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One of the shittiest things about Skyrim

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,568
I enjoy Skyrim because it's a light-hearted hiking sim which doesn't pretend to be more than it is

Jesus I hate retards.

It is pretending to be an RPG, Dungeon Crawler and more.

There is in fact little that constitutes a "hiking sim" about it. Navigation is of little concern as nearby landmarks magically appear on your compass and quests have a objective marker. The harsh elements were not a concern until somebody modded it in (survival mode) and bethesda nabbed it. You do not need to camp out under the stars, shit in the woods, nor navigate any dangerous terrain.

People call it a hiking sim as a joke, and that somehow morphed into others using it to justify their shit taste.

If you think Skyrim has ANY value at all, except maybe as an experimental playground for modders, you're wasted DNA.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
6,100
The unfortunate reality is the Betheseda games are made with a "mods will fix it" mentality.
Is that really applicable for the oldies like Arena, Daggerfall and, hell, even Morrowind?
Changed to modern Betheseda games.

Gamedevs back in the day were built different. They had big ideas and big dreams, working with underpowered tools they invented themselves, paving the way for future generations that kind of squandered their work.
 

Ryzer

Arcane
Joined
May 1, 2020
Messages
5,552
I enjoy Skyrim because it's a light-hearted hiking sim which doesn't pretend to be more than it is

Jesus I hate retards.

It is pretending to be an RPG, Dungeon Crawler and more.

There is in fact little that constitutes a "hiking sim" about it. Navigation is of little concern as nearby landmarks magically appear on your compass and quests have a objective marker. The harsh elements were not a concern until somebody modded it in (survival mode) and bethesda nabbed it. You do not need to camp out under the stars, shit in the woods, nor navigate any unstable terrain.

People call it a hiking sim as a joke, and that somehow morphed into others using it to justify their shit taste.

If you think Skyrim has ANY value at all, except maybe as an experimental playground for modders, you're wasted DNA.
They did nail the open-world, criticize them as much as you want but I thought the world was interesting as well as the dungeons in terms of visuals purely.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Staff Member
Joined
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Messages
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Strap Yourselves In
The magic in Skyrim is absolutely dogshit.
Summoning/conjuration in it isn't. The animations of it are solid, the creatures you can summon (at least in my Wildlander run) are interesting, and it doesn't feel overpowered nor underpowered.

Some may complain about the maximum number of creatures you can summon, but I think that's a balance issue and is addressed in something like Wildlander.
 

Ravielsk

Magister
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
1,540
Gotta appeal to the console gaymers, right?
Worst part is that it does not even do that. For Skyrim magic to work you have to be fairly accurate with it on top of having to time your button presses. So you have to hold the trigger down for a while and then release it successfully cast a spell. If you release too soon nothing happens if you hold it too long you get no benefit from it. And if your lightning bolt misses by a couple of pixels you also get no damage from it.

Its legitimately designed to just be terrible.
 
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Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,056
There are so few titles in VR that can do what a modded Skyrim can do in it that I find myself still fucking playing it once in awhile. If I couldn't swing my own weapon around, pick people up to punch them in the face and throw them off a cliff, throw a rock at somebody and do damage to them (never gets old), I wouldn't be touching it. Dead towns with no NPCs kills it more than anything.
 

SimTrY

Literate
Joined
May 19, 2023
Messages
41
There are so few titles in VR that can do what a modded Skyrim can do in it that I find myself still fucking playing it once in awhile. If I couldn't swing my own weapon around, pick people up to punch them in the face and throw them off a cliff, throw a rock at somebody and do damage to them (never gets old), I wouldn't be touching it. Dead towns with no NPCs kills it more than anything.
why not just play something like sword and sorcery instead?
 

Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,056
There are so few titles in VR that can do what a modded Skyrim can do in it that I find myself still fucking playing it once in awhile. If I couldn't swing my own weapon around, pick people up to punch them in the face and throw them off a cliff, throw a rock at somebody and do damage to them (never gets old), I wouldn't be touching it. Dead towns with no NPCs kills it more than anything.
why not just play something like sword and sorcery instead?

I think I do have that one, though my favorite sword combat game goes to Until You Fall, with no contest there. It just does everything right.

What I want from a VR game is that open world feel, where i'm not on railroads like every fucking VR game, can talk to people and go in and out of towns and the like. Just a little bit of freedom, man. What's the point of all the cool VR integrations if I can't use them? The VR combat with the right mods is just acceptable enough to be playable and scratch that itch i'm looking for, albeit slightly.
 

ind33d

Educated
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
991
I enjoy Skyrim because it's a light-hearted hiking sim which doesn't pretend to be more than it is

Jesus I hate retards.

It is pretending to be an RPG, Dungeon Crawler and more.

There is in fact little that constitutes a "hiking sim" about it. Navigation is of little concern as nearby landmarks magically appear on your compass and quests have a objective marker. The harsh elements were not a concern until somebody modded it in (survival mode) and bethesda nabbed it. You do not need to camp out under the stars, shit in the woods, nor navigate any dangerous terrain.

People call it a hiking sim as a joke, and that somehow morphed into others using it to justify their shit taste.

If you think Skyrim has ANY value at all, except maybe as an experimental playground for modders, you're wasted DNA.
What is wrong with selling a playground for modders? The monetary value of Skyrim's assets is clearly worth more than $59.99
 

Ravielsk

Magister
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
1,540
What is wrong with selling a playground for modders? The monetary value of Skyrim's assets is clearly worth more than $59.99
The fact that its still a shitty playground that on its own barely lets you make the same prefab gameplay loop unless you are willing to build from ground up a whole external sand pump to put enough sand into the pit to make something more than baby's first sand castle.
 

Funposter

Arcane
Joined
Oct 19, 2018
Messages
1,779
Location
Australia
I would argue the same applies to the vanilla, its just that the expansions are much better example because of how they escalate this. You mean to say that the game tries to vary up harder difficulties in ways other than buffing HP bars? There is little substantial difference between low level bandits and Golden Saints aside from their HP and how hard they hit.
Vanilla and expansions are on a different level. Vanilla enemies cap out at like 400 HP, which is barely anything when Daedric two-handed weapons are capable of doing 70 damage + whatever they're enchanted with. You can kill an Ascended Sleeper in like four or five hits. Tribunal is totally bonkers, and arguably more over the top that Bloodmoon, where you run into Goblin Warchiefs and War Durzogs with more HP than Dagoth Ur (500 and 450), culminating in the double punch of The Imperfect and Almalexia at the end of the main questline, who have 2,000 and 3,000 HP. Bloodmoon still has the problem of Level 40 NPCs running around everywhere, but the HP stats for regular enemies are more sane and only Hircine really gets to have a massive health pool that stretches beyond what normal weapons can deal with. The problem, of course, is that the HP pools we're talking about all outpace player damage, which caps at around 100-120 per hit.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,664
To be honest i dislike the way that Morrowind(and later games as well)have dozens of named NPCs but are useless, in no part of quests or anything, i hate when RPGs do this. That makes me having to talk to every NPC to find quests, i much prefer the way that infinity engine games or Fallouts 1/2 handle that, where useless NPCs have generic labels like townsfolk or peasant, and important NPCs that gives or are in part of quests are named and easy to find. It's gamey but i prefer not wasting my time doing boring shit than 'immersion'.

I wonder what the hell is up with those Morrowind players who genuinely think that a random bandit NPC having a name makes them any less forgettable than a random bandit in The Witcher III.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,928
what system from Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim was not improved? Apart from the unique lore Skyrim is a superior version of Morrowind and certainly Oblivion.
A list of Oblivion's failings relative to Morrowind:
  • Comprehensive creature-leveling such that all monsters and NPCs are set at the same level as the PC, with weaker types of monsters disappearing after the character gains enough levels, and stronger types of monsters not appearing when the character is low-level
  • Comprehensive item-leveling whereby a high-level PC will not only encounter similarly high-level bandits but said bandits will have random pieces of extremely expensive armor and weapons, while a low-level PC will never find weapons/armor of such powerful material; or a weapon on display in a glass case in a castle will be a worthless replica if the PC is low-level but the real thing after the PC gains enough levels
  • A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus
  • Reduction in the number of joinable guilds/factions offering many quests from 10 in Morrowind to 4 in Oblivion, keeping the more generic ones (Fighters/Mages/Thieves guilds)
  • Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring
  • Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else
  • Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
  • Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking
  • Elimination of certain kinds of items, such as thrown weapons, crossbows, and spears
  • Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons
  • Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously
  • Elimination of different physiques (and animations) for Argonians and Khajiits
  • Both in-game and out-of-game world maps that offer far less information than their Morrowind equivalents
  • Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited
  • A quest compass that points to your next destination, the use of which is made necessary by the combination of uninformative journal entries and an inability to ask directions
  • A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction
  • A generic, medieval fantasy grab-bag setting, without even the coherence offered by Daggerfall's Iliac Bay region much less the spectacular sui generis setting of Morrowind
  • A dull, poorly-plotted main quest, with the only plane of Oblivion featured in the base game (except at the very end) being a generic hellscape with little variation
  • A half-baked action-oriented combat system so that success in combat depends greatly on the player's physical skill, yet is boring and tedious
A few of these are radical changes separately, and the combination of these changes generated a comprehensive casualization and dumbing-down of the formula established in Morrowind.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,664
I'm gonna be that guy.

  • A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus
  • Elimination of certain kinds of items, such as thrown weapons, crossbows, and spears
  • Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons
  • Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously
  • Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited
  • Morrowind's interface wasn't, by any stretch of the word, "sleek". It was great at letting you see everything at once. Then, again, why would you need to see everything at once, all the time? Looking for a particular item in your inventory would often turn to be a tedious endeavour since every item is given the same priority. Luckily mods like UI Expansion have come out that greatly improve the UI by reworking and adding new filters, and much, much more.
  • Thrown weapons, crossbows, spears... by no means I'm arguing that removing is a good thing, but the problem in Morrowind is that all weapons play essentially the same. It would have been cool if there was a significant difference between a warhammer vs a greatsword, but as it is, there's no significant difference whatsoever when it comes to damage types. They are just nice visual variety, is all.
  • There was no logistics to simply resting your ass off in dungeons to recover lost magicka. What regenerating magicka achieves is getting rid of that pointless step. Magicka potions in Morrowind are notoriously rare, it's clear Bethesda expected people to spam resting to recover lost magicka (or use shrines).
  • There's nothing wrong with automatic fast-travel. God knows it would have come in handy in Morrowind. Sometimes you don't want to use three forms of travel just to get to a damn cave. Some people enjoy the immersion that comes with it, others simply enjoy the convenience. Fast travel is just that: time elipsis. I don't see the problem with this. I do see a problem with devs removing options, but that's a whole different thing than "fast travel bad".
 

Vic

Savant
Undisputed Queen of Faggotry Bethestard
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Oct 24, 2018
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[REDACTED]
unless you enjoy looking at the scenery travel time is wasted time. I'm currently playing Sacred (2004) and I painfully miss a fast travel option as it takes several minutes of holding down the left mouse button just to get somewhere. Immersive!
 

SimTrY

Literate
Joined
May 19, 2023
Messages
41
To be honest i dislike the way that Morrowind(and later games as well)have dozens of named NPCs but are useless, in no part of quests or anything, i hate when RPGs do this. That makes me having to talk to every NPC to find quests, i much prefer the way that infinity engine games or Fallouts 1/2 handle that, where useless NPCs have generic labels like townsfolk or peasant, and important NPCs that gives or are in part of quests are named and easy to find. It's gamey but i prefer not wasting my time doing boring shit than 'immersion'.

I wonder what the hell is up with those Morrowind players who genuinely think that a random bandit NPC having a name makes them any less forgettable than a random bandit in The Witcher III.
it doesn't matter at all and yeah its forgettable, but its a nice touch and adds soul and it shouldn't really be a problem.

There's nothing wrong with automatic fast-travel. God knows it would have come in handy in Morrowind. Sometimes you don't want to use three forms of travel just to get to a damn cave. Some people enjoy the immersion that comes with it, others simply enjoy the convenience. Fast travel is just that: time elipsis. I don't see the problem with this. I do see a problem with devs removing options, but that's a whole different thing than "fast travel bad".
In morrowind thats literally part of the design choice. having to follow directions and navigate the world via signposts is literally what the devs inteded. you didn't get the location of dungeons shown on your map unless you talked to people about the location, and sometimes you get this part by talking to Generic npcs. but again it doesn't happen all the time. if you get lost you're genuinely retarded, and thats coming from me. god knows im the biggest retard ever and yet still i got through it fine. it requires you to pay attention, something lacking in games today. with fast travel you don't really have to pay attention, just teleport instantly boom generic copy pasted dungeon #3125, time to veg out and clear this dungeon.

another thing about fast travel is skyrim fans like to rave about "detailed and immersive world !!!!!" but then proceed to fast travel everywhere. again at that point, why don't you just watch a skyrim story explained video?
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,553
Location
Kelethin
The magic in Skyrim is absolutely dogshit. Honestly, I can't think of a game with a more dumb and lame magic system and magic in general.
The inventory is another major offender.
Gotta appeal to the console gaymers, right?

The inventory is shocking, it's literally just a list and it puts an arrow next to things that are equipped. I can't believe there's no way to see what slots the character can equip and what's in them, just that long list you have to scroll through. But yeah the magic and lots of things are shockingly undeveloped. It used to surprise me how they can get away with it but clearly the public are retarded trash who throw their money at crap. It's a world full of billionaire Katy Perries, and Kartrashians and evil corporations and Bethesda and EA and Microshit etc. I think the only solution is a giant meteor.
 

Hag

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Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Thrown weapons, crossbows, spears... by no means I'm arguing that removing is a good thing, but the problem in Morrowind is that all weapons play essentially the same. It would have been cool if there was a significant difference between a warhammer vs a greatsword, but as it is, there's no significant difference whatsoever when it comes to damage types. They are just nice visual variety, is all.
And that's great. It's just a video game, a game of pretend you bash enemies. Throwing weapons may be useless but they are fun. Spears do play differently. TES games have always been larpers' delight anyway, trying to have a scientific approach do not make sense. It is not Diablo where weapons are all identical save for stats. In Morrowind, if you find a fancy sword you're happy because discovering new shit is at the core of the game. Most items and gear are not even good, but they give flavor. The more variety, the more equipment slots to fuck with, the better.

Imagine if all NPCs wore the same model of armor, but with different stats ? That would be a bland world.
 

Kalon

Scholar
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
191
It is pretending to be an RPG, Dungeon Crawler and more.

Imho that's the problem with any RPG set in an open world: it has to be good in too many genres all at once. It would have to be a good combat game, a good thieving game, a good diplomacy game, a good crafting game etc., to provide the player with a credible character experience for the role he has chosen to assume in that gameworld. So to make it work, either the devs should limit the freedom of the player in terms of the type of character they can play, or severely llimit the size of the gameworld (and number of NPC with whom you can interact).
But given the scope of TES games, it's unfortunately inevitable that we end up with everything half-assed.
 

Kalon

Scholar
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
191
Thrown weapons, crossbows, spears... by no means I'm arguing that removing is a good thing, but the problem in Morrowind is that all weapons play essentially the same. It would have been cool if there was a significant difference between a warhammer vs a greatsword, but as it is, there's no significant difference whatsoever when it comes to damage types. They are just nice visual variety, is all.

There should have been more weapon skill in Morrowind. Both staves and warhammers are blunt weapons, but I daresay the skills required to swing a warhammer differ somewhat from those required to wield a staff. Same with a dagger and a shortsword
travel time is wasted time

Depending on the type of character you play, travel time is grinding skills time.
 

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