LE Why is skyrim: without mods, so bland... and unbalanced.

[Vexus16]

I can't wrap my head around how lame the original game is. They put all this effort into a brilliant game engine, and brilliant graphics, and wonderful art, but the gameplay? It's horrible, and so boring. Let me list what I don't like about this game.

 

Lockpicking, and pick pocketing.

 

Are you kidding me? What the f*#@ is this about? Who in their right mind would even consider investing in those trees in vanilla skyrim. Was it that hard to come up with a bit more content for them? In 500 hours of gameplay, I never once put a perk in either of these trees.

 

These should be in the same tree with perks like disarming your opponent, and actual visual animations of you swatting it out of their hand or something, I'd have personally made an alteration spell to unlock doors that would have required perks in this tree to open harder locks. You could even have made arguments for including perks that lower cast times (Fingerwork). That would be enough incentive to make anyone consider this tree. They could have invented items like beehives, that the player could put in a person's inventory to make them run in fear, they could have used the same graphics that they do on the spriggan spells.

 

It would have also been nice to have the option to lock a door as well as open it, but the player command lock should be temporary, and only one level. This would have been an interesting situational escape mechanism, infact I already do this with the console commands when I'm playing, and I want to act out a chase. (I run in with 4 people chasing me, and lock the door with only one person in with me. Then I kill him, and cast invisibility, and unlock the door again, and sneak out. This is how robin hood rolls I'd imagine)

 

Why did bethesda put such boring perks in this tree, I just don't understand...

 

 

Melee combat perks

 

I thought these trees were over complicated for a game that is already diverse enough as it is, and doesn't need to be made more so. With a game with as many options for combat as this one you don't want to have to think "shall I use an axe, mace or sword?" You want to think "shall I use a one hander or a two hander or a bow, or magic, etc". The one handed tree should have had two pathways, one focusing on speed, with perks to encourage offhanded casting, and dual casting, and the other focusing on heavy damage, with perks to inflict wounds on the target doing damage over time, and perks to encourage offhanding a shield.

 

Block should never have been a tree by itself. It's bland and unexciting. Even if you do invest in it because you realize it's actually beneficial, you have to feel like your now choosing boring, unexciting gameplay over what should really be enticing, and wonderful trees like sneak, and magic trees. has anyone wondered why the generic "skyrim player" is a level 12 in full iron armour and a sword and a shield, and not a novice mage or a thief? because the casual gamer goes for the easiest gameplay, and that was block and onehanded.

 

I can't comment on the two handed tree really, because I've actually never used it, but here is a tree where weapon specialty would have been very good. This tree should have focused on enhancing the glory of wielding a big sword. I'd have liked to see perks that gave you special power attacks like a cut scene attack where your player slams the ground with a war hammer, and everyone wobbles and staggers, or a cut scene of your character spinning around in a whirlwind with his broadsword. I didn't see any of that, so I'm not impressed with this tree either.

 

Crafting

 

Smithing

 

Crafting in skyrim is direly boring, and overpowered. Never ever should a game reward for you for spamming iron daggers, and grinding skills. Especially not in a single player! I would have liked to see our characters have to find recipes in the form of books before being able to craft anything more than iron. I would have liked to have seen a leveling cap per day on grinding, and the majority of exp should have been rewards from quests, which there should have been a lot more of in regard to smithing etc.

 

On top of this, instead of making stuff like daedric armor so easy and available, special armor, and unique weapons should only have been able to be crafted from specific forges, forcing your character to venture into a cave before he can cast a wonderful and rewarding item. This would have made a lot more sense, and made the game a llot more rewarding.

 

Alchemy

 

As for alchemy, well that was s#*! too. I do not want to constantly pause my game every 4 seconds to apply a potion, in-fact I normally forget to anyway. It's s#*!. I would have liked to have seen a hot key to apply health, stamina, or magic potion, and this is what we should have had instead of a favorites menu. The button could have been designed to be clever as well, using whatever potion you needed most, but prioritizing health over stamina and magicka. This would have been much more convenient without breaking the game. It's not like it makes you immortal either, you run out of potions, you die, and you can still pause the game and apply a specific potion.

 

As well as poisons I'd have liked to have seen potion bombs; something the player could equip and throw at people with varying effects, and there's absolutely no point even having an alchemy tree unless it's focused on offering combat convenience. People who invest in this tree should be able to drink a potion like resist, and the effect only applies when he enters combat against that element. Alchemists should get spells and enchantments to autoloot plants as they pass them. Alchemists should be able to que poisons on they're blade, and have the next one apply after the first one wears off without you having to do it manually. Without convenience your average player will forget about the alchemy tree completely, I think, and therefore I think this tree should reward it.

 

Enchanting

 

Enchanting is also pretty bland. I want to see rings that add unique spells to my inventory, not frost fire or shock damage, come onnnn. Imagine a ring that, while you wear it, adds a spell that lets you summon a dragon priest, or a bear. That would be a nice enchant. On top of that you could have had gauntlets that charge your weapon whenever you kill something, and this way you decide to sacrifice skill enchants like one handed for convenience. We could have seen rings that let you hover, just like a vampire lord, but in your normal form, boots that walk on water, armor with spell cloak effects, permanent clairvoyance, a hat that gives you a spell that lets you transform yourself to look like your target? and then adds bounty to that target when you commit crimes.

 

They also could have made enchanting a little more complex, and made us look for recipes as well as disenchant. It would have been nice if disenchant did more than just teach you a spell effect, and maybe spawned a soul gem, or even a soul for an empty gem. Master enchanters could have had spells to disenchant an enemy's armor, or buffed a follower in the heat of a battle. I would have liked to have seen a drain magicka spell that also charges your weapon at the same time, and mind control dwemer automoton... so many things they could have done, but in fairness this tree was the best out of all the crafting trees.

 

Speechcraft

 

Now this tree was another waste of potential. Considering the game is based around shouting, you'd think they'd make speech a bit more interesting, wouldn't you. The speech tree should primarily affect your followers, your ability to recruit more, and some perks to buff them would be nice. A nice perk would have been to include the ability to make your follower complete tasks for you, like harvesting ingredients or collecting souls in soul gems, and even charging your weapons for you without you having to ask, and suddenly speech craft is a tree you do want to invest in.

 

Speech craft should increase damage, and reduce cooldown of your shouts. It should unlock dialogue options to make you look more like a bad ass, and include options to convince human enemy's not to attack you. I wanted to see perks that let you blag your way through a bandit camp

 

"Do you have roggi's shield?"

"Yh"

"Piece of s#*! isn't it. Here you can have this cool thing I found earlier if I can have the shield"

 

and "shout" kill moves, and guard bribing, more situations deliberately concocted to provide you an advantage if you have high speech craft, like a beggar outside a thieves guild quest targets house, that you can convince to make a scene and draw everyone attention away from the house. Speechcraft should ultimately give you the power to summon a dragon, or something.

 

Dialogue

 

This was another thing that irritated me. It's almost as if they were worried we wouldn't understand what was going on unless they spell it out for us, so they craft dialogue scenes like some random nord you've never seen before asking some random blacksmith to make armor and weapons for soldiers, who suggests "Why don't you go ask the enemy blacksmith" With absolutely no hint of sarcasm in her voice what so ever, and the nord says "No, I'd rather bend my knee to ulfric stormcloak" before turning to the player, and lifting up his armor to show you his "I'm not a stormcloak" T-shirt.

 

The characters were so boring, and their dialogue was worse than the content of a porn movie. The story line was good, don't get me wrong, and I suppose they have to sacrifice some quality in story writing to cater for a video game, but for me there's no excuse for scenes like lord harkon telling you how to hit people with your hands "when you run out of magicka you can descend and fight like the beasts do" No f*#@ing s#*! sherlock. instructions for how to play should be written down and flashed onto your screen, not woven into the dialogue in some desperate bid to create immersion.

 

Spells

 

Magic trees like conjuration, Illusion, and alteration are useless really. These trees should have had a lot more done to them, combat wise. I would have even made illusion, and alteration the same thing, and reworked spells like calm.

 

I imagine the illusion tree to be a vampiric option of game play and therefore i would imagine spells like mind controlling your enemy, or possessing them, letting you control them as you would your own character for a brief while, while your actual character stands there in a trance. Invisibility is standard, but spells like muffle, shouldn't exist or be something you have to hold down. Muffle should also be a chameleon spell as well, and make you silent, the next best thing from invisibility. I liked spells like frenzy, and invisibility.

 

If I was to try and invent more spells for the illusion tree I'd come up with a spell that summons a creepy child. She would attract the attention anyone who sees her, who isn't in a city or a populated area, and they'd follow her away. You could have the spell cast a return point for the girl to walk to first, and then summon her when the spell is cast again.

 

I don't know about anyone else but I've never invested in the restoration tree. It seems to me that this tree does what it's supposed to, and offers you more mana, and stronger healing spells. I would also add perk that let you turn into a ghost after death once a day or something, and then give you ghost abilities to use in ghost form before you re awaken in your corpse. Just something to make you want to invest. Every tree should have a selling point.

 

Conjuration works well too, but I don't think bound weapons should be better than normal ones. Conjurer's should get a shout button ability to enchant their weapons, and this would work over enchants already on the weapons, and make the tree worth investing in. Master level conjurers should be able resurrect everyone in the room, and have an unlimited follower count potential for temporary zombie companions. Lower level conjurers should get a permanent spirit pet, to last them until max level, and I'd give conjurers abilities to summon evil twins of people. They should also get a teleport spell, and a blink ability. Convenience wise, it'd be nice to see conjuerable companions to share carry wheight. I want spells that let me select a destination, and teleport people there; cast a rune in a prison cell, then teleport some random guy there.

 

A mass AoE that teleports everyone in it to oblivion where loads of minions wait to attack them, and then after 8 seconds the same AoE is cast over them again, and they reappear in the room with you as well as any mobs that wandered into that AoE from oblivion.

 

Alteration should have spells that paralyze people, or turn them into rabbits, or turn your companions into cave bears. Alteration should let you change the weather at will, providing you with buffs like healing rain, sneak improving fog, and strength increasing sunlight. On a basic level alteration would obviously give us our armor buff spells, and magelight of course, but the dungeons should be annoyingly dark to make magelight useful. Alteration casters should also have spells that make rooms darker, and improve your sneak at early level, and maybe a permanent increase in carry weight just for investing in the tree to combat the sacrifice in stamina a mage has to make. This is the dullest magic tree for me, and I never invest in it. Ideally it should be a standard accomplice to any mage build, but I bet it's not. It's not for me.

 

I'm actually pretty tired now. I haven't even started on armor; capes and backpacks should have been in the vanilla game, or one of the expansion. Why is it a user made mod? Frostfall should also have been in the vanilla game, not a user made mod. Why are bandits scantily dressed. why is their a torch in every cave, and is there even any point in having food items in the game :/

[Jason2112]

The games head designer passed away a few months before the release date. I'm just guessing here but I think they did the best they could with it after that. May be the reason the CK was included. What a shame he never seen what we have done with his masterpiece. Followers of Skyrim were not about to let it fade away. The modders more then made up for any loss. Truly an Epic story to be sure!

 

 

I could be wrong not even sure where I seen that.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Jason2112

[Jokerine]

So where's the request again?

[LordSarcasm]

This seems more like a general discussion than a request, but not my thread so I'll just go with it.

 

Well it's pretty obvious that the game is biased towards a warrior type play style. Just consider the broken leveling system. Combat skills level much faster than anything else, except for enchanting. Yes enchanting levels the absolute fastest of any of the skills even if you don't use it all that often. Then the magic skills in general are pretty unbalanced. Restoration levels the slowest but is probably the most useful. I've been Skyrim for well over a year now and only just last playthrough have I ever seen my restoration skill higher than level 50. Alteration levels the fastest but is the most boring of any kind of magic considering its geared almost exclusively toward mage armor (actually OP, there already IS a paralysis spell for alteration). The only remarkabll thing it does is telekinesis, and that's just a novelty spell. Waterbreathing is pointless because you can't cast it where you actually need it... underwater... Illusion doesn't level nearly as fast as it should. It's useful at low levels, and pretty fun at high levels, but unless you use it almost exclusively you won't get any use out of it in the mid levels. Destruction I think is just boring and the least mana efficient, but neither is it useless. Conjuration I think is the most balanced except for maybe the high mana cost.

 

Moving on to the infamous speech skill. It levels so f*****g slow! Again, like Restoration you can use it all the time and still never see it get above level 50 in an entire playthrough! Up till recently I just unlocked every door through the console, but started using lockpicking more extensively because the console is pretty immersion breaking. It levels relatively quickly but sure it's practicality is debatable. Stealth and sneaking though is quite possibly the most broken feature of the game. It's simply put as overpowered as it is boring. All told it feels completely unnatural.

Edited April 13, 2013 by LordSarcasm

[Vexus16]

I can understand it must be hard to program Ai to react naturally, so I can forgive for stealth being broken and overpowered. I like instant killing in sneak mode though. for me, that is immersive, though slightly overpowered. I also liked the destruction tree, but I hated those boring magicka cost halving perks. That was a horrible, and boring idea. Please designers, if you don't have a good idea for a perk, don't make a perk at all.

 

My Idea for a mod are all the changes I have listed, and all the things I don't like. I can't mod, I use music software in my spare time, and I write. I don't have enough hobby time in my life to mod skyrim, but I'll post my opinion for those interested in it.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Vexus16

[mattblns]

After Skyrim has been out for so long how have you not heard of or tried the mod SkyRe? It addresses everything you're complaining about. Sounds like you're requesting a gameplay/perk overhaul and that's what SkyRe does.