TES V: Skyrim

[Sxotty]

I tried that command; maybe I wasn't getting the quest ID or stage right. I'll find out which quest it is and see if anybody else had the problem.

It involves a guy you talk to through a peephole in a door and after the conversation he's supposed to open the door but he doesn't. We tried noclipping through the door but if you go to talk to him he just stands there like a statue.

It will definitely work if you have the right quest id. As said you may or may not need to unlock the door. If you click it with console open you can type unlock. A better solution is to restart the mission probably using setstage. As long as you dont get screwed like I did by it.

 

[KimB]

Frank already threw out a short list. To pretend that Skyrim has even a fraction of available character options as Morrowind is either being deliberately argumentative or demonstrates that one never played it. And I'm fairly sure you played it.

But sure lets start off with a generic "pool" stats compared to the more comprehensive stat system in Morrowind. For instant gratification, the ability to be more easily understood by those with less intelligence, and perhaps less frustrating to those with a lack of patience/attention it's great. But every single freaking race is now a virtual twin of every single freaking other race other than a resist and a racial ability. Yes, they are all naturally the same strength, run the same speed, jump the same height, just as hardy as each other...blah blah blah. Yay, Generic for the win.

For those that want have a specific type of hero in mind that they want to roleplay or to represent them in the game/simulation it's severly lacking. The fact that Stamina also affects carry weight isn't intuitive in the least. So everyone with X level of Stamina is the same as a person with X level of Strengh, Y level of Agility, and Z level of speed?

Perhaps I want to play a slow and plodding heavily muscled Knight. Oh wait. NM. Can't do that. EVERYONE moves at the same gdamn speed in Skyrim. EVERYONE has the same gdamn jump height. Which brings me to skills.

No athletics? You mean people in these worlds might not have trained to be a long distance runner? After all sprinting is the only thing "trainable" via Stamina. But that only affects sprint duration since everyone sprints at the same gdamn speed. In the world of Skyrim, EVERYONE is Usein Bolt.

How about merchantile versus speechcraft. A good merchant isn't necessarily a very good speaker. But no, in Skyrim that same merchant running the General Store is also an extraordinary speech writer, diplomat, wooer of women, and whatever else is lumped in there.

Oh hell, and lets eliminate medium armor. It's far far too confusing to players. Oh and blocking as well. Because well EVERYONE is a master at blocking with a shield.

Oh and spears as well. Because those just don't exist in fantasy settings...at all. And yes, no one ever fights hand to hand or unarmored. Sure none of those may have been widely used or incredibly effective, but again in a fantasy simulation to not have them is incredibly lacking.

Spellcrafting? Oh wait, it's not even there. Instead replaced by dualwielding or to put it another way a clunky way to craft spells except your only limited to 2 without the ability to modify any part of them. Smaller pool of possible enchants and less interesting to boot. Less potential types of potions. Less schools of magic, some of the spells being relocated but others just missing entirely.

Birthsigns. Oh how tedious it must be be for short attention span gamers and "I win button" gamers to be tied to something that was set at birth of your character potentially 2 decades before you join him in the virtual world. Much easier to keep the attention spam (snaps fingers), eyes back here your attention was wandering player... As I was saying much easier to keep their interest if you can just change those types of affects willy nilly depending on the whim of the player. I'm sure Samson would have loved not to be tied to the weakness of losing his hair, or Achilles to that damn heel of his.

[edit: adding in} Speaking of which you can't even have a weakness for your character. WTF? Yay for more generic bland sameness as other games.

Geez, one could almost go and on and on and on and on about the way this game is lacking as a TES game.

It did have one notable decent advancement. Perks. But again. The comment of mine in a previous post about 1 step forward and a leap of hundreds of steps backwards. One fantastic addition does not in the least make up for all the subractions to the franchise.

As a small, tightly encompassed, and limited game like Battlespire and Redguard it would have been fantastic. As a TES game, it fails horribly.

And yes, you can certainly argue all of the above is useless and meaningless. Well of course. Just like in Fable you don't even really have visible health/stamina/magic stats. But just like that isn't Fable. Or Fable isn't Skyrim. So is Skyrim not a TES game, IMO, and in the minds of many original TES fans.

Call it, An Elder Scrolls Adventure: Skyrim, and I would have been behind it 100% of the way. But call it TES V: Skyrim, and there are expectations that need to be met, but aren't even remotely close to being met.

Regards,
SB

I don't see why you'd complain about these things. Throwing the stats away just removes one more step between you and the game. They really didn't add a whole lot to the previous games, especially since the primary reason to get the stats were for magicka, magicka regen, health, and carry weight, which you have control over anyway now.

As for speed, that depends upon your armor, by the way.

As for not having weaknesses, have you ever tried to change the play style of your character midway through the game?

The thing is, Bethesda has always striven to produce a sandbox game where the character you make is the character you play. This was the whole motivation behind the fact that skills increase as you use them: you customize your character by playing your character. And Skyrim is absolutely the purest representation of that.

 

[Frank]

I understand "why" they did it. But I still hate them for it. I know the simulation market is so small as to be unprofitable for modern day AAA budgets and thus it's better to target the wider gaming audience which has a much more limited attention span requiring constant pats on the back and words of encouragement that you, the player, are doing FANTASTIC. But that doesn't make it any less of an abomination for those of us that like a good fantasy simulation and the ability to let loose our imaginations and go on adventures of our own creation because the engine allows you to do whatever you want.

Then again, if you look at the comments in this thread and read the elderscrolls forum, it seems that many people feel like that. A majority in this thread, for what it's worth.

In the official forums, most of the threads that complain get interrupted by one or a few people who get angry when any complaint is voiced, and think it's the best thing since sliced bread, probably mostly because of lack of experience, they bought it for a console, or simply because they spend money on it, so it has to be good.

 

[Frank]

I don't see why you'd complain about these things. Throwing the stats away just removes one more step between you and the game. They really didn't add a whole lot to the previous games, especially since the primary reason to get the stats were for magicka, magicka regen, health, and carry weight, which you have control over anyway now.

As for speed, that depends upon your armor, by the way.

As for not having weaknesses, have you ever tried to change the play style of your character midway through the game?

The thing is, Bethesda has always striven to produce a sandbox game where the character you make is the character you play. This was the whole motivation behind the fact that skills increase as you use them: you customize your character by playing your character. And Skyrim is absolutely the purest representation of that.

Purest?



Pure, as in: being able to experience it to it's fullest, or as in: less is more, remove everything that is not essential to have that full experience?

I totally agree with that sentiment. That's my mantra as well.

Then again, I have a completely different idea about the essential gaming experience than you have. Totally.

I can catch my main gripes simply by stating that it is dumbed down severely, and suffers from a bad case of consolitis. That's not hard to prove, either. Open the menu, or try to look at your stats, or try to use a different approach to a quest.

Compared to Morrowind, it's a "streamlined Hack & Slash action game, optimized for consoles". Which I agree is pretty pure.

I would want a different kind of pure, as in : keep all the options, but remove all the exceptions. Make it all as consistent as possible.

But then again, I'm a programmer by trade.

 

[Bludd]

Stats didn't give you anything in Morrowind, they just modified skills, no? Classes didn't do anything special either other than highlight certain skills. Bethesda have taken the consequence of their own skill-based system and just made it about, shock and horror, skills.

 

[Frank]

Stats didn't give you anything in Morrowind, they just modified skills, no? Classes didn't do anything special either other than highlight certain skills. Bethesda have taken the consequence of their own skill-based system and just made it about, shock and horror, skills.

Well, they did remove most of the effects increasing those skills had.

 

[Frank]

Btw, if you were an adventurer in real life, would you prefer challenging combat, with a high chance to randomly die, or would you rather prepare, hone your equipment and skills, to make sure you won't get killed?

I'm pretty sure I would be a scholar / mage in a fantasy world. And I would try and make sure I wouldn't be killed as best I could before doing something really dangerous. And as I employ a house cleaner in real life, I'm pretty sure I would try and hire other people to do the dangerous stuff.

If it's a "do or die/get wealthy and famous or die trying" thing, I don't think I would.

Edit: Yes, it's a game. I like stylized hack&slash games (Diablo). I think it's more that they have to be stylized. If you try and make it realistic, make sure the "suspension of disbelief" can be reduced, instead of increasing it.

 

[Sxotty]

The lack of change to speed and jump is extremely annoying to me.

 

[swaaye]

I went back and played Oblivion and Dark Messiah to refresh my memories of their combat systems. Skyrim does seem to have tried to imitate Dark Messiah, I think. Oblivion is more mechanical and detached than Skyrim. I do think that Dark Messiah has somewhat better feel to it still though. I really appreciate the attempt to make melee combat feel really interactive and player skill orientated.

Actually, Dead Island is pretty interesting in this way too. Too bad about the super view bob/swagger though!!

 

[KimB]

I would want a different kind of pure, as in : keep all the options, but remove all the exceptions. Make it all as consistent as possible.

But then again, I'm a programmer by trade.

Well, I think that in large part, Skyrim does exactly that. As Bludd notes, a lot of what the stats did was wrapped into the skills, making the system more consistent. Of course, there were a few other things the stats affected:
1. Player health, stamina, and magicka.
2. Carry weight.
3. Magicka regen.
4. Magic resistance.
5. Running speed.

And that's about it. Points one and two are set when you increase in level. Three and four are determined by equipment. The fourth isn't (much) of an option, though armor does determine how fast you can run (until you get the right perks). But personally I don't miss it. Movement speed is decent in Skyrim. Fast enough that you're not bored, slow enough that it doesn't make combat stupidly easy. Obviously that's going to be down to taste, but everything else about the other stats is present and accounted for within Skyrim, just in a simpler way. And generally, I am a big fan of having a simple system, especially if it is a simple system that contains within it a lot of power, as I feel Skyrim's system does.

Now, I do think that Skyrim has its faults. The user interface in particular is often clunky and cumbersome. Especially if you want to use dual weapons. I think that the quest lines are often too short. Skill progression for some skills is too fast, but for others is too slow (illusion is stupidly-easy to maximize, for example, while destruction, restoration, alteration, and the weapon skills take forever). I'm not really happy with the fact that you need to spent a lot of time getting skills up that you don't plan on spending any perks in.

But for the most part I think it's a superb game. Bethesda has done a good job of once again increasing the life and vibrancy of the game world. Conversations with NPC's feel much more natural than they did in previous games. Nearly every location in the game world has its own interesting lore, if you're willing to take a little bit of time to learn it. The equipment drops feel much more natural, and the auto-leveling is not nearly as jarring as it was in Oblivion.

If you really think that the game is better if it's more like playing a spreadsheet...well, then, we really don't have the same idea of what a game actually is.

 

[Malo]

Was going through my screenshots (only just today bothered reading up on how to take them without hud sorry), and found this one I managed to get by pure luck

 

[poopypoo]

Oh god so bored... you two are having the SAME EXACT conversation you had over oblivion. I can appreciate that Chalnoth doesnt want the doubters to gloss over the legitimate improvements. I certainly appreciate that Frank prefers Daggerfall and Morrowind (or more accurately, would prefer a straight up modern remake of them). And I like both you guys, based on previous conversations. I even like this debate topic. So by all means, continue, but please bring some new arguments to the table. Sadly I personally fall into the feeling that TES has degraded gameplaywise, but that they still have no competition, and are the best we'll see anytime soon (and construction kit in january yaaay!) ...anyone else think, in their heart of hearts, that the console makers pay bethesda to hold off on the construction kit to give their versions even footing?

 

[Bludd]

Nice 'shot, Malo.

 

[John Reynolds]

The lack of change to speed and jump is extremely annoying to me.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to miss that.

 

[N_B]

Frank already threw out a short list. To pretend that Skyrim has even a fraction of available character options as Morrowind is either being deliberately argumentative or demonstrates that one never played it. And I'm fairly sure you played it.

But sure lets start off with a generic "pool" stats compared to the more comprehensive stat system in Morrowind. For instant gratification, the ability to be more easily understood by those with less intelligence, and perhaps less frustrating to those with a lack of patience/attention it's great. But every single freaking race is now a virtual twin of every single freaking other race other than a resist and a racial ability. Yes, they are all naturally the same strength, run the same speed, jump the same height, just as hardy as each other...blah blah blah. Yay, Generic for the win.

For those that want have a specific type of hero in mind that they want to roleplay or to represent them in the game/simulation it's severly lacking. The fact that Stamina also affects carry weight isn't intuitive in the least. So everyone with X level of Stamina is the same as a person with X level of Strengh, Y level of Agility, and Z level of speed?

Perhaps I want to play a slow and plodding heavily muscled Knight. Oh wait. NM. Can't do that. EVERYONE moves at the same gdamn speed in Skyrim. EVERYONE has the same gdamn jump height. Which brings me to skills.

No athletics? You mean people in these worlds might not have trained to be a long distance runner? After all sprinting is the only thing "trainable" via Stamina. But that only affects sprint duration since everyone sprints at the same gdamn speed. In the world of Skyrim, EVERYONE is Usein Bolt.

You're wrong, race affects your intial skills, movement speed, attack damage, resistances, powers and other abilities (for example, imperials find more gold and khajiit do more damage with hand to hand). It also obviously affects how people will react to you.

How about merchantile versus speechcraft. A good merchant isn't necessarily a very good speaker. But no, in Skyrim that same merchant running the General Store is also an extraordinary speech writer, diplomat, wooer of women, and whatever else is lumped in there.

Oh hell, and lets eliminate medium armor. It's far far too confusing to players. Oh and blocking as well. Because well EVERYONE is a master at blocking with a shield.

Blocking remains a skill in the game you level up with its own perks etc. And medium armor was fairly useless in Morrowind.

Spellcrafting? Oh wait, it's not even there. Instead replaced by dualwielding or to put it another way a clunky way to craft spells except your only limited to 2 without the ability to modify any part of them. Smaller pool of possible enchants and less interesting to boot. Less potential types of potions. Less schools of magic, some of the spells being relocated but others just missing entirely.

How is dual weilding a replacement for spellcrafting? Has nothing to do with spells.

Birthsigns. Oh how tedious it must be be for short attention span gamers and "I win button" gamers to be tied to something that was set at birth of your character potentially 2 decades before you join him in the virtual world. Much easier to keep the attention spam (snaps fingers), eyes back here your attention was wandering player... As I was saying much easier to keep their interest if you can just change those types of affects willy nilly depending on the whim of the player. I'm sure Samson would have loved not to be tied to the weakness of losing his hair, or Achilles to that damn heel of his.

Finding stones to activate to assign powers is a superior mechanic. The ability to change birthsign is far better than being locked to one at the start of the game when you dont even know how useful it will be in the future. Same with the removal of classes, it's designed so you change the style of play early on without being punished for it.

[edit: adding in} Speaking of which you can't even have a weakness for your character. WTF? Yay for more generic bland sameness as other games.

Yes you can. Certain races and birthsign stones will give you a weakness, as well as diseases, poisons, magic etc.

 

[N_B]

Well, they did remove most of the effects increasing those skills had.

No, they're just perks in the skill tree, you just dont automatically get them anymore.

 

[Jedi2016]

I much prefer the standing stones over birthsigns and classes. I think they got that part right, developing the character as you play rather than setting certain things in stone at the beginning. It's hard walking into a game (or franchise, for that matter) without knowing ahead of time how you want to proceed. If I don't like the playstyle, I can just change it on the fly rather than deleting the character and starting over.

I do agree that some of the deep RPG elements did take a back seat this time around, and I absolutely blame consoles for that. I just hope they don't push it too much further in future titles.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Am I the only one that thinks Skyrim's quest design is a huge step back from FO3, especially FO NV and even Oblivion to some extent? Literally everything you do is of the Fex-Ex or kill variety. Speech only ever determines whether you can attain your goal via persuasion, intimidation or straight up violence. This would be fine if all three approaches didn't lead to the exact same outcome every single time since quests never really branch in interesting ways. Sure, there is a ton of stuff to do in Skyrim, but most of it is either bland, predictable or a combination of the two. Truly memorable stuff like the destruction of Megaton, letting Ghouls into Tenpenny Tower, the intertwined quest lines from FO:NV or the Dark Brotherhood quests from Oblivion are nowhere to be found in Skyrim. The main quest was surprisingly entertaining (if incredibly short), but that was about it really. I also thought that most of the really game changing perks came way too early, so the development of my character pretty much plateaued around level 25 or so.

 

[Davros]

as I employ a house cleaner in real life, I'm pretty sure I would try and hire other people to do the dangerous stuff.

Ok Frank I have to tell you this, tidying up is not dangerous.....

 

[KimB]

Am I the only one that thinks Skyrim's quest design is a huge step back from FO3, especially FO NV and even Oblivion to some extent? Literally everything you do is of the Fex-Ex or kill variety. Speech only ever determines whether you can attain your goal via persuasion, intimidation or straight up violence. This would be fine if all three approaches didn't lead to the exact same outcome every single time since quests never really branch in interesting ways. Sure, there is a ton of stuff to do in Skyrim, but most of it is either bland, predictable or a combination of the two. Truly memorable stuff like the destruction of Megaton, letting Ghouls into Tenpenny Tower, the intertwined quest lines from FO:NV or the Dark Brotherhood quests from Oblivion are nowhere to be found in Skyrim. The main quest was surprisingly entertaining (if incredibly short), but that was about it really. I also thought that most of the really game changing perks came way too early, so the development of my character pretty much plateaued around level 25 or so.

There's some pretty memorable stuff. I'd recommend visiting the blue palace in Solitude sometime. There's a quest there that starts with some guy coming up and petitioning the queen person there. Note that the quest is not over once you've gone through the first dungeon.

Also, have you tried the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim? I haven't yet, but it does begin in Windhelm (you quickly get a quest to talk to some kid upon entering the city).