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pezus said:
I see. What would you say has been dumbed down from Oblivion? The mechanics seem pretty similar to me but then again, I haven't gotten as far as you. |
There are no stats any longer, you have regenerating health and a lot more stamina, only some attacks cost stamina, the spells are in essence infinite in power since you regenerate mana and it goes rather quickly and they removed a whole lot of skills, smacking all the weapons into two categories and doing the same with some magic schools. In addition, they removed two of the most usefull skills from previous games; athletics and acrobatics. Athletics allows you run faster teamed up with speed, something this game could have used since you move extremely slow (there is a sprint function but the staminga drain is much too rapid so its largely useless). Acrobatics allowed for higher and longer jumps, again something that could come in handy seeing as how most of your time is spent in, on and around mountains and steep terrain, the jumping is horrible now and you can barely clear the fences around people's yards. Acrobatics also dampened fall damage, which is pretty handy at times. The removal of strength also seriously hampers your ability to carry stuff (I laugh at the idea that a big, strong fighter may actually carry less than a stealthy thief since the extra carrying capacity perk is in the sneak tree...) and since no one will buy stolen goods, I find myself dumping gear all the time. I could stop stealing things but that would end the biggest possible income source for a Thief character and would also mean that I won't be able to level up the Theif skills, rendering the whole thing useless. The perk system doesn't specialize you, it makes every class less relevant imo.
They claim they developed the perk system for further possibilities with specialization but it ultimately ends up biting its own ass slightly, you have far too few perks (max 50) to level up more than about three skills with all perks and the skill points themselves seem to do nothing so the perks are key. There is also the annoying tidbit of having no way to rid yourself of stolen goods until you have some leeway with the thieves guild, you need a speech skill of around 90 to unlock the "fence" perk which allows you to bribe merchants into buying stolen goods. This makes the whole Thief/Stealth character largely useless in the first ten or so hours of the game.
I also feel like some of the skills level up way too fast, I already have a pickpocket skill of 99 and have experienced gaining up to six levels in that skill alone simply from pickpocketing one persons items, which yields almost one full character level. That's kind of silly since I'll be spending perhaps 80-90 hours with a character that has already maxed one perk tree, leaving me the agonizing wait for the ones that are much slower to level (archery, lockpicking and sneak take a long ass time compared to pickpocket and this seems highly unbalanced).
All in all, they removed a heap of RPG elements, replaced them with simple mechanics, built an engine that leaves a lot to be desired compared to a lot of contemporary titles due to being made first and foremost for consoles and the menu system feels like it was designed for a gamepad (which it is, of course) and feels cumbersome and slow on the PC. How about adding a simply radial menu using the numeric keys like in Morrowind? Its simple and works, instead you need to scroll through all the favourited spells and weapons every time.
Like I've mentioned, I do like the game, its a good game but not a fantastic one and I cannout fathom how so many reviewers could let it get away with such glaring flaws and blatant stripping of RPG elements, I don't want any more bragging about how "deep" WRPG's are from here on out... And these were the same reviewers who knocked games like Dragon Age 2 for doing the exact same thing as Skyrim; making it overly simple to try to cater to a group that aren't normally keen on RPG's. At this rate, the next Elder Scrolls game will be a more or less pure action RPG.
