When I see something described as dumbed down, to me it means “simplified” or “accessible.” There is nothing wrong with that. It most certainly does NOT mean “People who enjoy this feature or mechanic r dumb lol”, however it seems that is how the phrase is received.
As an example, I would say that the Skyrim interface is “dumbed down.” By which I mean both simplified and accessible. Being both a TES veteran and playing Skyrim on the PC, the inventory and perk menus seem clunky to me and difficult to navigate. It’s almost as though they were designed to be viewed on both a 60” TV screen from 8’ away and a much smaller higher rez monitor from 18” away. Crazy, right? But just because I think an aspect of Skyrim is dumbed down because of console limitation does not mean I think people who enjoy the game on a console are “dumb.”

The differences are not limited to the hardware the game is run on. I believe certain mechanics of Skyrim are “dumbed down” when compared to previous TES titles in the sense that they’re much less complicated and there are far fewer choices. Those of you who played Oblivion without any leveling mods know that leveling your character efficiently was almost a mini-game unto itself. Leveling in Skyrim is much more straightforward and simple. I admit, I am the type of person who would create spreadsheets and calculate in great detail to min/max the stats of my table top RPG characters; to me, that was part of the fun. But obviously, I that is not fun for everybody and I would never be angry with someone for wanting to simply immerse themselves in the world without worrying about making a sub-optimal attribute point allocation.

The best anology I can think of, is the difference between driving a car with a manual and automatic transmission. They both will get you from point A to point B. Manually shifting offers greater control and performance, but an automatic transmission is easier and more accessible, letting you sit back and enjoy the ride.

I thought Skyrim was less "dumb" than Oblivion.

I see what you mean with "accessible". Oblivion is probably my least favorite TES, yet it is the one I've played the most simply because it made me feel more comfortable.

Dumbing down to me is excessive streamlining and simplification or increased hand-holding, with the ultimate goal of making something which is already really accessible even more accessible. Does this mean they're trying to appeal to people who are dumb, and anyone who enjoys the game is a moron? Not necessarily. It just means they're making the game a lot simpler or "dumber" so that people who wouldn't normally like a game from [insert genre] find it more appealing.

What it ultimately comes down to is the fact that Oblivion was NOT a confusing or overly complex game. In fact, as far as RPGs come, it's one of the most accessible games out there for people who have never touched an RPG before. So to take a game like that and try and simplify things even more for people who don't like open-world RPGs was too much. For RPG fans, there's barely anything left.

You're completely wrong Caribou! People who enjoy automatics instead of manual cars are dumb ....

The menus were probably developed with consoles in mind as they are easy to navigate with a pad, iirc Oblivion drew similar complaints.

No doubt console or GUI improvements will be developed by the modding community.

Well, ultimately the goal for any game developer would be to sell as many games as possible. The only way to do that is to appeal to the largest amount of people and I suppose that is where the homogenization begins.

LOL drive something with proper power available like for random example an Aston Martin DB9 (not even sure it has a manual option) then see how long you can go without stripping the clutch and decide if automatics are all dumb......

Heh, I wasn't necessarily choosing a side per say, just trying to make an anology between a gaming experience which requires more attention and micromanagement and one that does not. Drivers who prefer a manual transmission do not likely see it as a bug....the see it as a feature!

That makes perfect sense to me (but maybe I'm just dumb?). The consoles will be stuck with the original HUD/GUI (short of an official patch), but pc users have access to mods that offer a variety of GUI's to suit their personal taste. I think BS got this right, but maybe I'm biased since I play on the console. {shrug}

I like the PC UI. Scratch that, I LOVE the PC UI (other than the constellation screen which is a big WTF on both PCs and consoles). I much rather use WASD because I'm lazy and don't like dragging my mouse around all the time to click on stuff (the reason why I abhorred the FO3 pipboy). It's only a bit problematic when you're in the late game and you're searching for a potion / ingredient at the bottom of a humongous list. But in most scenarios, it's a joy to use.

I've been using a UI mod that reduces the font, allowing for more info per screen (and less scrolling), sorting by weight, value, value/weight (so you know what to drop while out adventuring) for a long time. But I had to wait for someone to create such a mod.

Then they have to accept the criticism they're bound to get from RPG fans. Some developers want to make as much money as possible, while others want to make the greatest game possible in a particular genre. You can't have it both ways. You can't appeal to everyone while also making the best product for a niche audience.

It's the same in any industry. In music, if a death metal band decides they want to go commerical and appeal to a much broader audience with their newest album, sure they might make more money, but they have to accept that fans of death metal aren't going to be happy.

There's a saying - 'the more you try to please everyone, the less pleased everyone is likely to be'.

I can agree with this.

I agree with the OP, in many cases simplification of a complex system is a good thing, and not simply because it opens the game up to a wider audience.

Well, the game is so dumbed down that I didn't like it at all without mods. To be more specific there were too many hand-holding/easy features for an experienced old gamer.

Well said. Oblivion was already casual enough in my opinion. The big problem is that many important RPG features were removed instead of improved. As an example everyone knows the Speechwheel from Oblivion wasn't finished and didn't work well, but instead of improving it it was completely removed. And now there's no Disposition at all.

i agree with your statement on disposition, why not improve it. now you do one quest for an npc and their your friend. same can be said for the armorer skill in oblivion. no one liked carrying around 30 repair hammers, so they removed it instead of putting it in the bare smiting tree. the smithing skill has grind written all over it.

forgive me if i did the wuote thing wrong, i normally dont post. i just read.

Im not saying anyone is dumb but try going back and replaying morrowind then try to say skyrim isnt dumbed down.

Well, it WAS a pain to have to carry around those repair hammers...and come on, you had to repair after all most every battle. Change I would have liked to see in Skyrim would have been a happy middle ground. Armor and weapons would degrade on use, yes, but only down to their "base" values. Only the smithed improvement would be lost.

What I find funny is that games like Call of Duty never improve anything, and haven't improved anything since.... their 3rd game? Yet people complain so bad about how its not innovative. Then Bethesda tries to make their games different so they can find a good formula and people [censored] and moan that the isn't exactly the same as the last ones.

Can't win to lose. Some people will never be happy. Look if I want to play Morrowind or Oblivion I still own those games and can still play them. I am happy Bethesda is trying to improve upon the game to make it as good as it can be, and if people get butt hurt over that, pick up a copy of CoD they never change anything.

(P.S. This isn't aimed at you OP, just my general feelings towards people who say that Bethesda made this game simple for dumb players who couldn't handle the spreadsheet concept of the older games. I think however it is a game studio trying to keep up with the times and do new things to make this game better then the old ones.)

Because Bethesda didn't innovate anything as far as gameplay is concerned, everything is near exactly and or less than they were in arena

H/M/S is still H/M/S, Skills are still Character developement, anything that deals with the character changing is in Magic effects or Skills. and their are no dynamics to Combat or Spells. clothing and armor, same thing equipe unequippe, no slots or modifications to said Armor/clothing. movement has for the most part been 2 dimensional FOR THE MOST PART. and I could go on

now compare that to what was removed?

More types of weapons to use in the fairly simple combat? gone

Spell effects? lower, Making spells? gone

Clothing and armor? reduced "streamlined" for "more NPC's on screen" which I find is bs and more attributed to the optimizations of code and AI they learned.

things to change and hold dynamics to your chars? gone, replaced by tick dots.

exactly where is the innovation here?

oh and don't get me started on how people will flip their lids the moment -actual- "innovation" gameplay/Gamemechanics wise takes place

people who complain about simplified features are usually the ones who have hours to play skyrim in 1 sitting...sure complicated, involved features add to the game but they also add to micro management time and less time for part time players to actually play and enjoy the game

Yeah because graphics, combat, crafting, companions (just to mention a few) have no hold on gameplay and isn't innovation what so ever.

True however I have problem understanding how large part of the customer base has problems grasping the concept of pants.
No, not using or not owning any pants or skirts but get dumbstruck by the concept.
I think the number is significantly lower than the numbers of Khajiit in Skyrim.

This post is so contradicting. You are 100% right, people don't have a problem understanding pants. So therefor the removale of pants was not to "dumb" the game down, but because Bethesda saw them as pointless.

Like the whole spreadsheet arguement. Todd never said it was removed because it was too complicated for people, he said it was removed because a great majority of people who played Oblivion and Morrowind never got a character past 2 hours because they would remake them over and over trying to find a powerbuild. So the removal of the traditional class systems wasn't to "dumb" things down, but because Todd wanted the focus of the game to be on the story, not a spreadsheet. Only people saying the game has been "dumb" down are those who are mad because things were removed. Doesn't mean it was meant to dumb the game down, just that Bethesda decided to do something different.

Clipping a series nuts so that it appeals to a wider audience is not dumbing down? Good sir, I beg to differ.