I find sneaking doesn't work properly. When I got to level 100 I unlocked the perk that allowed you to shroud even when being chased but it never worked. I ended up just casting invisibility all the time. In the nex TES game I would like to see the magic system improved to be honest. I don't want to feel like sneaking or heavy melee are the only way to effectively play. A pure mage build just doesn't really work, especially with high level spells not scaling with higher level enemies.
I have Oblivion but have never gotten far with it (I found the controls to be a bit counter-intuitive and it ended up just making me want to play Skyrim again lol).
Skyim is a whole nother bag of chips though. I'm probably in the minority in that I loved the vanilla game as well as the modded experience. There are many games I enjoy playing as fun co-op "laugh with your friends til you cry" kind of games, but Skyrim is more like reading a good book where you're the main protagonist. It's much more "introverted" if that makes sense.
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I'm talking about books in the game. For instance, The Lusty Argoian Maid, A Gentleman's Guide to Whiterun or even A Game at Dinner. They are books lying around in the game world. Some are fiction and other non-ficiton (relative to the TES universe, of course).
I will talk about this exact thing in more detail later on. You would think that menus take you out of the game. If you're not used to it, it will. I feel time spent in menus is about the same in both games.
To say the least, Skyrim is a hands down better experience to pick up an play. One of the changes Bethesda made in Oblivion from Morrowind is how you cast spells. In Morrowind you would have to press a key to ready your weapon. If you wanted to ues a spell you would press a totally different key to ready your hands for the spell so you could have not cast a spell and use a weapon at the same time.
In Oblivion you can cast spells whenever you want by pressing a key without having to ready your hands.
They really nailed combat on the head in Skyrim. I could see that sort of system being used in Morrowind and it would still be a fantastic game although very different game experience.
It's akin to that!
Nice computer build BTW 
Funny you mention that. Before Skyrim, I used to make magic thief characters. I would use alteration spells to open locks along with the illusion school's chameleon spell to stay hidden due to my lack of stealth. Worked pretty well!
In Skyrim, with the removal of unlock and chameleon (think partial invisibility and ability to keep the effect when interacting with objects) it took that character type away. Sadly, while still a great game, Skyrim represents a low point in the series for player choices due to the removal of so many skills and spell effects.
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I may have to disagree with you here, milady...
Obviously millions of people also enjoy vanilla as well. I mean I never moded the f@ker, mainly because the world content, even bland, is practically endless, every location sooner or later gets reset, so the world never feels empty, and at the end of the day, mods are changing the game. If I want to play Skyrim I play Skyrim. If I want to play DayZ I don't play Skyrim. Nor do I play Skyrim when I want to play something else.
People seems to have this "the greatest thing since sliced bread" mentality towards mods, that I really really disagree with and massively dislike.
Mods, that enhance stuff, like a bit different UI, or some graphics improvement - fine... An overhaul with new enemy types and gameplay mechanics and survival and hunger and extra crafting and new quest lines, etc - well at that point I don't play Skyrim anymore, do I?
PS: oh yeah... As much as people hate on the default UI and inventory management - I am absolutely fine with them. They do their job just fine.
How do you feel about quest mods? I've tried a couple that to me felt truly at home with the vanilla game. Especially Helgen Reborn.
I have seen this, i have not tried it. Well, Skyrim never made anything with Helgen anyways, so why the hell not... Especially if it is a nice interesting story. Helgen Reborn seems to be one of those. It's an entire quest chain and everything, but does not change anything from the base game.
I'm not against mods, I just don't understand why people say "Skyrim is great with 76 mods" when that is barely Skyrim anymore.
I think one of the reasons I loved Oblivion so much is that it was my first Elder Scrolls experience. I had not played MW yet, and played it after Oblivion. I never modded Skyrim so maybe that was my problem. I really should give it another shot. All I have in the game is ~30 hours or so.
After reviewing some of my footage of Skyrim, I've decided on a my next topic: puzzles. In case you are wondering what puzzles am I talking about, mainly the ones in the ancient nord dungeons. Some call them puzzle walls. Here is a clip from the video referencing exactly what I'm talking about in addition to puzzle walls.
If you saw the video, then suffice it to say, there isn't much more you need to know. The puzzles are lame, easy and brief. Even as a new player to Skyrim, I can recall getting through that exact puzzle in the video within 1 minute of encountering it. It's essentially a matching game with no memory element and requires the player to either do trial by error deduction or look around the room to find runes which tell you the correct pattern. There are slight variations to this here and here but for the most part it's as dull as it sounds.
Later in the main quest, there is another sort of puzzle once you get whirlwnid sprint that is used rarely in the game. Typically the puzzles task the player to use whirlwind sprint to bypass a door that is operated by a switch. If you were to press the switch and try to walk through the door, it will shut in your face which is why you need to hit the switch and use the sprint. Solved. It's a real brain twister.
Other than these two puzzles, Skyrim is surprisingly lacking. Compared to prior games, that's a blessing and a curse.
Oblivion: more puzzles than Skyrim although most of them weren't much more difficult. There was the follow the path puzzle from the dream world (go off the path and take damage), secret pressure plates, switches and button sequences in many of the dungeons, especially in Ayleid ruins. Knight's of the Nine add some puzzles, too. In a nutshell, they weren't necessarily difficult but they worked and seemed in the right place.
Morrowind: Puzzles in Morrowind were more common than both however one puzzle seems to really upset newcomers tot he game: navigation. Navigation seemed like a puzzle in and of itself. It was a test of the players ability to follow directions. The directions given were always right AND it was recorded for you in your journal. As long as you had a decent eye and looked for landmarks it wasn't so bad. Chances are if you couldn't find your way around during a quest then you weren't paying attention - not the fault of the game. The difficulty in navigation is based on the details of the directions, which makes sense.
Many of you might think, 'navigation isn't a puzzle!' No problem. Rather than making a short list of puzzles, here is an example of a great puzzle: "The Third Trial Riddle"
the eye of the needle lies in the teeth of the wind
the mouth of the cave lies in the skin of the pearl
the dream is the door and the star is the key
With such metaphorical language, I doubt many people would be able to figure it out. However, when you talk to people about it at Ashlander camps the puzzle becomes more clear. Suprise! The riddle turns out to be directions but it's also telling you what time to be at a location. If you arrive too early or too late the location is locked and Azura reminds you that, "The star is the key." I traveled a long distance and I was sure I was in the right spot because there was a unique door. I took the advice to heart, "The star is the key," and took a rest until night time as which point the portal was open to me.
Back to Skyrim: Why didn't the puzzle walls and etc. work? Simple! They didn't make sense within the fiction that was created. They were too easy and seemed lazily designed but that's exactly one of the reasons the puzzles don't fit within the fiction. They were made to keep people out but how can it keep anyone out? The answer is usually on the walls or on a claw that you picked up on your way into the dungeon. Anyone could have sauntered on in! No taste. No challenge. No immersion. In order to get people to believe in your game you need to challenge them, even if just a little bit. Sadly, Bethesda does not want players to be challenged unless it is through combat.
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This is incorrect. They were made to keep the draugr in.
Can you explain further?
My understanding is that the Draugr are resurrected servants of the Dragon Priests. The priests had their followers buried with them in various burial sites throughout Skyrim. Also, a section from a book called, "Amongst the Draugr," implies that the Draugr keep people out:
Their dedication after death also seemed to explain why they so ferociously defend their chambers.
I'm curious as to why you think the barriers were made to keep them in.
Also that said, @FrogE how do you feel about the puzzles in the Skyrim. This isn't limited to he puzzle walls, naturally.
The Death of a Wanderer
"The sealing-doors. It's not enough to just have the claw. They're made of massive stone wheels that must align with the claw's symbols before they'll open. It's a sort of lock, I suppose. But I didn't know why they bothered with them. If you had the claw, you also had the symbols to open the door. So why..."
He was broken up by a coughing fit. It was the most I had heard him speak in months, but I could tell how much of a struggle it was. I knew his mind, though, and helped the thought along.
"Why even have a combination if you're going to write it on the key?"
"Exactly. But as I lay bleeding on that floor, I figured it out. The Draugr are relentless, but far from clever. Once I was downed, they continued shuffling about. To no aim. No direction. Bumping against one another, the walls."
"So?"
"So the symbols on the doors weren't meant to be another lock. Just a way of ensuring the person entering was actually alive and had a functioning mind."
"Then the doors..."
"Were never meant to keep people out. They were meant to keep the Draugr in."
I feel the same as you about most of the puzzles. I found maybe 2 or 3 were truly enjoyable and required me to actually think. Usually requiring reading a book left near the puzzle itself.
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On the rolling in Morrowind...or dice based video games in general:
It really depends. The problem is that Morrowind was an ACTION RPG. When you manually aim and swing your sword (FPS style), your accuracy should be determined by your timing and location. When it's done by the game, like say Neverwinter Nights, or an auto attack in an MMO, then a die roll and skill modifier are fine...and even preferable.
Morrowind gives you so much control over other aspects of combat that the sudden die roll is really out of place.
Out of combat, like say NPC interactions...that needs a die roll. Morrowind did good there...much better than the later games.
In my opinion, combat mechanics have gotten progressively better in Oblivion and Skyrim.
Just about everything else (aside form graphics) has done the opposite.
My Ideal game would be Morrowind's world building and class system, with Oblivion's skill perks and Skyrim's combat.
Morrowind's class system and world building was the best of just about any game I've ever played. Best way to sum it up compared to later games: You actually had to be good at magic to be the Archmage.
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Well sir, you have introduced me to something I have overlooked in the game! I wish there was an in game source regarding who constructed them and when. I'll have to check that book out on UESP. I always imagined it that since the dragon priests are the reason those places exist, it was them who designed everything in it. I mean, how weird is it that some regular ass nords went more than half way through some burial sites like Bleak Falls Barrow to complex locked doors like that. Just makes no sense to me.
Do you recall those puzzles?
I think most people would agree with you here. It just makes more sense. You swing an axe at something point blank and you hit it.
The issue with how it was done in Skyrim, however is that you never feel like you are progressing. Sure, damage goes up but enemies scales with you anyway so that increase an damage gets mitigated very quickly until you get to a point there the game stops scaling enemies to you.
Going from base skill in one hand to 100 feels the same at 100 as it did at base...but I do more damage. I feel Bethesda went from one extreme to another here: dice roll hits to straight aiming. There is probably a better middle ground that could have been reached had they put in the time to realize they took out one of the key areas of progression.
What is that middle ground? A combination of both!
It was obvious since Oblivion that an aiming system felt better but that was when the series started to head in another direction. Imagine a system where if you aim correctly you get a hit. However, if you have a low one handed skill or the enemies defensive skills are too high (heavy armor, light armor, etc.) a dice roll based on your one handed skill vs. their heavy armor skill comes into play and determines whether your hit was sufficient enough to do your full damage potential. If you got a glancing blow (not full damage potential) the animation reflects that along with the damage output. This way you are still connecting with the target and doing damage but because your skills are poor or your opponents skills are great there is a real, almost tangible deficit that the player can experience to let them know they suck or are out matched.
With a bit of tinkering this could be applied to magical skills. Failed casts seemed fine to me, so I would leave that be.
TL;DR Skyrims aim based combat mechanics make for a more logical, smooth experience for the player but it takes away the feeling of progression. Dice rolls could have been better implemented to show player progression in the form of damage done along with the aim based system.
Could you elaborate? Spells could fail if skills were too low and magika pool was very important where as in Skyrim its almost a non issue. I feel all the control is given to the player from the very beginning in Skyrim whereas in Morrowind you had to earn it (it really wasn't that hard to earn either once you realized how to build a character).
I take you mean the bonuses you get when you hit apprentice, journeyman or master. Other than that, I wasn't aware of any perks in Oblivion.
I guess I'm the only one who liked the dice rolls.
I played Morrowind after playing Infinity Engine games (a la Baldur's Gate), but also Half Life and other FPS's. Morrowind fills a really really odd niche where, at the time, D&D-loving gamers saw a surge of really top-notch FPS's which naturally made them (me) crave the best of both worlds. An open, dice-based RPG that puts you right in the action. Sure, there's no party system, but it was perfectly fine without one.
So missing a lot of swings absolutely made sense for me, because in the back of my head I knew my stats were sh*t.
Also, the weapon/armor condition degradation was tweaked to fit this system. If I remember correctly, a miss would not count towards degrading your precious weapon. A few good high-damage hits are better than a flurry of scratches, and it feels more realistic, to me at least. That's what made the skill system critically important and frankly it made combat less monotonous because you don't know when you're going to hit or get hit. And it allowed the devs to uniquely implement stamina into the equation which brings even more difficulty to the combat. The very notion of stamina was new to me and because it felt realistic, I was willing to adapt my play style. Sure, the beginning is hard, but at level 1 you can't expect to be able to sprint through woods for 2 minutes AND fight like a pro when suddenly ambushed. So you stop sprinting through quests and the game rewards you even more with all the hidden caves, mines, underwater goodies, potion ingredients growing everywhere etc...
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Sorry I don't. A lot of the dungeons and puzzles blend together in my memory because they're so similar. Oblivion I played many years ago so I remember even less about that game; a thieves guild quest, a town or 2 and mostly running around Oblivion. Morrowind I played when I was 16 and had no idea what I was doing. I hope the next TES game concentrates on world building even more. I don't want graphics galore over the promise of multiple ways to play either. Every time I play Skyrim it ultimately feels the same.
But the thing is, that same effect is already achieved by increasing damage based on weapon skill and increasing armor value gained (thereby damage reduction) based on armor skill. Whether the curves are set appropriately...well I would probably agree if you said they were not.
My point there is why randomly do less damage instead of just plain do less damage? Does someone with lv 100 heavy armor only outclass your freshly created rogue 20% of the time or something?
I would argue that the reason for the lack of feeling of progression is far more related to mob scaling; specifically that mobs (especially of playable races, eg. guards and raiders) can get too powerful. By the time you reach 100 weapon skill, you really should be mowing down raiders.
However, at that point the game shouldn't really be throwing raiders at you.
That is to say the feeling of progression can be largely created by the TYPE of enemy, not necessarily just how long combat lasts or how much damage you deal. And that does break into immersion and suspension of disbelief, but that is exactly it: You aren't progressing if you aren't overcoming enemies, and you aren't overcoming enemies if they are still a threat to you.
Level scaling content works perfectly fine if done correctly, but truly doing it correctly means more than just modifying your enemy's levels.
Now if, we are talking about randomly variance of animations based on skill levels, or returning to roll based critical hits...sure. Chance based crits really do need to make a comeback.
One thing to think about though: There is a technical aspect to animating a glancing blow.
Magika being a-non issue is good point...and something that needs to be fixed.
On random spell failures...we might just have to agree to disagree on that one.
Unless you want to get rid of explicit gated learning...then I could see it, because its trading skill gated learning for skill gating using. But then, much like weapon skill vs armor skill, why not just be direct about it?
This is correct.
Once Bethesda releases the Vulkan updates then I will get more into Skyrim/FO4 again. (yes they are doing it). Will also mean it should work under Linux.
You're not alone! Is there a club I can join for that?
This is the seemingly the best explanation for the games success. Supposedly the guys at Bethesda were big D&D players.
This is another part of the game that made sense to me. Never ran an armorer but it gave me something to sink my drakes into. Which would lead me to the topic of how the games economy is very different...but I'll post about that later on.
This. I think most people fail to see just how important fatigue (stamina) was in TES. It was nerfed in Oblivion and in Skyrim it just became auto regen mana for power physical attacks. Fatigue in morrowind:
Fatigue plays a part in many actions, so the lower a character's Fatigue gets, the more difficult it becomes to fight, cast spells or do anything else effectively. A low fatigue will even reduce the height of your jumps. Surprisingly, even Mercantile is affected by fatigue. Similarly, with Fatigue raised above the derived total, skills become more effective. UESP
If you had low fatigue you would even get knocked down and unable to defend yourself. It seems so complex but it was very simple to understand after you played for a bit.
Well stated. Nothing to add other than when you encounter that feeling of weakness and you eventually learn to overcome it, the feeling of progression is real.
I don't blame you for not remembering. As I play through the game again, I'm taking more notice of things. Still waiting for a puzzle that at least pretends to offer a challenge.
Because even an apprentice can do things right but they are still learning so other times they mess it up. They eventually learn and become a master where making a misstep is a rare occurrence but still a possibility. Maybe even a deadly possibility and the difference between death. Constant damage without the ability to miss, unless you are blind (at least with melee), gives the player everything up front...no chance to fail. It takes the role player out of the role playing.
I doubt you could even damage an enemy with 100 skill in heavy armor with a fresh character lol.
That's part of it, no doubt. However another part isn't the progression of damage output but a progression from being a novice to a master. A fresh character isn't going to use a sword well but they will use it well now and again and maybe even very well rarely. This is perfectly reflected in Morrowind whereas in Skyrim you are a pro right from the beginning and will never make a mistake. Constant damage, 100% hit chance, no real feeling of progression.
Don't get me wrong, Skyrim's combat mechanics are fun even if they are lacking in role playing elements. A core element of role playing is being able to progress your character - not just the numbers. That progression will come in the form of different things for each player but in Skyrim, Bethesda took that away from those of us who enjoyed that type of progression.
Unless those raiders are of similar skill!
Not everything is overcoming enemies though that is part of it. Remember, it's about the progression of your character not just being able to defeat enemies. We are talking a lot in the context of combat but there are other contexts to consider. I'll keep rolling with combat since it's the topic of the night.
I come up against a caster who summons a Daedra, it's 2v1 and the door is behind them. The Daedra clashes with me in melee combat while the conjurer will keep pummeling me with spells. Death is imminent. I can either try to run or die and reload. Either way, a successful escape or a quick load, I know I need to get better before I can do that again. While they are a threat to me, I still felt progression in the sense that I knew I had more work to do in actually progressing. Progression often involves failing which is tough to do with Skyrim's combat mechanics.
I can get behind that. Have yet to see such a system work, however.
We can worry about that when Bethesda hire us to do their dirty work. Until then, I can dream lol.
The direct route is the constant route. Almost nothing in life is constant and I feel that's an important aspect to put into an RPG.
gtfo lol
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I just noticed this in your response. I wanted to mention a couple things. If damage can randomly be increased why can't it be randomly decreased where your skill heavily influences the randomness?
Second, my alternate combat idea is just an attempt to showcase that there may be a middle ground than can be reached. TES isn't a life simulator but within the fiction and mechanics it seems to be a good fit where accuracy matters and RPG elements are respected.
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Exactly! You are expected to "progress" in your whole style of play, not just in aiming with your mouse.
I didn't read all of the above posts so I missed the part where you suggested a mixed system for this
It sounds interesting. Would have definitely been better than the style Oblivion went with.
Not exactly a club, more like a candle-lit cellar with several chairs 
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