I hope Skyrims DLCs give us an over-lapping story like the NV ones did.
The whole "Two couriers, beneath torn skies and the old world flag" build up to Lonsome road was just brilliant.

Very good post. I love Skyrim, but all you've said is true and all your suggestions would greatly add to the game. I have played Fallout 3 and I found the world and people to be a lot more engaging. I'm planning on play NV after I'm done with Skyrim.

I agree completely, while NV wasn't perfect, I feel Skyrim is a big step backwards as far as interesting quests, intersting exploration, interesting characters, and potential twists.

since i bought vegas months later, my game is definitely not broken, garish, or jittery. in fact, it runs very smooth. and, you people with your incredibly irrational "invisible barrier" hate. so flippin what that you can't go over that pile of rubble or reach that outcrop of rock. so what that you can't get everywhere you can see. do we now have to put the equivalent of rope and carabiners in every game so that you can stand on that lonesome rock or make a shortcut that you think is appropriate? have you ever been to a scene of destruction in real life or been hiking? you CAN'T get over certain areas and have to go around.

like others have said, some of the additions in vegas are perfect and many of us thought they would naturally carry over since they were that good.

A few dedicated fans? NV sold better than FO3 and it's DLC consistently topped the download list on both the PS3 and 360. So, yeah, more than a few and far from a "cult classic". And the invisible walls were minimal. The largest being the west side of the map in the mountains. You could still go anywhere you want from the start of the game, you just had to be careful due to the lack of scaling in certain areas.

I had so many bugs on my New vegas that the game becamed unplayble for me

If I were to gauge my game interest on gametime, I've spent many more hours and months on NV than Skyrim despite it being a smaller game (I only played one DLC and moved on to Fallout 3, which I hadn't played yet.) After a little more than a month, I've "finished" Skyrim twice and am pretty much done with it until some DLCs come out. The only part I have any interest in anymore is the initial character creation, the rest is just a repetitive grind, it seems. By comparison, I played Oblivion for YEARS partly due to modders making the game much more interesting (OOO etc...) - I see that as the only hope for Skyrim, although I doubt they'll be able to fix repuation or world changing events like ending the civil war.

Skyrim could learn pretty much everything from NV.
Skyrim is great for exploring and playing as a loner, but the questlines are boring and without depth, same with most the NPCs.
The scaling is horrible, NV's was perfect.
Skyrim is never challenging unless you play on master with minimal smithing and enchanting, NV was pretty challenging from the start, even on normal difficulty.

NV's DLC was incredible. I love how all the DLC was intertwined with each other and the main game and how you eventually got to meet all the characters who you heard about in the main game.

In my opinion New Vegas was an 'optional-choices' ridden game and suffered much because of it.
Not that I don't like options mind you, I just find that when it dampens most other parts of a game then it's worth not focusing on them too much.
But this really boils down to traditional RPG features and quantity vs quality. New Vegas might have quality- but it lacks Skyrim's quantity.

So at the end of the day for me: both games need to learn from each other, as to not leave great gaping holes where content should have been.
They (the developers of such games) should also learn to not hope to fix such basic assets of a game in dlc created much later.

_{I do not understand where people complain about the level scaling in Skyrim. IMHO it is so much better then how childish they did it in Oblivion. It seems to be even more subtle then they did with Fallout 3 and that is a good thing. I am level 45 on Adept and still find some good challenging fights. The game can be overpowered if you make it that way. I have medium to high combat skills and some in crafting, speech, and stealth skills as well. People who whine about it being too easy are the ones IMO using the crafting exploits to death to make such crap as 10,000 Dmg Weapons FFS!!! Then they complain to BGS and they keep removing more options.}

New Vegas? I loved that game more than newer generation TES games (and FO3), but I don't think the conversation system was that deep. How come nobody mention the conversation system in Daggerfall? You could basically ask anyone about anything, depending on numerous "faction factors". I'd love to have this "generic dialogue" back as well, rather than limited to just specific dialogue. Another consequence of the "tiny" role playing world, I guess, but which of course gives us a much more detailed world (which I assume everyone wants). Skyrims world is absolutely fantastic, it's hard to find something to complain about. But mechanical wise, I'd take most of FONV any day. Too bad I can't play a game with fantasy (swords and magic) setting with proper mechanics.

FONV added A LOT of what I felt was always missing from FO3. I wonder what would happen if they decided to make a spinoff from TES - I would support it without doubt.

Disagree about the level scaling; being able to out-level content to the point of trivializing it is never fun. You definitely feel more powerful through perks in skyrim without needing everything around you to stop scaling.

The rest are good pointers, though. I think the inclusion of dragons and the renovated engine ate up some development time that would've normally gone into more fleshed out social features.

Skyrim is a great game, but it would benefit from all of these (except for scaling. There were some enemies in NV that I still couldn't kill at endgame). I agree with you completely.

Yup, I really miss some badass enemies in Skyrim. I could kill everything at level 15, which is pretty dumb.

you broke the forum

They did learn something from the game.
If your companion does a finishing move they no longer get the kill cam effect.

It was nice Boone killed a mole rat but I am fighting a super mutant here

Agreed.


I don't think a game where you can be one-shot is treating us like kindergarteners.


This is good, as it stops your character from being strong at too many things. If you want real power, you invest perk points.


FO:NV's lack of scaling resulted in a railroaded game. I even saw some indepth guides for circumventing deathclaws up north so you could get to other areas and not have to follow the same linear path every time. How sad is that? TES has always been about freedom, and FO:NV was about handholding.


Agreed, though companion AI is so poor in both games that I always played solo.


Agreed.

I play TES for the freedom. FO:NV put me in shackles, so I never got into the game.

The kill moves doesn't even fit in Skyrim, they felt somewhat better in FO3/NV but they were still annoying and reminded me of some cheesy godofwar scene.

I liked Fallout 3 better than NV and I like Skyrim better than both of them, however I do agree that Bethesda's weakest link is in their dialogue. Most of the time you could click anything without reading and wind up at the same place. I would love the game to react to my decisions more and I agree that NV did a better job with factions and companions.

Yes, it was. You had a choice to make, the direct and risky route or the longer but safer route. Not tried it myself but I'm sure there are people who managed to go the direct route at low levels with a mix of skill and luck.

As to the OP, I agree with some of the points. Certainly I think Bethesda went quantity over quality for companions. Less companions but with more back story and related quests, as Obsidian did in FO:NV, would have been better imo. I also liked that certain companions had things that would pretty much make them hate you, meaning if you wanted to keep them you'd have to give consideration to certain decisions.

Oh, and the companion wheel is sorely missed. As are companion perks, which made each companion different too.

Agree with dialogue too, more flowing conversations like FO:NV would be nice.

Also agree with the reputation - certainly glad to see the karma system out, was too blatant but some reputation would have been good.

Overall I think FO:NV and Skyrim are both 2 of the best RPGs I've played but it was disappointing that none of the Bethesda devs looked at what Obsidian did for them and incorporate some of the things that made FO:NV so great. Those things could have only made Skyrim better.

while i didn't like NV all that much overall it did do some things really right. i'm suprised beth didn't learn a thing or 2 or even hire some of obsidians writers. one thing skyrim could have improved upon was the factions, the vigilant and the silver hand could easily have been worked as small factions themselves, like the powder gangers or great khans. the vigilants allied with the imperials and the silver hand with the stormcloaks maybe. even the witches coverns could have found a place, with the DB maybe. as much as i like the game there is a real lack of purpose. NV had a boring, bland world, but it sure got the story and characters right. beth got that almost perfect balance of story and exploration with morrowind, but they seem to be regressing with each game.

You can walk directly east and get to NV from the start of the game but it was tough. No "indepth guide" needed. How is that hand holding? A whole world that scales with you IS hand holding, by definition which is more what Skyrim is. NV had hard and easy routes. Skyrim has nothing but mostly easy.

Immortal NPCs are also the very definition of hand holding. God forbid you fail a quest in Skyrim. Nope, can't have that.

I think the problem here is that Skyrim is written by Bethesda, while New Vegas was written by Obsidian's group of individuals that know how to tell a good story and balance a game, who also wrote Fallout 2.

I bet we see these factions expand in the DLC.