Skyrim Improvements, we all know the bad stuff so.... Options

[Lady Saga]

Good day to all. I am Lady Saga, and today I'd like to talk about Skyrim's improvements.

I did a bit of lurking thru the Skyrim forums at Bethsoft this morning. It's slow at my job today, and I am fortunate to get time to just surf the 'net instead of finding "busy work" to do. It's been 4 months, and still there are folks out there making a fuss about the stuff that's missing in Skyrim. It gets old...it's been old reading about this stuff. Personally, I'd much rather focus on the things which make me pleased.

So here. Let us start an actual list on the stuff that we feel are Skyrim Improvements. and feel free to agree and/or disagree as you see fit. We're all friends here. The reason I'm starting this thread, folks, is because it's rare Bethesda actually has been congratulated on the things they've done right.

1). Lack of hand-holding. I would guesstimate that just under 50% of gamers on the forums wanted Skyrim to be more like Morrowind, so far as hand-holding goes. Although I've never played Morrowind, I know a few things about how this game starts, more or less. You start off on a boat, you are a freed prisoner (correct me if I'm wrong), other than this, the game provides few details about who you are, and what you are supposed to do.

I like this. I like starting with a clean slate like this, free of pop-ups being thrown in my face every 30 seconds. I like the need to figure out what comes next on my own. Although I'm not gonna compare Skyrim with what I know about how Morrowind does it, the fact that the game doesn't just hand-hold during the beginning, even as we're being attacked by a fearsome dragon!, is an improvement. I liked the fact that it was up to me to figure out what was going on throughout the rest of the Tutorial, and an NPC was there to teach me what to do (rather than a set of pop-up messages).

I'm not saying pop-up messages and hand-holding never occurs in Skyrim, what I'm saying is it's easier to avoid, easier to ignore, if the player wants to do so.
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2). The Clairvoyance Spell. My magic-based characters use this spell occasionally. It's a creative way to avoid the need to look at the 3D world map and quest markers, if one is trying to avoid doing so.
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3). With my non-magic characters, I have the option of using that brown paper map if we want to avoid the in-game 3D map.

Although Bethesda has never given an explanation on what that paper map is for, I'm convinced it's a clever way for us roleplayers to further immerse ourselves in the game. It's not just a nerdy thing to hang on our walls.

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4). Gathered ingredients actually disappear for awhile. This is kinda like the way it was in Sims2: Castaway, although I don't know if Beth stole this idea from Castaway or some other game. It's pretty cool imo that if we pick an ingredient, a mushroom, a flower, etc. it actually shows it being picked. My only criticism here is it shows an entire group of items being picked at once, yet only one flower or mushroom (whatever) appears in our inventory? Huh.

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5). Better magical animations, especially in the Destruction school. I've always thought Oblivion's fireballs, lightning, and other thrown spells seemed to move too slowly, and are way too easy to dodge. The first time a Fireball moved towards my character in Skyrim I was REALLY FRICKING SCARED of it. That particular character (Thor a'Zaene) vowed a fear of magic, and tended to run whenever he encountered stuff he didn't understand.

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6). The HUD. I realize that Bethesda probably never comes here to Chorrol.com but THANK YOU for allowing us to vary the opacity of the HUD. I used to put several pieces of electrical tape over the compass in Oblivion. Not only does it hand-hold for us, telling us what's coming up and what's going down, but I just found it annoying to have a "compass" that is always working for us. It defeats the purpose of playing a game in which I find myself wanting to get lost on occasion.

It's so awesome those of us who want to use this device can still do so, but those of us who don't want to can just turn it off. Or turn it down.

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7). Dragons. Although I have yet to have a dragon-filled game, I think these beasts are pretty cool. Some say they're "too generic" in this medieval setting, but whatever. I think they totally fit AND I like the fact that if we don't want them in our game, we can do something about this.

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8). Variably leveled encounters. Another thing Beth did right imo is to include areas of the game that are much tougher than anything we'll typically encounter in the Whiterun area, even if we're still at Level 1. The game isn't just filled with rats, wolves, and simple NPC's (as in Oblivion), it's possible to run into something much meaner.

Some say this is not a good thing, since we can't just go anywhere at lower levels. I think it's an improvement though...a challenge...if you will.

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9). Snow effects. They're not as good as I thought they would be (I was picturing snow would accumulate and stuff) but the way snow swirls and tends to move about in Skyrim, to the point that there are times we can barely see where we're going, is an improvement to the simple flurries of OBlivion. Real snow can be light or heavy, after all.

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10). Crafting, enchanting, Alchemy, etc. It's not just the fact that we get more activities in this game, Pseron Wyrd (over at Bethsoft) pointed out that the way Skyrim does it eliminates need to exit the game entirely into different menus. We get to watch our character make potions, make weapons, etc., instead of just having to imagine this stuff.


Phew. that's enough for now. I'm sure I'll think of dozens of other things as time goes on.

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This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Mar 23 2012, 03:28 PM

[Lady Saga]

@SubRosa: Yea, I suppose you're right. There are NPCs in the beginning who help guide us, which can be seen as hand-holding. I'd rather they do it than an invisible DM, though. To be fair, Oblivion also has NPC's helping us in the beginning, too...it's not just pop-ups solely. Truth is, I like certain things about Oblivion's tutorial more than Skyrim's. We could sit here all day discussing the plusses and minuses between the 2 games...maybe that's for another thread.

I didn't know about those mods. In Sims Castaway, a team of Sims are stuck on a deserted island. Every ingredient which is picked gets removed...vines, bananas, coconuts, etc. I kinda doubt Sims is the originator of this stuff, though.

Oh yea, I agree on those bounty quests, too. It's pretty cool, we never run out of stuff to do. I imagine even somebody who doesn't roleplay at all (and who's just simply addicted to the game) will find themselves looking forward to their next assignment.


@McBadgere: yea, that's true. I have yet to make a dual-wielding character, but it is a cool addition. Whenever one of my characters gets attacked by a dual-wielder, the extra damage is noticeable. Not being able to block really sucks though. It makes no sense. I really think in this case it was Beth dropping the ball. I don't think Beth was lazy (as the Bethsoft hatahs constantly complain) I think it was more a case of Beth not being able to implement blocking properly, for whatever reason.

Have the modders been able to implement dual-wield blocking yet? I'm betting they have, or eventually will.


@Grits: Oh yea...Followers are awesome. It took me a long time (almost 3 years) to figure out how to get constant followers in Oblivion. I would basically start, but never finish, quests. Dyan phor a'Cauz wound up having those 2 brothers (the ones that are supposed to go to Weatherleah) during the final stages of KotN, for instance, which really sparked up her game towards the end.

Lots of people are saying followers are too dumb in Skyrim, but there are improvements. They actually go into sneak mode with us, for instance. Yes, they also rush into battle at the wrong moments sometime, but there are creative ways to avoid this. I usually tell my follower to "wait" if I want my character to scout the next area of a dungeon alone with less hassle, for instance.


@ Kiln: wow, that sucks. See, that's exactly why I don't want dragons in my game, why I'm not initiating any of those questlines. 130+ seems way too excessive. Even in DnD and all the tabletop games, dragons were pretty rare, so far as random encounters go. It all depended on the DM back in those days, of course, but the actual random encounter tables for monsters usually had dragons as something which showed up very rarely.

I'd still say dragons are welcome in the game. But not every time my character goes for a travel. *shudders*


@Mustard: cool. Haven't even tried Shouts yet. I'm reserving that for some of my later characters, I think.

@McBadgere 2: I'd say Oblivion's waterfalls are spectacular too. Skyrim's are just different. The way water moves is a certain improvement for sure. One of my characters (Thor) used to love swimming. It's cool getting sucked into a stream of water and it actually pulls us somewhere. .

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Mar 26 2012, 12:48 PM