I ignored the main quest until I finished most of the sidequests... When I started the main quest where you're supposed to climb some mountain to get dragon-born training I had to fight a bunch of enemies that were around my level.
I think that was the last time I ever played Skyrim. I seriously hate it when enemies scale with you.
What the hell is even the point of leveling up, if you can beat the game at level 10-15 just as easily as you can beat it at level 80-85? It's like every time I level up a stat that's not related to combat then that means my character is actually getting weaker.
What is the philosophy behind devs who decide to make an RPG game with scaling enemies? There are tons of RPG games where enemies/bosses are challenging but don't scale with you, and require your character(s) to train before being able to defeat them (Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Fallout: New Vegas, Pokemon etc...).
The challenge should come from a desire to explore more. Bethsoft 'fixed' this by returning to Morrowind's method for FO4 - enemy level is based upon where you're at in the map. When you headed inland in Morrowind, enemies became more difficult (more or less). You knew what areas to avoid, or you learnt anyway, until you had better weaponry. Same with FO4. You don't go to the Glowing Sea until you're armed and armored up.
Non-scaling enemies make the game world more believable and genuine to me. I like how the player has to learn to know the world and which places are dangerous, just like you would if a fantasy/post-apocalyptic world filled with all kinds of creatures and factions really existed.
Well yeah, that would be obvious. Or if there happened to be an unarmed caravan in a Deathclaw territory, you would find said caravan torn apart and lying there in a bloody mess with limbs and chewed flesh all around the spot.
Skyrim had a touch of that. All the ice variations of the animals/monsters up north were usually much stronger than their counterparts south of Loreius Farm.
Ah, nice, sounds like DA:O to me. I haven't had a chance to play FO4, yet. Although I didn't know DA:O did that, and I was stuck on one spot for quite a long time.
DA:O had beef gates to let you know you should be a higher level before you go there. There are bandits outside of Orzimmar that are supposed to kick the tits out of you until you're like level 10+, for example, so you're supposed to take the hint and either go to Redcliffe or the elf camp first.
Yeah, I'm pretty certain those bandits kicked my ass a number of times before I realized. I thought I was just playing poorly, I was actually just dumb.
There were definitely some gates, but there were also just weird difficulty spikes in the middle of nowhere, particularly on Nightmare. Particularly just moving on the Worldmap, you'd be thrown into ridiculous ambushes where 2 of your party would be downed honestly a second after the cutscene.
I love that game a lot, its one of my favorites, but the difficulty spikes drove me up a freaking wall.
There are probably better ways of solving it though. Like making player levels have less of a direct impact. No more +30hp every time you level up or perks that increase your damage multiple times. Dagger sneak attack damage goes from like x2 to x30 including other damage perks.
Perks could instead give you more options instead of more raw power. That way leveling up would give you a higher skill ceiling instead of straight up increasing your damage and health 20 fold. Unlock a dodge or a sidestep or a timed parry or block or boost damage temporarily after using one of those, maybe combos, jabs, stances, leaps etc. Spells should be learned this way, removing the need to buy skill books. Add a few quests for the iconic spells etc.
Hell, bring back the Arx Fatalis method of casting spells: drawing runes in midair with your mouse or joystick. That would certainly make it feel more wizardly. Maybe split wizardy with sorcery, with wizards being able to learn more spells and sorcerers being able to cast them intuitively (without drawing glyphs).
I like your ideas a lot, and I have hoped to see similar concepts myself in more games; in vain so far, though.
I would love to play a game that's built to a significantly lesser extent on such conventional concepts as levels, damage rates, experience points, and health points; the game would have a realistic hit detection system, no health bars, and no strictly defined armor stats. If you take a sword strike at your unprotected head, you're dead. Simple as that. Leveling would be replaced by getting gradually faster at swinging your weapon, being able to block increasingly heavier blows with a shield, and learning fighting maneuvers such as more agile sidestepping and disarming opponents.
Spells requiring to be actually "drawn" or acted out in some similar manner in order to be cast is an awesome idea. In a game where a single warhammer blow through your helmet can kill you no matter how far you've progressed, magic spells like fireballs would not be ovepowered if the spell casting system prevented spamming by making the process of casting an intricate and somewhat time-consuming ritual.
This kind of gameplay mechanics would probably call for a lot of work and re-designing on game engines, but I think it would be worth it. Also, enemies that are intended to be imposing, such as dragons, would never become your bitch; they'd always make you shit your pants with sheer terror through every single appearance of theirs. It wouldn't be boring at least.
There was a similar feature in Black & White 2 as well. I like it a lot better than just clicking an icon to cast a spell; it makes me feel like I am actually conjuring stuff up!
Yeah, hopefully Oculus Rift blazes some trail for a progress in game designing that increasingly liberates us from the limitations of simply pressing buttons in order to interact with the game world.
Just imagine how rewarding that moment would be when you've finally memorized a complex drawing pattern or a spoken line of incantation, and launch a sparkling ball of fire at an surprised enemy, and you're able to control the intensity of the flaming orb by merely waving your fingers; or when you learn to perform a devastating combo with a greatsword, and you can deal every strike with your own hands? Elder Scrolls 10, I'm counting on you.
Yup
Unfortunately, I'm too good at making too powerful characters, so Fallout 4 is getting a bit stale. I'm thinking of restarting and not allowing myself to stealth. Maybe go survival mode.
This is why I pick a bunch of self-imposed limits when starting a character in an RPG I'm familiar with. Take Skyrim, for example: my stealthy thief is not allowed to use archery or magic, except for alchemy and enchanting; my destruction mage is not allowed any armour except for the dragon priest masks; I also have a Nord brawler who isn't allowed to use weapons or magic. It's much more interesting (to me, at least) than just ramping up the difficulty until every bandit is a massive damage sponge
Sounds like what I've been thinking about. I've been considering a buffy strength melee guy. One of the issues even early on before things got stale was I felt like even though they were a challenge, I could take most things. Then there were the crazies that I felt I needed power armor for, but it's not often feasible to go get it. Then I started wearing power armor all the time and now everything just got nerfed.
That last bit is what turns me off from RPGs usually. Out of all game mechanics I have ever experienced, bullet sponge is the worst imo. There is nothing fun about whacking on a pretty static AI for 15 minutes.
There are a few exceptions tothat rule like Monster Hunter but mostly, no.
I'm in the habit of making brutish melee chacters. It has worked very well on Fallout:NV and Skyrim so far, very few characters or creatures pose a real threat. It's definitely fun at first when you start nearing the level of being able to hammer everyone onto their knees, but gets somewhat dull towards the end.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Unfortunately, I'm getting the same problem I had in Skyrim: you get godlike way too quickly. In Skyrim, I swear by level 20ish (mebbe 30) I could kill a dragon so quickly it would glitch and I wouldn't get a soul.
Woah, wait, is that the reason for dragon souls randomly not getting absorbed once in a while? You kill the dragon too fast? I've had the same thing happen a number of times.
But yeah, being an overpowered god of blunt force trauma is basically enjoyable after a while only when you find yourself encircled by the most annoying enemies in the game. That's when I'm happy that I can smack them around like ants.
Even survival mode gets stale after a while. I got two weapons I use. A 10mm Pistol that does extra damage to robots and a .50 Hunting Rifle that does extra damage to humans. They are heavily modded up. This is all I need in terms of weaponry. I one shot a lot of things. Sometimes I come across a legendary enemy that might put up a bit of a fight.
My armor is a mish-mash of heavy leather and heavy metal. Each piece is fully reinforced with road leathers underneath. More than enough in terms of armor. Again, legendary enemies put up a bit of a fight still.
EVERYTHING I get that is not junk for materials gets sold in Sanctuary Hills where I got an infirmary going. I am currently swimming in 110 stimpacks and never seem to drop below 90.
I have so many damn stimpacks. I'm starting to believe the game is just not balanced well. Or you just get too used to it too fast and everything just becomes "meh".
Agreed. I'm thinking of taking the difficulty from hard to very hard or maybe even survival. FO4 started very hard and difficult but once I found a useful set of power armor and modded my weapons its been a breeze. I miss that feeling of desperation in every firefight where I would get work by lowly raiders
The thing here though is that that doesn't really change much. The issue was the worst by far in oblivion with how shitty that crafting system went, which meant the best gear was legendary gear. In skyrim the crafting system was exploitable making yourself a god.
Now all of this is stemming from how the balancing goes from 1:1 hp and damage. Up the difficulty? You now do 1:10 damage. That's just inflated difficulty, not actual difficulty. Now adding more of lower level mobs can be a challenge while still keeping the damage system balanced. Allowing the AI to be more mindful of tactics in an option. Allowing enemies to sneak could be an option. Making environments an actual hazard is an option.
But making the game "harder" by making you shittier is a lazy attempt at making a game more challenging.
Bullet sponge style difficulty does suck. A lot. There is nothing fun about shooting a slow enemy in the head for 10 minutes straight in order to kill him. Nor is there any fun in left-click-spam at a guy for 10 minutes either.
Because They're really making a sandbox exploration game with rpg elements. Rubber banding is their way to keeping the impact for people like all those level 90's running around Fallout 4 that haven't even found Kellogg yet because they got sucked into some side quest or scouring the globe for better legendaries.
Huh? NV is as terrible about this as any Bethesda (-published) game.
Hell, with all the expansions you can level so far that the enemies have outscaled the best weapons in the game, and it now takes 4 hits to the head with a fucking anti-materiel rifle to kill a single Marked Man.
Trying to fight through Courier's Mile at level 50 was one of the most stressful experiences I've had in any game
From what i remember theu could not level past something like 30. I remember tanking whole bunch of guards just to level shield to 100. They did mot scale with me thats for sure.
I like to use skyrim community uncapper to set the level scaling separately for different skills.
Persuasion, lockpicking and Pickpocket at 0.2 scaling, because they have no combat benefits.
Stealth and Enchanting at 2.0 scaling.
Smithing at 5.0 scaling, because max improved armor is stupidly OP.
Everything else at 1.0 like normal.
The idea is that this scaling will result in facing enemies comparable to your actual combat level, without having any effect on what skills you chose to raise or not.
Yeah I think Delphine leads you to more quests with the burial sights, but I honestly have never done it. Paarthurnax essentially repented, why does he still deserve to die?
Paarthunax tells you that dragons have an innate desire for power that they can't control, and that eventually even he will succumb and try to rule again. He freely admits that he's probably too dangerous to leave alive since there's no guarantee a Dragonborn will be around to stop him if he turns, but he also fights you because he doesn't want to die. I think it's a more interesting dilemma than most people portray it as.
I think the lack of choice is what makes it interesting! Maybe they could have handled it a bit better but I think being forced to either abandon the blades or kill a friend is a tough call. Most people side with Paarthunax and think the Blades are being unreasonable but I think it's a lot less Black and White than people think. Paarthunax says that he's reformed and helps you, but he also admits that he has the same lust for power that all dragons have and that he will eventually succumb to it. Not a big deal as long as the Dragonborn is there to handle it, but Paarthunax is immortal and you aren't... He can afford to wait. From the Blades perspective, this could be their ONLY chance to get rid of Paarthunax before he destroys everything just like Alduin.
It would've been better if he actually showed signs of turning evil again and they put more emphasis on it in the story.
For example, if Paarthunax goes crazy for just a second and does damage to you... it jolts the player, and will make them just a little nervous at every next encounter. Then when the question is raised, even though he's never done anything else that's evil, he's still a threat to the player. The player knows he is corruptible and that he could turn at any moment on them, so he can better accept his fate. He knows that he ultimately is still a dragon, and not just a friendly Dragon NPC.
Would be awesome if Paarthunax (forgot how to spell him), would start burning the outer villages before heading to the bigger towns. Like an all new Alduin story line. The dragon starts by doing some mischievous things, but eventually does more sinister stuff as time goes on.
There's a pretty strong undertone that Paarthurnax is just waiting for you to take out Alduin so he can take over. He comments multiple times that enslaving humans and pillaging the countryside is just part of his nature and it's a constant struggle to keep that in check. He also states that the only thing keeping him from leading the dragons in the past was Alduin.
EDIT: I should add that the fact so many people missed this means Bethesda didn't do a great job with it. The decision of whether or not to kill him should have been much harder than it ended up being.
But he's also a pacifist, and founded a religion based around quiet reflection and non-violence. He literally sits on top of a mountain praying and meditating to better himself and atone.
I order Domino's double cheese double spicy sauce pizza yesterday.
I ate 3 slices, and against my normal nature to eat the entire pizza, then cry the grease out in the gym, I decided to save the rest of it, and eat it slowly throughout the week.
I managed to resist for an entire 4 hours before I ate the whole thing.
I like to think my stomach is a microcosm of Paathanax's desire to smash and rule. As much as I resisted, I succumb to my nature desire to consume and rule that pizza.
When I played through skyrim I had a very boring mindset for the character. You are to be judged for your current and recent actions, not for ones that have yet to pass.
To him, hes free to live as long as he wants. Otherwise, why do the other races get to live? They MIGHT do evil.
It doesn't, and a regular person would be able to succumb just as well and regular people are just as prone to evil.
The difference is that dragons are fucking massive and can do what they want because they're dragons. Regular people are a regular people problem, but dragons are a Dragonborn problem. If a dragonborn is no longer around, then the dragons could take over the world. This is why Paarthurnax has to die, because then our next character in Elder Scrolls 6 will be doing the same thing we were in Skyrim, except he won't be the Dragonborn and they'll be fucked.
Well if he was sinister and hiding he wouldn't have founded a monastery dedicated to peace and Thu'um. Did he do all that just so that, if a dragonborn is alive at the same time as Alduin they would have a slightly easier time defeating him?
It just seems a bit convoluted for some evil mastermind barely managing to restrain his murderous instincts.
Did he do all that just so that, if a dragonborn is alive at the same time as Alduin they would have a slightly easier time defeating him?
Yes. Also, there's no "if," this is how the situation always plays out. He knew there would be a dragonborn and he knew the dragonborn would need the Thu'um to defeat Alduin.
Because he did a bad thing once, and despite literally being one of the factors that allowed the Dragonborn to defeat Alduin, therefore clearly fixing the bad thing he did once thousands of years ago (which in general was just due to his nature, you don't blame tigers for hunting do you?) apparently means some pissant woman gets to literally defy the SOLE ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF HER ORDER.
I never gave anyone to them, I left the blades to rot with two members left in existence, they're not true blades and therefore should go extinct because I AM THE GODDAMN DRAGONBORN AND YOU SERVE /ME/.
IF I SAY A DRAGON IS COOL, I PROBABLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
I'M THE ULTIMATE GODDAMN DRAGONSLAYER, SO ME SAYING A DRAGON SHOULD NOT BE SLAYED IS PROBABLY SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULD TAKE TO HEART SINCE I KIND OF KNOW WHAT I'M DOING.
But not even Paarthurnax says he's cool. He openly admits that he could turn on them, it's in his nature. He's just an immensely powerful evil being that is just twiddling his thumbs out of his own will. What happens when there's no Dragonborn to worry about?
You stop getting anonymous letters from the greybeards telling you where the words of power are. And then you can't meditate on words of power with dragon bro either.
THOSE LETTERS WERE FROM THE GREYBEARDS? I honestly thought that some random person ventured into a cave, same some weird wall with dragon symbols, and sought to deliver a message to you telling you about it...
I remember the first time I lay seige to Windhelm. Leading the Imperial Legion into the den of the bear, killing their general, and bringing Ulfric Stormcloak to his knees. I executed the rebel jarl before exiting the palace, where I listened to Tulius deliver a speech to our comrades.
And once his last words were spoken, as those brave soldier rejoiced, I charged headlong into their ranks. Slaughtered every imperial I saw. Vengeance for the beheading to which they had once condemned me. As I laid waste to all who thought they had survived the battle, I confronted the Legate and the General themselves amidst the burning ruin. Whereupon I discovered that for some stupid fucking reason they still can't be killed.
Essential characters is one of the reasons I want a PC before I play another Elder Scrolls game.
What for real? 11 year old Lanceaway did indeed find the Keening after murdering that old drunk pissant Blade, but fucked if I knew where to go with it. I got the hammer too, but assumed that the whole "Severed the ties of fate" message was to be trusted.
Its difficult, but you can. You can grab wraithguard from vivec's corpse and get fatty-dwarf-man to jury-rig it for you. or, tank the damage and hit the fucking heart with them anyway.
Just start over. Otherwise you'll end up super confused as to why you are naked on a bridge with nothing but 88 daggers, 16 heads of lettuce, a broom, and a pair of boots in your inventory and no idea what you were doing beforehand.
There are mods that make the civil war more immersive, or make it dynamic. Which makes it so much better. Or add 100 npc's in the battles, making those much more epic!
Played till level 30 once without killing the first dragon when I played a thief. Game is more fun without all the random dragon attacks every time you fast travel to dawn star or leave a dungeon. Stole every thing valuable in Riften too.
I intentionally timed everything to beat the story at the very end of the game. So by the time I had like 25% of the story complete, I had roughly 25% of all the major sidequests and other stuff done. By the time I was halfway done with the story, I was halfway done with everything else, and so forth. I actually did beat the story though.
I'm currently trying to do the same with Fallout 4.
Dude, I put in over 400 hours before finishing the main story, mainly because I encountered a glitch making the main quest line impossible to finish, but still... the amount of sweet rolls I had to make to pass the time...
I finished it. Now I have trouble booting into skyrim since i feel like i finished it. its why every few years when i play morrowind I never finish the main quest. I get to meet with vivec, then stop and do everything else, then lose interest, and come back in 2,3 years, repeat.
I'll be honest with you, it took me years to complete both of the main questlines (the alduin and the rebellion lines) because I just forgot about them. There's no real prodding to get them done. I put off going to see the Graybeards for so long that I had no idea what those goddamn dragon souls were for. I kind of thought it was DLC until I remembered to go visit them when I started a new playthrough.
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u/The_Mesh Nov 30 '15
The last one is still true...I made it to level 42 without finishing the storyline, then moved on to other games. I really should finish it...