Images you know you'll never use. (Now NSFW)

Nova

What sucks is that the game already has stagger. If they put some focus into the stagger, paid more attention to the extra effects of magic (with Shock depleting Magicka as well as Health, Fire dealing extra Health damage, and Ice depleting Stamina as well as Health), and looked at the different armours...

I mean, in Skyrim, bashing with a shield interrupts power attacks. Blocking staggers opponents, and I'm pretty sure power attacks break block. If the magic system interacted with that better- for example, Ice spells threatening to break Block- and they paid more attention to the stagger and block mechanics, there could actually be some strategic gameplay that didn't revolve around just hitting things with swords and fire until they die.

So if they just paid more attention to mechanics already in the game, they could make the combat system a lot more engaging, very easily.

Nyktos

If they put some focus into the stagger

If you're a Destruction mage or an archer you can pretty much break the game by abusing the stagger mechanics.

Firebert

Bee

To be fair, those Daedra were a heck of a lot more intimidating when you bothered turning the difficulty up from the button-mash lol oneshot everything minimum it had on default.  Even only about halfway up, a small pack of clannfear could tear you a new one.

MadassAlex

The issue with difficulty in both Oblivion and Skyrim is that both games are so "numerical". That is, the combat is so limited that your stats count for a lot more than your actual skills -- the division between "challenging" and "unfair" isn't always so clear in this case. And then there's the flipside, where any enemy can be easily defeated by kiting them with arrows or spells as long as you have the patience. 

ClockworkUniverse

They clearly know how.  Fallout 3 actually had reasonably fun combat for the most part.

The difference there is obvious: guns. If you use a melee weapon, it's indistinguishable.

Firebert

Nova

If you're a Destruction mage or an archer you can pretty much break the game by abusing the stagger mechanics.

That's going to the other end of the spectrum; rather than making it virtually worthless, you're abusing it to the point of breaking it. A middle ground would be the best; making the stagger mechanic useful, but not making it usable to the point of stunlock and so on.

This is where I'd point you towards Dark Souls. Dark Souls has interruptable attacks, and a mechanic called Poise. I don't think the Poise mechanic would work very well in Skyrim, but the way the game handled  attacks, power attacks, and interrupts, would work well with Skyrim, although you'd obviously need to play around with it a bit to get it to fit in Skyrim neatly.

The issue with difficulty in both Oblivion and Skyrim is that both games are so "numerical". That is, the combat is so limited that your stats count for a lot more than your actual skills

Personally, I've never seen why that's such a bad thing.

I mean, Skyrim isn't an action game. Or, it is, but not in the same way that, say, Dark Souls and Kingdom Hearts are. The way their combat system is set up involves a different type of skill than those games do; instead of being skilled enough to avoid enemy attacks and kill opponents like in Dark Souls, the skills involved in Skyrim involve (or, I should say, are intended to involve, as the system kind of fails at this) the manipulation of the numbers, and the manipulation of game elements to overwhelm opponents.

That is, the game tries to teach you how to use the numerical stat system and various other systems to your advantage. It does not rely upon player skill like Dark Souls does, but it does try to rely upon a different type of skill.

The issue with the way they've gone about it is... well, they don't seem to give a fuck about game balance, which leads to the system being functionally useless as it's so easy to break it that unless you deliberately try not to, chances are, everything's broken to hell anyway.

It's not necessarily as desirable as direct player skill like in Dark Souls and Kingdom Hearts, but I don't think that it's necessarily something to be avoided at any cost either.

If the game paid more attention to game balance, teaching you how to use the system, made the combat a bit more involved, and trimmed everything down a bit, I think that the more numerical system would actually work well with Skyrim. Only it doesn't, because Skyrim wasn't designed very well, with most of the focus on the game going to the setting, with the actual gameplay taking a back seat to this.

MadassAlex

The issue is that TES comes down to raw power, so once you've worked out the best formula for said power, there's no more game left. This is known as a dominant strategy, and is pretty much the bane of long-lasting gameplay; rather than being an emergent, evolving experience, the game becomes a puzzle that is completed upon finding its solution. This is bad because, while puzzles have their place, one of their defining traits is having a single solution. So a puzzle can be defined as a problem that has a dominant strategy as its solution, and while a game can benefit from having puzzles, a game seldom benefits from being a puzzle. 

Nova

The issue is that TES comes down to raw power, so once you've worked out the best formula for said power, there's no more game left.

That is what I was talking about when I talked about game balance.

The numerical gameplay in TES is not necessarily a bad thing. The way they've gone about it is, as the game eventually devolves into a mindless point-and-click fest with no real challenge and complexity within it- and without challenge and complexity, there is no incentive to continue playing the game, apart from whatever the player themselves introduce.

The issue is, they have inflated the numbers artificially high; I don't know who thought it would be a great idea to introduce a perk that made you deal 15x damage when you attack unseen, for instance, or who thought it was a great idea to make you deal 15x damage when you wield a specific weapon from stealth. Together, they pretty much equal a 'kill anything from behind' mechanic- but then, they could have changed up the stealth mechanic and actually introduced an assassination mechanic, and that would have resulted in much cleaner gameplay, and allowed the developers to introduce variables to that.

As it stands, the gameplay is not very good- not because of the core principles behind it, but because of the implementation of those principles.

MillerCross

that time alex was an x-man

Crimson

i dunno man those swords look like they'd give alex a seizure

Bee

It looks like they're mounted backwards.  Usually the tip curves the other way, doesn't it?

MillerCross

i dunno man those swords look like they'd give alex a seizure

hey man sometimes a man has to search for variety in their partners

Kraken

Shatterstar's swords have always been weird alien monstrocities.

MadassAlex

It looks like they're mounted backwards.  Usually the tip curves the other way, doesn't it?

Looks like the guy's fond of backhands. In fact, a weapon like that is more an extended fist than an actual sword; the fighting style would have more to do with boxing than conventional swordsmanship. Given the spacing between each blade, it'd have to be excessively aggressive, too, since there's not much defensive potential there. 

hey man sometimes a man has to search for variety in their partners

if a scimitar can be compared to an attractive arabic lady, those things are space slimes that just technically happen to be female

DYRE

if a scimitar can be compared to an attractive arabic lady, those things are space slimes that just technically happen to be female

So... what you're saying is that they're far better than regular swords?

Malkavian

Bee

Deadpool cosplayers are always so much fun.

 

Icalasari

Nova: I guess that's why I liked the looks of Dishonoured. It looks like what Skyrim's stealth SHOULD have been

 

Also, I find a lot of replayability in Skyrim. Mind you, I DO have to put artificial limitations on my files (e.g. my priest character (restarting that one if I ever get Dawnguard) is only allowed to harm Undead and practitioners of Necromancy, being a priest of Arkay)

Nova

I guess that's why I liked the looks of Dishonoured. It looks like what Skyrim's stealth SHOULD have been

I don't really like judging games based on things like that. Looking at a game and stating that 'this is what Skyrim's stealth should have been like' seems wrong to me, because Skyrim is an entire game of its own, and I don't know how Dishonoured would go with Skyrim when a lot of Skyrim revolves around, you know, storming fortresses and killing dragons and shooting lightning bolts.

And that's the thing, really. The way Skyrim handled stealth actually fit in with the game; it's context-sensitive- like, you are more likely to be noticed when you're standing in light, and you're more likely to be noticed when you pick stuff up, but it still allows you to kill shit when you're spotted, and so on, so forth.

It's not the way Skyrim handled stealth that bothers me. It's the way it handled the stealth in relation to everything else; playing as a Stealth-based character, it asks you to either assassinate people or plink away at them from hiding, which is fine, but it did silly things like giving you 30x damage bonuses with a dagger from Stealth, and forcing you to wait for enemies to forget about you.

I do think that Skyrim's stealth would have worked much better as part of the story if they just allowed you to actually act as a thief an assassin. Giving you silent kills, for example, or allowing you to shoot people across the room without alerting everyone as to your presence.

Also, I find a lot of replayability in Skyrim. Mind you, I DO have to put artificial limitations on my files 

That's what I'm going to go with, next. I'll be playing as a magey character, going with Illusion/Alteration/Conjuration/Alchemy/Enchanting, and relying mostly on followers and summoned monsters to deal damage for me.

ClockworkUniverse

I'll be playing as a magey character, going with Illusion/Alteration/Conjuration/Alchemy/Enchanting, and relying mostly on followers and summoned monsters to deal damage for me.

I'm doing that now, though I also have decent one-handed.

Conjuration levels absurdly fast early on. It was at 35 by the time I finished the golden claw quest.

Icalasari

^^ I like being the sneaky guy though (and I agree that the whole 30x damage thing is ridiculous)

 

Sometimes I default to just going werewolf and tearing everything apart because sometimes the stealth is just, "...Why bother? I KNOW I'm going to be seen anyways"

ClockworkUniverse

You'd probably be better off not going werewolf when tearing everything apart, at least at higher levels. Werewolves are balanced to be viable around levels 10-20, and stay at that power level all the time.

MadassAlex

The issue with Skyrim's stealth (like everything else) is that it's not designed as a gameplay experience so much as a rote test of character build. Above a certain level of stealth, you absolutely know that you can bypass certain enemies with minimal effort -- there's not much planning or skill involved, especially given the excess of tight, narrow hallways in the game. 

Icalasari

^ Yeah. Once it gets high enough, it becomes one of the most broken mechanics in the game (Already I can accidentally sneak right in front of a person... And they don't notice me at all, despite me being no more than 5 feet away in a lit area). Would have been better if they relied less on broken mechanics and more on facilitating dungeon design for multiple character types (why not have things like, say, beams in forts that you have to sneak across if going with stealth, and that you'd never succeed at with a warrior or mage (hell, I love leaping onto chandeliers on occasion), or make narrow ledges the way to deal with draugr crypts, or having to sneak ever so carefully around Falmer, trying not to set their ears off?

Instead it's, *Peak around corner* Oh, enemies *sneak in clear sight of them and either shoot them with an arrow or sneak up and backstab them*

 

At least mods were able to more easily balance magic

Bee

At least it's not as bad as Oblivion's 100% Chameleon armor.

MillerCross

if a scimitar can be compared to an attractive arabic lady, those things are space slimes that just technically happen to be female

Well, Shatterstar is pretty much the ultimate 90s character. Liefeld created and everything.

So I wouldn't be surprised that he has EPIC GOREY SEX with space slimes

sleep with that image on yo' mind

Nightwire

 

Truly, a villain of the century.

MillerCross

I just love that Spidey went in costume to the game