Don't claim his criticism is invalid because it's negative. It's obviously a series he cares about and he wants it to be as good as he thought previous games were. Why would you "Take your business elsewhere" when a forum for discussion about Skyrim is the ideal place for this kind of thing. Criticism is needed to make improvements.

How will you get anyone to accept your opinions and wishes, when you fail at accepting the game? I think that there is no arguing going on here and because there is no point in arguing when the argument is how something was in the past. If one wants to relive the past then one can replay Morrowind. Period. Skyrim however is a new game. So if one has an opinion or a wish then one looks into the future and says what one wants to see there. Besides, there was Oblivion inbetween Morrowind and Skyrim. You might as well complain about it too then.

Fus-Ro-Dah!!! *Dovakiin does not look back - he blows away*

Eh, let's be fair, easily half of the perks in Skyrim are filler or just useless. Is there anyone who bothers specializing into lockpicking or pickpocketing at all, for example? Then you have all the "XX level spell now costs half mana" and % damage increase perks as well..


The problem is that there's barely any good stories in Skyrim too. Companions was incredibly short and forgettable, College managed to intrigue me when the object you retrieve came into play but had a really dumb ending. Thieves Guild was pretty good and actually of acceptable length and served a clear purpose after I was done.


i'm mixed on this. I found some of the attributes really annoying myself (having to remind yourself to keep jumping was just stupid) but simply removing all of them just comes over as a lazy design choice..

Skyrim is one of the greatest action-adventures I've played, I just wish it was meatier on the RPG side.

Ok, a few reasons behind wanting some of these things.

• Spears and Crossbows. I do miss spears and I'd love to see them return. People as what they would add? The answer is simple. Spears, or polearms in general, would add a new play style. They handle differently from 2handers, sword and board, dual wield, etc. Crossbows, I don't mind their loss as much. They're not particularly well suited to the nature of combat found in TES games. Bows seem to work better for that,
  
• Spellmaking. That one should be obvious. There is a severe lack of spells in Skyrim and they don't scale. It'd be nice to be able to make a spell that is tailored to my needs, even if it is just a lighting bolt that does more damage.
  
• Attributes. Personally I find their absence tangible and I would like to see them return, though perhaps not in the same way. Attributes might have been middlemen, but their touched many aspects of gameplay. In Oblivion, I used the mod nGCD and I'd like to see them in a system like that. I would like to see their increase autmated based upon skill levels. You raise your one-handed skill and your strength goes up automatically, in turn affecting encumbrance, 2-handed and any other strength-based skill. And it also gives you that level to manipulate through magic or disease, which is one of the areas their loss is most apparent in Skyrim.
  
• Longer Questlines. Because it's unrewarding to be handed leadership of an entire guild after a few short quests. Longer quests can help tell a better story and is more likely to make you feel like you earned your reward at the end.

I love Skyrim, but I do have to agree with most of your points.

Because this star-spawn of Cthulhu will otherwise make you his mind-slave,
svck out your brain-goodness and send your soul back to the ether of Cthulhu's stomach acids.

Locks for one. Make several way to access them

Bash - noisy(Detection by NPCs), possibility of destroying items inside.
Pick - silent, depends on lockpick ability
Spell - In between silent and noisy. Depends on alteration ability.

Different weapons have different playstyles.

You can keep enemies at length with spears. Get in close with daggers. Trade blows with S&S. Try to overcome defenses with 2Handers. Fire more rapidly with bows, or fire with force with crossbows. Darts/Throwing weapons require no maintenance and are fairly silent.

Levitation was always a rather magicka intensive spell and doesn't last forever(Levitating gods were a result of gaming the alchemy/enchant system). It was abusive in morrowind because the combat ai was terrible. So now that the combat ai can handle it, it's removed. Why not work on it instead of scrapping it altogether?

Spellmaking allows you to combine parts of spells you'd like to use instead of casting the base spell every single time.

As I have mentioned before: those features are not "missing". They never were in Skyrim. In order to be retuned, they must have been there at one point.

Beth didn't remove them. They didn't include them. That's a subtle but large difference. TES is not a series of game design sequels and never has been, and they already made those other games with those other features and more importantly, I already bought those games. More content is always better but I willl never agree that they should have something just becasue it was in a previous game. Is it a really popular feature? A great gameplay concept? Fine we'll talk

You have this backwards. Levitation opens up new avenues in level design, ones that are impossible when everyone is stuck on the ground.

This would require an entire re-design of the combat system, not just adding the weapons. Though I would not protest if TES dumped that old burden as well, you would hear even more complaints that the game has changed and become less like Morrowind.

A lot of the perks were filler material, true, but in my mind it serves a purpose. The skill-trees I think represent this well enough is 1/2-handed, archery, L/H armor and most magic schools, and maybe sneak. Having a perked melee combatant do 2x damage or can cast the same spell at 50% the cost seems smart IMO, but as I said I hope for bigger trees next time. As in 3-6x bigger, though you should also be awarded a few more points to spend each level. I agree that many skills feel useless though.

I agree that the factions in Skyrim isn't great, but they'll do until we get some good stories(I believe) in DLC.

I would be totally ok with this. It's already doing action/adventure style combat, why not make it good action/adventure combat?

Elaborate.

How would introducing unlocking spells add choice to Skyrim? It makes a whole skill tree, lockpicking and the lockpicks themselves completely redundant - to say nothing of the Skeleton Key's importance to the Thieves Guild storyline. Unlocking spells would actively detract from Skyrim's gamplay. Similarly, levitation would be a completely superficial addition to Skyrim and would take away from Skyrim's geography, which was not designed to be viewed while in flight. The loss of crossbows and spears is not a substantial one There are plenty of options for a player to choose from and two additional weapons, while perhaps a nice addition, do not define an RPG. The lack of them does not turn a game into a 'lifeless void'.


I would like to see spellmaking, but I'm content without it. Furthermore, I feel that the lack of scaling damage in some magic skill trees is an issue in itself and not something that should be 'patched' with spellmaking. It needs its own fix.

I disagree strongly with your example of skill attributes. My newest character is a sneaky illusionist who uses one-handed weapons as his main offense. He's not built for taking on people in some all out melee brawl, but for sneaking up behind them and shoving his swords through someone's gut. If his strength increased and carrying capacity increased at the same rate his one-handed skill did (possibly sacrificing potential which might well have gone into furthering more suitable attributes), it wouls undermine his concept.

Every Elder Scrolls game has built on the last. Level scaling in Oblivion was in direct response to complaints over how godly characters became in Morrowind. Quest markers were implemented after people were lost in Morrowind (the puzzle box being the most obvious one). Classes/Major/Minor skills were removed in Skyrim in response to players restarting after realizing they wanted to take their character in different directions. Every TES game since Morrowind has felt extremely similar. Even Fallout felt very much like Bethesda's Elder Scrolls offerings.

The idea that this is a totally stand alone game, and that arguing out features that existed in previous titles, but not in this one is an unreasonable criticism, is silly.

How does that open up new avenues in level design? You want levels that you have to have levitation to get through?

That is EXACTLY what choice is. Having the OPTION to NOT use lockpicking. Oblivion had both unlock spells AND the skeleton key and it did fine with having both. You still needed skill in alteration to open locks and skill in security to lockpick.

Would you be alright with beth saying you're going to play a warrior, no other builds are acceptable?

That would actually be damn cool to have in Skyrim. Imagine having these really secret places you can only reach by levitating off the exact right spot on a mountain facing it!

Exactly, and if you want to have roleplaying elements, why not make them good roleplaying elements?

Then why not have locks require lockpicking?

Anyway, there are places that you can only reach using whirlwind sprint.

I agree that longer quest lines and deeper stories would add a lot more to the game, and it is one of Skyrims biggest weaknesses.


I do disagree with the opinion that Skyrim is a shallow game. I've gotten around 180 hours of solid playtime out of Skyrim so far which is much more than what I get out of 90%+ of all the games I ever own or play.

There is a lot of good, solid gameplay in Skyrim. It may not all be what some people WANT in an Elderscrolls game, but the gameplay and content is there.

If only...

Sure. Or at least, alternative pathways and the ability to outmanuever/avoid enemies. How is it any different than locked rooms only being accessible to qualified thieves or the ability to sneak past enemies?

Explain why you want more choices. Is lock picking broken? Do you feel that the new mechanic compared to Oblivion is worse?

If you just want more choices then I'd say you are simply in love with the feature and all you ever want to do is to pick locks. If so we could add many more options to it, like acid and oils, timed explosive charges, lifting the entire chest and throwing it down a hill, have a horse ride over it, ...

Oh, it definitely is. Honestly, for all the criticism you read in this forum, I imagine there's very few people who genuinely dislike the game. In fact, you need feel a lot of love for it to be motivated enough to invest all that effort into critique. A gem like Skyrim is always welcome in today's gaming industry where 5 hour interactive movies have become the standard for single-player experiences, it's just mostly the more veteran RPG fans who wish there was more value to the game in terms of choice, consequence, etc..


My good man, choices have been an essential part of RPG's for a looong while. You might as well question the necessity for magic trees when you can kill stuff just as well with a sword.

All of those would be fine inclusions, though perhaps less practical.

Cecliff's suggestion is simply offering a straight-forward solution that provides options for all the character archetypes instead of arbitrarily locking some out (or more realistically, forcing players to play outside their character to complete certain objectives).