I'd have to say this is one of my bigger disapointments so far. The engine of this game is beautiful but it seems like Bethesda overly streamlined and simplified skills in particular. I just read there is no acrobatics skill this time around. Why not have a duel wielding rogue who can jump and run around a bit jump off walls and cause havoc as you increase the acrobatics skill? Why remove that completely instead when the engine is where it's at where they really could have made it happen? I don't mind certain things. like equipment degradation was just more a nuisance and having to repair all the time. This is a trend in gaming to me though where gamers are getting lazier. I understand wanting to just make the game fluid and fun and certain things you don't really need. but it seems like they could have done so much with the engine of this game. I'm playing on the 360 and the game is really responsive and It plays like an action game but the combat feels limited and like it's not taking advantage of it because of this.

I'm an older gamer but I still like games that flow and have depth to them. I actually was excited about the combat being more free form and having some skill and finesse to it. That's a blast to me. Feeling limited takes away from the experience imo.

I wish these developers could find the right balance where they are simplifying and taking away certain nuisance things without losing certain freedoms.

Yeah thats how i feel.

I keep going back to it so see if it drawns me in but its just not doing it like MW,OB, and FO did.

It just feels so shallow, like an open world Call of Duty.

yes I do think so, but not in the sense of removing clutter.

see what they tried to do was make it "fun" thing is alot of the options in the game (smithing, marriage, Companions etc etc) are SHALLOW fun and made no sense in how they went about it.

You take away item degredation -Period- a Fine dagger stays a fine dagger, for ever. so you take away Item degredation but ADD MORE INDEPT ASPECTS in making them... not to mention alot of it was overhyped to hell, and anytime you mentioned Simplification prior to this games release you where hit with

Tavern brawls

Item Crafting

More vicseral combat

Pretty spells

when in truth, its just Punching

Its just a menu

Nothing matters beyond flailing away

Do the same exact thing each interation but just look different and does more damage.


and the thing is, its pointless to even bring them up with a "I told you so" because people are THAT thick to say your wrong in everyway if you don't like how some things are handled in Skyrim.


Take it this way

the Rose is there from the Stem up, its pretty it does stuff. but thats all it will ever be, a single rose, because its roots are gone.

So essentially:

Why not make TES games into Assassins creed?

*headscratch*

Actually I was going to say the only thing I really miss is item degredation...

I don't understand why developers are doing this. I know they are catering to certain gamers but it seems like it's turning people off as well. Mass Effect 2 was a disapointment to me as well for the same reasons. Even moreso than this.

yup they did, but modderes will under simplify it for people who can think for themselves and don't need their hand held 24/7

The game looks nice. The quests are fun.

The complete lack of depth in anything is very sad. The game might be worth one play through. And then I'm done with Bethesda.

The heart of TES is character development, and they cut that out and gave us trash.

To a point I also feel this. I feel like that it is more like a Legend of Zelda game than anything, but with less restriction. I like it, but there is no feeling of "I have to play this right NOW!", but rather I feel like "Well I could play this, but I could also do something else. Either choice is good." I like the dungeons and crafting, but everything else feels like filler.

Guess I can now play Halo Anniversary without Skyrim making me not want to play Halo. I guess that is okay, but still... I was kind of looking forward to selling my soul to Skyrim game is all.

I don't understand the complaints on over-simplification...

The OP says that combat is over-simplified but likes the lack of weapon degredation. The next critique uses weapon degredation as the only example of simplification (and probably the only one I partially agree with), and the final comment just says the game is made for people who can't think?

Explain the simplification other than weapon degredation and removal of attributes, which is actually a good one IMO otherwise you have to stat track to make a proper character... which is kind of silly.

It seems like they were trying to appease new players.

honestly Oblivion was more dumbed down than this. The item leveling was ridiculous. There was a clear progression - iron, steel, etc etc. In this game, there are more weapons and variations. I found a steel dagger early on. In oblivion, that wouldn't happen if you're still within the 'iron' levels.

I have to quote this and sig this because you have hit the nail on the head perfectly.

Please explain how the character development has been degraded in Skyrim... what have I missed?

I think oblivion was just not balanced correctly. The levelling system was horky. The combat was also sluggish and just really not that exciting. It was a roleplaying game. Combat came 2nd. It did seem to do what it was trying to achieve given the technical limitations though. I never felt overly limited. It just wasn't technically up to par. This game technically has the ability to do some amazing things, that's what is so frustrating. They just didn't put certain things in the game. They took them out instead.

This game it seems like they copied and pasted skill trees from what other games are doing but they took out the depth. When they very easily could have put it in. I don't see why they would do that. If you want to simplify your experience you still can. If you don't want to you could have had the choice.

Fallout 3 to me still seems to have the best balance for depth and fun to me. It doesnt do anythign that spectacular or feel like it has the making of visceral arcade style combat. But it achieves what it's trying to and feels very balanced. This game seems to have all the makings of amazing things, but it just drops the ball.

Agreed. Not having problems though.

Yeah. It's still fun (PC issues aside), but...my stats are gone. I keep wanting to put my points into strength next level so I can carry half a dungeon worth of loot at once, instead of a third. (TESCK soon please?) I keep expecting that all these spells and destruction points are going to make me a better spellcaster in general somehow, but the skills are all simplified and isolated. Running all over the place should at least be making my walk speed (that is, my carrying-any-loot-at-all speed) a bit faster, but then I noticed that athletics is gone. And so's acrobatics.

Importantly, it used to be possible to control your own difficulty by using major vs misc skills. It was a much better system than the difficulty slider, which just multiplied and divided damage. We don't have favored skills anymore, so I'm kind of stuck with how it is.

And I'm beginning to suspect that my race didn't even do anything. I think I got a spell I never use out of it or something? But basically I was just deciding what to look like, and one starting character is identical to the next. The less there is to specialize, the fewer ways there are to replay. I don't get why they need to do this. It's not like masses of people were buying the earlier games, realizing they had more than just HP and MP, and writing the series off forever. Even Oblivion was way more complex than this, and do they seriously think people have lost that many IQ points since 2006?

Crafting might be an interesting thing to throw in to replace some of the perfectly good things that were thrown out...except there's an inventory limit, so actually you'll never have all the stuff you need at once unless you're literally taking notes, on a notebook, while playing a video game. Which aside from being a weird thing to require, doesn't really fit with the overall theme of "gamers are stupid, let's not burden them with things like numbers." But mainly crafting is just goofy and why do we need this in an RPG? They seem to have missed the point of mods that did this stuff, which was to address mainly useless items that already existed. You can't just throw a bunch of leather scraps and a crafting system into a new game and expect it to still add something.

I wouldn't say any of this really puts me off the game, but it is a pretty sad trend and if they don't reverse it it will become a real problem.

Examples like directional attacking.

Power attacks have forward backward side to side.

Strength affecting how much you block.

Luck affecting random things.

Athletics for how fast you move, how fast you regain stamina and how much you have.

Acrobatics for jump height, damage from falling, attacking while jumping.

Agility for how often you get staggered and how fast you regain balance.

Blocking with weapons.

Weapon skills giving chances for stuns and disarms.

Nearly every talent in this game is a percent increase in damage, i mean really can you put any less thought into combat than that?

You see what im saying?

Leaving out weapon degradation was a HUGE misstep. Smithing, as far as RPing is concerned, is only truly useful when one NEEDS to do it.

Why everybody thinks that Perks and menu simplify is dumbing the game down?

I don't know how you, but I think Skyrim is more mature than Oblivion, Morrowind and even Fallout 3.

A little.

I dislike the removal of Acrobatics, the uniformity of running speeds and jumping speeds, and no spell creation; but at the same time, I acknowledge the great complexity and individualization that perks bring about. It's not exactly a fair trade off, but it would be incorrect to say that it's pure simplification all across the board.

Considering that oblivion's interface was teeerible Skyrim is much better.

responses in red

This.

I don't know where your guys problems are

I have loved morrorwind and oblivion and I loved there huge possibilty to costumize the character (in one or another way)
and yeah I miss acrobatics...cause I want to climb mountains and want to run faster without having to sprint the whole time.

but overall I don't think that those talents/perks are "bad" or too much simplyfied...O.o actually you can see alot better, what you've choosen, how far you are in progress and so on...
and don't forget that your skills still level normally...with using them...it's kinda the same system like in oblivion just without having those bonuses automatically. And honestly, some of those perks are alot more interesting than what you could've get before

I mean...honestly? summoning 2 atronarchs ? whoa maybe it's even worth to learn summoning now^^

you can even specialize on fire spells now...or whatever you like to those perks don't affect only their talent "class" but some also affect others (like the double charge from destruction)

yeah...i was a little worried, when they told us, that we only can change magicka,health and stamina at first....but everything those attributes gave us is now used inside the perks...the only complain I may have, is that those perks could be...uhm better? in kind of strength?

not even sure if I should really complain, because I'm actually happy that I don't die on every stupid rat as a nearly full magican