I feel like this too, to a point. Elder Scrolls games really do scratch a particular itch that other games don’t, but don’t really scratch the itch that most games do. I think having a choice and consequence system might take away from the free-form experience most people want out of the game. On the other hand, apparently FONV had tons of C&C and was plenty huge. I wouldn’t know since I haven’t actually played it, sadly.
I think Skyrim is the best ES game, hands down. I love it, but the single issue that always comes back to me is that a large majority of the quests involve killing. I realize it’s a combat-centric series of games, but when I open my menu and see “People Killed - 345” I feel kind of disappointed that most of the quests boil down to killing one person or another.
Skyrim: An RPG by Cheney and Rumsfeld :)
I agree, it scratches an itch, but there are plenty of itches left for games companies to scratch!
Mr.GRIM
1743
The thing with Elder Scroll games is… every thing you do is a choice and every thing that happens is a consequence.
Your looking for an npc to spell it out for you and draw a black and white line, without realizing that there is more choice and consequence here then in almost any other game on the market today.
How does a good/bad dialouge option define your character in a more meaningful way then say… Walking into a Jarls hold and wiping out every last man then arranging their naked bodies into grotesque corpse sculpture because you didn’t like them.
Tony_M
1744
I’m really enjoying Skyrim, but I have some sympathy for this point of view. But I think its also to do with your expectations of what an RPG “must have”. I feel like Skyrim comes from the Rogue-Like linage of rpgs, rather than from the Baldurs Gate linage. That sets up different expectations.
Tony
Wow… Just… Wow…
Ok, you made the choice to wipe out some random town for no reason. What is the consequence? How does the world react to this decision? Are there any other choices you can make that aren’t “i’m going to just kill everyone in this town because i feel like it?”
Choices and consequences is one of my favorite “features” in rpgs and i was most sad when it never caught on (mostly due to people complaining that they couldn’t romance some elf girl after they raped and murdered her mother in front of her, which is precisely what such a system is meant to disallow you from doing) outside of obsdian games, but to hear skyrim being referred to as a champion of it when nothing is further from the truth is just astounding.
If you want to see real examples of C&C, play basically any obsidian game (fallout 3 NV to a lesser extent). If you want to see mainstream C&C, try the mass effect series, but bioware seems to clamping down on it in later entries due to the previously mentioned “I can’t do things people radically disagree with without them complaining” complaint.
In any event, nobody really expects great writing, C&C or deep quests from TES. There are basically two schools of thought in rpg design. Open world and story based. focusing on writing, choices, affecting the world in more dramatic ways and quests is more of a story based thing. Skyrim is an open world rpg and thus it focuses on exploration, loot and more natural (but basic) reaction to player actions by the world (ie you kill some guy and he isn’t there anymore, but his family still greets you like nothing happened).
To date probably the closest i’ve seen to a game trying to bridge the gap between the two opposing schools is that huge german mod for oblivion (which is amazing). Saint’s row 3 tried a bit, but i guess it ended up pissing off open world fans in the process so while it was positive for me, probably not a universal positive.
Pogo
1746
I gotta agree a little bit. They put in some great immediate reactions for things that you might do (like shout too much in town or drop a bunch of trash on the street), and the guards might aknowledge you as a thief, but they could have included and improved on the faction type systems in FO3 and FO:NV.
Tony_M
1748
I’m creeped out by the way Belethor (guy who runs the mixed goods store in Whiterun) says “Do come back”.
Yes. For what it’s worth, I never recommend an Elder Scrolls game to anyone asking me to play a good “RPG”. If I know they are inclined towards open-world games or exploration (even something like Zelda) then I’ll pull out ES, but otherwise no.
kerzain
1750
He’s just being sardonic. What gets me every time I hear him (and all the other NPCs with the same voice actor, but especially Belethor) is how much he sounds like Bob Odenkirk’s portrayal of Saul Goodman in Breaking bad.
peterb
1751
No, I agree with Tony M - Belethor totally sounds like a sex offender or something.
I don’t really hate him but the guy that does the voice of Farengar and, as far as I can tell, a couple of town guards… really? It’s like I’m back in Amsterdam asking for directions in english and every one has that lispy thing going on.
Quick question: which is the better enchantment for improving my survivability: fortify health or fortify heavy armor?
What might a logical consequence for such an action be? When people find out you did that - you get hunted by guards everywhere, you’re KOS in every city, any followers turn on you, you’re known as ‘The Butcher of ______’. What actually happens in Skyrim? You get a bounty of a bunch.
I love Skyrim, I really love it. But it’s not a great example of choice and consequence. It’s a great open world exploration RPG where you define your character by the quests you choose to do, and to much lesser extent, the way you resolve some of the situations you happen to find yourself in.
I agree. And I think what the ES games do, beside the unique (for RPGs) sandbox element, is keep a classic feel as far as gameplay is concerned. Think of the M & M or WIZARDRY series.
Modern Bioware is a different beast, but a game like Baldur’s Gate was no different where 95% of the gameplay was combat.
Sure I would love more complexity from the ES games, but that’s a tall order combined with the scale and amount of content these games provide. Heck, I would also love turn based combat but that changes the flavor considerably.
What I imagine we’ll see in the next game thanks to more hardware power is much improved a.i. and a much higher NPC count per town, two things that could really improve the series.
’
JeffL
1756
I really am addicted to Skyrim right now, but I agree on the C&C comments to a point. For example, with Lydia following me, I can sneak up behind a sleeping woman in a cabin and stab her, and there’s no reaction from her at all. I’d expect at least a dialog for a murder, in which she reacts to it and a decision is made whether to continue working for me or not. After all, if I kill a chicken, the town guards come after me! I can rationalize the entire world not knowing my every action, as it is clearly an age in which communications in the world would be slow.
I agree that it is a great open world exploration RPG - they give us a world in which to play and choose what we want to do, and perhaps in some ways they give us too much freedom, and perhaps the consequences of that freedom is less C&C.
It mostly didn’t catch on because most people only have time to play through any given game once, if that. There’s little reason to create different paths through the game when the vast majority of your players are only going to see one of them. It’s a waste of development effort that ends up annoying broad swathes of your playerbase because they can’t do and see everything in the game.
Pogo
1758
I don’t think anyone knows because there are no damage numbers. Until it’s externalized it’s not going to be clear how much someone gains from +15 Light/Heavy Armor skill enchantments.
McKnight
1759
It would depend on whether you have been levelling health or not. I mean if you are dumping every level up into health then +20/30 health isn’t going to seem like a big deal at all and you are far better off getting the increased armor skill, the opposite being true if you have been ignoring health quite a bit or are low level.
McKnight
1760
It would depend on whether you have been levelling health or not. I mean if you are dumping every level up into health then +20/30 health isn’t going to seem like a big deal at all and you are far better off getting the increased armor skill, the opposite being true if you have been ignoring health quite a bit or are low level.
That’s the best anyone can extrapolate without damage numbers (as Pogo pointed out).
