Skyrim isn't dumbed down. Purists are.

[JayceJa]

skyrim is most definitely dumbed down to a predominantly hack and slash rpg where every quest is a dungeon crawl against one of 5 types of enemies

 

the classes and stat/skill system benefited greatly from being streamlined, but the rest of the content isnt really better for all the streamlining done either, magic in general is very lacking; especially illusion and alteration.

[Sabatasso]

Skyrim is not dumbed down. It doesn't have pointless stats. Or pointless numbers. It has a lot more depth than Morrowind or Obliion combined, but for the misguided fool it may seem that fewer pointless numbers or stats mean the game is dumbed down. It's actually much deeper and more time can be spent ENJOYING the game, not the most pointless thing and something that I simply couldn't give a sh it about: the levels. I don't know what level I am. I just immerse into the world and if you'd stop trying to play it like dungeons and dragons or world of warnerd you'd be able to play 100hrs and have just breached the surface of things to do. Not levels to complete, but adventures.

 

Classes are pointless too.

All it is is purist fever: the core fans hate change and if it ain't a reskin of the favorite it's not a true sequel or is "dumbed down" as many purists are saying about Skyrim.

 

Same problem in any game community. I played morrowind lots too...great...in that level never cared about my level, and there was so mug less depth than oblivion. If you stop caring about the useless: levels and numbers and text, you'll see Skyrim kicks the sh it out of morrowind.

 

You miss the mark completely here. But nice for you that you're completely and utterly satisfied with the game in its current vanilla state. The compass leads you directly to points of interest, if that isn't "dumbing down" then I don't know what is. And another note, what is the point of a spell called "Clairvoiance" when the compass does the exact same thing 24/7 if you just mark the quest you want in your log?

Edited November 25, 2011 by Sabatasso

[Lachdonin]

And another note, what is the point of a spell called "Clairvoiance" when the compass does the exact same thing 24/7 if you just mark the quest you want in your log?

 

Unessesary redundancy?

 

Yes, there are dumbed down components to the game. but, for the most part, they are contingent on streamlining the gameplay. For instance, the removal of Athletics and Acrobatics. Realistically, they didn't add anything beside another skill to level, usually only to increase stats when you leveled. Others make no logical sense, the weapon system for instance, and can be definately considered dumbed down.

 

Of course, an important question is this. Is 'dumming down' inherently bad? Or can it be advantageous?

 

I'd argue that in many ways dumbing down amounts to making things more intuitive, which means for a more natural experience. Immersion and Role Playing isn't so much fun when you spend tonnes of time pouring over spreadsheets, and thus i feel that making things intuitive and keeping the ball rolling are important in the longevity of an RPG. To this end, some degree of 'dumbing down' is a good thing. To a point, of course.

[Herculine]

skyrim is most definitely dumbed down to a predominantly hack and slash rpg where every quest is a dungeon crawl against one of 5 types of enemies

 

This could also be said of Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.

[Sabatasso]

I think dumbing down the combat system to include only one handed and two handed was a bit much, but I actually prefer the dumbed down one over the older system where each weapon type had its own skill. I do think it's all bad that Athletics and Acrobatics are gone though, but I would prefer a better implementation rather than removal. Having 100 acrobatics should not make you able to leap over castle walls, or having 100 athletics should not make you run twice as fast as one having 50. Having 20 in both should equal what the game starts with now, and 100 should be around 20-30% better and add perks to climb walls and lower stamina use for sprint for example.

 

But the ones explained above are not game breaking for me personally. Character customization like height, and individual skill advantages from the start (class?) are more damaging for me. TES and Fallout have always been about character customization and a big sandbox to play in for me. The Character customization part is crippled in Skyrim, and the "point of interest" marks in the compass is a game killer for me. Luckily I can easily mod some of it to suit my needs, so I can still enjoy the game. But I feel somewhat the same about this game as I did with Mafia 2, it's a great start, but why didn't they finish it?

 

A tag skill system would probably be even better than classes, being able to tag two-three skills for a small bonus and a special perk in the tagged skills.

Edited November 25, 2011 by Sabatasso

[Shantih]

The compass leads you directly to points of interest, if that isn't "dumbing down" then I don't know what is. And another note, what is the point of a spell called "Clairvoiance" when the compass does the exact same thing 24/7 if you just mark the quest you want in your log?

 

And that wasn't the case in Oblivion and other games by Bethesda? Or Fable? Or Dragon Age? Markers and minimaps have been used in numerous games before so criticizing Skyrim for this is at the very least disingenuous.

 

By the way Clairvoyance is the perfect spell for people who don't like quest markers since it provides a way to make use of these markers while being in character. So you don't like the fact that there is a magic compass pointing in the direction where your character has to go because it seems fake, I get that, using this spell means that your character is compensating for this in game.

 

TES and Fallout have always been about character customization and a big sandbox to play in for me.

 

You mean Fallout 3? Because I would definitely say that Fallout 3 is a dumbed down version of the SPECIAL system from the original Fallout (Traits are gone, Tags don't really matter, damage is only affected by DR, I could go on all day) but I wouldn't say that Skyrim is dumbed down in comparison to Oblivion.

 

Sure you've got less numbers to crunch but you don't have the hassle of having to powergame to be able to enjoy the game. There is nothing intuitive in selecting skills that you're not going to use as your class skills so you can control when and where you're getting a level in order to make sure that you will get +5 in three stats. Not to mention of course that in order to get as many hit points as possible you have to make sure that you increase Endurance first...

 

Going out of your way to build a character around arbitrary rules is not what roleplaying is about.

 

Skyrim may not be perfect but it allows you to develop your character according to your playing style and that's definitely an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

[HaikenEdge]

Skyrim may not be perfect but it allows you to develop your character according to your playing style and that's definitely an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

Surely if that's the case, I shouldn't need to get hit to level my armor skills; I should be able level said skill by simply wearing the armor. I mean, ultimately, isn't the goal of wearing armor to not get hurt? If so, wouldn't getting hit actually be failing to use armor properly?

[minngarm]

I remember in Daggerfall you could buy houses (allot of houses not just 1 per city), put your money in banks (gold had weight in daggerfall so you couldn't carry 10000000 pieces of gold without being weighed down) You could take loans out and sell your houses, boats you could sail on, horses that you could fight from, carriages you could ride you could bash down doors with your weapons and a slew of other things that have been removed and dumbed down to the state which we are at now, In daggerfall Argonians\kahjits could not wear shoes because they had non human feet and they couldn't wear helmets because of there non human shaped heads, you could have separate gloves on each hand you could wear a steal glove on the left and a fur on the right. I could go on for pages on how dumbed down the series has become but really if you haven't played the older games there's no point in even debating it.

 

 

Yea, were not going to start that same arguement that harps on in the Fallout sections; "old school" fans are right and better and newer fans are s***.

 

I started in highschool with Morrowwind, went on to Oblivion, and now to Skyrim. Have not played the original two, which maybe someday I will, does not matter. If you think having not played them means people can not bring up a valid point about the trend in the newer editions then you really need to log off, go outside, and socalize(sp) with real people. You're head, is to far up you're ass at the moment and you need a reallity check.

 

Now being that I came in on the halfway point in the series, it is still brutally obvious how the "streamlined AKA Dumbed Down" trend is hitting the TES games. At this point I just want them to shut the hell up, release the creation Kit, so we can go about unf*#@ing this mess.

[Shantih]

Skyrim may not be perfect but it allows you to develop your character according to your playing style and that's definitely an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

Surely if that's the case, I shouldn't need to get hit to level my armor skills; I should be able level said skill by simply wearing the armor. I mean, ultimately, isn't the goal of wearing armor to not get hurt? If so, wouldn't getting hit actually be failing to use armor properly?

 

I never said the game was perfect or made perfect sense. This was already the case in Morrowind and Oblivion. Your skill level increases with every hit and that's the way the game works.

 

I could make up reasons to justify this and play along with your nitpicking. Feeling the pain and getting used to it may help ignoring hits later on. After all most martial arts that involve actual fighting tend to teach you how to take a punch. You can somehow increase your pain threshold with practice and that's what the armour training seems to be doing in these games (it's not about sleeping in full plate armour or learning to jump and swim in heavy armour -which IMO is more nonsensical than the example you've posted). The fact is you wear a plate armour to avoid getting hurt and not to be able to dodge better. If you want to dodge then it's probably better not to be wearing any armour at all.

 

If you're going to look for issues then there are far more serious offenders.

 

I think that the challenge of any given action should be taken into account for skill increase. Hitting a stuffed ragdoll helps when you barely know how to hold a sword but hitting mudcrabs shouldn't give more expertise to a seasoned fighter. IMO at a certain skill level only critical hits should count.

 

That being said, I stand by what I've posted, the new system in Skyrim is an improvement over Oblivion.

[Goliath978]

I must argue against the purists' responses:

Quest marker can be turned off.

There are a lot of creatures. Morrowind had more but there was a lot of basically the same thing.

The quests aren't all repetitive: I've only had to go into 1 dungeon for quests, and ice don't lots.

Stats: they're pointless. Nuff said.