Morrowind gave you directions.

And a compass. And a map that had a big yellow marker on it that told you exactly where to go. And hand holding directions of "Go to this location, turn south, walk for x steps, turn left, and viola, you're at your cave that you already have a big yellow map marker for"

Oblivion and Skyrim put a quest marker on your compass telling you what direction you need to go into. The quest marker doesn't tell you how to actually get there, just which direction to go. Like Morrowind, you still need to figure out your path to your objective. I have gotten lost in Skyrim plenty of times. Not so much in Oblivion, because, well, Oblivion is essentially a big, wide open field. But I have gotten lost in Skyrim plenty. Because the quest marker doesn't tell you how to get there.

And the Clairvoyance spells is completely optional. You don't even start with it. If you are using it, you have to go out of your way to buy it. Which is your own fault if you're using it.

Morrowind and Oblivion / Skyrim are really no different in their methods. One method simply removes the tedium of constantly hitting "J" or "M" to go into your journal or map constantly to get your bearings.

It's not for my sake and that's not how the game is meant to be played. The game is meant to be played the dumbed down way like game developers make it. Gothic 3 doesn't have arrows pointing to places because it was designed to be played without them, either by visual clues or dialogue.

Skyrim also allows you to toggle quest markers, Oblivion certainly didn't do that you always had to have an active quest going in the journal.

Exceot that, with th minimalist journal, you're bound to use markers.
Ther's no way on Earth anyone is going to find its way counting only on those descriptions.

I guess your Facepalm can now be put in context...

That's a whole lotta hyperbole right there. Maybe you don't like the games but to call the last five years devoid of good games is ludicrous. The last five years gave us the Uncharted series, the Assassin Creed series, the last two Arkham games, FO:NV, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Alan Wake, GTA4, RDR, Portal 2, MGS4, Demon and Dark Souls, and I could go on.


FO:NV was not a dumbed down modern Western RPG.

That is how the game is meant to be played. You have the option to go entirely by your quest roster and common-sense than arrows or markers. Again, it's there for a reason. If that wasn't how the game was made, then it wouldn't be an option in the first place now would it?


Gothic 3 is not Skyrim. It's not even made by the same company who obviously have a different take on how games should be played. So it's a false comparison.

I'll be turning off the hud and other things through the .ini and see if that makes it better.

I totally agree games made for consoles destroy what made the game good on PC. Take for example the pile of steaming crap that Dungeon Siege 3 was! It was so dumbed down and linear I have no clue how a player of the first two could sit through 5 minutes of the "3rd installment." Not to mention on the PC version you couldn't remap any of the keys on the keyboard because it was made for a controller.

I'm so glad Diablo 3 won't be on these crappy 6+ year old consoles so they don't have to "dumb it down."

If it's dumbed down then your playing it wrong.

I so wish every game was made solely for us moronic, insipid, and childish console players because I'm sick and tired of this attitude. Games can be just as complex and intricate on Consoles as they are on PCs, if you're willing to make some sacrifices like the textures and camera in Dragon Age. Thankfully for the rest of us, Consoles are gradually becoming more and more powerful. Heck, Microsoft is trying to turn the Xbox into a multimedia outlet.

Really, get off your high horse. You're not the end all and be all when it comes to video games.

Eh? it's the same as Oblivion only they made it easier to get to new places. You really think they made Skyrim easier for Elder Scroll players? LOL Like a lot of game devs, they ignore they game base to reach a wider audience and hurt the fundamental play mechanics of the game for the sake of their new player base.

Quoted for truth.

Yes because the Diablo series is SOOO incredibly deep and complex...

And how is comparing Gothic 3 false? They are both the same types are games in just about every way, just like The Witcher is. My point is compared to those two games, Skyrim is very dumbed down and very easy.

Breath in.
Breath out.
Again, breath in.
And out.

I guess you can call markers optional - not because there's an option to turn them off while the rest remains visible. A contrived way has been put into place: change the opacity. Yup, contrived.

Now, because the journal is cryptic and hyperminimalist, there's no way to navigate the world without them. No descriptions, no directions, nothing.

So they're not really optional, are they? Unless you mean optional in the North Korean sense, where you have the option to vote for the sole political party and, generally, elections are won with 99.7% of the votes.

Breath in.
Breath out.

Actually it appears they are not optional. As I specifically pointed out in this post:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1324260-skyrim-dumbed-down/page__view__findpost__p__19911451

So it seems markers are required, let me repeat that required.

So you picked a handful of decent games, good for you. I hate AC by the way that game is dumbed down to the point where you don't even have to do much when climbing, no skill at all needed. The idea of AC is good but the implementation is so bad that it's a push button not skill needed game.

I agree 100% with you about DS3 but the rest is just bull. Consoles are the only reason that Beth is still in business.

QFT, Skyrim is played the way you want to play it. You want to be OP Dragon God then you certainly can go that route or if you want to be a Mystic Archer that only focuses on that point of view then yes Skyrim can do that. I believe that is one of the beautiful things about Skyrim, you can play it your way, try telling that to a Bioware game or a majority of RPG's out there.

Actually it's a lot less hand holding, you have optional markers but no directions at all or a journal that Oblivion had, gameplay is much better then Oblivion's horrible repetivite combat. Ask the majority of people out there, would combat be the number 1 thing that draws you into that game or Skyrim, no I would argue that it's the world and the fact that you can create your own character and do what you want, when you want. Even a game like Gothic 3 your still stuck as a nameless protagonist but without the ability to customize him or alter him. Skyrim and other Elder Scrolls games do that incredibly well better then a majority of the games out there.

Because different gaming companies and developers have different takes on what makes a good game. They're not the same.

Obsidian v. Bioware for example: the former focuses on story progression and questing with shallow characters, while the latter bases itself on character development and dialogue with generic story lines and quests. Just because two companies specialize in the same genre, isn't going to make their games the same. Far from it in fact.

It's apples to oranges. Gothic may have better RPG elements (I've never played so I can't be sure) but I do know that from reviews that it had glitches and poor voice acting in spades.

Is that Skyrim in anyway? No, because it's focus is on lore, voice acting, and character building.

People couldn't locate quest areas in WoW, even with pretty decent quest descriptions in their journals. I'd be Bill Gates if I had a dime for every time I heard "read the quest description" when someone asked where something was.

Heaven forbid you have to read something and make a pretty simple guess as to where to go. Then people complain when a game comes out, complete with rails.

Uldred

This goes to my earlier point.
The hardcoe types have options.The list of games that are better than Skyrim keeps growing.Go play those games.The devs are making games for YOU.
Again why cant casuals have nice things

hardcoe, LOL. My point is Elder Scrolls has been dumbed down. If you want to say it's been made easier and think that then fine, be like that but making a game easier for a wider audience doesn't make it better, since you alienate your fanbase.

Guarantee someone (after me) will say you can, unless that means that "nice thing" is taken from hardcoes.

There's a line they could walk to satsify both, with simple options, they didn't.

Uldred

Whatever, at least Skyrim gives us the option to toggle quest markers and hey if they don't give specific directions then so be it then just search through the world.
Only for a couple of seconds then you can turn it off. At least we can toggle them on and off, the previous 3 Beth games (If you include New Vegas) didn't have that option to toggle quest markers on or off. It's a step in the right direction, is it perfect, no nothing ever is but it's a step in the right direction.

closed for review