[DTKT]

Skyrim cloudy mountains were the best.

[Zabuza]

Skyrim cloudy mountains were the best.

This and nighttime with no HUD.

[tiff]

I'd be happy if the fundamental mechanics were solid and conducive to fun rather than getting in the way more than anything. For its myriad of problems just having a solid foundation would go a long way towards making Skyrim actually enjoyable once the novelty wears off.

Though the second thing I'd change is making the civil war the main quest instead of the awful dragonborn shit.

[NullPointer]

Gimme a take on Dead Island's melee, with locational damage (for all ranges and weapons). Look at Demons/Dark Souls for stamina handling.

[Orayn]

Gimme a take on Dead Island's melee, with locational damage (for all ranges and weapons). Look at Demons/Dark Souls for stamina handling.

You mean you don't like getting 50 swings out of your green bar and having them all feel like hitting a mannequin with a whiffle bat and do a corresponding amount of damage?

[NullPointer]

You mean you don't like getting 50 swings out of your green bar when they all feel like hitting a mannequin with a whiffle bat and do a corresponding amount of damage to enemies that just stand there and rarely pose a fair threat?

Not really no ;P

I mean that every action should count, whether that's taking a normal strike, truly committing to a heavy strike, dodging or blocking since the stamina costs matter so much. That's what I would take from the Souls games. They seemed to have balanced the costs well.

Dead Island's directional melee + locational damage (and audio/visual work) made each shot personal and satisfying. Keep that locational damage with ranged attacks too so a headshot actually matters. They can take the Fallout 3 system but x10. If I cripple somebody's head I want to KNOW IT. If I cripple their legs they shouldn't be able to sprint up to me, etc.

The thing that disappoints me about Skyrim and many RPGs is just how attack spongy enemies can be. I'd truly prefer a game with fewer, meatier hits, and one that doesn't include getting torn to shreds by humans in rags who have two arrows stuck in their face.

[Seanspeed]

A great of a game it is, I feel it could perhaps should have been greater.

Sums up my feelings pretty well. Yet still I feel the greatness that it still does bear is almost incomparable. I actually feel its a bit scary that this game/series still has so much room for improvement. When they do hit it, it'll be almost unsurpassable.

[ii Stryker]

My problem with Bethesda games is their worlds and the people/factions in them all feel disconnected. After playing Alpha Protocol, New Vegas, and more recently Witcher 2, I want there to be story and faction altering consequences to the decisions I make.

Every time I watch an episode of Game of Thrones I want to play Skyrim though.
Basically I want the storytelling of Game of Thrones or Witcher 2 and the combat similar to Dead Islands.

[CadetMahoney]

My problem with Skyrim is that I bought it for PS3.

Best to do more research before parting with cash, especially if you're buying full price.

[Fezan]

Man I hate this game, played 127 hours man it's the worst

I did said its a good game.no game have sense of exploration like skyrim and during traveling finding places give you sense of accomplishments.It really felt great visiting all these places which are different and have uniqueness to them. similarly the physical changes you can make eg stuff you have moved remains there etc make feel world alive.Then the problem that i have mentioned comes and break the illusion

[GillianSeed79]

I think I'm about 180 hours in, but, yeah, they really dropped the ball on the civil war aspect. I actually thought the main story was quite good. But this kind of game is severely lacking in choice versus consequence. Case in point. I saved Act III and the Civil War quests for the end.
For anyone who has completed the Dark Brotherhood you literally are given the choice to assasinate the Emperor. Isn't that a big deal? I killed the leader of the empire and it's as if nothing happened

That and the Civil War quest line was weak. Being able to finish it in like an hour makes it have near zero impact. It felt like conquering a block, not a province.

As far as cities, Whiterun felt like the most fleshed out. I actually dreaded visiting cities because where Skyrim shines is just wandering the vast wilderness. I could go for a penalty imposed on fast traveling. By the end I just fast travelled across the map. It should still be an option, but maybe something like having to travel to a city and paying for a wagon ride. At some point it stopped feeling role-play-ey and more like an endless amount of loosely connected quests with awful pay off due to loot scaling.

That said. I still loved the game.

[alphaNoid]

The biggest problem I had with Skyrim was the Gamebryo *cough* I mean Creation engine. Despite the new tech tact on and the name... its fucking Gamebryo and Oblivion/FO3 all over again... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Nobody wants robotic NPCs and clunky as shit character animations. Its not 2002 any longer. Bethesda knows exactly what I"m talking about.

Skyrim should have been iDTech5 since Bethesda aquired iD. Sadly we'll have to wait until next gen to get iDTech5 Elder Scrolls since even Elder Scrolls Online is using the crap engine that SWTOR is using.

Bethesda is a great developer chained down by ancient engine technology. I hope that their creative directors have the BALLS to tell management to fuck off and make a game using a modern engine. That won't happen, it'll be the same ol' same ol' and people pretending to like like the engine they develop on to sound enthusiastic about their job, when it really boils down to simply being comfortable with higher pay and doing whatever the suits dictate.

Push the limits Bethesda, I dare you.

Sincerely,

You're not fooling me

[tiff]

I actually dreaded visiting cities because where Skyrim shines is just wandering the vast wilderness. I could go for a penalty imposed on fast traveling. By the end I just fast travelled across the map. It should still be an option, but maybe something like having to travel to a city and paying for a wagon ride. At some point it stopped feeling role-play-ey and more like an endless amount of loosely connected quests with awful pay off due to loot scaling.

I actually tried to limit myself to wagon-riding in the beginning, but after a while you just get tired of it and fall back to fast-traveling. I don't know how you fix it, honestly. The problem is that the world is just too open to make traveling across particularly exciting, but it needs to be that open to set the sense of scale. If you start arbitrarily locking people out of fast travel options, even wagon-riding, all you're really doing is forcing the player to spend more time getting from point A to point B, maybe killing a handful of critters on the way, not have a great deal of fun either way. It's a problem I've run into in every game that's like this.

[UrbanRats]

Best to do more research before parting with cash, especially if you're buying full price.

No research would've helped him, since basically every major gaming site/magazine failed to mention any of that in their reviews.
Also, you wouldn't expect a product to be outright broken on that scale, coming from major publisher like Bethesda.

[Forkball]

Skyrim is not Fallout, the emphasis really isn't on choices or a changing narrative. They're kind of shoehorned in there because "deep moral choices" is a buzz phrase for WRPGs these days. The story's focus isn't who controls Skyrim (as opposed to New Vegas where a major aspect was who will control the Mojave).

Anyways, LIST TIME.

+ Diverse and fascinating overworld that's a joy to explore
+ Great artstyle that really suits the game
+ Interesting lore
+ Unbelievable amount of content i.e. quests, locations, items etc.
+ Nice perks and flexible builds for your character

- While quest lines are generally interesting, there's a lot of "get 20 of X item" ones that clog up your quest log
- Combat is a bit stale and imbalanced
- Dungeons are really just tunnel o' monsters with an occasional lever puzzle.
- Useful weapon and armor loot is sparse
- BUGS AND CRASHES BUGS AND CRASHES BUGS AND CRASHES

[scorpscarx]

Just like with Oblivion my experience was this:

Do the tutorial and be bored really quickly, then forget about the main storyline after about 2 hours, then wander around and do shit for around 10 hours, then never play the game ever again.

Thinking of finishing the main quest line, just speed running it, worth it?

[AgentP]

Skyrim just a very good game. Bad combat, bad story and not that fun.

[Loxley]

Oh good, we almost went a whole month without a "Skyrim was underwhelming/disappointing" thread. Was starting to worry.

[CecilRousso]

Skyrim is awesome, love it. You just have to stop quick travelling to every location, and accept that civil war thing is just a quest line, and the crappiest quest line in any Elder Scrolls game. On a PC, it looks awesome, and the ammount of content is a good thing. I´ve played it for over 75 hours, haven´t got tired of it yet, and there is so much more to explore still.

[Ledsen]

None of those things have ever been in TES, you shouldn't have expected them in Skyrim. Choice and consequence, for example, isn't a Bethesda thing. These games are exploration games and really nothing more, and that's why the TES series is one of my favourite games series of all time, and why Skyrim is the second best one after Morrowind. Also why Oblivion is one of my biggest disappointments in gaming.

[Marlowe89]

The problem is that the world is just too open to make traveling across particularly exciting, but it needs to be that open to set the sense of scale.

Personally, I get a huge sense of immersion and exploration from worlds like these. Travelling in Skyrim is always a joy.

That said, I didn't feel like the overworld was particularly aesthetically varied unlike most people.

[Derrick01]

Skyrim is awesome, love it. You just have to stop quick travelling to every location, and accept that civil war thing is just a quest line, and the crappiest quest line in any Elder Scrolls game. On a PC, it looks awesome, and the ammount of content is a good thing. I´ve played it for over 75 hours, haven´t got tired of it yet, and there is so much more to explore still.

There's no benefit to not fast traveling. The game often gives you quests on the other side of the world that you've been to already and if you run everywhere all you're doing is artificially extending your play time. Your chances of running into anything meaningful on the long run over is slim since most of Skyrim is empty.

[Bombadil]

Coming from Oblivion the one real issue was the emptiness of the world, This was something I hoped Skyrim would dramatically improve on but it didn't really. I wanted cities to be bursting with life, not every person needs to be interactive completely but Im talking Assassin creed like crowds but better, Smart and interact in a very real way. Something I feel Skyrim failed at capturing also was the feel of war raging in Skyrim, there was very little consequence to what you did regarding siding with the Stormcloaks or Imperials. The world didn't dramatically change at all. That cause and effect needs to have more baring visually for me. Wouldnt it have been great if you could level whole towns...like Nuke(fallout 3) Whiterun ? instead of holding the keep with no change at all. In your cause to safe guard Skyrim from a Rebel threat you unintentionally burn it to the ground...those sort of choices should have been there. There was so many great things they could have done. The system Mass Effect has in place is quite similar to what I wanted to see. the Final battle should have been different based on those individuals quests it took to reach. What if you had leveled towns to spite the Stormcloaks, yet only for the common nord in the end to uprise and attack you as well. Skyrim would dramatically change for an Imperial soldier, you would go from a protector to an Occupying force where you would be treated with fear instead of respect. Shops could refuse to sell to you, Inns could refuse your stay. Followers could leave you, or perhaps be the total opposite. A great of a game it is, I feel it could perhaps should have been greater.

So, do you want like a mix of Elder Scrolls and Shenmue? That would be pretty badass. My biggest gripe with Skyrim (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that the developers are trying to create this very large world so we as the players can have a lot of places to go and explore, but they could create the same effect by creating a smaller, highly detailed world. Rather than having large open spaces where not much happens, I'd rather see a smaller world that's dense and filled with many things to do. But that would take a whole lot more time and commitment. It's a bit easier for them to have the game engine procedurally generate the world than to work on every last nook and cranny manually.

[Helmholtz]

Skyrim just a very good game. Bad combat, bad story and not that fun.

Huh?

Skyim is a pretty good game, but it isn't a great game like so many people touted it to be when it first came out. I admit I thought it was pretty awesome at first, but that's mainly because I was overwhelmed with the massive world and tons of content. But after a while the game's flaws become more and more apparent, and the game becomes pretty damn repetitive. It's definitely a step up from Oblivion though. I think I just prefer more compelling, story driven games like the witcher.

There's no benefit to not fast traveling. The game often gives you quests on the other side of the world that you've been to already and if you run everywhere all you're doing is artificially extending your play time. Your chances of running into anything meaningful on the long run over is slim since most of Skyrim is empty.

Disagree about it being empty - I constantly ran into new towns/caves/places of interest. But I agree that not fast travelling is just making your playthrough artificially longer. It would drive me insane.

[CecilRousso]

There's no benefit to not fast traveling. The game often gives you quests on the other side of the world that you've been to already and if you run everywhere all you're doing is artificially extending your play time. Your chances of running into anything meaningful on the long run over is slim since most of Skyrim is empty.

Empty? There more to do and explore in Skyrims world than in any other open world RPG I have played, and just fast travelling to every place takes away a lot of that exploration and use of the combat. I started to ignore fast travelling after the complete crap fest that was the civil war quest line and have enjoyed the game much more since that, I allow myself to use the carriage between cities to play it like I played Morrowind, so it´s just the right amount of running around.

The game is not without it´s problems, like some quest lines, and it would have been so much better if they would have let Obsidian design the quests and given them choice and consequence, but I think that the criticism of it have gotten out of hand. I understand it if one doesn´t like open world RPG, but (imho) there is only game that can rival it in this genre, and that´s Fallout: New Vegas.

No, not even Morrowind (imho). Even though that game have a more interesting setting, there are so many improvements and in story, quests, events, gameplay mechanics and graphical design that makes Skyrim better.

The ultimate game would have been Morrowinds setting in Skyrims game engine and production values, with the quests of New Vegas and the ammount of content of Skyrim.

[The_eJoker]

My problem with Skyrim: No GOTY version yet.

[Ledsen]

Yep, the game is far from empty. It was a return to form with rewarding exploration in the vein of Morrowind, as opposed to the endless grass plain of Oblivion.

[BigDug13]

I was sorely let down by the cities in the game. Whiterun and Solitude were nice but then you get to traveling and discover that over half the other focal points in the game are little more than Seyda Neen-esque shantytowns.

Totally agree with this, especially the Seyda Neen comparison. When I first walked into Dawnstar or Falkreath and especially Winterhold, I was like ok cool, new city. 20 seconds later when I walked out the other side, I was like wtf?

Markarth, whiterun, riften, solitude, windhelm are the only real cities. Those other three that have large "city" icons on the map are pretenders.

[Imp the Dimp]

Don't sleep on New Vegas, guys. It's everything you want from Skyrim and more. Absolutely fascinating game especially when modded properly. Then again, you can probably mod Skyrim to your likings as well. However, New Vegas offers great writing, good story, incredible quests and so forth that you can hardly improve with mods.

[Perkel]

I'm on other side.

I really used to hate Skyrim but mods provided many awasome things.

Vanilla Skyrim is fucking joke thought. Betsheda have awasome ability to create vast and beautifull worlds but they are doing terrible job in many other critical areas. They take awasome concepts and make those as shallow as possible.
?
Game mechanics are also broken. From simplistic boring malee system, scaling enemies not to your combat ability but to your level, scaling loot system where you know that you won't find anything awasome because your level is to low, to unbalanced park tree, super low bounty reward money, being able to be part of any guild at the same time and many manny more.

Malee is the biggest problem, deadly combat mod shows how few simple changes can make boring shit to something fun and skill rewarding.

[CecilRousso]

I'm on other side. I really used to hate Skyrim but mods provided many awasome things. Vanilla Skyrim is fucking joke thought. Betsheda have awasome ability to create vast and beautifull worlds but they are doing terrible job in many other critical areas. They take awasome concepts and make those as shallow as possible. ? Game mechanics are also broken. From simplistic boring malee system, scaling enemies not to your combat ability but to your level, scaling loot system where you know that you won't find anything awasome because your level is to low, to unbalanced park tree, super low bounty reward money, being able to be part of any guild at the same time and many manny more. Malee is the biggest problem, deadly combat mod shows how few simple changes can make boring shit to something fun and skill rewarding.

So what mods do you recommend to fix the problems?

[Moaradin]

Are there overhaul mods yet? Might be playable with no item or enemy scaling, and decent combat.

[BigDug13]

Are there overhaul mods yet? Might be playable with no item or enemy scaling, and decent combat.

I'm sure there will be, as well as another Monster Mod to really beef up the enemy types. Really disappointed in the lack of enemy variety for the most part but know that mods will fix it.

It took Oscuro a really long time to have decent releases of his award winning overhaul, and I don't think he is personally working on one for Skyrim.

But there are enough people who hate creature and item scaling that someone will develop a mod.

I personally don't have the skills but look forward to the eventual releases.

[Feature]

What ruined skyrim for me is stupid shit like some people are invincible even if they 'yield'...

If I accidently hit a friend with my axe they'll go beserk and try and kill me, the dragon born!!! Fuck that shit. I uninstalled it after a week. Everytime was the same too, same areas with just different coating. Some snow here, some sand there and badly animated everything.

[Perkel]

So what mods do you recommend to fix the problems?

I'm on phone currently so i don't want to copy paste a lot. When i get back to PC i will send you PM.

Those are just top of my head:

Deadly combat - combat rebalance, use timing to block your oponent attack without loss of stamina and stagering him. Stop attack of your enemy by being faster and striking first. Work for spells and bows too.
Thanks to that mod you can fight with enemies who can one shot you.

Unscaler - enemies are created based on algorythm. For example if you are near a road there won't be any powerfull enemies but owhen you turn off the road it can spawn enemy at 21 lvl. Loot is not corelated with your level. Now there are places where you will fear to go inside. This works perfectly with Deadly combat because you can fight with stronger enemies and battles with 10 lvl higher characters are exiting. Also thanks to unscaling you won't see bandits with ebony armor. Equipment is lore friendly on all enemies now.

There is also perk overhoul mod but i can't remember name.

Those 3 make Skyrim awasome game worth playing.

[NEOPARADIGM]

For me Skyrim was a slap in the face. Maybe if I hadn't played Oblivion and FO3 and FONV first I might have enjoyed it, but my collective memory of those three games fucks Skyrim up to the point where it doesn't really have anything to offer, not even better performance.

[Ledsen]

I'm sure there will be, as well as another Monster Mod to really beef up the enemy types. Really disappointed in the lack of enemy variety for the most part but know that mods will fix it. It took Oscuro a really long time to have decent releases of his award winning overhaul, and I don't think he is personally working on one for Skyrim. But there are enough people who hate creature and item scaling that someone will develop a mod. I personally don't have the skills but look forward to the eventual releases.

Oscuro works at Obsidian (worked on FO:NV), so I doubt he has time or will enough to mod in his free time.

For me Skyrim was a slap in the face. Maybe if I hadn't played Oblivion and FO3 and FONV first I might have enjoyed it, but my collective memory of those three games fucks Skyrim up to the point where it doesn't really have anything to offer, not even better performance.

I don't know how you can even compare Oblivion to Skyrim, seriously. Even back then, Oblivion was a huge disappointment compared to earlier games in the series. Skyrim is a return to form.

[Ledsen]

dp

[Hanmik]

loved skyrim.. but it was not a perfect game in any way.. the worst offender for me:

- Killcams.. they are copied directly from Fallout 3, even the fucking mechanical CLANK noise in the end.. the only thing different are the exploding bodies..

this just shows that it is exactly the same engine used for Oblivion and Fallout 3... it is Gamebryo no matter what Bethesda devs try to fill in our coffee..

[BigDug13]

Oscuro works at Obsidian (worked on FO:NV), so I doubt he has time or will enough to mod in his free time. I don't know how you can even compare Oblivion to Skyrim, seriously. Even back then, Oblivion was a huge disappointment compared to earlier games in the series. Skyrim is a return to form.

Yeah I know. That's why I figured someone else from his team might even though he can't. He wasn't alone.

[Ikuu]

It's like they spent all their time making the world, the rest of the game is pretty much shit.

[CecilRousso]

Any recommendations for mods that makes the civil war and fornsworn aspects of the game better would be welcome.

It's like they spent all their time making the world, the rest of the game is pretty much shit.

I´m glad that I´m not as picky as you are with games like this. Even though the game has it´s share of problems, calling it "shit" is pretty ridiculous. Imho.

[NEOPARADIGM]

I don't know how you can even compare Oblivion to Skyrim, seriously. Even back then, Oblivion was a huge disappointment compared to earlier games in the series. Skyrim is a return to form.

Seems to me Oblivion's initial reception was roughly equal to Skyrim's, and the Skyrim backlash seems every bit as harsh as the Oblivion backlash. Oh I wonder why: because people have the same beefs with Skyrim as they do with Oblivion. That's how they can be compared.

Edit: But I guess that's just me saying I don't think Skyrim is much (if any) better than Oblivion and you obviously disagree, so ... ;)

[Ledsen]

Seems to me Oblivion's initial reception was roughly equal to Skyrim's, and the Skyrim backlash seems every bit as harsh as the Oblivion backlash. Oh I wonder why: because people have the same beefs with Skyrim as they do with Oblivion. That's how they can be compared. Edit: But I guess that's just me saying I don't think Skyrim is much (if any) better than Oblivion and you obviously disagree, so ... ;)

Yeah it's true that Oblivion was praised by all upon release... something that baffles me to this day ;) Anyway, I don't agree that Skyrim is getting the same kind of backlash as Oblivion. Skyrim's "backlash" (I honestly haven't seen much of one) mainly seems to consist of people complaining about stuff that has always been in TES. Oblivion, on the other hand, has been almost unanimously scorned in the years after its release because of how much it took away or made worse compared to Morrowind. Most people agree that Beth corrected many of Oblivion's fatal flaws with Fallout 3, and that they have continued to do so with Skyrim.

[RPGCrazied]

I like it being huge. I've spent over 2 weeks with this game, and barely got the main story done.. now I'm working over the side quests. When games are $60 these days, I really appreciate big ass games like this.

[EGM1966]

I do like it but my gripe is they designed for console and clearly targeted trying to push the graphics more than anything else, with the result of smaller cities for the most part that felt even emptier than Oblivion.

I wish they'd either kept the graphics closer to Oblivion and focused on crowds, AI and quest/content depth or made PC more the lead platform (fat chance I know) and pushed both graphics and other content equally.

Still, at least on PC mods can fill out the cities more and improve aspects of AI and combat and add depth back in.

[Rivyn]

This game was missing one thing: a city.

All the ''cities'' in Skyrim felt like mere towns.

[Perkel]

More like villages.

[J-Rod]

Besides the horrible combat and scaling, what annoys me is that none of the npc recognize or react to the world. Save a village from a dragon, guard says, "it's so boring here". Go run to the Yarl, but he says nothing relevant to what happened. Go see Ulfric and he dick waves about knowing some shouts and the people in the court swoon about it. Dragon shout right in his face, and the only reaction is, "hey, stop doing that!". I guess you can't code for everything, but it is too far detached even for my imagination to fill in.

[EGM1966]

Besides the horrible combat and scaling, what annoys me is that none of the npc recognize or react to the world. Save a village from a dragon, guard says, "it's so boring here". Go run to the Yarl, but he says nothing relevant to what happened. Go see Ulfric and he dick waves about knowing some shouts and the people in the court swoon about it. Dragon shout right in his face, and the only reaction is, "hey, stop doing that!". I guess you can't code for everything, but it is too far detached even for my imagination to fill in.

Yah that was bad. I mean years ago in Deus Ex you could get told off for poping into the wrong bathroom among other fairly sensible comments based on what you were doing - surely a bit more variety and connection to the game could have been achieved with something like Skyrim today?

I mean your statistics are being tracked the whole time so that could be used to trigger a few more appropriate responses.