Skyrim is a good game. However, it has some poor design choices that often hinder gameplay and role playing. Many of the things that I believe Skyrim failed at, New Vegas did wonderfully. Below is a list of some of those things.


- Player Dialogue. New Vegas had great depth in dialogue options for your character. Skyrim has absolutely no variety in what your character can say, crippling countless role playing styles. Speech in NV is a useful skill because it fundamentally shaped how a quest played out. Speech in Skyrim is borderline worthless.

- Handholding. Skyrim treats us like we're kindergarteners. Half of Skyrim's populations is immortal, which is annoying more than anything. Quests are unable to be failed in Skyrim. This is frustrating and lessens any sense of accomplishment from completing difficult challenges. New Vegas has almost no immortal NPCs, and quests feel important because they aren't completable if you don't have the skill.

- Perks and Skills. In Skyrim, skill isn't very powerful. I would estimate 90% of power is from perks, and 10% is from skill level. This effectively cripples skills in and of themselves because they don't help a lot directly. For example, one handed skill 30 and a perk is equal in power to 100 skill in one handed and no perks. New Vegas has the power at about a 50/50 split, meaning both skills and perks have power without either becoming worthless if you don't focus on both of them. Perks are just plain better in New Vegas too.

- Scaling. New Vegas has scaling based primarily on geography. This makes the world realistic, and allows the player to fight extremely powerful opponents right from the beginning. Skyrim has scaling primarily based on level. This both dis-incentivizes leveling your character, as well as lessening believability of the world.

- Companions. Skyrim has boring companions. Only a handful have semi-interesting stories to tell (like Mjoll the Lioness). Apart from being kind of boring, they lack a companion wheel to properly command them. New Vegas had a ranged/melee toggle, a stay close/stay far toggle, a "use healing" button, an angry/passive toggle, and a few other things. Skyrim has only a wait/stay and a somewhat unhelpful "do this" button. The "do this" button in Skyrim also doesn't work right half the time, because companions attack horses instead of riding them. New Vegas has companions focused on quality, and Skyrim focuses on quantity. I believe quality should come before quantity when it comes to companions.

- Reputation System. Skyrim doesn't have one, either viewable in a menu or behind the scenes. Stormcloaks treat you virtually identical whether you are a Legate or a Stormcloak General. Same with the Empire. New Vegas had factions that would change how they treated you based on your interactions with them. This caused choices you made to have impact, and made the game world feel more alive. It also helped role playing, because it made your alliances relevant to the character you were trying to role play as.



These are just a few of the things I thought of, what do you guys think? Discuss!

New Vegas was not made by Bethesda.

That's cool, because I never said that.

I completely agree.

In my opinion New Vegas is a much better RPG then Skyrim......Skyrim is just way to casual and easy to play.....the only challenges come from poor gameplay levelling.....which is not where you want the diffeculty to come from.

Scaling is good in Skyrim. I got owned by a troll at level 6 and they were a good challenge up until around level 15, frost trolls a bit higher. Also giants are pretty bad ass and can one hit kill at lower levels. I can own them now very easily at level 30+

New Vegas had some good points like you have mentioned and I agree with the rest of the stuff, but the game just felt horrible to me and was very buggy. I enjoyed Fallout 3 much more.

Your criticisms are appropriate; Skyrim's an amazing game (and I wouldn't say it's crippling to roleplaying in general; there's still variety; I just want moar), but there's room for improvement in upcoming DLCs/Elder Scrolls VI.

I disagree with scaling, largely because I'm not experienced enough (my main is only level 20) to really see how this scaling truly works (and I never played NV). From what I've observed, it seemed fine, but I don't know...

This is Beth's first test of the new perk system. Hopefully they learn from it.

As for speech, Skyrim doesn't seem to focus too much on quests. Real pity too, because quests are awesome.
Still, I'm mildly hopeful that Bethesda's gonna add in some of what the game's missing with the expansions, since they're supposed to improve on the game as well as build on it. No idea what specifically they'll do though(more magic, spellmaking and improved questlines would be nice)

As for the leveling, the only real problem I see is that it's not scaled properly. the game scales to your level as if the maximum was 50, not 80. If it amped up the power scales to match that, enemies would be much tougher.

I don't much care, FO: NV was a great game and all but Skyrim is by far better and it doesn't need to learn anything.

I agree with all of this and for all of you who say Bethesda didn't make new Vegas that adds to the point that a developer such as obsidian knows how to do some important things in a game better than Bethesda on a pretty strict deadline also

I would have liked a hardcoe mode in Skyrim. Not for everyone, I understand, but I would have liked it.

I'll just say that it really doesn't matter if it's perks or levels that cause a character to be powerful. Only the perception that it SHOULD be one way rather than the other causes the problems. Learn to play the game we have, and it starts making sense. Keep expecting the game to be what you want and you'll continue to be disappointed.

The biggest thing Obsidian has over Bethesda is their writing skills. They built a boring world in New Vegas with very little really meaningful exploration to be had, but I'm not here to debate who's better at what...so if that's what anybody wants to do, then debate somebody else.

My opinion on this is that Skyrim could've done with using New Vegas' reputation sytem. I found it a bit disappointing that as a Stormcloak, I could freely walk into an Imperial camp as if I was just coming over to chat about the weather. Same with the Thalmor, I've literally slaughtered dozens of them, but yet when I see them on the road they only turn hostile after I attack them.

I also like the FO3/NV experience system. You actually have to kill something or complete a quest to get experience, In Skyrim, raising my Illusion by casting Detect Life or smithing or enchanting to 100 in town doesn't mean I should be level 50 and able to take down dragons. I should earn that experience by actually killing stuff and completing quests. It would make dungeon crawling, exploration, and completing misc quests required to fight higher level foes.

This is not the first time Bethesda has used the perk system, or created an RPG. Skyrim should be better, and there's simply no excuse for it not to be. They gave a deadline and rushed it instead of polishing off features and squashing bugs.

You can marry someone, but you can't divorce them. You see children, but not from all races. You have an cool new spell system, but it completely lacks refinement and variety.

New Vegas may not have been created by Bethesda, but it uses their engine and they published it. That's proof that they should be capable of creating a far better game, especially within the TES franchise.

I found alot to do in NVegas. But I never got the DLC's except for Old world blues? is it? I can't even remember. I just know I had so many bugs the game became unplayable.
Lots of choices there. But honestly and flame away if you must I loved Fallout 3.
Dialogue in NV was better than any game I've played though.

I will also say I got more of a challenge (satisfaction) killing a legendary deathclaw or a high level Lonesome Road deathclaw than I did killing Alduin or any other dragon, dragon priest, or bandit chief.

I've pointed out many things before and I won't do it again here because there's too much of it, but I'll say that I agree with you 100% and something I haven't said before which breaks game for me:

As I am huge fan of speech, I love talking to npcs and having some nice perks and skills which relate to my speech but speech in skyrim is really bad, especially player character dialogues, he never has the option to say something I would like to say, sometimes he even can't say no to a quest!! And all this talking about the lore from npcs, I don't care! If I want to find out about the lore I'll read books or whatever, it's like bigger half of the skyrim are history experts! There are very little nice conversations with npcs but most of is is just talking about the lore.

And speech skill is just useless, it shouldn't be called speech but mercantile!
All it does is making trading easier and more profitable but who cares if I can get whatever I want in dungeons, by smithing and alchemy?

player dialogue can be expanded to all dialogue, characters, and story/quests. i don't care about the world or people of skyrim. skyrim's populace are nothing more than tools to show a new location on your map. i can't think of one character in skyrim that comes remotely close to a House or Caesar, or even the superbly done minor character Fantastic. and the quests don't even compare. new vegas was a brilliantly written game. skyrim's books are vastly more interesting and compelling than anything the guilds or MQ has to offer.

speech skill tree is pretty pointless in skyrim. in new vegas you could use it for better rewards, unlock more dialogue, shortcut quests, and even talk down the legate and gen oliver. that's using the speech skill to full potential. in skyrim, there is no guild quest or MQ that uses a speech check. (ok, entering the college you could use a speech check....though it's ultimately useless).

i like static levels like FNV, but i also like level scaling. there needs to be a mix and a balance. personally i would make certain creatures always be X level higher than the player, others X level lower, and others cap at X level.

FO3, oblivion, and skyrim aren't really rpg's because you don't really choose a role. you simply choose a means to accomplish a task. this is because there is no quest flexibility. there is typically only one way to solve the quests. FNV you could role play different characters because there are options in how to complete the quests.

overall, FNV is a story driven game and it does it exceptionally well (easily one of the best written games i've ever played). skyrim is a world driven game. the trick is to blend them. bethesda (todd howard) needs to do a much better job at picking stories and writers for their games. FO3, oblivion, skyrim, are really poorly written. and one's decisions do not matter in these games. i can join stormcloaks as an altmer, i can't do anything but join the BOS and build a lame water purifier, and i must save the world from the oblivion crisis. there's no freedom in that world, just the freedom to get to the end in a different way. there all basically a rehash of Final Fantasy on NES from 1987 (?). you could be a fighter, a mage, etc., but you are still going to do the same thing.

Better dialogue would be a plus.
Bring options back to the game.
More factions with more consequence.
I would like a more thought out perk system.

I especially like the way you presented your ideas in a constructive manner. I agree with you about 'Player Dialogue' and 'Companions'.

Too many of skyrim's perks fall under the "do X 20% better" category. They feel like filler to be honest.

They should be taken out altogether.

im still angry that there is no hardcoe-type mode that should build upon and advance what was done superbly in new vegas. not only could this mode take care of the roleplaying aspects but wouldn't it be nice if that mode did bring in the more hardcoe skill leveling and number crunching aspects of past games. i'll hold out hope that it is planned for the future dlc...

Einstein was still learning when he was recognized as the greatest scientist of all times.

Your comment is ignorant and childish. No one and nothing is perfect, it's only through learning from others that one can improve.

If one does not learn from others and improve himself/itself, others will soon catch up and replace him/it.

No, they should be folded into the skill increases and replaced in the trees with something a lot more interesting.

I have to agree, especially on the dialogue/reputation points. In New Vegas I loved the sheer range of speech possibilities (and the fact that you could almost play the whole game through by negotiating instead of fighting). I know that Bethesda didn't make F:NV, blah blah blah, but frankly, I thought being able to use a speech skill for more than just batering/intimidating people was a massive progression. Why they didn't impliment something like that in Skyrim I have no idea.