TES games have never had that level of symmetry. In Oblivion, the only way to unlock a chest that was underwater was with a pick, so lockpicking had an advantage over unlock spells. It was also less detectable. In Skyrim, no matter how much you perk your alteration you are not going to get your mage armor to be as good as a warrior with well smithed armor and perks in the relevant armor skill. Max you can get is 300 (more with the Master alteration spell but it has a very short duration and very long casting time so again is not as good as a warrior with a full set of well smithed armor).

I am not sure that level of symmetry would be a good thing anyway. The fact that some classes are better at some things but not as good at others is what makes the game fun.

I didn't say game development is quick, as you are generalizing, only that using the same engine makes it quick as I noted from going fro Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim (note my DA:O example on how long that took compared to DA2 because it was a new engine for Origins). Why isn't there more, than what was in Morrowind? The same reason why Morrowind had far less than Daggerfall, it doesn't take much time to make poor graphics, so there's more dialogue. Using the graphics today takes more time especially in detail. Daggerfall had a load of dialogue, but it was all written, none spoken. Making hi-res textures takes time as well as making them work with the multitude of the many graphics cards now out there (outside of console development). There were far fewer cards in 2002. See what I mean?

But, let me hit on DA:O a bit more. It has (arguably) the most extensive dialogue of any game ever written, over 1m words, and all of the NPCs speak the dialogue (though you can turn on the dialogue text like most newer game anyway). This is even a lot more than Plaescape: Torment, which at the time was intensively dialogue driven, and had very very little voice acting in it. The PC (player character) is the silent protagonist in Origins, something I have to have when playing an RPG. They used a new engine, but the game took over 5 years to make. Even then, it was not graphically gripping, though their were many elements (especially the characters faces ans expressions) that were very detailed. The game install was 20gigs, 4 times that of Oblivion ans Skyrim. Hope this helps.

Neither do I

That's why all 3 systems should be fair, or at least somewhat equil, so that one class isnt restricted in thier own skills and is forced to use another classes equivilent.




Which is exactly why I said mages should get additional elemental damage protection to make up for the fact it doesnt give the same physical damage reduction.

Randomness that apparently cant be represented with current tech, real time, as well as more variables that were previously there. My whole argument this whole time. Not to mention attributes themselves are a small tip of the iceberg from which my hatred for cutting erupts. Spell Creation. It deserving its own Forum, much less thread or

Own paragraph. I got more variables and play style choices, and customization from Spell creation than I ever did from attributes in any ES. Its known ad nauseum that attributes and their variables are not represented in Skyrim, now lets discuss manipulating the Arcane.

Indeed that's the best reason why not to include it.

Magic : A mage that didn't train in stealth or illusion has no need for stealth so the fact Unlock is detectable is meaningless for him : ash piles don't care that you are unlocking their belongings
Warrior : A warrior that didn't train in stealth has no need for stealth etc etc etc. What about the fact it'll break goods?
- There's no goods to break when you lockpick a door so in the end, in that situation it would be a plain advantage above lockpicking
- Breaking some items in a chest has a net gameplay effect that the warrior "lockpick" method gives him less loot than the thief method. Strangely enough, giving the warrior not ability to "pick" locks at all has the same end result, less loot

Sure it's not the exact same but in the end, seemingly giving everyone access to an unlock method would greatly diminish the value of having anything locked at all.

Now, if someone could go to Bethesda studios and slap them up the head for making a lockpick minigame that can with enough player skill and lockpicks completely bypass the need to train and perk the character skill to open master locks it would be perfect.

If what you're saying is true, then it would be nice if Bethesda got on the ball and created more content. Graphics are getting closer to their peak, so why not spend more time on providing a richer game experience, something where the player can interact a little more organically. That's how I felt when playing Morrowind, once you get past the horrendous graphics (by today's standards).

Skyrim's visuals are stunning, so take that, add more land to explore, focus on character and quest development, more avenues to take, etc. I've never met a player who said there's too much to do in a game. I can understand having no direction, but I think everyone likes variety.

That would be almost as [censored]ty as Fallout 3/New vegas's comptuer termial BS.



Graphics close to thier peak? HAHAHAHAHAHA

A more unture statement has never been said.

For the 360 they are. The only things that can get better are compression and optimization really. The 360 has been compromising almost since its beginning. Not Skyrim per se, but I would say Skyrim is pushing the limits on what it can handle.

Err, what? Argument? Randomness is a poor man's tool used to simulate intricacies of things like sword duel between two persons and the like. Have a "no randomness rules system" instead is also a poor man's tool with advantages and disadvantages. Some would argue that the later is the better of the two once you weight all factors, especially once you are in a real time simulation.


if you wish so. Here's what I say : I got a LOT more variety and play style choices ever in games like D&D or Guild Wars where there's a fixed but BIG and VARIED list of spells to chose from that you could ever get from the spell creator in past games. And in future games because making a balanced spell creator that allows you more than basic spells is Hard.

Once again for Skyrim Bethesda dropped the ball through implementing a good idea thus resulting in a half assed result that don't really satisfies anybody

Not so redundant in the previous two games, though, was it? They had lockpicking AND the Unlock spells (AND the Tower stone's ability, too), Skyrim's lockpicking isn't exactly something new. I liked having the freedom to CHOOSE which way I preferred to bypass locks before, and Skyrim took that away from me for no reason.

Why label it redundant now when past evidence shows that it was not? This seems more like claiming ignorance than anything else. You didn't think that the Unlock spell was needed, so that's why they removed it.

As I said, choice matters. Skyrim took away one of those choices, and that is not something I particularly enjoy. And the tower stone does NOT make a reasonable substitute, because you can only use it once a day. To put this into perspective, most dungeons have ten or more locked chests, so I'm still being forced to pick the lock even though I took the magic approach.

No, randomness that is more nuanced than that. Representations. Anyway, its already known that all the variable aren't there, so no reason to keep stating the obvious.

This is ES, not D&D, or Guild Wars. Magic as is in Skyrim is a joke. Ironically Todd an Co. managed to take the magic out of magic with Skyrim. And balance? LOL, Skyrim shows how much Beth gives a crap about balance.

Fair enough, but why does a warrior type need to be able to open chests up silently? Warriors typically don't have a need to be silent. The ability for thieves to remain silent is what makes thieves somewhat equal with warroirs. Mages are a little different, but with quiet casting or muffle could reduce their detection.

You can fit only so much information in a screen. We're getting to the point where graphics are so realistic and convincing that there's less of need to pump tons of money into advancing graphics. For the past decade, that was the norm. Every year game developers were expected to increase graphical quality to sell games, but that's no longer the case. Great graphics doesn't equal best selling game anymore and developers know this. They're looking into more creative ways to captivate the player, not by increasing texture sizes and polygon counts.

Except it was redundant back then also, they just hadnt removed it yet.



The same thing was said back in the 80's, the 90's, the 2000's and EVERY single time they were proven wrong.

Also Crysis, probably the ebst looking game ever, looks FAR from realisitc.

Nope. No more redundant than picking between swords or Axes.

Ecept those two provided diffrent gameplay elements.

Lockpicking and unlock did the same thing.

And so does open and lockpicking. Choices FTW. Trying to make people play like you FTL. How some one could ever want less, I'll never know.

If Crysis (which was released in 2007) looks far from realistic, how do you advance on that? It's now 2012 and I haven't seen a game more detailed than that.

Ugh... really?

By your logic, axes are redundant because swords also do damage. You do exactly the same thing with them: swing wildly until target dies. There is no difference whatsoever in how they are used.

I dont really care myself how they play it, I am just pointing out the reasons why Bethesda probably removed it.

Making assumptions out of information that provides nothing to prove that assumption is true to insult people is FTL.




that is why I like that they gave axes, maces, and swords diffrent special abilitys with perks in skyrim.

Beyond that, no , that isnt what I said or implied at all.

Because graphics make the game, amirite? I mean, obviously choice and roleplaying ability are far less important in a role-playing game.

But seriously, the removal of the lock-picking choice is inexcusable. Regardless of how you cut it, it's "dumbing-down". Streamlining would imply that extraneous features were removed. Not so in this case. Why would a warrior ever train in lock-picking? Why would a mage? More importantly, why should they be forced to train in lock-picking to unlock locks. Can't they simply make the best of their skills and unlock the locks using magic or brute force? Haven't we learned something from all those films where people shoot off locks?

Nope, thats why I neither said nor implied graphics meant anything.

Just pointed out that he was wrong in saying the are near thier peak.

Beth removed it because they apparently don't care anymore. They just cut stuff to compromise. Or, it was a bad design decision since it is still there with the expert lock standing stone. Although that isn't a spell, that's a greater power. And my argument was saying it wasn't redundant, which his what you referred to having both as. No more redundant than having any choice that has no real bearing on the inevitable outcome. Redundant is auto health regen and wait healing.

To get back to the discussion of Lockpicking, I don't see why there isn't an option to break the lock with a weapon. It's how most thieves break locks anyway. Only skilled thieves pick a lock, which furthers the point that a well trained thief has an advantage over picking a lock than a warrior who breaks it.

Except it was redundant as both lockpicking and open lock provided the exact same benifits.

axes, swords, maces have more diversity in thier abilities in Skyrim then lockpicking and open ever did.