TemplarGR
Dumbfuck!
I was asked recently what i was that i really liked about Skyrim. Apparently many people misunderstand Skyrim here on this forum. I really think it is unfair that many people don't consider it an RPG, or consider it garbage. So i decided to start a new thread stating what i believe is the real appeal of Skyrim and the "Bethesda formula" in general, and begin a discussion about it.
Let's get the "review" thing out of the way. Everyone already has an opinion about Skyrim's graphics, music, voice acting, etc, so i won't bother mentioning those. This is not a "review" of the game. This is just giving the opinion of someone who genuinely enjoys Skyrim immensely and deserves his "bethestard" tag. I am just discussing what is the appeal, what is that i find that makes my mind tickling with it, so to speak.
Let's also get a few other things out of the way:
1) Skyrim is very easy. Increasing the difficulty can make the enemies hitspongy and make it closer to souls games but it is just cheap difficulty. You can also always break the game with crafting cheese. Let's just say that no one plays Skyrim for the satisfaction of a hard combat system.
2) Skyrim's writing is just... functional. It is not complete garbage, but it is not good either. It is just "there". It just exists, just for the purpose of making the locations and NPCs exist. No one plays Skyrim for its story or writting. The lore is rich in content but poor in quality, let's be honest. There are also retconns galore. Still, it is, as i said, functional. It gets the job done.
3) Skyrim is not a pure CRPG. It is an action-RPG hybrid. Obviously it having action controls introduces player skill to the avatar's skill. This dilutes the RPG element somewhat, and can't be denied. No one denies this.
4) Skyrim's skill system is not complicated. It is very streamlined. This does not mean that it is not well designed though. I found that the perk system was extremely flexible and could create (assuming typical levels of around 40, no i am not grinding to 100
) an extreme number of different builds. The trees are designed in such a way that you can save perks by only getting what makes sense for a build. I love it. Still, it is not DnD... It is not Divinity Original Sin... Sure, it is more "casual". More streamlined. Again, no one denies it, if having a more hard core skill system is your thing, then Skyrim won't satisfy, not unless you mod it.
So, getting those criticisms out of the way, what is the thing that makes me enjoy it? What is the secret of Bethesda's formula?
As i said in other threads, i have played several hundred hours of Skyrim already. I have made more than a hundred different characters. Yet i have only completed the main questline once. I typically only complete the main questline until Solstheim gets unlocked, with every character. I really don't care about completing the main questline, it is boring, and i don't play the game to experience the story or get the satisfaction of completing the campaign.
The thing i like, is that i get to play an avatar of my making, in first person mode, and control its actions directly. When i play Baldur's gate using my Paladin, it is fun, but i always keep thinking "what if i directly controlled that character in a first person view? And Skyrim allows me to do just that. I make a new character, and shape him up to approximate a paladin build, getting perks in restoration, one handed, shield, heavy armor. Getting anti-undead items like Dawnbreaker. LARPing my Paladin and having fun!
I have attempted to recreate almost any DnD class/subclass in Skyrim. I have made many other builds like merchant-with-people-skills-who-sucks-at-combat, to a dwarven-armored-crossbowman, to vampire necromancers etc. And unlike most CRPGs, i get to experience them directly, with rich graphics, in an open world. I make them exactly like i want, pick the perks i want, the items i want, the lord stones i want, the other bonuses i want... I build them houses like i want, i marry them to whoever i want.
There is no real "end condition" in Skyrim. There is nothing to win, nothing to achieve. It is literally just a digital puppet theater. You get out of it, what you put into it. You are using your imagination, and you escape in its world. Not because it is perfect. It is not. But because it is fun and allows you to express yourself in it. It allows you to put your personal touch.
Think a game like Baldur's Gate. You get to roleplay, yes, but you are rigidly structured in some ways. You can't really escape the class system of the game. You get to pick a class and pick where you assign some bonuses, but other than that, it is a rigid system, not fluid create-what-you-want like Skyrim. Also you don't get to experience the character you are playing directly.
Now, think about Witcher 3. Witcher 3, allows you to control Geralt directly, but it is just Geralt. It will always be Geralt. Yes, you do make C&C, and yes, you do pick if you want the light armored version, the mid, or the heavy, if you want a melee focused or a magic focused, etc. But in the end, it is just a Witcher. It is just Geralt. That is not bad per se, but it does not cover our need to express ourselves in a free way and just do our thing in a sandbox. Skyrim does.
In Skyrim, the only limit to how you roleplay your avatar, is your imagination. I heard stories of someone who wasted many hours just LARPing a Riverwood woodcutter. He would literally just chop wood and help at the mill for money and he even went to sleep at night and get back in the morning. Why he did that? To someone who is objective-based it will seem pointless, he didn't unlock any reward, didn't achieve anything. But to him, it was FUN. He was roleplaying a woodcutter, because why the fuck not? That was his thing, that was what he wanted to do, and he did it.
Skyrim is a virtual sandbox, a world waiting to be shaped up into what you want it to be. Unlike more traditional CRPGs, it is not a rigid thing waiting to be conquered by a brilliant strategic mind or a nice story waiting to be told like a great novel or movie. And that is what Bethesda is good at. That is what Bethesda fans really love about those games.
You need imagination to really get the most out of Skyrim. You need to input a part of you inside your game. You need to perhaps "pretend" to be the character, like a kid pretending to be Spiderman. Skyrim lets you experience a role playing Avatar in first person, directly, with as much freedom as possible, in an open world. Nothing else in the industry let's you do that, like Bethesda's games. That is what makes Skyrim so special. It does not mean that other CRPGs are bad or inferior. They are just different types of RPGs, and that is fine. There is room for everybody... Different strokes for different folks...
And that is why, denying that Skyrim is an RPG is retarded. I mean, it is a game you can role play anything, and shape your character into what you like with an extreme amount of options, and you say it is not a role playing game? Like, seriously?
TLDR: Remember when we were kids. Sometimes we played with toy soldiers, action figures we controlled. That was Baldur's gate. Some other times, we dressed like cowboys, we got our toy revolvers, and played cowboys vs indians, pretending we were aiming and shooting at imaginary indians, or our friends, dressed as indians. THAT, was Skyrim...
Let's get the "review" thing out of the way. Everyone already has an opinion about Skyrim's graphics, music, voice acting, etc, so i won't bother mentioning those. This is not a "review" of the game. This is just giving the opinion of someone who genuinely enjoys Skyrim immensely and deserves his "bethestard" tag. I am just discussing what is the appeal, what is that i find that makes my mind tickling with it, so to speak.
Let's also get a few other things out of the way:
1) Skyrim is very easy. Increasing the difficulty can make the enemies hitspongy and make it closer to souls games but it is just cheap difficulty. You can also always break the game with crafting cheese. Let's just say that no one plays Skyrim for the satisfaction of a hard combat system.
2) Skyrim's writing is just... functional. It is not complete garbage, but it is not good either. It is just "there". It just exists, just for the purpose of making the locations and NPCs exist. No one plays Skyrim for its story or writting. The lore is rich in content but poor in quality, let's be honest. There are also retconns galore. Still, it is, as i said, functional. It gets the job done.
3) Skyrim is not a pure CRPG. It is an action-RPG hybrid. Obviously it having action controls introduces player skill to the avatar's skill. This dilutes the RPG element somewhat, and can't be denied. No one denies this.
4) Skyrim's skill system is not complicated. It is very streamlined. This does not mean that it is not well designed though. I found that the perk system was extremely flexible and could create (assuming typical levels of around 40, no i am not grinding to 100
) an extreme number of different builds. The trees are designed in such a way that you can save perks by only getting what makes sense for a build. I love it. Still, it is not DnD... It is not Divinity Original Sin... Sure, it is more "casual". More streamlined. Again, no one denies it, if having a more hard core skill system is your thing, then Skyrim won't satisfy, not unless you mod it.So, getting those criticisms out of the way, what is the thing that makes me enjoy it? What is the secret of Bethesda's formula?
As i said in other threads, i have played several hundred hours of Skyrim already. I have made more than a hundred different characters. Yet i have only completed the main questline once. I typically only complete the main questline until Solstheim gets unlocked, with every character. I really don't care about completing the main questline, it is boring, and i don't play the game to experience the story or get the satisfaction of completing the campaign.
The thing i like, is that i get to play an avatar of my making, in first person mode, and control its actions directly. When i play Baldur's gate using my Paladin, it is fun, but i always keep thinking "what if i directly controlled that character in a first person view? And Skyrim allows me to do just that. I make a new character, and shape him up to approximate a paladin build, getting perks in restoration, one handed, shield, heavy armor. Getting anti-undead items like Dawnbreaker. LARPing my Paladin and having fun!
I have attempted to recreate almost any DnD class/subclass in Skyrim. I have made many other builds like merchant-with-people-skills-who-sucks-at-combat, to a dwarven-armored-crossbowman, to vampire necromancers etc. And unlike most CRPGs, i get to experience them directly, with rich graphics, in an open world. I make them exactly like i want, pick the perks i want, the items i want, the lord stones i want, the other bonuses i want... I build them houses like i want, i marry them to whoever i want.
There is no real "end condition" in Skyrim. There is nothing to win, nothing to achieve. It is literally just a digital puppet theater. You get out of it, what you put into it. You are using your imagination, and you escape in its world. Not because it is perfect. It is not. But because it is fun and allows you to express yourself in it. It allows you to put your personal touch.
Think a game like Baldur's Gate. You get to roleplay, yes, but you are rigidly structured in some ways. You can't really escape the class system of the game. You get to pick a class and pick where you assign some bonuses, but other than that, it is a rigid system, not fluid create-what-you-want like Skyrim. Also you don't get to experience the character you are playing directly.
Now, think about Witcher 3. Witcher 3, allows you to control Geralt directly, but it is just Geralt. It will always be Geralt. Yes, you do make C&C, and yes, you do pick if you want the light armored version, the mid, or the heavy, if you want a melee focused or a magic focused, etc. But in the end, it is just a Witcher. It is just Geralt. That is not bad per se, but it does not cover our need to express ourselves in a free way and just do our thing in a sandbox. Skyrim does.
In Skyrim, the only limit to how you roleplay your avatar, is your imagination. I heard stories of someone who wasted many hours just LARPing a Riverwood woodcutter. He would literally just chop wood and help at the mill for money and he even went to sleep at night and get back in the morning. Why he did that? To someone who is objective-based it will seem pointless, he didn't unlock any reward, didn't achieve anything. But to him, it was FUN. He was roleplaying a woodcutter, because why the fuck not? That was his thing, that was what he wanted to do, and he did it.
Skyrim is a virtual sandbox, a world waiting to be shaped up into what you want it to be. Unlike more traditional CRPGs, it is not a rigid thing waiting to be conquered by a brilliant strategic mind or a nice story waiting to be told like a great novel or movie. And that is what Bethesda is good at. That is what Bethesda fans really love about those games.
You need imagination to really get the most out of Skyrim. You need to input a part of you inside your game. You need to perhaps "pretend" to be the character, like a kid pretending to be Spiderman. Skyrim lets you experience a role playing Avatar in first person, directly, with as much freedom as possible, in an open world. Nothing else in the industry let's you do that, like Bethesda's games. That is what makes Skyrim so special. It does not mean that other CRPGs are bad or inferior. They are just different types of RPGs, and that is fine. There is room for everybody... Different strokes for different folks...
And that is why, denying that Skyrim is an RPG is retarded. I mean, it is a game you can role play anything, and shape your character into what you like with an extreme amount of options, and you say it is not a role playing game? Like, seriously?
TLDR: Remember when we were kids. Sometimes we played with toy soldiers, action figures we controlled. That was Baldur's gate. Some other times, we dressed like cowboys, we got our toy revolvers, and played cowboys vs indians, pretending we were aiming and shooting at imaginary indians, or our friends, dressed as indians. THAT, was Skyrim...
