , Baldur's Gate II and they don't feel like the same genre at all. The reality is, they are in the same meta-genre of RPG. But Skyrim is more of a First Person Action Based, Auto Scaling Modern RPG. Where BGII is a Classic Isometric Real Time With Pause Party Based D&D style RPG.

minor threat, ftw.

Skyrim is an okay RPG but a less than stellar TES game.


This.

To the OP: For me, Skyrim does fall short as a whole compare to pass TES games. As a rpg it does fall short as well since it's becoming arcady. Luckily, TES hasn't done major damage to the masses since the rest of the industry is becoming arcady as well not matter what genre.

I'm in agreement with what ravenius has been saying pretty much.

Me too!

I don't agree here. One of the big problems was that there weren't enough differences between builds to make it worth the loss of atributes and classes. You do make choices in the perks, but not really restrictions. I think the brilliance of an RPG is defined by what you can't do as much as what you can do. In Oblivion, if I started as a pure mage, I wasn't going to be tearing off limbs with axes. If I was a sneaky theif, odds were that I wasn't gong to be able to be a great spellcaster or a great mage. Having a good startting sword skill meant that I wasn't going to easily pick up an axe. It goes down to the idea that the person who can do anything is not that good at anything.



Not really. With attributes, you had Altemer who were great mages and terrible warriors. Orcs weren't good at anything other than fighting. Khajiit made good sneaks. Imperials were good at a lot of stuff. I never saw the same in Skyrim -- any race can do anything.



I like being able to define my "class", and perks are cool. My compliant with the "lack of choice" is that doing or not doing a quest was about the limits of "choice". And even those few that allow you to decide HOW to solve the quest, the consequences were by-and-large nonexistant. If you betray someone who trust you, they won't care. If you shake down a shop, the barkeep will still ask you to help him make a very valuable matrimonial ring. If you side with the stormcloaks, killing them doesn't affect your standing with them (compared to Oblivion where robbing your guildmates meant being kicked out and gathering herbs until you'd done enough penance). Even joining a guild is a causual affair. The guilds don't care what other guilds you're in. Join everything, no one cares. No one will look down on you for being DB, no one will care that you are DB, TG, Companions, and College of Winterhold. Didn't matter what you did -- it causes no greater constrenation then my choice of steel plate armour.


Well, true enough, but the "unique" stories aren't even all that unique. There's a vegtable lady, and her kid who helps sell vegetables at her stand, and that's all that there is. Or the Redguard who kisses butt and lives in Cloud District and tells you at every opportunity. They don't have the same kinds of background as even Oblivion. I still love Mahei and his wife hiding from each other, or Mazoga who acts tough and then becomes your buddy. Or the Skooma Den. It's not that there aren't somewhat unique, just that the personalities are so muted that they seem less than interesting.

As a rpg player for over 20 years, there are different type of RPG.

1) Turn based RPG, combat rely on attribute heavily, since it is the factor for damage, hit or miss.

2) SRPG, turn based RPG which rely on attribute and also made strategy a huge factor in combat.

3) ARPG, action RPG which made attribute play a smaller role but rely on player skill instead.

I say Skyrim is not just an RPG, it is an ARPG. Most successful ARPG usually only got health and mana as attribute. So whats make them RPG? Attribute? Obviously nope. There are flaws in Skyrim, especially too little rival factions to define your personality. If you play 2 characters, there are over 95% played contents / quest is the same. But they did a great job to actually "Class" play. Your way of play actually define your class. The restriction of max perk provide more replay value. There are always questions about "how i want to play this new dude, which perk to add, in what order, what kind of quest he/she takes, what combating mind set mostly etc". These questions are role playing. Given the MQ, the Guild questline, side quests is the stage, you yourself is the actor, how you want to perform the "role" you are acting is the role playing. For example, if i am playing a sword & board warrior, i will try to block and slash, if i am playing a stealth killer, i will always head for backstab etc.

I think it's an extremly poor RPG as well as an extremely poor TES game.

It's a great open world game, that's it.

Sounds to me like Call of Duty: Black Ops fits the definition of an 'ARPG' perfectly.

This sounds like semantics to me. You can say "its just handled differently" all you want, but the fact remains that Skyrim has no "attributes."


You are missing the whole point of "birth" signs here. Sure the "effects" are still in the game, but it is no longer a "birth" sign because it is not something you are "born" with. It is a guardian stone that you can change at the drop of a hat. That is totally and categorically different than a "birth" sign.


Okay, so in Morrowind/Oblivion, every character could end up similar by end game if you leveled all your minor skills. In Skyrim every character starts out the same and remains pretty much the same until at least level 20 or more. In SKyrim you have to be high level before your characters are distinctly different and by then the game is easy unless you really do a good job of gimping your character.


Again I have to disagree. In prior games, an Altmer mage was going to be way different than an Orc mage because an Altmer mage was goign to start out with more than twice the magicka than the Orc mage and the Orc mage was never going to have as much magicka as an Altmer. The choice of "birth" sign could further distinguish your character with Apprentice/Atronach or Mage birthsigns. In Skyrim, the Altmer has a much smaller magicka starting bonus compared to other races and the size of your magicka pool is mooted by enchant because of freecasting.

Thanks for your in-depth reply; but I honestly don’t get it; the intense venom I mean.

First of all I don’t mean to imply that what I am going to write applies to you personally; I want to reply to the kind of thing you seem to be saying; and which I have often read on this forum; and often expressed in very much more negative and venomous language than you used.

To me you sound like a ‘half-full’ type of person. Where I see the mechanics and the systems provided by the game designer, and I adapt and master them as best I can and thereby immerse (or if I cant I move on); you see all kinds of things you personally don’t like and you focus on those things as obstacles and annoyances; and you let yourself get upset about them; and thus they become magnified in your mind; and so you cant ignore or overklook them; and so you cant immerse because you’re so upset; and thus you spoil the experience of the game for yourself.

In all of this you overlook the general quality of the overall game and focus on the little niggly things that are not quite as you would like them to be. If one were to do that in ones ordinary life, with ones work and relations etc, life would be intolerable.

Now I understand that from the point of view of the mind that vents this venom (not you necessarily) the little niggly things do not seem small at all. They are mountainous game-ruining black holes that svck any fun out of the game. But that’s your state of mind…not the game. How do I know that? The venom tells me that; it’s a dead give-away.

I recognise it is completely relevant and normal to note things that seem to be less than ideal; and to write about them on a forum as positive criticisms; but what I don’t get is the depth of venom and intense negativity that some posters vent (not necessarily you).

I sometimes find myself wondering after reading one of the more extreme ventings; if this is how this person feels and expresses themselves about a computer game (which is a pretty awesome game by any reasonable criteria and by popular acclaim) what must they be like to live with?

Could you give an example of what you consider an extremely good RPG and an an extremely good TES game?
If there are such things in your world.

I really don't understand this. Skyrim is an excellent game, so were Oblivion and Morrowind. Is it as good as those games? I'm not sure, but its still a great game, and thats all that matters to me.

Morrowind would be considered by most both a good RPG and a good TES game.
The Fallout series is held in very high regard around here, and I would agree they're great RPGs
Dragon Age: Origins might be considered a good RPG, though perhaps linear in comparison to the games listed above.

Just to name a few.


It's because you don't understand the nuance of the argument. Most everyone agrees that Skyrim is a great video game, and commercially successful at that. The problem is that if Skyrim was just called 'Skyrim', it would be fine. But it's not just Skyrim, it's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, an "RPG" game, and that's where the disconnect is. It doesn't live up to the style and themes of its predecessors, and it doesn't commend itself very well if you look at purely from an RPG perspective.

I'm too involved, perhaps. For me, Morrowind and Oblivion/Skyrim are products of two different philosophies. One is made by people who don't know what "linear" means, the other railroads you through everything except places.

That's not roleplaying, that's build playing.

Roleplaying is a social endeavor that requires player input for interaction, more ways than mere combat obviously.

i don't get this when people say its not as elder scrolls-ish or more elder scrolls-sh than the last one. i mean if its set on nirn has the same lore and all that then how is one game not as elder scrolls-ish as the other ?????

I wouldn't say OB had terrible actors. They just spent much of the budget on great actors like in Skyrim and then used abunch of nobodys' As for skyrim's quests, they have no substance. It is pretty lackluster. The guilds and armour variety was much better in OB and Morrowind. The storyline was a letdown. There were no interesting quests like the whodunnit in oblivion. So skyrim=good gameplay and graphics, poor content and writing.

Yep, one of my locals has closed, but another is staying open.

I know, the people making these threads clearly haven't played an ES game before.

It is agood game but surely you must see it just hasn't got that feel and content that OB and MW had. Maybe it is the repetitive quests.