It's more like going from a complicated book about Space that only hardcoe readers can understand, to a television show that breaks down the same issues in a much more easier to understand way. That benefits everybody. Except the hardcoe readers who think there isn't as much depth in the television show as there was in their hardcoe book. But the tradeoff is more people can understand what's going on. The book still exists for the hardcoe people if they want to read it, and for those who don't want to read it they get the television show. Everybody wins.

I'm a hardcoe D&D player, and I love the fact that Skyrim is a streamlined, fast paced RPG. When I want number-crunching and impossible amounts of game mechanical formulae, I'll play D&D. When I want a hack-and-slash video game RPG, I play Skyrim. Different moods and whatnot.

Without a doubt, I miss things like spellcrafting, and all that, but honestly, I'm very pleased with how the Perk system cleaned up the irrelevant mess that was TES's "class system." Classes were always a joke in TES games; they just didn't matter. You skilled up what you did regardless; class skills just determined when you leveled up(which even leveling was unnecessary in Oblivion). Nothing in the game reflected what "class" you were. I can build a more complete class using Perks than I ever could with skills.

Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible... but no simpler."

By that he meant that complexity that doesn't add meaning is pointless, but removing meaning to make a solution easier was "dumbing it down".

To be fair Bethesda did a little bit of both in Skyrim. They certainly trimmed alot of fat, but they also cut out some vital sinew and bone.

Except it's a new book in the series that doesn't live up to expectations of those who read the previous chapters, not the same one edited to be understood by dummies.

You answered your own question with the D&D Neverwinter Nights example. People. Enjoy. The. Complexity. Going through millions of numbers to customize your character with an insane level of control over every detail is infinitely more satisfying than having it done for you. It's the joy of figuring things out, learning how they work, and exercising your control over them. The same reason mechanics, engineers, and architects love their job. Intelligence and complexity are wonderful things to fuel the mind and encourage creativity and strong minds through intelligent thought. Some may use a lighter while others laugh at them and their sole reliance on modern technology. Those survivalists who realize that the lighter will run out of fuel, but the forest will never run out of tinder and wood.

Intelligence is the most satisfying, useful, and difficult-to-achieve trait an individual can have. This is why people dislike things being "dumbed-down".

I just don't see how Skyrim is for dummies. I think long time players of TES take for granted how complicated a game like Skyrim really is, because they've been playing TES games for so long, they're used to it. Skyrim is still incredibly complex at it's core. Just as complex as any of the TES games, if not more so. At the same time, it's also probably the easiest for a newb to pick up and play without being completely overwhelmed (Morrowind is not an accesible experience, Oblivion is a bit more accessible, Skyrim is the most accessible). Making something accessible to people is not a bad thing. It opens up the RPG genre to people who may have been overwhelmed by intense stat systems and what not in the past. It allows your game to be played by more people, and in turn making new fans to your series and allowing for your games to continue to progress and grow. I think it's a beautiful thing.

Then you're not enjoying RPGs - RPGs are not about immersion and roleplaying, they're about numbers and stats and all that. At least that's how they're defined nowadays.
You enjoy sandbox adventures. Which is good, because Skyrim is one. But it is not a full-blooded RPG, it's more of a cross between rpg and hack n' slash... And that is what many RPG fans dislike. They want to be able to make even the slightest changes to their character, as they level up.
And that audience is not at all dwindling - it just moved from single-player RPGs to online RPGs. Some of the best MMORPGs out there allow you to tailor-cut your character exactly the way you want to, through multiple skill trees, various different types of equipment and various skills and classes, down to the last health point, weapon enchantment, and skill effect. I actually enjoyed trying to lay down all the numbers myself what would be the effect in my DPS, DPH, active Health regen and everything else if I reduced the cooldown of skill y by x seconds, or the crit rate and hp sacrifice of skill z by a% and b%, etc...

It's an exaggeration, as is just about every argument here.

Skyrim just feels drab in comparison. All good games. But that one feels better than the new one. And then there is suddenly a bunch of kids trying to prove to me that my feelings are all wrong because their's are superior.

This has nothing to do with one's intelligence. You're implying that ppl who don't like too many stats in their games are less intelligent then RPG elitists is this is really "dumb".

I'm a software programmer and I spend the most part of my day burning brain cells writing algorithms. I consider myself a smart person but I don't like spending my free time making super complicated calculations in a video game. I want an immersive experience where I can feel like I'm in another place doing something different from what I do everyday. This dosen't make any "dumber".

Lemme get this right: you just said that RPGs are not about immersion and ROLEPLAYING? Do you know what RPG stands for?

...because it is userfriendly enough for non-hardcoe fan to use.

umm....i thought rpg stood for ROLE PLAYING Game...that was the point of D&D, to role play a character (it just happened to also involve insane amounts of game mechanics and stats)...Skyrim is a RPG, in as much that you actually have to role play yourself (the story does not do it for you), you must create who you are and why you are doing these quests because the story falls short in many aspects...

It's what people recklessly toss around when they are trying to wax intelligent or sound like gaming gods.

...And once again you're ignoring games you don't want to consider, such as the extremely popular Total War series, which has increased its complexity with each new release, or Europa Universalis (which is far more complex than Civilization), or Witcher. Again, your cherrypicking examples don't make them so. Games are getting less complex...and more complex, depending on which series is in question.

And again, the complexity of graphical and audio options is far, far greater nowadays than in the 90s, despite your claiming the opposite to be the case. Stating something doesn't make it so.


Or, you know, they go to the games that are getting more complex.

But returning to your theme: games being dumbed down. This is completely subjective, both right and wrong, depending on the player. Arguing the point makes no sense whatsoever.

It is fine to make things easier as you say it is evolution. But removing more complex things from the game world per say in TES. I do not call that evolution, I call it deevolution. IMO this is the way the whole real world is going. Everything is being made easier and make accessible. Even the way we talk is being shortened every day. Instead of people learning how to do something for themselves, they expect society to cater to their needs like babies. I suspect sometime in the future like 50 to 100 years we will all be grunting like cave men again....

I played The Witcher but not TW2 and I fail to see how that is a complex RPG when you can't even pick up classes or create your own character. Of course you can distribute stat points and pick perks but it has little impact on your end game or playstyle.

What TW has is plenty of choices and consequences but that's easy to achive in a linear game. Not so much in an open world like Skyrim.

It should stand for that, judging from the name... unfortunately, Roleplaying is what you do in more than half the games out there, from Skyrim to Tomb Raider to Crash Bandicoot (yes, playing the role of a mutant marsupian is technically just as much role-playing as playing the role of a cat-humanoid trying to save the world from an immortal dragon, since both have you playing a role) so the term "RPG" evolved to stand for all those games with D&D-style mechanics, stats, skill trees and the lot as a central part of the gameplay. That's why every gaming site out there qualifies WOW as an RPG, but games like Heavy Rain as point n' click adventure.
Skyrim is still an RPG, since the stats and items still play a fairly big role in the gameplay, but numbers here have much less importance than, say in FF games/WOW/D&D etc, and there is an almost equal focus on pure hack n' slash mechanics.

If you cannot make ANY changes or customisation to your character AT ALL in Skyrim, this is what AD&D aficionados would call "Cookie-Cutter Characters". That is, they are all identical and cut from the same mold. What you see is what you get and what you get is what you are given, lump it or lump it. Some used to say that about 2nd edit AD&D, and even more about First Edition AD&D.

I can see a place for both, play with the skills you want in a manner which suits your style and vision and see what cyber-life gives you. Or choose a collection of certain traits, skills and abilities at the expense of others, like in a game with character classes (Wizard, Warrior, Thief etc). But in AD&D there is a real difference: Oblivion, not so much.

But in Morrowind and Oblivion, you could focus on non-selected skills and get up to 100% in Alchemy and Spell casting and still be a third level Warrior. What's that all about?

DESIGN FLAW.

~

It means that some people don't like that when you hit level 8 you need to make absolutely sure that you have put 3 points into STR and 2 points into DEX and at least 1 point into CHA because of the way it maps out that you need to have at least 8 points int STR by the time you hit level 11 so you can wield the incredible axe of Foozle.

You'd rather have the Dark Monkey God's Black Bow of Awesomeness because the dps it can put out against those ghost lions over in tm the NW plains is insane and the money you can get for their pelts is huge, but only if you have 6 points in charisma by the time you hit level 9 to take the Hagglemaster skill.

But you can't use the bow because the restrictions of the class you chose way back at the beginning before you knew anything doesn't allow you to use bows at all or at least well enough to make it worthwhile.

So, just tweak your DEX and ignore your WIS because you need to be able to do Fast Roll by level 12 or you have little hope of making it through the Cave of Unending Sorrow to retrieve the Amulet of Nancy Drew which ups your CON just enough to let you wear Mighty Morphin Plate Mail which will help you survive the Orc King's dual axe attack (if you time it just right and use Fast Roll and Gazelle Sprint at the precise moment. You did take Gazelle Sprint at level 4 didn't you?!).

What? No Gazelle sprint AND you wasted 2 points in WIS AND you took Bird Call?! You're screwed. You need to re-roll.

Skyrim is far from perfect, but it does a lot of things right. Better cultural adaption to player affected modifications would go a long way in making it more immersive. More flexibility in crafting and magic too.

Number crunching and micromanagement to meet class criteria? No thanks.

I started playing PnP D&D in 1st edition. I've played many RPGs since. I am tweaker, fiddler, micromanager of sorts. Skyrim hides a lot of the bit twiddling under the hood and let's you play how you want without requiring artificial building. It's progression is organic.

It'd be awesome if people stopped using blanket statements to describe D&D and it's players. Biggest difference in D&D versus a TES game, is that in TES games you can max out all skills. In D&D, you have to carefully pick what you're good at.

I have 7 active characters in Skyrim, all above level 35, and are all far, far from being "cookie cutter."

Dumbed down isn't exactly bad depending on what the exact thing your talking about is. Skyrim is a step in the right direction, is it perfect no nothing ever is but it's much better then the previous games and better right now then the rest of it's competition in the industry, although we will see if Skyrim can stand up to Reckoning.

That is the core root of the problem when it comes to all the complaining, the hardcoe RPG nut that has a specific defintion of what is or isn't an RPG. They can't accept the fact that we don't have the standard Warrior, Rogue, Mage class, or heck any classes, not to mention other RPG features like Attributes and Spellmaking. Classes is a flaw in the aspect of Roleplaying, it sets you in one area but what if my Warrior wants to be a Healing Mage, I can do that with Oblivion due to the custom class setup but if there wasn't custom classes in Oblivion and we had the archtypes I wouldn't be able to do that. Roleplaying needs to be flexable, not every character has the same story and I think Skyrim does a good job with having no classes, you develop your character the way you want too. I think KOA Reckoning solves the class problem by starting you out as nothing and then progressing you towards a particular archtype either Warrior, Mage, Rogue, or a Hybrid of the 3 main class types.

That's pure gold

There are a couple of things going on with the claims of "dumbed down", and when people oversimplify (which happens often) they're not making a good case for themselves.

First, game marketing has glommed onto the phrase "streamlined". Ideally, streamlined means that extraneous fluff is being removed, but frequently it means "we yanked features but want to make it sound like a good thing". Sometimes it IS a good thing. Sometimes it's not. Regardless, some people get annoyed by marketing hype, and that creates a confrontational atmosphere from the start.

Some people want TES to be a fantasy FPS. For these people, any amount of feature cutting is a good thing, as long as it doesn't affect graphics or animation. But even if you're in the FPS camp, you're not being rational if you think removing features is (usually) not simplifying the game, i.e. dumbing down.

But to make matters more complicated, there are many features in every BGS game that are poorly implemented. TES history is that a badly implemented feature will get removed rather than fixed. Often the idea is good, but the devs screwed it up, probably because it was low priority. Mods will come and fix these features, showing what could be done if the devs put time into it, but instead we see the feature removed from the next game. This behavior creates a lot of contention on the forum.

There are various aspects to gameplay: strategy, planning, role playing, immersion, etc. Some people want challenge from the game, some people want to make choices and think, others want to feel like gods from the start of the game and/or "just play the game". Each release from BGS narrows the range of game elements (i.e. less strategy, less planning needed), and each new game is a little closer to an FPS.

Many of the feature cuts or changes are debatable (or just a matter of opinion), but some aren't. The GPS and quest arrows, for example, are clearly hand-holding for a casual crowd. These aren't about "just playing the game", they're "just skipping elements that require you to think".

But the point you made was that games in series are getting less complex: full stop. Whether the games I mentioned were linear or not, doesn't matter. Each series has grown more complex. Europa Universalis, for example, is extremely non-linear--not that this matters--and each of the three versions has grown far more complex over time.

There's no trend that applies to all games, in other words, or even all RPGs. I *do* think that companies looking to expand their share in the console market are simplifying games to get younger users (who typically are more prevalent on consoles), but that's just speculation on my part. But on PC only titles, or even PC/xbox, I don't see a clear trend.


This is an extremely insightful point.

The axe of Foozle is UP.get the slappers sword instead noob.