"dumbed down" isn't the right word. It's not a case of "they made it for stupid people".

It's a case of they were overthinking everything. Skyrim's a game that feels as if they tried to break down why people do every action and "remedy" the problem, or figure out how to take the fun of this game, and put it in.

Acrobatics is gone because "who doesn't jump?" and "people had to grind it". I never had to grind acrobatics. You could argue that my bouncing all the way from White-Gold Tower to Cheydinhal is grinding... except that I jump my way around the map in Killing Floor, which is a co-op surivival FPS that provides no incentive to jump, and a lot of incentive to grind. Why am I jumping? because I can. Once I start, I've seen whole public servers join in for absolutely no reason at all.

I don't have a "Speed" attribute because Todd Howard decided I increase intelligence to increase Magicka. Thing is, he's wrong. I increase it because I want a higher intelligence. I also wanted there to be a point besides the magicka. Because that would have been fun. Interesting. Useful. Instead, I can increase Magicka. Which I really never care about. In the process, I can no longer jog at insane speeds, and my fun has been reduced.

People ran out of stuff to do, so we have infinite misc quests. So almost every other quest in the game suffers to add them.

Skyrim is the product of overthinking everything, and of trying to be all things to all people.

Well I think this reveals a flaw in the way Bethesda designs games. I'm sure it's a big help to sales to make the game less cluttered and more user friendly. Simple merging and hiding things can accomplish this. This does not mean that the game is dumbed down, just simplified. I don't think there's less choice or complexity to Skyrim than previous games as Bethesda isn't known for stellar writing or innovative gameplay. However if they remove a certain means of character development, or merge it with another mechanic I DO know that I have one less means of character customization. They take away from some of my character's . . well . . character. Ok, so this would be fine if something better/equally good replaces it. I don't think that that has been done. If I cannot choose my character's history prior to his capture at the start of the game, or feel like I'm actually a part of a faction instead of doing a few quests for them and then never having the obligation to actually assume the role I was supposed to take or create a customized piece of equipment that feels like a real part of my character and not just loot or actually change the world in whatever large or small way. Then that combined with the lack of "spreadsheet" stat changing, it does seem apparant to me that choices have been removed. However by no means do I wish to return to the systems of older games and reintroduce old gameplay. I'm not saying that. What I want is for Bethesda to look at the history of rpg games, action games . .well all videogames that matter today, and implement atleast a moderate number of means and systems that they have themselves scrutinized and implemented in the best manner. Why go back to a health bar when their Fallout games had a much better wounding system, that if built upon can be quite refreshing. When I look at that health bar I see a lack of will to innovate and think about what works and what can work better. This is my major issue with Bethesda. And this was more obvious to me in Skyrim than any of their other games.

Hell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Chivalry MOD from 2007 has a better combat system than bethesda's game from 2011, in my opinion. Now what does that say?:

oh I can make a list of stuff that svcked HARD in MW and OB..... and you know what!!! the list of svcking is shorter in skyrim

so in MY opinion skyrim is a vast improvement.

actually I have yet to see a game that can even compare to the ......SCALE of skyrim, no really ..... I can only see mmorpgs with massive land masses and quests but those are in a constant development cycle (like wow).

actually TES IS a type of game in its own right, and with all the flaws and features they could not squeeze into the game in time Bethesda's bar is still so frigging high I doupt we will see a developer DARE make a game like skyrim

Ack! Please don't include me in that!

I started with Morrowind and I love Skyrim. I actually thought it was going to be big disappointment and was pleasantly surprised. It's not perfect, but I actually enjoy all of the ES games about the same, just for different reasons.

Well, I'm guessing they didn't have time to address every issue because they were focused on making the environments look really good. The Oblivion world space is nothing special. Most of it is region-generated. The Skyrim world space appears to be entirely hand-crafted. The dungeons are also about 500% better than Oblivion's. Those were both common complaints about the last game. As a landscaper who has done hundreds of cells by hand, my hat goes off to Bethesda. That's a truckload of work.

No offense, but this just made me LOL. Are you serious or just trolling?

what the H? i dont know where to start, i guess i'll say the nice stuff first, i agree with the attacks being skill based, that was a pain, and the AI but the rest of your post is nonsense. every spell in every TES can be useful in the right situation and the morrowind towns were 100x better (Even if noone moved), daggerfall's towns were great, noone who did not have business with you acted like they wanted to talk to you more than they wanted to live (every single NPC in skyrim) and the towns were huge and open (and i could climb walls)

AGREED! I personally LOVE the new system because my character becomes EXACTLY what they do - just like in real life. If you start learning a trade (for example) you start with the basics and practice, practice, practice. (Ergo, I pick up a bow and some arrows and begin learning how to shoot.) The more you practice, the better you get at said trade or skill. And as you learn more and more, you begin to learn little nuiances (perks) as you go along. You grow from beginner, to apprentice to master of your craft. Levelling this way feels completely natural to me as opposed to clicking a bunch of points into whatever skill you choose. Good riddence to the old system as far as I'm concerned!

Also, I have NO PROBLEM whatsoever with someone learning 2 or 3 disciplines at the same time. (My characters usually gravitate toward archery, light armor, smithing and enchanting, with secondary skills of destruction, restoration and one handed.) Just look at how many areas Special Forces & SEAL troops are skilled in.


I didn't mind repair per-se, but I'm kinda glad it's not in too. And I really like Smithing. My primary character is only using 100% weapons and armor HE created for himself (with the exception of an Ebony Bow he purchased and enchanted. Once I get the Arcane Blacksmith perk I don't really need to even craft new stuff for the most part, until higher level weapons start showing up. My Smithing and Enchanting usually slow to a crawl around 60, so that's hardly overpowered. And he's using the same Leather Armor that he made at the start of the game, it's just improved to Exquisite level and has some archery and stamina boosts on it.


Fallout 3 (1500+ hours) was my 1st bethesda game. (I must have been under a rock because it was the first I had ever heard of their work, lol.) But that led me to Oblivion (also 1500+ hours) and eventually to Morrowind. I honestly tried very hard to like (and get into) Morrowind. I wasn't able to really enjoy it that much for several reasons, but the first one was that it wouldn't run in my monitors native resolution and aspect ratio so it looked like caca. Second, with the amount of reading you have to do, the text was way too tiny for my nearly 50 year old eyes to see clearly. Third, I have to read reports and spreadsheets all day long at my day gig. The LAST thing I want to do is come home and have to read more stuff. I play for entertainment and as a way to relieve stress. And Morrowind just didn't do it for me.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I guess my main point was there are a LOT of great things about the changes in Skyrim. (Perfect? By all means no, but fun as hell which is it's main purpose.) I do feel for those who wanted spell making however. I didn't really ever use it, but I can understand their disappointment. But I think many of the other complaints are just a bunch of whining akin to not being able to fart at their chair and have people in the game smell it.

I want the option to play as a mercer or draqer but there is no ability to sew in Skyrim. What do I do?

So true

I disliked Morrowind when It came out! I attempted to play it but I found the game to be rather distastefull, on the other hand Skyrim is my third favorite game of all time.(And Oblivion being my fourth)

Again...

Removing a feature is not automatically dumbing a game a down (even if you don′t replace it with something), just as adding a feature does not automatically makes a game deeper and more complex. If TES added automatic rifles then that would be dumbing the game down, but it′s an added feature so by your logic the game just got deeper...and when they remove it again, by your logic, they dumbed the game down by removing automatic rifles.

Now some of the things that they have removed or changed may very well be mistakes and bad decisions, but it′s far too simplistic and silly to believe and state that every single thing that I used to like that isn′t in the game has been purposedly removed because someones nephew couldn′t understand it.

No matter how you put it, Skyrim is dumbed down to suit the masses.

This made me laugh.
I immediately thought of Nazeem.
It is indeed an apt description.

the questlines were awful in Skyrim and personally i miss the ranks that you would get in each of the guilds and even in the arena. It made me feel like i was actually working toward something in the game. Even at the end of the main quest in Oblivion when you become champion of cyrodil and get awesome dragon armor and your known as the savior of Tamriel it was awesome. i honestly didnt get that feeling at the end of the main quest in Skyrim. i got this empty, hmm now what? feeling. Idk i guess im just a harsh critic because i hold the Elder Scrolls Series to a very high standard, much like most people in this forum do. Just didn't live up to my expectations as a whole.

thank you thank you, i always try my best


i never said it was a bad thing but it is dumbing down to remove any feature that adds any layer of depth, and im not saying it is dumbed down because of someone could not understand something, i just got the general meanings behind the phrase and condensed them into a single meaning; the removal of depth of any sort

Continue being awesome.

Ah. Finally an objective opinion. Incidentally, I use the phrase "dumbed down" to identify posters who belong to that category. It truly is the most dumbed down criticism available.

I never said that I don't like this game! So I don't know what are talking about it!

Skyrims an amazing game, Haters gonna hate, Its seriously one of the best games I have ever owned. (and dont give me that Morrowind crap, Im sure its a great game, but, I appreciate graphics in my games, they make or break it for me)

Skyrim got good graphics? What are u playing on, Xbox? LoL
P.S.
I really hope they will release dx11 update for Skyrim!!!!

No, PC, its called mods, LoL please, [censored] off, why the hell would I buy a Bethesda game for console? are you [censored]? LoL... -.-

So basically you are saying they released [censored] looking game if you have to use mods to make it great looking? I prefer to get top notch product when I pay 59.99 for PC game, u know.
I am not saying it's the worst looking game but it really kills me when I look at textures up close and see some ugly ass looking polygons!!!

In my opinion the changes made from Morrowind to Oblivion and from Oblivion to Skyrim qualify as 'dumbing down'.

The text in the logbook hasn't just been been ''shortened'' as in: saying the same thing but with less words.

Non, it has been ''simplified'' as in: saying less with less words.

Thus the logbook has been ''dumbed down''.

The result: now you have the use the quest-marker as not all quests can be done by simply reading the description. This was how you did things in Morrowind, and this was an option in Oblivion, but now in Skyrim you can't. They dont present you an option to think about how to solve the quest, you just have to follow the arrow like some brainless servant.

Dont get me wrong, it is still a fun game and I don't see all the changes as bad. I dont mind the removal of atributes for instance. But the removal of skills like athletics does diminish the possibilities in character development. So in some key areas it has been dumbed down. Not to the point that I stop playing (like with Dragon Age 2) but it isnt far away from that point for me. I also understand why some other fans already stopped playing Elder Scrolls. TC, you might understand this as well when TES7 comes around.

Typical weakling response, in the same vein, one could say that you must be "dumbed down" to be able to enjoy the game as it is.

So please, grow up and, next time, avoid posting such stupid remarks, thank you.

Some elements from the previous game were removed & certain features & attributes were taken away, Things were streamlined & packaged in such a way that it ruined enjoyment for many & enriched the experience for many.
Some people call Skyrim junk, some call it a treasure.

What really irks me is the attitude of those who mock certain players & accuse them of being unable to move on or resistant to change just because they do not support the direction Bethesda has taken with Skyrim, It's insulting & smacks of arrogance.
If you think that skyrim has moved forward in every respect then ignore the threads that seek to complain about elements of it & enjoy this great game, Stop jumping in to defend Bethesda's honour while smearing the "haters" as ignorant desperate cavemen clinging on to the past unable to move on, it makes you look a bit of a tit.

Respect each others opinions, Bethesda listens to both sides & favours none.

Never played Morrowind I guess?