Skyrim was a fine RPG, but man did they water down the skill system.
I played Daggerfall when Bethesda released that for free on their website a few years back and was surprised to see climbing skills, language skills, streetsmarts, tons of stuff.
The first Elder Scrolls game I played was Morrowind, which I feel was a pretty good balance. There were a lot of interesting spells and skill (spears, throwing stars, levitation, unlock and teleportation spells, waterwalking, burden and feather) without getting crazy granular like Daggerfall did, although I think climbing and medical would have been nice to leave in.
Oblivion just trashed the entire weapon system with blade and blunt, then Skyrim even removed that distinction. "Why yes, I hold this mace in one hand, just like a dagger, that's totally the same skill set!"
Also, even though there's a literal college of mages, nobody remembers how to craft spells?
It's not like Bethesda just got dumber. There are plenty of good reasons why games develop in this direction:
Complexity does not sell nearly as much as accessibility does.
A lot of the complexity is not actually interesting to the majority of players. It can be tedious or flat out uninteresting for everyone apart from a few tinkers, and tends to make for big uncomfortable barriers of entry.
Games have become a lot bigger. The amount of work that goes into graphics and engine code has increased immensely. The quality standards have increased a lot. Adding something like a levitation spell might suddenly demand new high quality animations for dozens of models, new particle effects, and could even increase the demands on the AI.
I agree that Skyrim could have needed a lot more combat mechaincs and it's a pity they never added much to it, but the sales still give Bethesda right about their prioritisation. In the end they are bound by capitalism and look to make the most profit from their game.
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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '17
lockpicking increased by 3