Skyrim is worse than Oblivion in every way

[Majestic47]

i entered the smallest mine I've experienced in this game. Literally entering it...fired 6 arrows to kill the 4 miners in there. Then dug 4-5 ores veins within metres of each other. Then...that's it. It's just one ...cave. 0__o

 

[halflingbarbarian]

The dungeons were linear since Morrowind.

 

[made]

The dungeons are linear shit, true. Among the worst "dungeons" I've ever seen in an RPG.

Idd. I'm baffled that this fact doesn't draw more criticism. DA2 was bashed for its copy-pasted dungeons but Skyrim isn't much better. It's always one long corridor with a shortcut at the end that takes you back to the entrance. Every single time.

 

[Rhalle]

Bethshit has done a really good job of varying dungeon designs for such a massive game with so many of them.

But every one of them is linear. There is literally no way to get lost, because they all are a well-disguised rail ride. No matter which direction you go, you will always make it to the end and see everything.

 

[Majestic47]

I think linear dungeons are valid complaint.
Morrowind was excused from this because the shift between that and Daggerfall is extremely massive.

The alien world was what kept me coming back, but deep inside I know I missed the random quest generator sending me into a death trap dungeon with almost zero chance of making out without mark and recall spell in Daggerfall.

Skyrim exploration is bogged down with mostly familiar wild life and bandit ridden tunnels. There's a sense of knowing that you're safe. You're in no danger of being trapped inside, with no way out. And that's a pity, because I would really love to fall into a pit of spiders and survive with barely a sliver of health as I clawed my way out of the hellhole.

I also kinda despise the amount of self-help the main protagonist has - down to improving his gear, enchanting and brewing potions. It's insane to find no ready to eat beef stew or vegetable soup at your local tavern, only the Dragonborn knows how to cook those.

Why can we not hire blacksmiths to do these improvements? The proper craftsman would just charge money and craft the goods or improve them. It gives a better gold sink alternative to those who doesn't want to skill up on tedious dagger crafts and earn unwanted levels.

 

[Gord]

The dungeons are linear shit, true. Among the worst "dungeons" I've ever seen in an RPG.

Idd. I'm baffled that this fact doesn't draw more criticism. DA2 was bashed for its copy-pasted dungeons but Skyrim isn't much better. It's always one long corridor with a shortcut at the end that takes you back to the entrance. Every single time.

Linear dungeons is one thing. Copy-pasting the same fucking room every time is a whole different level of shitiness.
It baffles me, however, that obviously quite a lot of work went into the dungeons, yet they didn't come up with at least a few non-linear ones. At least I haven't seen any yet.

Still, dungeons are not bad if you can live with the linearity.

EDIT: I just remembered one tiny instance of not-as-linear design (or rather a secret area). In the MQ dungeon where you are supposed to find the horn is this room with the shout-word and the shout puzzle. There's also a point from where you can see a skelleton and a chest, with no direct way to reach it. You have to jump over some collapsed pillars and use one of your shouts to get over a slightly wider gap to find a short passage that leads to the chest...


...which contains randomized loot. I found it pretty cool that you have to invest a minimal amount of problem solving for once (integrated in the dungeon design instead of the puzzles) and then all I found was like 20 gold and some other rubbish.

I also kinda despise the amount of self-help the main protagonist has - down to improving his gear, enchanting and brewing potions. It's insane to find no ready to eat beef stew or vegetable soup at your local tavern, only the Dragonborn knows how to cook those.

Why can we not hire blacksmiths to do these improvements? The proper craftsman would just charge money and craft the goods or improve them. It gives a better gold sink alternative to those who doesn't want to skill up on tedious dagger crafts and earn unwanted levels.

I don't think it's so bad that you have all this possible ways to craft your own gear, but I agree that this stuff should be available from vendors, too. OTOH it sounds like something that will be easy to implement once the CK is out, so I expect to see a few mod that do this.

 

[SCO]

What happens if there is no CS?

 

[Majestic47]

I think so far playing this game vs New Vegas I gotta ask:

Is there any visible wounds on the enemy? Or is every single one of them are dead like a ragdoll with no exit blood wound? Because when I inspect my arrow kills, I usually just find them slumped with an arrow through their skull, but no blood flowing and such. Not even a shot to the gut triggers any spilled blood.

Is it because I'm playing on medium graphic setting?

 

[Gord]

Is there any visible wounds on the enemy?

I don't see any, but put that down to most probably only getting a no-gore version here.
From what I've read there should be e.g. decapitations in the game and I never had that happen outside of scripted excecution scenes.

What happens if there is no CS?

There will be a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

 

[abija]

And that's a pity, because I would really love to fall into a pit of spiders and survive with barely a sliver of health as I clawed my way out of the hellhole.

You can fall into the trap of demented orc mage that plans to roast you.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

Not defending the trend of dungeon design in recent games, but it's quite unfair to say that Skyrim copy-pasta dungeons. Find me an instance of same rooms/layouts in any 2 dungeons in the game. And then show me it's a regularity, rather than a rarity. Of course most crypts / caves / etc are going to look similar because they are mostly cell based on the same tileset, but most have hand-placed 'placeables' (furniture, decor, ambient lighting etc). It's like complaining all the vaults look the same in Fallout/Fallout 2, or what have you.

The dungeons are linear, yes. But not DA2 laziness copypasta. And I would venture to say there has been some love put into dungeon design this time: 'toilets', sleeping areas, archer vantage platforms, traps (no longer a rare novelty like it was in Oblivion), etc. Just came out of Broken Oar Grotto, along the coast east of Solitude, and I dare say it is 1) not linear, 2) nice, sensible layout.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

And that's a pity, because I would really love to fall into a pit of spiders and survive with barely a sliver of health as I clawed my way out of the hellhole.

You can fall into the trap of demented orc mage that plans to roast you.

You can also literally fall into a spiked pit trap meant for mammoths or other wildlife (mammoths due to the decor in the connected dungeon) near Halted Stream Camp, which you will then need to fight through a bandit ivory trade camp to make it out.

 

[Gord]

Not defending the trend of dungeon design in recent games, but it's quite unfair to say that Skyrim copy-pasta dungeons.

If you are referring to my post, you misunderstood me. It was my intention to say that while most (?) dungeons in Skyrim are linear, they are by no means copy-pasta (contrary to what even according to mainstream mags you seem to get in DA2).
In fact I think that most of them are rather well designed (if linear).

Also I had quite a few dungeons that gave me a sense of danger. Even had to flee once.
Then again maybe I just suck at playing that game and my skills at gaming don't even come close to the skills of all the other ladies & gentlemen in this place.

 

[torpid]

Can you jump like a flea person in this game, like 20x your height vertically and/or horizontally in one go? This was my key pleasure in Morrowind

Yeah that's one of the things that kept me playing Morrowind, along with athletics and levitation. It allowed you to feel properly godlike in a do-everything-be-everything game. Fuck balance -- give me rings of permanent levitation. But starting with Oblivion, due to how cities are split off from the outside world and exist in separate cells, jumping over walls would fuck up the cell loading.

 

[crufty]

I think so far playing this game vs New Vegas I gotta ask:

Is there any visible wounds on the enemy? Or is every single one of them are dead like a ragdoll with no exit blood wound? Because when I inspect my arrow kills, I usually just find them slumped with an arrow through their skull, but no blood flowing and such. Not even a shot to the gut triggers any spilled blood.

Is it because I'm playing on medium graphic setting?

Ps3/us version is nice and bloody. No decapitations yet.

Hackmaster (finest of all :monocle: pnp rpg) has something called a threshold of pain check. TES would do well to have a similar mechanic, ESP w. arrows to the head. It's strange to get assaulted by bandits with arrows sticking out of their nose

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Encountered my first bandit dressed in full glass armour demanding 100 gold. Fuck's sake Bethesda

 

[attackfighter]

I think linear dungeons are valid complaint.
Morrowind was excused from this because the shift between that and Daggerfall is extremely massive.

Morrowind dungeons weren't all linear. It was mainly just the bandit caves that were, but if you go into dwemer strongholds or those dunmer fortresses there's plenty of turn offs.

 

[Angelo85]

I think so far playing this game vs New Vegas I gotta ask:

Is there any visible wounds on the enemy? Or is every single one of them are dead like a ragdoll with no exit blood wound? Because when I inspect my arrow kills, I usually just find them slumped with an arrow through their skull, but no blood flowing and such. Not even a shot to the gut triggers any spilled blood.

Is it because I'm playing on medium graphic setting?

I haven't noticed thus far but hadn't paid close attention either. Will keep an eye on it and report back.
I did however unlock that decapitating move two or three levels ago and that one I can confirm has lots of gore at least while executing the move.

/e: on high settings there don't seem to appear any wounds on the bodies of enemies. Even when decapitating there is no blut spurt on the corpse or anything. There's just the blood that gets drawn in the air.
If I shoot an arrow into an body however, a blood texture is added around the point of entry.

 

[Gerrard]

I also kinda despise the amount of self-help the main protagonist has - down to improving his gear, enchanting and brewing potions. It's insane to find no ready to eat beef stew or vegetable soup at your local tavern, only the Dragonborn knows how to cook those.

Why can we not hire blacksmiths to do these improvements? The proper craftsman would just charge money and craft the goods or improve them. It gives a better gold sink alternative to those who doesn't want to skill up on tedious dagger crafts and earn unwanted levels.

The removal of NPC enchanters is retarded. Now I have to grind my enchant skill, because it affects the strength of enchantments (which by itself is also retarded) and spend perks to be able to make magic items.
There's almost no use for money in this game.

And on top of that, in the act of typical Bethesdian douchebaggery they made that mage guy in Winterhold, whom you can ask if he can enchant an item for you. And then idiots wonder why people hate this studio.
At least M'aiq's lines this time around don't seem to be written by your average ESF poster.

Also, on the opposite end of things we have something like the ability to mine, which completely fucking pointless since every blacksmith carries every type of material once you're high enough level (or maybe it depends on your smithing skill).

Encountered my first bandit dressed in full glass armour demanding 100 gold. Fuck's sake Bethesda

I'm level 40 and the best I've seen bandits have so far was steel plate.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

He was a special encounter on the road who came up to me alone and demanded cash. I could persuade, intimidate, bribe, give up or tell him I didn't have time for this nonsense. It's an encounter I've only had once in the game, might be rare. I'm level 40 as well.

 

[Gerrard]

Seems like the random robber, I met maybe 2 or 3 of them.
It's gonna be really silly if one jumps me now when I have a companion, trying to rob 2 people by himself.

I ran into a couple of dagger-wielding bandits wearing full dwarven armour.

These are the guys that spawn and demand yo' money, not regular bandits.

Yeah, I know, but so far haven't seen anything like that. Most recently got a bounty hunter after me who had full steel plate, only better thing was orcish shield. His weapon was also crap.

And adding to the whole enchanting business, I'm pretty sure by this point that you can find items in shops that are better than anything you can make, like 60% resists.
Unless the final enchant perk lets you put two identical enchantments on one item and they add up.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

I think linear dungeons are valid complaint.
Morrowind was excused from this because the shift between that and Daggerfall is extremely massive.

Morrowind dungeons weren't all linear. It was mainly just the bandit caves that were, but if you go into dwemer strongholds or those dunmer fortresses there's plenty of turn offs.

Then I'm going to say Skyrim dungeons aren't all linear either: the forts and generally other humanoid enemy buildings have different/multiple entrances/exits with rational layouts.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

I think linear dungeons are valid complaint.
Morrowind was excused from this because the shift between that and Daggerfall is extremely massive.

Morrowind dungeons weren't all linear. It was mainly just the bandit caves that were, but if you go into dwemer strongholds or those dunmer fortresses there's plenty of turn offs.

Then I'm going to say Skyrim dungeons aren't all linear either: the forts and generally other humanoid enemy buildings have different/multiple entrances/exits with rational layouts.

If by "multiple" you mean "two", yeah. But forts are rarely used as dungeons anyway. You kill dudes on the ground floor, move up to the next level and kill some more etc.

To be honest I don't recall Morrowind having particularly notable dungeons in terms of non-linearity. The odd side-room or alcove maybe. I don't even remember any secret rooms that weren't opened by a quest (which Skyrim has one or two for every ten dungeons, excluding those locked walk-in cupboards). I suppose some of larger caverns were somewhat open. The joy of exploration in Morrowind came from the overland map, not fiendish D&D labyrinths.

Yea hence the 'then' at the beginning of my post, since his standard of non-linearity was established at the Morrowind level. Also, by 'multiple', I mean multiple aka more than 2.

 

[baronjohn]

What the fuck happened to my character's eyes? Is this a bug or is it because I'm evil (finished DB quests)?

 

[Multidirectional]

Encountered my first bandit dressed in full glass armour demanding 100 gold. Fuck's sake Bethesda

They care about established lore and don't want to lose fans, obviously.