Making the game harder or more tedious?

[tetradite]

Claiming I'm denigrating someone's playing style is basically just denigrating my style, so if you accuse me of trolling, at least hold a mirror up to yourselves first.

 

No, it really doesn't equate. You're saying that you DON'T understand why anyone would play a different way to you and it DOES bother you, I and others are saying that we DO understand why you play a different way and it DOESN'T bother us. They are not comparable positions, they are polar opposites.

 

I'm being confrontational for a reason here

 

Which is what?

[RedRavyn]

@ tdbostick: I'm not going to jump on the "you're a troll" bandwagon that's pulled up and set anchor here (I know, mixed metaphors), but your comment about being confrontational for a reason can make one wonder.

 

The bottom line is this: Different strokes for different folks. What works for you doesn't necessarily work for me, but that doesn't mean it's a wrong way to play the game. The converse also holds true. I don't, personally, use cheat mods. Some people use nothing but cheat mods. Whatever floats your boat. It's all good, because this is a single-player game and nothing you do in your game can affect mine.

 

Now, I'll address one of the main issues that you seem to have. Increasing the difficulty of Skyrim and increasing the immersiveness are two different things. You're equating them. Disabling fast travel only makes things "harder" in the event that you happen to encounter dangerous foes along the road while going from point "A" to point "B". Some people may consider this a plus, since it gives the player the opportunity to practice skills while adventuring.

 

Using "survival" mods that require you to dress warmly, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry (OK, maybe not be merry) don't really make it more difficult, either. Do they make the game more tedious? That depends upon your point of view. What is tedium for one person may be "immersiveness" for another. If that's what the second person wants to get out of the game, then it's not tedious.

 

So, basically, play your game the way you want to play it. We'll all play it the way we want to play it, and every single poster in this thread has different ideas of what constitutes the "right way" for that player.

[KingFrostman]

These games are more then just combat. Its an RPG, people like to immerse themselves into the game.

[doomer5656]

How does disabling fast travel make the game harder? Or lowering a merchant's base money? Sleeping 48 hours all the time or dumping extra loot into chests isn't exactly a difficult task. You have to slow travel once to every destination (except the holds if you choose to use a carriage) anyway. I do sometimes just go out and wander (in order to kill things - I do enjoy challenging dragons/monsters), but when I have only an hour to play before I have to go to bed, I'd rather spend the time doing something new than trekking back across that same old stretch of territory I've seen and cleared a zillion times.

 

Thanks to the radiant AI system, there's no corner of Skyrim I've not seen. You have to travel by foot at least once pretty much anywhere you want to go. The only difference is that I've been able to complete the game several times in the span it would have taken me to do so one time had I disabled fast travel or crippled the economic system.

 

And nobody should have to die 80 times to clear a dungeon. If it's that hard, try a different combat style, come back later once you've improved your armor/weapons/skills some, or lower the game difficulty a bit. Even I start out one a lower game setting than I end on (Deadly Dragons is seriously too much if you're level 5 wearing steel/iron armor upgraded only slightly and shooting iron arrows with a hunting bow.

 

I tried some of the tedium-inducing mods (food/cold realism mods) but ended up disabling them. It's just not my thing. Reminds me too much of Sim City (I have to go to the bathroom/eat again?!) I can cook/dress warmly/slow travel all I want in the real world. During the few hours of free time I have, I prefer skipping over the hum-drum. Again, those don't really make the game harder. Buying bread and mead to eat is not difficult in the least. Sleeping is only a fraction more difficult than waiting. Tedium mods don't make the game harder, just more tedious. I stand by my assertion.

 

Claiming I'm denigrating someone's playing style is basically just denigrating my style, so if you accuse me of trolling, at least hold a mirror up to yourselves first. I'm being confrontational for a reason here and not attacking anybody in particular. Explain to me how eating all the time/freezing to death/getting bent over the table by merchants/slow traveling 500 times from Whiterun to Winterhold makes Skyrim fun, and I'll listen. Meanwhile, go camping, join the army, get a boring job, etc. and learn just how fun real-life tedium really is.

 

 

This whole topic is pointless. Why? Because as everyone has been stating, it's their game to with it what they wish. I know people who make it as realistic as possible, I know people who like it nothing but combat, looting and selling said loot. I also know a couple of people who love the anime style, hot armor and characters. I play it somewhere in the middle (with no anime styled stuff.... yet)

 

But again to each his own, and trying to say you don't understand why someone else plays a certain way is fine. To try to put yourself on a pedestal and say that your way is superior is stupid when playing a single player game. As said before different strokes for different folks

 

Trying to explain why you find something fun is just stupid. That's like when someone who doesn't like video games asks. How can you find those things fun, I might try to explain it to the best of my ability, but they won't get it. I might like traveling on foot everywhere with no fast travel, you don't. You're being really idiotic with your "Explain to me me how eating all the time/freezing to death blah, blah, blah" You might get a kick outta just using your fist's the entire game. I won't. You might play a different game, I don't like it, it doesn't mean it's not fun to YOU, its not ME, but YOU love it. That's how it works, I get entertained in a different way than you, and you than me.

 

So stop complaining about how other people play different than you on the forums and play YOUR game (You know that thing that you put 60 bucks towards, and instead of playing it, are telling other people that they play weird. The funny thing is that while you're saying you don't get why they play that way, they are probably playing and having a grand time doing so. Now if a mod would just lock up this thread......

Edited May 3, 2012 by doomer5656

[tdbostick]

I've never insulted anybody. If you enjoy doing tedious things in Skyrim that you can do in the real world for free, fine. To each his own. I just said I find such things boring distractors from the parts of the game that everyone finds interesting (e.g. Dragons, Daedric quests, etc.). I think most people don't take the time to read these posts very carefully.

 

I do other things in Skyrim besides kill things. I probably spend more than half my time selling stuff, crafting, decorating homes, etc. One hour spent clearing out a dungeon equates to probably two hours of getting rid of the loot and decorating a home with whatever I decided to keep. I KNOW there are people who find that sort of activity tedious, but I'm not gonna get angry and feel insulted if they say they find it boring. Heck, everyone who responded to this thread so far has indirectly bashed my playing style, oversimplifying what I do and snidely insinuating that I'm some sort of knuckle-dragging monster-smasher. I also enjoy sneaking around, stealing whatever isn't nailed down, and bringing glory to the Thieves guild. I sure as hell don't do stuff like that in real life, so the opportunity to escape to a place where that is possible is hugely entertaining.

 

I'm also not insulting anybody's mods either. If someone takes the time and effort to create a Skyrim IRS mod replete with W-2s and audits, I'll applaud their ingenuity and creativity, but will most definitely pass on it. If you create a mod that forces me to go to the bathroom every two game hours, I'll admire your programming skills, yet avoid your mod like the plague. I think the creators of the frostfall hypothermia mod and the food mods did an excellent job. They didn't malfunction and did what they claimed to do. I still found them boring and uninstalled them (I may have endorsed them too, since they were quality mods). It's my personal taste.

 

There was a dude who created some cowardly peasant character and wrote a blog about his adventures. The guy refused to go on quests, move faster than walk speed, and worked like a slave everywhere he went, forcing himself to sleep in inns and never stealing a thing. He wrote entertaining, well written blogs about his character's experiences. I applaud his efforts and his documentation of it, which was far more interesting to read, in my opinion, that it would have been to play. I shudder to think of doing something like that, foregoing my destiny as a dragon killer to harvest my thousandth potato. Do I think any less of the person who did that? No. I just fail to see the entertainment value in that. I guess I'm more like Erik the Slayer in Rorikstead, whom I almost always use as a follower in order to save him from a life of farming.

 

Now, let's just agree to disagree and end this stupid thread. You all must have ultra-exciting jobs/enormous amounts of free time on your hands if you find walking from Solitude to Riften and harvesting every potato you encounter on they way entertaining/fulfilling. When I escape to Skyrim each evening after a long, boring day of work, I prefer doing more exciting (yes, usually more violent) activities.

[RedRavyn]

You know, tdbostick, I think you're one of the posters, here, who doesn't read the posts carefully. You're still on the defensive, assuming everyone in this thread is attacking you, and that's simply not the case. You lumped everyone into the vocal majority who DID bash you ("Heck, everyone who responded to this thread so far has indirectly bashed my playing style, oversimplifying what I do and snidely insinuating that I'm some sort of knuckle-dragging monster-smasher").

 

Not everyone did that. In fact, some of us have stated that we understand your position and I, for one, never insulted you, bashed you, or judged your playing style. Please take the time to read comments before you comment upon them.

 

The problem, here, is that while you stated a perfectly valid opinion in your very first paragraph, you ended that paragraph with a sweeping generalization that lumped everyone who plays games in the category of "we'd rather not have tedium/reality in our escapist world". That was your error, and what opened your argument up to intensive criticism, because that statement is just plain wrong.

 

There ARE people who want that "tedium" and reality in their games, and stating that there are no such people in existence is going to antagonize those who read your post. It's tantamount to going on a rape support forum and stating blithely that "there are no girls on the internets".

 

"Challenge", to you is clearly harder dragons, more monsters, difficult brawling, making merchants richer and mining faster, and putting lots of containers, mannequins, and weapon racks in your modded homes (your own list of what is "challenging"). Maybe "challenge" to some people is a more laid back and realistic style of game-play. Don't knock that and people who play that way won't knock your way of playing.

 

You can't define the world in terms of your own personal preferences. Everyone's preferences are different, and when it comes to the way we choose to play our singe-player games, no person's preferences are any better than other person's preferences.

[tetradite]

If you enjoy doing tedious things in Skyrim that you can do in the real world for free, fine.

 

This is the real crux of your misunderstanding. If you can accept the literal truth of what I am about to say then I suspect your ability to empathise will be greatly enhanced.

 

They are not "tedious things". They are things that YOU FIND TEDIOUS. No thing, activity, person, object is inherently tedious. Tedious is a construction of your own mind. It is your mind's reaction to a certain external stimulus, not some set of rules that's hard-coded into the fabric of universe.

 

It's not that we enjoy doing tedious things, it's that WE DON'T FIND THEM TEDIOUS. If we found them tedious, we wouldn't do them.

 

 

 

You know, tdbostick, I think you're one of the posters, here, who doesn't read the posts carefully. You're still on the defensive, assuming everyone in this thread is attacking you, and that's simply not the case. You lumped everyone into the vocal majority who DID bash you ("Heck, everyone who responded to this thread so far has indirectly bashed my playing style, oversimplifying what I do and snidely insinuating that I'm some sort of knuckle-dragging monster-smasher").

 

Not everyone did that. In fact, some of us have stated that we understand your position and I, for one, never insulted you, bashed you, or judged your playing style. Please take the time to read comments before you comment upon them.

 

The problem, here, is that while you stated a perfectly valid opinion in your very first paragraph, you ended that paragraph with a sweeping generalization that lumped everyone who plays games in the category of "we'd rather not have tedium/reality in our escapist world". That was your error, and what opened your argument up to intensive criticism, because that statement is just plain wrong.

 

There ARE people who want that "tedium" and reality in their games, and stating that there are no such people in existence is going to antagonize those who read your post. It's tantamount to going on a rape support forum and stating blithely that "there are no girls on the internets".

 

"Challenge", to you is clearly harder dragons, more monsters, difficult brawling, making merchants richer and mining faster, and putting lots of containers, mannequins, and weapon racks in your modded homes (your own list of what is "challenging"). Maybe "challenge" to some people is a more laid back and realistic style of game-play. Don't knock that and people who play that way won't knock your way of playing.

 

You can't define the world in terms of your own personal preferences. Everyone's preferences are different, and when it comes to the way we choose to play our singe-player games, no person's preferences are any better than other person's preferences.

 

Seconded.