Skyrim: thoughts?

[Judging__Eagle]

I recently acquired the Skyrim application via torrent to see what the fuss was all about. I mounted the files I got, booted up the app, watched the intro gameplay/movie; and did the first dungeon/mission.

Currently, I'm around level 2, in my second dungeon, and developing some opinions about the game and the game system.

I can see why people are digging it, it's part of a multi-step game engine development that Bethesda has been working on for a long time; which I was able to look at when I purchased a copy of Fallout 3.

The actual game itself is very well finished; dungeons look overgrown, abandoned, ramshackle and old; the villages are (so far) laid out in a reasonable manner; and the level of detail in the visuals are best of the best. Even playing this game at the lowest settings, I'm very impressed visually.

The storytelling so far has been well above the standard that would be the median for video games; but about on par, maybe slightly above, what one would see in a table top game. The content was planned out in advance, with a great deal of anticipation, so I am not surprised that some random guy in town has a sidequest to help you seal their relationship with a girl in town, by doing some small lying (and handing over a fake letter). Those sorts of stories showed up in lots of older games like Wasteland and Fallout 1 & 2; and they add extra bits of humanity to the setting.

Leveling up abilities is pretty straight forward; you 'use' them (on targets if magical attacks/weapons; or if attacked if they are the 'armour' skills), and they build up. A nice continuation of several other game systems (UO, EQ, DS, RQ, WoW), and at least one Tabletop rpg system (which... I cannot recall the name of; but I believe "Rune-something" might have been how it went).

However, I'm not entirely sold on Skyrim's 'perk' system; specifically because I feel that "trees" are not the ideal way to lay out abilities for characters. Especially not "segregated" trees, putting 'light' and 'heavy' armour is disingenuous at best.

Personally, over the course of a few years in LARPing, I've worn chain shirts, doubled up chain shirts, coats of rigid scale-plates, wisby plate and head to toe hard plate. Some I've borrowed, some I've made, and some I temporarily tried out, and didn't fit.

In my experience, they're... not all that different* so I don't see a 'logical' reason to separate such skills.

*:

I've sneaked around in them (no one can say they're stealthy until they've been able to surprise someone while wearing chain mail); clattered loud enough to have others believe that "holy crap it sounds like a pile of guys" in them (something that I only found out after the fact, but was important to file away), dived over waist high barriers (and disaligned my wrist, but didn't get eaten by the running undead), jumped on top of tables, run up and down stairs, napped (not so uncomfortable as the d20 SRD would have one believe) and on occasion even LARP-fought in them (only every so often though, napping and hiding in the treeline takes priority).

I'm going to assume that most of the rest of Skyrim's skill/perk trees suffer from about the same sort of issues. I know that two-handed and one-handed weapons really shouldn't be separated either.

Aside from all of that issue in character power development, the gameplay is neither overly linear, but it's not entirely open ended. Dungeons are linear; the world is not; it's not a bad method for splitting up the game world.

In any case, if anyone else has thoughts on this game, I'd like to hear them.

If people are looking to try the game out before deciding to buy it, demonstration versions are available; but you'll have to find them at the bay.

It took about eight hours to download 5.3 Gb, which wasn't too bad, and the box I'm running it on is a several year old intel 2.53, 4gb ram, with a 512 geforce card; barely strong enough to run the applications I need for animation or 3D modelling.

[Kaelik]

Why not try reading the thread where everyone already talked about how they felt with the game a month ago.

PS, the story planning gets significantly worse once you finish the minor tutorial area.

[Juton]

Why not try reading the thread where everyone already talked about how they felt with the game a month ago.

PS, the story planning gets significantly worse once you finish the minor tutorial area.

First: +1

Second: JE brevity is the soul of wit. I want you to take this as a friendly constructive criticism and grow as a poster.

Third: If you liked the previous Elder Scrolls games you'll like this one. If you did not, well then you probably won't enjoy this one. I've like the previous ones enough to play them for 20ish hours then get bored, which is what happened for me with Skyrim.

[Dominicius]

I don't get why Bethesda insists on keeping the stupid skill system. The perk system they introduced would have done a much better job.

[TheFlatline]

What's my opinion?

Don't fucking pirate the game assmonkey. If you have a console you can go to Redbox and rent it for two dollars.

Also, Skyrim is artistically beautiful, but substantially about the same as as Fallout 3. It's a step up from Oblivion. What Juton said is spot on: If you dig Bethesda sandbox RPGs, you'll dig skyrim.

If you're a fan of pretty art design you'll dig skyrim. There's a lot of little detail. On Ultra high settings, you can watch wind blow through a valley while on the top of a mountain peak. Water drops from ice-covered outcroppings when the sun comes out. I'm sure at some point, much like in Morrowind, if you play long enough you'll see a total solar eclipse.

[Blicero]

What's my opinion?

Don't fucking pirate the game assmonkey. If you have a console you can go to Redbox and rent it for two dollars.

1) Consoleboxes provide an inferior experience. They should be avoided.

2) $60 American is a shittonne to spend on a game. Oblivion and Fallout 3 were kinda shite. As such, it is a totally understandable course of action to acquire a game through nonpaying means to test it out, and then decided whether or not to purchase it based on that.


But the game is worth buying. You do kinda miss flying and teleporting, but I'd say they're acceptable sacrifices in a game with a fairly consistent sword and sorcery aesthetic.

[Caedrus]

I think Skyrim is 40 dollars (not 60) today on the Steam holiday sale and you should BUY IT not pirate it.

[Juton]

2) $60 American is a shittonne to spend on a game. Oblivion and Fallout 3 were kinda shite. As such, it is a totally understandable course of action to acquire a game through nonpaying means to test it out, and then decided whether or not to purchase it based on that.

Looking back, it is incredible how similar Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim are. I know they are based on the same engine but they feel like mods of one another. That being said Fallout 3 kept my attention long enough to finish the main quest. Fallout 3 is an RPG with a pretty weak shooter bolted on, the sad thing is that Skyrim's combat is less engaging then that.

[Murtak]

Skyrim has a thousand easily fixable flaws, glaring oversights and could certainly be a much better game. That does not change that is is by far by the best computer RPG I ever played though. Combat is cinematic, different characters lend themselves to completely different styles of play, most skills are actually quite useful, the world beautiful, convincingly real and large enough for most people, you can actually change the world to a certain degree ... heck I could go on forever.

Bottom line: despite all flaws of the game I can actually lose myself in it. Not many games manage to do that to me.

[DSMatticus]

Skyrim has a thousand easily fixable flaws, glaring oversights and could certainly be a much better game.

Yes. I look forward to the construction kit...

That does not change that is is by far by the best computer RPG I ever played though.

... because once we have the construction kit, this will actually become a true statement. But as of right now, I have to call you insane.

There are two styles of play: run in with something sharp or heavy and hit things, or backpedal while you shoot out magic or things with sharp tips (something that's been true for pretty much every Elder Scrolls ever). A select few skills are so useful you absolutely have to have them (enchanting for everyone, smithing for anyone who cares about equipment). Perks are hilarious, because on one hand you can get -50% magicka cost on an entire school of spells for five perks, OR you can work your way up to pickpocket someone's worn items, something you will do once for a laugh. There's no reason to wear light armor over heavy armor beyond sneaking at low-levels. You can't really change the world at all, and their illusion of that is not super-convincing.

Combat isn't particularly... fun, but it can be pretty and exciting. And the world is, of course, huge and beautiful.

[Zinegata]

As a game... what Juton said. It's a fun sandbox.

That being said, I do like the fact that they finally did away with the retarded skill system from Oblivion with its counter-intuitive "Primary" and "Secondary" skills.

You still have to train skills that you want to focus on (swing a one-handed weapon to improve your one-handed skill), but you have much more freedom to make a character archetype that you want (i.e. Spell sword) without finding yourself screwed over when the difficulty levelling catches up with you.

That being said... Skyrim has a couple of practically useless skills, and one utterly broken one. Maxing out Enchanting will pretty much break the game for any type of character - and doing so isn't hard and earns you a ton of money.

Want to be a swordsman? Just enchant one-handed weapon skill boosters and do 200% more damage! With a sword that deals 96 fire/frost damage on top of the physical damage!

Want to be a caster? Give yourself 100% magicka discount on all Destruction spells with 4 pieces of enchanted gear. Yes, it's 100% discount. Yes, I've done it. You can spam fireball forever and it will not cost you a single mana.

Enchanting is broken.

[DSMatticus]

I think you can rack up the 100% discount with non-custom items. Maybe it's only 97%, putting all spells at 1-2 mana.

[Kaelik]

You can get 100% with only three items too. Fuck yes, efficiency baby.

[NineInchNall]

Want to be a caster? Give yourself 100% magicka discount on all Destruction spells with 4 pieces of enchanted gear. Yes, it's 100% discount. Yes, I've done it. You can spam fireball forever and it will not cost you a single mana.

Even doing that, however, doesn't rescue the Destruction skill from sucking mad donkey dick. Weapons scale a lot better and a lot higher than blasty spells. The only way to make a blaster work, in fact, is to get the dual cast Impact perk that stunlocks enemies. Yes, this means you have to dual cast, and you can't use an offhand weapon or a shield, and you can't use the one master-level destruction spell that's worth a damn (lightning storm) but at least you can essentially guarantee a victory against a single opponent, even if killing that opponent takes you at least ten times longer than a weapon user.

Yeah. Destruction's got issues.

[DSMatticus]

100% alteration discount will go a long way, though. Spamming paralysis is both broken and hilarious!

[Blicero]

Honestly, dual daggers + stealth essentially breaks the game too. If you also have the dark brotherhood gloves that double backstab, then you can kill basically every enemy in one hit.

The only thing this strategy is weak against is dragons.

And Skyrim is really really good. Morrowind had more interesting lore, a more compelling main story, and an actually unique world that was srsly brillo. But Skyrim's quests are probably better done, even if all the guildlines are short as fuck. And the combat is pretty to watch. But Torment had a better story, BGII and DA:O probably have a better narrative, and Dark Souls has hugely superior combat.

[Murtak]

But as of right now, I have to call you insane.

There are two styles of play: run in with something sharp or heavy and hit things, or backpedal while you shoot out magic or things with sharp tips (something that's been true for pretty much every Elder Scrolls ever).

So far I have played 3 characters, focusing on onehanded (damage)/heavy armor (armor)/summoning, block/onehanded (maneuvers)/archery and stealth/illusion/destruction as my combat skills. Not one of them really fits your description. My first character started to run around with a zombie and then a fire atronach in tow at around level 5. I added a dog and follower soon after and then just focused on keeping encounters occupied while my personal army grinded them down. With my second character I wade into combat and trigger power attack maneuvers and wait for slow time to proc, darting in and out of reach of everyone around me. Feels a little like watching 300. And with my third character I sneak around, get everyone to attack each other and place traps. Not only are the styles completely different to actually play, they are also different in what gives me trouble and what is an easy fight.

A select few skills are so useful you absolutely have to have them (enchanting for everyone, smithing for anyone who cares about equipment). Perks are hilarious, because on one hand you can get -50% magicka cost on an entire school of spells for five perks, OR you can work your way up to pickpocket someone's worn items, something you will do once for a laugh. There's no reason to wear light armor over heavy armor beyond sneaking at low-levels.

A select few perk trees seem rather worthless, true. Most though have several ridiculously powerful abilities. Alteration lets you block and eat spells, conjuration lets you summon multiple minions, block gives you bullet time, sneak hands out assassination and so on ...

As for light armor - having used both light and heavy, I consider light armor to be better and more powerful overall.

You can't really change the world at all, and their illusion of that is not super-convincing.

It could be much better of course. Still, this is the best I have seen in a CRPG. And that is really all I am saying. As much as Skyrim does wrong, it does more things right than any other CRPG I am aware of.

[angelfromanotherpin]

All punching. All of it. Like the goddamn Punchmaster.

The commentary is kind of offensive, but I love the concept.

[name_here]

You know, if you get the right Pickpocket and Sneak perks, you can pickpocket people's worn items during combat.

[Doom]

Or you can pickpocket the heart right out of briarhearat enemies, having them fall over dead, for extra hilarity. Damn near every skill tree has a perk that crushes the game into easy mode.

Seriously, the game snaps in half a hundred different ways. Even with lame destruction, you can get stunlocks by skill level 40 (easily achieved by level 8, in a game where you can get to level 20 trivially).

It's a sandbox, play how you want to play. If you don't want to play with brokenly powerful stuff....don't.

[Swordslinger]

Or you can pickpocket the heart right out of briarhearat enemies, having them fall over dead, for extra hilarity. Damn near every skill tree has a perk that crushes the game into easy mode.

That's a pretty awesome way to kill something.

[Zinegata]

You can get 100% with only three items too. Fuck yes, efficiency baby.

Well, yes. But there are only 8 slots you can put 33% discounts on (4 pieces of apparel, x2 for extra effect) so you'll have two full discount schools and one 66% school (or other stuff).

But that requires also power-leveling Alchemy too for the Alchemy - Enchanting Ponzi scheme and I felt the game was broken crazily enough with Enchanting alone .

[Kaelik]

Did it without any alchemy at all, because you can kill this one lady and get a potion of +25% to enchantments. But yeah, if you want to power level alchemy too, then you can do it even better with 100 each, and then successive Grand Soul Gems of +alchemy, used to create +enchanting potions, so you could probably scale up to 100% reductions on a single item eventually, but that would be a lot of Grand Souls.

[DSMatticus]

I think there's a maximum "fortify enchanting" value for potions, though I've never personally attempted/verified. Edit: Or maybe a maximum "fortify alchemy" for items. I don't know, but I think the loop breaks at some point.

[Zinegata]

Ah, yes, if you manage to find good potions then you can indeed hit the 33% discount without needing to invest in alchemy.

That being said, despite the fact that there is eventually a cap (the potions stop getting better no matter how much bonus to alchemy you have), investing in power-levelled alchemy can also get you incredibly powerful potions which can allow you to improve a ton of skills, such as smithing. It honestly borders on overkill by this point.

Getting grand soul gems to start the ponzi scheme isn't that hard though - just get the black version of the Star of Azura (a reusable black soul gem) and you can soul trap any common bandit and turn him into a Grand Soul.

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Edit: Also, forgot to comment on the armor issue. I would say that Heavy Armor is the superior tree. In order to max out protection with Light Armors, you need to either have godly smithing skills OR take every single Light armor perk and have just over 100 Smithing skill.

Heavy Armor is actually "cheaper" perk-wise because you can hit the damage reduction cap without needing to get every single one of the "additional 20% protection" perks. In fact, if you have all the heavy armor perks, 100 smithing, all you need is Steel Plate or Dwarven to reach maximum protection.

In my view, Heavy Armor's late game competition isn't even Light Armor. It's Alteration. With 100 Alteration Skill you get a spell that gives 80% damage reduction (the cap), and you can cast it for free alongside Mass Paralysis when you've enchanted your clothes to give 100% Alteration discounts. Better yet, since the spell is providing you with maxed-out damage reduction, you can pick any kind of fashionable clothes to wear instead of any armor. Heck, you can even go into battle wearing a wedding dress