Elder Scrolls The appeal of Skyrim

[volklore]

I do enjoy skyrim's formula (or lack thereoff) of explore and LARP, especially in the first 40-60 hours. That said, when I heard about Labyrinthian in game, I got fucking hyped (having played Arena 2 years before). Although in retrospect I don't know what I was expecting and sure enough it was a fucking letdown.

 

[JarlFrank]

And yet every single one of those dungeons has the exact same shape. A long tube with minor side tracks that loops around at the end.

Even a dungeon called Labyrinthian, which sounds like it would be... you know... labyrinthian, and which appeared as one of the main dungeon in TES Arena and there it actually was, you know, labyrinthian, ended up being mostly linear in Skyrim. The tiny hedge maze in my local park is more labyrinthian than than fucking dungeon.

Skyrim's dungeon design is atrocious.

They're still interesting to explore, even if they are mainly corridors with some side paths. All of the dungeons are unique enough that no other game has done what BGS has done with them. Like the dungeon design or not, how many open-world RPGs have 150+ handmade dungeons? Dwemer ruins, barrows, caves, mines - the game has a ton of optional and unique side dungeon diving.

If the structure of every place is almost the same and you know exactly how the path through it will go as soon as you enter it, there is no more fun in exploration.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Well millions of gamers would disagree with you. There's a reason the game has sold a bajillion copies, many of us like roaming around an open-world and LARPing our characters. There was plenty of compelling content in Skyrim IMO and the game itself, the roaming and exploring was compelling too. That's why many gamers play it for hundreds of hours, myself included.

They make sandboxes where people can LARP. That’s not content! You just admitted that the point of a BGS game is making your own fun. Millions of people do like doing this, sure. Or they did. When Skyrim came out in 2011 there were very few big open world games where you could go anywhere. That’s no longer the case.

And I submit that if you’ve played one Bethesda game, you’ve played them all. The experience grows stale. If you get all of this out of Skyrim, you don’t need to buy, say, Fallout 76. Your LARPing needs are already met. While there were other reasons 76 bombed, it would’ve sold a hell of a lot better if there were really millions upon millions of people clamoring for more mindless BGS open world exploration.

People who loved Daggerfall were disappointed by Morrowind and gave up after Oblivion. People who loved Morrowind were disappointed by Oblivion and gave up after Fallout 3 or Skyrim. People who loved Skyrim were disappointed by Fallout 4 and gave up on Fallout 76. Bethesda churns through its user base like there’s no tomorrow. The games have gotten progressively worse, but I think the real problem is that the core experience is so similar, so it feels incredibly underwhelming when you replay the same game in a new skin.

 

[Nuclear Explosion]

Well millions of gamers would disagree with you. There's a reason the game has sold a bajillion copies, many of us like roaming around an open-world and LARPing our characters. There was plenty of compelling content in Skyrim IMO and the game itself, the roaming and exploring was compelling too. That's why many gamers play it for hundreds of hours, myself included.

People who loved Daggerfall were disappointed by Morrowind and gave up after Oblivion. People who loved Morrowind were disappointed by Oblivion and gave up after Fallout 3 or Skyrim. People who loved Skyrim were disappointed by Fallout 4 and gave up on Fallout 76. Bethesda churns through its user base like there’s no tomorrow. The games have gotten progressively worse, but I think the real problem is that the core experience is so similar, so it feels incredibly underwhelming when you replay the same game in a new skin.

Do you have any evidence? I strongly dislike every RPG Bethesda has ever made, but its fan base seems to be extremely loyal and its games sell tens of millions of copies. Only Fallout 76 appears to be unpopular with its fan base.

Also, from what I've seen, Bethesda has actually improved the combat in its recent games -- Fallout 4 looks like a significant improvement over Fallout 3 in that respect and Skyrim's melee combat is less bad than Oblivion's.

 

[volklore]

It's true that people tend to find other BGS games they play worse than the first one they played (be it morrowind, oblivion or any else) but it seems to me they still buy and play them. Still basing myself on the statement that BGS games are 'framework and sandboxes to LARP', they are released slow enough that the next game with its different setting and skin is fresh enough for me to get in at least 60 hours of a great first play-through and move on until the next game... Well except for those time a modded video of the game catch my eye, I spend 20 hours modding it and give up after 10 hours in game because no matter how much you slap on top of it, it's still the same setting.

 

[Okagron]

This inane focus on enviornmental storytelling in every dungeon has led to a degredation in the quality and breadth of questlines

This is why it baffles me when people claim Bethesda's enviromental story telling is good, but it's really not. It's overly simple and in some cases outright nonsensical. Dude is at the doorsteps of death but decides to write his final hours on a piece of paper for some reason. And it's not like writing his regrets, stuff he wish he could have done differently. No, dude just writes down that he's dying and why he's dying.

At this point it feels like a crutch. Writing much more complex storytelling requires characters's personalities, their motivations, a sequence of events, why this sequence of events is even happening and other writing elements. Instead they rely way too much on enviromental storytelling and it's at the detriment of the experience. My point is that enviromental storytelling can be done badly, like everything else, doing it doesn't make it good by default.

 

[Doktor Best]

If the developer goes out of his way to take all those barriers out of the game in order to create absolute freedom, then sure, you can go everywhere and do anything. But it doesnt really feel like you make interesting choices while doing so.

The whole "go anywhere anytime" thing pretty much requires some scaling. Not to the insane levels seen in Oblivion, but some. We've had the debate on here a thousand times about how much that freedom is worth losing in risk/reward systems and whatnot. I personally prefer the Gothic/New Vegas style as you do, and again New Vegas is an amazing game IMO because it takes the Bethesda open world style and makes a real RPG out of it, but for Joe Sixpack the "open world" promise is tarnished by not actually being able to walk in whatever direction strikes your fancy. Discussions about Bethesda always need to come back around to them being extremely mass-market in the "RPG" space. They know what people like us want, they just also know where the money is.

Wouldnt it be a more elegant solution to simply fit the power curve of your progression system to the type of game youre making? So just make it less steep if you want the player to go everywhere quickly.

If enemies in a certain zone scale from level 1 to 5 and enemies in the next zone scale from 5 to 10, why not divide the level count simply by 5 and adjust the curve?

Adnd had this covered in a perfect way for decades now. First you level up quite fast for the first 2 level ups and then the exp requirements grow rapidly so you dont grow too strong too quickly. In Baldurs Gate you had a max level of 6 i think. I am pretty sure you could fit the progression of Skyrim in 6 levels.

 

[Butter]

Nobody would play Skyrim if they weren't being fed regular dopamine drips via level-ups.

 

[Farewell into the night]

I played like the first 20 minutes of skyrim and then uninstalled it.

 

[DalekFlay]

You seriously used the "popularity" "argument", popularity does not equal quality. And the game isn't "excellent" at what it does and you haven't proven why. You just claimed it does with no evidence.

The reason the popularity matters is because Bethesda aren't TRYING to make a deep RPG that would please the Codex, just like Michael Bay wasn't trying to make art with his Transformers movies. Both were designed from the ground up to please a bunch of people and make a lot of money, and they succeed at that tremendously. Pillars of Eternity deserves a lot of griping on here because it promised Baldur's Gate 3 and delivered meh, but Skyrim was never aiming to be what you're demanding it be. It made sense when Oblivion came out because we didn't know yet what they were up to, but 4 games later or whatever it's just old man rants at cloud.

 

[Okagron]

The reason the popularity matters is because Bethesda aren't TRYING to make a deep RPG that would please the Codex

You can easily make a good game and still be popular, they are not mutually exclusive. There are no excuses for all the terrble design choices in Skyrim. Plus, mods that make Skyrim into an actual RPG are some of the most popular mods. And Morrowind was sucessful too, they could have easily fixed all the blemishes in Morrowind and make money on top of it, but instead decided to double down on dumbing down.

It made sense when Oblivion came out because we didn't know yet what they were up to, but 4 games later or whatever it's just old man rants at cloud.

And you know why this happened? Hardly anyone said anything. The majority of people stayed quiet and took it. If people were more vocal and actually talked with their wallets, this could have been much more different. This is what pisses me off the most, the complacency and the lack of wanting to say anything. But i honestly don't expect anything to change at this point, i'm just tired of people making trash arguments to defend this game and all the other terrible Bethesda games.

Michael Bay wasn't trying to make art with his Transformers movies.

It sure as fuck backfired because the last one sold like shit and they had been in a downward trajectory for a while in terms of making money. Also implying movies in order to be good have to be art which couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[DalekFlay]

You can easily make a good game and still be popular, they are not mutually exclusive.

"Good game" is subjective. There was a guy demanding the Grand Theft Auto series incorporate a bunch of sim elements on here the other day because those games are too shallow, but they're fucking mass-market candy. They're exactly what they're designed to be, and if you made them "deeper" then many who think they're "good" now would think they were worse. Maybe I'm a soft touch but I think there's plenty of room in the world for pop music, classical music and alternative rock. Bethesda make pop music RPGs and have a lot of success doing it. They literally couldn't care less what hardcore RPG guy on the Codex thinks of their shit. You're talking to a wall.

Don't get me wrong, criticize their decisions and mock their bullshit all you want. I'm just saying these threads are always filled with "they're such failures!" and they're not. They're executing well on exactly what they want to do, and making a ton of money doing it.

It sure as fuck backfired because the last one sold like shit and they had been in a downward trajectory for a while in terms of making money.

Yes I'm sure they're devastated they only got four billion dollar hits before one made only 500 million. Should have just made Ex Machina, that movie surely raked in the big cash payout.

 

[Funposter]

There's a reason the game has sold a bajillion copies

yeah because it's made for retards

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

You seriously used the "popularity" "argument", popularity does not equal quality. And the game isn't "excellent" at what it does and you haven't proven why. You just claimed it does with no evidence.

The reason the popularity matters is because Bethesda aren't TRYING to make a deep RPG that would please the Codex, just like Michael Bay wasn't trying to make art with his Transformers movies. Both were designed from the ground up to please a bunch of people and make a lot of money, and they succeed at that tremendously. Pillars of Eternity deserves a lot of griping on here because it promised Baldur's Gate 3 and delivered meh, but Skyrim was never aiming to be what you're demanding it be. It made sense when Oblivion came out because we didn't know yet what they were up to, but 4 games later or whatever it's just old man rants at cloud.

Nobody is criticizing BGS for failing to make deep RPGs (or even shallow RPGs), at least not in the last few pages of this thread. A coherent story, compelling characters, interesting side quests, engaging gameplay, none of these things are unique to RPGs. I didn't love The Witcher 3, but it proves you can have a big, commercial open world that doesn't feel totally hollow. You just need to make the player give a fuck about a handful of characters and provide some entertaining narrative content. TW3 is hardly a deep RPG.

They're executing well on exactly what they want to do, and making a ton of money doing it.

They were executing well. Fallout 76 is instructive, if only because it suggests that even Bethesda might not really understand why so many people love their games. They know they aren't great at story or characters, they know players love their environmental storytelling and found documents (no accounting for taste). They know many people get addicted to the kill, loot, build feedback loop. So they made a game that dumped what they're bad at and went all in on the stuff they're good at. It bombed. BGS gets that their fans want a world to LARP in; they just don't seem to have the clearest idea of what makes for the best LARPing sandbox.

Obviously they won't repeat the same mistakes with Starfield and TES VI, but who knows how those games will do. In 2011, Skyrim was the only big open world RPG. Now open worlds are everywhere. Maybe the BGS philosophy of game design is timeless, or maybe they need to change the formula before it goes out of style.

 

[Mud']

While doing that social ritual of small talk at the coffee break at work, i realized the appeal of Skyrim and part of why it was so popular.

I work with the most normie people you can think of and all of them knew what Skyrim was, either by playing it themselves or they saw a friend/familiar play it and those who played it absolutely loved it, when i asked why, they said something along the lines of "its the perfect fantasy game, you can do whatever you want!" (mind you they dont even know what a mod is).

So what i gather after talking to them for a while its that Skyrim has everything a normie might think of when you say the word fantasy. Stuff like dragons, mages with staffs and pretty lights coming from their hands, skeletons with armor, trolls, vampires and werewolves (with the chance to become one of them), swords, bows, dungeons, taverns with a bard playing the lute in the background, shit you would see in a D&D book cover Skyrim has it, even in its most cookie cutter way.

But they might think "Oh no those games are hard because you need to make a character and chose classes and add numbers and shit" but nope, you can be fucking everything in Skyrim, join everything, be whatever you want and LARP your heart content until you want to change, at the end of the day you just need to pick an outfit and you can start LARPing away in the "breathing world" of Skyrim. One of the girls said she loved coming tired from work and play Skyrim so she could be badass viking riding from her horse taking down dragons by shouting at them and having epic fights while dual wielding maces and after that gather stuff to make food in the game, she doesn't care the slightest about how deep the game is.

Skyrim was made for normies to provide that kind of experience and it excels at it, for me, back when the game came out, it was fun for a week or two until the honeymoon period came to a halt when i realized how every dungeon was the same with draugr, since that day i have tried to finish Skyrim for more than 8 years and i still cant manage to do it, no matter how much i mod it, the cracks eventually show up, thankfully Enderal is providing me with what i expected Skyrim to be.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Normies want to LARP. News at 11!

 

[DalekFlay]

Nobody is criticizing BGS for failing to make deep RPGs (or even shallow RPGs), at least not in the last few pages of this thread. A coherent story, compelling characters, interesting side quests, engaging gameplay, none of these things are unique to RPGs. I didn't love The Witcher 3, but it proves you can have a big, commercial open world that doesn't feel totally hollow. You just need to make the player give a fuck about a handful of characters and provide some entertaining narrative content. TW3 is hardly a deep RPG.

The Witcher 3 has a good story and that's it. Its world is way more empty and shallow than the average BGS game's, and its quest design is literally follow the arrow bullshit right out of Oblivion. People just love that game because of its story and setting, that's it.

They were executing well. Fallout 76 is instructive, if only because it suggests that even Bethesda might not really understand why so many people love their games.

They only consulted on 76, they didn't really make it. Fallout 4 had some issues and sold less than Skyrim, but it was still a massive success. Assuming Starfield and TES6 offer the same kind of world to fart about in, I'm sure their audience will love them and they'll sell a gazillion copies.

 

[fantadomat]

When the thread outlives its creator.

 

[Seethe]

Loverslab is the appeal of Skyrim

 

[Loostreaks]

and its quest design is literally follow the arrow bullshit right out of Oblivion

Skyrim's quests are literally: go to location x to kill/bring back the object. Without quest marker, the game is literally unplayable and consists of only a single objective. Even the journal doesn't give any directions: one of the most popular mods is (Even) Better Quest Objective.
While most of Witcher's quests are simple and linear from gameplay design, they are rich and well executed when it comes to storytelling, characters, worlbuilding, c&c, voice acting, (facial) animations, presentation values.
In comparison, there is not a single positive to be mentioned in Bethesda's quest design.

They're executing well on exactly what they want to do

But they are not, and I'm not even talking about "hardcore rpg" perspective. They make poor action/adventure/sandbox games as well..and we have clear examples of how it's done better.

If Bethesda "core experience" is dungeon exploration in sandbox open world, which part of this, do they actually do well?

Intricate, varied, interesting design with variety of different level layouts? Most of their dungeons are 3-4 types of visually bland, spiralling and linear tunnels that follow exactly the same formulae ( in content And gameplay). Like someone already mentioned, even a "Labyrinthian" is a fucking tunnel.
Discovery of interesting lore that adds more to the world's history/worldbuilding? Their "environmental storytelling" consists mostly of skeletons and "here-I-died-to-bandits/necromancers/etc" notes.
Quest content and interesting encounters? It's endless repetition of zombies/bandits/necromancers/etc.
Excellent combat system, good boss battles, strong encounter design? Their animations, hit feedback, sound&visual effects design, AI are absolute top bottom in the industry. They even copy pasted dragon AI into Fallout 76, ffs.
Rewarding loot, strong itemization? Bethesda does not give a flying fuck about "balancing", rewards are cheap and too easily/often acquired, and quickly become pointless. ( This is what "hardcore" overhauls like Requiem actually fix)
Actual sense of discovery? Locations/Dungeons are in plain sight, LOD is atrocious, and you have to follow quest marker to reach it.

In many ways, Bethesda's games are like a poor, incompetent, 100% quantity oriented version of games from Arkane Studios ( excellent art style/visuals and level design, interactive gameplay mechanics, worldbuilding discovery, one of the best FP gameplay)

And "freedom" in their "do whatever you want, whenever you want" changes nothing as there is very little interconnectivity between factions, quests, npcs, narrative and mechanics.
That's why people can do nothing but "Larp": pretend actions, pretend story, pretend motivations, pretend choices, pretend consequences. In a sandbox like Mount'n'Blade, you can imagine story/context to your actions, but they have an actual effect in the game.
With Bethesda, you pretend everything.

and making a ton of money doing it.

And PewDiePie must also be making the most brilliant, interesting videos on YT.

Reason for Bethesda's success is:
- Long standing IP
- Massive amount of free promotion they receive through modding community ( which gives their games huge lifespan)
- Until recently, little competition ( in the genre)
- Massive Psychological appeal of "Escapism"

Only thing that's puzzling is why no one actually tried to copy their type of game, as massive amount of players are hugely attracted to this blend of "Second Life"/Rpg lite/Open world. Games like Far Cry could be relatively easily converted to a similar design.

 

[Okagron]

The Witcher 3 has a good story and that's it. Its world is way more empty and shallow than the average BGS game's, and its quest design is literally follow the arrow bullshit right out of Oblivion. People just love that game because of its story and setting, that's it.

You can't get more shallow and empty than a Bethesda gameworld, any more empty and shallow and it would literally be a flat plain with nothing on it. And at least Witcher 3 had a story and a setting to grip the player, the Bethesda gameworlds since Oblivion don't even have that. Same for the quests in Skyrim, they are the most simplistic shit in the industry, i have played MMOs with much better quest design. And yes, Witcher 3 quests are better than anything in Oblivion and forward.

80% of their worlds is comprised of copy pasted caves and dungeons with no lore or any world building and a large chunk of their location placement makes no sense. You have stuff in Fallout 3 like Old Olney being right next door to Republic of Dave, the former is fillled to the brim with Deathclaws. How is the Republic of Dave even alive, why is Old Olney even there and why does nobody from the Republic of Dave even care? It should be on the far corners of map. New Vegas had a similar area and guess what? It was in a far corner of the map. And Quarry Junction right next to Sloan is treated the way it's supposed to be, you have people fleeing from Sloan and the few people there fearing for their lives everyday, but they stay there because they are waiting for the NCR to send soldiers to kill the Deathclaws.

Again, anyone can do a Bethesda gameworld because the majority of it are overly simplistic caves and castles with no lore or world building. This meme that Bethesda makes good gameworlds needs to die. Saying they make good gameworlds is an insult to actual good gameworlds.

 

[abnaxus]

Serana was cute.

 

[DalekFlay]

While most of Witcher's quests are simple and linear from gameplay design, they are rich and well executed when it comes to storytelling, characters, worlbuilding, c&c, voice acting, (facial) animations, presentation values.

You can't get more shallow and empty than a Bethesda gameworld, any more empty and shallow and it would literally be a flat plain with nothing on it. And at least Witcher 3 had a story and a setting to grip the player, the Bethesda gameworlds since Oblivion don't even have that. Same for the quests in Skyrim, they are the most simplistic shit in the industry, i have played MMOs with much better quest design. And yes, Witcher 3 quests are better than anything in Oblivion and forward.

I like how you guys said the exact same thing I said but framed it as disagreement.

But they are not, and I'm not even talking about "hardcore rpg" perspective. They make poor action/adventure/sandbox games as well..and we have clear examples of how it's done better.

The fact they sell a gazillion copies objectively proves they're doing a good job making sandbox mainstream RPGs, because the only metric for mainstream success is how well you sold. Just accept that and say you don't personally like what they do and we can agree and shake hands and move on with our lives, because this debate is stupid.

 

[anvi]

I don't know what a sperg is, but I voted that one because I don't think it is even an RPG. It is just a dumb console action game posing as an RPG. The appeal of any big thing is mostly because of how everyone else is talking about it... Angry Birds was no better than Castle Crushers years earlier, but it became a massive hit and household name just because it went viral and people are sheep and everyone jumps on every bandwagon. Skyrim is no different, it is just the big RPG series on every platform that everyone knows about and for some people that gives them a sense of having a communal shared experience, which is something this generation is really starved of. So Skyrim is a big game not a good game.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

So after playing more Skyrim with my dad I'm starting to see more of the appeal of it up close again, like it's 2011 again. The appeal is simple. Huge fantasy world, huge amount of loot, quests, dungeons, things to kill. It's just loaded with "stuff" to see and do. Little details like becoming chief of the rieklings in Solstheim. Little puzzles like the Dwemer ruin where you have to use resonance gems you find across the land to unlock new areas that have new Dwemer companions for you to choose from. It's just got a lot, of, stuff.

Good stuff too, you gelatinous cubes. The game is fun. Smithing a new piece of equipment to get a better armor or damage bonus. Enchanting things. Finding sweet new loot you weren't expecting that is an upgrade. Killing named enemies who are hard. Successfully using shouts and clever magic to get by (Guardian Circles, raising undead, becoming ethereal from a potion, etc.) There's a lot to it. I know you fucks think it's all cool to downplay it, but after playing 350 hours on one run, then many more hours on other runs, and now playing with my old man I see why Skyrim is revered by RPG heads across the world. It's just fucking good, and there's a lot of it. Good meal with good food and expensive furnishings, a fucking feast.

Deal with it weirdos.