Why Skyrim Is Bad

Also, why don't Ice spells freeze water to walk across rivers and stuff? Magicka could do it, why can't a big AAA company like Bethesda handle it?

or floating

or the ability to speak

Look, maybe what we're looking at here is a simple difference in morals. It's clear that you, and a few others here, believe that thoughts should be allowed to be proclaimed anywhere without exception. Freedom of speech, if you will. It is a nice idea, in theory, but I just don't agree with it.

If there's a place where voicing that opinion can result in absolutely nothing positive for anybody, including yourself, I don't see why it needs to be shared there. It's like purposely walking into a room of parents with their young children, shouting profanities at the top of your lungs, and defending it by saying "Well hey, I wanted you guys to convince me not to". It's your choice what you say and where, yes, but it's bound to upset those parents and children... so why do it?

I'm sorry I'm not arguing your points as you'd like, but the fact is that most of your points are very subjective (and some of them, I agree with). It just seems as though it wasn't the game for you, which while it is unfortunate, happens from time to time.

Anywho, I'm going to bed now. Sorry if I've been a tad heated, I just get excited when people are finally willing to argue with me

Bioshock came out in, what? 2004? They figured out how to make lightning kill everything in the water like lightning does.

But nope, this is Skyrim, lighting bolts traveling through water because physics.

Mikk said:

Look, maybe what we're looking at here is a simple difference in morals. It's clear that you, and a few others here, believe that thoughts should be allowed to be proclaimed anywhere without exception. Freedom of speech, if you will. It is a nice idea, in theory, but I just don't agree with it.

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ಠ_ಠ

Mikk said:

If there's a place where voicing that opinion can result in absolutely nothing positive for anybody, including yourself, I don't see why it needs to be shared there. It's like purposely walking into a room of parents with their young children, shouting profanities at the top of your lungs, and defending it by saying "Well hey, I wanted you guys to convince me not to". It's your choice what you say and where, yes, but it's bound to upset those parents and children... so why do it?

I'm sorry I'm not arguing your points as you'd like, but the fact is that most of your points are very subjective (and some of them, I agree with). It just seems as though it wasn't the game for you, which while it is unfortunate, happens from time to time.

Anywho, I'm going to bed now. Sorry if I've been a tad heated, I just get excited when people are finally willing to argue with me

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Well, it's not shouting profanities at people to convince you not to, you would have to be a dullard to think that's a good idea. It's the same situation as coming out of the closet, sure it might make things worse and doesn't have a chance to make anything easier, but hell, it's something that if you want to; you should get out there.

For example, I'm a gay furry, saying it won't make anything easier and doesn't have a chance at making anything better, but it is the truth and is worth getting out there.

Funny i liked it for all the reasons you disliked it. And the quests are the best quests i've ever seen in a RPG, so your nuts there.

As for variety, true its all the same biom, but the variety is in the landscape. This hills and mountains, lakes and coast. The various architecture and ruins. THE REALISM! I've never seen a RPG look so real and detailed. There are times i have to stop and wonder at the scene before me. It doesnt need other biom's. Unlike other RPGs the one biom it has is more then enough.

As for itemization it seems your supposed to create your own gear. So if you find a item thats worthless you can take it and use the smithy to improve it and add enchants. Also money is a big part of the game. So you can sell this gear and use the gold for leveling or other things.

Your criticisms are almost a crime in view of how wonderfull this game is. I think you built this up in your mind as another game you thought you were going to get and you missed the marvelous one in front of you. Something i've seen movie critics do. Quite a shame really.

Seledor said:

Funny i liked it for all the reasons you disliked it. And the quests are the best quests i've ever seen in a RPG, so your nuts there.

As for variety, true its all the same biom, but the variety is in the landscape. This hills and mountains, lakes and coast. The various architecture and ruins. THE REALISM! I've never seen a RPG look so real and detailed. There are times i have to stop and wonder at the scene before me. It doesnt need other biom's. Unlike other RPGs the one biom it has is more then enough.

As for itemization it seems your supposed to create your own gear. So if you find a item thats worthless you can take it and use the smithy to improve it and add enchants. Also money is a big part of the game. So you can sell this gear and use the gold for leveling or other things.

Your criticisms are almost a crime in view of how wonderfull this game is. I think you built this up in your mind as another game you thought you were going to get and you missed the marvelous one in front of you. Something i've seen movie critics do. Quite a shame really.

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Holy fanboy Batman!



That is one of the most blind arguments I've heard.

Yes, there is 'realism' to it, but like other games trying to accomplish realism, they sacrifice beauty and colors and other things to make the world not look boring.

As for itemization, if you are supposed to create your own gear to account for the entire game, there wouldn't be game-breaking gear rewards for quests that you can't disenchant to put on your own gear.

Oh for the love of god, explain this retarded statement. If this game has been in development for years and made to follow up one of the most renown RPGs available on consoles, why is it wrong to hold it to a higher standard? I expected something better than Oblivion, which is what for the most part I compared it to. When it is only slightly better, but looks and plays the same in some areas and worse in others, why am I in the wrong?

Magey McFireball said:

- The world has no variety whatsoever. When you finish the intro sequence and escape from the dragon, that very first view you get of Skyrim... that's ALL you are going to see for the rest of the time you play the game.

- The combat system is shallow. All the melee weapons feel exactly (aside from the obvious weight/speed difference between a dagger and a hammer) the same. The monsters in the game barely react to your hits, each weapon type only has a couple moves and a majority of the time you will simply be spamming the same one because otherwise your stamina will go to sh!t and so will your damage output. There is absolutely zero reason to use one weapon type over another. It's all the same sh!t. Each hit feels week and unsatisfying, like you're fighting against air.

- The story is extremely bland and there are 0 interesting NPCs/quest lines. Oblivion AT LEAST had the Dark Brotherhood and a couple of other awesome quests.

-The dungeons all feel exactly the same, and are only slightly better than Oblivion's.

- Worst itemization of any RPG game ever. Every single item you find throughout the world is completely worthless. There are no interesting affixes on the weapons and they all look bland as hell.

I hyped the hell out of this game ever since Bethesda even released a name for it. I had the app on my phone that counted down the days and I was at the door at midnight waiting for my copy.

I played this for less than 3 weeks and I have not touched it until this morning. I'm level 24 with the best armor and I can craft the best weapons in the game. I put on the hardest difficulty and I'm still slaughtering everybody. The Dragon fights are boring after the 15th time fighting one and the quests are so god awful and easy, way points telling you exactly where you go and what you do.

What happened to the NPCs giving you a vague description of where to go? So when you're doing a quest you have to remember to keep your eyes open and use the area to find who/what you're looking for.

What happened to the mix and matching your armor pieces, looking for the 1 of the 3 daedric helms to perfect your armor set?

What happened to actually traveling on foot and taking a silt strider or boat and not just opening up the map, fast traveling and bam being at the city.

What happened to large open cities that were under constant bandit attack?

What happened to spears?

Where did this casualization come from?

Bethesda has been lazy for a while, providing the basic framework for something that is really crap until the community starts piling on the mods. This game doesn't deserve the GOTY awards it gets, the community does. I just don't understand how anyone can still buy Bethesda's crap in 2012. Skyrim is -barely- an RPG. They are very, very obviously going after the CoD crowd and all their games have gotten progressively more dumbed down with each successive entry. Bethesda is one of the worst companies right now, and if their new steampunk RPG doesn't pull them out of this rut then they are going to be on the chopping block just like Blizzard and Bioware, and just like Blizzard and Bioware, I'm abandoning ship before it fully sinks and I go down with it.

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Minimized your message because that's what it means to all of us Skyrim fanatics - very little to no impact.
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Magey McFireball said:

There is a Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim, of course, it is just pretty bad. It took me about 45 minutes to get through the main DB quest line, and after that they killed off almost all of the characters they just have you do a 'stab random person' version of a fetch quest.

It quickly descends into tedium and you only do if you desperately need money, that is, if you are too thick to see the hundreds of other ways to make more money than exists in the world. I married a shopkeeper, left my computer on when I went out for the day, and ended up making more money than I could possibly spend.

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Hmmmm. In a sense you are right.

I think Skyrim gets boring if you do the Oghma Infinium glitch, you just jump from level 20 to level 81 in just 2o mins!

I got to say the questlines are kinda short. Skyrim is my first TES game so I wanna know if the other questlines from other games are longer or what?

Then lets continue

Epic Nord said:

Hmmmm. In a sense you are right.

I think Skyrim gets boring if you do the Oghma Infinium glitch, you just jump from level 20 to level 81 in just 2o mins!

I got to say the questlines are kinda short. Skyrim is my first TES game so I wanna know if the other questlines from other games are longer or what?

Then lets continue

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They were longer in most cases and typically more interesting but not worth revisiting. A game like Morrowind, albeit a good game, wouldn't hold up by today's standards in any shape or form. Sure it had more interesting quests, but jarring graphics and out-dated gameplay make it not worth revisiting.

Magey McFireball said:

- The world has no variety whatsoever. When you finish the intro sequence and escape from the dragon, that very first view you get of Skyrim... that's ALL you are going to see for the rest of the time you play the game.

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The only way the very first view you get of Skyrim when you step out of the caverns underneath Helgen is going to be all you see for the rest of the time you play the game is if you decide to camp there for the rest of the game. Skyrim isn't an entire world, it's a province and it's as diverse in landscape, climate and settings as one could expect for a region of Tamriel with its profile in the lore of the game.

Magey McFireball said:

The combat system is shallow. All the melee weapons feel exactly (aside from the obvious weight/speed difference between a dagger and a hammer) the same...There is absolutely zero reason to use one weapon type over another. It's all the same sh!t. Each hit feels week and unsatisfying, like you're fighting against air.

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The combat system is not as shallow as you characterize it. You simply engage in combat with a very shallow playstyle. While you can only expect so much diversity in melee combat styles, one-handed and shield and two-handed combat styles are notably different if you actually bother to explore the best way to fight with either combat style. Two-handed and dual wielding are more similar but the melee range difference in the weapons along with the fact you can block with the two-handed weapon allows for very subtle differences in combat style. Archery is markedly different from ranged combat as is spell casting combat. If you do a full archer build including the Block perk tree the combat style is quite unique.

Magey McFireball said:

I'm level 24 with the best armor and I can craft the best weapons in the game. I put on the hardest difficulty and I'm still slaughtering everybody.

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How do you reconcile this statement with..

Magey McFireball said:

The monsters in the game barely react to your hits...Each hit feels week and unsatisfying, like you're fighting against air.

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Also, it's literally impossible for you to have 100 in Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy without being at least level 32 and without those you cannot possibly have the "best" armor and weapons in the game at level 24 unless you are using exploits like the Fortify Restoration potion effect as part of your enchanting process. If you're using exploits to beef up your build it's simply stupid to complain about how easy a game is because of it.

Dagmar said:

The only way the very first view you get of Skyrim when you step out of the caverns underneath Helgen is going to be all you see for the rest of the time you play the game is if you decide to camp there for the rest of the game. Skyrim isn't an entire world, it's a province and it's as diverse in landscape, climate and settings as one could expect for a region of Tamriel with its profile in the lore of the game.

The combat system is not as shallow as you characterize it. You simply engage in combat with a very shallow playstyle. While you can only expect so much diversity in melee combat styles, one-handed and shield and two-handed combat styles are notably different if you actually bother to explore the best way to fight with either combat style. Two-handed and dual wielding are more similar but the melee range difference in the weapons along with the fact you can block with the two-handed weapon allows for very subtle differences in combat style. Archery is markedly different from ranged combat as is spell casting combat. If you do a full archer build including the Block perk tree the combat style is quite unique.

How do you reconcile this statement with..

Also, it's literally impossible for you to have 100 in Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy without being at least level 32 and without those you cannot possibly have the "best" armor and weapons in the game at level 24 unless you are using exploits like the Fortify Restoration potion effect as part of your enchanting process. If you're using exploits to beef up your build it's simply stupid to complain about how easy a game is because of it.

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This...

There are a lot of absurdities in this thread. His first contention was really, should Skyrim have gotten GOTY so automatically? Had it come out the same year as Dragon Age Origins, how would it have been ranked? Not even close.

1-The OP posted his ~observations~ (opinions if you will), under the Skyrim General Discussion Forum", and specifically under his own-created "Why Skyrim is Bad". He didn't hijack anyone's thread for starters. He didn't bash into the "Skyrim Lovefest Forum" and dropped a bomb for all the lovers of the game to deal with.

2- The OP is NOT stupid, the opposite in fact, as exemplified by his sense of humor, diction and flawless logic, i.e. discuss the IDEA behind a post, not attack the personality behind it. A tack many of you have taken.

3- His observations of a general laziness, opportunism and ~regression~ of Skyrim is a very valid point, when one stops to consider it came out YEARS after Oblivion. As exemplified by my main criticism of the game, which is ...

The insane showstopper TO ME, its lazy (PC) GUI! It violates the first rule of gaming, never make a game hard-to-play in the first place!

/My hat is off to the OP for having the GUTS to express his well-thought-out opinion.

I'm not sure what's wrong with Skyrim's GUI....

Dagmar said:

The only way the very first view you get of Skyrim when you step out of the caverns underneath Helgen is going to be all you see for the rest of the time you play the game is if you decide to camp there for the rest of the game. Skyrim isn't an entire world, it's a province and it's as diverse in landscape, climate and settings as one could expect for a region of Tamriel with its profile in the lore of the game.

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Honestly, you are attempting to justify this? You are really going to tell me the landscape is bland because otherwise it wouldn't fit with the lore, and not because the developers didn't put time into it? I have a feeling you put more thought into it than Bethesda did.

Dagmar said:

The combat system is not as shallow as you characterize it. You simply engage in combat with a very shallow playstyle. While you can only expect so much diversity in melee combat styles, one-handed and shield and two-handed combat styles are notably different if you actually bother to explore the best way to fight with either combat style. Two-handed and dual wielding are more similar but the melee range difference in the weapons along with the fact you can block with the two-handed weapon allows for very subtle differences in combat style. Archery is markedly different from ranged combat as is spell casting combat. If you do a full archer build including the Block perk tree the combat style is quite unique.

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Again with the whole "you're playing it wrong" approach. A game having good combat doesn't mean it can be fun if you spice it up yourself, it means you get stomped on if you don't. Going to Dark Messiah: M&M again, there you have a variety of spells and weapons you can use (and switch through in a non-flow breaking manor), and destructible objects which can be used to your advantage. There, if you don't keep switching things up and using a different variety of spells and attacks in a fast paced manor, you die.

In Skyrim, even when fighting a dragon, the supposed bad-assiest of the bad-asses, you can just stand there tanking the damage and wailing on him with the same melee weapon/bow/spell until he falls over dead. Sure you can move around and you can switch up your weapons mid battle, but you don't need to, and with the flow-breaking favorites menu it just feels clunky and awkward.

Trying to justify the combat is like trying to seriously Role-Play in World of Warcraft. The button mashing, single targeting, slow, and boring gameplay makes it impossible to get immersed in, and when you have to actively try to make a game fun yourself, the developers are doing it wrong.

Dagmar said:

Also, it's literally impossible for you to have 100 in Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy without being at least level 32 and without those you cannot possibly have the "best" armor and weapons in the game at level 24 unless you are using exploits like the Fortify Restoration potion effect as part of your enchanting process. If you're using exploits to beef up your build it's simply stupid to complain about how easy a game is because of it.

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Right, because I want this game to be even more boring. So a few things:

1) I don't have 100 in smithing, Daedric takes 90 I think.
2) I haven't even bothered to level alchemy.
3) You can easily find stat boosting potions throughout the world. Arch-mages quarters have plenty of useful potions.
4) Pardon me, but how are using potions 'exploits'? We are talking about the ones built into the game for player use right?

EnglishSetter said:

There are a lot of absurdities in this thread. His first contention was really, should Skyrim have gotten GOTY so automatically? Had it come out the same year as Dragon Age Origins, how would it have been ranked? Not even close.

1-The OP posted his ~observations~ (opinions if you will), under the Skyrim General Discussion Forum", and specifically under his own-created "Why Skyrim is Bad". He didn't hijack anyone's thread for starters. He didn't bash into the "Skyrim Lovefest Forum" and dropped a bomb for all the lovers of the game to deal with.

2- The OP is NOT stupid, the opposite in fact, as exemplified by his sense of humor, diction and flawless logic, i.e. discuss the IDEA behind a post, not attack the personality behind it. A tack many of you have taken.

3- His observations of a general laziness, opportunism and ~regression~ of Skyrim is a very valid point, when one stops to consider it came out YEARS after Oblivion. As exemplified by my main criticism of the game, which is ...

The insane showstopper TO ME, its lazy (PC) GUI! It violates the first rule of gaming, never make a game hard-to-play in the first place!

My hat is off to the OP for having the GUTS to express his well-thought-out opinion.

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Finally, someone who shows a lick of understanding. Thank you very much, kind sir.

Magey McFireball said:

4) Pardon me, but how are using potions 'exploits'? We are talking about the ones built into the game for player use right?

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no

To your point on "THE GAME WONT TEACH ME!", It's called a ROLE-PLAYING game. You play a role in the game and in your mind. You seem to have completly bypassed one entire spectrum of this game. You eating the pizza without the cheese.

Magey McFireball said:

Finally, someone who shows a lick of understanding. Thank you very much, kind sir.

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He's not been the only one fighting your corner. It's quite painful reading through the divide: I love Skyrim, your opinion is invalid vs. Skyrim is an imperfect game to be freely criticised by people who play it, in a forum filled with people who play it.

People seem to take personal offence to a negative criticism on a product that they haven't created themselves or have any stake in; they simply enjoy playing it. I can't fathom why people can't just explain themselves and put their views forward rather than trying to shut the thing they disagree with down at the source.

And someone quite literally said they didn't believe in freedom of speech. How can you argue against that? I think it's time we all took a step back and take the view my girlfriend takes: the most important thing, at the end of the day, is how many nirnroot you've found.