The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Well, I was actually specifically thinking Deathclaws in New Vegas, which are much harder (Pre Damage-threshold nerf patch).

There's no Dart Gun, so the only real way you can have an "easy" time fighting them, is a high-powered Rifle (.45-70 usually, "This Machine" works too with .308JSP's) Sneak attack to the leg. Once their legs are crippled, you have to TRY to die.


If we consider Borked Steel, I'd have to say the Albino Radscorpions were my most hated enemy. Even if you cripple their legs, they're fast as hell, though they no longer have their charging sting. Still, they can trap you on a rock and one sting will kill even an 85% DR'd character if you don't cure the poison.

Overlords were bad too, but they were stupid, I usually just Shady-Sands shuffled their ***, but when they do fight, especially with the Tribeam laser Rifle... Lovely challenge. Would have really enjoyed it more if Fallout 3 had Hardcore options to nerf down the Stimpac spam.

They fixed this in Oblivion, but eventually marksmanship became overpowered when the character's sneak was so high that you could thwack three or four arrows into a mob without them ever seeing you. All sneak attacks, mob never fights back. What I wish they would do is more of a Borderlands style aiming system where headshots were crits, sneak attack was still tons of damage, and arm/leg shots debilitated enemies. Also... assassinations would be nice. If I sneak up on a person and jab them in the back with a longsword, I'm pretty certain dude with fall over. I had enough time to mark location of your heart, set myself up, and thrust. Fall over already.

A problem I've had a lot with Oblivion, Fallout, etc, is that they seem to invest an absolutely enormous amount of time into sheer quantity of content (world size, dungeons, caves, side quests, etc) but not nearly enough upward scale in mechanics, skills, and difficulty to enjoy more than a sliver of it before it becomes completely irrelevant.

Seriously, I think I managed to explore about 25% of the quests and dungeons in both Oblivion and Fallout 3 before I was too absurdly overpowered to enjoy any of the remaining 75%. In New Vegas' case, I ended up just quitting entirely because there was nothing more to achieve. It starts to seem like a questionable provisioning of development resources.

After awhile, not even near-100% Bartle Explorer archetypes get off on that stuff anymore, and they're a vanishingly small minority of RPG players to begin with.

I still need to go back and finish up Fallout 3, but I agree that it just got boring due to lack of challenge after a while.

I'm considering giving Skyrim a shot.

Fallout 3 is good if you're willing to actually ignore certain weapons like the Dart gun or plasma rifle.

One thing I hated about Fallout 3 was the companion system. The only mod I ever installed was the one to stop Dogmeat from dying permanently. When he got Ko'd you had to carry him in your inventory (he was heavy) or use a special item that vendors sold when you installed the mod. The item cost like 600 caps each.

inb4 all the VAs are yuri lowenthal

I know these certain voice actors are incredibly common in dubbed anime and video games, but it's still freaky hearing the entire cast of Persona 3 in NV.


I never heard of this bartle test thing til' now. Reading it, it seems that ES has a tough time pandering to both Explorers (which they seem to have a priority for, considering the rich amount of book lore and quality of TES3's quests and to an extent, TES4) and those Achievers. Too many times have I went "The hell? This quest reward sucks!" in FO and TES, never really looking forward to new equipment but rather ways to finally round out my character to what I intended. Kinda feels like they forgot to come up with material past that stage.

That, and dynamic leveling was terribad.

n'wahs.

In both TES and FO I normally stayed in the same armour for most of the game :/

Most of the loot was crappy which annoyed me.

That's what the crazy multi mod high difficulty meta mods that you can never quite get to work in sync together are for.

i made them work!!! O.o;

...sorry, after spending 3 days doing nothing but modding oblvivion, it feels like one hell of an accomplishment when it doesn't crash XD if anyone needs help making those mods work... feel free to PM me XD

That's definitely a legitimate complaint. If the worlds themselves weren't so compelling, I don't think the TES series would be looked upon so favorably.

Skyrim is attempting to solve the issue in a few ways. Number one, the game is built around the idea that the world is leveled 1 to 50. I don't think it takes any longer to (Naturally) level in Oblivion from 1-25 as it's going to take a PC in Skyrim to level 1-50, but what the difference is, How the game's difficulty is constructed, it assumes almost all players will reach level 50. The actual Level cap is not hard-coded in, and players can continue to level after 50 (I think you no longer get perks, but your can expand your HP/MP/Stamina pools), though the rate drops considerably. This should make the game compelling enough in the end-game by not halting meaningful advancement. Look at perks like the Attributes in Oblivion, once you cap them, you can't adjust them anymore, but at least in Skyrim, each level will grant opportunity for more than a lame +10HP bonus.

The Second way Skyrim is attempting to solve this, is Dragons. Dragons have been built with the idea that killing a dragon should never be easy, no matter how high the player gets. Some castes of Dragons are weaker than others, but each commands respect, because any amount of blind attacking will result in failure. If you watch the E3 Demos. The Demo character is level 34, but is also hacked to have 999HP and 500Stam and Mag, and yet the Demo character still struggles to defeat a dragon of the weakest kind. A lot of that could be demo showboating, and Todd's (Game director and controller of the demo character) kind of sucks at the game to begin with, but it's still an entirely different level of engagement than what TES usually creates.

Will it pay off though? I think it will, but nobody will really know until the game launches.

Endgame-y bosses is exactly what TES needs I think. Most WRPGs in general, really.

It sucks when the player is stuck thinking "What is there to do now, see how many guards I can kill before I get bored?".

It has been a very long time since I have even been mildly interested in a console game. This looks fantastic.

Because of this thread I caved and am installing oblivion again (morrowind refuses to work for me still) now if I can just get through the main story without breaking it this time...

Time to spend all afternoon making sure I set my mods up properly for once >_> Why must I be so obsessed with distorting every nice game I have until its no longer recognisable..

Fallout 3 remains pretty challenging if you stick it on Very Hard. That's mostly because of the fixed level cap though. You can't overlevel and become Borkgach the Godstomper.


Also, something interesting I read recently about how the Dragons in Skyrim factor into character progression. They're inspired by the Big Daddies from Bioshock.

In order to obtain Dragon Shouts, you first have to explore dungeons, and learn the "Word(s) of Power".

Once you learn a Word or Words of power, you then have to find a Dragon and slay it and absorb it's essence in order to imbue the word with the power of the dragon, thus turning words into force.

One dragon soul can only imbue one word's power. So in order to master every Dragon Shout, you'll have to find and kill around three dozen of the fearsome beasts.

i think it would be beast if you can experience both sides of the story. Like in Oblivion, it would have been cool if could actually join the mythic dawn, or the blackwood company. Sure you can make your character affiliated with evil but in the end you still end up being the "hero". I know that might seem like a lot to ask for but i think that would be the coolest thing ever haha.

Kill them all you want...they always respawn...always.

This is actually the root of one of the most heated debates on the official Bethesda Forums.


One side thoughts(Which I subscribe to) is that by allowing a player to experience multiple conflicting sides, you can really free up the writers and designers to craft meaningful, emotionally engaging stories.

The other side, which I hate and want to burn everyone who belongs to it, is the side that feels like it's "Locking out content to the player" when in fact, it's adding a layer of depth to the content, that wouldn't have been able to exist.


Just compare the faction dynamics of Morrowind and Oblivion, particularly the Great Houses versus the primary Imperial Guilds.

Oblivion's guilds are so shallow and meaningless against the happenings in the world, I could never stomach more than one playthrough. Linear and Insular, that's what the "I deserve all the content" crowd wanted, and the game was significantly poorer for it.

These shout things. Voice activated?...

By Voice Activated, do you mean like through lolkinect?

Cause no.



Think of them as a different school of Magic that doesn't require MP... They're based around the Dragon Language, and your character does "Shout" the words or phrases when using them. It's probably worth pointing out, that this being the "Dragon Language" you can actually hear the dragons speaking the words as well.

Your current shout is mapped to the right bumper on the Xbox360's controller.

I heard that all the shout words after each other in order forms the TES theme song lol.

Not just the theme song. As far as I know, all the lyrics in the Theme, and various other tracks (Mostly Battle tracks) in the game are the TES Draconic language.

According to the lore so far, the Dragon Language itself is mundane unless spoken by the Dragons (Or Dragonborne like the Septim line), and many have already made a study of it. In it's mundane form, I think it's called Thu'um "The way of the voice" which the Graybeards practice, though they can not imbue the words with the power the player will be able to.


That said, some enemies in the game other than Dragons do have the ability to utilize Dragon Shouts as weapons, most notably the Dragon Priests and their ilk.


I usually don't get into a lot of the lore, because eventually there will be conflicts that have to be Retconned, and it's normally better to not get hunt up on the details.

That said, when I first heard about Dragon Shouts, I'll admit they did (And still kinda do) sound stupid in a lot of ways. Stupid in the same way as The Force in Star Wars. It's better if you don't know about the mitichlorians.

I dunno, I kinda like the dragon shouts. The Septim line is dead right? After Martin?

I'm really looking forward to see if the daedra have any part of the story.

Nirn (Mundus) is just another Daedric realm, so the Daedra princes and their kind are always going to be a part of the world. Many of the Daedric Artificats have already been confirmed to make a reprisal.

Septim line is dead, yes, it's the fourth Era.

I'm assuming that Daedra, or at least Daedric Ruins, won't be in. Those are a Dunmer thing.

Morrowind has been destroyed as a result of the events of The Infernal City Umbrial. Many of the Dunmer have fled to Skyrim, particularly to cities bordering the province, like Windhelm and Riften, so the Daedric ruins may be another dungeon type, but I doubt it. However, the Daedric Princes will definitely be in the game.

Skyrim only takes place I think 200 years after Oblivion so that's not enough time for Dunmer to build places and abandon them yet. D:

I'm assuming the theme will go Daedric Ruins in Morrowind, Ayleid Ruins from Oblivion, and Nordic Temples from Skyrim. You see them in all the trailers, and I'm not sure if they'd be a dungeon, per se, but they sure look it.

I hope there will be Dunmer at least. They were a really good balanced race to play as.

Keep in mind, the borders of Skyrim have waxed and waned over the series' history. What is Skyrim now, was part of Morrowind(Originally Resdayn) at one point in time. One thing that is associated with Morrowind, that will make an appearance in Skyrim, are Dwemer ruins. As a matter of fact, one of the main cities of Skyrim, Markarth Side, is build on top of an ancient Dwemer city.



Of course there will be Dunmer, the original ten races have already been confirmed, and we've already seen Dunmer in screenshots/the E3 demo(Specifically the G4 demo, the dude caught in the webs is a Dunmer).


Maybe I should have, but I didn't want to shamelessly bump this thread yet again, since at this point it's only a few people and no really new info, but I found this today; all 3 Gamespot demos for Skyrim together. So no having to cut 3 in one. No background chatter either.

I'd absolutely love to get the 30minute demo without any banter though... hopefully around the time the Fan Q&A is released.

What's most important about this, is it's the first time we hear the finalized Skyrim Theme.