I use the map and even in Morrowind, I got lost. However, I blame that on my lacking of direction taking skills.

Orchish - Using the logic, that TES is heading the CoD route, all the stuff you mentioned woulden't be there in the first place.

So? It took me longer than that to figure out that you get experience for killing enemies and when you get enough experience you level up and that makes you stronger when I played my first RPG which was Super Mario RPG. Doesn't mean Super Mario RPG was some complex game that required a lot of brain power. It just meant I thought it would play more like the "jump on head, defeat bad guy, move on" style like the main line of Super Mario games. If he doesn't know how to equip items he has obviously never played an RPG before. It's not like it's so different and unique between games.

When did i say that TES is heading the COD route? Even if Skyrim is "simpler" than past TES games, it would take some massive dumbing down to ever reach COD level. (no disrespect meant to any cod fans)

Streamlined has all the features but is easy to use. Dumbed down = lacking features.

What I take from the 10mins I managed to tolerate was, if this is the target consumer for Bethesda, then the series is as good as dead. Can you imagine how much more dumbed-down the next one will be?

One would think when picking up a new game, from a genre/series you've never played, much less seen, you at least look the manual over to have some clue how to do some things. I'll admit, I really never look at a manual at first as I prefer to figure things out on my own, but if something isn't obvious, I'll look in the manual.

I've seen games with an "instant Action" button and I just wonder how many people picking this series up for the first time were looking for it. "I thought I'd get a sword and some armor and start swinging..."

I loved the "wow, it's a gray world"....later on "it's so much greener"....and then "well it looks alot better now". Completely oblivious to the NPC saying "ah, you're finally waking up." which would tell you, you aren't seeing clearly, for a reason. What's the point of immersion, if it's not even noticed. Is it any wonder they stripped some of it out of the game?

Uldred

kay im not watching 2 hours, but the point i think you are trying to make is that that guy is stupid and has no idea how to play the game.

as in, there is always someone who is... not using his cognitive faculties to their fullest... and gets stuck in a game. as in morrowind or oblivion arent obtuse, YOU are. removing game elements doesnt make the game just as complex but easier to approach, it just lowers the "standard" so to speak of what is expected of the player and ironically only makes it easier to the people who already know how to play it. there is always going to be someone who is approaching the game from the complete wrong direction, trying to gear a game towards them just changes who in particular ends up getting lost and frustrated. even with the simplest of instructions and the same boring ole' combat, this guy got lost.

RPGs are not for everyone. trying to make them for everyone just creates a lesser game for all parties. its just that one party is composed primarily of children and ironic hipster gamers who dont particularly know what they are even playing, or care. we figured out far more bloated and complicated games when we were children, yet this advlt is struggling with what most of us find to be quite approachable: it isnt a matter of complexity, it is a matter of taste, preference, and how one's brain naturally approaches a certain concept. no amount of "streamlining" is going to make a non-RPG player understand anything better, so why is that the primary focus?

showing us one idiot who cant figure out skyrim only serves to highlight why the concept of streamlining an RPG is stupid because clearly it didnt work.

Please lets not go there, just too depressing.

If that's really the case then we will be getting TES VI with Cole McGrath as the protagonist. Your choices will be turn evil or good.

I'm holding out hope that they will learn some lessons from the over-stupefying of this edition and incorporate a good bit more of the 'R' in the next game.

The vast majority of RPGs now move more towards the action game route and move further away from traditional stat heavy, "True RPGs".

Kinda like how most players in the NBA don't play defense and the refs bail out stars like Kobe and Lebron for ratings.

RPGs get "streamlined" (marketing speak for dumbed down) in order to sell to action gamers.

Skyrim is not unique in this. Even medicore RPGs like Dungeon Siege III was stripped and dumbed down trying to chase sales. It failed.

Lord of the Rings War in the North was a former action RPG like Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance, it was stripped, and dumbed down and made more action and less RPG. That also failed to sell.

Dragon Age 2 was severly "action'd up" and dumbed down and actually sold pretty well. But it's a terribly insulting game.

THIS x100

Its not dumbed down. Real life doesn't need skill boxes and stats to master different skills and "RP" and neither does TES. People who feel that way need to realize that their dumbing themselves down by limiting their expectations.

There's no reason TES needs to be held back by 1980's D&D pen and paper rules. You just "live another life" and grow better at what you do. That not dumb thats the next level.

i hate to break it to you but skyrim is not real life and is not realistic. if skyrim is the next level, its the next level down, not up.

Pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.

I did enjoy Skyrim for what it was, but it felt like they went the DA: II route and tried too hard for mass appeal at the expense of people that actually enjoy the features an actual RPG presents. Granted with the constant genre crossover that has been going on in the past 5 years it's not all to surprising, but it was kind of a bummer.

Real life doesn't function like a computer. If you practice something in real life, complex nervous system reactions associated with long-term memory and humanistic deductive and learning skills allow a person to get better at the given thing. In a video game (computer-rendered software), practicing something doesn't inherently make you better at it, it needs programmed formulas (a.k.a. stats) to recognize you're doing it in the first place and to reward you according, otherwise it simply doesn't happen. Your argument is based on a completely faulty, shallow anology that doesn't actually explain anything and instead displays a rather ignorant view of the reality of computing. Computing inherently needs numbers... period. There are no ands, ifs, or buts... no ways around it. You need stats and numbers to simulate the traditionally-simulated CRPG features.

OR you could just Read Seti's post which pretty much stomps the notion about RPING and Stats.

And RP doesn't need anything but your mind, what peeps are forgetting is that its still a game that doesn't give a hoot about your Rping and same goes for others who don't RP in their heads. they want a game not a blank non interactive canvas with no tools to do anything.

ROFL bogus tropes you're using.

"Real Life is... so RPG vidoe games are..." anology phail
"It's the player's fault" phailure.
"The next level" garbage 1990s marketing PR blurb speak

Skyrim's better off without the crap that we had to deal with in Oblivion/Morrowind. The Attribute system was terrible and flawed in design, The skills should be the real attributes, not a stat attribute system that causes more problems then good. Streamlining isn't dumbing down, Skyrim is still just as good as the previous games it just doesn't have that extra bit of stuff that could make your life a living hell.

LOL. Really I've never found any video games, RPG or not, "smart". Every Bethesda game I've ever played has been good 'ole mindless fun.

Seriously I hated Oblivion but you would be hard pressed to find more than 2 or 3 posts from me on that forum. I was out. I am shocked by the people that are on this forum stating their well stated opinions with passion, that haven't been happy with a game since MORROWIND. Really? Wow, I'm not disagreeing with their opinion but that is some incredible dedication to the series. If I would have disliked Skryim as much as I did Oblivion (like many posters I've seen seem to), You would never see me on this forum again.

I wouldn't buy the music of a band (or post on their forums) that gave me "seven years of svck" and I sure wouldn't do it for a gaming company.

Voting with the wallet is an effective vote. Me (and many others) did it with Netflix in Sept and kicked their ass.

hahahahaha i never knew 1st grade mathematics could make someones life a living hell!!!

Really, tell that to Oblivion's system where you had to game the system in order to surivive. You say Major skills are your important skills, if you did that in Oblivion the enemies would start kicking your butt, it's the minor skills that are king in that game. The system had to be changed and it's for the better, skills should always be more important then attributes.

way to blame the mess level scalings caused on the stats system, you know the same problem in Skyrim with people who level non combat skills?

I went back to play both of those games and quite frankly, both were click fests. Good games but major click fests.

That's their fault then, you should always have at least one combat skill in addition to the other skills, Oblivion had that same problem too. A pacifist character using frenzy will only get you so far in the game without One Handed or Destruction.

I hate to break it to you. But attributes are superrior to the crap we have now. In a video game, you need numbers, especially in a RPG.

They're the same, it's streamlining if you like it and dumbing down if you don't.

too bad there is nothing true in your statement. i have about 10 morrowind and 15 oblivion characters that prove your full of crap.