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Len posted:I've always liked how on these forums it seems like the only way to have fun with Skyrim is with mods. Given that TES games always end up with huge modder communities I think it's one of the few games where counting on modders to make it better is a safe bet.
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Oct 18, 2014 01:26
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Yeah I actually hate Vanilla Skyrim but I adore modded skyrim. Admittedly I often get bored after decking my game out with all sorts of bells and whistles but them's the breaks.
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Oct 18, 2014 03:29
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Lord Lambeth posted:Yeah I actually hate Vanilla Skyrim but I adore modded skyrim. Admittedly I often get bored after decking my game out with all sorts of bells and whistles but them's the breaks. I actually felt the same with Oblivion. I couldn't stand vanilla Oblivion but after the ~10GB of mods I got from the megathread voila! It was fun. I guess that's one prop I give Bethesda. They all but say "You will most likely not like the game sell you as-is but hey Elder Scrolls has an amazing modding community!"
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Oct 18, 2014 03:34
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Rickycat posted:I actually felt the same with Oblivion. I couldn't stand vanilla Oblivion but after the ~10GB of mods I got from the megathread voila! It was fun. I've always interpreted it more as Bethesda saying, "hey, we don't make great games, but here's the framework and the resources and the voice acting and the tools, gently caress it we already got your $60 so do what you want."
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Oct 18, 2014 03:36
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Hannibal Smith posted:The main thing that really dragged down Skyrim for me was the dragons. They were just awful to fight. Captain Lavender posted:If you play 100 hours and walk away feeling lukewarm or even negative about what you just played, I don't think you can really make a great argument that the game didn't at least meet the bar for consumer expectations of an adequate experience for the $20-$60 you spent on it.
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Oct 18, 2014 04:05
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Tiggum posted:To be honest, despite the time I've already spent on it and the fact that I'll definitely play it some more, I really wouldn't want to have spent $60 on it. On sale for $8 it was totally worthwhile though. Yeah, I'm the same way. Except for Dark Souls 2, I haven't paid release price on a game for several years. I suppose I just meant that what you get out of games in general for a given price, Skyrim is a decent value at that price, comparably.
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Oct 18, 2014 05:00
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Captain Lavender posted:You know, my friends and I played the crap out of Monday Night Combat, but they changed so much with the sequel. MNC felt like a TPS / reverse Tower Defense game. SMNC felt like League of Legends with guns. I dunno, I really preferred the format of the first. Smaller, more numerous turrets meant you could actually take them on and chip away at the enemy's defenses. Having more specialized bots spawned by players was more interesting than weaker robots with strong robots after a certain trigger was hit. Rotating out classes absolutely sucks when you're used to a constant assortment, even if it looked like SMNC had some pretty interesting choices. The jungle just seems like a big diversion, especially compared to the first MNC where I could just run around the whole map killing bots (and after some levels under my belt turrets) at my leisure. Increased enemy health might be part of that MOBAization. I know in League, before you get a lot of levels, stuns, and ganking abilities, engagements take forever an end in someone just running away.
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Oct 18, 2014 05:10
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Skyrim is easily the most time I've ever sank into a game. I play it with the maximum 255 plugin mods and almost as many non-plugin mods. My version of the game is customized to hell and back and only barely resembles the original game, which is what I love most about it. If you put in the work you can essentially create your own RPG world. But the thing always dragging it down is the goddamn first person view. I think the terrible combat in Elder Scrolls games rest solely on the fact that Bethesda is adamant about adhering to the first person perspective. I don't doubt many of you will disagree with me, but I feel first person only belongs in shooters. A swords and sorcery style game needs a solid third person camera and combat system and I personally feel that every first person game with swordplay has failed miserably at it. And every Elder Scrolls game has the third person view tacked on almost as an afterthought. I prefer to play Skyrim in third person with mod assistance to make it more bearable, but while playing it all I can think about is how mind-blowingly awesome an Elder Scrolls game would be with something similar to a Dark Souls third person camera and combat system. So, if you ask me Bethesda needs to drop the first person camera all together. It's an unnecessary hindrance that is holding the series back. Esroc has a new favorite as of 05:47 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 05:24
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The first person camera is what sets TES apart from most other games of the type, and I think the immersive nature of the games (which is absolutely something they're very strong at) would really be hamstrung by a third person angle.
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Oct 18, 2014 05:28
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Esroc posted:I don't doubt many of you will agree with me, but I feel first person only belongs in shooters. A swords and sorcery style game needs a solid third person camera and combat system and I personally feel that every first person game with swordplay has failed miserably at it. And every Elder Scrolls game has the third person view tacked on almost as an afterthought. I prefer to play Skyrim in third person with mod assistance to make it more bearable, but while playing it all I can think about is how mind-blowingly awesome an Elder Scrolls game would be with something similar to a Dark Souls third person camera and combat system. Counterpoint: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is loving great and has a fun combat system, unlike Skyrim.
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Oct 18, 2014 05:46
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Morpheus posted:Counterpoint: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is loving great and has a fun combat system, unlike Skyrim. I respectfully disagree. I disliked DMoMM combat because it had the same shortcomings as an ES game but without the awesome world to make up for it.
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Oct 18, 2014 05:49
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Mount Your Friends is a lot of fun, but there are a lot of little things that would help it. Exiting any mode goes to the main menu instead of a relevant submenu. It's annoying after a multiplayer match, where pressing start when it says "press start to do thing" will bring up the main menu instead of the lobby. Also, there's also no way to organize all the custom heads and bodies you can make.
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Oct 18, 2014 06:04
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Oxxidation posted:That's more the PC gamers justifying their $1500 fun machines like always. And this is a poor little console warrior who feels like he needs an excuse to spend money on games  oldpainless posted:Goddam I got nothing going on I did this two weekends ago and was bored after about 5 hours. Skyrim really has just lost it's luster for me, even with all the mods installed. Also I have done terrible things in my life and feel I need to punish myself for them by playing Dark Souls 2. It sucks. I heard so much about Dark Souls and so I got DS 2 and they completely hosed it up so far as invasions and online stuff goes. The problems they were trying to solve would have been a hell of alot less of a problem than the ones they created. And yet I can't put it down because the enemies in that game have done terrible things to me and I must punish them for it. TheSpiritFox has a new favorite as of 06:27 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 06:20
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Skyrim is an ugly game with a lot of bad mechanics. It's a bit more tolerable with pretty textures and fancy ENB settings, but my god, did I barely put any amount of time into that game without mods. Ill never understand the people who put hours and hours into it without them. Ultimately the thing that drags the game down for me is that the entire goddamned universe revolves around me. Maybe this works for other people, but the simple fact that other people can't do a single drat thing on their own pulls me out of the game so loving rapidly everytime.
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Oct 18, 2014 06:31
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SpookyLizard posted:Ultimately the thing that drags the game down for me is that the entire goddamned universe revolves around me. Maybe this works for other people, but the simple fact that other people can't do a single drat thing on their own pulls me out of the game so loving rapidly everytime. Isn't this the case in just about every game? And what's the alternative? Have NPCs do stuff if you don't get to it quick enough so you miss out? That's just how video games work. You are the chosen one, the only one who can defeat the ultimate evil and also the only one who can deliver this letter and collect these butterflies and kill that guy and whatever other mundane tasks people need done. Because you're the player and you want stuff to do.
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Oct 18, 2014 06:56
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The idea that you aren't the main ultimate guy sounds good but then you get games like gta four where you are an errand boy. You are a human player smarter than any ai they come up with, you are the star no matter what
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Oct 18, 2014 07:20
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There was also that time they were going to make STALKER work like that except it turns out having NPCs beat the game ahead of you isn't very exciting. 
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Oct 18, 2014 07:54
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Tiggum posted:Isn't this the case in just about every game? And what's the alternative? Have NPCs do stuff if you don't get to it quick enough so you miss out? That's just how video games work. You are the chosen one, the only one who can defeat the ultimate evil and also the only one who can deliver this letter and collect these butterflies and kill that guy and whatever other mundane tasks people need done. Because you're the player and you want stuff to do. It depends on the game, but there's a difference between being the guy who does the important stuff, and the guy who is the only person who can ever do anything. This is compounded by the fact that you basically end up running every major faction in the region, and are the chosen one with extra special magic powers, who is also the only one can resolve the major civil war conflict thing. I don't know, the stormcloaks and imperials never particularly interested me enough to get involved. Basically, what stands out the most to me is that you can like, gently caress off in the middle of some poo poo to go do a pile of other poo poo, and every other plot doesn't really move. Everything is disconnected. It'd be neat if you could blow off the war, and let that poo poo happen unto itself because you're too busy hunting dragons and poo poo, or if the dragons upped their power levels/ante on their own completely independant of you, not-unlike how the aliens ramp up thier invasion in XCOM.
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Oct 18, 2014 08:46
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SpookyLizard posted:Basically, what stands out the most to me is that you can like, gently caress off in the middle of some poo poo to go do a pile of other poo poo, and every other plot doesn't really move. Everything is disconnected. It'd be neat if you could blow off the war, and let that poo poo happen unto itself because you're too busy hunting dragons and poo poo, or if the dragons upped their power levels/ante on their own completely independant of you, not-unlike how the aliens ramp up thier invasion in XCOM. And it does make it pretty obvious that "urgent" things really aren't because you can just ignore them and come back later, but that really applies to most games. The villain will take over the world if we don't stop him within the next hour, but I can spend two hours going over every corner of this level to find all the secret areas and collectible items and it's fine. Because the game is designed to be fun, not realistic.
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Oct 18, 2014 11:40
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Uplink had the whole 'gently caress you, the story will go on without you if you don't bite at it' thing going for it. I'm not sure if the story left you behind once you started it but if you didn't bite at the bait the whole thing played out through news updates and emails.
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Oct 18, 2014 12:12
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Tiggum posted:I've managed to play 44 hours so far without fighting one. I'm pretty sure I know which quest I have to do to make them appear, but they sound kind of annoying and I'm enjoying doing all these other quests, so I just haven't bothered yet. Well if you've been playing 44 hours the dragon fights will be trivial and by not fighting them you're missing out on shouts which are one of the best parts of the game.
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Oct 18, 2014 14:21
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The thing about Skyrim and the plots not moving forward without your involvement is that Skyrim is a loving gigantic game. There are so many things you could possibly be doing at any moment (especially with the radiant quest system), that if every plot had a "carry on if player doesn't do anything in X hours", you could potentially lock yourself out of mountains of content purely by mistake. And sure, you could argue that it would enhance replayability to not be able to do every quest in one run, but with people here talking about sinking X-hundred hours into the game, I don't think replayability is a huge concern. The civil war moving on without your involvement would probably work, though, but you might not want to allow a definitive end without player involvement. Really, that whole element could have stood to be a lot more fleshed out; all it really determined was the outfits of the guards in towns.
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Oct 18, 2014 15:25
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I considered modding Skyrim since I own it and never play it, but looking at the Steam workshop all the mods were just terrible graphics mods or like a specific house or something. Are there good gameplay overhaul mods that make it actually fun?
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Oct 18, 2014 15:32
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Yeah you almost definitely want SPERG. The Skyrim modding thread is a pretty good resource.
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Oct 18, 2014 15:34
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Tiggum posted:That sounds good in theory, but in reality that just means that most players are disappointed because everything got resolved without them and they didn't get to play it. Yeah, it doesn't make sense that the Jarl of Whiterun has been waiting literally months for me to go deal with this dragon, he should definitely have gotten someone else for the job by now. But on the other hand I might want to do that eventually, so I'd be annoyed if some random NPC had dealt with it while I wasn't looking. I, on the other hand, freaking love Star Control 2. The plot moving without the player (at a reasonable pace) is fantastic.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:58
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To me it's the difference between Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. Both games require your input to go anywhere, but Fallout 3 is much more overt about it - the radio is "Hey the Lone Wanderer did a thing," whereas the radio in New Vegas is more like "a thing happened to these people" without necessarily mentioning the player. New Vegas appears to have more interests at play in its world besides your own, so that makes sense when you hear it.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:34
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StandardVC10 posted:To me it's the difference between Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. Both games require your input to go anywhere, but Fallout 3 is much more overt about it - the radio is "Hey the Lone Wanderer did a thing," whereas the radio in New Vegas is more like "a thing happened to these people" without necessarily mentioning the player. New Vegas appears to have more interests at play in its world besides your own, so that makes sense when you hear it. To be fair, the Capital Wasteland is a lot less busy than New Vegas, so anything that happens would make the local news, Three Dog even says as much, since he spends his days spreading the "Good News", no matter how small or insignificant it may be.
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Oct 18, 2014 18:41
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I think it's possible to make a game that doesn't fall back on the "all powerful chosen one" cliche without it making you into an errand boy, or having a story that plays itself. It's just a matter of how you frame things. Personally, I'm sick of games that fawn over how awesome and important I am. It feels very artificial and takes away any sense that the world is anything more than a theme park ride. I would rather have a world that at least gives the impression of other, larger, things going on around me. Even if the game is completely centered on my character. You can establish goals, friends, enemies, challenges, victories, and rewards in a scenario without immediately pushing the stakes to their maximum. I would get more satisfaction from working with my allies to finally one-up my rival in the guild to secure the job that allowed me to buy my first house than I would having the king proclaim me the savior of the land the minute I wander into town.
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Oct 18, 2014 19:27
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Bit of a derail, but I tend to like my games as close to vanilla as possible. Usually if I'm modding the hell out of the game I've finished the game's Main Task*, lost a lot of interest, and am trying to rekindle the magic before realizing that I just need to find a new game. . * To keep this on topic, I'll make a general Dragging Down: Blizzard game's attempts at playing after the story is done tend to leave me cold and unengaged. Multiplayer in SC2? Hell no. Diablo 3's Adventure Mode? So loving dry. WoW raid content? Only keeps me interested as long as I have a LOT of things needing upgrading, and from what I heard with the next expansion, my Endgame Upgrade Path is no longer valid.
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Oct 18, 2014 20:19
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Canemacar posted:Personally, I'm sick of games that fawn over how awesome and important I am. It feels very artificial and takes away any sense that the world is anything more than a theme park ride. OTOH I find it hard to sustain disbelief when I as the player character am a loving god of war, and nobody seems to acknowledge that. That's part of what made Half-Life 2 so great, the game was fully aware that Gordon Freeman having the body count that he does is completely loving nuts.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:04
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DStecks posted:OTOH I find it hard to sustain disbelief when I as the player character am a loving god of war, and nobody seems to acknowledge that. That's part of what made Half-Life 2 so great, the game was fully aware that Gordon Freeman having the body count that he does is completely loving nuts.  ...well, that and the "cutscenes" which where also gameplay meaning there was no way to skip people droning about bullshit for like 20 minutes in a boring rear end room.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:11
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DStecks posted:OTOH I find it hard to sustain disbelief when I as the player character am a loving god of war, and nobody seems to acknowledge that. That's part of what made Half-Life 2 so great, the game was fully aware that Gordon Freeman having the body count that he does is completely loving nuts. Yeah, I appreciate acknowledgement over unrealistic contempt any day of the week. The bad guys were (rightly) anxious about Gordon Freeman getting closer, and sent a completely disproportionate force against you. Diablo 3 is low-hanging fruit in story and dialogue; but it was just irritating when I hit the Act 3 boss, and he was talking down to me like I didn't just bull-doze through 1500 of his minions, and a couple other demons to reach him. It bugs me. Bad guys can still be bad-rear end if they acknowledge you realistically. Mass Effect 3 as well - the Illusive Man and his assassin acted like Shepard isn't a real threat, and it just defies credulity.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:12
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God-for-loving-bid that people play a game and not get to experience 100% of the content in a single playthrough. poo poo, missing out on content I only heard about in the ending slides of new vegas had me hunting around for that poo poo, plus other, additional content I might've missed. Which I think is cool. Some people might people might be miffed at the idea of things happening without them, like the entire world is akin to that stupid cat in a box, and can only be resolved or have poo poo happen directly in front of them. Some of us find that missing out on content is cool because it makes the world feel alive, and that you're not the all important plot advancement device. Which would actually be a neat sort of game, wherein you are the only thing can affect the plot, and have agents of various out to use you for your own diabolical ends, because they're powerless to do anything of any meaning without you.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:13
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I think it's extremely important to have content you can miss in most games. Discovering something means a whole lot more when you really discovered it and there's not a checklist or quest log leading you and a thousand other players there.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:36
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Austrian mook posted:I think it's extremely important to have content you can miss in most games. Do you mean miss as in things you can go back and enjoy without restarting the game again, right?
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Oct 18, 2014 22:41
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Sire Oblivion posted:Do you mean miss as in things you can go back and enjoy without restarting the game again, right? More as in dynamic stuff not every player is supposed to find or expected to. Something like some of the hidden areas in Dark Souls, for example. I don't think there should be stuff arbitrarily gated from any player, if possible. Exceptions can be made for some things though.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:10
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Canemacar posted:I think it's possible to make a game that doesn't fall back on the "all powerful chosen one" cliche without it making you into an errand boy, or having a story that plays itself. It's just a matter of how you frame things. Yeah I basically agree with all of this. I hate it when you are the narrative and that's it. Even in some games where there easily could and should be a larger narrative it's like they forget. Even in the games where the player is not the God designated savior of everything, solver of every problem anyone ever had, they forget to have a larger story which you become a part of alot of the time and even games that do you dominate it way too much. They don't give you NPCs you can respect who accomplish as much or more than you do, they don't ever make you a part of something significant without being the end all be all of everything. At least in Half Life 2 they poke fun at you for it, being the guy who can murder anyone and anything but who is basically just a tool to set loose on a problem rather than a leader of any kind. The tip of the spear someone else is thrusting, as it were.
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Oct 19, 2014 00:16
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SpookyLizard posted:God-for-loving-bid that people play a game and not get to experience 100% of the content in a single playthrough. poo poo, missing out on content I only heard about in the ending slides of new vegas had me hunting around for that poo poo, plus other, additional content I might've missed. Which I think is cool. Some people might people might be miffed at the idea of things happening without them, like the entire world is akin to that stupid cat in a box, and can only be resolved or have poo poo happen directly in front of them. Some of us find that missing out on content is cool because it makes the world feel alive, and that you're not the all important plot advancement device. I fail to see how stuff in New Vegas is at all different from the stuff in Skyrim. Caesar and the NCR are sitting there staring at each other for an eternity until the PC decides to do the quest.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:06
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kazil posted:I fail to see how stuff in New Vegas is at all different from the stuff in Skyrim. Caesar and the NCR are sitting there staring at each other for an eternity until the PC decides to do the quest. NV kind of disguises it by saying they've been staring at each other for four years now, waiting for something to give them an edge - so if the Courier goofs off for a month or two, then it's just business as usual in the Mojave.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:30
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Austrian mook posted:More as in dynamic stuff not every player is supposed to find or expected to. Something like some of the hidden areas in Dark Souls, for example. I don't think there should be stuff arbitrarily gated from any player, if possible. Exceptions can be made for some things though. The really hidden stuff in Darks is really, really well hidden though. I don't know how they expect you to be able to find the Painted World on your own. I missed going back to the Asylumn the first few times I played.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:41
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