you actually believe that ? I’d be surprised if even 5% ever used a mod with it. What do you base that on ?
For the next game, to streamline it even more, the game will probably be reduced to 12 skills and armor will probably be reduced to 2 pieces for the full set (not including shield). In Morrowind you had the helm, chest piece, greaves, boots, 2 pauldrons and 2 gloves/bracers plus you could wear clothes under the armor. That’s 8 pieces of armor before the shield. Morrowind had gear that let you cast offensive spells at mobs as well as cast buffs and heals on yourself. Oblivion got rid of all of that in favor of just constant buffs only. Eventually Bethesda will reduce it to just a single armor skill and a single weapon skill 2-3 magic skills and 2 stealth skills.
Combat is crap, magic system is the worse yet. Graphics look like they’re from 2007. Half the textures like like they’re from the 6th console generation. I don’t know how anybody could stand to play Skyrim without mods to overhaul everything.
With Skyrim the developers took a different approach to the game than traditional RPGs. It was incredibility successful but the role playing element was completely destroyed. The entire pandering to the casuals opened the game up to a much wider player base that’s the reason for its success, not the actual game improving upon its role playing features.
I think in an ideal world they’d try to achieve a balance b/w Skyrim and Morrowind’s respective styles for Elder Scrols VI but its unlikely to happen in reality.
Skyrim wasn’t crap but the criticism it gets is pretty legit, it did some new things but it abandoned too many features thereby forsaking it’s status among Role Playing Games. The game isn’t as nearly as good as the fans make it out to be and it isn’t half as bad as its being portrayed in this thread. Its a deplorable RPG but a fun game nonetheless with a rather interesting lore (imo)
His aggression is probably the reason why many don’t agree with him but objectively speaking he is correct. Skyrim is not a good RPG, it is a fun game. It not being a good RPG is a fact, it being a fun/bad game is an opinion.
You never know though, they may surprise us - despite being a bit of a dodgy game in many ways, Fallout 4’s armour system was a surprisingly decent improvement for the series. Individual armour pieces for each limb that - thanks to Legendary enemy drops - can roll with a variety of unique (ish) effects and abilities, and can still be worn in conjuction with other clothing? Quite the step up from NV, which despite being a better RPG had something like…what, 3 armour slots? Even “simplified” Skyrim had more wearable item slots than that, especially if you start including things like jewelry (which you should, despite them being barely visible). I wouldn’t mind seeing that system more or less copypasted into TES6, though I admit the whole “strapping individual bits of metal onto your body” thing probably fits the post-apocalypse a bit better. At least it’d give exploring more purpose, unlike in Skyrim where the loot was crap and you could just craft your way to godhood.
Of course, armour is just one tiny thing in a sea of things they could improve (Skyrim’s lack of meaningful choices and consequences being a pretty huge one), but at least they’ve proved they can take those first steps. F4’s Survival Mode was pretty awesome too, giving function and consequence to a ton of things that usually have no purpose or minimal effect. I wouldn’t say it made F4 a better RPG, but at least it made it less, well, bland. And as much as I dislike F4’s crafting, you can’t deny that it gave every last little item a use, which was pretty cool.
We’ll probably never see another Morrowind though, might as well accept that now.
But while we’re on the subject of ruined game franchises…Tomb Raider continues to look like absolute generic trash. That gameplay video of her creeping through a jungle and stabbing people is just…ugh. It’s the exact same crap I’ve seen a billion times before. Sure, I’m still disappointed that TR has completely lost that sense of isolation and tense exploration from the old games, but if they’re insistent on continuing down this new 3rd-person-shooter-blockbuster-explosionfest path then they could at the very least try and innovate somehow.
It’s just, Morrowind you had a lot more freedom to do anything. If you wanted to kill someone you could just taunt them so you didn’t have to pay the murder fine.
Skyrim can be fun but you need some good mods to get there. I liked that in Morrowind (and too a lesser extent Oblivion) you couldn’t easily become a master of every skill (til you could afford all the secret masters). With no classes, birthsigns or stats, you can be an everything master in Skyrim. I actually put Skyrim on hold over 2 years ago cause i just got frustrated when I was trying to merge mods cause i needed to free up a lot of slots. When I did play Skyrim, most of the time was spent playing around with mods. I did do some of the main quest and faction quests but it was all pretty forgetable.
Its not only his opinion. The state of the AAA industry and its games is too depressing. They keep ruining long time favorite IP’s. “Streamlining” it to the point that everything that made the IP great is ruined. Or ignore what it is we gamers found fun about the IP and replace it with the latest modern popular mechanic. Which is currently battle royale and forced online. While not adding co-op to games that would actually benefit from it. Sad thing is… we don’t get a good fun game in return.
So if people like you enjoy shit games then be my guest. But there are less and less actually fun games left for the likes of me, who actually grew up with the franchises that are being ruined.:mad::furious: My favorite hobby, that I spend most of my time on, and not just by playing games mind you… and seeing it being run into the ground bit by bit…it hurts.
Just because the masses buys something… means that product is popular. Doesn’t mean that product is good. People forget that the majority of people are idiots after all. So what do they know about quality to begin with. These days movies, music, games etc are no longer about being entertained. After that makes something entertaining is being removed for shallow instant gratification. What you get these days is just mindlessly consuming shitty products for a sugar rush experience. Then move on to the next big pile of bullshit.
Playing a Bethesda “rpg” without mods is just… no. Even with the older ones they give you a framework of a game and not an actual game. You need mods to fix tons of bugs. The bland empty worlds with low graphical models required mods to actually have sufficient flora and fauna to make the world actually feel alive. And I was ok with that as long as the core framework was ok. But damn has that gone down the shitter as well.
Bethesda’s standpoint went from: “we make a game that is fun and then look for a crowd to sell it to” and changed it to “we look for the crowd and then make a game they will buy en masse”.
I have nothing against studio’s wanting to make money. You need profits to stay alive, grow and stay healthy. But when you prioritize growth over delivering fun and quality products…and instead produce shallow crap for the masses then that’s a step down.
And its not just Bethesda doing that. Almost all my favorite IP’s have been ruined and we got nothing fun in return of those trainwrecks.
Basically summing the entire situation of Diablo 3.;)
Btw I hate to derail this thread but this one is rather active so I might as well therefor my query will likely be answered by someone. I’ve been wondering about an old game - Divinity Original Sin II. How good is the role playing element in the game? Do we have rescue quests, rebuild quests or quests where your actions get reflected in changes to your surroundings?
I have a faint idea about the combat, I was told it was XCOM w/o a cover system but the role playing element I am clueless about.
Lastly do I need any knowledge about D&D ruleset or some other rule set to play it?
Divinity Original Sin 2 isn’t old. Its what…1 year at the most?
The Roleplaying element is decent enough. You get dialogue options depending on some of your stats, race. You can do quests in different order and get mildly different responses elsewhere in the quest chain. But as always narrative design is complex. So you always end up with choke points where everything comes together and boiling down to 2-3 possible outcomes. Which can mean people will see it as lack of choices that matter. Most choices made are to do with the side content. I don’t recall any building quests. But of course you have to rescue/find some NPC’s for whatever reason/benefit.
I wouldn’t call the combat Xcom. Sure it is turn based strategy, but that’s it. You have lots of spells and skills that allow for plenty of tactical moments. There is oil…cast an AoE fire spell. Burns opponents and also some fog from the oil. Fog reduces visibility so they can’t hit you and vice versa. Cast a water spell to create a puddle, cast lightning to AoE electrocute and stun, use a frost spell that turns the puddle into ice so there is a chance opponents fall and can’t get to you. I like it. Not a fun of the current way the armor mechanic is done though.
It might take a bit to get a full grasp on character development, but you can create lots of interesting builds and party setups.
You can also go to GOG.com. If they still have that sale going you can get all Dungeons and Dragons based games for cheap. Such as the baldur’s gates, Icewind Dales etc.
With those games a basic understanding of the DnD rules would help, but you can learn it while playing. If you move away from someone you get Opportunity Attack. Which is a free extra base melee attack. Rest will show itself along the way. In case of the older games like Baldur’s Gate you might want to at least read up on how character level up works in regards to skills/feats. If you plan to play Planescape Torment read up on Thac0.
An opinion is still an OPINION. Unless you can gather up literally everyone that’s bought/played it, or the devs came out and said it themselves. It will never be a fact. I can probably call a ton of games you like “shit games” and it’s still an opinion. I grew up on old games too, however I adapt instead of endlessly bitching that series get “ruined”. I watched Tomb Raider go to shit, I watched the old Call of Duty get turned into shit. I watched TES go into Oblivion(which to me will forever be the worst -> opinion) I’ve watched many game series both new and old either turn to dust or rise from the ashes.
Overall it is his(and your) opinion that it’s shit, as many others liked it, so clearly to them, it isn’t shit.
I think people don’t know the difference between opinion and fact these days.
Fact: Fortnite(A co-op tower defense(if it can even be called this)/BR depending on which version you play) is insanely popular.
Opinion: It’s a good/bad game.
Fact: Skyrim sold a lot, and is/was popular.
Opinion: It’s a good/bad game.
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As for OS2, it’s a great game but ultimately no matter what you do, running a party of 2 both with Lone Wolf >> Anything else outside of very specialized builds.
Edit: There’s really no point in arguing about it since it all boils down to nothing but opinions on whether a game is good or bad, unless developers come out theirselves and tell you “We fucked up. This is shit.”.
Less off-topic opinions, and more on topic posts.
Otherwise, we all know this thread will be closed. 
Skyrim might’ve been dumbed down, when you compare it to the previous games, but calling it the “worst TES” is just ridiculous and insane. The story was pretty amazing and they made the combat much better than the previous games. Sure, the combat still dull, but when you compare it to Oblivion or Morrowind, you can clearly see the improvements.
The visuals were also improved greatly… Orks now actually looked like Orks, and not a bunch of Shrek cosplays, Khajiits now don’t look like they’ve seen a ghost, and the general NPC models don’t look like they had their faces stretched around at random proportions.
The most mindblowing moment of Skyrim, was when you get to explore Sovngarde… seriously, that moment was just TOO amazing. The music, the atmosphere… everything felt epic as hell.
Skyrim did had its flaws, and I’m sure most TES fans recognizes those flaws and hopes they’re not present in the next game, but calling Skyrim “shit” and the “worst TES game” is just you trying to get attention "LOOK AT ME! I’M A TES VETERAN! just because you played the previous games, and you shouldn’t be taken seriously at all.
And now is.
LOL, like the Batman spotlight thing.
This thread is as boring as Skyrim, I dunno what you are calling me for.