there is bound to be a spelunking mod comming out soon, it has to be !

Hmm i have a hard time winning brawls and spamming right click doesnt work. I have to evade and double puch or left right punch. Then i need to evade because my stam is low. I think it depends on how you play. And i dont want to repeat it .. i have beaten him so why try it again when i am stronger?

Have finished Morrowind and Oblivion, and am level 30 in Skyrim so far...

Agree with the many who've pointed out that Bethesda has taken great pains to include individualized and varied indoor and outdoor encounters. I haven't been getting bored of caves, and some of them are unexpectedly huge, which is a nice break from the smaller ones. Overall I think the series is heading in the right direction, and I already got my money's worth, and then some.

On loot and smithing, enchanting, magic, etc: This may be controversial but I think that overall the game suffers because of the adherence to a limited set of well-defined effects shared by magic, alchemy, enchantments, and to some extent smithing. I'm not going to go into the powerful stacking (plenty of other threads on that); what I mean is that I think you can start to solve the loot problem by having more effects, and more of them that are limited to just one discipline. Now it's a huge design challenge to come up with new effects, especially since everything in the game is about how to kill better/prevent being killed/enhance skills that do either of these indirectly). I actually like that they removed spellmaking and got rid of certain spells (open lock, etc.). The fewer effects shared by multiple disciplines, the more likely your character doesn't have access to an ability and so the more likely some loot might be more interesting to find.

Shouts are interesting because some of them have useful effects that just can't be replicated by any other method, same with certain perks. If alchemy, crafting, enchanting, and magic were similarly orthogonal, then it would be easier to find cooler loot. As a crazy example, imagine that only a potion you can make will let a character "wake" certain rare trees and talk to them briefly, to hear a tale that might give a quest clue, or possibly just a bit of interesting lore. Finding a rare ingredient needed for such a potion would be nifty welcome loot for an alchemist, for others, not so much, but maybe you can also randomly find a potion that any character could use. Maybe this isn't the best example, but I think the focus on combat for just about all of the magical effects (except a few like Cure Disease) ends up making loot feel very "blah".

Love, but need more of:

Traps, and more dangerous ones. I love evading a trap and then forgetting about it and accidentally triggering it when I have to backpedal from some enemy I can't handle easily.
Puzzles, and much more difficult ones, but just in selected places. It's a fine line between frustrating people and making it fun for people who want a different sort of challenge to break up the combat/exploration/crafting
Enemies with cool abilities like the disarming shout
Longer, more interesting dialog options, not just (1 give me exposition / 2 give me a quest)
Random villager sayings. Funny to hear one guard say he thinks he could be Dragonborn, not very amusing to hear it the 10th time.

This^

I love this game. Like most of you (I assume) I've already put about 100+ hours into it. The other day I was thinking about this, "What if it wasn't Skyrim?" What if it had any other name and was made by a different company?" and it made me really sad. A decent size of my enjoyment of the game was from its name alone.

The quests don't feel as special as they did in Oblivion. There are certain quests that have absolutely blown my mind
such as:
But otherwise everything else just feels dull. I feel like they just threw power at you. Finish the cave, do a quest BOOM you're Dragonborn! SLAYER OF DRAGONS. In Morrowind, you had to do a lot to become Nerevarine and defeat Dagoth Ur, in Oblivion you had to do a lot to stop Mehrunes Dagon. In Skyrim, you only have to
I miss the epic heists, stealing ancient artifacts from places no one has been in many years. Working my way up to the top.
I miss fighting powerful necromancers, and a magic school where I felt like a wizard. Again, working my way up to the top.
I miss the elaborate assassination plots, the betrayal, (and now that I think about it, the DB plot in SR is very similar to OB) and once more, working my way up to the top.
But not anymore, you're just 1-3 quests from becoming one of the best X this guild has ever seen!

I miss the variety of creatures the most! I HATE fighting nothing but Draugr, Dragons, and Bandits. What happened to all the Daedra? Level 52, and haven't seen a single Storm Atronach. I've only seen quest related Dremora, and the occasional Flame or Frost Atronach. Where are the Clanfears, the Scamps, the Spider Daedra, the Daedroths, the Golden Saints, the Dark Seducers, the Hungers, the Xivilai, the Ogrims etc? I feel like there is a chunk of the lore I'm missing out on, explaining what happened to all these.

I also miss the unique items. Such as Fin Gleam, Monkeypants, Apron of the Master Artisan, and Scales of Pitiless Justice. Things that had enchantments that nothing else had, or could have. Nearly everything is now just "Fortify X" or "X damage". It was always great to get a new item in Morrowind or Oblivion and go, "Wow this is great!". In Skyrim, after a while its just, "Wow! I also have this in leather, elven, and glass for boots, gauntlets, armor and amulet!"

/rant
In short, I think its about time for me to pop Morrowind back in.

OT: I feel Skyrim did a lot of "setting up" for DLC or future games. Things like the Aldmeri Dominion invading, or an explanation or better understanding of what happened to the Dwemer, or something with the Psijic Order

I can't completely agree with the mundane dungeon thing. Yes it may get repetitive after a while but every TES game was like that from what i can remember. Their dungeon design is quite better compared to the other TES games imo but it surely could still use a little more diversity and most importantly more unique enemies.

I agree about the loot/enemy part. If you noticed whenever a "unique loot/enemies issue" comes up, some people pop up and say "wtf?! there are the dragon priests and their masks!". I believe nothing more needs to be said

PS: The guy above says pretty much everything!
PS 2: Devoted fans, control yourselves and your hype. I understand you are insulted by the OP, but wouldn't want anyone to get a seizure or anything by the "harsh criticism".

It saddens me that you exist and that you personify Bethesda's target audience.

I also agree that the quests are really lackluster.

The main quest is short(albeit as fun as the Oblivion one), and the guild quests are just a fraction of what it used to be in Oblivion.

After finishing the main quest of Oblivion, I feel I'm just mid way in the game. And I'm probably right, the guild quests offered so much.

After finishing the main quest of Skyrim, I feel I've just started playing the game. But then, this time I'm wrong. This time I'm also half way there already. The guild quests are just as short and lackluster as the main quest.

In my impression, the main quest and guild quests of Skyrim are just about half of the length and depth of those in Oblivion.

Oh you say the unlimited radiant quests? Who would do daily quests in WoW solely for fun? And it's not like the rewards are that attracting that I would want to do the same [censored] over and over again in a single player game.

People expect a new game that not only lacks nothing compared to Morrowind, but that both improves upon numerous aspects from Morrowind and introduces new things that Morrowind lacks.

few weeks ago i said ive put 40hours into the game and i felt i have barely sctratch the surface. boy i was both right and wrong, because this game has no depth.

dude i played morrowind until i couldnt do anything anymore same with oblivion and those two still remain my favorite games but skyrim is better with all things they made a classic style RPG like they use to be people just dont see that i guess, sure awesome bosses and better loot would be cool but those are the only thing i have a problem with. but to read through this thread and responses that are frankly all the same "to many dungeons same quest lackluster blah blah blah" i have yet to see someone mention the wonderful combat improvements and many other great changes made in this game. sir it saddens me that the elderscroll fan base is so stuck in the past that they cant see the great things that bethesda has done, this is the game that all other RPGs will be compared to i'd like to see another company make better.

Combat is a moot point. It svcks and it's been bad since Morrowind. Play Mount&Blade or Dark Messiah and see what I mean.

TES is supposed to focus on narrative and exploration. Do you know what exploration means? It means finding stuff without a white arrow telling you where to go. Ideally. Something you lack the patience and maturity to care about, or so it seems. And many people feel like exploration is Skyrim's weak point. Hence the redundant arguments you complain about.

Narrative, on the other hand, is something that Skyrim does MUCH better than Oblivion. I've yet to see a complaint about it.

Edit: Another point in your uniform, poorly formatted banter I forgot to address; "i'd like to see another company make better".

First of all, you're comparing apples to oranges. You should also take into account that Bethesda has more means to work with than any other like minded studio.

Bit of both

I was saying that the dungeons in Skyrim are MUCH better than Oblivions copy and paste dungeons, after you had been in 10 dungeons in Oblivion you had seen them all! I like the added effects in Skyrim's dungeons like the wind whipping through the dungeon, actually seeing the flow of breeze is fantastic, then there are the pools and waterfalls to me they feel alot more dynamic than Morrowinds OR Oblivions and made me want to camp out Not to mention they are all different sizes, the last one I went in was quest related, it took me 4 hours to get through, and it was a battle all the way, and the end fight was fantastic and gave me a great sense of achievement and a nice new sword

Its all subjective I guess, but I feel Skyrim is the best in the series I love it, maybe time to start the MQ or theives line, or the dark brotherhood, or the mages line for that matter

im all for finding stuff on my own as thats what i do quite often but morrowind was terrible as far as quest directions and i have a great memory so i rarely use the compass seeing how i remember routes pretty well

im all for finding stuff on my own as thats what i do quite often but morrowind was terrible as far as quest directions and i have a great memory so i rarely use the compass seeing how i remember routes pretty well

the guilds were lacking something

Wow, out of curiosity how long have you played?
I have clocked 155 hours and still can't get off it, your acting as if the caves and ruins (everything nerevarine1138 said) are a new thing to the TES series and honestly I have done about 120ish dungeons and none of them have been boring, bland, samey or anything you have said.

The MQ still hasn't been done yet and I'm LVL 56, the amount of content in this game is ASTOUNDING.

Yes there isn't a overly large amount of stuff to do outside but it sure feels alive:
hearing distant waterfalls
butterfly's flying around
the hundreds of plants
spriggans protecting their forests
bears hunting elk
hunters hunting elk
a pack of wolves protecting their recently deceased dinner
thieves waiting for unwary travelers
a wandering bard wanting to spread his music
farming trying to make a living
giants crossing the tundra
dragons searching for their next helpless target etc.

I could go on but the point I am trying to make is there is alot out there if you look. Oh and back to the dungeons have you been to blackreach? that is a [censored] amazing place, it reminds me of Morrowind due to how alien it looks. I'm there now having another proper look around.
The dungeons all feel fresh and if I was being picky I would say that there was one dungeon where one part of it seemed to have the corridor that I have seen previously.
Also these puzzles are awesome, I think I have seen them all and every once in a while I would get stumped in a room confused as to what to do, I had the 4 pillars and not sure in the order sitting there for at least 10 minutes searching around the room for the solution to then eventually realise the solution was in a book I had picked up in the room. That made me really happy, I was sort of expecting 3 generic puzzles in the game but in actual fact there are quite a few.

This game is legendary, my favourite game EVER. If you tell of another RPG which provides this amount of content with the variety of dungeons, hundreds of quests, beautiful scenery, tons of great books, many jobs, houses to buy, a load of ways to customize your character, DRAGONS, dynamic snow and to top it off the best game character ever. SHEOGORATH!!!!

Sorry but I think your playing Oblivion (which was my fav game before Skyrim)

The crazy thing is, I had the same feeling, but didn't dare to admit it because I thought at least every dungeon is unique one way or another. But still, the style of barrows, caves, forts and dwemer ruins is basically the same. What makes it worse is that most dungeons combine several of those sets, which results the same general feeling. It doesn't matter whether I enter a cave which later develops into a dwarven ruin or the other way around. When every dungeon uses every set, every dungeon is the same again.
What I liked most were the "outdoor" dungeons. Some sort of forest clearing or such that you first have to enter. And you can see the sky, and it changes depending on the time of day. In Bleak Falls Barrow, light always shines through the roof, even in the darkest night.

For a game like Skyrim, we simply don't have the technology to do what you described yet - it would simply be TOO massive.

i loved every second of the 112 hours it took to do a single playthrough, and even then i completely avoided the dark brotherhood and mages guild quest lines.

there isnt enough content for me. i want more.

elder scrolls is all about exploration, be it caves or entire complex daedric underworlds.

+1 very well said! I had a puzzle in a 4 hour dungeon that I recently completed as a part of a quest, I ran around the room for ages finding 4 pillars with markings on them but nowhere to match them too then I found a book on a table, in the book a woman was describing her husbands demise in which each representation of the symbols was mentioned in order in the text! Very clever....I think this might have been the dungeon you mentioned was there a nice sword at the end?

I think people just rush through the MQ and don't look around enough, descover things, find amazing sights and watch the world change from day to night, from rain to snow! 60 hours in I haven't started the MQ either!

That puzzle was good due to how good the book was, I read it and didn't even realise what the whales and snakes meant. lol
Just if everyone saw it the way we do

Well said.

I completely agree.

Op has a point. Though skyrim is a great game it do have a lot of flaws. Whats bothering me the most is the flat dialouge (spelling?) and the lack of random loot. Would have been cool with more handplaced stuff.

I do really think some people who bought Skyrim bought different game by mistake. Snowblind maybe?

Your thinking exactly what I'm thinking