Bethesda's advertising for positions on a "bleeding-edge RPG" - Fallout 5, Skyrim 2 or something new - Sensationalist Headlines

This may not be the best place for a debate but I feel like the hate bandwagon on Skyrim is pretty cartoonish at this point. The routines and behaviour of the NPCs is a monumental step up from Morrowind, and while the combat may not be super complex the way NPCs react and stagger to certain blows like a hammer to a shield is pretty awesome. People rail on about the replacing of stats with skills but I think it has some merrits. I find it a million times more interesting to gain the ability to perform different combat manoeuvres or reduce downsides of gear than adding +2 to int. Yeah the game has lots of issues, and some of the features that they added could have been handled much better, but I think considering the scale of what they delivered and the mod tools they delivered with it they did a fantastic job.

[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;49900357]People disliking Skyrim has nothing to do with bandwagoning. Skyrim shifted its focus quite a bit towards the more cinematic "looks better, lacks depth" way of gameplay which is obviously going to piss off a lot of Elders Scrolls fans when you look at the earlier games in the series. In fact you can see that same exact shift in focus if you look at Fallout 4. You shouldn't be too surprised that long time fans of a game series get annoyed when said game series becomes something completely different than what they originally liked about it[/QUOTE] Yeah except maybe I'm a long time fan of the game series, longer than a lot of the people who dislike the change (pre-morrowind), and I liked it. A lot of the things people claimed were a reduction in depth make no sense. For example, stats are not a deep element of character customization, they're the most basic element of customization where you're just scaling the pre-existing state of a character based on a number. That's more depth than no customization, but a skill system has a lot more possibility for depth than that. That's not to say that they handled it the best it could possibly be handled (key phrase in my last post is "has lots of issues"), but a move towards a system that lets you customize your character in much more meaningful ways than a few numbers is great. That, and there's no possible way you could deny that NPCs having schedules and routines including sleeping and working is more depth than most of them just standing around. That's just a straight objective improvement in depth. I'm not saying every change from the games most people have played from morrowind to skyrim is great, there's even things that were removed in morrowind that I liked in previous games (those changes were [i]actual reductions in depth, by the way[/i]) but trying to claim they just removed all the depth to make it look fancy is objectively untrue.

[QUOTE=Elspin;49899895]This may not be the best place for a debate but I feel like the hate bandwagon on Skyrim is pretty cartoonish at this point. The routines and behaviour of the NPCs is a monumental step up from Morrowind, and while the combat may not be super complex the way NPCs react and stagger to certain blows like a hammer to a shield is pretty awesome. People rail on about the replacing of stats with skills but I think it has some merrits. I find it a million times more interesting to gain the ability to perform different combat manoeuvres or reduce downsides of gear than adding +2 to int. Yeah the game has lots of issues, and some of the features that they added could have been handled much better, but I think considering the scale of what they delivered and the mod tools they delivered with it they did a fantastic job.[/QUOTE] the hate around skyrim 2 has more to do with the hate for skyrim's popularity than it is for hate towards the actual game. when you been playing these games for years and have a huge past with them, you might get miffed when some guy comes in who thinks skyrim is the be-all-end-all of rpgs and hasn't played the others in the series. call me neurotic, or a hipster or an autist, but the meaning of 'Skyrim 2' just makes me sad

[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;49900357]People disliking Skyrim has nothing to do with bandwagoning. Skyrim shifted its focus quite a bit towards the more cinematic "looks better, lacks depth" way of gameplay which is obviously going to piss off a lot of Elders Scrolls fans when you look at the earlier games in the series. In fact you can see that same exact shift in focus if you look at Fallout 4. You shouldn't be too surprised that long time fans of a game series get annoyed when said game series becomes something completely different than what they originally liked about it[/QUOTE] As a young child, Morrowind was my introduction into Western RPG's. I still don't think it's the only game we should be comparing the new TES series to constantly. Skyrim isn't a vast improvement but removing stats and such isn't nearly as big a deal as people make out. I just don't want to be min maxing my character from the second I start playing. That's a bore. It's a chore.

[QUOTE=Elspin;49900393]Yeah except maybe I'm a long time fan of the game series, longer than a lot of the people who dislike the change (pre-morrowind), and I liked it. A lot of the things people claimed were a reduction in depth make no sense. For example, stats are not a deep element of character customization, they're the most basic element of customization where you're just scaling the pre-existing state of a character based on a number. That's more depth than no customization, but a skill system has a lot more possibility for depth than that. That's not to say that they handled it the best it could possibly be handled (key phrase in my last post is "has lots of issues"), but a move towards a system that lets you customize your character in much more meaningful ways than a few numbers is great. That, and there's no possible way you could deny that NPCs having schedules and routines including sleeping and working is more depth than most of them just standing around. That's just a straight objective improvement in depth. I'm not saying every change from the games most people have played from morrowind to skyrim is great, there's even things that were removed in morrowind that I liked in previous games (those changes were [i]actual reductions in depth, by the way[/i]) but trying to claim they just removed all the depth to make it look fancy is objectively untrue.[/QUOTE] IMO, the 'dumbing down' of stats is the least of skyrim's problems

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49900558]As a young child, Morrowind was my introduction into Western RPG's. I still don't think it's the only game we should be comparing the new TES series to constantly. Skyrim isn't a vast improvement but removing stats and such isn't nearly as big a deal as people make out. I just don't want to be min maxing my character from the second I start playing. That's a bore. It's a chore.[/QUOTE] Skyrim didn't improve anything from Oblivion other than visuals and it was regressive in it's mechanics. The only thing I fear for the next ES game is that it will use the retarded things they developed for F4.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;49899447]What the fuck is "bleeding-edge RPG" supposed to even mean? Bethesda barely even makes RPG's anymore.[/QUOTE] we're innovating on the tired obsolete rpg formula by giving you less roleplaying

Oblivion was certainly cutting edge to me at the time because I was 11 years old when it was out and I thought the NPC schedules seemed really awesome and completely new, the game actually felt alive. I don't think Skyrim brought anything new to the table though.

[QUOTE=cdr248;49899211]Oblivion was cutting edge af[/QUOTE] Idk why people are disagreeing with this because it is true The jump from Morrowind to Oblivion was huge and when Oblivion came out it was easily one of the most impressive "truly next gen" looking games out there, that really sold the jump from xbox -> 360 as a platform I mean, the fact that the view distance didn't rely on occluding fog and was "infinite" but yet still had (reasonably) detailed models in the scene was a huge accomplishment that very few games at the time could pull off Of course IMO Morrowind is the better game at the end of the day but that is beside the point [editline]9th March 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49900558]As a young child, Morrowind was my introduction into Western RPG's. I still don't think it's the only game we should be comparing the new TES series to constantly. Skyrim isn't a vast improvement but removing stats and such isn't nearly as big a deal as people make out. I just don't want to be min maxing my character from the second I start playing. That's a bore. It's a chore.[/QUOTE] IMO Stats are a product of a bygone era of pen & paper designed RPG's Stat's do not matter and aren't the point of an RPG What does matter is character progression, however you choose to do it. And I do think that Skyrim's character progression was considerably weaker than Oblivion/Morrowind. The stuff like Dragon Shouts were great, as well as the organic bits of character progression they added. But the foundational skill+perk system behind it all was watered down in a way that weakened things. That's not to say the idea of the system itself was bad. I loved how Skyrim approached skills and perks. I just wish they made the skills actually matter, and made the perks meaningful. If they did those two things, then the Skyrim character progression would have been perfect (not counting gear at least, which is by far one of the least interesting aspects of the Elder Scrolls character progression).

[QUOTE=cdr248;49900549]the hate around skyrim 2 has more to do with the hate for skyrim's popularity than it is for hate towards the actual game. when you been playing these games for years and have a huge past with them, you might get miffed when some guy comes in who thinks skyrim is the be-all-end-all of rpgs and hasn't played the others in the series. call me neurotic, or a hipster or an autist, but the meaning of 'Skyrim 2' just makes me sad[/QUOTE] I don't think you'd be an "autist" to be annoyed by that at all, and I agree that it's dumb to claim skyrim is "the best rpg of all time" or anything like that. I've never been trying to claim in any of my posts that it was, I'm just annoyed by people making baseless claims that skyrim somehow removed all the elements that added depth when there are several areas where it objectively added depth over both morrowind and oblivion. There's lots of other areas that can be criticized (for example, writing) but I feel like it made major improvements that people are refusing to acknowledge. [QUOTE=cdr248;49900575]IMO, the 'dumbing down' of stats is the least of skyrim's problems[/QUOTE] I brought stats up because it's a common misconception that replacing stats reduced depth when it's quite clear it's the opposite, but there's definite weak areas in the game I'd acknowledge. In terms of actual game mechanics rather than thematic differences that are more of a matter of opinion, what do you think is a major problem? One issue I have with implementation is that there's not much in the way of trade-offs. Path of exile for example has unique traits you can obtain such as losing all health (always 1 health max) in exchange for immunity to damage types that go through magic shielding and directly damage health. Another example is the ability to use health instead of mana for casting spells, which gives the advantage of allowing you to go full exponential growth into health and ignore mana entirely, but makes it risky to cast spells in situations where you're taking heavy damage.

Why do NPC schedules add depth when character stats don't?

[QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49900788]Why do NPC schedules add depth when character stats don't?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Elspin;49900393]they're the most basic element of customization where you're just scaling the pre-existing state of a character based on a number. [b]That's more depth than no customization, but a skill system has a lot more possibility for depth than that.[/b][/QUOTE] It's not that they don't, it's just the lowest possible form of depth compared to things that can have much more interesting effects on a character than scaling damage/duration/etc. See my path of exile examples for a skill system implemented much better than Skyrims in my opinion. Basically I'm saying just removing stats and nothing else would be a bad move, but they didn't just remove them, they replaced them with something with a lot more potential.

[QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49900788]Why do NPC schedules add depth when character stats don't?[/QUOTE] I don't see why a left over of the DND days should still be the "best" way to do things It works for some context, and in others it can turn games into min-max grind fests that are more chores than games.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49900844]I don't see why a left over of the DND days should still be the "best" way to do things It works for some context, and in others it can turn games into min-max grind fests that are more chores than games.[/QUOTE] Because it allows for a greater diversity of playstyles.

Bethesda has never really been that great at making great stat-building games in general and so I feel that Skyrim's progression is going to be lackluster no matter how you slice it. The problem with the skills is mostly in the execution of the new system as mods have shown us that you can easily make the perks interesting if you design each perk right. What I found really annoying was the world and quest design. The stories didn't grab me and the dungeons were about as monotonous as the other games despite the improvements. [editline]9th March 2016[/editline] the introduction of perks was great as a linear 1-100 system just doesn't cut it sometimes the problem is Beth made the perks lame af

[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49900884]Because it allows for a greater diversity of playstyles.[/QUOTE] Not relative to a skill system it doesn't. A character building choice such as the aforementioned ability to replace spell costs with health instead of mana adds more diversity than "what ratio do I want my integers to be" ever could. Bethesda may not have done an amazing job on the implementation but it was their first attempt at radically changing the character progression and the system existing gives modders a way to add more depth than was previously possible. [QUOTE=cdr248;49900889]Bethesda has never really been that great at making great stat-building games in general and so I feel that Skyrim's progression is going to be lackluster no matter how you slice it. The problem with the skills is mostly in the execution of the new system as mods have shown us that you can easily make the perks interesting if you design each perk right. What I found really annoying was the world and quest design. The stories didn't grab me and the dungeons were about as monotonous as the other games despite the improvements. [editline]9th March 2016[/editline] the introduction of perks was great as a linear 1-100 system just doesn't cut it sometimes the problem is Beth made the perks lame af[/QUOTE] I did take issue heavily with some of the main questlines being a bit phoned in, the mages guild was particularly bad when you hardly had to do any magic to make it through. Especially when it had so much potential with a hogwarts-esque setup. I definitely agree the perks could have been done way better, hopefully they stick with it and improve them dramatically for the next TES game

[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49900884]Because it allows for a greater diversity of playstyles.[/QUOTE] In DND, yes, it does, because everyone can just imagine a new situation, and roll for it In a game, a system like that results in some of the more structured designs that actually leads to a limited play style because "you didn't have your points allocated correctly to min-max from the start of the game". That's boring. [editline]9th March 2016[/editline] Skyrim/Fallout 4 sucks thanks to the writing of the quests falling down, and the structure of the quests breaking down. It has nothing to do with "skills"

[QUOTE=Elspin;49900830]It's not that they don't, it's just the lowest possible form of depth compared to things that can have much more interesting effects on a character than scaling damage/duration/etc. See my path of exile examples for a skill system implemented much better than Skyrims in my opinion. Basically I'm saying just removing stats and nothing else would be a bad move, but they didn't just remove them, they replaced them with something with a lot more potential.[/QUOTE] It's not like one has to be a replacement for the other. Stats don't have the immediate and visible impacts that skills or perks do but they do a better job for tracking broad systemic changes. They work best when these multiple systems are working together. [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49900844]I don't see why a left over of the DND days should still be the "best" way to do things It works for some context, and in others it can turn games into min-max grind fests that are more chores than games.[/QUOTE] It deserves more credit than "left over of the DND days", and the fact that it's old shouldn't be held against it, as you seem to imply. This isn't an argument here you hear very often in defense of stats but it's one I believe in, but I find that stats are a great help to immersion. Stats ground the fundamental aspects of a character within the systems they inhabit, and make them more bound to its rules. A system that simply models how well a character can shoot or hack conceives of that character only in relevance to some narrow set of gameplay actions, a system which models their more fundamental traits like intelligence or strength as well conceives of them more fully as a real person. What are the contexts in which a stats system does and doesn't work? And why is the critique that it can turn games into a min-max grind fest not equally applicable to a skills or perks system?

[QUOTE=GrizzlyBear;49900649]Oblivion was certainly cutting edge to me at the time because I was 11 years old when it was out and I thought the NPC schedules seemed really awesome and completely new, the game actually felt alive. I don't think Skyrim brought anything new to the table though.[/QUOTE] Pretty sure it actually watered shit down [editline]9th March 2016[/editline] Sure skills shouldn't be literally Baldurs Gate but they're an absolutely essential part of rpgs. Beth did a horrible horrible job at trying to re-imagine it as a part of the rpg

I think the main problem with classical skills is that because of their linear nature, the game sees it fit to make them solely passives as opposed to mixing passives with procs and actives like perk systems do. I think Fallout 3/NV and even Skyrim did a decent job in that regard, at least in concept they did. SPECIAL/MHS for derived statistics, most general passive Skills are still passive but far more focused on improving the actions you can take, unlock perks Perks to give skills more interesting potential and specialization, the real meat of the system. I personally think it's a great method, it's just that it depends on the perks actually being interesting. If they're not then it's just the same as Morrowind.

[QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49900981]It's not like one has to be a replacement for the other. Stats don't have the immediate and visible impacts that skills or perks do but they do a better job for tracking broad systemic changes. They work best when these multiple systems are working together.[/QUOTE] Can only speak for myself but I didn't say you couldn't have both, just that skills are definitely more interesting and can create more dynamic changes to a character, so in the case that skyrim removed stats and replaced them with skills (aside from choosing your resource pools on level up), it shouldn't be considered "dumbing down". [QUOTE]A system that simply models how well a character can shoot or hack conceives of that character only in relevance to some narrow set of gameplay actions, a system which models their more fundamental traits like intelligence or strength as well conceives of them more fully as a real person. What are the contexts in which a stats system does and doesn't work? And why is the critique that it can turn games into a min-max grind fest not equally applicable to a skills or perks system?[/QUOTE] Again if we were playing D&D where the dungeon master could make up a looser set of rules and apply stats to dynamic game mechanics that would be true, but it's not. In the end stats affect the same "narrow set of gameplay actions", they just do it in a much less interesting way. Perks [i]implemented properly[/i] create more diverse builds than stats because instead of trying to determine which ratio gives you the best performance applied to the skills you have available, you're deciding what features would make your character suit your gameplay style. There's realistically probably always going to be a "best" build for certain areas like stealth and ranged whether your game uses perks/skills or stats, but it definitely take you out of a place where you're trying to pick your progression based on maximizing a math formula

[QUOTE=Rahkshi lord;49898553]nah it's obviously daggerfall 5[/QUOTE] Nope. Arena 6

[QUOTE=Elspin;49899895]This may not be the best place for a debate but I feel like the hate bandwagon on Skyrim is pretty cartoonish at this point. The routines and behaviour of the NPCs is a monumental step up from Morrowind, and while the combat may not be super complex the way NPCs react and stagger to certain blows like a hammer to a shield is pretty awesome. People rail on about the replacing of stats with skills but I think it has some merrits. I find it a million times more interesting to gain the ability to perform different combat manoeuvres or reduce downsides of gear than adding +2 to int. Yeah the game has lots of issues, and some of the features that they added could have been handled much better, but I think considering the scale of what they delivered and the mod tools they delivered with it they did a fantastic job.[/QUOTE] As someone who's been replaying it recently, I disagree. I haven't played any of the elder scrolls games so that might have something to do with it, but it felt outdated and clunky even for its time. Immersion wasn't handled well, and the boring as hell main quests sure didn't help. I don't hate it (otherwise I wouldn't still be playing it), but I still think it's overrated

How hilarious would it be if it ended up an Elder Scrolls themed idle/clicker game? Naturally mobile only. With zero hour DOOM and Fallout 4 bonus modifier dlc.

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;49901088]As someone who's been replaying it recently, I disagree. I haven't played any of the elder scrolls games so that might have something to do with it, but it felt outdated and clunky even for its time. Immersion wasn't handled well, and the boring as hell main quests sure didn't help. I don't hate it (otherwise I wouldn't still be playing it), but I still think it's overrated[/QUOTE] Beth's biggest problem though is that they allow issues to carry over from past games and only give them minor improvements which, in the long run, just don't fix the issue. And the fact that those issues stick around only accentuated their presence and made them out to be worse than they probably are. The earlier games were high-end at the time, but they aged poorly and the aged aspects carried over into the later games for some reason. Skills/Stats have been boring in these games for a long time but skyrim was the straw to break the camel's back and made it appear like skyrim's system was even less interesting than the previous games. Movement and combat had been bad until Fallout 4 when really everyone expected that shit to be fixed with skyrim, the fact that it was still wonky (despite improvements) made it feel even worse than it actually was. Quest design and roleplaying choices (especially the latter) are still bad and the fact that it has continued into Fallout 4 makes Fallout 4's writing seem worse than the games that came before it. The games are all still buggy as fuck and look like they're 3 years behind graphically despite their system requirements. and ect, ect. It just feels like they hardly learn their lesson from previous titles and it makes each entry feel more and more frustrating. They improve, but not by much.

stat systems that go "here are a bunch of points" at level-ups don't feel really immersive to me. i don't do something every day exactly the same until i suddenly did enough things that i now can better myself. actually having to use skills to advance them makes the most sense to me. i also like percentage based chances for many actions, although in today's age combat should be skill-based. i feel that percentage chances are more realistic in that irl people who don't have a clue what they are doing can sometimes get things right, and even the best mess up at times. it adds to the drama, too.

[QUOTE=Hamaflavian;49900981]It's not like one has to be a replacement for the other. Stats don't have the immediate and visible impacts that skills or perks do but they do a better job for tracking broad systemic changes. They work best when these multiple systems are working together. It deserves more credit than "left over of the DND days", and the fact that it's old shouldn't be held against it, as you seem to imply. This isn't an argument here you hear very often in defense of stats but it's one I believe in, but I find that stats are a great help to immersion. Stats ground the fundamental aspects of a character within the systems they inhabit, and make them more bound to its rules. A system that simply models how well a character can shoot or hack conceives of that character only in relevance to some narrow set of gameplay actions, a system which models their more fundamental traits like intelligence or strength as well conceives of them more fully as a real person. What are the contexts in which a stats system does and doesn't work? And why is the critique that it can turn games into a min-max grind fest not equally applicable to a skills or perks system?[/QUOTE] Because games that rely upon pure stat based inputs are anti immersive to me. I get pulled out of them because I'm the type of person who will pull out a pen, paper, and the wiki page and figure out what I have to do so my limited time with a game isn't fucking wasted when I realize half way through the game "Oh fuck now I'm fucking hosed because this game required me to go about it like this a few days ago, welp, time to do it again" that shit is fucking boring and a chore to me. A system that has me put in points out of 100, or out of 10, always has a gameplay affecting element that I would describe to be a negative because now my shooting isn't tied to my characters skills, my skills, it's tied to a number, and now my enjoyment of a game is hampered because my number is too low because I couldn't magically foresee what the game needed me to do, hence why I'd have a pen, paper, and wikipedia open to understand what I need, thus nullifying my personal enjoyment of games Fallout 2 did this to me 6 months ago. It was shitty. I enjoyed the game by and large, but that was shitty. Having to restart because the games options to me were limited, because a few days earlier I had made an uninformed decision. Stat systems work great in games where you're imagining the world, and you're able to do things like you can in DND, where I can say "and now I try clinging to the rafters and sneaking along quietly" and have a roll for it where as in a video game it's "Now I have to shoot this dude. If I had a 6, i'd be good, but I have a 3, so now I'm probably going to die"

They haven't even released the first DLC yet for Fallout 4. Slow down.

[QUOTE=MightyLOLZOR;49901929]They haven't even released the first DLC yet for Fallout 4. Slow down.[/QUOTE] Bethesda doesn't need to slow down, they take like 3-4 years to make a game. We won't be seeing TES VI until like 2019-2020. :v:

At this point, the only real next "Bleeding edge" rpg will need to introduce some new mechanic, not just more of them polished well. Something that would satisfy this would be something like a randomly generating infinite world like minecraft that generates quests and dialogue on the fly. Or perhaps one built entirely around vr.