Yeah that's also a problem. Rare and awesome items are non existent in Skyrim.

I agree with the OP, I think that people would fast travel less if you could find unique items at any level. Like "Oh Baby" (FO:NV) or "Lincoln repeater" (FO3) or "ring of the mentor" (Morrowind) . I feel that Just too many things in skyrim are self generated and bethesda relied on "Radiant Quests" a bit too much.

You're incorrect about that, bud.

Even when the game worked fine, the Exploration in New Vegas was terrible compared to Fallout 3, Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind. Obsidian may have amazing writers, but their world artists are no match for Bethesda's expertise in creating sublime experiences. The Mojave Wasteland was ugly, not from a petty graphical point, but from an artistic point. Compared to seeing the decaying skyline of the Capital Wasteland in FO3... New Vegas's skyline was more akin to a pimple on the ass that is the Mojave.

And I say that as someone who really loved New Vegas, loved it enough to get all the DLC's and perfectscore the achievement card.

I enjoy seeing the landscape and the random encounters.

your logic flawed with that... quests don't mean you can't go into the dungeon.

exploring in skyrim was more fun but fallout was more rewarding.

Well for my OCD it does mean I cannot go into a dungeon. For me a cleared dungeon is a cleared dungeon and I feel I have done something out of order.

There was an incentive for me to explore Fallout because I was always in search for better gear.

But because you can smith anything in Skyrim, that incentive to explore is gone.

That as well. I do agree with that.

Some dungeons I don't explore just because of some reason....like a trolll inside. Rashir Nashida may be the most fearsome assassin around. But there is no hell in way he is going to go off and fight a troll. He is not an idiot.

"If there is one thing I know to stay clear of is a Troll," Rashir, "For they will rob you of your pride if you lose and rob your corpse of flesh if you die."

I complained about exploring in Oblivion. Oblivion has a handful of nice items hidden away off the beaten path, but such caches are too scarce. You can spend hours hoping and searching and finding nothing, leading to the feeling that there is no point in searching. Oblivion has numerous ledges and nooks that appear to be promising loot candidates, especially in the eyes of someone who has played Morrowind (or even Doom), but just about all of them are just wasted space. I noted in my complaints that there are numerous spots that can only be reached by deliberate use of acrobatics, but almost to a one all of those spots are empty, and using acrobatics to reach them is just a disappointing waste of time. Just think of all those empty places from which the Mythic Dawn emerge in Oblivion's tutorial dungeon. Those exemplify exploration in Oblivion.

Skyrim often has things in those spaces Oblivion leaves empty. Skyrim, even without an Acrobatics skill, offers a much more rewarding and satisfying acrobatics experience. You can scramble along a cliff face and leap to reach a flat area at the top of a waterfall, and be glad you did. With a little imagination and a bit of timing, you can hop to seemingly out-of-reach cubby holes and find a treasure. You can step off the traveled path in a dungeon and climb a mound of rubble and look behind a column and find things worth finding, and you can do it fairly regularly. You can hop up and look down into the bottom of shattered urn, or push aside some linen wraps, and find a healing potion or a gem. Skyrim puts things where a self-directed, experienced, dungeon-crawling gamer and explorer would expect to find things, and that is something Oblivion clearly and almost completely lacks. Skyrim rewards exploration, which is the best encouragement for exploration you can get.

Not everyone smiths or enchants, and not everyone smiths enough to create better than they can find. Some players enjoy exploring more than smithing, and find good enough weapons and armor without smithing that they have no reason to smith. Also, unless you explore and find enchanted items with the enchantments you want, you can't enchant items with the enchantments you want.

Reads OP, ignores rest of thread*

-They should take out fast travel, only carridge

You mean put in more hand holding for those who don't know how to explore on their own.

I don't know how threads like this exist.
I mean when I'm playing I basically found none of the complaints are true. There are a lot of unmarked areas, none of the dungeons are really "the same", many of them have quests that actually starts in or near the cave itself, there are quite a few static items around, areas written in books can be found, many landmarks can be seen from afar without compass markers...

And I don't really get the New Vegas comparison, because Fallout 3 was better in this. NV had no dungeons, apart from some Vaults and a couple caves all of them were linked to an outside quest. Other than those there were those small ruins that had absolutely nothing in them.

I just found something new and unmarked last night. It wasn't far from Whiterun, and still, after all the wandering and climbing and snooping I have done in this game, there is a new surprise I had previously missed.

My personal opinion, nothing more : worrying about entering dungeons because quests might be broken. I can understand how that seriously annoys people, but to me it's only a quest, the exploring comes first. Broken quests stuck in journal? Well it wasn't exactly a gripping read to start with.

exploration is what its all about, stay away from the fast travel, get out in the virtual fresh air and search and destroy, also Fallout 3 was an amazing game for so many reasons but to be honest mostly the scenary was a little samey, but then again it would be, so realism wins every time for me, new vegas was ok but fallout 3 was far superior, and Skyrim beats all. so get out there and explore the epic awsomeness..ness..

I liked how some dungeons would unlock areas when certain quests were triggered. Wish they had made dungeons which had some randomised level design elements for each playthrough. Could of been randomised trap locations, alternative routes, randomised secret rooms etc. Would be cool if after a certain period of time some cleared areas are repopulated with different enemies rather than the same, at least in my playthroughs so far it just seems to respawn the same enemies after a time.

Have to agree on the loot thing, far too many generic and too few worthwhile unique finds. Crafting comment is very true ! Everything can be made and often far better than any item you might find (as far as I can tell so far).

Despite what's lacking though, I do find Skyrim's massive scope far exceeds both Fallout3 and Vegas which has made walking from place to place less tedious. Vegas in particular felt soo linear. Oh and locational alchemy items makes hunting for ingredients a fun part of the walk too

While I appreciate they put more points of interest, dungeon tilesets and unique looking locations in the game compared to Oblivion, I would like to see more unique, powerful handpalced and not scaled loot to keep me exploring. More underwater treasures wouldn't hurt either.

I couldn't agree more. I sometimes wonder what game people are playing as it's so far removed from the game I enjoy. As to point about smithing spoiling the discovey of items. It has always been like this - if you wanted the strongest item in Oblivion or Morrowind you custom enchanted it. That's why my god character in Oblivion rocks perfect enchanted amber armour. The point is there are multiple ways to the same solution. You want to smith your items from scratch, you can do it. You want to enchant fine. Or as my current Nord does you can explore the world to find the items.

To me the quality of landscape and dungeon design make exploring Skyrim a far more enjoyable experience event than Fallout (which I also love).

So does Skyrim.

You can go into and clear out a great number of dungeons, ruins, caves, etc without there being a quest for them or without taking up the quest if there happens to be one. I've received many quests where I have to go into dungeons I already cleared for the sake of completing some objective and I have cleared out many areas for which I have received no quest. You can go into and clear them just "for the sheer fun of exploring".

In anycase, I disagree. I find just going to an unmarked area in Skyrim and exploring it and discovering new locations incredibly fun. Everytime I see a black icon of a new and undiscovered location in the compass I am thrilled and moved to travel there.


I agree, I feel exactly like you, as if the people complaining are playing a different game. I guess I should be glad that I started and continue playing Skyrim without preconceived notions and without hoping that the game needs to be anything other than Skyrim. It's been an absolute blast so far.

I'll just answer these two together. I'm walking along the road and I see Haemar's Shame for the first time. I go on UESP and note it is a deadric quest dungeon. So I don't explore it. Because I explore dungeons by their quest. I don't go into quest dungeons unless I'm doing the quest. Becuase that's a quest dungeon. Again I walk around in Skyrim and then come across a dungeon Ygnvild. And I find out yet again in the UESP that has a quest attached to it, so naturally I want to explore dungeon when I'm actually doing the quest. I walk along the way and this is what...so...Rashir is walking and he finds a dungeon. He thinks the person sitting on the chair out in front of this dungeon is a bandit since most bandits sit out in front of dungeons. He kills them. And then loots a dungeon. And then I find out later, while my brother is playing a Stormcloak Nord that the dungeon I cleared and the person I killed was a quest dungeon and a quest person for Stormcloak. No wonder he had furry named armor.

Quest dungeons are that quest dungeons you explore them when you do the quest

Most of the people complaining about exploring not being fun seem like they havent even given it a chance because they are too afraid of going into an area reserved for a quest which rarely happens anyways. I also dont understand why people need loot to have fun exploring. I think bethesda did an incredible job making pretty much every area worth exploring. Theres pretty much always something interesting to find, Like a cool back story found in books laying around. An incredible view at the end of a dungeon, An awesome looking Giant statue at the bottom of a cave, a word of power, etc etc. theyve tried their best to make sure there is something interesting for you to find and most of these things are better to me than just finding another weapon.

I've played for a while now. Rashir is around lvl 30 almost. And I haven't found a singe dungeon not tied to a quest. See for me I think very specific, very literal. Quest dungeons and quest dungeons are meant to be left alone unless you're doing the quest.

I cannot get out of this thinking. I like labels and when things are labeled to me they are for those specific usages. Like orange juice, is specifically and will always be orange juice. Dungeon quest are always will alwyas be quets dungeons. For quest.

I'm actually afraid to enter random dungeons in Skyrim, just in case I mess up some quest by doing so.

lol...that's your problem right there. Why in heavens would you search the WIKI or UESP before entering any place in Skyrim? Talk about ruining the sense of discovery and adventure in the game. You complain about Skyrim not encouraging exploration when it is you who are going out of your way to spoil and ruin the experience for yourself.

And here's my opinion :

Skyrim isn't Fallout 3; but the "rewards" are still there for the"pioneers" -even if in a different manner - and you have to "explore" to find it out - even on Skyrim

Sorry to seems a bit rude, but make such comparisons is worthless - in my opinion of course.

i.e. in Skyrim i go each day to Sleeping Tree Camp - even if in "real life" i have no more "addictions" like in my twentiees - like smokin',alcohol, takin' drugs etc. (all bad attitudes by the way )

i mean..its a game..do whatever you want.. and if you can't or you're bored with it - well, just play something else..