An Elder Scrolls Analysis - Episode Three: The tragedy of Skyrim the wise 

Bethesda Softworks: 🤢🤮 Beshesda _"It-Just-Works"_ 😌

@@henryviiifake8244 TODD, Bethesda Softworks: lets make $7.5 BILLION, let´s monetize the crap out of it, cut all corners possible, lie to the fanbois , and sell to MICROSOFT🤢🤮

@@cyllananassan9159 wasn’t really Todd doing all that lmao. It’s the company. Todd net worth is only a few million

@@thrillainthemanilla1409 wake up !!!, Todd defrauded the gamers by his own volition, , he is the BOSS at Bethesda

@@thrillainthemanilla1409 once upon a time devs were beholden to the fans, to the players, now it is dump this crap , cos i want need a second G5, this is his company, and after fallout 76 there is no more place for simps of lying and greedy $billions megacorp executives, so spare the simpimg, TODD is not a victim, he is a lier and a thief, and so is PETE hines

Skyrim has a lot of it for being the game with AI complex enough to manage it, but not enough sadly. I hope more is added in TES 6

I literally never heard of it until this video. I heard of some other interesting locations I've never seen. Skyrim taught me to meander from place to place and never look too much, lest I want to get disappointed and shatter an fragile illusion of immersion... It almost feels, like some of the old Morrowind dev guard still lurk in the dark corners of Bethesda maintainance sector, adding the good bits of exploration on the run, whenever they could. :)

Skyrim is the best 6 / 10 ever. Its world is ripe for more stuff like this, and the world building is often great when its not done with spoken dialogue. Its the reason why town and city mods are my favourite for the game, the soft world building they provide is fantastic. But damn is everything else either meh, or just straight up bad. The world and soundtrack carry this game hard.

@@Dasaltwarrior Jeremy Soule is the Godfather of the series.

@@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842 The fact that there are hour long videos of his music set to random scenes of the game world speaks volumes for his work. His work on tes isn't all that different from other big high fantasy composers on the surface, but Soule's music has almost a zen quality to it that cant be replicated.

i really hated fighting the daugr

Dragur in Nordic folklore are so much cooler than the ones we got, they just copied the name. Fighting giant level 100 zombies would’ve been more fun

​@@filmfan6226Not every quest was a fetch quests. That isn't Skyrim's issue. There are a number of interesting and well thought out quests in the game. The problem was just that there were too many fetch quests.

​@@devinmes1868 The fetch quests were randomly generated by their radiant quest system. Every so often the game will pick a random NPC, a somewhat fitting item, and a random nearby dungeon to give players a new fetch quest.

Oh yeah for sure. I sunk over 500 hours into PS3 version ( dread to think how much of that time was loading screens but I didn’t experience many bugs tbf) and another 500 on the PS4 special edition which was night and day better experience with hardly any load times and much improved graphics. I’ve bitten the bullet and paid for Anniversary upgrade and loving it. I’ve got every trophy so no need to worry about accidentally fucking up a mission (I got carried away with Dark Brotherhood on PS3 so by the time Hearthfire came out I’d already killed the NPC at Falkreath who sells you land to buy one of those 3 houses and I’d fucked up something else (or could have been a random dragon attack that killed them I can’t remember) so I could only build 1 house out of 3 so I really enjoyed putting the time into the 3 houses on special edition, I spent a crazy amount of time mining clay, wood and travelling the world buying up every goat horn etc..but l that time invested collecting all the ingots for nails abs hinges made it feel like I’d built the houses. I can’t see me bothering this play through, I’ll just explore and see where it takes me. Some of those new houses look cool with Anniversary and I got new quests to look forward to. The critique is valid for most part but it’s still a unique experience and better than anything else on offer, that’s why the world is still addicted to Skyrim. But come on Todd, hurry the hell up with ES6 we ain’t getting no younger mudda forker!

@@ianwalters11 I wouldn't say it is strictly "better than anything else on offer." Skyrim is explicitly just good at giving you a slow mindless drip of dopamine. If you want to compare Skyrim as a storytelling/artistic medium, it is in the bargain bin at best compared to many if not most of its competitors.

@@haruhirogrimgar6047 I see your point when you say it that way. I’ve tried with the Witcher 3 as they often get compared and I do like it but it doesn’t hook me in the same. Like you say though maybe that constant drip of dopamine is clouding my judgment. It sure is good at hooking you in despite the flaws in artistic/quality storytelling. Mind you I also got sucked in to the original Destiny I bought every DLC which is very unusual for me as I have strong feelings about the lack of quality content and rip off activities of companies (which makes it even more incredible I bought Destiny DLC as although most of it was good it was very expensive, end of year 1 pack The Taken King was £39.99). Story was practically non existent in game, ironically there was a lot of lore in Grimoire cards yet I couldn’t stop playing it, the constant promise of better loot and endless grinding to get those Exotic weapons and armour turned me into a hopeless addict. Two very different games but that gameplay loop grabbed me hook line and sinker.

@@ianwalters11 oh wow I didn't know about Anniversary edition, I've played the special addition. I'll have to check it out!

@@haruhirogrimgar6047 I just listen to podcasts while taking down bandits in some cave. I also bought Morrowind recently, to do the same thing but no way xd

Make it two. Have to give all of the expansions time to breathe

at least it'll be released before beyond skyrim 😭

@@monstergelo1072 I'm just waiting for Skyblivion fam (though I'd play Skywind too)

To be quite honest, I don't think we'll all be alive until that day. But, I hope I'm wrong and our comments will be horribly dated til then.

I'll definitely watch the video, but probably skip the game.

🥂

Eh i found this to just be a series abt how morrowind was so great it was a gift from god himself… and the rest just shitting on every game following it… had he jusged each title on their own terms instead of morrowind did this and tha it might have been good as it stands now it just comes off as fanboyism for morrowind.

@@bam_bino__ though I see what you mean with his obvious disdain and apathy towards Skyrim and affability towards Morrowind, it’s difficult to only judge Skyrim only as its own game. Why do I say that? Morrowind and Skyrim are under the Elder Scrolls name: 3 and 5 respectively. They are made by the same people: Bethesda and have a 9 year gap between them. It’s expected to maintain good elements or even improve upon it in a way that makes sense relative to its lore, existing mechanics and storytelling. Though it is slightly unfair to ONLY see the game as a sequel without seeing it as its own game, it is a definite expectation to anticipate improvements based on previous iterations. Not saying skyrim is better or worse than Morrowind since I haven’t played Morrowind but the point remains.

@@bam_bino__ I like the videos but they do really come across as bitchy.

Not really. Guy just whines about everything. Every topic leads back to Morrowind best, everything else bad. It's ridiculous

I had the exact same thought. The music in these games are such an important part even from the beginning with Arena

@@cloudbloom Me too. I actually think the Score is the only thing about Skyrim noone ever argued about.

Agreed. The Morrowind music was my favorite

Morrowind music might just be the best OST to any game of all time for me. Something so familiar and welcoming. Just mentioning it makes me recall a great memory@@AaronNellessen

I literally had this exact thought when this series came out but never commented about it. You summed it up well. Fantastic series but a truly glaring omission indeed. I often listen to the soundtracks of these games., especially Skyrim, now that it is winter. And you are so right in saying, when refering to the ingame music - 'the gaming experiece is profound and cannot be understated'. So many moments in these games where I would be exploring and the a track would come in at the perfect moment, colouring my whole experience - I often remember the times I first heard certain tracks, and that's not even mentioning the more ambient 'Atmospheres' of Skyrim which I also love. Absolutely incredible soundtrack that I would go far to say has is my favourite thing about the TES.

I honestly felt like watching them out of order purely out of spite lol

@@alexsm3882 You're probably quite immature.

Sleepy Fish is the Lo-Fi god

I'll give you all of the analysis you need right here. They're shit. The entire leveling system in Skyrim was trash. You mean to tell me that in the base game, the only two ways to progress into the later stages of content (level 60 and up) I would either have to spend hours grinding skills that are completely irrelevant to the character I'm playing, or to have my character hit themselves with a brick hard enough to completely forget the fact that they've already mastered a certain skill? Yeah, that's a pretty shit way to expect for me to get all my late game perks. Also, the perks were shit. Barely any of them did anything new or interesting. Off the top, I can only think of Necromage and Shadow Warrior. Everything else is just a numbers buff, nothing to give you entirely new ways to make use of a skill. Scratch that, there are perks that give you new ways to use a skill. The dual cast perks, all of which are noob traps. Actually useless garbage, with a slight exception for Destruction, as it opened the path to Impact, allowing you to stunlock enemies as a mage because you sure as hell couldn't kill them with your pathetic damage. In case you didn't know, dual casting gives you only 10% extra effectivenes for 40% increased magicka cost. If you wanna know what perks should have been, look up Misti on the Skyrim Nexus. Implemented a system for major and minor skills to define your character, the different skill trees interact with each other, unique end game perks that you have to choose only one from per tree, and a lot of other cool shit. Another really cool perk overhaul is Adamant, but this one is mostly for mages. Dual casting is slightly overhauled and made completely baseline, with any perks related to it being interesting and cool as shit, such as dual casting flesh spells applying them to friendly targets around you.

@@borislavarnaudov475 but i loved it

@@borislavarnaudov475 mistake number 1 was not installing a perk mod. Anyone who plays bethesda games unmodded deserve to be laughed at

@@soyjakpartyvideoarchive4645 Read the full comment.

I think Vokrii SPERG SkyRe and Ordinator are great showcases of ways to improve the Skyrim perk system. More so the first three than Ordinator. Not because Ordinator is bad but because it makes certain design decisions that are irreconcilable with the intent of perks (Like one time use perks and perks that are overly "Gamey" and detract from immersion by adding MMO-Like Highlights)

@@cyberninjazero5659 Ordinator isn't perfect but I love the variety and endless possibilities of character builds. Path of Sorcery is good too but it only covers magic skills.

@@ElJefeRules Honestly I prefer Ordinators perks to Parh of Sorcerery. Which is funny because Path of Sorcerery is exclusively focused on Magic perks and yet Ordinator just has better ones

Ordinator is awesome. Not flawless. But allows for a ton of builds variety.

He never played the game more than once, he doesn't have the ability to make that video

I started feeling that way while playing too....I was on auto pilot for most of it.

It's the only TES game I haven't finished, and I had the ps3 pre-order. It just gets so droll very quickly for me.

But that was after spending hundreds of hours...right?

I’m the same way I’ve been playing it for nearly a decade but it’s still cozy to play for me

You know how weak minded an opinion like that is? You no longer enjoy something because someone pointed out flaws. That's as if you really enjoyed Three Musketeers candy bars til someone explained how simple and mundane it was, so you don't like them anymore. WUT

Ah shi....

Wake up Samurai

Well, not even last night's storm could wake you. I heard them say we've reached Morrowind, I'm sure they'll let us go.

You’re finally awake...

It was outright poetic! Hope to find someone that loves me as much as this guy loves Elder Scrolls

@@Spyno41 i wish you luck in your quest bro

@@Spyno41 same...

@@eirschu8973 just remember man, stay working on yourself and the rest will come together

Nah bro it was straight ass

Blackreach was not even officially planned. It only ended up in the finished game thanks to the commitment of individual programmers..

@@christianschaller7873 - If that’s true then bless their hearts. Emerging into that dimly lit underworld was a moment that crackled with such high voltage potential.

@@christianschaller7873 We need those passionate developers more, aaah.

Something about it ending with "Nerevar Rising" playing in the background really hit something deep down inside me

Same, I've never switched from a TEDEd video so fast in my life.

same

That's a god tier sub video drop sir

same here folks, seems something went right for me today, lets go !!

bon appetite, en guete,

The opposite sex: *block 100*

You kids these days have it easy! Back in my day I fully leveled out multiple alts in WoW and Ultima Online *with* a girlfriend, while rehearsing with multiple bands every weekend for 4h each. Barefoot, and in the snow!

@@igoronline While having to walk everywhere uphill in the pitch black at night without any navigation aids!

Hey, I read your comment, and it actually made me rethink some game mechanics. How do you think that a “accessible mode would function in complicated games(like most traditional CRPGs)

Good question to an excellent comment. I’m disabled too (autoimmune w/neuro issues) & unable to allocate resources to video games now but some fondest memories are gaming with my dude in 1st grownup relationship. He worked hard, rarely gave himself permission to do non-work but his industry included all kinds of graphics, so he took an aesthetic interest in video games. I surprised him with a PS2 for Xmas; PS3 few birthdays later. To our astonished delight, we got güd gaming together-i suuuuuck at fighting but find every dang collectable/secret + solve every puzzle. Hubby liked fighting, racing/speed trials , & platforming/timed jumping/etc (which I also suuuuuck at). I tried computer games as a kid & was so terrible at most, esp if they relied on reflex/fine motor skills, so gave up unless search/story type things, assumed gaming just wasn’t something I’d ever do ok enough to get joy out of it until I stumbled into my ideal game-buddy with complimentary interests/strengths. We both enjoyed story + aesthetics, was fun to be there “in” game even when I wasn’t holding the controller. &tho he’d happily play solo or w groups, I only had a good time when playing to our strengths & chatting about the character, worldbuilding, narratives, etc. Apologies for massive reply; original comment tickled my recall...at the time my neuro/CNS issues were un/misdiagnosed & it never occurred to me to recontextualize those experiences with my updated disability status. But as I read OP I realized my disability prob had a lot to do with our co-play system. Game analysis like Nkb & play-thrus are my comfort content; I use them like ASMR & watch-listen dozens of times to good longform ones, kinda trying to recapture how those game-plays felt. I’m grateful for OP bc that comment opened up a whole line of reflection I need to do, maybe figure out how to get that enjoyment back again. Thanku, YT Strangers🙏 . Lol probably no one will read this but just in case: we had a relatively amicable breakup after 9 years bc my illness kept hospitalizing me & he got intimate with someone he met thru work during those times he felt alone/abandoned/scared & revolted by his young partner ravaged by life-threatening illness. We’re both fine with each other; want the other to be + do well, but we’re not close or in touch more than occasional work stuff or run-ins. See: Tom Rush; “No Regrets”. Anyways it’s still sweet to be able to separate those good feelings from the specificity of him & consider how to bring the feelings back into my life now. He can stay linked in my good memories but I can hopefully find my way back into gaming again.

Well said brother

H bomberguy, Shammy, there's one Im forgetting for sure, Cristopher Anderson?

@@IHateNumbersOnNames Joseph Anderson. And there are a ton more. KingK being one of the larger ones.

@@IHateNumbersOnNames imagine watching gexplosiondude

@@IHateNumbersOnNames Salt Factory is also great

@@IHateNumbersOnNames Those guys are all pretty good. But Noah Caldwell-Gervais is the greatest of all-time in my opinion. I highly, highly, highly, recommend watching his stuff.

In recent Tom Scott's video the A.I. generates a video title that defines the last two decades of my experience with this series: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Fw6GjAPpKuA.html

You devote a hefty chunk of the video to a rant about gameplay loops, as if the existence of the term implies some push to make it the only thing a game is judged by. And that's nonsense. The term is a tool used to describe something inherent to most games in less words, and no on is arguing it's the only or even the most important way to define games. Really, it depends on the game, and it's up to the person describing the game to do so honestly. That's like claiming metaphors are bad because they don't fully describe the literal situation. tl;dr "Gameplay loop" isn't a dishonest phrase just because it CAN be used dishonestly. That in of itself comes off as rather dishonest of you. edit: and you KNOW all this because you keep using this hated phrase unironically later on...

@@zanmaru139 Isn't his point is that devs had been overrelying on that idea. It's like tropes. They are tools, they aren't necesarily good or bad, being aware of them can be helpful, but looking at everything through the lens of tropes and measuring everything to its tropiness (either to follow them or avoid them) may hinder your creative process.

@@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842 The issue I see in what NeverKnowsBest said is that "gameplay loop" is a technical term, it serves a purpose to be an educational term that (like @Zanmaru said) defines the core means a game engages the player with activities/challenges, which for most games tend to happen in a loop (or various loops of activities). Complaining about it comes across as one complaining about other technical terms in any other field, creative or technical, it's a bit silly. You made a comparison with tropes, and while I see and agree with your point about how measuring everything by them as a hindrance to creativity I don't feel tropes are an accurate one. I feel this way because, as I see it, "gameplay loop" isn't a tool but an integral part of what constitutes a game and the process of game design. Terms like "script", "sound direction", etc would likely be more accurate parallels in my opinion. Having said that, I understand his frustration, and I believe it comes from a similar place as my own with games journalists and RU-vid game critics in general: technical terms get thrown around so much outside of their intended meaning by those that want to sound more intelligent than they actually are that sometimes one can't help but cringe internally each time they are misused

@@RinaSC1 That makes sense. I felt like NeverKnowsBest's point was more of a sentiment, rather than a condemnation of using technical terms in general. Design by commity, streamlining the pipelines, gameplay over logic type mentality, etc AT THE COST of trying to thinking about Skyrim as a living world, adapted as a video game which has gameplay loops to keep things fresh and engaging... It goes without saying, that some games thrive in embracing their artificiality, but others require a bit more sensitive approach.

As a PolSci student I gotta say it's not that simple, but since the irony of the narrator IS in the reductive view of terms/fancy words I have nothing to say haha

This happens in art circles too. While I was in art school I was taught the "proper way" to discuss art, and while some of the skills I was taught were useful, a lot of it is just lingual snobbery.

They both commit the sin of locking parts of what should be the basic move set behind perk buys.

I thought the very same thing after discovering his channel last week and watching both Morrowind & Oblivion b2b. I’m curious to know what NKBs background is, educational & professional, because the talent he has to break down each game to such granular detail, compare them to previous entries in the game series, all whilst being able to present in a formulaic, captivating and easy to digest... journey. It’s fucking incredible. Oh and his vocab is top tier.

@@MrCameronK check out noah caldwell gervais they are the best imo. He's like the American version of this haha

Don't know what either of you are talking about, Joseph Anderson is the king of critique vids

@@henrycrabs3497 lmao his work rate is terrible though

not for Morrowind btw, there are more NPCs there than in Oblivion and Skyrim even if you combine them together, about 2.5k

@@artemgushin5228 yeah but they are all generic with the same dialogue options and responses.

Doesn't mean it's good.

@Galahaund Lacerium not really. Why would everyone know the exact same things about pretty much everything and all give the sam es verbatim response? Where do you live where people are like that? A cult?

@@curtisgagnon2871 That isn't true? Plenty of them have unique things to say

So true

J4Vik we just had a baby and all I can do nowadays while tending to a newborn is to watch RU-vid on my phone so....god send

Game critique / analysis are my covid happiness the last year pretty much

@@henrik1743 so many good videos and games to play out there, its an alright timeline haha

@@alanlee67 Congratulations! - From a stranger with a similar interest in the Elder Scrolls

I'm here for that 🥂

Then all the spells and there lore then the stones then the cover eso

Here's hoping

oh, i did that too.. But i also had 60-80 hours of gameplay not knowing how to get Dragonsouls. was quite fun untill then.. then those pescy dragons started polluting the whole of skyrim.. very annoying..

And maybe ways to improve things. The "what I would have done" video.

They create dopamine loops so you get trapped into being "addicted" to it, even though as you gradually get used to the loop in the 300 hrs long play through so much so that it no longer excites you. You just end up doing them as habits more than anything.

That point honestly makes the game worse for me. If the best part of the game can be replicated by playing the game soundtrack while sifting through stock photos of the Norwegian wilderness then what's the point of playing the game? To me a game like skyrim intends to be needs to suck me in and make me feel like I'm completely immersed in a world without me having to actively think about being immersed, and skyrim didn't do this for me at all

also weirdly, i have watched half of the video and he hasnt shown footage of playing as stealth archer. thats why he hates the combat loop . i am not even joking lmao . playing any other build in the game except stealth archer without any tweaks is not fun in the base vanilla game at all. the stealth mechanics in skyrim has its own weird caplmpy rules and mechanics that are engaging enough to facilitate the dungeon crawling loop. i mean it

@@btchiaintkidding7837 saying that all but one build of the game isn't fun is not a good defense of the game or gameplay loop at all. In fact it kinda just shows how bad it is

@@nyalan8385 it was just a statement and even criticism as well. i wasnt saying it in defense of skyrim lol. and yes, if u are not trying stealth archer the combat feels insanely and 10x lackluster and boring. the stealth may be dumb but still engaging at the least. i am not a stealth guy, but was basically forced to play like that cuz how sh^tty the combat is in other playstyles. also the enemy scaling is terrible if u play anything other than stealth archer, e.g.- in warrior build(aka vegetable soup build) enemy scales so much that game becomes harder so ur characters feels weaker as u keep levelling him up beyond lv5 lmao. running mage build has its own issues with levelling up, mage build is only fun once u get "impact" perk. only way to have fun as a warrior build and make the combat impactful is chug a veggy soup for infinite stamina for 12mins and keep using shield bash/power attacks to stagger enemies otherwise they just stand there taking hits without reacting. how lame. only saving grace is the world design and music and thats it

There's nothing cringey about being genuine.

Wholesome comment.

JC & Deus = commenter synergy

Heard that in JC voice & it only made it a billion times more wholesome & soulful. Never let them say they “augged” your humanity away, JC.

Yeah I feel exactly the same. It's a game which can capture your interest for days but always leaves you wishing for your time back.

@@Robert399 I never played it but think I will try in VR with mods so it feels like you are there in this magical fantasy world. I think that will be the very key difference. Otherwise I agree I love games like arcanum, bloodlines, pathfinder kingmaker and shadowrun dragonfall over the shallow elder scrolls.

@@idnintel I'm glad to finally see Dragonfall on one of these lists :)

Just mod it. I know it's not an excuse, but in my mind it's more of a blank canvas, which you shoild customize to your liking.

*sweats with 3000+ hours played on skyrim*

God, I love pseudo-intellectualism.

I know Elden Ring gets praised a lot and is a completely different type of game then Skyrim, but it brought back such a great sense of wonder and discovery that I haven't felt since I was 11 years old playing Oblivion for the first time. Games like Witcher 3 and RDR2 have come close to replicating that feeling, but Elden Ring is the first one.

@@roshtoux Even though I've only got 35 hours in Elden Ring so far, I wholeheartedly agree with your statement. Skyrim has been my favorite game for over 10 years, and playing Elden Ring brings me back to those days when I'd spend hours wandering that frozen land. Of all the games to ever bring that feeling back after a decade, I never expected it to be a game like Elden Ring.

You have very low standarts or very deep nostalgia.

@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 that is not a counter argument

Lol Aldia is the 1st sin being a killjoy for zero reason🤡?

I paused the video to comment something really similar to this. The term "Gameplay Loop" is really helpful for designers to think about how the player will move through the game. The problem with Skyrim, and especially the loop that was discussed in the video, is that it's extremely apparent that it is a loop. After doing 3 quests with almost identical loops in an identical setting, you start to notice the pattern, and then after 8-10 quests it becomes tedious, especially if the gameplay can't isn't engaging or varied enough. Gameplay loops work best when it's not apparent it's the designed loop.

there shouldn't be a "Gameplay Loop" in a story driven game like Skyrim. imagine you are reading a book and chapter 5 has the text "re-read chapters 2 to 4 inclusive", that is the feeling I get with "Gameplay Loops"

Honestly I think avoiding terms like "Gameplay Loop" and "Ludo narrative dissonance" is silly. It means that you have to say "there is a disconnect between the story, characters, and themes of the game and its gameplay" every time you discuss the issue. Not using the terms does not come across as down to earth or grounded, better than the academics, it just comes across as pretentious, like a hipster trying to avoid something mainstream. Maybe if the widely understood terms were used, this wouldn't have had to be three videos at all.

Yeah that's not how gameplay loops work. Every game that has the majority of its content focused on a set of basic mechanics has a gameplay loop, that's how games work.

@@Tony_Regime Your first mistake was thinking Skyrim is "story-driven."

Thats a NPC in the background, a bowl with two bread loaves is in the way......

@@gtfokthxbyecya I know... That's what makes it funny... That's the humor of my comment... Have a great day!

lolol

Now I can't unsee it.

A Gasp?

@@CErra310 shit you right

:)

I have to disagree, because of one thing the Witcher games, felt for me always like a play in a theater, its a good story and good characters, but the world itself feels belnd, empty , the NPCs do nothing, the world besides some spots is lifeless, not rly much to explore besides the tracks. No freedom, you cant enter in every house, you cant touch the items.

@@lucifer0247 Is entering every house or picking up random objects really that important compared to writing and characters to you?

@@haruhirogrimgar6047 well between a world where you can interact with almost anything vs a world were you can not I would say the world where every house is accessible and every item stealable to be the more believable world. I mean can you become Jimmy the silverware thief who steals all the utensils in a persons house in any other game besides a Bethesda game?

@@AcceptGamingDKD Idc about becoming "Jimmy the Silverware Thief." I could just be Geralt of Rivia and make hard ethical choices in a world with well fleshed-out (literally and metaphorically) characters. Or pick up SMT Devil Survivor and try to navigate an apocolyptic siituation with rapidly deteriorating social standards/responsibility. My draw towards a meritocratic society versus one based on equality being deciders of what happens with the option to be cowardly or self-centered. Or Play Rune Factory and build up my life & fall in love with the girl of my dreams while making friends in a new town. Or... If the developers wasted time on making it so I could go around habitually stealing silverware they wouldn't have time to make an actually compelling experience that engages with me on an emotional/logical/ethical level. Like, what can Jimmy actually do? He can level up his sneak skill, he can grab Silverware and sell it for a pittance. And then just do the same exact sh"t as Jack the Thieves Guild guy, except he might grab more silverware along the way for no reason other than your personal obsession with the concept.

@@haruhirogrimgar6047 that's called roleplay. I had a character named link that took every item off dead bodies because I could. I had so much stuff in my storage containers before I was finally done with the playthrough. Idk man maybe you like a story layed out for you but elderscrolls games have always been a make your own experience and roleplay a character that just happens to follow the questline sort of game to me.

Level scaling is the devil, and it should be exorcised from gaming. It's quite literally the purest form of "artificial difficulty" that you could ever devise. If you're going to create a completely procedurally generated world, then fine, you'll have to make such a system. But if you're going to make a handcrafted world, then it has no place.

@@MidlifeCrisisJoe Agreed. If you don’t want players to have access to OP endgame gear maybe just make the quests and dungeons that grant you that shit too hard for most under levelled players to complete.

@@Gum_Cuzzler or just tie them to certain stat/skill requirements.... oh wait skyrim got rid of those well whatever

how is artificially tying it to stats better? and how is putting it in front of super hard enemies any better? the end result of "you cant use it until later" still happens so it makes little to no sense other than personal preference. by OP's argument he actually would prefer oblivion scaled levelling cause bandits will drop better loot , personally i prefer how bandits work in skyrim as it makes more sense and actually allows you to become OP and will spawn better versions of bandits at higher levels with better gear in the midst of the cannon fodder bandits

@@imalittletoxicjustalittle It is less artificial than tying it to levels since it makes sense that you need certain stats or skills to use weapons or tool, like a certain amount of willpower to use a magical staff, a certain amount of strength to wield a Warhammer, or proper knowledge of how to handle some futuristic weapon, etc. it is more immersive it gives the player the option of how they want to reach the goal of being able to use the weapon, they could put fewer points into other stats, or invest more into certain skills that in order to be able to use a strong weapon sooner not only makes this character development more engaging for the player, it makes your characters more unique, instead of having the same shit available on the same level at the same point in the game every time, it also intertwines your equipment and loot system more deeply with your character giving the decision of how to skill your character more weight have you every played something like, gothic, deus ex, system shock 2, shadowrunner? honestly, both systems were garbage, oblivions bandits got loot that was way too valuable, while skyrims bandits were wearing what came down to a fucking uniform

More like morowind I swear I could predict when one is coming up

I want to add on a few things, but i also don't want to bloat my OP, so I'll add some additional thoughts here. 1) I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with wanting to do grand, big stakes stories for faction quest lines. The dark brotherhood especially was rather enjoyable, and part of that i think had to do with its pacing, not to mention that rather than progressing through the ranks, your guild is destroyed and you're charged with rebuilding it from the ground up. In the case of something like the College of Winterhold, i think if the game spent some more time at the beginning further acclimating you to the college before introducing the big stakes plot-line, it would've helped the quest tremendously. Like, an obvious comparison we can make is the stories and setting in the Harry Potter books. Those books spend a LOT of time showing us what normal life is like at Hogwarts, it explains how the different houses at the school work and what all the different classes are, and there's a lot of room for the story to breathe before the main conflict of the story truly presents itself to Harry and his friends. 2) If the game is going to send me to radiant dungeons, I'd prefer that it be handled similar to The Elder Scrolls Blades where you're simply taken there after a loading screen and are returned back to your "hub" so to speak after you've cleared the dungeon (your hub in this case being a given guild hall). That way, none of the actual world itself is being bogged down by radiant dungeons. Bethesda could have their radiant quests and radiant dungeons without it hurting the world design, and I don't think the players would necessarily be opposed to that since those who don't want to farm those quests for items and resources can just opt to not do them. One could argue that it's immersion breaking, but having radiant dungeons and quests to begin with is already immersion breaking, so i'm simply proving the best possible pitch that would preserve the rest of the world design. I imagine that's a hill that Bethesda is simply willing to die on.

@@four-en-tee chill out bud

Great response!

@@BastosFC2 the guy is just expressing his thoughts for people to see, if you don't want to see them you can scroll past

😂 same

Stopped another vid to watch this one.

people say this so often you'd imagine that most of them have never clicked on a video before

Adam I was gonna leave the same comment

I know...i think I hurt myself.

Skyrim needs more of that for it to be noticeable

Yeah but you can count thpse on one hand when you end up gping trough hudreads of bandits

Absolutely ... I wonder how many players have actually played Vanilla Skyrim ... and what would they think about it?

@@Whippets this game sold, and continues to sell, massive amounts on consoles that don't have mod support. I'm a pc player with a considerablw mod list myself, but I think it's ridiculous that people push this idea that it's the mods making the game good. The mods are good because the framework of the game presents you with an almost unlimited amount of things to do and different ways to play.

@@vanyadolly I didn't suggest it was the mods that made this game good. The vanilla game is fine (a bit frustrating at times), but modding did breath a lot of new life (for PC users of course) and I suspect a considerable number of people have always played the game with some level of mods.

@@Whippets Sorry if I jumped to conclusions about what you meant. I'm just seeing a lot of this "Skyrim is bad" meme nowadays and I think it's getting a bit ridiculous.

yeah it could be a 7/10 with mods but sadly was just a 3-4/10

Planning on going back for all three once I finish this one!

... what?

Nah. That might describe my life, though. :)

From a designers point of view, Gameplay Loop is really useful to identify because it can identify the structure around which you develop the game and you can use the gameplay loop to explain the game to other developers or pitch it to investors. It’s not really useful for players to know through, because it does sort of take away from the general enjoyment of games. Critics normally say it to sound clever.

Yes, and part of the problem is that too many games critics are wannabe games designers, so they pretend to fit into the club by using their terminology. Still, it's not a great term for even a designer to use if the point of the game doesn't mesh with that kind of design. That's really the whole point of this series: The Elder Scrolls came at the problem of designing an RPG world from one approach focused on immersion (whether mechanical, graphical, or emotional) as it progressed to its 3rd installment, and now has veered away from immersion towards addiction as its focus as it's moved away from it. "Gameplay Loop" is a great term for the game designer who wants to focus on designing dopamine addiction mechanics in games, it's terrible for a game designer who wants to make meaningful experiences or truly interesting worlds. The fact that it becomes core to discussions about Skyrim is extremely telling.

Yeah. This. It's ok for the games to be different. I was really looking forward to this series, but it seems like so much of it was just "this is bad because Morrowind did it better".

Being different is all well and good, but when the experience becomes progressively more shallow as the years go on, valid grounds for criticism arise. Not every Elder Scrolls game needs to be Morrowind, but they should all be competent RPGs in their own right. Skyrim especially fails at this when it comes to its progression and exploration as has been expounded upon in excruciating detail by half of the internet.

@@l1teralcanc3r78 why do they HAVE to be competent RPGs is my point. Why can't the series move in a different direction?

@@TheBigJConRU-vid because a series loses its fundamental identity after a point. If a studio wants to make a different game by all means do so, but slapping a recognizable name on it for branding purposes is a disingenuous and cynical way to bait people into buying a product they don't actually want.

@@l1teralcanc3r78 your mama

You just have to ignore it and not worry about maximizing the potential, just take what you're given when you level up

@@rileyyoung4762 But the points you obtained are too small to make a substantial difference to your character. It makes levelling feel unrewarding. Also, this is counterintuitive to how RPGs are played.

Lol

Same Skyrim is the game the "Five Quests to become guildmaster" meme. Oblivion made you earn your place in guilds and it was always fun to talk to random people. Skyrim npcs just felt so bland in comparison

Skyrim feels like a walking simulator with combat attached to it compared to Morrowind and Oblivion. Just listen to most people's praise about this game, it's always about the atmosphere and the lore.