Um, I do 500+ damage normal swings (4 items with 45-48% more 2H damage, more if I take a 2H damage potion which makes it 600+ easily) 96% magic resist (Gift of Mara + lord stone + ring and neck with magic resist on it or Breton racial instead of a ring) , on top of having like 1000+ armor (full juggernaut + the 2 +25% armor perks, legendary upgraded with ~200% better better blacksmithing items and potion. Mages can’t do that, the game isn’t designed to let them do this. Magic damage caps out much lower than 500 a hit. No enchants to up destruction damage like there is 2H damage.You have what? The perks + the potion to up your damage? If mages had destruction damage enchants, then no doubt they’d be able to hit even harder. As it stands, melee is much stronger. Sneak attacks are doing thousands upon thousands of damage and one shot stuff even on master. Oh yeah, and if I use my own alchemy potions (my alchemy is low and have no perks in it), then I can actually pump out even better armor and weapons, with armor reaching over 2k and weapons over 1.3k damage
I don’t need to play a pure mage to know that I can beat the living hell out of their damage. I agree that Skyrim is better than Dark Souls overall, but my review was more comparing it to the older ES games, in which it does certain things a lot better, but a lot of important aspects of the game (many which are probably not important to the modern gamer) worse.
So again, my rating was more of a comparison to older TES games than the game by itself. If it wasn’t a TES game, this game is a 9, easy. The problem is that I KNOW that bethesda has done better stuff than a lot of the quests presented in Skyrim for the main factions, and I know that they have also had a lot more unique RP elements before.
But I will bump this to an 8.0, because the nirnroot quest ending was too godlike.
I don’t particularly like the way Bethesda handles it’s difficulty. I will wait for the mods to take care of this. Upping the NPCs damage and health to stupid levels does make the game harder, but IMO that’s fake difficulty. I prefer the way many modders and other gamers approach it, just have everything hit much harder from both sides (universally up the damage by 2-2.5x like FWE does and have the game take care of placing stronger enemies with more health via stuff like MMM) . This also makes sneak attacks much more valuable as the increased damage from enemies means that you want to reduce their numbers before rushing in. If poorly implemented it means that sneaking is too strong though.
Whoa Cowboy slow down. That review was just mindless, Whilst some of it was correct (Lydia dying, Choices ect ect) I found that most of it was just you willy waving about your character. Allow me to elaborate.
Magic - You say “Enjoy doing the same damage all game” This is fair, Yet it only covers the destruction school. You fail to mention the effectiveness of the Alteration school, or the amazingly strong conjuration school, Magic isn’t about raw damage. Paralyzing a cluster of enemies then cloaking them in Fire is how it’s supposed to be done, Couple this with almost infinite combinations and you have the Magic game down.
The Main Story - The lore and history they revealed through books, Dragon priests and “The place you kill Alduin” are an Elder Scrolls fans wet dream. Screw Alduin, the countless references to Morrowind and Oblivion made it all worthwhile. Not to mention the elder scrolls Main Quests have never been the focus point of the game, Other than to make your character OP (Odaviing, Storm Call)
Animations - It’s Elder Scrolls. Whilst it’s not an excuse for clipping, Anyone who has played previous installments expects this. It’s what we get, nobody really minds, as 3rd person sucks anyway.
RP Aspect - This, I understand. It doesn’t have choices of a New Vegas / F3 Magnitude. I’m not sure why, But it seems like a Tradeoff for the amount of quests maybe? It would become a crosshatch of consequences if every quest offered a choice that was tipping on the edge of a spectrum.
Dragons - Black Dragons need to be stronger. The die way too fast. The fights themselves would be a lot better if they just had a lot more health. Other than that, I think they’re fine.
Verdict - 9.5
I dislike the things you said, people telling me I should still join the college? Nobody knows I killed Alduin? Yeah sure it sucks. But in the end I don’t care, they aren’t worth rating a game down for. It’s a miniscule problem.
Magic - and there lies the problem with magic. You can’t be a specialized mage as the game wants you to take up multiple schools to be effective. Does a melee character need light and heavy armor? one hand, 2H and archery? No. You pick one armor type and one weapon type and you can play the whole game fine without the rest. Even as it is, a lot of mages focus on one school of arts anyway. While the PC mage doesn’t have the luxury due to poor design choices. Before you could beat the game with restoration.
Lore - I know a lot of the lore is done through the books, I’ve been gathering every single book and reading them, so I spent quite a few hours on this. Again, this is something that I did in Morrowind and Oblivion (where I installed mods that listed every single book in one room just so I could read them all). The problem is that in order for the player to understand the main quest fully, they HAVE to go out of their way and read books. Again, this is bad design. The main story should be able to present itself without needing the player go out of their way. The motivations for the bad guys and such should be presented as well via narrative and such. For the other factions, it’s fine if you don’t get all the details and have to read stuff as they are “minor” in comparison, despite the fact that the game still places a big emphasis on factions. The Imperial vs Stormcloak is a bit more gray area and on par with making decisions that aren’t exactly good. The Thalmor WANT the Stormcloaks to start some shit because they want the rebellion so they can just wreck everything. The Imperials know this, and are doing everything they can do stop it, but in the long run they are just screwing everyone over. On the other hand, Ulfric has proven himself not capable of handling problems even in his own town. The murders, the Dark Elf ghetto and many other things going on reinforce that he lacks the ability to be a good leader despite having good intentions.
Animations - Not even talking about clipping. Animations in general even in 1st person normally feel like just whiffing an attack in the air, the melee feels better than Oblivion (at least the power attacks do), slightly and while everything else is a hell of a lot better. The animations are still weak. Using “It’s Elder Scrolls” as an excuse is bad, you are basically enabling laziness on the developers because you set your expectations lower. How many games did it take for them to add sideways walking animations for 3rd person despite the fact that there are like a dozen other games running on gamebryo that already had these animations? Hell, Divinity 2 has over all much better animations despite the combat itself feeling even more swinging at the air than anything in TES.
The majority of the quests are generated via the radiant system (basically everything under the misc quests section) and the problem is that they just didn’t add many more choices here.
This is how most of the quests from the radiant system are done.
“Hey, this happened and I need you to fetch this for me in x dungeon”.
While this is fine, this only fits one style of play.
The radiant system should have taken the character’s stats and choices to design the quests to better fit the character. This only would have taken a few extra lines of voice. Now we have :
“Hey, this happened and I need you to fetch this for me in x dungeon” - Good guy warrior
"Hey, I heard there’s supposed to be some sort of crazy hidden treasure in x dungeon" - Thief type
"Hey, I heard there’s some necromancers in x dungeon sacrificing children" - good characters and mages?
“Hey, I heard there’s some very strong relic that necromancers are using to harness power in x dungeon” - Bad characters looking to get powerful, characters who just want stronger gear.
Apply this to all the appropriate quests and suddenly your character and their choices fit a lot better than they did before. Any quests that don’t fit this thing are fine, such as quests where NPCs ask you to steal stuff and your character isn’t a thief, you can just deny those, characters that tell you to do bad things and you can report, again are fine since there are is some sort of choice.
Dragons - These guys come in Skeletal Dragon, Dragon, Frost Dragon, Fire Dragon, Elder Dragon, Named Dragon and Alduin flavors. First 2 are basically whelps, weak and pathetic. Fire and Frost will make quick work of you without resist or high health. Elder and named have a lot more HP and these guys are a threat until you hit like level 40 or if you stack your HP. Generally still too easy as running power attacks just hit too hard. Making dragons crash and kill themselves is fun though. Alduin was a big “bleh”, he’s really no different than the other dragons. No special abilities or anything to make him stand out, this guy should have had multi-elemental shouts that make mages jealous.
My annoyance is that Morrowind being as old as it is (and it’s not even my favorite TES game, in fact, I hate the damn game due to its shit-tastic combat system, Skyrim being my favorite so far, even more than fully modded Oblivion), does a lot of things better in terms of story, consequences and such. For example, Morrowind’s guilds are designed to be in feuds with each other. This means you can’t join all the guilds as joining the warrior’s guild prevents you from joining the thieves’ guild, they also do not allow you to hit the very end of the quests right away and have skill and level requirements in order to progress. They will tell you to go away and work on your skills and return when you are stronger. The great houses are also in competition with each other, so joining one means not being able to join the others, this is also all while the main story is going on and this is going on despite the fact that you are the Nerevarine (Skyrim’s equivalent of the Dovahkiin) and there is still is a sense of urgency and danger going on.
So Skyrim ultimately is a huge improvement over Oblivion, but only because a lot of the new things in Skyrim are things that 1) were in Morrowind but weren’t in Oblivion (but were added anyway via mods and as a result are more polished due to Bethesda having access to the good Creation Kit) 2) Bethesda did go back to the overall design philosophy of Morrowind for many things (such as making the world feel different depending on where you went, not like Oblivion’s never ending medieval forest, even though it’s actually supposed to be a rain forest anyway…), but sacrificed a lot of the character choices and things that were already bad in Oblivion but better in Morrowind. So if I have to rate the games by things they have done, I still have to put Morrowind (Better guilds, better quests, even more lore, better level design, better layout making the world feel bigger than it is) over Skyrim, and then Oblivion GOTY. Me liking this game has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that there are a lot of very bad design decisions and shit that is just lacking and should have been in the game as it is. And that’s why it doesn’t get higher than an 8. Fix the problems with the game and this game is hands down a 10, no ifs ands or buts.
If you haven’t noticed, I believe that sequels and later games in the series should never have less than before and the quality needs to go up :-p Which is also why I have some problems with ME2, despite the fact that I enjoyed it more than part 1.
I’d rate this game a solid 9 due to content alone. It’s a massive game. That said, the animations are not up to 2011 standards, and the RP aspects are weak compared to older games. Also there is really not a whole lot of variety to enemies in dungeons and dragon fights are lame. I was hoping they would’ve built upon the RP aspects this time and fix the damn animations, especially since they made it a point to improve it. I also think they should’ve kept the time freeze thing when you speak to npcs, as conversations can get really stupid such as when a character is talking while his back is turned to you, or other npcs come between you and another npc that you’re conversing with.
Whats up with me walking into a new town and some random npc just lying somewhere dead?
Oh and I had to kill some chick named Katrin or whatever on my way to see the monks because I accidently pickpocketed her when I was just trying to read the book she had on her. She had some good stuff on her though. Threw that bitch off a mountain afterwards. Good shit.
I’m glad Jinsaotomex isn’t a game designer or involved with making video games. Horrible critique. And it sounds like you ruined the game for yourself even though you don’t want to admit it.
Have you ever played any TES games prior to oblivion and skyrim? I’m not the only one saying this, there’s a ton of people saying this stuff as well (on top of complaining about the more glaring stuff that needs fixing like the UI on the PC version, where even the devs are getting involved because they aren’t releasing the source for it so everyone is basically on their own and screwed unless they already have knowledge of the language, but not only that the people that are working on this stuff that have knowledge are getting all sorts of compile errors so the Bethesda devs are helping them fix the stuff…). This is all stuff that was in previous games and worked very well and made the game a lot better on top of giving the players even more choice despite the limitations of the engine. But glad to see that all you can say is “horrible critique” without actually bothering to prove me wrong so yeah. Let’s not forget that some of the stuff I mentioned that is missing is stuff that that they said they were gonna have in the game (the whole point of the radiant system was to customize quests as well as being able to finish quests even if NPCs died, which you can’t, you just fail the quests). Getting some really strong Peter Molyneux vibes from Todd Howard. That shit is just low, then again, they did it with Oblivion too and people ate it up.
How exactly did I ruin the game for myself when the game itself has even less options than before? Are you trying to imply that I ruined the game for myself because I expected content in the game that is normally there and now it’s gone despite the fact that Bethesda has been working on the TES series for how many games now? I am not even talking about the removal of stats, skills and other such in the favor of perks which many attribute to dumbing down. Because it sounds like you’re saying “You ruined the game for yourself because you were expecting it have stuff the TES series is known for” and while it is better in the obvious aspects (visuals, overall improvement of combat), it is not in many others. All I am referring to is obvious design flaws (hello 33k damage backstabs) and lack of choices that could have easily been fixed by adding a few more lines of text as choices to quests.
Oh and I am enjoying the game just fine, having a blast still, have 80 hours in it now. My enjoyment or fun of the game doesn’t prevent me from still seeing the flaws, maybe it does for you so good for you I guess.
Hold down the take button to move stuff around. There is no more dedicated grab button.
The simplified quests and other things of that sort are most likely to cater to the casual console crowd. maybe the next TES game will have more depth to it.
i agree with some of the critiques, but thankfully they’re minor and don’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the game.
I love the little moments in the game, like once I was walking along and I see a bunch of Imperials taking some Nord to an execution. I ask them what they’re doing and they tell me to mind my own business. So I pull out my sword and slaughter them all.
Turns out the prisoner is a captured Stormcloak.
Stormcloaks fo life.
I also like how they mention the adoring fan in one of the books. And he’s all “I decided to pose as an adoring fan for the Grand Champion, then later slit his throat and left his body for the bears.”
Man I saw that, but did nothing. Are imperials bad or anything? Even though there is no moral compass in the game, I always fear doing bad shit in TES games
By Asura, by Asura, BY ASURA…this made my day. That bitch guarded my house like a boss, in Oblivion
this time though i decided how i was going to roleplay my character and moved ahead with it. for example i decided i was the same nord i played in oblivion, ‘woken up’ in a Gordon Freeman-esque fashion to deal with these events later. at first i supported the Empire, given my past experience, but after seeing them execute the guy at the beginning and get ready to kill me, i decide fuck the empire and to join the cause of my people. especially given the thalmor involvement
Stronger Dragons
Clipping
NPC’s need to be up to date with the News around Skyrim
Give Companions more health / Remove Friendly Fire (Fuck Storm call with NPC’s)
Clear Requirements for Executions. When they’re downed? Recoiling? give us a specific input?
Fix the Dragon Priest Mask + Arch mage robe glitch. (No head)
The Imperials and the Stormcloaks aren’t really good or bad. The only bad ones are the Thalmor.
Imperials get bossed around by the Thalmor and ban the worship of Talos. Thalmor doesn’t invade, yet. The Imperials clearly don’t want to start shit with these guys since it would be a fucking huge war but it is obvious they don’t like them (Imperial NPCs refuse to comment on how they feel about the Thalmor when asked).
Stormcloaks want Skyrim to belong to the Nords again, the result would be that without the Imperials in power, the Thalmor can invade and fuck everything up, which would lead to massive casualties, wars and all that other stuff. Ultimately the Imperials are just delaying the inevitable, Thalmor want control of everything and they are stepping on everyone’s toes. I hope there’s an expansion or DLC that is all about you just beating the shit out of these cunts.
Good portion of my life has been going into this. Fun game in all. My chief complaint is the spotty difficulty. The majority of the encounter are pretty easy, but then you’ll randomly come across someone who just owns you in like, 2 hits. That dragon battles I’ve had generally involve me running around with my fist in the air, healing whatever damage I incurred, waiting for the damn thing to land so I can hack away at its ankles. Not very epic. Otherwise, a very nice time-hole.
I can’t tell if I like the followers or not, I mean an extra gun and a pack mule is nice, but dammit Osmund, quit stealing my kills and getting into fights with my atronauch.
I think that jinsaotomex3 guy used the guide book or walkthrough and just ran through the game. Ive logged almost as many hours (if not more) than he did and I havent done half the shit he did. I dont even get how he can play just as much as me (so far) and be double the level I am or higher. Anyhow, using a guide/walkthrough will definitely make the experience lesser.
p.s. I just looked at Steam and it says I have played 92.8 hours in the past 2 weeks. I would say cut off about 20 hours of that for just letting it idle in pause mode. Im only level 25 shit.
