I am guessing balance isn't important to you then.
and in you example did you mean casting in a duel or dual casting?if the latter you would need 3 hands

1. Nope
2. Nope
3. Nope

So does this mean that if a game company releases a game that is dumbed-down, I should just accept it? That's like if a cook gave me a burned steak and I had to accept it because I am neither a cook nor am I skilled at cooking. Your logic just... it just... blows my mind on so many levels.

I would suggest actually understanding Falmers post.

Alright so basically you're NOT in a position to know what informed the design decisions that you did and didn't like. Which is what I thought. YOUR logic is just mind blowing because it's rather a simple concept to understand the difference between game X having features or lack there of you don't like and game x having features or lack there of you don't like and actually understanding what the thought processes on the part of the game designers was.

Yes, you should try that.

A GPS locater beacon appears to direct people to quest locations instead of in depth descriptions given during conversation. I think this kind of implies that the developers think the playerbase has trouble figuring things out on their own.

Are you trying to imply there is any sort of resemblance of balance in the game currently? LOL!

And so I concede defeat.

One last thought: Do you approve of this streamlining? If so, why? And if not, why not?

I don't think you need to be informed or know what lead the development team to design the system the way it is now to think it is a bad system and is dumbed-down. It most certainly is dumbed-down. We can only speculate as to why, but I think that there are obvious reasons as they relate to the game, and that would be the Perk System and Dual-Casting, both of which did not previously exist in TES. Logic dictates that if the game had the system before, the only reason they could not implement it into the current game would be recent additions. Those two culprits seem like a very good reason as to why Spell Crafting was not added. You can theorycraft all day as to how the system would be broken given Perks and Dual-Casting.

as correctly stated before, immersion comes from YOU. sitting in a room with a mouse or controller on a chair staring at a screen proves where the immersion ultimately lies. moot point. the fun you have while playing a "rpg" is not what i consider the traditional point of view if you consider leveling up to be non-immersive or in any way a negative. in fact, its exactly what i'd say the "dumbing down" of rpg's is leading to: the type of "immersion" you like. as well, by saying that bethesda has achieved this so-called immersion that you like in skyrim i will assume you do not level up or use the menu's, hotkeys, dialogue tree, etc. because that would make your entire argument moot.

btw, just lifting weights will not allow you to continually make gains and improve nor will running every day get you faster. to continue to improve past the initial gains you MUST crunch the numbers and exceed your previous limits. or else all you really do is prove that you are so sedentary that any form of physical activity was able to produce some results: aka. you didn't have to think about your exercise program or rpg at all.

For the most part yes.Sure there are some builds stronger than others(Assassin archer comes to mind)

I don't know why they did but I'm rather you know...ask them..instead of assuming.

I'll scale

Its just the quest giver pointing to your map

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Sorry. This game, scales miserably. There is little if any consistency throughout the game as it relates to balance.

Enchanting.
Smithing.


Look at those please. You do not have to exploit them. Simply by using them absolutely destroys any sort of "balance."

Further, it isn't like you can not put restrictions on spell crafting. It is not very difficult to envision a system that balances itself. Gives the player total freedom...inside a box. Daggerfall worked this way with character creation. Everything was weighted. If you wanted to have ~50 points into Strength, you had to lower other stats to do so. If you wanted to add Advantageous attributes, you had to give yourself Disadvantages. This created balance. Skyrim - does not have that. I have my cake, and eat it too.

Try playing pure destruction mage up to the 70s and 80s. Come back and tell me the game's balanced.

The game favors stealth, because stealth damage has so many multipliers. If you try playing a non-stealthy archer, you're going to have a much harder time doing everything than an archer who sneaks around and gets critical hits.

Hence the portion of what you qouted of mine differentiating know WHY a bad feature was implemented and understanding a feature as bad in and of itself. Skyrim to me fell into a pattern a lot of series do. Most of the time new iterations are steps foreward, steps back. As I've said elsewhere it has me primed with a lot of interest to see how much the next in the series being built for a new console generation will impact the design process.

So its hard to draw from that

They were able to release a game, Make them back to back no doub't you know, Oblivion, FO3, skyrim. the 6 or so games they publish alongside of the games they develope and the hiring of 70 voice actors (I've yet to hear 70 voice actors)

that they had an Whale shark load of money , wait I'm not done.

The Massive success of Oblivion and FO3 both of which got Goty

that they couldn't have put the effort into whats being asked for?

I think I lost my [insert item here] in Halefrost Caves. Could you go search for it for me?

The item you are looking for is in Halefrost Caves, under this rock right here. Hold on a sec while I draw an extremely detailed map from memory of what the caves interior structure consists of. I've marked an x on the very rock you need to look under.

I need you to meet with the courier on the long road. Hold on a second while I establish a psychic link with his mind for you. You should know exactly where he is at all hours of the day. Good luck!

Compare with

I lost my sword in Halefrost Caves. I can mark it for you on your map. I think I was near the back end of the cave when I dropped it.

I need you to meet with a courier. He'll be on the Long Road, and probably stop off at the lucky septim inn located here on your map. If you miss him there he's scheduled to stop in Markarth at the courier office.

If you are going to dispute balance with something as unbalanced as the Daggerfall char creation.One of us does not understand balance.
It was excellent for customization balanced it was not

They did it so people could find the locations for quests on the maps more easily. It's quite obvious I think. It helps to promote a more 'user friendly' system that is easier for players. It helps to promote players being able to move from plot point to plot point without becoming lost in the vast landscape of the gameworld. It also makes it easier for players who haven't been able to play the game in while to jump back into the gameplay. As a side effect it meant that conversation between quest givers and the player could also be much less verbose with NPC's not needing to explain in detail, in boring text nonetheless, how to find locations. GPS beacon is the ultimate in ease of use and accuracy in finding a location.

For a game like TES I don't think any of those are good things but at least you don't have to use the GPS beacons. However, the conversations are all built around the presumption of the GPS beacon's existence.

I guess what perplexes me is this idea of thinking that "console players" are different creatures. The only thing that separates a "console player" from a PC player are the chosen input devices. Gamepad versus Mouse and Keyboard. The Mouse and Keyboard has far more capabilities, that isn't being snarky just a fact. PCs further have more capabilities, than consoles. With the progression of consoles in the graphics department, I think what you will see is that people will start to realize just how pointless they are - hence Wii and Kinect etc are exploring new methods of input devices and gimmicks. PCs will always be superior machines.

The biggest difference between a game for a console and a PC is the fact that I do not need a radial menu to select abilities or spells. I can use any number of keys or combination of keys, or macros. With controllers, you must use a radial menu (which means stopping gameplay). The only thing that irritates me is that they handicap the PC versions many times.

With regard to the Spell Crafting system though, there would be no difference between a Console or PC in how it would function. Simple things like UIs or the control/movement of games and avatars will likely change but that is about it.

I think what might be lost on carrot is the idea of balance as a design consideration and all interations of that design being well implemented. We know that not everything in Skyrim was balanced well, but that does not mean the game doesn't have areas of balance.

I would have a similiar educated guess. But it would still be an educated guess.

I am not using Daggerfall as an example but the concept. The concept was great, but it was not implemented very well. To take that concept and implement it correctly, is pretty easy.

I think Todd Howard was replaced by an evil clone somewhere in between Morrowind and Skyrim.