Here are my major gripes about the whole "hand-holding" thing. Firstly, let me say that removing attributes was fine for me (they could've made it better but not having them is better than having Oblivion attributes) and fast travel is also fine. However, with that said, there are a few gripes to be made for my own personal tastes.

1. Compass. The compass itself is fine, other than its position. What I hate is that there's a way point to the Quest Objective in all its glory. Not to mention the enemy markers. All a compass should have is just what's North, South, East, and West with MAYBE a personal way point marker (something you set on the map). Even then, that's a stretch. Not to mention it should be located somewhere that doesn't annoy you.

2. Having quest markers. Having a quest marker to the location is FINE. My friends were complaining every day when they first got Morrowind because of the vague quest markers or something along those lines. If there's a dungeon, the quest marker should lead to the entrance of the dungeon itself. After that, you'd have to rely on Clairvoyance (yes, it's a spell so it doesn't break immersion as much) or your journal.

3. More detailed quest objectives. Goes with #2. If a guy tells you to do something, he should either give you a note with detailed instructions on what to do once you get there or the quest journal simply tells you, "Find Item X" or "Kill this guy", and the name of the dungeon or location.

4. Level Scaling should be vastly improved. I want easy dungeons that I can breeze through at level 1 and ultra-hard dungeons that I need to use all my tricks to beat at level 50. As for the Main Quest fights, they should get progressively more difficult. So Bleak Falls Barrow should be fairly easy except for the dragon priest while the fight with Alduin should truly be epic and you'd need a lot of power and tactics to beat Him.

5. Other fast travel options should exist. Something like the carriages. Maybe Guild services where the Thieves Guild has tunnels/merchants to other Thieves Guild hideouts or the Mages Guild has teleports to other Guild Halls.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What isn't hand-holding in my opinion that other people cite as hand-holding

1. Fast Travel - Well EXCUUUSE me Princess, I actually mind walking from Riften to Markarth without taking a carriage or fast traveling. And yes, I also don't like the idea of climbing the 7000 steps every 30 seconds in the main quest. Nothing's stopping you from doing that if you want to. Don't frustrate a vast majority of people by getting rid of it out right. It's not like you have to use it.

2. Essential Characters - I do hate essential characters. I want to blast Maven Black-Briar away. But what about first time players who want to complete everything? If they kill someone needed for a massive quest line like a Guild or even the Main Quest...Should be toggled on by default and can be turned off by experienced players rather than removed outright. This goes for Quest Items as well.

3. Enemy Health Bars - I'd like to know whether or not to switch to a God Magic Epic Decimate spell or simply whack him with my sword. It would be fine if there was some visual indicator like that he staggers or there's some blood but even then, it's incredibly hard to notice when there's 80 million guys trying to make you their [censored].

This is not a direct response to the OP, but it's kind of related and I thought I'd share. I had an "omg moment" over the holidays. Having of course spent 2011 in anticipation of the game, I was very concerned about the design and how it would affect me. I considered my experience with Morrowind. I considered my experience with Oblivion. I considered all the information that was dispersed by Bethesda over the course of the year. In November I started playing the game, and enjoying it, of course. There were many disappointments, inevitable for anything so hotly anticipated. But I digress.

My omg moment occurred on Christmas itself. While visiting the depressing low-income suburban family home of a stepbrother I hadn't seen in some years, during the course of the day I noticed that there was an XBOX360 copy of Skyrim in the house. No problem. I have nothing against consoles. Cool to see the tradition is being kept alive from when my brother and I played D&D when we were children. It was when his 11 year old kid was excitedly talking about Skyrim to his grandma that the thunderbolt struck. This is the kid that Skyrim was made for. Not me. Old gamers from the 80s like me are a market share, sure. But by and large the money for this game is going to come from mom, who will pay a decent price for something she knows her kid wants for his birthday and will keep him off the streets.

I don't know. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe smart advlt gamers are where the dollar really is. We can generally buy the games for ourselves, after all. But why alienate the low-rent 11 year olds across the country by making a game with so much depth that cracking into the story takes real mental investment? Why make it rewardingly complex when it can be rewardingly simple instead?

And now to address the OP a little, this kind of leads to my concept of what Skyrim hand holding means. Every quest has one outcome, and generally one approach. Here is the (often badly written) storyline, and here is what you are supposed to do; now do it. It doesn't matter if there's an obvious way you'd rather deal with this. It doesn't matter if the story is incoherent and contradictory. We've scripted one and by the gods you are going to follow that quest arrow no matter where it leads you.

An 11 year old doesn't really think that it might not be a good idea to give a demigod your soul and let him turn you into a werewolf. He doesn't care that it makes no sense to chase down a master thief with superpowers in the sub-sub-basemant of a trap-filled tomb when there are a dozen better ways to deal with him. He just knows that it's the next thing you're supposed to do. You know what I mean? That's kind of how I feel a lot of the time with Skyrim. Like I'm an 11 year old who's not supposed to think about it. So that's kind of where I'm coming from on the subject.

This thread is hanging on by a...small line, but what business do you have in calling for it to be closed? You didn't like my response or my original post so it should be shut down because it displeases you? A better idea would be for you to have avoided this thread if its content bother you so much.

This thread was about two things. 1) Asking people to provide examples of hand holding 2) What exactly hand holding means, and why I find the term to be patronising.

My goal was to anolyse the term and to anolyse the use of it; this is something that requires thought, and my natural method (it is how my mind works) is to break things down. If that constitutes over-thinking in your book then that's your business - don't call for a thread to be closed because you don't like the way somebody breaks down a topic. I'm not creating a problem that doesn't exist; the problem (it is a problem from my viewpoint) of people throwing around insulting terms when discussing this video game (thanks for pointing out that Skyrim's a video game, by the way) can be solved by us trying to understand WHY people are saying it and what they're referring to.

It's been an interesting topic, and I've learnt a fair bit from it; you, however, have not added a thing. I suggest you discuss the topic or cease complaining about the anolytical process of my mind.

You know, I appreciate that you've taken the time to think about Skyrim and its issues and to share them here but...it's a bit depressing when even those who try to be diplomatic wind up saying "and that's when I realised that the game's aimed at 11 year olds". Skyrim has bad writing, but I think where people are misleading themselves is in their belief that the previous titles were different. The Nerevarine prophecy of Morrowind is more complex, yes, but it is very much in line with the lore found within Skyrim's books. The actualy dialogue found in Morrowind is in no way worlds apart from Skyrim - I'm playing both games at the moment, and the main difference is that you don't find much out about it until you're quite far into the game. I think the 'intimidating' walls of text lend the impression that it's far more mature, but outside of the fact that Morrowind's culture is far more alien to Westerners, the writing really isn't very far removed. I haven't played much of Oblivion, but what little I have combined with what I heard certainly doesn't suggest that it's especially complex or aimed at learned intellectuals; dialogue has never been a strong point in Bethesda's games.

And yes, quests are basic in Skyrim. Were quests different in Morrowind or Oblivion? This is something I get tired of hearing, because people claim that Skyrim changed the formula when the formula has always been that way. I have Morrowind paused right now, and I've yet to come across a single quest that could be completed in anyway other than 'go in sword swinging or take a stealthy approach', nor have I come across a single quest that has branched off into different possible outcomes.

If these are The Elder Scrolls complaints then that's fine but the current trend is to say that these things were not present in previous games.

And I spent a lot of time refuting them completely earlier, before a mod deleted my response.

Firstly, I've never denied that Morrowind gives you a quest at the start that ultimately leads to the main storyline. Trying to compare this to Skyrim's intro is ridiculous though.

One thing I really think you need to realise is, the cinematic intro in Skyrim IS the first mission of the main quest. Once you escape from Helgen, you've already completed the first part. The game essentially holds your hand and walks you through the first quest to get you going. If you don't believe me, take a look at UESP.net. The first quest is called http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Unbound.

Morrowind's main questline doesn't even begin until you report to Caius Cosades. And even then it's a slow start where the player really doesn't have a clue what's going on.

Secondly, that piece of introductory text you keep quoting is so insignificant. It's vague in a way that only someone who's played the whole game before would be able to draw some meaning from it. It's also subtle. So much so that I didn't even notice it the first two times I played the game. To compare it to a cinematic intro that's specifically designed to guide the player into a main storyline is ridiculous. Completely ludicrous.


The thing is though, these things are all related and therefore completely relevant for the debate. Skyrim is a far more accessible game than Morrowind is to begin with BECAUSE it tries harder to railroad the player into the main storyline.

You've disproved nothing. Sorry if this upsets you, but when I know i'm right about something, i'm not going to humour the other person and say they're right when they're clearly not.

Compared to Skyrim, the implication of a bigger story about to unfold is almost non-existant. Compared to Skyrim, the player is essentially thrown into a strange alien world in a way that can confuse and bewilder a lot of new players. They may receive instructions to get started on a questline, but their hand isn't held as they complete the first part of it like in Oblivion or Skyrim.

This whole argument started with my claim that Skyrim's intro counts as a form of hand-holding because it tries to railroad the player into the main questlines a lot more, with the ultimate goal of making the game more accessible. The cinematic nature of the intro and the accessibility of the game are completely relevant for this argument. YOU'RE the one trying to twist the argument away from these issues. The fact that you're now admitting Skyrim is more accessible and tries harder to pull the player towards the main questlines should pretty much end the argument right now.

I knew I was right all along. I tried to be civil and gave you the opportunity to back out under an "agreement to disagree", but you kept on going and needed to be told.

It may be true that these were never in previous Elder Scrolls games, but then I could ignore them because I had things like spellmaking, acrobatics, and levitation to keep my occupied. Skyrim is lacking in both those areas and in writing/quests, leaving the fantastic world design as the only remaining strength, IMO.

good luck with your protest. i don't know why this disturbs you so much, this is exactly why these forums exists, for people to read into things. some do it more vigorously than others, but it's ridiculous to request a topic be closed simply because you disagree with the "depth" some would purse the conversation. who cares if you think it's a fool's errand, no one is forcing you to come along.

The dialogue in Skyrim is fine, but some of the storylines are downright insulting. If you have the time, Twenty Sided Tale has a http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14422. I haven't played Morrowind seriously since the year following its release, but I don't remember ever wanting to just walk away from its story. In Skyrim it's happened two or three times already, and I've still not completed most of the major questlines.

That's absolutely fair and no argument here. The difference (and it is a big difference!) is in the presentation. Early in Morrowind's main quest, your contact comes straight out and tells you this! "Look, you're not ready for the main quest yet. You don't know anything about this place. You need to go out and get grounded before I even think about trusting you with this mission. So go. Explore the countryside. Get in some fights. Talk to some people. Find out what this world has to offer. And don't come back until you've gone up at least 5 levels on your own! Now get outta here!" There can be no clearer example of "not-hand-holding". As has been said, even when you do have specific objectives in Morrowind, all you have are verbal instructions. First you've got to find the ruins. Then you've got to find a door to get inside. Then you've got to make sure it's the right door. Then you've got a huge, nonlinear, multilevel ruin to sift through. It seems like every room has at least three doors. The whole game is like this. The whole time, you're thinking about what to do next.

Sure, you can turn off the HUD in Skyrim, or mod in ice cream cones, but that is absolutely not how it was designed. It was designed without ice cream cones and it was designed with a big fat quest arrow to pull you like a fish on a line* to your next objective, no initiative necessary.

*Nice simile. Stole it from another poster from earlier today. Raise your hand! I don't remember who you were.

This dispute here between you and I is based around three points. Here is your original post, the post which I disagreed with (there were more gaming related points I disagreed with, but I'm not going to discuss anything until you actually acnkowledge that you were wrong in the following statement):

"In Morrowind, you get off a boat, create your character, and that's pretty much it. You're thrown into a strange new world, unsure of where to go or what to do, which is how it should be."

Point 1) "unsure of where to go"
Point 2) "unsure of what to do"

You repeated a variation of that quote here:

"In Morrowind, you step off a boat, create your character, then receive a parcel to give to someone. That's it. There's no cinematic, no tutorial period, and no implication that a big story is about to unfold. You're just asked to deliver a package - nothing more. It didn't even occur to me that there was a main questline when I first played Morrowind."

Point 3) "no implication that a big story is about to unfold / it didn't even occur to me that there was a main questline"

Obviously what did or didn't occur to you is your business, but it's related to the main point #3.

I can't be much clearer in saying this: that is what I disputed and claimed to be untrue, talk about accessibility, cinematics etc. are things you have brought into the discussion, not I. - this is called using a strawman argument, because you're changing the terms of the debate by trying to have me defend point I never made.

Bear that in mind when I address your latest comment:


You claimed that you're "thrown into a strange new world, unsure of where to go or what to do". In giving you that quest that ultimately leads you to the main storyline, it is explicitly telling you both where to go (Balmora) and what to do (Speak to Caius Cosades for orders). Notice what you do at the end. I didn't try to compare Morrowind's intro to Skryim's intro, I very simply and very plainly refuted the three claims of yours (mentioned above). As I said, that's called a strawman.


Yes, it is a slow start - nobody on this thread has said otherwise. I don't disagree with anything here, which means little as none of it is in response to my dispute that I keep explaining is comprised of three points (see above)


The strawman attacks are becoming quite obvious, aren't they? You say "To compare it to a cinematic into..." - No, sheogorath88 I didn't compare it to that intro. You keep on telling me how ludicrous and ridiculous it is to do things I haven't done. The sole reason I told you about the intro of Morrowind is because it directly contradicts Point #3. You say there's "no implication that a big story is going to unfold" yet the game starts be telling the player how he/she will "initiate" a "great event".


You can bring those things up, but you can't put them forward as reasons why the three false points you made were anything other than false points. Again, I don't think you actually know what it is we're disputing - it's not whether or not Skyrim holds the player's hands, it's Points 1, 2 and 3. I've tried to tell you this over and over again.


Sure, the player was thrown into an alien world and yes it feels more confusing and bewildering. Once again, I never once said otherwise. You're addressing everything in the world except for those three points that I keep telling you are the ones I'm arguing with you about. How do you expect me not to get frustrated with you?



And this, sheogorath88 is why I use quotes. The heated argument began after I addressed that point of 'railroading the player into the main questline' (because both games do the same - what do you mean by 'railroad' if not 'carry you on an unchangable and swift path towards'; if Escape Helgen is the first part of the MQ then apply what I said to the point when you walk out of Helgen into Skyrim and the game truly begins). While discussing this, you made the three points explained above and that is where the heated argument began. He haven't got past those points, because I'm not going to address the rest if you can't acnkowledge the disproving of them.


Yes, it would end the argument if those were the points we were arguing.Please re-read the start of this message and make sure you understand once and for all what it is I have been disputing with you. I didn't once say Skyrim wasn't more accessible - if I did, quote me, but you can't because I didn't. I didn't say it didn't try harder to pull the player towards the main quest either. If I did, quote me, but this is not possible.


And needed to be told? Oh Clavivus, I'd love to speak my mind on your verbal manner but I don't want this post to vanish. One cannot agree to disagree that 2 + 2 = 4. Your three points were not opinions, but claims - those three points are detailed above and I look forward to hearing you finally acknowledge them, which is all I asked you to do in the first place. And the second place. And a few more times. Goodbye.

-RiC

I'll make this easy for you and put this in bullet points:

• Skyrim's intro walks the player through the first part of the main questline step by step, while Morrowind simply throws you into a world with a package to give to someone.
  
• Skyrim's intro is cinematic and makes a big effort to engross the player in the main storylines right from the start, unlike Morrowind which only has a vague and subtle hint that a story might unfold.
  
• In both games, you can walk away from the main questline, but in Skyrim, you've already completed the first part and feel involved in the storyline before you can walk away. In Morrowind, you can wander off and do your own thing without even completing the first part of the main questline, and as far as the player is concerned, they've simply neglected to deliver a package that's been given to them with no real sense of urgency or feeling of great significance in a bigger plot.

With the above in mind, Skyrim irrefutably tries harder to railroad the player into the main questlines. I'm right, you're wrong.


...And just for the record, here's the specific quote that started this whole argument. It's from my post on the first page:


YOU'RE the one trying to twist the argument into something else i've never denied. How many times do I need to say - i've never denied that Morrowind gives you instructions that ultimately start the main quest. That's not the point of the argument. This whole topic is about hand-holding, and the argument is simple - Skyrim's intro holds the player's hand and railroads the player into the main questline a lot more than Morrowind.

Thank you, Zombra. The Twenty Sided Tale's breakdown was one of the most entertaining things about Skyrim yet.

Glad you enjoyed it! I'm rereading it now; I love Shamus' work.

Dialogue probably wasn't the best word, because things like this (though I haven't reached whatever badly written point of the TG you're referring to) are what I'm talking about when I say it's badly written. I mean things like Grelda the Kind who runs the orphanage in Riften - it's almost comically bad with its cringe inducingly obvious approach, but not quite and so it's just plain old bad. The feeling I'm getting from the two games so far is that Skyrim tries with the quest storylines and character interactive quest dialogue and often does a good enough job, every now and again does a great job, and frequently does a lackluster job. Morrowind, however, doesn't try to do those things, leaving out character dialogue altogether and not really attempting more..dare I say 'Hollywood style' story progression like the Mage's College and the Eye of Magnus etc. Morrowind benefits as this is not Bethesda's forte, and it also comes across as more refined and respectable because it doesn't embarrass itself with dodgy writing. Compare it to how the lore in Skryim is still fine - this is what they do comfortably. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think Bethesda tried to make the storylines more intelligent, I just think they're pretty bad at that sort of writing. Throw in multipe characters in real time and their writing can suffer, write everything from a first person talking to the player about what's going on and it becomes much easier.

So no disagreement there, I just don't think they set their sights low as much as they're not good at it.


You see, this is a valid criticism that can be related to wanting to sell the product to a broader audience. You're right that many gamers, many young but many fully grown too will not want to play an RPG where you take a long time to become strong and formidable and Skyrim, like Oblivion, was designed with this in mind. The term hand holding doesn't come to mind when I think of a game that skips the grinding section and puts you on a more consistent level against your enemies, but I understand the complaint itself and it's a fair point whether or not it's a wise choice for Bethesda.


Yeah, dungeons are done very differently in Skyrim and they're more like a hybrid between Morrowind's and between the traditional dungeon crawlers. I personally love every minute of them, but I also enjoy the other, more cerebral, dungeons and so this is another good point and it does make perfect sense to point towards their desire to reel in wider audiences.

You make great points here in this second post and I understand what you were getting at in your first post now.

-RiC

Just wanted to briefly touch on what I said before about my 11 year old nephew ... I want to be clear that I never meant to imply that Skyrim fans must have the brains of 11 year olds or anything like that. I hope no one took it that way, but I want to be clear. I am a Skyrim fan myself, after all, and I'm ... considerably older and (I hope) more sophisticated than that. But I did have a shocking moment when I realized how broad this game's demographic really is.

Speaking for myself, I vastly prefer Skyrim dungeons to those of any previous TES game except maybe Arena or Battlespire. Daggerfall dungeons were crazy huge and twisted and oh wow. I mean just getting to the bottom of ONE of those things was a whole game in itself. Morrowind, as I mentioned, had smaller scale but still confusing locations with lots of branching paths. The only dungeons I remember from Oblivion were those monotonous Ayleid temples or whatever they were. Skyrim dungeons do "hold your hand", so to speak; it can't be denied. You always pretty much know where you've been and you can see where you're going; there's the door you came in and a single passageway in front of you. Sometimes there is a branch that goes for a few feet before dead ending, but never anything that could possibly get you lost. Again, I would certainly call this "hand holding" if I wanted to be nasty about it. As it happens, though, I thought this was an incredibly good design decision. I personally find "maze" gameplay to be among the most, if not THE most, tiresome of old school gaming idioms. So I will just say they're "linear" (which certainly carries enough of a negative implication by itself) and leave it at that.

Post limit. Also - closed for review.

Update:

If this thread is going to go through another iteration (and some of this seems to be an interesting discussion,) please, please, please keep in mind that on this forum we expect all members to be civil. We're just going to delete them otherwise.

Also - one thing I've noticed over time is that it's always helpful to keep in mind that a lot of this stuff is highly subjective. You're not likely to change someone's opinions or views on things on an internet forum. Getting frustrated that someone isn't agreeing to see things the same way you are is just not going to be a helpful line of discussion.