Games without monotony

[Endorya]

I think there's no point in taking criticism against Elder Scrolls games personally. It's Bethesda's problem. No-one is saying that liking them makes anyone an inferior person in any way (well, at least no-one is saying that here). The Elder Scrolls games are probably the best at giving you big and pretty fantasy sandboxes to explore, which is a splendid reason to like them very much. However, they also are (sadly!) deeply flawed in the "mechanics of the game" department and I can attest to the fact that it can be a turn off even if one likes the concept (and I do, I've played Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion, of which I've only been able to finish the last one and only due to 100% permanent invisibility gear to bypass all the fights).
To sum up, a game can be great even when flawed, but wouldn't it be so much better if it was flawless?

What you seek is a utopia. It is impossible to have a game without flaws due to personal preferences. There will be always someone hating the best movie, music, book or game ever created. Having a game satisfying someone in a particular way, means it won't be able to satisfy other persons in other ways as those persons will view those unsatisfactory experiences as a flaw.

I've met persons that don't enjoy turn-based games stating that such feature feels very boring, these persons consider turn-based a flaw, so no matter how good and perfect a turn-based game can be, it will be always be viewed as a flawed piece of software from all those sharing the suchview.

Now, maybe Skyrim isn't deeply flawed as the previous entries, but after 3 games that managed to derail the awesome setting exploration with their incompetently designed mechanics I couldn't put down the money on such an unfavourably stacked gamble to see for myself.

Then I can firmly say that you don't appreciate The Elder's Scroll concept as you seem to imply, at least not as I and many others appreciate it, having into consideration that Skyrim is the most balanced of the series. So we have people liking it and people disliking it. But one thing is for sure, Skyrim is the most successfully and enjoyable of all the Elder's Scroll's series, sales do confirm this, regardless of my or your opinion. A game doesn't turn itself into a good seller out of luck or curiosity because nowadays, players read reviews, play demos and watch tons in-game footage videos to understand if certain game is worthy of their time and money, before getting the real thing that is.

[Endorya]

- Double post.

[Vanguard]

Then I can firmly say that you don't appreciate The Elder's Scroll concept as you seem to imply, at least not as I and many others appreciate having into consideration that Skyrim is the most balanced of the series.

You're damning Skyrim with faint praise.  Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion are three of the most unbalanced games ever made.  Skyrim's still enormously unbalanced.  Crafting skills are crazy overpowered.  Armor skills are pointless when you have smithing.  Destruction magic's damage becomes a joke after a few levels.  And so forth.

Balance barely matters in TES for the first place.  It's more important to have an interesting setting to explore and cool treasures to collect and good storytelling.  In those ways, Morrowind crushes its successors.

[zasvid]

What you seek is a utopia. It is impossible to have a game without flaws due to personal preferences. There will be always someone hating the best movie, music, book or game ever created. Having a game satisfying someone in a particular way, means it won't be able to satisfy other persons in other ways as those persons will view those unsatisfactory experiences as a flaw.

I've met persons that don't enjoy turn-based games stating that such feature feels very boring, these persons consider turn-based a flaw, so no matter how good and perfect a turn-based game can be, it will be always be viewed as a flawed piece of software from all those sharing the suchview.

Of course, universally measured flawlessness is unreachable, but a game can be a flawless implementation of the authors' intent and e.g. Oblivion (which I know best of TES for the aforementioned reasons) clearly isn't, because e.g. levelling up is often a trap.

Then I can firmly say that you don't appreciate The Elder's Scroll concept as you seem to imply, at least not as I and many others appreciate it, having into consideration that Skyrim is the most balanced of the series. So we have people liking it and people disliking it. But one thing is for sure, Skyrim is the most successfully and enjoyable of all the Elder's Scroll's series, sales do confirm this, regardless of my or your opinion. A game doesn't turn itself into a good seller out of luck or curiosity because nowadays, players read reviews, play demos and watch tons in-game footage videos to understand if certain game is worthy of their time and money, before getting the real thing that is.

Success and popularity is only somewhat correlated to a lack of deep flaws in game design. For a low-hanging fruit example, Oblivion was also acclaimed by fans and critics alike and sold well despite its broken mechanics (so reading reviews wasn't exactly helpful re: trying out Skyrim, and playing demos and watching videos is already a time investment).

However, Skyrim does some great stuff that draws in a lot people (who can overlook the flaws to enjoy the rest). I think it's similar to Dwarf Fortress in that regard, except for the fact that current DF version is explicitly not yet a realisation of its full potential. 

[Endorya]

You're damning Skyrim with faint praise.  Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion are three of the most unbalanced games ever made.  Skyrim's still enormously unbalanced.

So I guess you have played all games in the world in all platforms to formulate such statement. And I wonder why do I keep having a hard time believing in your arguments.

Crafting skills are crazy overpowered.  Armor skills are pointless when you have smithing.  Destruction magic's damage becomes a joke after a few levels.  And so forth.

I really can't complain about a single aspect you have just described. But I'm glad to know that you played Skyrim that long to come with those conclusions.

Balance barely matters in TES for the first place.  It's more important to have an interesting setting to explore and cool treasures to collect and good storytelling.  In those ways, Morrowind crushes its successors.

TES does take balance into consideration, in fact, I think that's the most crucial think to focus on. Dev teams knows how important balance is in a game. Not only we have evidence of TES putting effort into it by noticing game play changes throughout the series but also through videos during the making of Oblivion and SKyrim where they specifically talk about balance in their series while mentioning their previous flaws and what players mostly disliked about them. Don't blame me, blame the facts.

[AgingMinotaur]

*yawn*
Can anyone point me to a thread without monotony?

As always
Minotauros

[Endorya]

LMAO!

[Vanguard]

You win this round, Minotaur.

[Endorya]

Success and popularity is only somewhat correlated to a lack of deep flaws in game design. For a low-hanging fruit example, Oblivion was also acclaimed by fans and critics alike and sold well despite its broken mechanics (so reading reviews wasn't exactly helpful re: trying out Skyrim, and playing demos and watching videos is already a time investment).

Everything is time investing yes. Generally, you need time to perform a good investment. Reviews had helped me in past to stay away from some games, specially reader's reviews. Oblivion didn't have any broken mechanics regarding its main balance feature, it was designed exactly to perform likewise. Something broken is something designed to achieve a purpose but that in practical terms it achieves something else, which was not the case with Oblivion. It just happens people (including myself) were not fond of having the world leveling up with the character.

You can always say that it is broken as it attempts to be something good but that in the end it happens to be something bad. This approach is correct but it is entirely based on your personal preferences, I do have friends that enjoyed vanilla Oblivion.

However, Skyrim does some great stuff that draws in a lot people (who can overlook the flaws to enjoy the rest).

Sorry but here you are being presumptuous as you are assuming that everyone that enjoys the game also acknowledges it to harbor some major flaws, that otherwise could not accepted if not for its gracious looks and other neat features. Basically you say this to reinforce your argument about the flaws you personally see in it. Not cool.

[Endorya]

You win this round, Minotaur.

Absolutely.

[Vanguard]

Oblivion didn't have any broken mechanics regarding its main balance feature, it was designed exactly to perform likewise.

Oblivion's level scaling was not intended to make destruction magic harmless.  It wasn't supposed to create situations where a barbarian with maxed strength, maxed blade skill, and the strongest sword in the game needs dozens of hits to bring down a lone goblin.

But that's exactly what it does, so it's a broken feature.

Sorry but here you are being presumptuous as you are assuming that everyone that enjoys the game also acknowledges it to harbor some major flaws, that otherwise could not accepted if not for its gracious looks and other neat features. Basically you say this to reinforce your argument about the flaws you personally see in it. Not cool.

The flaws are real.  For any given Skyrim fan, there are only two possibilities - either they like the game in spite of its flaws, or they like the game and are unaware of its flaws.  If you think otherwise and care enough to dispute this, you should do so by showing how Skyrim's design decisions are not actually problematic.

Why is it okay for a game about freedom and choices to rarely allow the player to decide between multiple solutions to their quests?  Why is it okay for a game about killing things to have such shallow combat mechanics?

[Endorya]

Oblivion's level scaling was not intended to make destruction magic harmless.  It wasn't supposed to create situations where a barbarian with maxed strength, maxed blade skill, and the strongest sword in the game needs dozens of hits to bring down a lone goblin.

I'm discussing about the leveling system they implemented which only a handful of people liked it. That level system did exactly what you mention. The WHOLE world would get stronger as you kept leveling up. That is was NOT a problem with magic or roles but how the world kept unfairly growing stronger which in the end played EXACTLY as the Devs planed to, to overcome the problem found in Morrowind, where people complained about having Morrowind being too easy after reaching a certain level. This was yet again referenced in on of their Oblivion making videos, which later they heavily regretted. Go figure...

So in sum, the feature was FLAWLESSLY implemented and functioning without problems. The only problem with it was that most of us didn't enjoyed the concept as it was simply horrendous.

Sorry but here you are being presumptuous. The flaws are real.  For any given Skyrim fan, there are only two possibilities - either they like the game in spite of its flaws, or they like the game and are unaware of its flaws. 

I'm not the one saying that knows how everyone else that plays SKyrim should feel about it. I guess that is what makes some one presumptuous. You are like, If I think Skyrim has major problems than everyone else should think likewise. <- This is being presumptuous.

If you think otherwise and care enough to dispute this, you should do so by showing how Skyrim's design decisions are not actually problematic.

I promise that I will discuss those problems once I find them, but since I already ended the game a few times, I really doubt that the next time I will find anything problematic,  though I can already say that the depth of view feels very short. They should have kept it deeper for those with more than 4GB of ram and yeah and it does crashes occasionally, maybe because of the shit load of mods it has installed for eye candy.

Why is it okay for a game about freedom and choices to rarely allow the player to decide between multiple solutions to their quests?  Why is it okay for a game about killing things to have such shallow combat mechanics?

I'm pretty sure I can question EVERY GAME that exists in the world toward issues of game play relevance. Unfortunately games won't be able to include all that features that everyone would love to see implemented.

Why in Fallout 2, a game that you can play as an Evil character doesn't let me torture or rape an NPC?
Why in Gothic 2 the character can carry unlimited cargo?
Why Most roguelike games don't have realistic damage control?
How can in EVE Online a character train more than one skill if it is all based on time?
Why is Tic Tac toe game not 4 by 4 instead 3 by 3?
Why Dark Souls feels incredibly tedious for me?
Why is not fallout 3 turn-based?
Why is Crysis 2 in a city instead beautiful open space islands?
Why is didn't Disciples 3 remained with the same game play as Disciples 2?
Why can I pick the Apples that are present in Fable trees?
Why does WOW looks so cartoonish? Was really necessary?
Why in Silent Hunter 5 can the player visit all the sub's compartments detail a not having the explosions be reflected on water?
Why needed Mario do be a plumber when there were so many other cool professions?

I could be all day long and grow a beard...

[Vanguard]

Not a single one of those is a flaw.  The Fallout 2 one in particular makes me really question your tastes.

Skyrim's combat, one of the most important features of the game, is really shallow.  Dark Souls does it better.  So does Dragon's Dogma and Mount & Blade and even Ocarina of Time which came out about 15 years ago.

This has nothing to do with how much you or I enjoy Skyrim or any of those other games.  It's because those other games include nontrivial defensive mechanics and the ability to control your opponents through hitstun, and things like that.  Instead it's a damage race.

I'm discussing about the leveling system they implemented which only a handful of people liked it. That level system did exactly what you mention. The WHOLE world would get stronger as you kept leveling up. That is was NOT a problem with magic or roles but how the world kept unfairly growing stronger which in the end played EXACTLY as the Devs planed to

You've missed the point.  Destruction mages are underpowered in Oblivion because when you level up all the bad guys get more health but leveling does not increase your magic damage.  It absolutely is a level scaling issue.

[Endorya]

Not a single one of those is a flaw.  The Fallout 2 one in particular makes me really question your tastes.

Care to further develop your analyses?

Skyrim's combat, one of the most important features of the game, is really shallow.  Dark Souls does it better.  So does Dragon's Dogma and Mount & Blade and even Ocarina of Time which came out about 15 years ago.

Skyrim's combat system is far from being brilliant but I think is does the job fairly well. A shallow combat system would be the one  implemented in Morrowind (your all-time-favorite), along with its utterly unbalanced game play. Nothing wrong about having Morrowind as all-time-favorite, I just think it sounds contradictory having such unbalanced game considered your all-time-favorite when Skyrim has so many things improved upon it. You did say that Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion were the most unbalanced games ever made.

You've missed the point.  Destruction mages are underpowered in Oblivion because when you level up all the bad guys get more health but leveling does not increase your magic damage.  It absolutely is a level scaling issue.

Yeah, its all about the leveling scaling issue. As if I was repeating myself...

[zasvid]

However, Skyrim does some great stuff that draws in a lot people (who can overlook the flaws to enjoy the rest).

Sorry but here you are being presumptuous as you are assuming that everyone that enjoys the game also acknowledges it to harbor some major flaws, that otherwise could not accepted if not for its gracious looks and other neat features. Basically you say this to reinforce your argument about the flaws you personally see in it. Not cool.

Well, my only presumption here is "TES4: Skyrim has major flaws", as I've not played it or learned enough about it to tell otherwise. I'm not saying anything about anyone's acknowledgement of the flaws. One can enjoy a game despite noticing its flaws (like I do in the case of, say, Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2) or being unaware of its flaws or even refusing to acknowledge its obvious flaws because they like its good features so much (though I don't recommend the last approach). It's my analysis of Elder Scrolls' popularity: their good features are so great that they eclipse the major flaws, making TES very successful. However, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't stand up to a rigorous game design examination from any angle, including the designer's intent (which I imagine wasn't actually "so, in Oblivion, when you level up, everything gets stronger by a bigger margin then you get! Let's teach those players that levelling up is bad play!").