Skyrim

WD40 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Cunovendus wrote:

In short, there's an ever-going trend of making RPGs simpler, removing many of the hardcore elements that classic RPG fans love so much. Even Dragon Age 1 decided that watching your supply of arrows was too much effort, and gave archers infinite arrows (and do NOT get me started on Dragon Age 2!) - though that could be because archery has a tendency to be pathetic in RPGs (Boromir was a wimp - it only took three arrows to kill him! The average Oblivion enemy takes at least 20!).

Every game is doing this now, including the new tabletop RPGs (D&D 4th edition, Warhammer 3rd, etc). Soon hardcore RPGs will be a thing of the past, as everyone dumbs down for the mass market, and the RPG will be little more than an action adventure.

I like a challenge. Having to virtually eat, sleep, and shit is not a challenge. It's pointless busywork that only serves to make me want to chew my own head off. If I wanted to be buried waste deep in boring, tedious, unnecessary garbage, I'd actually DO my accounting homework.

[...]

"BUT MIKEY, IT'S NOT REALISTIC!!1!"

1.) I just killed a fucking dragon using a great axe that was forged from the heart of an evil demon. We left realism in the dust a while ago.
2.) I spend too much time driving back and forth between golf tournaments IRL to want to do it in a goddamn video game. Just walking between places you've already been 9001 times adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay, it's just something that basement dwellers who HAVE that kind of time can do in order to think of themselves as "hardcore," when in reality, they just have no life to speak of and nothing better to do.

I get the impression that Mikey has never played a tabletop pen & Paper RPG in his life - Even so, he's managed to summarise the whole "dumbed down D&D 4th ED" nonarguement perfectly.


I've been playing RPGs for almost 20 years, and I can tell you right now, without hesitation that simplifying and rules that get termed as "dumbing down" are not a bad thing. They are the best thing.

AD&D sucked. It was overcomplecated, it had no central theme and had no rules continuity what so ever. To the point that the Sage from Dragon Magazine would routinely make shit up, on the spot, regardless of the rules to compensate for the poor wording and overcomplex interactions of the game. And this would be readily and unquestionably accepted as official errata.

AD&D, and many late 80's-early 90's RPGs also hated their players, lets not forget that. Making RPGs a player-friendly experience is an embarrassingly new concept.

Same can be said of Pendragon, HERO system, GURPS, Warhammer, Cyberpunk and 1st-2nd ED Shadowrun... These games got better when they were "dumbed down". Or, to put it another way, when the stupid, unnecessary shit was removed, and the game was made more streamlined and accessible - they got far, far better.

That depends entirely on the gamer, though. I, on one hand, enjoy min-maxing. I like number crunching... the more complicated the game, the more I like it! A friend of mine, on the other, prefers just telling the story, which is fine. I enjoy stories as well, especially when I'm the GM. I realize not everyone likes a game to be complicated and adjust accordingly. I know people who have the HERO system memorized (and who actually playtested the original Champions), and absolutely adore it because it's so open ended. There's others who played Rifts and other Palladium games who loved it. I know people who prefer 4e over 2nd-3rd edition D&D because it is simpler. It just... depends on the gamer. There's no ONE game that will fit everyone.

Maximilia wrote:

WD40 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Cunovendus wrote:

In short, there's an ever-going trend of making RPGs simpler, removing many of the hardcore elements that classic RPG fans love so much. Even Dragon Age 1 decided that watching your supply of arrows was too much effort, and gave archers infinite arrows (and do NOT get me started on Dragon Age 2!) - though that could be because archery has a tendency to be pathetic in RPGs (Boromir was a wimp - it only took three arrows to kill him! The average Oblivion enemy takes at least 20!).

Every game is doing this now, including the new tabletop RPGs (D&D 4th edition, Warhammer 3rd, etc). Soon hardcore RPGs will be a thing of the past, as everyone dumbs down for the mass market, and the RPG will be little more than an action adventure.

I like a challenge. Having to virtually eat, sleep, and shit is not a challenge. It's pointless busywork that only serves to make me want to chew my own head off. If I wanted to be buried waste deep in boring, tedious, unnecessary garbage, I'd actually DO my accounting homework.

[...]

"BUT MIKEY, IT'S NOT REALISTIC!!1!"

1.) I just killed a fucking dragon using a great axe that was forged from the heart of an evil demon. We left realism in the dust a while ago.
2.) I spend too much time driving back and forth between golf tournaments IRL to want to do it in a goddamn video game. Just walking between places you've already been 9001 times adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay, it's just something that basement dwellers who HAVE that kind of time can do in order to think of themselves as "hardcore," when in reality, they just have no life to speak of and nothing better to do.

I get the impression that Mikey has never played a tabletop pen & Paper RPG in his life - Even so, he's managed to summarise the whole "dumbed down D&D 4th ED" nonarguement perfectly.


I've been playing RPGs for almost 20 years, and I can tell you right now, without hesitation that simplifying and rules that get termed as "dumbing down" are not a bad thing. They are the best thing.

AD&D sucked. It was overcomplecated, it had no central theme and had no rules continuity what so ever. To the point that the Sage from Dragon Magazine would routinely make shit up, on the spot, regardless of the rules to compensate for the poor wording and overcomplex interactions of the game. And this would be readily and unquestionably accepted as official errata.

AD&D, and many late 80's-early 90's RPGs also hated their players, lets not forget that. Making RPGs a player-friendly experience is an embarrassingly new concept.

Same can be said of Pendragon, HERO system, GURPS, Warhammer, Cyberpunk and 1st-2nd ED Shadowrun... These games got better when they were "dumbed down". Or, to put it another way, when the stupid, unnecessary shit was removed, and the game was made more streamlined and accessible - they got far, far better.

That depends entirely on the gamer, though. I, on one hand, enjoy min-maxing. I like number crunching... the more complicated the game, the more I like it! A friend of mine, on the other, prefers just telling the story, which is fine. I enjoy stories as well, especially when I'm the GM. I realize not everyone likes a game to be complicated and adjust accordingly. I know people who have the HERO system memorized (and who actually playtested the original Champions), and absolutely adore it because it's so open ended. There's others who played Rifts and other Palladium games who loved it. I know people who prefer 4e over 2nd-3rd edition D&D because it is simpler. It just... depends on the gamer. There's no ONE game that will fit everyone.

I like the numbers game and stuff as well. I enjoyed attempting to max out the squad's equipment and stat sheet in Mass Effect. I didn't enjoy the goddamn ocean of redundant equipment floating in a crappy menu system. I'm not saying a game can't be challenging or complex, I'm saying no game should have tedious shit that adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay. IE Repairing armor with hammers that break every four swings, having to walk ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE MAP every time you want to go from Solitude to Windhelm, having to put your EPIC ADVENTURE on hold in order to get some sleep, and so on.

I also don't like horribly broken and/or unbalanced gameplay, like Dragon Age had.

Fantasy: What, I can't have a little suspension of disbelief without going all the way to the extreme of anime characters with big spaulders?

Repairing weapons: okay, Oblivion was a bit extreme with this (armour breaking after 3 fights?), but at least it made you make an effort to maintain them, carry a spare, etc.

Walking: Morrowind had fast travel. You couldn't do it from anywhere at any time, no, but you could fast travel between cities. Anyway I don't mind fast travel.

Sleeping: so you like the fact that your character can wander around for days on end, killing everything he comes across, without even having to rest, ever? Not even to level up, like in Oblivion? I can even forgive the lack of food requirements, assuming it comes as part of spending a night in an inn, but combined with lack of fatigue, it pushes suspension of disbelief a little to far in my opinion. But that's just me.

Anyway, this just proves my point. Apparently nobody wants to have to deal with the complexities of life in an RPG universe. They simply want to manifest from A to B and kill-kill-kill, watch the numbers rise and marvel at how awesome they are. Sorry but I like a little more depth to my RPGs. I want to have to think, sometimes, and consider basic living mechanics...no I don't want to roleplay my character going for a shit every day because that's going too far, but I do want to acknowledge that he is a person and has person requirements. In short, I want people who become heroes, not superheroes who become demigods.

But it seems I'm quite alone in this, so I will say no more on the matter.

It can also come down to what people actually started with when it comes to DnD, the first few games I played where in 3.5 but when we all came to get our own books and play for proper 4th edition was all we had access to for purchase, so that's what we bought and that's what we know.

I think, and I may be wrong, that the main problem people have with 4th ed is the special attacks (which from what I can tell was an attempted to avert the Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards that had plagued DnD and everything like it since it's inception by giving the magic classes a few more spells up front and no magic classes the ability to pull a dragons head off with their hands near the end.

Unfortunately this made it look, (but not really feel imo as somebody who's played both) like WoW meets DnD and considering that from what I can gather (I may be wrong) alot of hardcore DnD players hated WoW from the word go on principal, this was never gonna go over well.

On the subject of the game, no, nobody wants to deal with all that crap in a game, it's a game, it's escapism, to steal a quote from yahtzee's review of GTA 4 that seems to applicable I ask this.

"Am I playing Grand Theft Auto or Grand Theft NORMAL BORING LIFE!?"

Cunovendus wrote:

Sleeping: so you like the fact that your character can wander around for days on end, killing everything he comes across, without even having to rest, ever? Not even to level up, like in Oblivion? I can even forgive the lack of food requirements, assuming it comes as part of spending a night in an inn, but combined with lack of fatigue, it pushes suspension of disbelief a little to far in my opinion. But that's just me.

Outside of Fallout: New Vegas' hardcore mode, I cannot think of a single RPG that required you to sleep for any reason beyond leveling up or as a way to heal yourself if you're too broke or cheap to buy a healing item for it.

Quote :

Anyway, this just proves my point. Apparently nobody wants to have to deal with the complexities of life in an RPG universe.

Absolutely untrue. "Complexities of life" are not limited to mundane functions of biology. They are not the driving force behind the story.

"I can't defeat this dragon, I forgot to pee before I set out on this quest!"
"Oh no, Darkspawn! If only our kids remembered to eat their veggies!"
"God, maybe the Quarians wouldn't be at war with the Geth if they just got some more sleep!"

Quote :

They simply want to manifest from A to B and kill-kill-kill, watch the numbers rise and marvel at how awesome they are.

No, they simply want to be engaged in between A and B. Sleeping is not engaging.

Quote :

Sorry but I like a little more depth to my RPGs.

You are confusing mechanics for depth. An RPG can have simplistic gameplay and have extraordinary depth... or it can have zero depth and be bogged down with meaningless mechanics. These things are not mutually exclusive, but they are not related, either.

Quote :

I want to have to think, sometimes, and consider basic living mechanics...no I don't want to roleplay my character going for a shit every day because that's going too far, but I do want to acknowledge that he is a person and has person requirements. In short, I want people who become heroes, not superheroes who become demigods.

Right. You want a person who doesn't poop that takes naps in between slaying monsters the size of buildings with hand-held medieval weaponry. That's, uh. That's a superhero, guy.

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...if not a god.

WD40 wrote:

Same can be said of Pendragon, HERO system, GURPS, Warhammer, Cyberpunk and 1st-2nd ED Shadowrun... These games got better when they were "dumbed down". Or, to put it another way, when the stupid, unnecessary shit was removed, and the game was made more streamlined and accessible - they got far, far better.

Haha, man I remember being so confused by Shadowrun 3's character creation, I cannot even imagine what 1st and 2nd would be like. 4th edition is best edition.

I think video games have more room to be complex because you have the computer making all the calcs in the bg and you do not have to stop and mess around with stuff all the time. I like complicated systems that give me room to do a lot of character customizing and tweaking stuff. I am not a huge fan of spending shit tons of time micro-managing stuff like eating and sleeping though. IDK, I played Fallout New Vegas in hardcore mode and regular mode and I get why people might find regular mode a bit silly. Stuff like sleeping to heal crippled limbs and just standing around in the middle of the desert for hours to make it be the correct time, or when a vendor runs out of money to give you and you are still carring too much crap so you trade for a bunch of missles because they magically do not weigh anything. It is like a weird kind of uncanny valley where things are realistic enough to make you question the unrealistic stuff. But fussing around with eating and sleeping and all is soooooo annoying. Bleh. Soooo glad they gave you the option do either one.

Not sure I get the argument that Skyrim is dumbed down compaired to Oblivion, though. They replaced having a bunch of stats with a perk system, and they got rid of repairing and seemingly replaced it with five hundred kinds of crafting. Why do these Elder Scroll 'waaaah they dumbed it down' purists ever mention how much more complex the crafting got? I only played the game a couple hours so I may be missing out on something but it did not really seem that much simpler to me.

My main issue is that tying level growth to skill use and to enemy levels makes only a certain couple of character types valid, which was also a problem in Oblivion. In Fallout you could get through the game with a wide variety of very different characters; in Oblivion you had to set the difficulty to noob if you ever wanted to play around with alchemy ever. In Skyrim they give you ten hundred types of crafting, but better not craft too much you do not want to gain 5 levels without your sword skill increasing or you will get completely wiped out. Because reality works that way, right? You get better at blacksmithery and all of a sudden all the wolves and crap that keep attacking you everytime you leave town are replaced with bears. Good luck blacksmithing them to death, asshole!

TL;DR: Fallout > Elder Scrolls

I love repairing in Fallout it makes a duct tape noise when you do it so great eeeeeeee~ jury rig is best perk.

Cunovendus wrote:

Sleeping: so you like the fact that your character can wander around for days on end, killing everything he comes across, without even having to rest, ever? Not even to level up, like in Oblivion? I can even forgive the lack of food requirements, assuming it comes as part of spending a night in an inn, but combined with lack of fatigue, it pushes suspension of disbelief a little to far in my opinion. But that's just me.

Well, personally I figure it's like how you rarely see fictional characters doing stuff like going to the toilet unless it's important to the plot. It's edited out because it just isn't interesting to watch.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

In Skyrim they give you ten hundred types of crafting, but better not craft too much you do not want to gain 5 levels without your sword skill increasing or you will get completely wiped out. Because reality works that way, right? You get better at blacksmithery and all of a sudden all the wolves and crap that keep attacking you everytime you leave town are replaced with bears. Good luck blacksmithing them to death, asshole!

One of the reasons why I never got into Elder Scrolls. You become a god-slayer and all of a sudden every highway thief is sporting daedric armor and swords that shoot tigers on fire and shit.

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

In Skyrim they give you ten hundred types of crafting, but better not craft too much you do not want to gain 5 levels without your sword skill increasing or you will get completely wiped out. Because reality works that way, right? You get better at blacksmithery and all of a sudden all the wolves and crap that keep attacking you everytime you leave town are replaced with bears. Good luck blacksmithing them to death, asshole!

One of the reasons why I never got into Elder Scrolls. You become a god-slayer and all of a sudden every highway thief is sporting daedric armor and swords that shoot tigers on fire and shit.

This is kind of why my friend convinced me not to play Oblivion the first time I learned the game existed. He practically turned himself into a God, creating overpowered spells and shit, and just generally ignoring the game's plot altogether. That kind of playing bothered me, because to me it didn't feel like it was a natural progression.
I've been playing RPGs for a good while (Final Fantasy IX being my all-time favorite), and I've always seen progression, as far as gear goes, as the improvement of equipment as the game's story or protagonist progressed, not as "start of the game, BEST GEAR EVAR JUST ADD WATER!" because that feels like cheating. But that's just me.

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

In Skyrim they give you ten hundred types of crafting, but better not craft too much you do not want to gain 5 levels without your sword skill increasing or you will get completely wiped out. Because reality works that way, right? You get better at blacksmithery and all of a sudden all the wolves and crap that keep attacking you everytime you leave town are replaced with bears. Good luck blacksmithing them to death, asshole!

One of the reasons why I never got into Elder Scrolls. You become a god-slayer and all of a sudden every highway thief is sporting daedric armor and swords that shoot tigers on fire and shit.

You mean Oblivion.

Sadly I own that game, wish I had never bought it.

But yeah, up until the 20th level (which took forever to get) In Morrowind... eh, things can still kill you, regardless of the gear you get, if you're not careful. I'm proud to say I own the original version of it for the PC. One thing with Morrowind is that I like how even y'know, you might have good armor and gear, but you can still die. You dont' become "OMFG IMMORTALIS!!!!11one" just because you get high gear, sure it helps, but you can still be killed by the average fire spell if you're not careful/go wall fuck stupid.

Hopefully, Skyrim has this, I'm still heavily debating on purchasing it, mainly since I'm getting strapped for cash I prob won't be buyin any games for awhile.

Reidmar wrote:

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

In Skyrim they give you ten hundred types of crafting, but better not craft too much you do not want to gain 5 levels without your sword skill increasing or you will get completely wiped out. Because reality works that way, right? You get better at blacksmithery and all of a sudden all the wolves and crap that keep attacking you everytime you leave town are replaced with bears. Good luck blacksmithing them to death, asshole!

One of the reasons why I never got into Elder Scrolls. You become a god-slayer and all of a sudden every highway thief is sporting daedric armor and swords that shoot tigers on fire and shit.

You mean Oblivion.

Sadly I own that game, wish I had never bought it.

But yeah, up until the 20th level (which took forever to get) In Morrowind... eh, things can still kill you, regardless of the gear you get, if you're not careful. I'm proud to say I own the original version of it for the PC. One thing with Morrowind is that I like how even y'know, you might have good armor and gear, but you can still die. You dont' become "OMFG IMMORTALIS!!!!11one" just because you get high gear, sure it helps, but you can still be killed by the average fire spell if you're not careful/go wall fuck stupid.

Hopefully, Skyrim has this, I'm still heavily debating on purchasing it, mainly since I'm getting strapped for cash I prob won't be buyin any games for awhile.

It depends. You're USUALLY at a greater risk of death at lower levels, because some enemies are high level no matter what level you are (Ice Wraiths, Giants, Trolls, and others). Dragons are level scaled, meaning if you power level your alchemy, smithing, and enchanting in order to forge ridiculously broken armor and weapons, without ever leveling up actual combat skills, like I did, you'll end up fighting some goddamn High Dragon of Player Character Assraping with nothing but alchemy to back you up.

Side Note: Alchemy not terribly effective against Dragons.

But once you get up to level 30-40+ with leveled up armor and combat skills, 90% of enemies you encounter will die after about two seconds of horrified screaming. They are still enemies that can kill you (I stumbled upon some goddamn vampire that ran fast, cripple my stamina, could drain my health at an alarming rate, went through ALL of my health and stamina potions before I could corner and slaughter him, very close to death myself).

This is my experience as a Two Handed wielding, Heavy Armor wearing, berserker melee guy with absurdly strong weapons and armor that I obtained through exploiting a item creation system that the developers either didn't know was ridiculously broken, or didn't care. Trying to be a ninja or mage (or using "fair" equipment) may change the gameplay, as sneaking is nearly impossible to do consistently, and magic is much less powerful than it was in Oblivion.

Anybody go after them Daedric artifacts? They're pretty cool.

Especially THIS sexy mutha fucka.

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Wow these threads are dead.

Has anyone played with the DLC, and opinions?

Dawnguard: fucking annoying vampire attacks all the TIME, killing off my townsfolk. I've done the main quest once, but started new playthroughs, and I just don't want to deal with Serana's bullshit story again. I'm putting it off, but I hate those vampires. Being a werewolf rules.

Hearthfire: Sort of fun, but buggy. Don't buy the lakehouse- it will crash your game. I get a kick out of what the kids say. The first time I moved them into Whiterun and they loved the park and tree, and felt sad for the orphan I didn't adopt.

Dragonborn: The BEST of the dlcs by far. I didn't play Morrowind, but if you did, apparently it's great for nostalgia value. Kick-ass new smithing, perks, etc.

Yeah... Diggin' that DLC.

... Loving it...

Couldn't be better...


...fuckin' ps3...

WD40 wrote:

Yeah... Diggin' that DLC.

... Loving it...

Couldn't be better...


...fuckin' ps3...

Aw, sorry man. I forgot about the ps3 thing. Maybe you'll get some free stuff as compensation for the wait?

I'm still waiting a while longer 'fore buying. Maybe another year yet.

Anything making me nostalgic for Morrowind is good, that was a great game despite all of the bugs.

Waiting a year before buying Skyrim? They've put in a lot of patches. If you have Steam, they'll probably have a sale around the holidays.

I wish I had Skyrim on PC so I could mod the fuck out of it, but I only have it on console.

It is a big time and life sink, so beware...

Yeah, I always wait for the updates before buying one of their games. I'll probably wait 'til next holidays though. Yeah, Steam has pretty much trained me not to buy something until it is 75% off :D

Anyway, I don't know why this game isn't in Antidote either. For a game this huge, it plays pretty damned well.

I hate sandbox games and really prefer linear style stuff, so I was surprised I liked this game as much as I do. There's so much weird stuff that goes on in the world around you that surprises you even after like 50 hours of gameplay- seeing wolves attack giants out in the open, or a bunch of bandits try to trick you.

I played a regular "good" Imperial sword and shield type my first run through and killed the Dark Brotherhood.

My second playthrough was a mage Altmer and I looved the Dark Brotherhood stuff. Dual summoning Daedras was boss.

I'm finally levelling a sneak-thief Dunmer, and OMFG I love shooting people in the ass.

It's good you didn't start with a heavy weapon, heavy armour build - because once you've played as that, playing as anything else is genuinely a struggle.

I did have a laugh when I decided to take a break from the main story to check out some of the local colour and tried to join the Companions. In case you forget, the initial conversations with them tend to treat you as some newbie urchin who just wandered in off the street.

I disparately wanted a "Bitch, I'm wearing, like, 5 dead dragons. My hammer has a fucking heartbeat! Pay attention, yo!" response.

That's like the one spec I haven't rolled in yet- heavy armor.

That's what does make me ::headdesk:: in this game. You're the leader of like the mages guild and get "oh, you know a few spells, that's supposed to impress me?" or "why don't you go to the mages college and apply?" Sure, sure I'll do that soon...

I love putting off the main quest of saving the world so I can dick around the world exploring. Sorry, Tamriel, but I'm shooting some deer right now.

WD40 wrote:

It's good you didn't start with a heavy weapon, heavy armour build - because once you've played as that, playing as anything else is genuinely a struggle.

I did have a laugh when I decided to take a break from the main story to check out some of the local colour and tried to join the Companions. In case you forget, the initial conversations with them tend to treat you as some newbie urchin who just wandered in off the street.

I disparately wanted a "Bitch, I'm wearing, like, 5 dead dragons. My hammer has a fucking heartbeat! Pay attention, yo!" response.

I wanted the "Yo, I'm the ONLY person in Skyrim wearing Daedric armor, and I could shoot you and kill you in one hit from a quater of a mile away! Pay the fuck attention and respect!" Maybe not THAT blunt but still.

WD40 wrote:

...fuckin' ps3...

Brb laughing at you for not having the superior PC version.

Would it be entirely crazy for me to get the PC version (I have the 360 version) because I want to mod it so badly. It drives me insane that I don't have the option to make my helmet invisible after spending THAT much time on character customization (not that it's much to look at...)

I'd wait for it go on sale and all...

LeeLee wrote:

Would it be entirely crazy for me to get the PC version (I have the 360 version) because I want to mod it so badly. It drives me insane that I don't have the option to make my helmet invisible after spending THAT much time on character customization (not that it's much to look at...)

I'd wait for it go on sale and all...

Nah, it's perfectly normal to want the superior version of the game After all, I have it and have heavily modded it.