Okay then, ignore everything i've said bar one thing. Todd said himself that Skyrim was over simplified, because casual gamers weren't on board. Now tell me why you think the developer is wrong.

ps. I take it the gameplay mechanic was 'saving while fast travelling, thus saving you dead'? I did completely ignore it, for one reason, that anyone who actually played Morrowind/Oblivion would know that the game saves before you fast travel. You died upon arriving at your destination, but were able to re-load to the point before you fast travelled. Have you actually played these games?

Or to the people with the attention span of a turtle who just want to bash one button and move on to the next game.

I'm afraid I fall in the other camp. The more the interface can stay out of my way (while still allowing me the opportunity to make cogent choices about my character's progression), the better the experience. As a pencil-and-paper player from the "red books," I can appreciate all that the numbers and statistics did to help paint a picture and flesh out the experience... truly, I can. But I was never in it for the numbers. I was in it for the experience.

Yes, too many people ran to the various information sources to figure out how to powergame. Now they are QQ'ing that Skyrim has no difficulty. Difficulty is all well and good, but the game should not prioritize difficulty over practicality.

I would suggest, that in future games people do not look up the bullet-points/cliffnotes for a game, and then complain that said game is easy.

You did it to yourself.

Expansions/DLC... do yourself a favor?

Don't fill up that searchbar.

Maybe you should try a modded Skyrim and you wouldn't be so angry. Oh yea, nvm.

Can you show me the quote wherein he said those exact words? Please. Taking things out of context and adding your own exaggerative twist isn't going to work.

And where it saves doesn't change the fact that not knowing you have the disease would be an unfair game mechanic. But please, continue to mock me instead of actually debating the topic, it's really going places for you.

I'm not angry, i'm exasperated at some peoples ability to ignore facts. And we should'nt have to mod Skyrim to enjoy it properly.

i take every topic about skyrim seperately and debate it from my starting point of view. there is no hostility. well, most of the time, lol.

if my opinion is swayed i change it and go on to the next. so be it. no big deal. at least, for me, that is.

no matter how intense or hotly the debate seems the fact is i enjoy this game tremendously, it's one of my favorites ever and will be playing it for years if i were to guess.

but, that doesn't mean i'm willing to overlook its faults or talk about what i think they could have done or should do in the future.

I don't believe the problem is that Beth can't balance the game but they really don't want to "balance" or limit the game simply because a lot of the players of TES like to break their game in one way or another. At this point it's a "feature" that you can break the game in more than one way ....

As for balancing the game the most obvious things are so easy to rebalance that anyone could do it if they wanted ...

I think this is a very valid point. Many threads have been started about how easy blacksmithing is- you only have to make the cheapest item over and over again to level it. But how did they know that? They read it here, or on the wiki.

People don't want to roleplay anymore. My character would see absolutely no reason to make the cheapest item, she wants to make money. If she wants to learn more about blacksmithing, she would create the most difficult item she knew how to make because that's how you expand your skill, by challenging yourself. So her blacksmithing has barely budged, because she progresses it naturally.

I would venture to say that the TES games are the last TRUE rpg games, because success in the game relies so much more on CHARACTER knowledge or skill rather than PLAYER knowledge or skill.

I think you're locked into the idea that everyone who doesn't play like you is a powergamer. That's simply not the case. I think I play the game in a fairly natural way but I do like to do a lot of things in a single playthrough so I always end up feeling overpowered before I am finished with a character. Just a simple option to slow down levelling a bit would make the game a lot better for me. If you don't think that's reasonable then I don't think you are reasonable

Because I'm a long time rpg'er (I'm 41, been rpg'ing since D&D in the late 70's and on computers since 1981 with the Ultima series and Wizardry series)...

Trust me, compared to Ultima and Wizardry, Final Fantasy and Zelda are newbies. There is almost nothing core to FF and Zelda that didn't, in some way, start with Ultima and Wizardry, which in turn owe everything to pencil & paper Dungeons & Dragons.

FWIW: In spirit, nothing I've played on a computer or console has come as close to the true spirit of D&D as TES series.

Pardon the interruption. Please carry on. Thank you.

The game's difficulty breaks when you max your crafting skills. If you needed to look that up...

I'm not mocking you, that is just how the game works. You say it's unfair because someone could get in a situation like you described. I am replying that it is impossible, because that is not how the game works. Saving occurs before fast travelling to prevent the exact situation you are describing, and that's how it has always been. As for not knowing about vampirism, in both previous games, you were informed upon contraction of the disease, and the disease was listed in the 'stats' part of the menu. So there is really no reason to remove vampirism health damage, other than to make it more managable, ie simplifying it. Which has been my point all along. And that is only one of the many simplifications. As for the quote, i'll look for it now for you.

Some people powergame, there is nothing wrong with that, some people like to play roles, again nothing wrong, and some other people just play casually.

The roleplayers seem to get stuck on old anologues for character skill, and sometimes don't tend to fully flesh out thier roles prior. The example about spamming iron daggers ad nauseum exemplifies this, and in essence turns them into powergamers.

The powergamers get stuck on difficulty, and delve into the statistics of the game, and in essence turn themselves into roleplayers.

Casual gamers? Well, they could care less. Its about the experience.

Agreed, though I dunno if I agree that it justifies it.
Again comparing FO3 and FO:NV (because it's very easy to make a point while comparing the same series under Bethesda and non-Bethesda rule), one perk per level or one perk per two levels? Bethesda is too scurred to tell their customers "NO!" so they end up giving them one perk per level. The problem is now every character feels practically the same and the player has to limit themselves (pick bad perks) to make characters feel different, and even if they do, there's this haunting feeling within the player because the player himself KNOWS he's wasting his own time and limiting himself; personally I always feel bad when I know I'm just creating another project for myself when it COULD be avoided. On the other hand, limiting the perks enhances the system; now each character feels unique and there's clear motivation to replay the game, though of course some are disappointed with the limitation, and those that ARE disappointed? That's the group Bethesda bends head over heels for at the moment.

Perhaps Bethesda chooses this system because they know that while we are capable of limiting ourselves, we're NOT capable of enhancing ourselves and giving ourselves MORE perks per level or the like. The problem is though that, as the OP said, every so often it occurs that one skill ends up being COMPLETELY imbalanced, so then even though you have a thief character centered around the sneak skill, you actually end up perking One-handed (just like your warrior) because sneak is broken (in your opinion). The result is the characters end up feeling the same anyways OR the Thief is so superior that nothing will ever be able to compete with it, which is disappointing...The result is that through their own phobia of setting limits for players they accidently make a roleplaying style overpowered, which creates problems of it's own for that player base.

Well put. I whole-heartedly agree. It's funny to think of how much of my computer role-playing game history is just chasing that pencil-and-paper D&D high. The Ultima Underworld series was pretty close, but TES is the closest I've come by a wiiiiiiide margin.

I'm locked into comparing peoples reported experiences with my own. Frankly, I couldn't care any less how anyone plays their game. What I do care about is the drection people who have, in fact, abused the game to the point where the game is too easy, do not get carte blanche in ranting on the forums.

Making a Mage character, who does not dip into smithing one bit is NOT self gimping as plenty of people in this thread would have you believe.

Making a warrior character that will not use magic, even to heal themselves, is not self gimping.

The real problem as I see it is poor impulse control. If more people made and played characters and not "collections of skills that all point to making the uberest gear available" there would be far less of these threads.

I am completely reasonable, play how you want, but when you break the game, realise that YOU broke it, not Bethesda.

Do not do the same stupid mistake as many in these forums and confuse RPG with roleplaying and story, please... the term RPG is about numbers and character progression, which ff games do much better than Skyrim. Also, Skyrim is almost as linear as FF XII is - the only difference is Skyrim has more (although short and badly written) questlines to pursue, and a few select side-quests have some choice involved, that ultimately has no effect on the world. Final fantasy may not give you story choices, but at least the world around you changes as you do big things...
But story has very little to do with a game being good as an rpg, so I digress.

Yes, final fantasy games are not true rpgs, they are tbs/rpg hybrids. Just like Skyrim isn't a true rpg either, it's an action/rpg hybrid.

Oh, and being a good fit for me has nothing to do with it being a good rpg or not. I enjoyed Skyrim very much, but not as an RPG - it is a bad RPG. That doesn't change. It's also a bad action game. But it is a very good adventure game. Which is why Bethesda should realise they gotta choose what their next TES will be - an RPG or an action/adventure, because they seem to not really be able to get the best of both worlds atm...

No, please don't misunderstand, I support powergaming. I do it myself when I get bored or stuck, or I want to do a fast run of the game.

I'm simply pointing out that there is no reason to complain about an option to do so, when you as the player have the option not to do it. That's what part of this argument is about, that Bethesda should restrict this option, or in some way make the game more difficult if you choose it.

What happens if you choose it because you want the game to be easy? I don't know, ask them, it's their stance

While I won't argue with your points I do think some tweaks would be nice.

For example I don't think you or I should be penalized for role playing the game properly [for example in terms of progressing the smithing skill ... the game shouldn't be optimized for grining instead of "just playing the game"] Changing how the smithing XP is awarded would be a good change.

As far as Skyrim being one of the few true RPGs I would have to disagree. I believe that you get out of [many] games what you put into it. I don't necessarily think that Skyrim is a good RPG per se --- it just gives you a sandbox that allows you to role play should you choose to do so. I know it's a subtle difference but hopefully you see the point ...

Thanks. I like the way you put that, the "pencial-and-paper D&D high." That's so true.

People that play rpg's but who have never played a pencil-and-paper rpg will probably never completely understand the vision that inspired these video games in the first place.

I know they didn't actually begin the genre, but they certainly carried it far. Without the iconic RPG's, the genre could well still be as closed off as it used to be. So many people play RPG's now because they played the likes of zelda, ff ect and liked it, and that made them interested in the genre. They helped 'spread the word' if you get my meaning.

I'm not discounting your opinion at all, but it's unfair to compare this game to those, because it's fundamentally different- Fallout is much more linear and compact than this game. The level of diffulty it held was designed specifically for that style of gaming.

TES games have a completely different style of gaming, and part of that is emphasizing exploring and interacting with the world OVER difficulty and game mechanics. It's not better or worse, it's just different.

That has most certainly not been my experience, but you are entitled to your own opinion.

Even the three archetypes feel completely different, provided you spent your 10 points in the appropriate attributes and spent the correct perks.

I could define the traditional archetypes for you if you would like, and then you could play them and see if they feel the same.