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I feel like Skyrim does not value my time.

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Full disclosure: This is my first Elder Scrolls experience.

I was originally thinking of writing a very long post, being very specific about the elements of the game that bug me, but in the spirit of my original point I am going to keep this very brief.

I understand a lot of why people praise Skyrim, and probably the whole Elder Scrolls series in general. As much as the game has flaws on a technical level, there really is a great appeal to have a massive world to explore. I felt connected to the world and there were plenty of great moments that I wanted to share with friends. There are definitely highlights and things I liked about playing this game.

But I've put in about 120 hours into the game and I'm not even sure that I could say that I'm halfway finished. There is a lot of content but there's also a shitload of fluff and things to do that waste my time. The UI is just astronomically bad and the amount of time I spend doing inventory management, crafting items, dicking with vendors, etc is staggering. It's like almost half the game. I go into a dwarven ruin or a crypt for the 5th time and it feels like I'm just going through the motions. Oh God, I have to fight ANOTHER dragon? I've got 20 Dragon Souls in my inventory and no shouts to use them on! Oh man, before I can become Thane of this hold I have to chop that wood, retrieve that satchel, and pet this cat.

The design is just not very focused. It doesn't seem like Bethesda was very interested in making sure that all of the elements that make up the game are interesting and polished. Just stuff the game as full to the brim with content as possible and people will overlook everything else.
 
I got about 20 hours of enjoyment out of it before it became obvious how it worked. It almost feels soulless to me now. It's a very cut and dry experience.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I got about 20 hours of enjoyment out of it before it became obvious how it worked. It almost feels soulless to me now. It's a very cut and dry experience.

Exactly how I felt. The illusion broke at around the 20 hour mark. Really felt amazing before that point. Then you realize how empty the whole thing actually is.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
While this thread is up, yes i got bored with skyrim eventually, thats why i refuse to play the dlc for now (even though other family members bought it for our 360), but another question

Anyone else enjoy oblivion a lot more than skyrim?

Is the writing or the story decent? If not, is that true of any of the Elder Scroll games?
No, and not in oblivion, cant say for 1-3
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
You played it for 120 hours and only now you complain about those mechanics?

I always felt the UI was horrible, but yeah, it didn't really start to sink in how much time I wasted doing inventory management until I had played that far.

And some of my complaints of things like repetitive dungeons or fighting dragons over-and-over again do not materialize until after you've spent enough time for this content to get repetitive. Fighting a dragon for the first or second time is awesome. The 50th time, not so much. Going into your first dwarven ruin is pretty cool. Maybe not the fourth or fifth time.

This is actually something I've noticed about games in general. Inherant problems in games become worse the more time you spend on them. You are more likely to overlook them if they don't waste as much of your time. Not every game is decided as a love-it-or-hate-it experience in the first hour.
 
If you put 120 hours into a video game I don't think you can complain about anyone else not valuing your time. Full disclosure...I've put about 100 hours into the game myself.
 
Bethesda is ambitious to a fault, and that's what I love about them. They just go for broke... and then things break. I love the games that result from that unconventional approach, warts and all.
 
Yeah, at a certain point you realize that Skyrim isn't a role playing game. It's a Scandinavian walking and bar filling simulator. Walk over the next hill to see what the five markers on your compass are so that they're filled in on your map. Keep doing a thing to fill a bar and once that's done there's two dozen other bars to fill to no real end.
 

Darkman M

Member
I still play it only because I have over 150 mods in my game. Vanilla skyrim is only fun for so long.

Edit: you got 120 hours out a game I'd say you got your 60 dollars worth.
 

Despera

Banned
It's unintentional, but it seems that I could only do ~40 hours for each of Oblivion, Fallout 3/NV and Skyrim. Once I get bored of the side stuff, I focus on the main quest and finish the game.
 
I played for about 30 hours and the game just never seemed to click with me. I never really grasped all of the crafting and leveling up and never really felt like I was playing the game the right way. The world, the characters all seemed really interesting and I enjoyed most of that stuff but the combat and a lot of the quest just seemed really boring and not very entertaining.

Though having a capable pc now, I'm tempted to try again with all of the mods that are available for it. I'd probably have more fun just messing around with that stuff.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
You are choosing to do that stuff though. You didn't have to do the fluff.

Admittedly I'm a bit of a completionist, but I wasn't planning to visit every dungeon. I was just working from the quest log. I think one of the straws that broke the camel's back was this quest I did for the College of Winterhold. You needed to go into some big, boring dwarven ruin to get some information about the Staff of Magnus. It took me like an hour to slog through that uninteresting dungeon, and we're talking about one of the main faction quest lines. After I turn in that quest it tells me to go to a place called "Labyrinthinen" and I'm just thinking to myself "oh hell no".
 
I can't get into it at all. It's a "chore" game. It gives you an abundance of things to do that you don't really give a shit about doing. This goes against fundamental game design IMO, as most of these "open world" games do.
 
I played Skyrim for over 100 hours, and while I was largely enjoying it at the time, looking back on it, I don't think highly of the experience. So much of it seemed like fluff and filler and so few of the experiences seemed memorable. It all seems to me like a bunch of random caves full of zombies and underground dwemer ruins. Even the dragons became boring once you got powerful.

Those big exciting moments were just too few and far between and the general landscape lacks the density and character of something like a Fallout. Skyrim has killed my excitement for the Elder Scrolls, so I hope Bethesda lets whatever new title in that series they're creating marinade for a long time.
 

OmahaG8

Member
I played it a quite a bit (100+). Just like Oblivion. . and like Oblivion before it, I keep hoping for the glory that is Morrowind to return.

Ultimately, I'd like to think it's not nostalgia talking, but Oblivion/Skyrim have nothing of the fantasy/intrigue of the world in Morrowind.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Edit: you got 120 hours out a game I'd say you got your 60 dollars worth.

Dollars aren't the only thing with value. Time has value. Time has currency. I could have been doing other things. Maybe I got my 60 dollars worth, but I didn't really get my 120 hours worth.
 

dreamfall

Member
I'm with you you, OP. I put 100 hours in but I really loved my time with it- same thing happened with Fallout 3, and I always go back during the winter. I don't think I'll ever beat it, but I love how vast and expansive the worlds are.

All I do is meander about- I don't like the combat , but exploring is beautiful. Hell, I don't think I've even seen half the map and I never fast travel!
 
I loved skyrim it's my game of the generation warts and all. It does have its faults but I find u need to use your imagination to truely role play. If you get into elder scrolls lore and appreciate thee setting and lore it's makes the game much more enjoyable and deep.
 
I played it for 10 hours before I gave up. I don't understand what's enjoyable about a game like this. If I was a kid that could only get a handful of games a year and had far more free time I might enjoy it, but why would I can rarely bother to put up with riddiculously long games when I could play games like Dishonored, Batman Arkham City, and Deus Ex Human Revolution in half the time, feel far more fulilled, and actually have fun for the entire time instead of feeling like I'm doing busy work. Those games also have far more intersting worlds characters and stories. The only thing that Skyrim wins on is the amount of content, which I think is a horrible marker for a games quality.

Typing this out actually has me a bit worried for the Witcher 3. The first 2 were pretty short by RPG standards and I think that was one of their strengths since the games had focused stories with quality side quests.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
Dollars aren't the only thing with value. Time has value. Time has currency. I could have been doing other things. Maybe I got my 60 dollars worth, but I didn't really get my 120 hours worth.
Agreed
I truly acknowledged this when i played that nightmare in north point dlc

Was it worth the $3 i got it for on sale? MAYBE (no)
...but what i truly want back? My 2 hours

Keep my money, i want my time
 
Though having a capable pc now, I'm tempted to try again with all of the mods that are available for it. I'd probably have more fun just messing around with that stuff.

Please do. Putting aside visual, UI and gameplay mods, there's a great mod called Helgen Reborn, which is pretty much like a DLC for Skyrim in which you reconstruct Helgen. But free. And very well done, imo.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/35841

FEATURES
Fully voiced with 20 of some of the best actors in the community
Easily 4 to 6 hours of game play
Three new sets of armor
Mike Hancho's meticulous attention to detail
Great story and characters
Interactive display room that transforms as you play the game
HUGE cavern to display stuffed creatures
Completely transforms Helgen into a vibrant community
Multiple faction options for the town (Independent, Stormcloak or Imperial)
 

vareon

Member
I always felt the UI was horrible, but yeah, it didn't really start to sink in how much time I wasted doing inventory management until I had played that far.

And some of my complaints of things like repetitive dungeons or fighting dragons over-and-over again do not materialize until after you've spent enough time for this content to get repetitive. Fighting a dragon for the first or second time is awesome. The 50th time, not so much. Going into your first dwarven ruin is pretty cool. Maybe not the fourth or fifth time.

This is actually something I've noticed about games in general. Inherant problems in games become worse the more time you spend on them. You are more likely to overlook them if they don't waste as much of your time. Not every game is decided as a love-it-or-hate-it experience in the first hour.

I think what Bethesda wanted to focus is the world. If the world is fun, you can view it ad a "toy", where just doing random things without any purpose is fun enough as long as you are immersed. Obviously they lack in mechanics and polish, but I think they kind of succeeded in this regard.
 

maltrain

Junior Member
Same thing happened to me. I played A LOT, I reached level 81, I had the best armor, almost invencible and I enjoyed some battles, but... it was booooring at last. It never ended and I gave up. The story was pointless and your actions haven't any consequence. I didn't like that at all.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
you played skyrim for 120 hours, it sounds like you don't even value your time

Possibly. But, it's not like Skyrim was a worst thing I had done. I used to play WoW, and my playtime on that was closer to 120 days.
 

strata8

Member
Skyrim was basically fetch quests and stale dungeons. Technically, stylistically, graphically, it was great, but the actually gameplay was so boring that I gave up after 10-20 hours. I agree that it was souless. By comparison I put 100-200 hours into Oblivion and Morrowind, which were way better.

DId you just complain about stale dungeons and praise Oblivion in the same paragraph?

I don't even...
 

LQX

Member
I loved it while I played it for the 85+ hours, but it being seamlessly endless kind of turned me off from going back to it. Maybe if I loved it as much as Fallout or Wither I would be compelled to keep going but I could not force myself to run through another cave.
 

gryz

Banned
Possibly. But, it's not like Skyrim was a worst thing I had done. I used to play WoW, and my playtime on that was closer to 120 days.

at least that wow time was spent doing something useful like running between the bank and the auction house while trolling people in trade chat
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
It took you 120 hours? I was bored of Oblivion after 1 hour. It was the first current-gen game I ever purchased. Bethesda developed games are just not for me. Got bored of Fallout 3 after 3 hours as well.
 

KaYotiX

Banned
I just wish they could do combat better......its pretty bad.

I liked Skyrim for the first 20 hours then it just got boring.
 

Dresden

Member
I remember going down a vault in New Vegas because I wanted to know what happened in there. In Skyrim, it would be to fill up some achievement or bar.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
at least that wow time was spent doing something useful like running between the bank and the auction house while trolling people in trade chat

Don't forget the couple of hours of gold farming per day, just so I could afford the repair bills for that night's raid. Time well spent.
 

void666

Banned
I have almost 300 hors of playtime.
I like the worlds bethesda creates and the freedom they give you. But that's it.
Voice acting, quests, story, combat, UI are just awful.
 

Erethian

Member
Bethesda RPGs have that thing where you can spend an inordinate amount of time doing what amounts to very little. And while the same could be said of videogames in general, games like Skyrim take it to an extreme.

I spent more time in Skyrim than I would in most other games, but I couldn't honestly say that any of the quests or story elements that I did felt truly engaging or interesting. And I think the reason Bethesda is good at pulling people into their games is because they are legitimately good at world building (probably one of the best in the business), and making a game that looks like it's exciting to explore.

Like I'm sure when they next game comes out and they show the trailers I'll at least be reasonably hyped to at least wander around in the game. Even though I spent less time in Skyrim than I did in Oblivion, because everything besides the world building just feels way too shallow.
 
I remember going down a vault in New Vegas because I wanted to know what happened in there. In Skyrim, it would be to fill up some achievement or bar.

Hey now, lots of things happened in caves and fortresses in Skyrim.

Like, you'd read a book and it'd be all "Doop-de-doo I moved in this place is perfect" and then the next page is "Blargh now I'm an evil vampire daedra slave being killed by bandits or Falmer or whatever, oh no a ghost" and next to it there'd be a key to a chest and inside a chest there'd be a piece of chest armor that'd have been almost useful 20 levels ago
 

JCizzle

Member
The gameplay just never clicked for me personally. Combat is something they've never come close to doing well IMO.
 
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