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[Persus13]

Ah, I was thinking of Pay $1 to climb rocks. It lets you jump from higher up, I think that's where I got that.

You can also Pay to be able to headshot, apparently. Or Pay for a silencer. Even Pay for target highlighting?

Apparently you unlock all of those things in game, its just you can get them earlier by paying money.

Also is it me, or do at least of a third of the complaints in this thread use Bethesda games as an example?

[itisnotlogical]

Bethesda games, as much as I love them, have a lot of fundamental issues that vary depending on the generation of game. So while I love playing Skyrim, it has a lot of flaws, not all of which are fixed by mods (to my satisfaction anyway). Same for Morrowind, FO3, FONV and probably Oblivion and FO4 although I've never played either of those.

They're also immensely popular and in the public eye a lot, and such things tend to be divisive.

[Krevsin]

Fallout New Vegas was not a Bethesda game. It was made by Obsidian and used Fallout 3's engine.

[Shadowlord]

It still has issues due to using the same engine as fallout 3, the most notable to me being that it crashes frequently unless you install some mods and do some magic with your config files and shit. Also apparently it breaks completely if you get the win10 anniversary update and have been keeping your graphics drivers up to date. I saw a lot of posts to that effect, anyways.

I've played it recently without problems, after fixing the crashing problems with aforesaid magic, but I don't have the anniversary update (deferred upgrades ), and reverted from that driver to a previous one because it was (on my system anyways) ridiculously unstable.

[Damiac]

As I said before, I think the Deus Ex hacking minigame was pretty close to what a minigame should be, but they missed a couple of points.  Just aborting when the security alert timer started getting low should not have worked, you should have gotten an alarm in that case.  Plus, saving should have been restricted to some degree so you couldn't just savescum them, but that's a much bigger issue than minigames in general (although it is very relevant, a fail condition doesn't matter if it just means you reload and spend 30 seconds looking at a loading screen).

Unless I'm misremembering, Deus Ex's hacking consisted of a "Hack" button which worked 100% of the time, along with a security timer which counted down to an alarm while you were reading emails* (the time until it went off depended on your computers skill). Of course, you could often find the username and password and avoid the timer.

* if it was a security terminal, you'd finish reprogramming the cameras and turrets before you ran out of time anyways

Oops, no, I meant deus ex: HR, you know, the reboot.  Hacking in original deus ex was... annoying, but it did have a time pressure element at least. 

As for oblivion.... what a disappointment.  After playing the hell out of morrowind, oblivion was such a horrible step into what has become modern gaming.  It had Consolitis hard, the scaling made the whole world so... homogeneous, and don't even get me started on the 'procedurally generated' caves and dungeons.  Maybe that all would have been forgivable had they not made the combat just... horrible.  I mean, morrowind's combat was nothing special, but at least it wasn't just you bouncing off enemy shields until you realized stealth archery was the answer for everything.

Skyrim was a huge improvement to me, but still, it didn't regain the lost ground from oblivion.  Plus the dragon fighting... omg watching a stupid dragon fly around way up in the sky, trying in vain to hit it with arrows that do a tiny sliver of damage, then getting to do a little damage when it decided to land... dear god the horror...   How the hell do you manage to screw up fighting a goddamn dragon!?! 
I also think skyrim had mixed results with the new casting system.  Yeah, it was a big improvement in some ways, casting in morrowind and oblivion was just slow and clunky.  But the spells themselves felt so much less imaginative...

[Neonivek]

What was a hilarious result of the whole scaling issue is that for Oblivion...

The starting enemies were, in fact, much tougher then the end game enemies... because the smaller ones were harder to dodge and deal with. While the larger ones got huge tells and sometimes they were even less aggressive.

Even more funny is that there is an enemy that gets an upgrade later on (a bigger version of itself... I cannot remember its name... but it was a lizard) and while larger and capable of dealing more damage... it was pretty much a downgrade.

---

Then again the law of videogames is almost always: "If an enemy transforms into a larger one, it means the battle just de-escalated"

[Parsely]

You're probably thinking of scamps.

[Silverthrone]

, and don't even get me started on the 'procedurally generated' caves and dungeons.

Err, they weren't proc-genned. They were built in the editor. It's been ten years, of course, but I can't remember if proc-genned dungeons were part of the buzz. However, I think (emphasis on think) that they did use an automatic generation program of sorts to plop down trees and rocks in the forests during development. Which I'm ready to believe, because some parts of the woods felt a lot more hand crafted and pleasant, while others didn't really look... Foresty enough.
That's one thing they did for Skyrim in response to the abundant boring little caves, though, putting more people on dungeon building duty. I thought most of the dungeons in Ob was alright, at least the ones fleshed out and decorated a bit. The random caves quickly knocked together by a stressed intern is not something I miss, though.

Say what you will about Oblivion and Morrowind, though. At least there were attributes.

I don't know exactly what it is, but Bethesda games nowadays have either all skills or all attributes. Never both. Maybe it's part of their "making RPGs for both RPG players and non-RPG players, because that won't have any drawbacks at all" scheme, or maybe the astronomical budgets they work with means that they are so tight on the margins that they are forced to remove anything that might offend any potential dumb-dumbs and lose sales. It's "streamlined", perhaps, but streamlining isn't just a good thing (although you'd think it is by how idolised that term seems to have become), not all the time. Would someone who'd think of it as a deal-breaker even buy a nerdy game for losers with dragons and Thor and hobbits an' shit?

That's my pet peeve for the day, overall. Simplification for its own sake. Cutting stuff out, not necessarily replacing it with something, taking a system and boiling it back down to its simplest form. Just because that's what you do. Either to "reach a bigger market" or for its own sake, so you can say you've done it. Because it's a good thing by itself, apparently.
I'm still horribly disappointed of what Hearts of Iron 4 became. HoI3 got away from the usual tired WW2-themed Europa Universalis thing, and the emphasis on production efficiency and managing your armies' chain of command is something you just don't see very often, a pleasant little oddity that gave it a bit of bite and identity. It was stimulating, and captured the right spirit along with the excellent visual design. But no, grind it all off, boil it down, back to form. Just put the same old men to walk around on a map again. It might be a case of the Morrowind Effect for me, though. They do something different, and I build the expectation that that's what it's supposed to be like from now.

That's not to say that all streamlining is bad. I'm part of the crowd who thinks the talent-trees in World of Warcraft got better after they were boiled down. Yes, there was less choice, but the old system was just an exorcise in finding a few specking guides and picked the one that made people moan at you the least. It's when someone goes "complex BAAAD remove now!" or sandpapers off half of the game because the group testing department found that a newborn lamb couldn't figure the it out at a glance that I begin to grumble.

[Damiac]

I didn't mind too much about the loss of stats in skyrim, because previously they were tied into the nonsense leveling system that did its best to sap all the fun out of playing the damn game.  At least in skyrim I didn't have to worry too much about making sure to train up minor skills to get *5 to the right stats.

Plus, I don't think there was actually a lot of real choice in stats.  You wanted to max endurance asap, because it didn't retroactively give HPs, everyone wanted lots of str because it made the whole hauling loot exercise less painful, then depending on your main damage dealing method you'd have another stat or two you wanted to increase.

Similarly, I really didn't mind the removal of skills in fallout 4 because the ultra fine granularity in skills in the previous ones didn't actually mean anything, and you had to train to breakpoints anyway.  So to me simplifying the whole thing down to perks didn't actually take anything away.  Not that I would have complained if they kept the old system... except maybe the goofy hidden stat requirements for some perks, although that was more an issue in the old isometric ones more than 3 or NV as I recall.

[Silverthrone]

Yeah, it wasn't ideal. I just wish they'd given the leveling system a proper rework rather than stripping so much of it out. Particularly since it's still possible to gimp yourself in Skyrim, although thankfully much less easy to do while doing things properly like in Oblivion.

Above all, I miss the Speed stat. Not that it took much investment, it ran up on its own most times, but I liked that it had a real effect in gameplay. Zip along the dungeon, hop about, Errol Flynn them to death with your short sword. In Skyrim, you run and jump as good in the beginning as you ever will. Good game, massive improvements overall, but... Kitty wanty jump, kitty wanty abuse furniture in sword fight. : <

[Damiac]

That speed stat was a double edged sword.  Well, not really teh speed stat itself, but the skill involved, athletics.  If you wanted to have a fast character, you had to take the go fast skill as a minor skill, otherwise it would level up as you ran around the world and cause your character to level up.  So either you'd end up with levelups with *5 speed and nothing else, or it would mix in with your other levelups and you wouldn't get the *5 on speed.

In other words, if you wanted to go fast, you had to make sure to not take the go fast skill as a major.  That way you could let it train up for the *5 speed without it pushing you over the top into another level.  In fact... it seemed ideal to do that with all the skills you actually intended to use, so you never got an 'empty' level up.

morrowind had the same issue, but since it didn't have the same scaling problems oblivion had, it didn't end up ruining your character, it just made your inner min-maxer cry a little.

[Iceblaster]

Meeeh. I like Skyrim better than Oblivion. Sue me.

I got into Skyrim much easier because there's less worrying about not doing things correctly. A classless system made it twenty times easier, the lack of the strength, luck, dexterity, etc stats meant I worried less about being under statted for how far I am in the game.

Then again, I might just be an idiot console peasent

[Shadowlord]

I like Skyrim better too, but I think that's pretty close to universal. The real question is whether a person likes morrowind or skyrim better. I think morrowind had better writing, quests, plot, etc, but the combat "I stab and... my spear goes through you x50" left a lot to be desired, and installing mods for skyrim is much easier.

[Silverthrone]

I like Skyrim better too, but I think that's pretty close to universal. The real question is whether a person likes morrowind or skyrim better. I think morrowind had better writing, quests, plot, etc, but the combat "I stab and... my spear goes through you x50" left a lot to be desired, and installing mods for skyrim is much easier.

On the whole, Skyrim was better, and I did like it more. It just felt a bit too shallow in places, like they couldn't sort out the quirks of the leveling system and didn't have time to fill it with anything but a place holder. But Oblivion do have a special place in my heart. I do wish one could airlift the best fixes from Skyrim and slot them in an Oblivion with a level-system overhaul mod.

Of course, Skyrim is particularly fantastic if you're a real life Nord. I was worried, a lot of Norse-themed games has been rather themeparky. Skyrim did manage to make it work. It was like starring in one of the old legends yourself. Absolutely fabulous.

Meeeh. I like Skyrim better than Oblivion. Sue me.

I got into Skyrim much easier because there's less worrying about not doing things correctly. A classless system made it twenty times easier, the lack of the strength, luck, dexterity, etc stats meant I worried less about being under statted for how far I am in the game.

Then again, I might just be an idiot console peasent

Yes, quite a few Skyrim preferers still end up in court. Better be careful.

[milo christiansen]

My time with oblivion became 100% better after I threw together a quick mod. This mod added a item with attached "use" script that made your character level 50 with maxed attributes and skills (ALL the attributes and skills).

You were a little OP, but level scaling was history, and the game was very difficult starting out (high level monsters vs low level equipment). I could wear anything I wanted and use any weapon I wanted (provided it was fairly high level).

By wearing cool looking, but fairly crappy, armor and turning the combat difficulty to the max the game was actually fairly hard and I had no leveling anxiety at all.

Nowadays I use the OBXP mod, which ditches the "do it to raise it" system for a traditional XP based system, with a far more balanced fixed reward system for attributes and skill points. I normally prefer "do it to raise it", but oblivion made it painful.

Skyrim made "proper" leveling easy enough that I no longer needed to resort to such hacks, which is one reason why I love it. Ifonly they had done away with leveled items...

I like leveled monsters, that way I can do what I like with no need to follow a certain order, but leveled items are simply painful. If you get an awesome unique sword at level 5, it becomes a totally crap unique sword at level 20. It would be OK if the sword upgraded with you every time you level, but there are better solutions.


My personal RPG pet peeve is awesome looking low level equipment (especially armor). I really hate it when I need to remove my cool looking imperial steel armor (to use skyrim as an example) simply because it is too weak compared to my new set of dragon bone. Same goes for weapons, Maybe I want to use a glass dagger with a poison enchant (green dagger + poison == awesome), but it is simply too weak compared to the best I can get, so I end up with dragon bone or daedric instead.

I would love a system where you could imbue any item with the "spirit" of a different item. That way you could look however you want, but have the stats you need to succeed.