Not ranting, I just want a discussion about the topic, and I couldn't find any
existing threads. I feel like as the game is polished, it loses content because
features are dropped.

Todd said they didn't put spears and other weapons in
because they wanted to focus on the main fighting styles (Sword and board,
two handed, archery) (which makes one wonder about the half-assed
duel weilding) and we notice that many non-combat skills have been dropped
(athletics, acrobatics) and even those that weren't are relegated to a certain
character type. For example, Speech is in the stealth section of the skills,
even though an honest Knight would also be very articulate and well spoken.
It feels like Beth had cool ideas, like the skill constellations and the perk system,
but kind of forced the rest of the game to fit into these features.

It feels like instead of taking big steps forward in terms of making the game bigger
and mind blowing, they're just smoothing out past TES games. Does anyone
really care for streamlining of the game at all? I'd prefer a deeper experience, even
if its clunky and confusing.

I don't mind SOME streamlining, but I think this is a bit much. I don't miss some of the athletics. It didn't add anything to the game. Nobody was excited about it, nobody liked it, and most of the people on oblivion purposely avoided having a major in athletics because it made you level up too fast. I think things like mysticism and unlock spells and acrobatics were good and didn't need to be removed -- they gave players other ways to do the same thing and that actually adds to replayability in ways that simply adding quests doesn't. Half of the quests in any RPG will have a similar structure -- go here get this, kill that, come back. If you have to do every last one of them the same 3-4 ways, you'll be bored pretty quickly. Now if I can do the same quests 10 ways. that's a lot more interesting. Maybe I could try sneaking past the guards, or fast talking, or bash them on the head with something heavy, or use an illusion to trick them, or use a flame spell. Maybe one type of tactic doesn't work on some type of enemy, so what do something else. If the same thing happens no matter what you do, and you can only solve a problem one way, it's too streamlined.

Morrowind/Oblivion had better ideas while Skyrim feels like the best game. This idea of streamlining is somewhat unwarranted and based around assumption without approaching these streamlined features within the context of the game.

Let me paraphrase: "I (the OP) think I could have done a better job making what is arguably the most successful game in the last few years."

You never know.

I think that the game was not streamlined and dumbed down but instead perfected.

Way to much hand holding in this game and way to many things cut that were in other TES games.

Until you try.

mostly this. some stream lining is good (no need to have such a clunky UI as skyrim has, so stream line it, unfortunetly that is something they did not think to stream line) but too much is a bad thing (and in the wrong places it gets even worse), but, i loved athletics, it was a important to my type of character

Athletics and acrobatics were never all that great, but I always saw a lot of potential. I made my first TES character ever in Morrowind, because of those skills (seemed cool at the time). What I would have liked is them improving it. Not completely taking it out. Same with some other missing things. Like spellmaking. Good idea. But how about improving it? Not completely removing it.

By that logic, CoD is a better game than TES.
Also:
+1

You funny... you many big funny!

Athletics was a great skill.
I don't say it was perfect, but there were ways to implement it.
I do agree with the rest of the post though.

OT:
There is nothing wrong with Speech being a Stealth skill since it's a non-combat skill.

Streamlining can be good like making features easy to use: its not streamlining if you start giving the axe to features and content within a series that is called dumbing down.

Can't stand it. Beth is going down a dangerous path.

streamlining is good, but removing customization isn't.
removing mysticism and putting the spells into something else? good, as all those spell trees were nearly the same in one way or another.

removing spears... bad. if you didn't want the spear don't use it. it didn't need its own skill tree it could have went into 2 hand, or one hand or that matter.

I don't think the removal of mysticism was good. They should've kept the schools in tact.. You can redefine them, but removing it makes some lore kind of strange. The Psijics were all about the school of Mysticism, for example. Now Mysticism doesn't actually exist.

The removal made me scratch my head.
They could have expanded upon the schools of magic and added spells.
Instead they gutted the entire system.

Again, due to mass market research as well as focus group discussions (combined with overall game theory and philosophy industry-wide) Bethesda has concluded that this trend of streamlining and cutting "excess" material is best for the series. They will still try to do the best job they can with what what they do, but what they are doing is not a deep,rich, and complex gaming experience. The modern game industry is about quick, fast, and semi-challenging gameplay; that can be picked up and played without thought.

The infamous line of players "not wanting to look at spreadsheets" is the reality that the industry is in. As markets grow, budgets get bigger and graphics requirements continue to rise, games will continue to be more simple in order to appeal to a wider variety of people. this seems to be (at the moment) an endless arms race of graphics and market domination that will continue unabated until the industry crashes or games are life like in graphics, but as simple as pacman. (who doesnt like pacman?)

The only saving grace is indie studies and the creation kit (which in itself is severely limited as it does not offer the same functionaility as a SDK) to allow those truely dedicated in the complex, deep, RPG experience that existed in the golden age of PC gaming (1989-1996 arguably). Small groups will continue to mod and create the features that they wished were in the game. (its funny that people immediately wished to mod skyrim- a testiment to the continued poor understanding of Bethesda's most dedicated fanbase)

Much like the movie and music industry, the real engaging and innovative material will be located underground, or off the beaten path of media that most people are familiar with. (High budgets do not like innovation or risk; hence COD 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 , Blops, MW 1 , 2 , 3 and soon to be , 4 ) ( Halo 1 , 2 ,3 ,Reach, ODSt, now 4) etc.

The reality of new gaming is here. Embrace it or leave it. Pretty simple.

Mysticism really was rather pointless. Especially after they gutted it, removing many spells from the school. You eventually reach the point where you might as well just toss the whole thing.

A lot of what Todd says doesn`t make sense or was simply a bad call.

They didn`t have spears for streamlining, but had dual weapons which is even more complex to use than spears?

They reduced the amount of weapons when everybody and I mean EVERYBODY likes to have as much choice in weapons as possible?

Then they show us they could`ve incuded spears as some kind of `haha- look what we could`ve done but didn`t!`

It`s not dumbed down, but it is.

I hate political speak (lie, but turn it around to look like genuine honesty) and once you recognise it, you`ll see that even some game devs use it.

I don't think people realize how shallow, and how far behind TES has been as a franchise. Previous games were a glorified hack and slash adventure game that featured no abilities, and no skill trees. You had a lot of "options" that never really amounted to anything more than choice which didn't help to mold your character into this realization of what a thief, mage, or warrior should be. In a lot of ways the crutch of the game was that you had choices that centralized around exploration and weapon/spell usage. This slight variation in the way you could play allowed for multiple playthroughs, but ultimately allowed for nothing more than a semi realized character.

Skyrim feels like it takes action to actually become an interesting RPG in terms of actually portraying your character in a somewhat unique manner. A lot of the ideas (like skill trees) require more fleshing out and many ideas like dual wielding and dual casting leave much to be desired. With dual wielding the weapons have a somewhat inherent difference that can be amplified via skills, however even when fully diversified you are still left with weapons that play the same. Dual wielding could have been expanded upon so that a native component would be the combining of spells which would be a more organic and chaotic system of spellcrafting that could end in success, or failure.

There is a reason games like Mass Effect, Dragons Age, The Witcher 2, and Deus Ex are so tight and focused. The reason is that they don't have all these ideas floating around that ultimately lead to nothing more than a slight tweak in animation, stats, and visuals.

As a side TES would never have survived if it wasn't for the open world nature of the game, much like GTA would never have survived if it wasn't for its open world. You could even look at the series as becoming more toned and tight over time when comparing Daggerfall, to Morrowind and Morrowind to Oblivion.

Yeah making RPG's so a down syndrome gorilla can play them is a great idea Or a Call Of Duty fan.

There has always been trends coming and going in gaming with cross-breeding between social games, board games, action games and roleplaying games occuring all the time. TES started off as such a cross-breed with Arena and Daggerfall combining the first-person action and roleplaying elements of some of the most popular games of the 90's.

It is true that entertainment industry today take far fewer risks than in the experimental era of the 90's when a comedian could launch a successful sitcom with the sales pitch that "it's a show about nothing!", imagine if someone tried to pitch that today...computer games of the 90's were so unique and innovative because no one really knew about consumer awareness, target groups and other market strategies for computer games back then. There were no rules or big no-no's, so everyone just did their thing and hoped for the best. The result today, is less variety and more games feeling and playing out the same, but also a much higher production quality and far less broken mechanics.

Yes when one goes back to Pacman or Mario, that is, and always has been the reality of the gaming industry.

I played a lot of games in the 90s, but I don't want to call it a "golden age". I still have fun with stuff. There's only two things I truly miss from then - Adventure games and Combat flight sims. Those are still made, but it's not as common any more. Other than that, games are still pretty good. Not all, but that's the same for the 90s too. There were a lot of crappy games then. You just got lucky sometimes. Same as today. What this has to do with Skyrim, I don't know.

Excessive/unnecessary streamlining = dumbing down. It's that simple.

Add to that the increased hand-holding, and I really don't think anyone can deny that one of their primary goals with Skyrim was to make it appeal to everyone with a games console, rather than fans of open-world RPGs.

As a result, we have an open-world RPG that's vastly inferior to the ones that came before it.