Eww the word twisting and mockery in this thread reaks.

RPGeezers? rofl are you serious? you know people that were 8 and played morrowind are now 18 right or 13 and are 23? and some of them have seen the loss of options. some of you folks really need to stop impaling yourselves on "they are mad because they lost numbers" to be quite frank if thats the farthest you cognition would want to comprehend why people LIKE OPTIONS and MORE FEATURES and MORE CONTROL instead of "IMAGINATION" which removes the point of playing the game in the first place then it would be better you -not- comment on their preferences

seriously the "Blank paged book with the word TES on the cover" isn't far from the truth, the "roleplay that they are mad that I slew the entire village" is a bit much, since when has Roleplay gone from a player preference style to an Excuse that the makers of the game can ignore implementing and improving features? no one on this board, NO ONE cares in any shape or form how you role play and what you imagine to make up for what the game Lacks in terms of World alteration, Quest outcomes, Options and deviations from the mundane go here kill this.

I see folks beating the Open world drum and I can't help but feel you'd be totally content with a flat plane of Starkwhite into infinity with 0 options and just a single word that says "Imaginate" honestly thats what it looks like. how you roleplay is a redherring, don't matter. news flash the majority of people DO NOT MENTALLY ROLEPLAY all 10 million of Skyrim players do not neccesarily roleplay and Imaginate, they explore, they do what little the game offers them and then drop it when those run out. Roleplaying is not and should never be an excuse for lacking features, gamesas did not make the game soley For roleplayers




I mean Do you not see the Irony? people going on about how this is a Modern RPG, we don't need no Numbers and Streamlining is the way of the future, and yet They are STILL imagining things that don't exist much in the same way Table top pnp role players did ages ago and still do. They had a reason, THAT was their medium, now you have games giving you the world and the quests but when things don't make sense on the GAME prespective, which has been stated ad infinity on this very thread, the excuse is to Imagine it happened.


Disclaimer, this post is not in any shape or form intended to be Inflammatory by any means, do not flame me.

dumbed down describes any changes that have happened between two games, because anything bethesda ever does is always catering to a wider stupider audience that cant handle the complexity of things like crafting spells, taking directions, or walking between cities

The condescending tone from the other side has also left a peculiar aroma.We all have our faults.

I see it his way.

The old school believes stats should rule all.ie How you advance in a guild ,combat,reactions, everything.

The new school believes at some point story takes over.That flies in the face of what oldschoolers expect from a game.

It just a matter of taste. It has nothing to do with being stupid. As I said above I work all day long making algorithms, when I get home I want to relax, not keep doing complicated calculations to try and min/max my character. I play games for the story and immersion and Skyrim deliver both.

Nice try to look superior but failed miserably.

And that guy wants it to be complex, how is his wish different from yours?

I didn't call him stupid for doing so. That's the difference.

Also when I find a game that is too complex for my liking I just quit playing it. I don't go to their forums to complain about it.

I`m sure it`s already been explained, but `Dumbed down` is where a series or type of game (or games in general) have been made MUCH EASIER then in previous generations.

For instance, while some think Master in Skyrim is hard, it`s really only Normal compared to games of about 10 years ago.

Get baldur`s Gate and play that on the hardest difficulty. You die instantly from an arrow from a lowly kobold. leveliing from 1 to 2 feels like forever.

Or try Morrowind on the hardest level- death is swift unless you run away fast and levelling up takes 4 times as long.

In fact, I got so used to never leveeling up that even now I don`t think about it until it happens.


Some people say that the dumbing down is good, but I say that overall, it`s been bad for true role play gaming which is what it was all about. But no one even knows about the pen and paper rpg days where it all came from...

Personally, I play Elder Scrolls for the lore (tasty tasty lore), character development, and the ability to explore an entirely different world. So as far as I'm concerned, the series isn't anymore dumbed-down than its predecessors in most aspects.

You can make a good (and very understandable) argument about Skyrim's magic, dialogue, UI, Guild, perk, and questing system, but to be perfectly honest, whenever I see someone complain about "dumbing-down', I just expect endless gripping on how the game didn't reach their expectations.

Its not about Min/maxing Character which wasn't even the fault of the players but level scaling, it was neccesary if you cared about not getting curb stomped by common bandits.... way to ignore the points.

You called him overly smart for a wish for a game to be complex.
He called you a dummy for a wish for a game to be simple.

Yay.

Well I don't get curb stomped by common bandits the way it is now.

Wow, big fat letters really made your point more valid!

But seriously, the "dumbing down" topic can be, has been, and will be discussed to death, simply because there is no definitive answer. It's simply a matter of opinions and what type of game your prefer most. Old-school D&D/RPG/TES players prefer extensive stats and numbers while a lot of "new" gamers prefer action-orientated games with roleplay elements. It all comes down to a matter of opinion. The only thing a lot of people in this discussion are guilty of is stating their opinion as fact.

The entire process of "dumbing down" (a term I hate but will use for making my point) in the case of TES is caused by Bethesda attempting to make their games more popular - and make more money in the process, obviously. They look at their own games and games from other companies and say "What do people like and what don't they like". The answer is that the majority of people dislike number crunching and prefer to play unhindered by whether they leveled skill "X" far enough or whether they should put the 3 stat points in often vague stats like "Agility", "Intelligence" or "Luck" (altough in Oblivion they were already really simple). The logical outcome is that they removed these things to make it more accessible - and as a result more enjoyable - for most people.

A common mistake in the reasoning behind this, however, is that these people are somehow stupid, dumb, or in some other way less capable of making these decisions. More often than not, these people are more than capable to make said decision, but just don't have the time to invest to figure out the underlying workings and calculations. They simply don't want to be bothered with it and prefer to just go out and explore, do a quest or two and then lay the game aside to play it a day or two later. So Bethesda decides to appeal more to the largest group of gamers: casual gamers. Consequentally, they remove the complexities under the hood and spend their resources on more superficial things.

The sad part of it is that Bethesda, in making these "dumbing down" decisions, is more and more alienating their hardcoe fan base. These people have often played since Daggerfall or Morrowind and really like to dive deep into the games complex workings and figure out how to perfect their characters either to min/max it or to roleplay it exactly as they want. And if you look closely under Skyrim's hood to try and do that, there just isn't much there.

The perfect solution would be to make leveling, character creation, spellcrafting, and all those things that are being "dumbed down" very accessable on the surface but add a layer of depth behind it that's completely optional but allows hardcoe players to dive into and craft their character into their personal perfection. I think the Bethesda developers personally would love to do that but simply don't have the resources (time and money). I would love to see everything combined in a single TES game personally, because I like number crunching and complex game mechanics but also love to discuss the game with friends and they certainly don't like to spend their time in speadsheet like menus.

Slighty unrealted; I don't belive the lack of options in dialogue really falls under this category. TES never had much choice in dialogue and you can't expect a Fallout or BioWare level of branching dialogue. But I still think Skyrim would be a lot better if there were more choices to make. A lot of times there's just one choice of dialogue which feels a bit odd if you're really roleplaying a character. Even if it was just flavor, more choices would improve roleplaying potential and would improve the game overall without costing too much resources.

TLDR:
It's discussion without end. However, "Dumbing down" is not a correct term since it's a rather elitist misconception that casual gamers are generally dumber than hardcoe gamers. Bethesda will continue to try and outsell their previous titles and in that appeal to the largest group of gamers: casual gamers. If you can't handle that you can probably give up on the series and look for a hardcoe RPG series, but I'm afraid there's not many of them out there anymore.

It`s the same with Battlefield 3, I played hardest on that which makes me laugh since it`s more like Normal. Yet I hear people whining how hard the hardest level is.

The expectations of difficulty has been dumbed down because company`s want to introduce an ever younger crowd to the profit margin. that`s why we have dumbing down. It`s that simple.

what i find really strange is why they don`t keep the difficulty levels and depth but just make OPTIONAL levels for people who want it `dumbed down` but some companies actually feel that some people can`t handle choice, especially console gamers.

Because the same people are assumed to be incredibly insulted; if you imply they are terrible at games and should play on "kiddie mode"

The only kinds of games that can get away with extreme difficulty without getting yelled at by marketing are highly competitive games or games that are explicitly marketed for their difficulty.

People shouldn't confuse difficulty with complexity. A lot of stuff like the old Mega Man games, Ghouls and Ghosts,etc were tough...but they weren't complex.

This. If Bethesda wants to expand to a wider range of gamers, that's fine. I like that, more power to them. However, like Blade said, they should've made that transition OPTIONAL. If gamers don't want to have all the attributes thrown in their face, fine, just make it so the gamers chose one or two stats to level up and the game computes the rest for them (i.e. if the player chooses "Stamina", level up the other attributes like running speed and so on accordingly). However, if a gamer wants to have all the attributes fine-tuned to his or her liking, they should have the option to fine-tune all the attributes and statistics available in the previous games. It's not about dumbing-down the series, it's about changing the series' core game mechanics. Having a simple level-up perk system is fine, but it's not TES style and should not be a mandatory part of the TES franchise. Having numerous statistics which allow me to fine-tune my character to his specific class has always been a staple of the TES series (admittedly, this was part of the issue which caused the jack-of-all-trades characters in Oblivion) and the TES series should retain it as part of the franchise's feel.

Conversely, games like Daggerfall and Morrowind were very complex but ultimately not that hard.
I dont know what the cardinal point here is aside from a soundbite.

I'm afraid to say the above sort of posts remind me of sports fans who like to use words like "we" when talking about their team and the decisions, wins,loses,etc they have.

The only part of the game I really felt was dumbed down was the entire quest and dialogue system. Just a tiny little unimportant part of the game, really.

But why not make easier levels? You don`t make ALL levels easy because those who don`t wnat to `feel` they can`t handle hard would get insulted?

That`s just illogical. If people are that sensitive then just rename the difficulty levels like instead of `Easy` call it `Guardsman` and `Normal` can be `Sergeant` and hard could be called `Major`...

Dumb but if that`s what it takes for more challenge...

Point is exactly what I posted. People should not confuse one variable for the other. A lot of assumptions on what constitutes "dumbed down" are hinging on poor foundations.

The problem is that time and money are not infinite resources, specially in the game developement industry and doing that stuff costs both.

This is ideal. RPGs, no matter how deep or shallow, should be about choice at heart. Maybe someday Betheseda will make a game that appeases the casual and hardcoe crowds alike. The forums clearly need it.

In Skyrim Do you min max? can you? no ? so whats your point.


no no doing what alot of people are griping about does not take vast amounts of time in money, the grips are infact extremely simple.