Immersion aspects that could`ve been put into the game... : V - Skyrim

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:24 am

I notice while playing a alot of little things not in game which really would help with immersion, my list..

1. The execution scene is quite wimpy. Yes, the head choppy off is brutal, but when your character is called to the block (after seeing this) he just meekly walks over. WRONG.

The correct way to do it would`ve be to have the character either struggle and be forced to the block or have the charcter be roughly pushed to the bloack because he`s dragging his feet (as you would do). The screen should jerk a bit and the character movements be more rough. He should hit that block fast with an `Unfh!` when that Imperial woman put her foot on his back (as I assume she does). It`s all just a bit too soft.

2. When you take in a Dragon Soul your view (in 1st person or 3rd) should shake a bit and your character should scream (possibly in pain) at the amount of god-like power he`s soaking up. All you get is a swirly effect- boring and it doesn`t send the magnitude of what`s happened across. You know making a great heroic abilities look a little painful actually makes it seem powerful.

3. More things in OPTIONAL 1st person. The alchemy grinding, wood chopping, mining, horse riding, werewolf mode all that, ought to be in 1st person..

4. The Astrology choices in the stones thing should be scrapped. It`s silly, no one else uses it, so it sits in the whole world waiting just for you and NOBODY ELSE in the game world questions it. It`s only in the game to please kiddies who can`t stop changing their minds. It should be part of your character build at start or if they must, make it optional so we can actually feel like our character was BORN with this Star sign.

5. Dragons should knock you down with their wind blast wings until you take a `Stand Firm` Perk.

6. Perks are an incredibly unimmersive word. Totally bad. It don`t even mean what it does in the game. the words should be Arts, abilities, talents, etc...

7. Is it me or does my male character sometimes sound liek a girl when he`s fighting? i`ve actually had to double check I`ve not chosen a female by mistake sometimes. Beef up that fighting voice. Males sound incredibly aggressive when fighting, not wimpoids.

8. that`ll do maybe some of you can think of simple things to increase immersion...

6: I don't think it is a perk tree anymore but a crappily thought out skill tree since I don't see many if any perk perks but only skills.

My biggest one I would still like to see changed is some sort of reputation system that controls what players say about you and not something stupid like it does now. For example no one is going to call you a scum bag murderer when you are a psychopathic murderer or are the thane/guilde master. It is those kinds of things which really take the immersion out of the game but over all they did better than oblivion in this regard.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:46 pm

This game wasn't really meant to be much of an RPG/too immersive, you got of remember that. We RPG hardcoe lovers weren't really the target market. We'll definitely buy the game, we're definitely going to purchase it, so why craft it for us?

The true market is in the players who wouldn't play the game normally ie: Modern Warfare crowd. Hence the use of perks, odd shooting with bows, no reaction on getting hit, almost never dying, no Stats, etc etc.

So to get realism you just have to mod these kinds of things in.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:28 am

2. When you take in a Dragon Soul your view (in 1st person or 3rd) should shake a bit and your character should scream (possibly in pain) at the amount of god-like power he`s soaking up. All you get is a swirly effect- boring and it doesn`t send the magnitude of what`s happened across. You know making a great heroic abilities look a little painful actually makes it seem powerful.

I like to simulate this myself but standing up out of my office chair and yelling "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOVAAAAHKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN" whenever my character absorbs a soul.
The cute girl next door in my apartment building has even taken notice of this habit of mine and has inquired about it several times. :wub:

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:38 am

I like to simulate this myself but standing up out of my office chair and yelling "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOVAAAAHKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN" whenever my character absorbs a soul.
The cute girl next door in my apartment building has even taken notice of this habit of mine and has inquired about it several times. :wub:

Now that. Is really funny.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:48 am

2. When you take in a Dragon Soul your view (in 1st person or 3rd) should shake a bit and your character should scream (possibly in pain) at the amount of god-like power he`s soaking up. All you get is a swirly effect- boring and it doesn`t send the magnitude of what`s happened across. You know making a great heroic abilities look a little painful actually makes it seem powerful.

Other than this i agree. I don't want to hear my character scream whenever he kills a dragon like in that 3 part demo video they showed in e3. I'm glad they took that out.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:31 am

But these have a LOGICAL reason in the world they`re set. I`m sure you know this really, but just argue for pointless arguments sake.

No they do not. If the stone pillars had been a simple choice option at start and those stone pillars were turned into Dibella statues, THAT would greatly improve gameplay.

That`s stupid. It`s a BIRTH SIGN. that means you are stuck with it at Birth, choose wisely. It goes past all logic to switch and choose around. I chose the warrior and have never changed since and my gameplays fine.

Obviously Bethesda dumbed this game down for people like you you who can`t handle things being set.

Good luck changing your Horoscope Birth sign in real life when you find out what it is but don`t like it.

Oh wait, you can`t!

There is nothing wrong with things being set in stone and people being bound to the consequences of their choises and actions.

However, changing the current system of standing stones back to permanent birth signs would be stupid and pretty much detrimental to the game.
Of all the stones/signs, how much of those are going to be picked? I can assure you only Atronach, Steed and Lord will be chosen by the player, as they are the only choices which are always help full to most people.
Picking your birthsign would be come a false choice, as only those three options are really a right choice as all the others will quickly or slowly lose all their use.

So then we'd have a system where of all the birth signs only 3 will be used and every other choice will be ignored except by the select few.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:45 am

2. When you take in a Dragon Soul your view (in 1st person or 3rd) should shake a bit and your character should scream (possibly in pain) at the amount of god-like power he`s soaking up. All you get is a swirly effect- boring and it doesn`t send the magnitude of what`s happened across. You know making a great heroic abilities look a little painful actually makes it seem powerful..

I think when we absorb a dragon soul, we should do something like holding our sword up high in a "By the power of Greyskull" stance while screaming "There can be only one!"

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:13 am

I notice while playing a alot of little things not in game which really would help with immersion, my list..

1. The execution scene is quite wimpy. Yes, the head choppy off is brutal, but when your character is called to the block (after seeing this) he just meekly walks over. WRONG.

The correct way to do it would`ve be to have the character either struggle and be forced to the block or have the charcter be roughly pushed to the bloack because he`s dragging his feet (as you would do). The screen should jerk a bit and the character movements be more rough. He should hit that block fast with an `Unfh!` when that Imperial woman put her foot on his back (as I assume she does). It`s all just a bit too soft.

2. When you take in a Dragon Soul your view (in 1st person or 3rd) should shake a bit and your character should scream (possibly in pain) at the amount of god-like power he`s soaking up. All you get is a swirly effect- boring and it doesn`t send the magnitude of what`s happened across. You know making a great heroic abilities look a little painful actually makes it seem powerful.

3. More things in OPTIONAL 1st person. The alchemy grinding, wood chopping, mining, horse riding, werewolf mode all that, ought to be in 1st person..

4. The Astrology choices in the stones thing should be scrapped. It`s silly, no one else uses it, so it sits in the whole world waiting just for you and NOBODY ELSE in the game world questions it. It`s only in the game to please kiddies who can`t stop changing their minds. It should be part of your character build at start or if they must, make it optional so we can actually feel like our character was BORN with this Star sign.

5. Dragons should knock you down with their wind blast wings until you take a `Stand Firm` Perk.

6. Perks are an incredibly unimmersive word. Totally bad. It don`t even mean what it does in the game. the words should be Arts, abilities, talents, etc...

7. Is it me or does my male character sometimes sound liek a girl when he`s fighting? i`ve actually had to double check I`ve not chosen a female by mistake sometimes. Beef up that fighting voice. Males sound incredibly aggressive when fighting, not wimpoids.

8. that`ll do maybe some of you can think of simple things to increase immersion...

I hope bethesda doesnt employ your ideas... they're really bad... they did a great job already... when a dragon crash lands you stagger...

The opening idea is just... pointless... and making things 1st person is just stupid for the things u mentioned

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:43 am

1. I'm not a fan of cinematic intros in general. Making it more cinematic and intense really isn't the answer. In my opinion, they should go back to Morrowind's approach, where you're simply thrown into an unfamiliar world. No lame action sequences, no hand-holding or railroading the player into a main storyline, no tediousness going through the same intro with multiple characters.

2. While I agree that absorbing a dragon's soul is rather underwhelming, I really dislike the idea of my character suddenly letting out a scream. One of the most appealing things for me about the series is the fact that the player-character is pretty much voiceless. I can tolerate the occasional battle grunt, but a scream? No thanks.

3. Agreed. At no point during the game should 1st person players be forced into 3rd person. This is one of the biggest immersion killers for me. The only time I want to see what my character looks like is via a paper doll in the menus,

4. Agreed, 100%. The stones are a dumb substitute for birthsigns, catered to casual gamers who want to completely change their character on the fly.

5. While i'd love to see dragons being a bit rougher with the player-character (knocking them down, throwing them around, etc) I have no confidence in Bethesda's ability to do this entirely in 1st person. :confused:

They'd almost certainly take the easy route and throw players into 3rd person to see their character fall down.

6. Agreed. The word 'perk' just doesn't belong in this kind of game. In my opinion, they need to completely rethink how "perks" are handled, get rid of all the useless perks that should be handled by ordinary skill progression, then call the rest 'specializations' or something.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:46 am

That`s stupid. It`s a BIRTH SIGN. that means you are stuck with it at Birth, choose wisely. It goes past all logic to switch and choose around. I chose the warrior and have never changed since and my gameplays fine.

Obviously Bethesda dumbed this game down for people like you you who can`t handle things being set.

Good luck changing your Horoscope Birth sign in real life when you find out what it is but don`t like it.

Oh wait, you can`t!

How can they be birth signs when there are 13 standing stones?

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:23 am

I think when we absorb a dragon soul, we should do something like holding our sword up high in a "By the power of Greyskull" stance while screaming "There can be only one!"

Lol, this reminds me of the demoman in TF2 wielding the Eyelander.....

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:09 am

How can they be birth signs when there are 13 standing stones?

probably because of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus_(astrology)

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:47 am

probably because of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus_(astrology)

That's on Earth, not Nirn, though.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:33 am

Here's the most game-breaking, long-time RPGer's heartbreaking even immersion-breaker of all times:

Spoiler

Ebony ore nodes don't look like ebony ore nodes to me at all. Not to mention the fact that snow doesn't look like real snow.

Seriously though. People should stop complaining just for complaining sake, lest the devs won't (and shouldn't, really) to put much effort into creating masterpieces, since fanbois will praise everything, and self-proclaimed feinschmeckers will complain about everything, so why cater to the latter at all.

Also, please no screaming in pain. My character feels no pain whatsoever after absorbing the 1256th dragon soul or she'd be long dead from that torture alone, my (player's) sanity would be highly damaged by now for sure. Also, one can opt to activate one stone and never activate another one ever again, and imagine that it's a birthsign (which it isn't).

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:47 pm

being able to sing songs and get paid for it when you become a full member of the bard's guild

i dont think they'd ever do that. they don't want to give your character a distinct voice. they wanna leave that to your imagination.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 3:27 am

1. I agree that the opening scene is quite weak, but for different reasons. The opening scene is your initial 'hook' to catch your player's attention and interest, it's where you really do not want to hold back. But it takes place on a pretty boring and generic road, instead of somewhere where the landscape and detail of Skyrim can be showcased, it is about as inspiring and interesting as your morning commute to work. It is extremely confusing that you can't see all the actors at once, so you don't know who is talking, is that Ralof or Ulfric talking? Was that Tullius' orders or the captain? You are constantly turning your character's head to figure out who just said something to your left, only to be interrupted and further confused by someone saying something behind you.

It should be more like real life where your head automatically pans to look at and your eyes zoom in on whoever is talking. That would be far more immersive. Amazingly, I was perfectly able to follow what is very basic dialogue, so I must have super powers or something.

Also, Bethesda should have shot their bolt right at the beginning and shown you the most impressive scenery on offer. So you wouldn't have to stumble across it while exploring and experience that wow factor (and want to explore some more because of it) and could enjoy the thrill of nothing quite living up to the spendour of the opening scene. They should have led you to believe Skyrim's landscape didn't look mostly like Skyrim's landscape by not showing you a regular piece of Skyrim's landscape at the beginning andstarting the game in Blackreach or something.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:58 am

Well....back to reality, Mr. Howard said specifically in an interview that Birthsigns morphed into the Stones, so enough about those.

and.. I believe, if I'm reading it right that the OP was saying it was immersion breaker cuz no one ever mentions them again or seems to use them. They could have added a follwer line saying "hey there's a stone. maybe it's one we could use." as you passed them or some such... (I would have rather had a pack horse than a follower as they are, lifeless)

About the opening.... I do not think it was necessary to heighten the drama by having your head on the block and seeing the Dragon from the off angle. It would have been fine for me if some other guy from the other wagon was on the block and I was watching as the dragon attacked. We would all scatter as we did in the confusion anyway.

Perks... well a rose smells as sweet no matter the name... doesn't break immersion for me, but I see how it could for others.

Other immersion breakers for me.... having to become werewolf to finish questline... horses that can't carry your stuff..... dogs and horses you can't name (making you more attached to them).... not being able to name weapons without enchanting them... not being able to stable your horse so when you fast travel to docks, well, there he is... losing your horse in the wilds cuz you cannot "call" him... armors and weapons that do not change their looks, only stats when you improve them (worst is gilded elven, elven armor looks golden already where's the gilding?)...original house stuff that regenerates over time screwing up my placement of things... no female maniquins in your house when playing female character... walking into Imperial camp wearing stormcloak armor and getting no reaction (or vise versa)... freeing prisoners on the road and giving them weapons they then don't use to help you thwart their guards... horses that attack more stuff than you do... sneaking up to someone in a lighted room, in front of them cuz your skill is that high... followers that don't automatically mount horses when you have one (or riding double if you steal one)... bandits/theivies that have armor that levels beyond what they would wear (at higher levels having thief accost you in forest in full glass looks really dumb, could have just given more health to make the fight tougher, no?)... horse that climbs rocks better than you.... I don't miss weapon decay but having their looks change over time like say shield dents ot blade chips would have been immersive...

I could go on.... they are little things, details, and some don't seem that difficult to enable into the game, but it's that kind of detail that, to me, makes a game epic not just good or great. It's always in the details...

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:41 am

i dont think they'd ever do that. they don't want to give your character a distinct voice. they wanna leave that to your imagination.

They could give us a selection of voices to choose from. I really like Bartoman's idea.

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:55 am

I like to simulate this myself but standing up out of my office chair and yelling "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOVAAAAHKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN" whenever my character absorbs a soul.
The cute girl next door in my apartment building has even taken notice of this habit of mine and has inquired about it several times. :wub:

I'll be doing this everytime I absorb a dragonsoul now

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:51 pm

i dont think they'd ever do that. they don't want to give your character a distinct voice. they wanna leave that to your imagination.

Well, you could just play some music, no need to sing. Or just get some generic quests like ''Guy 1 wants you to recite a poem to his wife''
There wasn't really anything about joining the bard college, I mean.. They gave me quests to go kill draugar, that's not something bards do!

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:58 am

That's on Earth, not Nirn, though.

yeah, but the guys who made this game live on earth...

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:20 am

Well, you could just play some music, no need to sing. Or just get some generic quests like ''Guy 1 wants you to recite a poem to his wife''
There wasn't really anything about joining the bard college, I mean.. They gave me quests to go kill draugar, that's not something bards do! :ohmy:

^THIS there's some songs that are only music, no need to hear the dovakiin singing, just playing instruments

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:37 am

This one agrees, the Bards college of Solitude are about as musical as a goat falling down a mountain!

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:47 am

Well, you could just play some music, no need to sing. Or just get some generic quests like ''Guy 1 wants you to recite a poem to his wife''
There wasn't really anything about joining the bard college, I mean.. They gave me quests to go kill draugar, that's not something bards do! :ohmy:

thats true, being able to play music would be interesting.

They could give us a selection of voices to choose from. I really like Bartoman's idea.

they'd go through all that trouble to give you voices to choose from just for a minor expansion on becoming a bard? won't happen

» Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:03 am

4. Agreed, 100%. The stones are a dumb substitute for birthsigns, catered to casual gamers who want to completely change their character on the fly.

The number of people who can't seem to remember that the Guardian Stone mechanic is lifted straight from Oblivion (and therefore, has nothing to do with Birthsigns. And isn't some new mechanic, for "catering" :shakehead:

), truly makes me want to violate the code of conduct on this forum.

Also, the continual misuse of "casual" as some kind of insult.