Elder Scrolls 5:Skyrim

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Topsoldier said:
College of winter hold was the same for me. I was level like 15 with 50 as my highest magic skill and I was arch mage of well...everyone. Gatta love how the dude who has 0 experience in magic and Least skilled out of everyone in the college is now arch-mage. Should've made it so you can only become arch mage with 100 in at least 1 school of magic.
You mean like it was in Morrowind? :wink: And yeah, the fact that you don't even have to know any magic at all to become archmage is just silly. Yeah, become the head of the mages guild by lopping off a lot of heads with your sword. Sounds reasonable, in Bethsoft's mind. :lol:
 
I find it quite enjoyable to play a one-handed + shield/bow/light armor(or no armor) character, because you get variety and challenge in combat. At least at lower levels you can't hack and slash through enemies like with a two handed + heavy armor character. I actually die from time to time :grin: Playing on adept, because the difficulty mechanic is ridiculous.
 
The whole pacing is what threw me off Skyrim pretty much indefinitely (well until I get a decent PC, then I may consider it). I found it silly that on normal difficulty I was able to breeze through not only the civil war quest line but all of the guild quest lines and the main one in less than a few days, and only be level 20.

 
Yep thats the problem with a world that is scaled to your level, some mods have attempted to remedy that. The one i was using was ASIS and SkyRe which make it so you cant go anywhere and do well especially on master difficulty its frequent occurrence to get killed in one hit/arrow in some areas.
 
Skyrim Scaling Stopper at least makes life on early levels a challenge. Started as a Dunmer in Winterhold, and figured a good place to start gaining experience would be to clear the mine south of Riverwood. Barely managed to kill the bandit guarding outside.

EDIT:

Skyrim still needs its own OOO. Skyrim Scaling Stopper and some other mod whose name I forget do a decent job, but I really want a handcrafted mod that would make the gameworld more static and like Morrowind.
 
Mind you, Morrowind also had level scaling to a certain extent. It was just done in a more subtle way and different areas had different upper and lower limits on the level of enemies (and loot). Oblivion and Skyrim aren't really different in what they do, only in that they do it in a much more ham-fisted way (Skyrim somewhat less so than Oblivion).
 
Yeah, scaling was much more subtle in Morrowind than in Skyrim. A few years ago I was messing with the console and spawned a skeleton archer army in Seyda Neen, killed them all, and leveled up my character a few times. Spawned another skeleton archer army afterwards, and the loot difference between a level 1 character and a level 20 character was very substantial.

[Edit: Fixed a major typo that made this post make no sense whatsoever.]
 
I agree, for the most part faction storylines were rote and frankly boring.

The problem with Skyrim, from a roleplaying perspective, is that there are few or no consequences for your actions. You have choices, sure, but insulting the Companions in the one scripted event when you have a chance to help them out doesn't prevent you from joining anyways, focusing on sword combat and neglecting magic will still get you to the position of archmage, and the worst part is, every NPC seems to operate in their own personal little bubbles.

This is incredibly evident in pretty much any part of the game, because it doesn't matter if you're the Dragonborn, or the Imperial Marshal or the Archmage or a goddamned mass murderer, the old man will still ask you to go get his amulet, the Companions will still expect you to do all their little menial tasks as if you'd never fought before in your life, and the mages will still make you do their stupid little tests when you could just as easily incinerate them. Actions have few or no consequences - the only action I can think of that actually means something in the base game is killing or refusing to kill Parthurnax, where you'd anger the Blades or the Greybeards beyond the point of reparation. Gone are the skill checks or reputation checks in conversation which enable you to impress the gravity of your person on some peasant asking you to kill rats - they just treat you like any other old guy who'd walk up to them and strike up a conversation, glittering weapons and expensive armor notwithstanding.

It's Mount & Blade, in my opinion, which actually does simulate reputation in a way that I'd think Bethesda would be prudent to include in the next installment. You start out as nobody, with nothing, and Lords will initially react to you like that, with some being friendly and some scorning your presence and so on, and you can do menial tasks for them and so on. Then, once you become a mercenary, you get a bit more responsibility but it's largely up to you forging positive reputations with certain groups of Lords to get them to do things for you, and in the forging of these relationships you'll also inevitably make enemies. Finally, when you're a King or Lord, other Lords acknowledge this and refuse to give you the menial tasks anymore, because you're too important for such things now. It's basic, but it's something I'd much like to see in the next Elder Scrolls game.
 
So, suggest improvements.
For example, how would you have improved the Companions quest line?
Would you devise special dialogs if you are someone already important? Would being an Archmage allow you to skip quests? That's a waste of quests right there and even shorter path to Harbingerdom.
Should they have their own agenda with the Dragonborn? WHAT? :smile:
 
MadVader said:
So, suggest improvements.
For example, how would you have improved the Companions quest line?
Would you devise special dialogs if you are someone already important? Would being an Archmage allow you to skip quests? That's a waste of quests right there and even shorter path to Harbingerdom.
Should they have their own agenda with the Dragonborn? WHAT? :smile:

For companions at least do more than 3 quest before you find out the most controversial and biggest secret the companions have. Also add more variety to the quest. Clearing dungeons, mmm Have not don't that one yet i don't think. I have yet to bother finishing the companion quest line since i don't foresee it beeing fun at all.

For college of winterhold, the quest line in its self was pretty good in my opinion, the result of the quest line was poorly done. The fact that you become arch mage without knowing a shred of magic is just stupid. They should have had a certain point in the quest line where it required a certain level in at least one of the schools of magic. Such as to complete one of the last quest, Or at least some form of requirement to actually be competent in magic. Also the fact you don't do anything as archmage was a let down, you should have certain perks or at least a benefit other than some ugly Armour and a small room. Maybe add some Archmage quest where you deal with college business, or at least recruit members at a decent pace.

At one point several months (in game) after becoming archmage some kid came up to me in whiterun asking if he can join. I helped him practice a spell and then I never saw him again. Would be neat if he went back to the college and you had further training with him or more of these characters showed up randomly during the daily skyrim life.

The biggest disappointment to all the side guild quest lines is the fact you start out at a low level, and within nearly 5 quest you are now the master. Even the oblivion quest lines were much longer and had a large rank structure. Having to do a certain amount of quest before you get a new rank within the guild such as the Fighters guild.
 
I'd like to betray either side of the civil war. I'd like multiple endings for all the major questlines. I'd like to not be the center of the the world in any given TES game.
 
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:mad:



Yeah, there's absolutely no connection between quest lines and no recognition of your status when you finish a quest line and become guild master. I see two possibilities to fix this: One, put those connections into the game, make NPCs recognize who you are and act accordingly. Or two, and this is a much simpler method, don't let the player become guild master in the first place. The Dawnguard quest line actually does this. You join the Dawnguard, do quests, gain the respect of the other members, and that's it. You don't replace Isran as the leader, you're not given any kind of official rank or title. Plus a lot of the time the Dawnguard operates in secret, so it's pretty reasonable that the common folk don't know about your exploits.

As for other aspects of roleplaying, you can't really do it in Skyrim. I mean, you can play your character a certain way when it comes to skill usage. To an extent, at least. You can't play someone who completely shuns and doesn't know any magic, for example, because the game starts you with some spells and with no way to get rid of them. But when it comes to interacting with NPCs, you can't roleplay at all. A lot of the time there's not even any option to refuse a quest, it just pops up in your journal without even asking you. The werewolf thing with the Companions is one example. Another would be the College of Winterhold. I went there as part of the main quest to get an Elder Scroll. Since I used a mod to remove my starting spells, I told the gatekeeper I was the dragonborn and demonstrated my thu'um instead of my magical ability. Nowhere in that conversation did I say I wanted to become a student, only that I wanted to go in. Yet the quest to become a student and listen to some lecture is now in my journal. The dialogue option "I don't want to study here, I just want to talk to your librarian" was not available. The game just shoves **** down your throat on the assumption that all players are completionists who don't give a rat's ass about roleplaying and just want to 100% the game.

The only breath of fresh air in this respect is Serana from Dawnguard. That's the only NPC I've encountered so far that has dialogue options other than "plot infodump plz" and "lore infodump plz". A few times you can choose to be nice or rude to her in plot-relevant dialogue. It's kinda like the Paragon/Renegade thing from Mass Effect. You accomplish the same thing either way, you're not roleplaying what to do but how to do it.
 
Out of all the quest lines, the civil war pissed me off the most. Absolutely none of the NPC's displayed any sort of emotion or dialogue towards the end of the civil war, or even its progression for that matter. Not to mention that after the first few quests it became a "Go to this fort and take it over" fest which I found incredibly boring.

Maybe I should have waited until I got the PC version instead of buying the console one.
 
MadVader said:
So, suggest improvements.
For example, how would you have improved the Companions quest line?
Would you devise special dialogs if you are someone already important? Would being an Archmage allow you to skip quests? That's a waste of quests right there and even shorter path to Harbingerdom.
Should they have their own agenda with the Dragonborn? WHAT? :smile:

How would I have improved it? Well first of all that would require a redesign of the Radiant Quest system. As it stands, basically the Radiant Quests take a bunch of predefined templates and mix them together to produce a quest for you where you have to find the predetermined item in a randomized location or something similar. Unfortunately, this is the extent of the use of the system - for these incidental and useless quests. I'd like to see the Radiant Quest system be integrated both into the storyline and into the faction quests, where you do actually feel as if you have to work your way up the rankings within each faction as opposed to them automatically being deemed special and going on a dangerous delving trip into arcane ruins barely an hour into your induction into the College, or being told that since you've done maybe 4 or 5 menial tasks around Jorrvaskr that you're eligible to be let in on a generation-spanning secret cabal that controls the Companions, just because you sharpened what's-his-name's sword and ran around town for them, because you're special. I'd rather see you first have to work at establishing reputations in order to advance - perform research for some of the higher-ranking mages, investigate various arcana, defend a farmstead from bandit raiders, actually do things with the Companions that at least give the illusion that they're an organization that takes mercenary jobs for money as opposed to the reality of them being 7-9 people stuffed in a mead hall that do nothing but drink and beat the **** out of each other on occasion.

As I said, this would require a redesign of the Radiant System - NPC daily routines just aren't enough. There needs to be Radiant events that call NPCs away from their duties, and you can have the option to assist them to boost your reputation. Example - the College questline and a few sidequests have you delve into a few dungeons for artifacts or research, but other than the 4 or so places you visit in the course of these, apparently there's absolutely nothing else of interest to the College in all of Skyrim. I'd like to see the higher-ranking members go out on expeditions from time to time, and you can follow them and share in the rewards of such a venture or  protect them to gain reputation. Same with the Companions. Something that would be an interesting addition to this would be for said persons to possibly die if you don't assist them depending on the circumstances, and then be replaced by another NPC, who will then have their previous position replaced in the heirarchy, all the way down until you get a randomized recruit to fill the gap.

Another thing that needs to be reworked, as I've said before, is the reputation system. First of all, it needs to be more than Like/Neutral/Dislike. There needs to be a return to numerical values. Secondly, it needs to be fleshed out in that reputation should not only encompass what you do for specific NPCs. Your character's progression and what you do also need to affect reputation, particularly for combat. For example, there could be several values for various traits, such as your tendency to use magic, melee, or stealth. When you kill someone in combat with one of these (or perhaps a combination), the values increase in the respective categories, to simulate your character's reputation. Values would also increase along with skill increases in the respective categories. These values could then affect character interactions - for example, a magic-user might face penalties from more superstitious types, and the Companions might not like it if you're more oriented towards magic, which could impede or perhaps halt your advancement in the organization. Similarly, the College might not like a pure blademaster, and would thus exclude you. The Thieves and Dark Brotherhood would be more concerned with stealth over swords, but magic might also be an asset. Morality could also be modeled like this, where certain people (Thieves and the Dark Brotherhood again come to mind) would not be inclined to associate with you if you're a good character, whereas evil characters would face reprimand from the populace, eventually becoming complete outcasts and attacked on sight if you do enough evil acts, such as murder.

These values, combined with more traditional cRPG skill and trait checks in conversations would help to make character interactions more meaningful and to help player immersion. Of course, this is still just scratching the surface of what an be improved in the roleplaying aspect.

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