Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

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DarQraven

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Jan 20, 2008
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LOL great post!!

I found the terminatoresque city guards annoyingly lazy too.

What I hated about them the most was that, even though they were absolute player-character-killing-machines and could detect you stealing something through five feet of stone wall, they were absolutely useless when it came to fighting other monsters.

A guard can kill the player character in about four hits most of the time, yet when you enter a low-level dungeon with them, an entire troup of guards dies on you the second they encounter their first scamp. Wtf? It seems to me that, given their relative strength, that quest should have played itself.

--

As for skyrim, I really hope they'll take some hints from games like BG, Dragon Age, etc regarding the magic system, or just take a step back to the Morrowind system and improve that significantly. I really like the way you can craft your own spells (within bounds, of course), but the difficulty is that the interesting part of Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age combat comes from the interplay of different character classes. Being a fighter character in Dragon Age is pretty brainless and boring, but it's because you get to use that fighter in the context of a team consisting of support/offensive casters, rogues and archers that the gameplay becomes interesting.
An ability like mark (increase incoming damage on target by x percent) is not much fun, but when you combine that with a cloaked rogue backstabbing an enemy at exactly the right time ... that's awesome. It's about the synergy, and that's what allows you to build genuinely interesting characters. It is completely viable to build a character with zero DPS, as long as its buffs, traps and skills are good enough and you have the party to support it.

TES games, on the other hand, are solo. That mark spell is cool and all, but you'll be the one casting it and the one doing the backstabbing, while tanking hits from other enemies, probably. That changes matters. Good luck getting anywhere in the game without at least a solid Blade, Blunt or Destruction skill. I think I stopped playing my Illusion/Sneak character some 3 hours into the game. The current system just forces you to build all-round characters, and in the end, you'll possess skills in ALL magic schools.
In that regard, I think the addition of party members would be a really great thing to have. Perhaps using the auto-AI system featured in Dragon Age, where you could pre-program the behaviour of your team members based on certain circumstances, or Final Fantasy's gambit system. Hell, go all Mass Effect on the game if that's a better system.

I know it was already possible to hire mercenaries in Oblivion (I forgot if Morrowind had this feature, too), but that was a pretty basic DPS addition, nothing more. You more or less only used the mercenaries to take the hits while you stood back and chugged mana potions and casted death spells. You couldn't control them, order them (other than "Stay here"/"Follow me"), spend their skillpoints, etc. Mostly they just charged into a room full of demons while you were still healing and got themselves killed.

I realise that TES games are about adventure and exploration, not really about tactical combat the way DA and ME are, but I think a somewhat fleshed out combat system could really help the game. "Buy spell, cast spell, level up spell" doesn't really cut it anymore, for me.
 
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Fuzzle

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Jan 29, 2006
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What I remember most about the guards was when an npc once handed me the key to his house as part of a quest, so I went inside and took a potato for my alchemy. Before I exited I realised I didn't really need it and I was at my weight limit, so I dropped it.
As soon as I exited the house - the game had barely even loaded - there was a guard right in my face going STOP THIEF.
 

DarQraven

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STOP_RIGHT_THERE_CRIMNAL_SCUM_by_Bedbug200.jpg

STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
-Go to jail
-Resist arrest
-Pay fine
 
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Trynant

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Jan 31, 2002
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You can do crazy awesome stuff vs you do banal activities that are well animated

I'll be more interested in Skyrim when I see where they're going with it.

As far as Morrowind and Oblivion are concerned:

Morrowind has Levitate. Oblivion does not. Need I say more?
 

Capt.Toilet

Good news everyone!
Feb 16, 2004
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Oblivion
- Retarded leveling system. Seriously. I can skip most quests and go right to one of the toughest dungeons and kill the big bad mofo at level 5. If I go back into the starter dungeon after 80 hours of play, I will encounter level 60 sewer rats that would have killed me just by looking at me, had they been there when I first started the game. Enemies leveling up with the player character just kills any sense of progression in the game. It takes four stabs to kill a bandit at level 3, and it takes four stabs to kill that same bandit at level 100, because suddenly, he's wearing blood armor and has gained 60 levels. Nevermind how anyone in the various towns is still alive when there are juggernauts like these just strolling about.

The only characters exempt from this rule are the town guards, who are always so strong I keep wondering why they even need me to save the world when they've got a legion of terminators at their disposal already.

TL;DR: Morrowind is an open-world RPG with slightly clunky melee combat. Oblivion is it's action-game offspring with better production.

That is exactly how I felt about the leveling system. I did play Morrowind for a few hours while I had it, and soon learned that I should never stray from the path otherwise I would get ripped to shreds. This game just didn't have that. Basically I found out if you up your skills, while making sure you get the +5 multiplier in your main ones, and never EVER sleep till you feel the need, you would never feel threatened again. If it can be broken like this, it most certainly needs a revamp.
 

inferyes

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Aug 16, 2009
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Oblivion had leveling caps on monsters but yes it didn't make much sense sometimes.

Also the guards are static. They don't level up with the player.
 

Jacks:Revenge

╠╣E╚╚O
Jun 18, 2006
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somewhere; sometime?
Just admit it, you love guns
who doesn't?

it's irrelevant though.
my primary complaint with Oblivion was excess (or at least unnecessary) downtime.

repetitive quests forced you to travel between the same few locations numerous times while the corresponding fast-travel waypoints were poorly placed. often in a way that required you to run through another load screen or two just to get to your actual target/NPC.

it also felt like I wasted hours just navigating chat windows.
I know it's supposed to be an RPG first, but it's not Myst. if anything it's equal parts RPG and action. unfortunately this doesn't always translate to the gameplay.
 

SirYawnalot

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Jan 17, 2004
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I don't mind lots of talking in my RPGs, but if there's only ever one way to go through the quests, it's a bit of a waste of time. The shallowness of Oblivion's talky bits compared with the average Bioware title was one of my biggest issues with the game.

As for the levelling/difficulty scaling problem, there are plenty of great mods out there which fix it.
 

DarQraven

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Jan 20, 2008
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I don't mind lots of talking in my RPGs, but if there's only ever one way to go through the quests, it's a bit of a waste of time. The shallowness of Oblivion's talky bits compared with the average Bioware title was one of my biggest issues with the game.

As for the levelling/difficulty scaling problem, there are plenty of great mods out there which fix it.

Definitely. I played a third-or-so playthrough with OOOmod and promptly got my ass kicked, the first dungeon I entered. Those bastards put a lvl20+ dungeon right next to the sewers exit where you start the game.:mad:
 

Big-Al

amateur de bière
Jun 14, 2003
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Under a black flag.
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For anyone hasn't been keeping up with this game, Game Informer has been revealing bits of information online about the game since it's last issue reveal. Some good reads (and videos) in there. :)

http://www.gameinformer.com/p/esv.aspx

...and today we have a new screenshot. :D

[SCREENSHOT]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/Slainchild/edd24d1d.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

reminds me of UT3
 

Sir_Brizz

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Feb 3, 2000
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Looks cool. I'm really hoping TES5 has some "breathtaking" areas like this. Seems like it will.
 

dragonfliet

I write stuffs
Apr 24, 2006
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So the systems they're building sound cool and all, but we'll see how that actually pans out (the system in Oblivion ALSO sounded cool, but was horrendous). The screenshot, however, fills me with dread. It's BARELY better than Fallout 3, which is an ugly, ugly game. I had hoped they would have made use of idTech 5 (being part of the same parent company), but no. Sigh. Oh well.

edit: it isn't BAD looking, but you know they chose this screenshot because it was one of the best (think that knight on the horse they showed for Oblivion), and chances are that the rest of the game doesn't really look even that mediocre.

~Jason
 
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inferyes

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Aug 16, 2009
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That looks good for a game that's about a year away from release.

Additionally they are using a new engine called "creation" which is interesting. I guess they aren't using a spin off of gamebyro which could be a good thing or a great thing. ;)
 

dragonfliet

I write stuffs
Apr 24, 2006
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That looks good for a game that's about a year away from release.

Additionally they are using a new engine called "creation" which is interesting. I guess they aren't using a spin off of gamebyro which could be a good thing or a great thing. ;)

It is a spin-off of gamebryo, which was a spin off of the morrowind engine.
 

Sir_Brizz

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Feb 3, 2000
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Morrowind used Gamebryo. In fact, the first game I'm aware of that used Gamebryo was Dark Age of Camelot... and it had all the classic problems as well.