» Wed May 30, 2012 6:02 pm but here's are the problems that i will go into detail on
-quest quality
-lore quality
-Characters and content and atmosphere and music etc
-The player and his skills
First of.. THE QUESTS
BEHOLD THE QUESTLINE OF THE IMPERIAL LEGION!! (there is no spoiler, it doesnt have a plot other than to attack places untill you get to windhelm/sollitude)
- go to General tullius. I will call him captain Caesar and if you have an objection i will explain latter
- Clear our a bandit fort
- Get a reward
- i think it's here that you go to get a crown in a dungeon whilst supported by legionaries
- get a reward
-Go to an imperial camp
- intercept courier, go to the camp again, go to dawnstar and hand the guy the orders
the battle for whiterun was at this point i think. It was the highlight of the questline and it wasn't even fantastic
Here's the rest of the quest line
- go to a camp
- go to a fort with some legionares and attack it
- go back to Captain Caesar and he will tell you to go to another camp. He gave me an enchanted glass sword
- go to a camp
- go to a fort with some legionares and attack it
- go back to Captain Caesar and he will tell you to go to another camp. He gave me the same enchanted glass sword
- go to a camp
- go to a fort with some legionares and attack it
- go back to Captain Caesar and he will tell you to go to another camp. He gave me ebony armour (which was quite good)
- go to a camp
- go to a fort with some legionares and attack it
- go back to Captain Caesar and he will tell you to go to another camp. He gave me a regular glass sword
- go to windhelm where captain Caesar is with some men and there is some rubble in some places and some fireballs are harmlessly hitting the walls from a mountain (of course, everyone is sound asleep in their houses). Then you kill some guys along a linear path and reach the palace where the unprotected ulfric sits. we killed him back into his chair yet he didnt realy die and asked me to kill him. So Captain caesar asked me to kill him with "his" sword (another random enchanted sword which was ebony)
Did the designers put any thought into this quest line at all?
The dark brotherhoods quests were passable too good... but were really easy! Could anyone tell me why the elite guard where one of the weakest enemies in the game? Why was i attacked when i was impersonating someone? Why was i forced into that stupid cutscene when icestorm could have taken out every single opponent there and saved many lives? Other than that the questline was great! Much better than the college's main quest which had a quite possibly the worst storyline.
Lore
Why did glass and ebony become metallic metals? Why does orcish armour have it's own ore? ( i can understand it having it's own ingots.. but ore? Realy? )
Why are the vampires completely wrong? Why are werewolves a voluntary thing? (i dont even see werewolves in the wild so i suppose the lack of werebears isnt too bad)
Where are the daedra? Why are there no scamps? How do i have +90 in conjuration yet i am unable to summon scamps? That was one of the first summoning spells we used to get in the old games! I think skyrim might actualy be the first tes game to not have scamps in! why though? I suppose it would be to much to ask for clanfears and daedroths.. you know.. it's not like the defining lore of Tes is Daedra and Aedra now is it?
What's with the inconsistency in shouts? (dragons being weak yet greybeards are powerfull.. plus graybeards must be careful in talking whilst dragons can ask for sweetrolls in whatever language they want without causing earthquakes
Why do dumner talk fine? What happened to ashlungs and azura cursing them?
Why do light armours look so heavy?
Why are swords so big?
Why are there no spears or crossbows?
As with characters..
I think that if we were forced to a character's face like we were in oblivion then we'd all agree that voices arent great. The problem now is Clone characters! every single male Guard has the same voice and the same look. Why did they even bother naming the origin of the guard/stormcloak helmet when they are all the same? A worse offender is ghosts (who share about 5 lines) and npcs who say the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. The same lines every time i look at their inventory.. oh lordy
I think people would have liked lydia if she didn't moan all the time. Secondly is how memorable characters are! unless you hear their name dozens of times then you will never remember them. I cant even remember the name of my companion (the azura woman)! i can remember people like captain caesar and J'zargo and half of the college and Dark brotherhood. The college only because it sourced my spells and the db because it had some personalities (deekus who i liked despite the fact that he was useless,astrid because she ordered me places, babbette because she was annoying and wouldnt shut up, cicero because i could relate to him
) I can truly remember only a minority of people in skyrim that i spent time with. i can remember 4 times as many people from morrowind and oblivion. (he is a captain because firstly because the battle of windhelm only involves about 20 imperials and he is Caesar because he was made to look like caesar and it pissed me off a little! i like the legionare look that the rest of the empire went for but the caesar look just takes things too far- wouldnt it make more sense to be original and give him something like ebony-imperial armour or a unique haircut and beard? )
Oh.. children piss me off. But it's not that their kids but that they are poorly made kids! they share two faces and two outfits and maybe 3 voices and don't actually say anything decent.
Atmosphere
- the music does a poor job in exciting the player. It often does not change to battle music and in general it does nothing at all to enchance the game. It gets in the way when i need to talk to someone but unlike morrowind and oblivion's music and it never added to exploration or adrenalin to a fight! you know how amnesia did well? SOUND!! and sound alone!! that game would have been [censored] without it!
- The dungeons were bright. Torches and light spells were utterly pointless and i never felt scared! Dungeons used bright yellow lights which gave them warmth and made them feel friendlier.. not realy what i wanted! At least in oblivion we had cool blues and greens. I believe morrowind's repetitive caves were saved by their lighting!! I knew that i was in for a fight with cultists when there was red light made from the red candles of house dagoth! But in skyrim the most unlit dungeons were still Grey and easy to see in! There were no surprises and the red dot on the compass telling me where the enemy was did little in spoiling the already broken atmosphere! The only thing a cloudy midnight seemed to do was to reduce skyrim's already limited colour scheme!!
- the awkwardness of scripted events. At one moment in the game you witness people fighting a dragon.. and it's the exact same as regular combat in skyrim.. the woman looks at the dragon and hits the dragon, then the dragon bites her, then she hits the dragon again and the dragon bites her.. It's just painful to watch
- people just arent human. The way they animate is horrendous. Not once do you feel like an npc is a person and you will never get attached to them. The only reason why i care for the life of my follower and reload every-time i accidentally kill her is because she's carrying too much stuff. They take their time getting out of bed during impending doom, they dont react to a claymore to the throat or being engulfed in flames, during conversations they stand still despite 90% of communication being non verbal.
Gameplay
Whatever happened to "you are what you play".. you could do that but then you'd end up rather weak as the level scaling get's past you! In skyrim the perks do a hell of a lot more than the skills so if you don't distribute perks properly it does not end well.
Some perk trees are downright stupid.. take smithing for example- shouldn't those perks unlock differently? I mean.. automatically or learnt from trainers? Yes improving items is based a lot on skill but it just doesnt make sense that a master smith doesn't know how to make steel items. Most perks should honestly be unlocked automaticaly!
some perk trees are simply amazing whilst others are a joke. I really don't think that i would put a single point into lockpicking as lockpicking is rather easy and the perks offer nothing outside of lockpicking. On the other hand some things are just overpowered.. like sneak!
another thing is that skills dont seem to do much other than unlock perks. I have 100 destruction and all the perks that half mana. I took off all my destruction increasing enchantments
frostbite (novice) is at 4 magicka per second (everything is halved from the perk by the way)
ice spike (apprentice) is at adept and uses 14 per shot
ice storm (adept) is at 43 per ball
ice spear (expert) is at 95 - at level 33 this uses a third of my magic with every shot. If i didnt get the perk it would be 190. Now.. uesp (rightly it so appears) says that 100 destruction gives a 33% improvement over the starting 15.. is that it? That's.... pathetic!! Would you not agree? Uesp says it's the same for all magic schools and since it's right for destruction i simply find myself in agreement.
as for level scaling.. oh the days were draugr wrights were the highest form of common enemy and i was not fighting multiple deathlords..
I found dragon priests before i got to level 10
Elite Guards of the empire are weaker than common bandits
My first deathlord was found in the level 20's and he had an insta kill bow. Now i find deathlords in every draugr ruin. But despite my newfound abilities iv come to realise that i am no match for the town guard who would probably defeat an army of dragons so long as i continued to level up!
Why couldn't Bethesda gotten smart with enemies? Maybe they could have put MORE weak enemies in dungeons rather than replace them? killing 20 regular draugr at once would have made me feel much better than fighting 70 individual deathlords (even if the loot is [censored])
