Honestly they could have Skyrim stay exactly as it is and it would not bother me if they did just a few things right. I am pretty sure anyone would agree that those features would improve the game. I mean how could they not? Everything else is bearable in my opinion though. Even the crappy UI.

Make their world act in a way that makes sense. Why are their no Falmer ruins or even artifacts? Were they not a widespread culture before they were killed?(redundant question btw) Where the hell is Stahlrim? That was something I was expecting to be in the Nord's homeland. If you do not know what that is well it is basically hard as metal Ice that can be forged into armor and weapons. Why are their few consequences for our actions? What is there is just simply not enough in terms of consequence. Make the factions longer and have better pacing. We progress way to fast and never even get the illusion that we earned anything.

Have a Journal and quest givers/quest objects that provide enough information and retain enough information that I do not need the quest markers period if I do not want them, leave them in as an option though.

Better attention to Lore and writing when dealing with their quests and especially their factions.

Todd jams his foot in his mouth just about every time he speaks. He dodges questions, makes [censored] up and spouts nonsense for about thirty minutes and then struts off like a champ in that [censored] leather jacket. Somehow people eat it up nonetheless. If I didn't despise him I think I'd have to idolize him.

Skyrim sold on the strength of Bethesda's work with Oblivion and Fallout 3, on Bethesda's tradition of providing ridiculous amounts of content and on the hype. It takes 2-3 months to get through the game to truly judge a game like this and in that time Bethesda cleaned up. Having been through that 2-3 months now, Skyrim... beyond the better graphics is shallow. I found no reason to make a second character and I didn't even finish the MQ or Civil War due to bugs and a few others side quests.

The magic system is a shell of it's former self and is best avoided as a playing style. The lack of Attributes and Birthsigns makes nothing to really do different in subsequent runs. I don't need to see how things would progress were I change this or that because there is no "this or that" to change. There's nothing really worth doing twice in Skyrim and the magic system just does not help the argument to go back and do it again.

I think it is common knowledge that when someone makes a game he wants to share, he makes it run on a platform that people use. If enough people use Microsoft Windows, he makes it run on Microsoft Windows. Legends of the Lost Realm is a much more complex and challenging RPG than Pool of Radiance, which is its contemporary. LoLR had the advantage of being written for the the Macintosh, not for the DOS PC, which was the platform of choice for the kids who preferred cheap machines and superficial flash. Is there cause for me to categorize PC gamers as kids preferring glitz over depth? No, I'm just doing so because I found the better game on my platform and the trashier ones on theirs.

I think you misunderstand me. When I said that they're trying to make Skyrim appeal to everyone with games console, I didn't mean that as an attack on anyone who plays this kind of game on a console. What I meant was, they're trying to make the game appeal to all gamers, rather than just fans of open-world RPGs.

...I guess in hindsight I should've said "one of their primary goals with Skyrim was to make it appeal to everyone with a games console or gaming PC".

I have six distinctly different characters with very different stories as far as the game goes to prove otherwise. Without any self-imposed restrictions or hardcoe roleplaying gamestyles, simply by advancing in different skill trees through my perk choices. Two of them rely heavily on magic, two of them rely on it for support and neither have any issues or difficulties with game balance in comparison to those who ignore magic.The existence of meaningless 'choices' and settings don't create replayability or variation.

I'm reading one thing from what everyone is saying: Todd Howard is the betrayer.

Of course, so is Gabe Newell.

Wait... so are casual Gamers...

Crap. Tri-satan!

Nah, he's just good at what he does: marketing

So you consider removing loads of features they have since Morrowind is pefecting a game?? That makes no sense whatsoever...

Of course it can make sense, if the features are bad, unbalanced or stupid. I bet that if they removed the compass for the next TES, some people would claim they have made the game much more complex and 'perfect', yet that's removing a feature that has been there since Oblivion...

And the GPS compass shouldn't have been in Oblivion because it wasn't in any previous TES game.

If they removed bad and unbalanced and stupid than you would have to scrap Skyrim and start over again because most of the crap they put into the game is bad, unbalanced and stupid as well as some of it broken.

No way, the game quickly turned into a fast travel fetch quest fest.


Because unique loot was no where to be found it quickly made exploring non rewarding, and the quests are so shallow and repetitive that you just end up fast traveling kill guy fast travel back for reward rinse and repeat.

Skyrim was the most shallow TES game ever.

word

Well put.
Also considering that Skyrim is already the best selling Elder Scrolls game made thus far, expect more of the same in the next game. Learn to deal with it, or move on to another franchise.

...and conjuration, enchanting and racial bonuses shouldn't have been in Morrowind because they weren't in any of the previous TES games??

Point is, there is no casual relationship between the quality of a game and the amount of features it adds or removes in comparison to a previous game, it all comes down to how those features work within the game.

Skyrim was streamlined although some things had to go. Athletics and Acrobatics under this current system wouldn't work at all and would cause even more problems in terms of leveling. Skyrim is still a good game but in comparasion to Morrowind or Oblivion it's been streamlined and is a terrible RPG. Some things are better such as the Scaling, the Open World, the combat, the dungeons but other areas are much worse off then they were in Oblivion. I can't believe I'm actually going to say this but I think the writing was better in Oblivion.

Moral of the story is that it was pretty obvious who this game was (or wasn't) catering to.

If you're butthurt that things changed, you may want to take a step back and see things clearly. Streamlining is the only way to make money these days, as has been proven by FPS/WoW/Console. We no longer live in the age of gaming where upstarts can put their soul into a game without financial recourse, unless that so happens to be exactly what the market wants, ala Skyrim. They follow the lead of companies like Beth because they want the financial reward a good game can give to stay afloat.

I would argue the last bastions of pure RPG are either falling, or have done so already. We can lament, or we can adapt. Which will you choose?

(( The one thing that REALLY bohtered me about Skyrim, and this is only recently since I rolled my Khajiit, why are NO Khajiit allowed in the cities whatsoever.... Oh! Except me because I have some [censored] message from some guy? Rubbish, I would've loved a side quest to find a way to gain entry to the cities instead of the blanket "This guy told you to go here and speak to this guy, so tell this guy on the gate this guy says that this guy is cool, you may enter!!" ))

If that was the case, where is all the "Alchemy is too spreadsheety"/"Enchanting is too spreadsheety" threads? I'll tell you where they are, they're with all the none existent "Spellmaking is too spreadsheety" threads.

Todd Howard made up the "spreadsheety" problem to justify it's removal after the fact. Todd probably envisioned Skyrim's system to be an action oriented replacement, but that fell through when he could not deliver the actual combining the different spells on the fly part. Todd took away spellmaking and gave us an unfinished and ultimately broken magic system in return. Bethesda really stuck it to a lot of fans this time around.

I can't consider Skyrim as a "refinement", "improvement", or "perfection" of anything, unless those terms apply to making games that I can't summon the ambition to play.

Earlier TES games *still* don't have that problem (except the Tribunal expansion. I'll complete that AFTER Skyrim... which depends on the Mayan calender being wrong, since big overhauls that aren't for the hardcoe/realism segments won't be out by then)

Yep it was much better, Skyrim's writing is horrible, it feels like a robot wrote the quest lines and back story. The writing could have easily made up for the streamlining but instead the writing ruined the game. It is the most shallow non memorable TES game ever put out.

Sadly I fall into the group that wanted more planning and a more complex class system. What Skyrim does allow me to do however is to play a class anyway. The only issue I have is Speechcraft and Lockpicking, which EVERYONE has to do even though I don't want my warrior leveling up due to selling stuff to merchants and opening locked chest. These are the only skills where you can't say "Well just don't do those skills then" because playing without opening a lock or speaking to anyone isn't possible. But these two skills aside, I still played my Warrior, my Mage, my Rogue, my Archer, my Assassin, my Barbarian, etc. They are all there I just have to set the self-imposed rules to make it work, which is not difficult to do (again, other than those two skills listed).

So, Skyrim has given way to the new gaming, but also still allows me to add my own rules. It's a win-win as far as I am concerned.

Things I like:

I don't miss the attributes. I don't miss hoping everywhere to get my +5 attribute bonuses when leveling.

I don't miss 25% of my inventory being repair hammers. I am fine in assuming that the tools are there on my person and I'm keeping my equipment in shape without banging hammers after every battle.

I don't miss leaving a dungeon half finished because I ran out of healing potions and can't rest due to enemies around. I can accept that I am bandaging myself up and catching my breath between fights (though the health restore is a little too fast IMO).

I feel like you haven't played the game if you played it the way you just described. I haven't fast traveled on any of my characters, and I have yet to explore every dungeon. Additionally, you miss out on some awesome unique quests if you don't go off the beaten path. But yes, if you choose to just fast travel from city to city to do one quest at a time, then you won't find any unique loot or fun outside quests.

As for streamlining: they removed features that weren't working and created a combat system that actually makes sense for once. The world is bigger than ever, with more opportunities for different playthroughs than ever before. If you don't play Morrowind while wearing those ridiculous rose-colored glasses, you'll notice that the game had some serious flaws, too. No game is perfect, but it feels like the developers are always working to make it better. Which is laudable, considering that all they get from their "dedicated" fans is a bunch of whining about how they'd prefer Morrowind 2.0.

Athletics and acrobatics could have been combined in one perk tree that handled how well trained the character was. Of course it would have to be called one skill name so let's go with Athletics as an example. This tree coul have had 2 branches, one that worked toward improving stamina regen, running speed, stamina pool etc. and one that affected a character's possibility to jump higher, survive fall from a higher distance etc. It could have worked and level wise it wouldn't have affected much other then a higher level cap.

The thing with Oblivion is Oblivion was very black and white, on one side you represented the good side that wanted to rescue Cyrodiil and the other side was the forces of the darkness who wanted control of man kind. In Skyrim the world is more grey, yes you have Alduin as a greater evil, but the whole world besides him is a lot more grey. Factions seems to have their own agenda, and their roles and rules they followed in Oblivion is far from as strict. Thieves guild suddenly allows you to murder people while doing some quests, but only if it is really necessary and you get caught. Dark Brotherhood is a shade of it's former glory where all rules have been thrown out and replaced by a mutaual agreement by a bunch of killers instead. Companions seems to be protectors of Skyrim, but what do they really protect? Skyrim or the fact they are a bunch of bloodthirsty werwolves? What better way to make life easy on them then by win the people's respect as protectors of the land right?

Writing in Oblivion was nice, you had this big epic fight against this epic enemy. Skyrim lacks this epic enemy, Alduin could have been made more epic by adding more flesh to the stories of him. Giving the player a reason to really want to take him down, the civil war could have been made better by having cities sometimes being taken over by the other faction and having NPC's fighting around the world itself. Bringing the feeling there really was a civil war going on and that the player could have reduced the opposite faction with every mission he did for the faction he choosed. The quest writing is a bit both yay and nay, some quests are quite good and present to me a good background story and interesting lore, while others are simple fetch this, deliver that or kill those quests. Then again same feeling I had in Oblivion, few quests stands out as something I do remember. You had the main quest, the dark brotherhood, Thieves guild and the arena quests, for my part majprity of the rest of them was quite bland with a few exceptions like diving into a well to find the corpse of a former member of mage guild that had drowned due to the ring he was supposed to pick up. But these quests wasn't something you experienced too often. Oblivion had a main story that felt more epic because it really defined the battle of good vs evil, in Skyrim the main quest feel less epic as I don't get the feeling Alduin really is such a threat.

I miss all these things. I never hopped about to get +5 bonuses, but I guess some must have.

I liked repairing stuff. It always felt a good after a good day`s adventuring to sit back and check over my equipment like every good warrior would. And the assume idea I really find bad.

I can`t accept the idiotic regurgitating health after hiding behind a rock. I used to love preparing my heal potions for the day`s journey and if things went wrong, limping home gladly to civilisation and safety.

I wonder whatelse Bethesda will `streamline` until all we have is a DVD we watch and just imagine that we`re doing anything at all. We might as well just call it the Special edition Lord of the Rings!