DId you just complain about stale dungeons and praise Oblivion in the same paragraph?
I don't even...
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.
Indeed. As I read this thread, I can't help but think "man, I wonder what all these people would say if they played Oblivion."
Ya know, I spent 150 hours on my first playthrough and I'm now over 75 hours into my 2nd playthrough and I'm starting to feel like this game is very time-consuming. Do they not realize that I have important things to do in life? I love to forego fast travel and walk to destinations, but its like.........this might not be a good use of my time. For the same time I spent walking from Whiterun to Markarth, I could have done the dishes. Did they not think this through beforehand? Why am I spending all this time playing? I feel like I have no control over it. Right now, I'm walking from Solitude to Riften and I'm pretty sure its going to take like an hour. WTF? That's way too long. I don't know what to do about this, GAF. Skyrim is ruining my life.
Its a video game. You can put time into it if you enjoy it, or you can do something else if you don't.What the hell are you even attempting to drive at?
I could have written this exact post, word for word - even the hour count. My experience exactly. Just way too much going on and it didn't hold my interest.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.
Its a video game. You can put time into it if you enjoy it, or you can do something else if you don't.
Its fucking simple.
Anybody who complains about the amount of time spent playing it after a hundred hours played is a moron who hasn't figured out how to prioritize their time properly. Its not the game's fault.
Bethesda make game worlds, not games. Perhaps someday they will hire someone who understands the art of making games.
Sure, they're ambitious when doing certain things, or just one, really: creating a huge world. Other than that, it's hard for me to praise randomly generated side-quests, followers who aren't characters at all and terrible, terrible combat. Not to mention the complete lack of attributes, gamebryo-with-a-different-name and overall poor gear variety.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.
You're quite right, but they've gone 20 years and had a lot of success without making games. Why change now? I'd rather play something that's more about the gameplay and has a more focused design, but many people clearly love their worlds. They're extremely successful for a reason.
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.
There is quite a few good overhauls for skyrim now. Skyrim Redone is a great example.Sure, they're ambitious when doing certain things, or just one, really: creating a huge world. Other than that, it's hard for me to praise randomly generated side-quests, followers who aren't characters at all and terrible, terrible combat. Not to mention the complete lack of attributes, gamebryo-with-a-different-name and overall poor gear variety.
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.
You are choosing to do that stuff though. You didn't have to do the fluff.
I personally love this shit. It's the reason I seem to be in the minority that liked Donkey Kong 64. I like collectathons, making lists, checking off everything on that list one by one etc. The more complex and varied these objectives the more fun. Skyrim and Fallout 3 had this kind of stuff in spades, it feeds into my OCD where I have to do everything and gives me the most bang for my buck.
I see this post lots but this genuinely happens with some RPGs and MMOs. Games with lots of box ticking. Shallow mechanics that are ok to good can create a huge time sink that eventually hits a backlash.You played it for 120 hours and only now you complain about those mechanics?
Then don't do those things?
I used to ..., but
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.
I was able to go a longer time but eventually I switched to the main quests. I don't see this as a problem.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.