I'll start off by saying I've played all 3 of the Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, although I never actually did beat Morrowind but came pretty close. I also haven't played all the much of Skyrim since I've only started it a few days ago. Anyway, I have always found the games to be very impressive, exciting and vast.. but I have always gotten a little bored of the games. There really isn't anything to motivate you to do every side quest, or to find every weapon or priceless artifact, or to even explore and search every nook and cranny.
With Morrowind I remember finding hidden things everywhere I looked. I'd enter someone's house and there would be an expensive ring sitting on the ledge that wrapped around the wall - if I hadn't been looking at the ledge, I never would have found it. Or renting a room to find a dagger that was left under the head of the bed. There was often something hiding, something to push you to explore everything. With Oblivion and Skyrim, I've noticed they removed what I enjoyed about Morrowind with the hidden objects everywhere. Also them removing levitation keeps me from even wanting to look up now.
I find the most exciting thing about exploring these games is the feeling that I'm the only person that's been there. I will lose that feeling even with seeing marauders outside the entryway of a cave or especially inside the cave.
I've never liked Oblivion's introduction to the Fast Travel. It makes it feel like I've skipped out on all the dangers or exploring by just pressing a button and I am instantly hours away from where I was. I've always liked that Morrowind had the walkers that would take you to the nearest towns, or the person in the Mage's guild that could teleport you.
Towns and NPCsMy main question is: am I the only one who really dislikes towns and finds them the most boring thing about the game?
I'm dead serious here. I try to avoid towns as much as possible! I never explore them. I pretty much just find out where the Merchants are and that's pretty much it. I find they like to make towns too large with very little purpose to explore. I try to avoid talking to characters because I find they talk too much and more than they need to on a single subject (cut the fat). I like the NPCs that don't have a dialog tree when you try to talk to them and they simply just shout out a random message. That's how most characters should be unless they have something important to tell you, or a quest. I would actually prefer to see an indication above NPC's heads if they have a quest for me or not.
I get bothered with their verbal diarrhea responses as you walk passed them "Good day! I work at so-and-so's place. Been there for years". I don't need to hear this. Do you ever walk around in real life, and without starting a conversation, having people you've never met share their life with you?
I also believe it was the removal of being able to sell whatever I had stolen to any merchant (except to the person I stole from) that makes exploring houses much less interesting. Morrowind had that right. I understand why they removed it, but I don't like that they did. Needing a fence to sell my goods, or that one crooked merchant, doesn't exactly make it worth my while. Like, how do they even know something was stolen anyway? If I'm a thief I want to sell to whomever I please.
L..O..A..D..I..N..G..The thing that drives me most crazy is all the loading. I understand it's a vast world and there's so much to load. But it's a little overkill. It kills the flow of the game.
Entering someone's house..
Loading.. Going into their basement..
Loading.. Leaving their basement..
Loading.. Leaving the house..
Loading.. Leaving the town..
Loading..Looking at GTA, Red Dead Redemption and other games that have asynchronous loading, it makes me wonder why Elder Scrolls hasn't done this yet.
I want to enter a town and look through the glossy windows of a house. I want to be able to see them sleeping in their bed while I sneak around outside their windows to find where I should break in. Instead I pick a lock, watch a loading screen, then find out the person was standing on the other side of the door staring at me as I
loaded entered the house. I would love it if the doors would just open and you could enter and leave without any loading. No more of this NPCs fading in and out as they enter or leave a loading environment.
I also wouldn't mind walking along through a forest to see a weathered hole in the ground that leads to a dungeon. Jumping into the hole and entering the dungeon and immediately having free roam. Looking up and seeing the trees still there.
So it's not just the loading screen or waiting that bothers me. It's the lack of immersion and realistic gameplay. I would LOVE to see the next Elder Scrolls not having any noticeable loading unless you're "fast traveling" or loading a saved game.
The Menu and Favorite systemI never did like the Menu in Oblivion but I liked how organized it was within the tabs. Skyrim comes along and completely revamps the menu, but removes the good features that Oblivion had and makes it worse.
I don't want to see the Items only sorted alphabetically. For instance: items in the Apparel section shouldn't be sorted alphabetically only. With this system as you scroll down the list you'll see an amulet, then some kind of shield, then back to an amulet, then another shield etc. I want to see my items grouped together. Main groups and subgroups. Within the Apparel section I should see subgroups of: Helmets, Gauntlets, Greaves, Shoes, etc. The way they have it is beyond logical and it makes me wonder who decided that it was a good idea.
Heck, I can't even sort by weight anymore. If I'm trying to drop the heaviest items, I want to sort by weight. Also not being able to see the item's weight and price within the list without actually selecting the item, is beyond bizarre. Oblivion had so much right - of course it was still flawed and stupid, but at least it was more organized and somewhat easier to manage.
Why do we still see dozens and dozens of keys within our miscellaneous section but not grouped together. When do you look through miscellaneous items to check up on your keys? Why not have a "key chain" that holds all the keys. If you want to find out what keys you have within that, then it enters another submenu.
Then it leaves me with the favorite system (which is also not sorted by groups!). Also when you're in your favorite menu you can't remove a favorite; the only way is to search it up manually in your Items and remove from favorites.
This is what you should see on the Xbox version (or a variation of this - perhaps even customizable):
- Press Left on the D-Pad it enters Magic
- Press Right on the D-Pad it enters Weapons (being able to access the inventory from this)
- Press Up on the D-Pad enters your Inventory
- You press Down on the D-Pad and it enters your list of favorites or your list of frequently used items (all sorted by groups and subgroups). Having this allow access to a list of frequently equipped items would also be nice. So one can quickly go between their bow and sword without scrolling (since those two items will likely be at the top - for me anyway).
I find there's nothing that shows me my weight anymore unless I enter my Items menu. Like come on. So if I'm bartering with someone I still don't know my weight (at least I'm pretty sure). Instead I have to stop bartering with them, stop the conversation, then enter my items menu and check out my weight. Argh! Yes, as you can tell, I'm very frustrated by this game's UI.
I'm not certain why I'm writing this. Maybe I have hopes someone from Bethesda will see this and it'll make sense to them. Maybe I'd like to know I'm not the only one who dislikes nearly everything with their new Inventory menu and UI.
Is there anything about the Elder Scrolls games you guys find unbelievably frustrating or thing you'd like to see changed and improved? I'd love to hear it.
I've almost finished Oblivion and I finished the Civil war, the main story, the mage and the assassin quest lines in Skyrim. Though with RPGs I usually want to do everything, so it end up with me ending the play before I finish the game (like with Fallout 3 and New Vegas).
- towns - I don't like the long walks or the overwhelmness of missions that appear at once, but I like them because it feels like there's stuff to see in the world plus each has it's own secrets and style.
- NPCs - well I think that's just you not getting in the game mood, realism has nothing to with it, I'd like more people to be in the world
- loading - GTA and RDR I think have the same engine and besides that Skyrim has a much bigger area with much more areas that off the main height terrain map - if you enter a building in GTA there's much less in there than a whole dungeon in Skyrim. Maybe there's a bit too much of loading, but it's not that bad to me, it's their engine and it's not the worst thing about it
What I missed from Oblivion:
- Oblivion had a lot more places to sell stolen stuff (even though in Skyrim the Thieves guild is a lot more influential)
- more various side missions, Skyrim had cool Daedra (probably wrong name) missions that were weird and fun, but the usual missions are kind of lamer (though there are memorable ones as well)
- I actually didn't mind the ring thing for dialogues mini game
- besides the dragons, Oblivion was more "high fantasy" than Skyrim, which is more "low fantasy"/Song of Ice and Fire, would've liked to see more magical/fantastic scenery.
Everything else I think Skyrim did better - travelling (I mostly didn't even use fast travel cause sunsets and Aurora Borealis were beautiful, multilevel dungeons (sun coming through etc.), sights are beautiful though not so "magical" which is a downer perhaps, more voices, combat is more interesting, doing alchemy/blacksmithing etc.
Although both games need modding for the menus/inventory/maps to be actually useful and practical and that's probably the most annoying thing. The companion option in Skyrim is great (it kind of seems more logical for more people to go plus it's less scary), but the AI is really unplayable and I had to constantly use the "teleport next to me" code, because AI would get stuck or lost or die etc., why the hell is there not a retreat/run away command?! Also there were things you pick up but can't drop because it's a "quest item" even though you don't have the quest, you can't even drop it off in your house, and the weight really stacks up quickly if you're not careful.
...oh, and those freaking ice trolls and giants, although that's not that big of a deal.
I'll just say straight out that I am a total Morrowind fanboy :D.
I loved it totally for all the reasons you mentioned, although travel and directions WERE pretty hard (which is what I guess they tried fixing in the later games). Characters were never a strong point in the games, so I guess it makes sense that you'd avoid NPCs and towns.
I guess the thing I loved so much about Morrowind that probably spoiled the later Elder Scrolls games for me a bit was the total freedom without any obviously imposed restrictions. Levitation was there, as you said, combinable, addable spells, enchantments, etc. They literally just gave you a box, set some basic laws to balance, and let you go crazy in it. It had its glitches as well, of course, but that was part of charm (like that imp merchant who bought anything). A proper "sandbox" game.
Oblivion made it worse, unfortunately. The story seemed more strongly imposed on you, those oblivion gates had me raging, and the addition of so much useless stuff you could pick up, while it made it more realistic, also worsened it, if you ask me.
Skyrim was interesting and different for a bit, but then it too got me bored after a while.
Not sure if you don't know this, or maybe it isn't applicable because you have the xbox version, but there are mods out on the PC version of Skyrim that totally revamps the inventory and other menus (including sorting by weight).
Both the later games seemed to bog the player down with the expectation "Okay, so I'll go to this new area/town, finish the guild quests, finish the minor sidequests, maybe do a main story mission or two, then I move on to the next area and repeat". Morrowind had similar stuff too, of course, but it also had tombs you could go around randomly exploring, daedric shrines if you were feeling bored, shipwrecks, and your own self-created "missions" you could make for yourself.
I obviously have no idea what went on behind the scenes for any of these games, but it seemed like while making Morrowind they worked really really hard to flesh out this very large worldmap they had created for themselves, and came up with loads of interesting ideas and cool concepts. Then for the later games, they not only went smaller, but turned all the cool ideas from Morrowind into a checklist: Shipwreck- check, tombs- check, daedric shrines with crazy quests- check, M'Aiq the Liar- check etc.
(again, I am a total Morrowind fanboy :P)
As far as something I'd like improved in the other games? I SO SO SO SO SO much wish that someone would be able to modify Daggerfall's interface so that you could look around with the mouse.
Played them all since Daggerfall, but funnily the Skyrim was the only one I really finished. Daggerfall was too buggy (and also it lacked autonotes much); I passed about 2/3 of Morrowind, but something distracted me, a long time passed, and I didn't have motivation to replay it. I nearly finished Oblivion but it got so terribly boring in the end, that I ran last few quests using cheats. At first I wasn't sure I like Skyrim, but there were few things there that kept me playing. Can't say I was very happy about it in the end though.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 00:08:59
My main question is: am I the only one who really dislikes towns and finds them the most boring thing about the game?
The first time I saw a town in Morrowind I had a small shock. I saw towns in Daggerfall - they were really towns - with lots of big buildings and hungreds of people around (alright, they were mostly randomly generated, but you don't have to meet and remember every single person in a town do you?)
I thought: okay, it is Morrowind, a place is a bit desolated isn't it? So, when I started Oblivion I thought: alright, we have an Imperial City here do we? Imperial freaking city... plain and bland, with few people around. That was the first dissapointment of Oblivion (first of many).
In Morrowind I tried to talk with everyone at first, since everyone seemed unique. That soon became exhausting because most did not have anything interesting to say. I learnt the lesson, and quickly remembered only people important to me.
I also tried to roleplay a thief/assassin in Oblivion. Soon I learned I can't even get to the roof to hide there (you could climb in Daggerfal and levitate in Morrowind). That killed roleplaying atmosphere for me (not only that).
Now, that reminds me, so I should probably note something that always bugged me in those games: your actions will only then has impact on the world when they are straightly related to one of the quests. You may kill any unimportant character and nobody seem to give a damn, unless guard saw you. After you pay your fines you may walk to the wife of a man you've just killed and she will greet you like nothing happened. So absurd...
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 00:08:59
I also believe it was the removal of being able to sell whatever I had stolen to any merchant (except to the person I stole from) that makes exploring houses much less interesting.
Yes, that is true. But then, there's also different problem: after about half of game merchandizing does not have much sense anymore anyway. First, you can steal or salvage so much stuff that you won't be able to sell anything. And even if you could... there's not a single item in the shop that I'd want to buy. Buying houses is the only motivation to gather loot after that. Or maybe gathering a collection of armor, or something like that.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 00:08:59
I never did like the Menu in Oblivion but I liked how organized it was within the tabs. Skyrim comes along and completely revamps the menu, but removes the good features that Oblivion had and makes it worse.
Skyrim menu is terrible. It amazes me how, in the age of well-developed GUI, someone could do anything like that. I want them use this menu in hell.
No sorting. No filtering.
It has a special key for "take everything from container". Woah, cool. Like I need that too often (after 1/2 of game you will need only money and rare items from those corpses and barrels, you never would like to take everything). What about "drop everything to container", or "drop everything of current type"?
Doing alchemy turned to be a stress of sorts. I usually stored all my ingredients in a separate container. When I was coming home after travels I just opened the sack, grabbed all ('R' key IIRC), then did some potions... then I had to manually put EVERY freaking ingredient back. And to make things worse:
- If there's less than 5 items of type in a stack, you drop them one by one;
- Otherwise you should press "drop" key, then Enter key to confirm you want to drop all of them;
- Now, funny part: the "Eat" key is the same as "Confirm". Guess what? You have to pay attention how much of each item is there not to press the wrong key in turn. And there may be several dozens of different ingredients.
The action that could took a second with normal GUI, here takes
minute. And countless occasional self-poisoning, wasting rare ingredients etc. Argh!!!
So, I wonder, why did I roleplayed wicked immoral mage, killing everyone whom I didn't like?....hmmm
What I'd love to mention is something I find to be a general flaw of TES games. They provide you a vast world, but not much unique possibilities. They provide an engine where you can have various types of items, yet very limited ways to use them.
Smithing and mining in Skyrim was interesting idea. Now, I heard they allowed to build your own house with Skyrim's DLC.
But.
You can't set up your habitat anywhere you like. For instance, I've aleady mentioned I roleplayed evil mage. Hell, I would love to live in some cave and not in town. But it will be nearly impossible with all containers and enemies being reset every one or two weeks or so.
I want to hire some mercenaries, or summon band of skeletons to guard my possessions, but I can't. Dammit, every last necromancer in the game has his cave guarded by those, but I can't.
If the player is given a chance to smith armors, why not give him a method to make it somehow unique?
If the player can eat food and drink water and wines, why not make him NEED to eat and drink? In mid-90-ies I played a game called Ultima Underworld. It was times more realistic and times more immersive than TES: player needed to sleep, eat, drink; player gets tired in the water and drowns, when he get exhausted in combat he collapses, etc etc... it was made in 1991, I think. 20 years passed and all the progress we have basically is graphics.
Shame on you, game designers!
Oh, not to forget the brilliant work on the books you can read. It is a great option and some of the stories are brilliant short stories, fables, myths, treasure hunts etc. Brilliant and unique part of the ES games.
Warning: This is a long message!
Quote from: Anian on Sat 20/10/2012 01:47:40NPCs - well I think that's just you not getting in the game mood, realism has nothing to with it, I'd like more people to be in the world
Even if the towns were as realistic as possible, I still wouldn't like them. I play the games to explore dungeons, temples, caves, etc, not to learn a culture or what an NPC does after work.
But I do like how NPCs aren't randomly generated. That every time you enter the town the characters will always be there. How you can follow an NPC finish work and head off to the bar for a few drinks, then back off to bed at home. It's nice. It can be interesting while following these characters as a mission (like Oblivion's mission where that guy thought people in town were all watching him - it was indeed a little too boring though since everyone walked so slowly and you had to rely on the Wait function while they were in their houses or working).
But yes, I would prefer to see just little villages and farm houses opposed to large towns and cities. I want the game to feel like it's only starting the colonization, that everything hasn't quite been explored just yet except for the odd daring soul or marauder. I think every character, unless they actually have something worthwhile to talk about, shouldn't have a dialog tree.
Quote from: Anian on Sat 20/10/2012 01:47:40I actually didn't mind the ring thing for dialogues mini game
I didn't overly mind it, but a part of me prefers the Skyrim system. I don't like how if you want to use Intimidation, Persuasion or Charm, etc, the outcome depends on a hidden randomizer based off of your levels and then you don't have the opportunity to do it over. That's why I would either prefer some kind of interactive system, or just don't give the player the option at all. I don't like random events that might work if I press the button now or won't work if I press it 2 seconds later.
Quote from: Anian on Sat 20/10/2012 01:47:40[..] would've liked to see more magical/fantastic scenery.
Which is one reason I believe I'm very fond of Morrowind. Large creatures floating over my head. Large merman creatures in the water (whatever they were called - you'd get dough wax from them). Big mushrooms. Swampy areas with cattail looking plants instead with a bright blue seed thing on top. There were even flying pterodactyl creatures (with a bad AI, but still)! The game was clearly NOT Earth. Then Oblivion and Skyrim come along and it looks more like a fantasy past version of Earth.
Quote from: Anian on Sat 20/10/2012 01:47:40Also there were things you pick up but can't drop because it's a "quest item" even though you don't have the quest, you can't even drop it off in your house, and the weight really stacks up quickly if you're not careful.
I was wondering about this. I picked up a stone slab from an undead creature that weighed a whopping 25 units. It was a quest item and I cannot drop it; actually it happened to be the first quest item I picked up without knowing what quest it belonged to. Now this bugs me. I wanted to assume it was letting me know what it actually weight, but for me it was 0 weight since it was a quest item. Now I know I'm wrong. So yes, at least give the option to drop it off into a chest at your house. That's kinda bull.
Quote from: Anian on Sat 20/10/2012 01:47:40...oh, and those freaking ice trolls and giants, although that's not that big of a deal.
Haha, yeah. I've actually encountered two giants already hanging out together by some giant fire on a stone platform. I'm kind of a cheater when it comes to killing things I know I can't beat. I climb up on something I very well know the AI path-finding can't navigate to. Then as they hide behind rocks I lob arrows at them until they're dead. I don't even feel guilty about it.
I would do this in Oblivion too. Like the one mission where the shopkeeper tells you people are breaking into his shop at night. So he asks you to stay behind while he locks up and you intercept the thieves. I wasn't quite tough enough for these men and didn't have any health potions. Anyway, I couldn't beat them so the one time I checked out the furniture upstairs. I saw a dresser and a bed next to it. I went downstairs and lobbed a fireball at one of the bastards and ran off to use the bed as a jumping platform to get onto the dresser. Then from there I climbed onto the wall in the attic where I could just shoot them with fire until they died. I use this technique quite often.
Quote from: Babar on Sat 20/10/2012 02:02:10I'll just say straight out that I am a total Morrowind fanboy :D.
What makes that game so popular? Including myself, everyone seems to like it more than the two sequels (minus the bow and arrows being shoddy as all hell). There are obvious elements in the 2 latest games that I would love to see in Morrowind, but yes, the atmosphere and quests were very fun.
Is it the things I mentioned? Having it feel like you're exploring a different world. All these creatures that are completely alien to us. I enjoyed exploring those Dwemer dungeons with robotic species and all the mechanical stuff moving about. I heard they have them in Skyrim but I haven't encountered them just yet. So far I do prefer the tombs in Skyrim over that of Morrowind. The bloody ghosts that you can't kill unless you have a silver weapon. Blah! And the ghouls that make a terrible moaning noise and are stupid hard to kill when you start out.
I'll admit that I've never used the enchantment or spell-making in Morrowind. It always felt like cheating to me. I wanted to earn everything I had by finding it or buying it - not making it.
Quote from: Babar on Sat 20/10/2012 02:02:10Oblivion made it worse, unfortunately. [..] and the addition of so much useless stuff you could pick up, while it made it more realistic, also worsened it, if you ask me.
I remember there being quite a few useless things in Morrowind. Was there really that many more useless items in Oblivion? I remember opening crate after crate and you could almost guess what it was going to be. The Morrowind crate randomizer was very predictable. You'd always find a couple coins in a crate, no matter where it was. I always found that to be very immersion breaking. Who would stuff a couple gold coins into a crate with some fabric and a clay pot and leave it outside their shop?
Quote from: Babar on Sat 20/10/2012 02:02:10Not sure if you don't know this, or maybe it isn't applicable because you have the xbox version, but there are mods out on the PC version of Skyrim that totally revamps the inventory and other menus (including sorting by weight).
Perhaps I should download some mods for the inventory then. Skyrim is actually the first of the Elder Scrolls game I bought for the PC. The rest were Xbox and 360. I'm also not sure if I'll be doing it again. I kind of prefer the ironed out 360 version with basic graphics. It turns out my laptop isn't as great as I thought it was. It has a dramatic FPS drop in busy environments - I may have to drop down to a lower graphic setting.
Quote from: Babar on Sat 20/10/2012 02:02:10Then for the later games, they not only went smaller, but turned all the cool ideas from Morrowind into a checklist: Shipwreck- check, tombs- check, daedric shrines with crazy quests- check, M'Aiq the Liar- check etc.
That's hard not to do. Shipwrecks were my favorite thing in Morrowind. But they definitely over did them in Oblivion it actually killed my excitement for them.
I actually loved all the underwater levels in Morrowind. Where the entrance was literally underwater. I don't even know if there was a shipwreck in that game that was fully submerged. I wouldn't doubt it - it would be awesome.
I would like to see a large forest with abandoned forts attached to trees with rope bridges connecting them and such. It would be nice. Or a large evil head carving on a mountain wall and you have to enter through the mouth.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25I saw towns in Daggerfall - they were really towns - with lots of big buildings and hungreds of people around (alright, they were mostly randomly generated, but you don't have to meet and remember every single person in a town do you?)
Towns were actually
bigger in Daggerfall? Shit. I wouldn't like that at all.
And no, I don't need to talk to every single person in town. All I want to talk to are the ones with a quest. If I could press a button that adds a crown above every NPC's head that has a quest for me, I would. Then I would avoid the rest unless they looked like they might have something interesting to say. Like someone sick and moaning as they lay in bed.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25You may kill any unimportant character and nobody seem to give a damn, unless guard saw you. After you pay your fines you may walk to the wife of a man you've just killed and she will greet you like nothing happened. So absurd...
Yeah that's also bothered me but I do understand why it hasn't been added yet. It's a tremendous amount of work and most players won't know the difference since they usually play the Good person.
One thing that should definitely be modified is the terrible response to when someone finds a dead body. Today in Skyrim I was sneaking into a camp of bandits. I shot and killed one of them and the other heard the noise. He investigated the general area. Once he saw the dead body he was immediately shouting and looking for who killed his buddy. Less than 20 seconds pass and he says "I must be hearing things", he then shrugs it off and goes back to his post. I'm sorry, but if he noticed a dead body, he shouldn't be shrugging it off and claiming he ate some strong chili and needs an antacid. He should be on high alert until he either finds me or I kill him.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25[..] after about half of game merchandizing does not have much sense anymore anyway. First, you can steal or salvage so much stuff that you won't be able to sell anything.
That's not really the point. I want to be able to do it if I want to or not. I don't want to have to rely on fast travel to head to a town that has a willing merchant or a fence.
In Morrowind, when I was a child, I used to try to get as much gold as possible. Even though I was buying anything with it anymore, I used to use it a bragging rights with my brothers. Showing them I'm thriftier than they are, and they'd put it into high gear to compete against me. Of course the brotherly rivalry wouldn't exist anymore now that we've grown, but just the idea of being able to steal what I want and sell to whom I want is enough. Given the option today, I would mostly just take jewelry or high valuables and leave the junk.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25Skyrim menu is terrible. It amazes me how, in the age of well-developed GUI, someone could do anything like that. I want them use this menu in hell.
Thank-you! You have no idea how that comment made me feel. I thought I was going crazy thinking it was the worst design. Even a chipmunk could tell you it was a poor design. How do all these game designers, their beta testers, and whoever else let this shit slide by? How is it even possible? Are they hiring terrible beta testers that don't give their honest input. Just smile, nodding their heads while waiting for a paycheck? Argh!
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25They provide an engine where you can have various types of items, yet very limited ways to use them.
Do you have an idea of how they could extend the use of these items?
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25Hell, I would love to live in some cave and not in town. But it will be nearly impossible with all containers and enemies being reset every one or two weeks or so.
This is something I've also wanted. To be able to establish any area as my home. Drop some chests down, a bed, some furniture. Or if I couldn't drop these items down at least let me use a preexisting environment as you've suggested.
Does anyone find the chests randomizing after a couple weeks useful? How dungeons and caves will repopulate with creatures. I kind of like it, but at the same time find it annoying. Like finding a chest behind a waterfall and not being able to drop my stuff into it for safekeeping is a little sad. At least have a spell that locks the chest, where my own personal key will automatically unlock it for me later. Once I've used the spell, the chest will always remain mine and it will lock itself after I've opened it.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 02:20:25If the player can eat food and drink water and wines, why not make him NEED to eat and drink?
Oddly enough, I actually agree with this. There's food almost everywhere. I always find an apple or carrot in a barrel, so why not. Once you fill up the bar it last for a while (just like Minecraft) and after a vigorous battle or lots of running around the bar starts decreasing. I wouldn't want my character to lose his health if he's not eating.. but at least have him noticeably weaker.
Sorry for my long message. ;)
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 05:35:07
Even if the towns were as realistic as possible, I still wouldn't like them. I play the games to explore dungeons, temples, caves, etc, not to learn a culture or what an NPC does after work.
<...>
But yes, I would prefer to see just little villages and farm houses opposed to large towns and cities. I want the game to feel like it's only starting the colonization, that everything hasn't quite been explored just yet except for the odd daring soul or marauder.
<...>
Towns were actually bigger in Daggerfall? Shit. I wouldn't like that at all.
I see this is mainly a matter of preference. Some prefer wandering uninhabited areas, others prefer big towns. For me, personally, it usually depends on current mood. But my point is this: I want the game to be immersive and each location suit its name. When they say "nomadic settlement" I want to see nomadic settlement (they did it well in Morrowind btw). When they say "desolate desert" or "deep woods" I want to see these. But when they say "large imperial city", then, for nine divine's sake, I want to see large imperial city! :)
So far TES was really good at wild open ranges. In Morrowind and Skyrim those made really good atmosphere; Oblivion was a bit bland, maybe because they were trying to show central province of the empire, something common western-european-alike.
I enjoy long travels in the wilderness. In Morrowind I used to pack supplies and travel into unknown direction (unexplored part of map) without any direct plan. Just walking somewhere, looking around, visiting some caves and ignoring others (simply because I wasn't in the mood to). Then turning and trying to find a different way back. It was real fun!
But I also wanted a "downtown" adventure for a change. The cities are landscapes on their own. There were times I wanted to wander in dark alleys, crouch on roofs and balconies, staying unseen. I couldn't normally do that simply because any "dark alley" I managed to encounter was like 5 meters long and ended in another wide street. I understand that medieval towns can't be that large like modern ones, but still, they should not be as small and populated by so limited number of peeps.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 05:35:07
I didn't overly mind it, but a part of me prefers the Skyrim system. I don't like how if you want to use Intimidation, Persuasion or Charm, etc, the outcome depends on a hidden randomizer based off of your levels and then you don't have the opportunity to do it over.
I totally agree with that. The conversation ring in Oblivion was fun at start but later when you learn how it works, you also realize how absurd it looks.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 05:35:07
Which is one reason I believe I'm very fond of Morrowind. ...The game was clearly NOT Earth. Then Oblivion and Skyrim come along and it looks more like a fantasy past version of Earth.
I liked Morrowind because of that, but I also liked Skyrim's wilderness alot, although it didn't look so alien (or because of that). In Skyrim I enjoyed travels to harsh enviroments, like deep woods or northern shores. Morrowind and Skyrim are like opposites - first is fire and second is ice :). If they existed in one game, we could visit them in turn :).
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 05:35:07
Haha, yeah. I've actually encountered two giants already hanging out together by some giant fire on a stone platform. I'm kind of a cheater when it comes to killing things I know I can't beat. I climb up on something I very well know the AI path-finding can't navigate to. Then as they hide behind rocks I lob arrows at them until they're dead. I don't even feel guilty about it.
I'd prefer to play a game where player has a
fair chance to kill a monster (so far it is allowed by gameplay). I wouldn't mind evade dangerous areas or sneak through them when I am low level and cannot fight more powerful enemy. But I do not like cheating like that, that kills the purpose of the game, and also is quite boring.
BTW, when playing a mage in Skyrim it appears to be much easier to kill giants and similar creatures when you get "Impact" perk that allows you to stagger an opponent with dual-casted spells. If you have good mana regeneration rate, you won't get a single hit, and sometimes you won't even need to move: just fire, wait, fire, wait.... sort of cheating too though, in my opinion.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 05:35:07
One thing that should definitely be modified is the terrible response to when someone finds a dead body. Today in Skyrim I was sneaking into a camp of bandits. I shot and killed one of them and the other heard the noise. He investigated the general area. Once he saw the dead body he was immediately shouting and looking for who killed his buddy. Less than 20 seconds pass and he says "I must be hearing things", he then shrugs it off and goes back to his post.
Exactly!
And I'd prefer townfolk learnt to move dead bodies somewhere...they just lie there for the rest of the game. What a shame. :D
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 05:35:07
And no, I don't need to talk to every single person in town. All I want to talk to are the ones with a quest. If I could press a button that adds a crown above every NPC's head that has a quest for me, I would. Then I would avoid the rest unless they looked like they might have something interesting to say. Like someone sick and moaning as they lay in bed.
Neither do I want to talk to everyone; on other hand I would prefer if I didn't know whom to talk. Instead there could be some interesting methods to find out jobs, like listening to what people talk around you, asking bartenders, applying to a guild or visiting town hall (or jarl's palace or whatever they have there), but not barging into random houses, asking if you could kill some rats for the owner.
Again, this is a matter of preference. Perhaps it is better to have a realism setting somewhere, like allowing the marks above quest-giver's head.
What I would really want is the game that allows you to make "quests" and adventures of your own. In Skyrim they added unlimited amount of thievery and assassin missions, but they look so lame. For example, when thievery mission is activated, some valuable items
appear in a random house. They do appear only when you start the mission! where they were before? Also sometimes they appear in some poor man's shack, which looks like big bullsh*t.
I remember in Oblivion I visited the Arena once, as a spectator. There was a woman sitting there with a big precious-looking necklace. She told
nothing about the necklace, and nobody else did. Yet, since I was roleplaying a thief (you just escaped from the prison - remember?), I decided to steal it. Nobody ever asked me to do this! I just waited for that woman to exit Arena, followed her to her house, waited for the midniht, picklocked the door, crouched into her bedroom, stole the necklace (which appeared to have good magical properties btw), she noticed me and called guards. So I ran out quickly with guards chasing me, I stole a horse and left the Imperial City. I was riding without even knowing where I go, until I ended on another end of the map in a distant city. Now, that was an adventure :D.
I'd really wish the game had something in it that would provoke players to ... well, play, and not follow List of Quests.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 00:08:59
I've never liked Oblivion's introduction to the Fast Travel. It makes it feel like I've skipped out on all the dangers or exploring by just pressing a button and I am instantly hours away from where I was. I've always liked that Morrowind had the walkers that would take you to the nearest towns, or the person in the Mage's guild that could teleport you.
I've started playing through Skyrim a second time and haven't used fast-travel at all. It's more rewarding to walk from A to B as you discover loads of places on the way and also level up faster. I do use the carriages though... even though it is still fast travel, it feels less cheaty, because you have to get to a major city to use them in the first place and your destinations are limited to the big cities. Using them feels 'legit' somehow because if you really did live in Skyrim, you would be able to hire them.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 20/10/2012 00:08:59
I also believe it was the removal of being able to sell whatever I had stolen to any merchant (except to the person I stole from) that makes exploring houses much less interesting. Morrowind had that right. I understand why they removed it, but I don't like that they did. Needing a fence to sell my goods, or that one crooked merchant, doesn't exactly make it worth my while. Like, how do they even know something was stolen anyway? If I'm a thief I want to sell to whomever I please.
There is a perk to sell stolen items to any merchant, but you need 90 Speech and you must have invested in them. But even so, the requirements seem a bit excessive.
I agree about the loading screens, although not because they take too long (the wait isn't really noticeable when you install Skyrim on Xbox). Towns like Falkreath are already free to walk right into, so it's annoying they don't have them for bigger places like Whiterun and for houses. Still I guess when TES VI comes out on next-gen consoles, there will be more capacity to do stuff like that.
I preferred Oblivion's environment to Skyrim's, even though Cyrodiil was admittedly plain, and had much less variety than Skyrim. (Note: it's ironic that the plane of Oblivion was also Hell to play through). I preferred Cyrodiil because the topography made the land much more open to explore. You didn't have to keep finding ways up cliffs and being funneled into places where you are supposed to go. I know Skyrim was obviously designed to be mountainous, and there are still lots of flatlands, but every time I play, without fail I end up doing the classic 'jump side to side up a mountain' routine to get to the other side.
The Shivering Isles was a great expansion and the scenery was quite different from Cyrodiil. The underground tree root cave things and sunken forts like Xeddefen were great fun to explore. I really hope they release something similar which is completely different to the land of Skyrim, just to get away from all that darn snow and real-life-history Nordic stuff. Apparently though the next DLC take you to Solstheim, which was in Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion, which isn't too different from Skyrim. But there probably will be something with the atmosphere of the Shivering Isles in the future, especially as it's been confirmed that Bethesda are producing DLC like they did for Fallout 3 - lots of small DLC rather than a few substantial ones.
Also, about the consuming food/drink idea, I've had that thought too before. Bread, cabbages, tomatoes, etc, are all really useless, especially when you are at a decent level and eating these recovers about one pixel of health. It would be much better for these to have a constant practical use, and if you are too hungry/thirsty your max stamina is depleted or something. Sleeping in a bed is now completely redundant in Skyrim, now that health regenerates on its own.
Spoiler?
Spoiler
It's literally a wait function after you become a werewolf, as you don't get the well-rested charm.
Alongside going for long periods of time without food/drink, it would also be good if players get fatigued by spending too long without sleep. Essentially this is the Hardcore mode added to Fallout New Vegas, which I used on the second play-through, and it's so much more fun than playing without it. I might even suggest that going too long without food, drink, or rest could kill the player but something so drastic probably wouldn't make it into the game without being optional. However, the sleeping requirement was sort of stupid in FNV because (a) you still hardly ever need to sleep to stay alive and (b) in real life you can probably lie down anywhere to get some sleep, rather than being forced to find a dirty pre-war mattress to catch some winks.
This seems like an appropriate place to say this. Fallout 4 using the Creation Engine will be the best game ever made, if they don't develop something better by 2025. The atmosphere of Fallout beats Elder Scrolls hands-down, even though the flaws in Fallout are a whole different kettle of fish.
In Fallout, almost anything you intake will increase your radiation level so it's kind of annoying if you have to eat and drink all the time, since basically you rad yourself if you want to heal yourself, I think it's enough. In Skyrim it'd be a cool option though, but on that note in Skyrim it's much easier to find food, it's basically everywhere, unlike in Fallout environments, so it'd be more of a busy work instead of a cool feature (it'd just mean you have to go into inventory every once in a while). Though maybe some stamina defects or strength reduction if you don't drink/eat/sleep wouldn't be too bad.
Fallout 4 will be awesome in the new Creation Engine, especially if they broaden the color palette and maybe add some outdoor missions in some part that was treated with GECK, or something like that.
I completely disagree with Ryan about Towns and NPC. Talking to people and picking up on bits of story and characterisation is my favourite part of the Elder Scrolls games. Even though it is much, much better in Morrowind.
However, you're totally right about the inventory. Sincw you're only a few days in, install the SkyUI (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3863) mod, which is a massive improvement. It adds sorting by type, weight, value etc., pretty much like the Oblivion interface.
EDIT: Unless you're playing on the XBox, in which case I don't know if that mod will work...
Everytime someone complains about UI, other people start suggesting to dl a mod.
I think Bethesda must consider hire fans to mod their next game before it is released :).
So here I am playing Skyrim. I'm trying to get somewhere for a quest and I stumble upon this
beautiful area of water geysers and bones everywhere. It was amazing looking! I've got that girl Lydia following me who's been with me since I killed the first dragon (whether that's the same person for everyone, I don't know). And beside her is some random guy who wanted to follow me to where I was going (he's got no armor and he dies easily).
Well if the scenery wasn't enough to keep me distracted, this blasted dragon comes flying in. So here I am trying to find the nicest flat ground amongst all these ponds and trenches and I'm also worried my hitchhiker friend will get killed. The dragon lands in front of me and I'm lobbing arrows at it. I've got the dragon blasting fire at me and Guess what happens... A random man runs up to and he STARTS talking to me! If it were Oblivion I would be fine, but I'm getting my ass roasted while this guy wants to give me something. I couldn't really spend time choosing any dialog options, I was quickly ramming buttons to shut this guy up (luckily I turn on the subtitles, that way I can read quickly instead of missing what he was telling me). The guy gives me his shit and runs off. Good good.. I haven't died yet.
I'm back to hacking away at this dragon and gulping down my monster drinks of health potion when ANOTHER guy comes hopping on over with a smile on his face. He ALSO starts talking to me! This time I'm in a worse area standing right next to the dragon. Fuck! I'm smacking the buttons quickly choosing the dialog options. I quickly pressed the option to Lie to him that I never saw who he was looking for. The dialog stops and luckily the man actually sticks around and starts lobbing arrows at the dragon.
Man! Talk about the worst timing for me to walk into an infamous Bethesda dialog trigger. Bloody dragon.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions on downloading the SkyUI mod. I've loved it so far. It's still lacking in the sorting that I'd prefer. I don't want to see my Apparel having a necklace here, chest plating there, ring here, then back to chest plating. Bethesda is really shitty for that.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 20/10/2012 16:11:09I remember in Oblivion I visited the Arena once, as a spectator. There was a woman sitting there with a big precious-looking necklace. She told nothing about the necklace, and nobody else did. Yet, since I was roleplaying a thief (you just escaped from the prison - remember?), I decided to steal it. Nobody ever asked me to do this! I just waited for that woman to exit Arena, followed her to her house, waited for the midniht, picklocked the door, crouched into her bedroom, stole the necklace (which appeared to have good magical properties btw), she noticed me and called guards.
Man, that's awesome. I didn't know Oblivion went into that much detail to show people wearing necklaces. And I only just played a little bit of the game again a couple months ago.
You guys are really making me understand that I should treat the towns/cities as a different environment. That I should play differently while I'm in the towns opposed to how I play out in the fields, caves or dungeons.
I never do like to play the thief or murderer unless a mission gets me to do these things. I want my first play through to have me being an upstanding young traveler doing good deeds for everyone. ;)
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Mon 22/10/2012 05:01:21
So here I am playing Skyrim. I'm trying to get somewhere for a quest and I stumble upon this beautiful area of water geysers and bones everywhere. It was amazing looking!
The swamps of the Eastmarch? One of my favorite places in Skyrim. And also rich of alchemic ingredients :).
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Mon 22/10/2012 05:01:21
I've got that girl Lydia following me who's been with me since I killed the first dragon (whether that's the same person for everyone, I don't know). And beside her is some random guy who wanted to follow me to where I was going (he's got no armor and he dies easily).
There is a number of followers around, and they progress in level with you (until 50th lev, I think). Interesting thing is that they are, in fact, relatively invulnerable. They regenerate rather quickly on their own when not being damaged, like if they had unlimited supply of healing potions. They also wear weapons and armor you give to them if those are better than hers.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Mon 22/10/2012 05:01:21
Well if the scenery wasn't enough to keep me distracted, this blasted dragon comes flying in. So here I am trying to find the nicest flat ground amongst all these ponds and trenches and I'm also worried my hitchhiker friend will get killed. The dragon lands in front of me and I'm lobbing arrows at it. I've got the dragon blasting fire at me and Guess what happens...
Heh. I played as a warrior for some time, and I found it is safer to strafe around the landed dragon and attack him from sides. Not only he deals quite a damage with his breath, but he may actually eat you! if you stand in front and your health is beyond certain level.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Mon 22/10/2012 05:01:21
A random man runs up to and he STARTS talking to me!
Ha! I had similar thing once. I was attacked by guards while other man started to talk to me. I died. :/
BTW, based on your description, I guess it was the "fugitive" scene. The first guy was a running criminal who wanted you to keep "his" item for some time, and second guy was some kind of ranger, seeking for the first guy. This is one of many possible randomly generated encounters.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Mon 22/10/2012 05:01:21
I never do like to play the thief or murderer unless a mission gets me to do these things. I want my first play through to have me being an upstanding young traveler doing good deeds for everyone. ;)
There were times I always played a good guy anywhere. I mean, there were times I got bored, or angry of something, so I started killing everyone... then reloaded and continued playing as before :).
I decided to try different playing style in Oblivion just for a change. Also, perhaps it was the atmosphere of the beginning that changed my mind. If a man escapes from prison, he is probably a criminal? or what...
In Skyrim I tried to play a noble warrior (inspired by the nordic environment and all). I kind of like it at first, but later, when those little "nuisances" of the game started to drive me mad, I thought I had enough, restarted the game and made a totally different character. I chose to play a maniac mage :). Instead of following the "standard" path and go to Whiterun, I travelled to Riften right away (fought some low-level bandits along the path, - that's where I learnt it is actually quite easy to deal with foes using spells), where I joined thief's guild, then went to Winterhold and completed Mage's questline. I killed the First Dragon when I was like 20th level already.
By the way, it was ironic to see how the devs did not expect this behavior from player: most of the people in Whiterun behaved like I am some low-level stranger of no ability, although I was 20+ level mage with very good equipment and spells.
Yeah, it sounds like that's the hunter/hunted scenario mission. One character comes to you and says to keep something for them, because they're being hunted. Then the other guys comes and asks have you seen the first guy. You can then say that you have seen him and that him went that a way, you can say yes and that he had given you the object, or you can lie that you haven't seen the first guy.
But yes there should be some restriction of you not being in combat for that mini quest to start.
You say the marches are beautiful, but I think they're creepy, so devoid of life. I like the plains of Whiterun, just a beautiful countryside, very much like LOTR rip off, but still fun.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 22/10/2012 08:33:33
There is a number of followers around, and they progress in level with you (until 50th lev, I think). Interesting thing is that they are, in fact, relatively invulnerable. They regenerate rather quickly on their own when not being damaged, like if they had unlimited supply of healing potions. They also wear weapons and armor you give to them if those are better than hers.
Relatively invulnerable!? Buahaha. Surely, as a mage you made the elemental (fire in most cases) minion (I can't remember what they're called right now) and if you're in a closed environment the thing would go and attack an enemy, your follower would do that as well...that's basically death for the follower. The elemental minion sets fire to anyone who touches it and then explodes when it dies, when your follower is next to it and you don't heal him/her, they will die.
I like that they fall on their knees when they're nearly dead, but when there's more than one enemy around, that's almost useless.
I basically quick saved before entering any room in a dungeon, there's about 20% chance a follower would die when I was lvl20 and above, because I would accidently damage them.
Get the follower into steel and then a dwarven armour as fast as you can and maybe a bow as well so they're ranged attackers. But yes they do help to carry stuff and me being a hoarded, it's a real helper. Oh, and give them around 10 health potions so they can heal themselves.
Quote from: Anian on Mon 22/10/2012 09:58:27
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 22/10/2012 08:33:33
There is a number of followers around, and they progress in level with you (until 50th lev, I think). Interesting thing is that they are, in fact, relatively invulnerable. They regenerate rather quickly on their own when not being damaged, like if they had unlimited supply of healing potions. They also wear weapons and armor you give to them if those are better than hers.
Relatively invulnerable!? Buahaha. Surely, as a mage you made the elemental (fire in most cases) minion (I can't remember what they're called right now) and if you're in a closed environment the thing would go and attack an enemy, your follower would do that as well...that's basically death for the follower. The elemental minion sets fire to anyone who touches it and then explodes when it dies, when your follower is next to it and you don't heal him/her, they will die.
I like that they fall on their knees when they're nearly dead, but when there's more than one enemy around, that's almost useless.
Compared to
you they are relatively invlunerable. :)
In fact I found their ability to fall on knee and regenerate very useful, if you don't put them to big risk, ofc. I won't say it's always easy, so you should stay aware of what your companion do at most times, but they make a good distraction for enemies. In many cases the enemy will leave your ally when it felt on knee and chase you if you are standing close. I used this to my own benefit. The general tactic (if you are mage) is to let the ally attack, while shooting at the enemy from distance. When the ally is heavily wounded, come closer to bring enemy's attention to myself, then run rounds until ally heals him/herself, then hide behind his/her back and start over.
This sometimes is not easy, but so is fighting alone. Also depends on your character traits, and style of play. Stealth characters might forget about allies, because they lack... umm, tactical skills (read - brains :P).
I also found it very useful to check companion's health during combat using console. Open console (tilde key on PC), click on companion to make him/her active selected object. Then, during combat you may open console again once in a while and type "getav health" to read companion's current health status.
Real problem with companion is their inability to follow you in the rough terrain. While player can jump over a pack of stones or carefully slide down from rocks, companion usually can't (except for very limited places in dungeons), and will try to find a "normal" road (which may keep you waiting for a minute or two).
Also on occasion Lydia (and sometimes horse) would bump into me when I stop on the very edge of very high rock, dropping me down. :)
Quote from: Anian on Mon 22/10/2012 09:58:27
I basically quick saved before entering any room in a dungeon, there's about 20% chance a follower would die when I was lvl20 and above, because I would accidently damage them.
Something that would both annoy and amuse me, is when you hit the Shout button and it's like:
- FU! - ROH!! - stupid Lydia, get the *** out of my view!! - DA!!! --- weeeee, make her fly (laugh)
Like Oblivion, Skyrim is still way too easy for grinding levels. For light/heavy armour, you just find a couple of mudcrabs and stand there taking the hits (there's a cave in Oblivion where some goblins are keeping about five rats as pets - keep the block button held down and you're good to go). You can get to 100 Conjuration very fast too: equip the conjure sword spell in both hands, cast it, sheath the swords, then repeat as necessary ;) It a cheat's way of levelling but it's Bethesda's fault for making it too easy and tempting. Having said that, combat skills are still relatively tough to level, because you need to find enemies and available xp is more 'finite' in the sense that you can't practice anywhere at any time. I sort of omit archery from this - you've practically reached level 100 when you're level 85. Read the skill books for 5 levels, pay a trainer for the next 5, and go to Angi's Camp to achieve the final 5. The latter seems way too generous for what you actually have to do. But they probably counted on people not being so forward-thinking and shrewd when they go to read skill books or train with Angi.
Conjuration is one of my favourite skills because along with a human follower and dog, you can also have two permanent atronachs which will only disappear when they die. Although I've found that frost and storm atronachs tend to get stuck in doorways. This is different to humanoid followers who seem to stand in doorways just when you don't want them to. I know what CW means, I think their speed must be static unlike yours because they take ages to catch up - or is your speed also static? I never seemed to be able to keep up with elk but now I can outpace them (not when I'm not sprinting obviously). Normal walking speed also seems to get faster when you choose to raise stamina after levelling up, or is it just me?
Incidentally, does anybody else find that the dogs bark too much, to the point where you constantly notice it? I found the dog in Meeko's shack but told him to beat it after a while cos he's always yapping behind me.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 22/10/2012 08:33:33The swamps of the Eastmarch? One of my favorite places in Skyrim. And also rich of alchemic ingredients :).
Yeah, the volcanic wasteland. So far it was my favorite place to be in Skyrim. I was doing that sap retrieval quest with the giant holy tree underground - btw that underground forest had my jaw drop when I first entered it.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 22/10/2012 08:33:33There is a number of followers around, and they progress in level with you (until 50th lev, I think). Interesting thing is that they are, in fact, relatively invulnerable.
Lydia is super tough and fast to heal. I've only had her die on me twice because I got greedy and started attacking the guy she was attacking, then I accidentally hit her a few times. Also she sometimes gets greedy and jumps in front of me. That drives me nuts. And yes, I've given her superior heavy armor and swords as soon as I got it.
I'm pretty certain I'm very close to level 20 (maybe I'm at 19). I think I killed my first dragon around level 8-10. The funny thing is, I've watched my brother play on the 360 (he was around level 20 at the time) and he's struggled when he's in combat with creatures or dragons, and some kind of ice wolf that would attack in packs (which I haven't encountered yet, so it might only be easy right now). So far everything has been a breeze for me. It has been just the right balance of enemy and weapon leveling. I've only encountered one enemy I couldn't beat without cheating (other than the three giants I killed for fun). I didn't have Lydia with me because I accidentally told her to stay behind and had forgot that I did. So I simply ran from this enemy until I reached a wall I could jump on and climb. He could still lob powerful magic at me, but at least I didn't die from his powerful two hit kills with a sword anymore. I just kept dropping arrows on him.
Oh and my brother also had troubles with lockpicking. He'd be breaking pick after pick. On the Master lock I can manage to pick it without breaking no more than 5 on average. On a side note: I hate their wording system to describe what a lock level is! Who's to know what adept is. Is that before "whatever" or after "whatever"? I still haven't a blasted clue - I just pick the lock either way. I think they can still have their wording, just slap a number system beside it. Like: Beginner [1]. Who designs this shit.
Same for determining whether the sword is a one handed or two handed sword. Unless there is a way to find out, I pretty much just equip the sword and see if my shield is still equipped.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 22/10/2012 08:33:33I played as a warrior for some time, and I found it is safer to strafe around the landed dragon and attack him from sides.
Yeah, I generally just stay just out of reach and lob arrows at the dragons. I've got a pretty high archery level. When I do go in with a sword though, I try to go for his neck. It was just that this very moment I was worried about a stupid follower that shouldn't even get himself involved in fights, and then I had two characters chatting with me like I was only playing a video game or something. ;)
Overall, I'm really starting to enjoy the hell out of Skyrim. Very beautiful environments and a tons of little details you'll see if you keep your eyes open.
Then there's the tiny little glitches that should be easy to fix and you'd think any decent game tester could inform them of. One very noticeable one: if you're sneaking while you mine ore from a vein, after the cutscene you're still in sneak mode but the sneak crosshair is replaced with the regular crosshair.
As for you guys saying my follower doesn't take the shortcuts I take, it's true. She pretty much stands around if her pathfinding can't find a path, or she wanders off in the opposite direction. But if your back is turned and you're in a flat area she teleports close to you. I'm cool with that. So far I haven't been too bothered with the followers in this game.
I've only briefly tried out the prequels, but I've spent slightly more time in Skyrim. I'm level 17 or something, playing as a sneaky archer, and switch to one-hand and shield in melee. I should add I only play some hours a week, tops.
I had Lydia for quite a while, but then she disappeared. I think I told her to stay and wait in a location that was closed and sealed afterwards. So I looked up how to find another one, and I'm now accompanied by a female spell-caster (forgot her names) who's absolutely insane. If she as much as smells an enemy, she fills the entire scene with ice and fire, until everything is dead. It has lead to some incidents where towns people's got hurt, and turned against us. Then some days later, I found Lydia waiting in my town house. So now she stays there and guards our home, I guess.
What I like with Skyrim is that there's plenty of freedom, and I can play any darn way I want. If I want to skip all the crafting and alchemy and stuff, I can manage without. I can choose an armour that looks pretty, and I can take quests that I'm interested in. I don't have to play "optimally"; I can choose to play it safely and slowly.
All the home styling and decorating is kind of nice, although it's not really what keeps me playing.
I think the scenery is nice. With the dawnguard addon I can ride around in the forests and hunt with my bow. Whenever I find a cave or some remote tower, I can choose whether to enter it or just ignore it. I also like the feeling of fighting, in its simplest sense. The battles are confusing and chaotic, just like they are in real life. I block with my shield, and I can feel the impact of weapons against it. I can swing and miss and feel clumsy, but a good hit almost resonates in me.
What I don't like is that most enemies scale with you. This means that I never really feel that I'm improving, at least not very tangibly. Sure, I learn new techniques, but I've yet to experience how a certain enemy is at first too hard, but if I return much later has become vanquishable. I guess I prefer games with "zones", where you shouldn't enter until you're good enough, however unrealistic that may be. I just like the feeling of suddenly being superior, having trained in other battles.
I think I will soon grow a bit tired of it all, because it is getting a bit reptitious. I don't think any of these first person RPGs are ever going to give me the pleasure Baldur's Gate gave me. With Baldur's Gate, battles were about tactics and calculations, about knowing your spells and skills perfectly, and analysing your opponent. It was about trial and error. With Skyrim, I often just rush into the fray. If that fails, I load again and play sniper with my bow. I don't need to set up my team perfectly, I don't need to predict what protections and counter-spells I'm going to need.
Quote from: Andail on Mon 22/10/2012 19:11:55
I also like the feeling of fighting, in its simplest sense. The battles are confusing and chaotic, just like they are in real life. I block with my shield, and I can feel the impact of weapons against it. I can swing and miss and feel clumsy, but a good hit almost resonates in me.
That was one of those things that made me stay with Skyrim for more time than I expected :) (along with wonderful landscapes).
Even though mage class proved to be very powerful with all his destruction spells, I often lacked that feeling, so after I reached high level (got good armor, learnt protective spells) I'd sometimes equip and combat as a fighter. There's some terrific pleasure in charging at enemy from a distance and bashing shield in his face :D.
Talking of little things you notice if your eyes are open: watch out for the laid-back bandits somewhere in Eastmarch. You lol.
I have only played Skyrim. Got a bit tired of it, but thanks to this discussion I'm playing again. I'm following the Civil Wat quest with the Imperial Guard and it's awesome.
I'm not very good with this kind of games, but Skyrim got me hooked for a long time, some times just riding my horse and killing random bandits and sometimes completing quest after quest.
I found the story to be really interesting, with all those books and tales. As for the landscapes, I haven't find anything memorable. Maybe I have been too long in the northern shores.
Another odd glitch. I won't give away the quest I was doing and who's house I was breaking into for anyone who hasn't done it yet.
Anyway, I was breaking into a house who had guards inside that would kill me on sight. I went to pick up the coin purse when I accidentally picked up up a mug. I decided since I was nearly over encumbered that I would just drop the mug right away. So I did. Next thing I knew a guard runs towards my room from behind me so I quickly moved behind a stone pillar just in time where he couldn't see me. I guess he ran into the room because I had dropped the mug. He picked it up and gave it to me through the pillar, saying "You should be careful where you put your things". lol
The Elder Scrolls games have the oddest glitches. I'm assuming they programmed that for when you're in a town or something and drop an item from your inventory - but to me it's an annoying feature regardless because I had to drop the mug again. ;) I guess they just forgot to check whether the person handing you something you dropped was on alert to kill.
Just found a Choose Your Own Adventure book in Skyrim, while doing a bedlam job for the Thieves Guild. I took a screenshot, but looks like the my "prt sc" button does not work with the game.
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Kolb_and_the_Dragon
I fail at Elder Scrolls. There's not a single new character playthrough where I wouldn't resort to cheating for 999999 gold.
It just makes no sense to me. I've travelled over enormous land to find a merchant with weapon I like and now I have to grind dozens of dungeons with crappy sword just to acquire gold needed to get this gear..
Strange, never had such dilemma in other RPG-s. Maybe because ES dungeons are more or less predictable, very long and rarely bring anything new and exciting to the gameplay.
I preferred Ayleid ruins (with cool lights and traps) in Oblivion strongly to much more boring dungeons of Skyrim, but with Oblivion, there was rarely any point to spend hour exploring the dungeon just to get 30 gold and inkwell or whatever useless crap chests had. Skyrim sort of improved on this front, but still, I guess I lack the patience to play fair.
I still prefer Oblivion to Skyrim, because I sort of enjoyed my virtual walks in pretty always-summertime forest. And cared more for the NPC's and their problems. Skyrim has shitty landscape (counts double since I live in as cold country I guess) and boring factions everywhere so no fun in that. They even managed to make crafting boring and tiresome...
Spoiler
Also, Oblivion had none of GODDAMN SPIDERS
Quote from: InCreator on Thu 01/11/2012 23:25:29Also, Oblivion had none of GODDAMN SPIDERS
Really? As a fear that you dislike them or are they a challenge to you? I have only had one spider attack me up close but that was because I was sent to prison for a quest and temporarily lost my bow and sword. I find them to be quite easy and not scary in the slightest. A single shot with the bow in sneak mode and they're laying on their backs - the big guy might need 3 shots, but he's generally dead before he even realizes what hit him.
I actually found the spiders in the LIMBO game to be creepy, and I don't even have a spider phobia except to the ones that can kill me in real life.
As for the dungeons, I agree. In both Oblivion and Skyrim I find them to be quite copy/paste. After your 5th or so dungeon you're left saying: I've done this before but it's different. Oblivion was worse for that. I've been to a few dungeons lately that actually surprise me with a little combat. Where I enter a room to have a dozen dead guys coming out of their sarcophagus to greet me with a fun battle. Other than that, I find the average dungeon experience to be quite unentertaining. I like a little combat mixed in with my exploring. Maybe that's something I'll look forward to once my bow reaches its max limit - I'm at 90 I think and my one handed sword is like 72. I definitely use the bow a lot. Once it maxes out I'll start using the sword only.
Spiders! they were the reason I seriously considered not playing Skyrim (well, for few minutes, that is :)).
As for merchants, I think I have a problem with them in nearly any RPG (perhaps except only Fallout games). When having not much money I always feel too stingy about spending them, and when I get enough, often there's nothing in the store that would match my level.
I think important reason is also that in TES games victory in combat could be achieved by clever tactics (AI is dumb anyway) and reaction.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Fri 02/11/2012 04:03:44
Really? As a fear that you dislike them or are they a challenge to you?
I cannot even explain this. Selective/virtual arachnephobia?
IRL, I'm not that afraid of spiders, just not very comfortable around them. Probably because spiders where I live are generally tiny and non-poisonous. I don't even kill them -- people say it's bad luck -- even though close encounter with me means death sentence to most other insects - unless they pose zero threat. I would freak out if one landed into my hair though.
However, in games, I really, really despise any encounters with spiders. Especially if in the dark. And if they jump. And are big and hairy. I almost got heart attack in
Penumbra: Overture at the section where you crawled under floor or something, pitch dark and spiders EVERYWHERE making noises and attacking... OH GOD OH GOD
Skyrim spiders weren't as awful as I feared from trailers, but still I tried to dispose them as quickly as possible and not look at them.
But spider tunnels in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (i think) were quite bad, even despite heavy weapons to deal with them.