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

[Lady Saga]

Uh oh...as soon as I saw you posted here, I knew there'd be some strong opinions! But I know you well enough now that I also know you'll only post fair opinions, Thomas.


Agreed on the handholding being easier to ignore, but there is a related issue I'd like to talk about here: Skyrim is incredibly condescending and patronizing. The game tries pretty hard, for instance, to shove quests into your face just so there is absolutely no chance in Oblivion for the player to miss them. What was so wrong with a random lone passerby on the road somewhere? That served as enough of a marker that he might have a small quest for me in Morrowind. Now, not only do we get the random passersby, they practically scream at you (literally) "I have a quest for you, talk to me!!!" And sometimes, they even force you into the conversation to start the quest.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, but then I have not played Morrowind, yet. But I will someday.

I don't mind thay they want us to pay attention to their concerns, and these concerns turn into quests. This is realistic. All my characters so far in Skyrim have been adventuring sorts (with one cleric). It makes sense that some needy NPC's want us to help them. A lot of them perhaps don't have the means, the bravery, or the will to do it themselves. I get this.



Then there are the quest markers, which are a fairly obvious crutch for Bethesda now. For almost 90% of the quests, your ONLY directions are the quest marker. And they don't point you simply to the general location you need to be, but to the exact thing you need to interact with. And those things are already pretty obvious to begin with, so these quest markers are pretty condescending at the same time. Yes, I KNOW that Draugr is the boss I need to kill, or that giant lever in the middle of the room is the one I need to pull, get rid of that friggin arrow already!!

Huh. I dunno...this one doesn't bother me. It would be nice if NPC's gave more descriptive instructions, I agree there. But the quest markers themselves can be toggled on or off, at least we have more choices here. That's all I wanted before 11/11/11 on this issue: more choices.


Tutorial? Well I personally love the message that pops up telling you "your Health is low" right in the middle of combat, like I'm too stupid to figure out what an almost empty giant red bar that depletes when I get hit means, interrupting me in the heat of the moment and completely breaking flow. Really? There's a fine line between tutoring and patronizing, and the game leaps a mile over it right here.

alll right...all right.... Yea, if you go thru the Tutorial step by step, sure there are some handholding and whatnot. My point there was overall, this Tutorial seemed to flow more, with less messages being thrown into my face, than Oblivion's.


So while it is easier to avoid some of these things (quest markers can be turned off, for example) it doesn't change that it feels like the devs are treating the players like they are five years old.

Sorry man. I get what you're saying, but I don't fully agree. I don't get that "5 year old" feeling in Skyrim like I did in Oblivion. Sure, things could have been done differently, and it would be nice to have more options here, but what handholding there is in Skyrim doesn't bother me personally.

Handholding as a whole is dumbed-down, and that's an improvement to me. I've seen folks over at Bethsoft complaining that they want it more like Oblivion, which makes me What if it were more hand-holdy? I'm glad they didn't add more.

Personally, I really really was wanting some sort of a hardcore mode in Skyrim. If there's an area I feel "patronized", it's the fact that there's all this food and drink lying around, plenty of beds, but there's no need to participate if we don't want to. We never actually have to eat or sleep if we dont' want to. That just doesn't seem right.


Still would prefer a proper means of directions, but Clairvoyance is a step in the right direction.

Yea, I know...would be nice if more NPC's gave us more specific directions. In one of my very first quests, the claw one, the lady at Riverwood's general store actually walked outside with my character at the time and pointed the way for him. i thought this was really clever and thought all the quest directions would be like this. Not so......




Agreed. There's no rule against thinking outside the box in an RPG.

I just made a dual color copy of my map this past weekend, and taped it together, so that when I start using it, I won't be marking up the original map that came with the game.


I think Beth got the idea from modders. One of the most popular mods for Oblivion was Harvest Flora, which did exactly this.

Cool!



I understand you play on console and that the UI experience is a different story there, but coming from a PC user, that UI is the most unintuitive, clunky piece of junk I've ever seen.

Well I wasn't talking about the User Interface on that one, I was talking of the HUD only, the ability to turn off the compass more specifically. I don't mind the UI, personally but I wouldn't consider it an improvement in and of itself. I've heard it sucks on PC. You can just mod taht out, though, right?

what I DO mind the hotkey system though. Do you know we only get 2 hotkey choices on console? It's ludicrous I tell ya!

Anyone here read Beowulf? If you did, then you know why Dragons fit Skyrim like a glove.

Never have, but the dragons can possibly appear in every tabletop RPG I'd ever played in the past. Taht being said, I'm still afraid of them, and I still have no desire to introduce them into my games.


The leveling is still a little overzealous in areas (Draugr Deathlords), but it has definitely been improved.

Yup. I woulda done a couple things different, but then, so would all of us. It's miles better than Oblivion in certain ways, though, leveling up is.


Now, if only Bethesda could actually fix the snowflakes going through the ceiling...

Yea, everyone was hoping this would finally get addressed. Oh well.


It is nice to watch, indeed. The crafting features are quite badly balanced, unfortunately, but it doesn't change that they are nice to have. One thing I think is missing, though: upgradable personal crafting stations, like buying a new Alembic for my alchemy table or improving the Magetallows on my enchanter. Oh well, maybe next time.


Maybe with DLC, too.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Apr 13 2012, 01:19 AM

[Thomas Kaira]

What can I say? I'm a passionate guy.

Well I wasn't talking about the User Interface on that one, I was talking of the HUD only, the ability to turn off the compass more specifically. I don't mind the UI, personally but I wouldn't consider it an improvement in and of itself. I've heard it sucks on PC. You can just mod taht out, though, right?

what I DO mind the hotkey system though. Do you know we only get 2 hotkey choices on console? It's ludicrous I tell ya!

And I thought only eight was bad...

I mean, really, I have over a hundred buttons on my controller, why shouldn't I be allowed to use them all?

Anyways, a good portion of the horridness of the UI can be modded away, but there are a few things that can't, like broken key rebindings (re-mapping the movement controls causes mayhem) or flat-out wrong tool-tips (says to press Enter to confirm a Wait, for instance, when E does exactly the same thing and doesn't require me to move my hands around) which are affected by and don't update to reflect our key rebindings. Also, key commands change for no reason between menus, like the Container menu where E in the player inventory is Use while E in the container inventory is Take. Which means E in the player inventory should be Put Away so to keep similar controls on the same key, but they aren't. Wondering why those Daedra Hearts you supposedly put away weren't there? You probably ate them.

It's a catastrophe, I am dead serious. THE worst UI Bethesda has ever made.

The HUD is fine, I will say that. But the rest of the UI... it must burn.

Oh, and on the topic of quest givers, what Morrowind did was place certain quest-giving NPCs out in the middle of nowhere someplace where they would stick out. Misc quest givers in cities often needed to be hunted down, and that I'm not really a fan of (why would I bother hunting people down because they want me to clean their toilets). About the same as someone having a conversation on the street about some interesting topic you then choose to ask about, actually, so I'm not criticizing Skyrim in any way there (all things considered, that's better than what Morrowind did, how exactly did that guy end up 50 miles away from the rest of the world, anyway?). The only thing I don't like is when after the conversation takes place (or doesn't) you get force-greeted by one of the NPCs who then attempts to sucker you into the quest (Brynjolf, I'm looking at you).

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 13 2012, 03:49 AM

[Lady Saga]

And I thought only eight was bad...

I think what happened is there are thousands upon thousands of gamers out there complained about "only" having 8 choices. So with the new Favorites system we can have as many choices as we want. The problem is on consoles, for some reason, Beth could only get 2 of these to work during real-time gameplay. That's my theory. But it sucks for us Xbox and PS3 users. I don't know how it works on Xbox, but there are 4 extra hotkeys that go unused on PS3.

If you ask me, Oblivion's hotkey system was fine. 8 choices are plenty. 2 are not.

Anyways, a good portion of the horridness of the UI can be modded away, but there are a few things that can't, like broken key rebindings (re-mapping the movement controls causes mayhem) or flat-out wrong tool-tips (says to press Enter to confirm a Wait, for instance, when E does exactly the same thing and doesn't require me to move my hands around) which are affected by and don't update to reflect our key rebindings. Also, key commands change for no reason between menus, like the Container menu where E in the player inventory is Use while E in the container inventory is Take. Which means E in the player inventory should be Put Away so to keep similar controls on the same key, but they aren't. Wondering why those Daedra Hearts you supposedly put away weren't there? You probably ate them.

Ahhh that sucks, man.

... so I'm not criticizing Skyrim in any way there (all things considered, that's better than what Morrowind did, how exactly did that guy end up 50 miles away from the rest of the world, anyway?). The only thing I don't like is when after the conversation takes place (or doesn't) you get force-greeted by one of the NPCs who then attempts to sucker you into the quest (Brynjolf, I'm looking at you).

Huh. I dunno, this don't bother me. Overall I like the way quests manifest in Skyrim better than Oblivion. There could be improvements, there always could be improvements, but I don't have any major probs here. Sure, there are little inconsistencies here and there....


...just give me the old hotkey system, hopefully include a hardcore mode in future DLC, and I'll be a near 100% happy gamer.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Apr 13 2012, 03:16 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

I think what happened is there are thousands upon thousands of gamers out there complained about "only" having 8 choices. So with the new Favorites system we can have as many choices as we want. The problem is on consoles, for some reason, Beth could only get 2 of these to work during real-time gameplay. That's my theory. But it sucks for us Xbox and PS3 users. I don't know how it works on Xbox, but there are 4 extra hotkeys that go unused on PS3.

If you ask me, Oblivion's hotkey system was fine. 8 choices are plenty. 2 are not.

Yup, and that there is one of my serious gripes about the UI: the Favorites menu. I understand the concept, but ultimately what we got in Skyrim was a step backwards from the previous hotkey (or HotPad for the consoles) system. It's just a single alphabetized list of stuff in a corner of your screen that gets more and more cluttered and difficult to use the more you actually use it.

If they were serious about the UI and not completely fixated on the "let's imitate Apple!" psychology, that menu would have never survived testing. If you want to see what the menu should have been, this is a pretty good example.

Let that be a testament to just how many basic rules Bethesda ignored making this UI. It really doesn't matter to me if console users like it, it is flawed in every way you can imagine from a design standpoint (which trumps all others) and needs to be banished forever.

Here's a good article outlining what I mean.

[Lady Saga]

Thanks for the links there, Thomas. I'm about to get busy gaming, so I'll check them out later.