Here's my argument:

I'm arguing (in a professional way) that for a person to get the most out of Skyrim, you need to a seasoned RPG player.

My back ground:

I'm 32, started gaming on the Atria 2600 and owned every console since. I started a kin/guild in WoW and LOTRO that maintained an average roster of 400 people in each, with the ceneral objective of raiding, roleplaying, etc. I have played many RPGs and have played Skyrim for 350 hours thus far.

My view of Skyrim:

Skyrims greatest strenth: It's freedom, can also be considered it's greatest weakness. Nevertheless, a player with a back ground in hardcoe RPG and MMOs can over come these weakness by self-imposed limitations that make sense.

Crafting: For example, in LOTRO, for instance, your only allowed one trade at a time. Thus, what i am doing with my current character (Khajit) is simply investing perks in one craft: enchanting. However, i still blacksmith perform alchemy because i get a little edge in combat, and it's still maintains the fun of finding the items for them. However, i'll never get OP.

Combat: Another thing i think that forces balance is only investing attributes into one catagory. My Khajit, for instances, only gets stamina each level. Thus, he get's one shooted all the time. Thus, i'm forced to only rely on my Tank, the benifits i get from alchemy to overcome this problem or the self-imposed weaknesses. Furthermore, I must depend a lot on my follower to tank so i can manuver around the battefield. It also makes shouts a very important tool. Thus, combat is so much more involving as if it was an instance in an MMO. Bosses, raids and short instances on MMOs require a lot of knowlegde to pass them. And they are very challenging. The way ii'm playing now is the closest i have ever come to mimicing it on a singal player game.

Checkpoints: I never save expect for auto saves as check points. Why? becasue dieing should mean something if you want to be on your toes during the game. I used to save before boss fights, after i clear a section in a cave, basically all the time. However, with my current character i die almost every where i go and thus I have to develop brand new game stragies, to stay alive through a whole cave instance for example.

Economy: When you are rich everything is worthless. However, when you don't use the loop holes in the encomy to get rich, or if your not a theif/murder, but rather forge off the land without fast traveling, every becomes more meaningful. Nevertheless, this is a hard reality to come to when your used to buying grandsoul gems like they were candy. For me, i'm lucky if i can kill an enemy that has a common soul gem. And it takes around two full quest, forging, crafting and bartering to buy one grandsoul gem at 1480, is what its currently going for. Thus, i have to sit there and think where i want to invest my new grandsoul gem. I can debat about it with myself for 15 mins. Now, before you get all pridefull, yes i already have a character that is sitting any where from 50,000 to 100,000 coin.

Class: My Khajit only invest in One-handed (he's a duel-weilder) and Enchantment. I always play on master and invest only into stamina. Thus, he's a pure DPS class. And as such, can rush into head first. I sometimes forget that and on simple bounties quest the boss will one shot me. Thus, imagion the problems i have when trying to beat a boss who guards "sources of power" or dragons for that matter.

Conclusion:

People who miss this are, in my opion, not stupid. Rather, they are unexperienced as RPG players. For Skyrim to be a commercial success, it had to an all open end RPG with almost no rules as what you can be or what you can do. In my first play through with my assassin, 120 hours character, i succumb to the temptaion to abuse the economy, and thus everything in the game became less valuable. Nevertheless, i resorted back to previous game experiences and placed self-imposed rules and thus the game is playing in-depth as an MMO. After you play by some rules, you forget about all the exploits you could be doing because of how much fun it is to play by some rules. However, it's hard to imagion a gamer that only knows how to play by fast traveling and following every quest marker to see the game in this light. And the thing is, its really not their fault.

My recommendation: Skyrim needs to have different modes that a player can chose from that has some self imposed rules. Thus, it can teach them what it means to really be an RPG player. It could have been motivated by acheivements, for instance. Much like playing hardcoe mode on Fallout NV. Now, dont misunderstand me. I dont need these rules to help me play cause i already understand what to do to get all i can out of it. I would simiply suggest this so players can truely see how great this game can be. As gamers we always look for the short cuts to get to our goal as fast as we can, and in Skyrim, short cuts are as pleantful as the world itself. If the game would help focus things for inexperienced players and teach them how to play, i think it would help inspire a new healthy breed of players that would have a greater understanding of what Skyrim is. If anyone remeber that little thing called "the game genie" it would be like taking that thing off thats full of cheats, and play the game the way it was meant to.

Well, thats my take on it.

Thoughts?

Yeah, I really think that it's cool that you self-regulate yourself and can still enjoy the game. Honestly for me, I normally don't play above Lv25 because the amount and quality of loot you find is ridiculous. Eventually, you become a god and this ruins the whole experience for me.
I myself have some self imposed rules; I only play on adept but do not use magic, scrolls, potions, enchanted weapons, soul gems or any form of self-boosting (save my racial skills as an Argonian). I act as if it were a real-world situation; I eat, sleep etc. as in real life. Also, I never have more in my inventory than what I could logically carry in real life. This means my apparel, one (max two) weapons and a few lockpicks. Also, I don't wear high-level gear and normally avoid anything starting at elven (you'll find me rocking my full iron armor at Lv20 ). This way, the game remains challenging and fun without either making me feel like a god or being impossibly difficult.
All in all however, I think everyone experiences Skyrim differently and how much you get out of it depends on what you want to get out of it. If some people prefer to slay bunnies in full daedric apparel with a virtual enchanted armory in their inventory, that's cool with me. If some people want to take role-playing to a next level and stop using their character once they die (some actually do this), that's also cool with me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think your ideas for role-playing are really cool, but I don't agree with the main point you're trying to make here. BTW, this has inspired me to start a thread.

It's funny you dissagre with my main point, while in fact, you practice what i'm preaching. I guess my point can be stated in another way by rasing a question: How would you expect the average game to self-impose anything on the game to make it better? You practice many of the self-imposed rules i do as a matter of fact. However, do you think the average gamer who is used to a game on rails, will understand that Skyrim is a game where you can get out of it what you want to? This game is leaps and bounds or even light years away from other games because it excells at this very point. However, an average gamer that is brain washed into being control by the game will not understand this freedom. Only a seasoned RPGer will. How can you disagree with that?

EDIT: one more thing, you say at level 25 you stop playing cause of the quality of loot around. Well, i'm level 17 and i get smashed in certain areas so i can't even get that loot. You say that you don't use scrolls, poitions, etc, but i have to use everything to get through areas by the skin of my teeth. You see, i'm getting more out of the game cause my character is so weak that i have to depended on every featrue it offers to survive which means i have found the wicked epic balance in the game that many people claim that doesnt exist

Nope. First time I dabbled in rping was Oblivion. Made a paladin, put 100 hours into it and enjoyed him. I never really rp'ed after that. I figure I would give it a try in Skyrim and have been having more fun then I ever did in Oblivion. So no you don't have to be a seasonal rp vet to enjoy it.

I disagree, but only on the seasoned player part. I don't play a lot of RPGs, I played some WoW and Borderlands, a little too human and a handful of other games with rpg elements, but never really played a LOT of RPGs.

yet I still imposed my own limits just like you did, so while everything you say about imposing limits and the benefits is true, you don't have to be a seasoned player to do it, and I think most players would figure it out all on their own fairly fast, and the ones who don't probably wouldn't enjoy that style of gameplay anyway.

p.s. I have two level 81 characters and several lower level characters (a few levels of the soft cap), and I figured out the whole self limiting one at around level 20 of my first character. (I know my levels don't really contribute much to the argument, just trying to validate myself as a player getting the most out of Skyrim while not being a seasoned RPGr, although skyrim has encouraged me to branch into it more).

It only takes a casual to get the most out of the shallowest TES ever. The vets know better.

i have to self-regulate my gameplay because gamesas did a poor job of doing it themselves.

i don't want a game where i have to provide my own rules and limitations. i don't want a game where everything HAS to be done in my mind. i will do that stuff ANYWAYS. we're talking appropriate gameplay mechanics that have been abondoned or regressed.

i want the publishers and developers to do it. give me the actual FUNCTIONAL ability to have it be part of the game.

edit: skyrim is one of the simplest games i have ever played. fun, yes. for now. i want complexity and meaningfullness.

I myself prefer to Role play in a world where I feel connected to it and get recognition for it good or bad.You can role play as much as you want but it will still not improve the poor content.So no I do not think a mature role player would get the most out of it I think a mature role player would see the game for what it is.

I feel like I'm having way, *way* more fun now with self-imposed limitations. Picking through spoils and only taking gems and other 'realistic-only' things I could carry. Keeping the same magic weapon from the beginning, all the way to the end, instead of constantly switching out for others being 'better'.

Believe me, the game takes on a completely, wildly-different feel when you are stressing out trying to find someplace to loot cabbage, carrots and apples for your horse, food for yourself, and do it in time to find somewhere to sleep before darkness falls.

Nobody *needs* a Major Magic Item of Whatever. But everyone needs to eat and sleep every day. The game inverses that reality. Switch it back on your own and see how it works for you. I like it. It makes the game feel more immersive-real, and more fun as a result.

So you're saying it's bad that you have the option to play or not play that way rather than being forced? Ummmm....

Despite its bugs, I've enjoyed Skyrim a lot. And it's only the second video game I've played in 10 years (the other was Morrowind). The concept of putting limits on yourself doesn't take a decade of developing carpel tunnel syndrome to realize.

So no, the entire premise is wrong.

If someone doesn't like Skyrim, that's their opinion and to them it's 100% correct. And I could absolutely not care less if someone doesn't like the game. I do, so that's that.

ghost-

no, that's not what i said at all.

my post is very clear. your interpretation of my post is ridiculously off-target.

I agree that games like Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim are meant for roleplayers. May their tribe increase.

LMAO

Really? A seasoned RPG player lol???

Oh man that's a good one

Even by todays atrocious standards the answer would be NO

Maybe he thought a seasoned RPG player would have got the most out of Dragon Age 2 also.

I agree with this.

I think if people play how the want (self Imposed rules, powerleveling, exploiting, roleplaying, etc.) that is how they are going to get the most out of skyrim. Everybody plays and enjoys games differently.

Yeah, I agree. I also think it requires an immature and inexperienced RPG player to think that the most Skyrim has to offer can really compare to past TES. But I've seen plenty of people claiming a vast RPG heritage so I know that's not true. Still odd to me though.

yep pretty much this I'm all for freedom to be a god but if I'm at level 20 and find no challenge something is wrong bethesda needs to really work on there balance and game-breaking bug fixes they reduced the ps3 problem to a point but there's still horrible destruction and other game-breaking bugs to deal with

I on the other hand never understood self-imposed restrictions. I did make training 3x more expensive, but I can train 50 times a level, not sure if that counts as restriction or trade off. I also refuse to pick up things that are not 20g/1wg ratio. Not because I don’t want more money but because when I do I remember the asses that used town portal every 2 min in Diablo2 and want to stab myself for being a little like them.

There is effectively only one REAL rule to enjoying Skyrim.

“Don’t grind your skills [censored] this is not an MMO!”

Covers about 85% of all good advice you can get.

Maybe not seasoned but certainly mature.

I agree with what your saying, you tend to learn the value of things when you play an MMO while the company is slowly taking the Value out of everything to the point where you just quit.

In Oblivion, i just about abused every glitch there was from Duping to making a Clone of myself o.o
although this was more of fun rather to benefit myself.

now in Skyrim I Role play more, not as much as i wanted too on my first character but i succeeded in not Joining the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild.
I play on Expert and thinking of going to Master, i turn my Hud Opacity all the way down which increases Immersion and also makes it harder (Can't see the Cross-hair, Compass, Health, Magicka, Stanima, ETC)
I don't know of any usefull Glitches and if I did, I would most likely ignore them.

you Don't need to be old to understand all this stuff, I'm 16

but then again i did play that MMO a long time

You might want to add a year pal, I’ll edit my post as soon as you do and hopefully no one will notice.

Bethesda has written a very good line on Sheogorath's talktree, back in Shivering Isles expansion for TESIV: "My game, my rules"

If you want competition in some form, under a certain rule set, I think that's what MMOs are for. Otherwise, be happy in your own game, as everyone else is happy in his/her own. If they want to change their playing style and revise whatever rules they might have set on themselves, or just remove all of them, this is at each one's own discretion and only.

I'm good, if someone cares that much than let it be.

But I only agree insofar as enjoyment of your character. I don't agree that restricting yourself is the solution to an improperly tuned game. In other words, don't become a Mary Sue arcane warrior thief -- unless that's really truly the character you want and you have it fleshed out nicely. You'll enjoy yourself more if you have a character that's believable.

But restrictions for the singular purpose of artificially increasing difficulty? Well, in other games that's called ironmanning but for Skyrim it's so easy to trivialize the difficulty that the amount of restrictions you'd have to impose on yourself I view more as derpmanning.