EPTElder Scrolls V - Skyrim - Page 28
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ChinaWhite
United Kingdom239 Posts
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Logo
United States7542 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:22 ChinaWhite wrote: It being a console port can only excuse so much though, graphics (being less than optimal) and interface are usually the main problems. This looks great so that isn't an issue, and the UI will be fixed pretty quickly by modders (if needed). The main problem is their tendancy to simplify everything from mechanics to difficulty. Oblivion completely lost any sense of 'risk and reward' that was present in earlier tes games. They dont want people getting killed, so they level scale areas removing any sense of danger and achievement with it. If you wander too far from your starting location without being clever / careful about it you should die, simple as. If they learn from oblivion though and actually put back a depth of lore into the environment I'm sure everything else will be fixed. It's a shame it has to be but there's no getting round it. To be fair Morrowind and Oblivion could have used a healthy dose of accessibility applied in the right areas. Their leveling system was horrendously bad, almost bad enough to ruin the games completely imo. Likewise I can see the argument of having some excess fat to trim around the magic system with the way you built spells and such. It was way too easy to have your magic book cluttered up with 10 versions of basically the same spell + another 10-20 spells of almost no use. Just so long as they trim only what needs to be trimmed and use the extra room to add more interesting stuff it should be fine. And that seems to be the case so I'm still excited. | ||
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deathly rat
United Kingdom911 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:22 ChinaWhite wrote: It being a console port can only excuse so much though, graphics (being less than optimal) and interface are usually the main problems. This looks great so that isn't an issue, and the UI will be fixed pretty quickly by modders (if needed). The main problem is their tendancy to simplify everything from mechanics to difficulty. Oblivion completely lost any sense of 'risk and reward' that was present in earlier tes games. They dont want people getting killed, so they level scale areas removing any sense of danger and achievement with it. If you wander too far from your starting location without being clever / careful about it you should die, simple as. If they learn from oblivion though and actually put back a depth of lore into the environment I'm sure everything else will be fixed. It's a shame it has to be but there's no getting round it. PC gaming snobbery much? I'd have thought the last thing that someone on a Starcraft site would be concerned about is graphics. Anyway, it won't be a console port, even though they will have designed the game to most optimally use limited processing power (which is great for people using PC as well). Oblivion had significantly higher graphical resolution for those people playing on PC than on XBOX360. Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. | ||
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Inschato
Canada1349 Posts
 (Waaay easier said than done in a TES game, though.) | ||
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Logo
United States7542 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:31 ChinaWhite wrote: ^^ this would be great, but it's unlikely as this sort of complexity would be too difficult to understand for a large part of their new target audience. Don't count it out just yet... From: http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/archive/2011/01/24/skyrim-building-better-combat.aspx can you combine more than one spell? “We're not talking about that,” Howard says with a smile. “We're not sure. We'd like to; it'd be awesome.” | ||
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Sm3agol
United States2055 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:37 Inschato wrote: So a new way to gimp your game is to explore everywhere before leveling up, woot (Waaay easier said than done in a TES game, though.)Well if you like spending 20 hours walking around the entire map without killing or touching anything before you actually start playing feel free to do this, lol. | ||
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Jswizzy
United States791 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote: PC gaming snobbery much? I'd have thought the last thing that someone on a Starcraft site would be concerned about is graphics. Anyway, it won't be a console port, even though they will have designed the game to most optimally use limited processing power (which is great for people using PC as well). Oblivion had significantly higher graphical resolution for those people playing on PC than on XBOX360. Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. Maybe Heart of the swarm should be developed first for 360 since the platform a game is developed for doesn't matter? | ||
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ChinaWhite
United Kingdom239 Posts
You dont think the level scaling in Oblivion was broken? I thought that was a universal complaint amoungst fans of the series, I'm genuinely interested to hear if some people actually like it. Edit - this was for deathly Rat, forgot to quote. | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3410 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote: PC gaming snobbery much? I'd have thought the last thing that someone on a Starcraft site would be concerned about is graphics. Anyway, it won't be a console port, even though they will have designed the game to most optimally use limited processing power (which is great for people using PC as well). Oblivion had significantly higher graphical resolution for those people playing on PC than on XBOX360. Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. What I *love* in RPG's is not only a sense of power, but also a sense of weakness. Until you level up certain monsters should just rip you to shreds making some more dangerous areas very difficult to wander through. You grow powerful over time and what was once impossible to defeat becomes much easier to face. Level scaling ruins games for me, because this feeling is gone; It *does* make games easy in their entirety. Everything is always within reach, you cannot get your hands on some ridiculously good loot (it will always be "just fine") no matter how hard you try and there is no real challange to face. | ||
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ChinaWhite
United Kingdom239 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:38 Logo wrote: Don't count it out just yet... From: http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/archive/2011/01/24/skyrim-building-better-combat.aspx Promising! I want to believe! I'm just stillbitter about oblivion, I'll try harder to restrain myself :-) ! | ||
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ChinaWhite
United Kingdom239 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:43 True_Spike wrote: What I *love* in RPG's is not only a sense of power, but also a sense of weakness. Until you level up certain monsters should just rip you the shreds making some more dangerous areas very difficult to wander through. You grow powerful over time and what was once impossible to defeat becomes much easier to face. Level scaling ruins games for me, because this feeling is gone; It *does* make games easy in their entirety. Everything is always within reach, you cannot get your hands on some ridiculously good loot (it always be "just fine") no matter how hard you try and there is no real challange to face. Spot on, I think the best RPG's have always followed this philosophy. They defo did a better job of it in Fallout 3 than oblivion so I guess there is reason for some optimism! | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote: PC gaming snobbery much? I'd have thought the last thing that someone on a Starcraft site would be concerned about is graphics. Anyway, it won't be a console port, even though they will have designed the game to most optimally use limited processing power (which is great for people using PC as well). Oblivion had significantly higher graphical resolution for those people playing on PC than on XBOX360. Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. "The lead producer on Skyrim said: “We use the consoles as our lead SKU… So we develop towards the consoles and then porting to PC is usually not too bad actually .”" They themselves say that the game will be a console port. Oblivions interface was horrendous. In the inventory you could see at most 6 items/spells/skills at a time. It was obviously made with consoles in mind and the PC version did not have it's interface adapted at all. Now they say that they are planning on "streamlining" things even more. Removing stats etc. Of course people have reason to be afraid. Even though it hurts me that they don't seem to care about the platform that the series originated from, my biggest problem isn't even with it being a console port. Most of the effects of that can be fixed by modding. My problem is that they seem to be moving away from their roots. I'm afraid that they will "streamline" the game too much. In the process of making it more accessible, dumb it down and make it uninteresting. I wan't a huge world to explore with interesting characters, mechanics, character development. I want a huge dynamic sandbox with some complexity in the AI. (What Oblivion tried to be). I do not want a theme-park ride. | ||
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Polis
Poland1292 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote:Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. That sucks because there should be areas that are above your level, heck play Gothic2:Notr, and tell me how the feeling of danger, and planning forced by good hand placement of enemies can be archived with level scaling. Level scaling also makes gaining levels pointless. | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3410 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:45 ChinaWhite wrote: Spot on, I think the best RPG's have always followed this philosophy. They defo did a better job of it in Fallout 3 than oblivion so I guess there is reason for some optimism! Perhaps, to be honest I did not notice it got improved in F3. The entire game was a breeze. Do any of you guys remember that awesome feeling when in the first BG you wandered north straight off the bat only to face a single ankheg that decimates you and your entire party with ease? At first, everything was a danger, a wolf could easily kill you if you were not prepared - this added to a sense of progression of your character and the overall feeling of mystery - the (at first) inacessible areas where a goal on their own - you'd always come back after some time, well prepared, to explore the black parts of your map, to see what kinds of fearsome monsters lurk there, what do they protect, what is all the fuss about? A "real" fantasy world should feel real, pose a challange. Oblivion (and F3) felt like playing in a sandbox and the notion of being undefeatable (among other things) right from the start ruined my experience. Maybe *that* is why it's called a sandbox RPG. | ||
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goiflin
Canada1218 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:54 True_Spike wrote: Perhaps, to be honest I did not notice it got improved in F3. The entire game was a breeze. Do any of you guys remember that awesome feeling when in the first BG you wandered north straight off the bat only to face a single ankheg that decimates you and your entire party with ease? At first, everything was a danger, a wolf could easily kill you if you were not prepared - this added to a sense of progression of your character and the overall feeling of mystery - the (at first) inacessible areas where a goal on their own - you'd always come back after some time, well prepared, to explore the black parts of your map, to see what kinds of fearsome monsters lurk there, what do they protect, what is all the fuss about? A "real" fantasy world should feel real, pose a challange. Oblivion (and F3) felt like playing in a sandbox and the notion of being undefeatable (among other things) right from the start ruined my experience. Maybe *that* is why it's called a sandbox RPG. Well, to be fair, at least on the PC version, you'll probably be able to mod the game to be harder. I know it should be that way out of the box, but it won't be, unfortunately. They're probably betting on the PC crowd modding the game to be better for the PC in the first place, which is why they did such a terrible job at porting oblivion... | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3410 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:49 Polis wrote: That sucks because there should be areas that are above your level, heck play Gothic2:Notr, and tell me how the feeling of danger, and planning forced by good hand placement of enemies can be archived with level scaling. Level scaling also makes gaining levels pointless. Gothic 2 is such an awesome example. Whenever you wandered off into the woods you were on the lookout for any possible danger that may befall you, no matter how strong you were, ready to run for your life. This added SO MUCH to the immersion! It made leveling up so important and therefore enjoyable, added to the sense of progression, new gear was very valuable and made a world of difference. There were no silly achievements, the game didn't hold your hand every second of every minute you played, making sure you won't have to try too hard. | ||
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ChinaWhite
United Kingdom239 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:54 True_Spike wrote: Perhaps, to be honest I did not notice it got improved in F3. The entire game was a breeze. Do any of you guys remember that awesome feeling when in the first BG you wandered north straight off the bat only to face a single ankheg that decimates you and your entire party with ease? At first, everything was a danger, a wolf could easily kill you if you were not prepared - this added to a sense of progression of your character and the overall feeling of mystery - the (at first) inacessible areas where a goal on their own - you'd always come back after some time, well prepared, to explore the black parts of your map, to see what kinds of fearsome monsters lurk there, what do they protect, what is all the fuss about? A "real" fantasy world should feel real, pose a challange. Oblivion (and F3) felt like playing in a sandbox and the notion of being undefeatable (among other things) right from the start ruined my experience. Maybe *that* is why it's called a sandbox RPG. Yeah I know you mean, fallout 3 was far from perfect in that sense, but you could wander straight north to the deathclaw cave in search of the unique gattling lase for example. I guess i meant the unique items were actually worth finding, I dont think oblivion had this. Your BG example is a good one for sure. Someone brought up Gothic 2 before and that's another good example of how it can be done i think. | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3410 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:59 goiflin wrote: Well, to be fair, at least on the PC version, you'll probably be able to mod the game to be harder. I know it should be that way out of the box, but it won't be, unfortunately. They're probably betting on the PC crowd modding the game to be better for the PC in the first place, which is why they did such a terrible job at porting oblivion... I know, but it's just not the same. Imagine what modders could do to a *well made* (by my, perhaps our, standards) game, rather than waste time fixing what's broken from the get go. Besides, mods are imperfect, take time to make, are buggy for a while, sometimes complicated to use (especially when you want to use a few, they might be incompatible with each other). But yeah, modifications and a fanbase that actually means something are the reasons I'd choose a gaming PC over console any time. | ||
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deathly rat
United Kingdom911 Posts
On June 09 2011 00:39 Jswizzy wrote: Maybe Heart of the swarm should be developed first for 360 since the platform a game is developed for doesn't matter? It would be amazing if they could get SC2 working on consoles, but RTS games only really work in PC due to mouse/keyboard working so much better for this than console controller. I never played Halo Wars, but maybe someone can tell me what it was like to play on a console. | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
On June 09 2011 01:01 ChinaWhite wrote: Yeah I know you mean, fallout 3 was far from perfect in that sense, but you could wander straight north to the deathclaw cave in search of the unique gattling lase for example. I guess i meant the unique items were actually worth finding, I dont think oblivion had this. Your BG example is a good one for sure. Someone brought up Gothic 2 before and that's another good example of how it can be done i think. Fallout 1-2 are great examples too. If you manage to find a power armor or a good energy weapon early on you can own hordes of opponents who could otherwise kill you one on one. But getting those items were hard if you didn't know where to go and what to do and if you took one wrong step you might end up fighting a group of armoured men with machine-guns when you are a level 2 character who just found a BB gun. | ||
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