I haven't been bothered by the number of "caves". The Dungeon variety has been fantastic in my opinion, and the quests outside of the main quest and guild storylines have ranged from mundane (which dufus should the store owner's sister date) to the Epic (Wolf Cave quests). I've seen plenty of random events occur outdoors. And the cities are the best yet in an Elder Scrolls game, in my opinion.

Agree with pretty much everything you said Demention. For me, TES has been a steady decline since Morrowind. Morrowind was the apex of TES games. Coincidentally, everything after Morrowind was developed primarly for consoles.

Haven't seen any non human, wildlife enemies except for dragons and trolls. Morrowind was chock full of unique enemies. Morrowind was Lord of the Rings compared to Skyrim's Game of Thrones. Fantasy and exotic creatures versus an extreme version of Earth in the Viking era.

Also agree on caves. Tired of caves.

In regards to loot, if Bethesda did loot the way Diablo did loot, we might have something. Randomized loot with different levels (common, rare, set, unique, legendary, etc.). Problem is, with enchanting, the player can make a weapon far more deadly than any game made weapon.

I agree with you pretty much all the way, OP. The game's world and lore are still intact, but it suffers from some of the worst mechanics and gameplay faults of any that I've played. This game carried almost all of the problems Oblivion had over to it and even brought it's own issues to the table.

There have been caves galore in every TES. Morrowind had just as many, if not more, caves. Also, Morrowind didn't have the neat events that are going on in a lot of Skyrim's caves. I've explored over 100 locations, ruins, caves, forts, barrows etc.. and the majority of them had something going on inside, whether it was a quest or a journal and an outcome. And EVERY place I've visited has had a different layout which is not always the case with ES games, but is with this one. These are some of the best dungeons in TES yet.

Quest wise, it's an RPG. I've yet to play an RPG where the majority of quests didn't center around a "go pick this up" mentality. Not all of the quests are like that, but eventually you'll find there are only a few different quests and most of them follow the same formula. There are a few that are different, like go put this back instead of go get this. But I'm used to this sort of thing and I guess because of that it doesn't bother me as much...I expect it when I play an RPG game.

I've also wandered upon many non cave type locations. Just yesterday in fact, a big ruin that was all outside, and had a dragon fighting Draugr. Sure that's not common, but I've found it's about 30/70 for non caves and caves.

As for environment foes, I'm guessing it's because it's Skyrim and only so many different things can live in the environment. Saber Tooth Cats, Spiders Trolls, wolves, bandits, theives, fugitives, hunters, NPCs with no name that attack you easily, bears of all sorts, elk, meese, rabbits, foxes/snow foxes are usually what I encounter while I'm out and about. I'm sure there will be a mod to add more life to the game though. There's also glow bugs, butterflies and dragonflies..that you can catch! That impressed me. I will agree with you though on there's not really much variety when it comes to landscape mobs. But like I said, could have something to do with the environment.

As for the person who said all theives guild quests are inside caves...most of the quests I've done for them have been in cities.

This is one thing I have a problem with more than anything else in Skyrim. I've been carrying around the same standard "steel sword" since level 1 and it bothers me that every weapon type is exactly the same. It would have been wonderful for some random variance in each (ala Diablo), so we would have a "dull steel sword", a "fine steel sword of cutting", etc with a range of damages. This would have made dungeon crawling infinitely more enjoyable.

Dungeons are still great as is though, and each usually has some nice magic items near the end, but the same loot does get monotonous.

Hmmm, a fantasy RPG with caves and ruins? No way! How could they do this? I have no idea what the OP is on about. I like exploring Skyrim, but I would get bored if the whole game was just in a forest or on a mountain. Honestly, there may be a lot of caves, but there are also ruins, temples, forts, mines, etc. They may be somewhat similar, but imo, they are hands down the best caves, ruins, etc, that I have ever seen in a game. I never mind going in to one, and I am also at around 50 hours in...

A question for Beth: WHY ARE 90% OF BANDITS ETC. ALL THE SAME,WEARING SAME ITEMS,SAYING SAME THINGS,LOOKING SAME,ITS LIKE THEY HAVE BEEN CLONED.In Morrowind there was a variety of enemy npcs,all had different names,almost all had different armors,weapons,spells..Skyrim in this segment compared to MW is like going 10 years in the past..

Doesn't metter if they are good looking they are boring , there is nothing to do when you enter it besides kill everyone, there are some dungeons that give you quests but all are the same kill the boss or take something from the last room oh and:

SMITING RUINED THE GAME

I am lvl 30 and i have 91 in smiting so i am wearing full daedric armor and almost all enemy's don't do dmg on me even on expert, i mean its funny that i can kill a dragon with 2-3 power attacks on expert

You are not comprehending what the OP is trying to say.

Filler is fine. What the OP is saying, is that the main quests should be fleshed out and offer a good 30+ hours of gameplay, BEFORE you start adding filler. It seem to him (and me) that the main quests were sacrificed a little to achieve the massive amount of content that Skyrim does have.

Like I did in Oblivion, I stopped doing the main quest as soon as there was break in the story. After about 40 hours of enjoying the world, I went back to the main quest. The story was very interesting and the quests engrossed me to the point where I simply kept playing the main quest. I finished it in about 10 hours. That does not seem worthy of a main quest.

While more unique dungeons would be cool, it's just so much more work for the company, then just to release it when you know people are going to buy it then putting in the extra time and money behind it, business is business sadly. While I am happy that dungeons are much more unique then in oblivion, alot of dungeons have a backround story if you dig deep, each one has atleast 1 unique thing about them. Unlike in oblivion an ayleid ruin was just another copy and paste ayleid ruin. Hopefully each game will get better and better.

Agreed OP!


TES formula is getting repetitive. Grab a quest, clear a cave, rinse & repeat. Sometimes the questlines blur together and I'll forget my motivation for being in the cave until the end.

TES' constant spelunking quests feel like lazy game design. Caves are never varied enough to be compelling, and they're always linear. Encounters are predictable and puzzles are designed for kids under the age of 8.

It's almost a running TES joke how often we're forced to delve into a cave. Almost every quest feels the same. The motivations may vary (retrieve a stolen item, kill a bandit leader, etc.) but the experience is the same: kill everything in the cave.

Can someone please explain Bethesda's fascination with caves? I don't get it...

I really wish there were more encounters to be had just roaming the world, i feel like i need to go underground to find a decent fight

So true. I got through 5 playthroughs, all of whom got to around level 50ish, and I never finished the main quest. It's not that it wasn't good, its that everything else was better.

I honestly think people have not a clue what they mean when they say "dumbed down". So the the strength attribute is gone. Guess what. Never have I noticed a difference in what I really wanted out of that stat... to hit harder. Sure, I can carry more...big whoop. I noticed more when I upgraded my weapon than my strength. Some with the rest of the stats...You need mods, that's right MODS to make the stats matter. And when you need mods to make think work, to me thats not right.

So they took out attribute, a bunch of useless stats to me (speed being the only thing noticable). The other ones that made absolutely no sense that people cry about. Weapon skills. OMG they took out weapon skills. Some of them, sure, they were upsetting. BUt som of them just made sense. Honestly, if a warrior masters the long sword...why the hell does he need to learn to pick up a short sword; or a dagger?? Makes no sense. If anything, Oblivion had this right with "Bladed" weapons. If I can weild a friggin long sword and master it, I better be able to pick up a dagger, or a short sword.

So to me, it makes a little more sense. Some skills being taken out is disappointing...but to say dumbed down...I say it makes more sense.

You know, I tend to doubt people paying attention or even actually playing the game when they claim how boring and repetitive the dungeons are.

I have yet to see a dungeon that did not have some kind of unique quirk to it.

There's one where one where the bandits talk to each other about staying on guard.
There's one with a unique spell of transmute, and a whole Mammoth slaughtering plant.
There's one dwemer ruin that tells a story about a tragic excavation, with many of them gone to madness and Falmer in the depths.
There's one Barrow that's mostly empty, except for traps and many harmless ghostly orbs following you around.
There's a ruin that has a guy before it, asking you to get the Dragon Priest's mask, you can also figure out the tale of an ancient expedition and how the people in the ruins turned into ghosts.
There's a ruin that has a farmer sneaking in to find his kidnapped wife.
And I just found a cave the leave to a deep hole, finding a book that tells of a legend, starting a quest.

Some caves May take you to an outdoor area in the world map where you go exploring some more into some ruins on a mountain top... Your post, albeit kind of humorous at first, really lacks substance. It's lackluster . Oh and you misspelled Jeez. It's not geez. Jeez. Yes it's a word.

I really haven't encountered any caves that really branched off into a different area. It's all been more of the same with the odd locked closet being the only loot that wasn't laying around in the open. What kind of dungeons are we going through that don't have any hidden doors or other things to find to get through it? Some of those ruins in Oblivion might have been copy & paste but at least they tended to be more than "pathway -> puzzle door -> loot" at least.

The only reason I've even seen a door inside of a dungeon going into another area of it is probably because consoles can't handle the memory demand. The other side was the exact same thing. I remember several in Oblivion at least transition from ruins to a cave that led to other ruins/areas or caves that led into something that wasn't more caves. Every dungeon I've gone through in Skyrim so far has been exactly what it was at the start all the way through with little to no variation. Smithing defeats most of the purpose to even bother with them which is silly.

I do enjoy this game. I think it's very worthy of my attention.

My point is that I don't believe it's worthy of it's fame.

Remember how Obama got elected and won a nobel piece prize for doing pretty much nothing? Its a good anology that illustrates my problems with Skyrim. Skyrim got the biggest and best of the best just because it was the new TES right off the bat. Before it even had time to stand the tests and trials. It was practically the "best game of all time", days before anyone even installed it. Marketing..

Its actually a relief to see an "overwhelming" majority of people that agree.

I respect the disagreeing opinions, but I'm very critical of a game i spend 50+ dollars on. I believe a lot of people are quick to shoot down any criticism of this "legendary" game, just to justify their expense, time spent playing, as well as anticipation over the years. Its mostly psychological.

I mean, its logical. Would you first concede or try to protect your investment if a friend told you the Bentley you just bought breaks down, is poorly reviewed and has a life span of 4 years?

But, no game is perfect.

Someone thought they were being clever in a previous post, trying to say I expected too much out of the game's weapon/armor variety when I have maxed out smithing and have dragonbone yadda yadda yadda. He can't read. I stated already that I was still wearing the thieves guild/brotherhood pieces.

This is my contention. Oblivion had a horrible case of it. Morrowind was actually pretty good about it. I knew, I could just rush X guild arc and get some cool set pieces. Nothing I found "exploring" would ever come close to competing. Is it sad? I hardly expected a 1hour guild arc to give me the 'be all, end all' of gear. I expected hard work, hours of exploring, or tons of "hidden, optional content" would give me THE gnarly weapons.

This game spoils you too early. Lets examine the open world motivation then.

I know I can get the best gear doing my preferred guild arc quest.
I know these quests take like an hour to complete
I know, short of smithing, that this gear will last me 48 levels!!
I know, to my knowledge so far, that farming dragons in attempt for loot is useless, unless I have maxed smithing. Even then, I can only create two types of armor.

I mean really? You can imagine how flustered I was when I was hoarding HEAVY dang scales and bones just to find they were worthless to me and only used in smithing builds. I've killed alot of dragons, to my knowledge they drop no weapons or substantial
gear upgrades(sure, they have some cheap guard armor in their bellies).

[I know you get souls from dragons, the talk here is gear]

So, to summarize:
I get the end all gear in one to two hours of playing. Exploring won't yield any upgrades. Hunting down dragons won't yield any upgrades or any interesting variations. Side questing won't give me any upgrades (short of one SICK quest I totally give this game credit for, which is the "kill the priest for the daedra and get a cool mace quest". This is the ONE quest, but being 120+ hours into the game, I can assure you these quests are in the minority when they should be more common.

So with this said, I'm supposed to pursue and explore the game why? Especially when the quests after are pretty repetitive and offer no interesting dialogue or plot rewards?

Now Bethesda can patch this in, with little effort in a fairly short time frame. But the game has reached his retail build and they likely wont.

>States he played every TES released from beginning to end
>Whines about caves, dungeons and "filler" content in a TES game

mmmh...

Or perhaps its time for the to try something new? And reinvent maybe?

Sounds like another whiner to me.

This is wrong. Just because you see all the people who are not happy commenting, does not indicate the majority. Sorry to make your "relief" short lived, but do a search on if the overall gamesas forums are satisfied/happy with Skyrim. 5-1 margin in the favor of the lovers. How fast it is selling is another indicator that it is overwhelming proof to your minority opinion. If its one that indicates your dismay in regards of how not great it is.

Why do I feel like it is the first time this poster has played an RPG. They are all basically cave combing for cool loot in the end. If you aren't motivated by this type of thing you basically don't like RPGs and you should move on to something else. It's just the style of this type of game. You could say that all the levels of a FPS are basically the same thing as well, you just run through and shoot everything. If you don't like that style of game then I guess you don't like FPS games. Skyrim is way better than Oblivion. I got really sick of the bland generic caves in Oblivion. At least these caves are somewhat cool looking inside. So far I have found the sights in them to feel unique from one another unlike Oblivion. I simply don't agree with the posters opinion because they are taking a very generic overall impression of the game rather than remember cool moments. RPGs are more like "remember when you found this cool sword or you did the Dark Brotherhood mission etc?" It's not about looking 50hrs back and saying "all the caves were the same, this game is a disappointment." You really gotta focus on specific moments you enjoyed not taking in a 100hr plus game as a whole and saying... it's all basically the same thing.

Also it's really disappointing that he is stating opinions as fact without proof

"Its actually a relief to see an "overwhelming" majority of people that agree."

Come on man you have NO evidence of this. It's okay to have that opinion but don't state it as fact. The forums are a terrible place to use as a source because a lot of people come here to complain. The game continues to sell a massive amount of copies so it is unlikely that "most" people think the game is a hype. They would stop selling units if this was the case.

Just want to chime in and say I'm completely enjoying Skyrim.

Arena was great, Daggerfall magnificent and Morrowind pretty epic. Oblivion maybe slipped a little but Skyrim is right back on track. Okay - things have been simplified and I do miss the spell creation but it does so many other things right.

Within the confines of inevitable compromises like city sizes it feels a living, breathing world. It offers so many role-play imagination hooks and the character development system a real flexible winner.

Maybe there are a lot of caves but I'm having a blast exploring them and I love the flexibility of the combat system.

Why do I feel this poster has only played TES as an RPG?

I agree with the OP in many aspects.

TES games seems to always suffer from the same problem: Shallow quests. An overwhelming amount of poorly executed side-quests, and a way too short main quest.

One of the biggest motivations to play an RPG is for its story, for the environment where the story takes place and for the characters involved on the plot. TES svcks on the first aspect and fails miserably on the third. While the lore of the game is certainly good and somewhat original, the quests relating to it are quite lacking in quality. Character development on TES is non existent, you only have basic interaction and they rarely say anything besides the random or assigned quotes (which are completely immersion-breaking, after trashing Alduin the World-Eater and saving Whiterun from a siege, the the diminutive unimportant dark elf jarl's huskarl still says "I've got my eyes on you"). So poorly Oblivion main quest was executed, when I read the book Oblivion Crisis, I have the feeling that quest was far more epic, involving and satisfying than the one I did.


EDIT:
There are many very good side quests, I do not deny it.