Let's review Skyrim for real

With the release of the Special Edition for Skyrim, I think it is about time I did a real review of Skyrim and its DLC content. The Good, the Bad, the Subjective and so forth.

So, to repeat a question I asked in my Fallout 4 review, where does one even start with an entity like Skyrim? It’s individual merits as a game? It’s relation to the previous installments of the Elder Scrolls series? Or that it seems to have ushered in an age of Open World games?

Well, the last option I will probably skip, because I don’t really care that much about the impact it had on the games industry. The other two options are more interesting, for me anyway.

To note, I will try to keep this review spoiler free, but I may slip up a time or two.

The Opening

Now, I said I would try to avoid spoiling anything, but, in my defense, the opening of the game is not a spoiler. It’s the fucking opening of the game.

One of the problems discussing the opening has to do with the Dragon attacking Helgen, because there is a real argument to be had about whether or not it should have been included. The pro side could say that establishing the Dragons as a threat this early in the game helps set the stage for the Main Questline. The ones against it could argue that it spoils the surprise for the rest of the game. Me, I don’t mind that it is there.

But what happens during the intro sequence is not as interesting as what happens at the end of it. I, and a lot of others, had a problem with just how involved you got with the fight against the Lord of Destruction in the intro to Oblivion, because the whole “help me save the world” thing is dumped on your lap immediately. So does this happen in Skyrim?

To put it simply, no, it doesn’t. You can start that storyline if you follow Ralof or Hadvar to Riverwood, but the gameworld opens before you get there, and they will give you a line about how the two of you should probably split up. So you’re free to fuck off to Falkreath or something if you want to avoid the Main Questline.

The opening in Skyrim establishes more than Morrowind’s do, but whether this is good or bad is up to personal taste. There was something kinda funny about being a prisoner pardoned by Emperor Uriel Septim VII on the condition that you’d report to one of his Blade agents. Only for you then to go off the rails, forget the whole thing and probably sell the package you were to deliver to random merchant X, without the Blades and Imperial Legion coming after you. Makes you wonder what the Emperor was thinking. It is also implied, or outright stated, that he has done this before, so maybe he hopes to turn Vvardenfell into Australia.

But, at the end of the day, the player in Skyrim is in Helgen when it is attacked by a Dragon (yes, I know who the big, black and bad dragon is, but I’m not naming it) and may or may not get involved in the mess that follows.

The story

Yes, with a lower case s. Apparently. I think the main storyline of Skyrim has some good ideas, but it is not as fleshed out or paced as well as I would hope. Still, not too bad a timepasser.

It does, however, seem to reward those who already know some stuff about the Nordic religion over those who don’t.

Setting

This is where most of the effort seems to have been put, at least when it comes to writing. Between the books, NPC dialogue, visual storytelling and drawing on the lore established in the previous games, Skyrim does quite a nice job establishing the setting. If one has a keen eye and ear for details, there is a lot to learn. And many things are not so simple as they originally appear. Religion, for example, or the civil war. Whatever you do, always remember that people and books talking about the civil war are biased or even outright lying. It is a good idea to gather as much information as you can and compare.

I really don’t want to go into too much detail about this though, because I think it is best experienced.

Guilds

There are four major factions in Skyrim, apart from the civil war questline; the Companions, the College of Winterhold, the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood.

I am glad to see the guilds being shaken up a bit since Oblivion, and I hope they do more with that in the future. With the Mages Guild having fallen apart and the Fighters Guild apparently not having a presence in Skyrim at this time, it opened for other perspectives, which is nice. I also like that the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood start in a less-than-stellar place, to reflect how things have changed for them.

However, it is important to say that the guild questlines are like the Main Quest in one important aspect; they have good ideas, but aren’t paced that well. I still consider them enjoyable, but in the interest of fairness and objectivity I will grant that point.

Freedom

Something I’ve ranted on quite a bit with Fallout New Vegas is that almost everything is tied to the Main Quest. Well, this is not the case in Skyrim. The option to skip everything regarding the main questline is there.

Now, there are some quests that are affected by this, of course. If you don’t advance long enough into the main questline, Dragons and Shouts are not enabled, and there are a few quests that are triggered after certain Main Quests are done. You are also unable to complete the civil war questline without doing the first stages of the Main Quest. If you don’t mind being unable to do these things, however, it is entirely optional.

The Levelling stuff

Talking about the stuff related to your character is where most of the comparisons to older games tend to take place. I think it is the simplest thing to compare between the games too.

One of the things that made many fans scream betrayal was the removal of attributes and classes, and I sort of understand why. They are so common in RPGs that they are expected to make an appearance in one way or another, and, more importantly, they were part of previous games in the series, so they were expected to make an appearance here too.

I think the knee-jerk reaction to their removal did a lot to sour the system from the word “go” for a lot of players. That is not to imply that Skyrim’s character system is some masterpiece, because it isn’t, but I don’t think it gets a fair consideration by a lot of fans of the older games. Nor do I think the attribute and class system of the older games gets the scrutiny it deserves in a lot of cases.

I touched on this in the my post about classes between Morrowind and Skyrim specifically, but I think it bears repeating. The attributes in Morrowind and Oblivion have way to high starting values compared to their max values. Even if you start with the low value of an attribute, 30, that is a meagre 5-7 levels (4 with grinding) behind someone starting with 50, in a game that goes to about level 50 (Oblivion) or 70 (Morrowind), and you get those levels returned to you in other attributes. You also increase attributes too often, in that you must increase 3 every time you level up. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this leads to a lot of blandly stated characters after a few levels.

There is also the matter of class skills and non-class skills not being differentiated in any way that affect their usefulness and make them unique.

But this is a review about Skyrim, so how does Skyrim do levelling? With the removal of classes and attributes, surely a lot must’ve changed. Eh, not really. Well, it does change in some aspects, of course, but the basic idea of picking a skill and getting to work to level up remains the same. You just aren’t forced to make that decision on the fly with little to no knowledge of how those skills will actually play out, like the previous games.

The attributes being removed and perks being added, however, does have a lot more gameplay impact. Or so people like to say.

If I am being real, I have a hard time seeing what the system in Skyrim is lacking compared to the older ones, beyond the specific implementation. Everything the attributes did remains in the game, they have just been worked into different perks, base stats or mechanics.

Take for instance willpower. In Morrowind it gave stamina (or fatigue as it was called, but I will just say stamina for simplicity) and a chance to resist certain types of magic. In Oblivion it gave stamina and increased your magicka regeneration. In Skyrim, you have magic resistance worked into the Alteration perk-tree and magicka regeneration in the Restoration perk-tree. Stamina is increased as a base-stat, and also happens to give some carry-weight if you do. Meaning that the stamina base stat also covers the non-damage elements of the strength attribute from previous game.

And there are things like this for everything. Damage is covered by perks in said weapon type, less staggering is a heavy armor trait, more health, stamina and magic is covered by the base-stats. Movement speed, which many points to as being removed, was worked into the sprint mechanic. If you have a high stamina, you can sprint a lot and therefor you can move very fast across the land. Similar thing happened with Hand-to-Hand, though to a lesser extent. You can increase your Hand-to-Hand damage in the heavy armor perk-tree, though sadly there are no power attacks to unlock for it.

Of course, none of this means someone has to like the implementation of said system. That remains subjective. However, I do think it is unfair to claim that Skyrim removed the effects of the attributes when they simply worked them into a new system. And given that it has both magicka regen and magic resistance, it worked both versions of willpower in, rather than just one of them.

One thing I fail to see the objections to, however, is that Skyrim allows for more specialization than Morrowind and Oblivion. Like I pointed to before, class skills and non-class skills behave the same way, as long as they have the same skill level. This is not the case with Skyrim.

Well, okay, there are no “class skills” for Skyrim, but we do have perks and perk-trees to allow us to pick the skills we like and want to get better at. And the simple fact at the end of the day is that the perks do more to differentiate the skills your character is supposedly defined by than the classes ever did. It also allows for fundamentally similar characters to level very differently, which really wasn’t possible with the attributes in previous games without intentionally picking suboptimal stats. And, hey, I can pick suboptimal base stats and perks in Skyrim too, so the previous systems doesn’t get bonus points for that.

However, as I alluded to earlier, I don’t think the levelling system in Skyrim is a masterpiece. The baseline mechanics seem to mostly be fine, but a lot of the perks are very basic and uninspired (like the attributes were). I still think the result is leagues above how it used to be, but I do hope they continue to experiment with the model. Which I think they will do. Fallout 4 shows, if nothing else, that they aren’t afraid to try new things with the character systems.

Characterstyles – Combat, Stealth and Magic

Combat, as far as mechanics go, have improved nicely. In addition to the improvements made between Morrowind and Oblivion, where the Dice-Roll model was replaced and player interaction was increased to allow for “power attacks” and active blocking, Skyrim also adds the option to bash an opponent, have the Dual Hand system and sprint.

The general idea behind the system as it currently works is that the player decides what to do and the character decides how effective that action is. And I think this works nicely.

Now, I know that there are many who do not like this level of player interaction, and that’s fine. But that is a decision BGS made regarding the series with Oblivion, so I will judge it on that. I will not judge it for not being a Dice-Roll system, for the same reason I won’t judge Pillars of Eternity for having a Dice-Roll system. It is simply not the thing the game tries to be.

I’ve seen some argue that the Dice-Roll model is “more complex” or “deeper”, but I have no idea what they are on about. I really do think any such evaluation has to be made on a system by system basis, not in principle.

People have made the argument that Morrowind’s combat is deeper though, and I know those people are talking out of an orifice more appropriately used in hardcore pornography.

I really do not see how having the damage of a weapon mostly static, then determining the effectiveness by how often you’re able to hit is “deeper” than having the accuracy static and the effectiveness determined by how high the damage gets. I don’t see how a chance to have a block trigger is “more complex” than deciding whether or not you want to block and have the character determine how that turns out.

Someone would probably talk something about the chance to dodge attacks, but that is actually present in Skyrim. The 100 skill level perk in the Light Armor skill gives you a chance to dodge incoming physical attacks. It is not readily available from the get-go, but you can’t say it isn’t there.

Stealth is alright in Skyrim. The NPCs seem smarter about it than in Oblivion and the Sneak skill have been revamped to give the player a bigger chance of actually killing someone from stealth. One of the problems with previous games was that a lot of enemies simply had too much health to allow for a proper stealth kill. High sneak also unlocks the ability to do a silent roll and pressure plates won’t trigger if you walk on them.

Magic, on the other hands, is more of a mixed bag. Mechanically, it has improved from previous games, benefiting from the Dual Hand system and perk trees nicely. However, there is a limited selection of spells available, and many of the old spell effects like Weakness to [Element/Magic], Fortify [Skill/Stat] and Damage [Health/Magicka/Stamina] (elemental damage is still in magic, however) are now exclusively found in potions.

Looking back, I think they wanted to remove a lot of the redundancy in the system by doing this. That said, Skyrim’s spell list still seems a bit short. That’s not to say there haven’t been some improvements. Wards, the passive perks, different secondary effects for fire/frost/shock, necromancy spells, spells to take control over other people’s summons, rune and cloak spells does offer some variety unavailable in previous titles. But the selection of spells seems underwhelming.

Graphics

Don’t come to me for that, go look at some screenshots or gameplay videos. I’m sure there’ll be some out there by now.

DLC

There are 3 DLCs for Skyrim; Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn. They all come with the Special Edition, so you have no reason to not pick them up. But I can say a few words on them anyway.

Dawnguard is a questline that adds a number of location to the Skyrim mainland, not unlike the Knights of the Nine for Oblivion. It introduces a new vampire form available to the player and rebalances werewolves.

Hearthfire is a small DLC that adds 3 locations where one can build homes, though it is important to remember that this is not settlement building in the Fallout 4 style. But they are nice little settlements regardless. It also adds the option of adopting homeless children if one has a home for them.

Dragonborn is the largest of the three and takes place on Solstheim, an island north-east of Skyrim’s mainland. This is the same location as Morrowind’s Bloodmoon DLC and people who played that will see how much the island has changed in the 200 years since we went there. It has, like many BGS DLCs, some of the best story and setting elements. Highly recommended to spend some time on the island.

Conclusion

I could write a lot more on Skyrim, but it’d mostly be in spoiler-territory. The TL;DR is that I do recommend Skyrim.

The Elder Scrolls: On Classes

 “Don’t fix what is not broken.” – A common claim. A claim I don’t disagree with, in principle. But I do have to disagree with it being applied to the classes and levelling in Morrowind and Oblivion. Because “broken” is the only way I have of describing it.

All I really have to say about the change in character levelling system when it comes to Skyrim from the previous games is: “What change?”

A surprising statement, perhaps, until you consider how these systems worked and how little that actually changed with Skyrim. In Morrowind and Oblivion (and Daggerfall, but fuck Daggerfall and its shit interface, RNGenerated world and quests), you pick a selection of skills at the start of your journey that will decide what levels you up. Not that actually defines your character, since there is no difference between a class skill and non-class skill of the same level. They just decide what levels you up and get a bonus to experience gain to match this. In Skyrim you just go out in the world and level by using whatever skill you want. Well, okay, there was one major change: Attribute bonuses when levelling became perk points when levelling.

Attributes start out semi-unique and, through a combination of high starting values compared to max value and how frequent you increase them, very quickly become just the same as everyone else with a remotely similar character. A warrior in Morrowind or Oblivion, regardless of whether they focus on offense or defense or a mix, will have roughly the same numbers in Strength, Endurance, Agility and Speed at all levels. Hybrid characters that spread themselves thin eventually end up more powerful (usually anyway), because the low caps on attributes really do not reward specialization.

Perks, on the other hand, very directly forces you to choose between what you want to do that level and characters that outwardly focus on the same skills (say, a warrior in heavy armor with 1-handed) can vary quite a bit. One might focus on defense and use a shield, with high investment in armor and blocking skills, while the other might be dual wielding and focus much more on the efficiency of his weapons. One might have very high health while the other have a mix of stamina and health. Hybrid characters spread themselves thin in this system too, perhaps even more so, given the limited number of perk points compared to perks.

Putting it like this: Your attributes can have pretty high numbers across the board on a “high level” character in Oblivion and Morrowind, even without grinding. You can also easily max every single attribute by level 50 if you do grind. In Skyrim, you need to be level 250-something to get all the perks. Something that is possible with the Legendary thing added, but still takes a great deal more time and grinding than reaching level 50 (regular max level in Oblivion, and some 20 levels below regular max level in Morrowind). No matter how you twist and turn it, there is simply more specialization of your character going on in Skyrim, because of the more limited perkpoints.

Now that I have poked that hornet’s nest, let’s move on to the topic I want to cover more thoughtfully and that is the classes in Morrowind and Oblivion. And why I don’t think they are worth defending. And we’re not just talking implementation, but in principle.

On implementation, I will say this; it’s shit. The lack of differentiating things between class and non-class skills and the related attribute problem makes it a laughably bad and shallow system. The attributes also don’t really do anything interesting.

For example, if I want to create an agility based, rather than strength based, warrior, I am punished for that. It is not that I am just doing less damage per hit, but I am not receiving anything useful in return for this. Agility gives a minor boost in accuracy and dodge ability in Morrowind and reduced stagger in Oblivion. And both games give a little stamina bonus. In Oblivion, it also gives some bow damage, but that is irrelevant to a warrior character.

In Morrowind, the dodge is nice, I guess, if very inconsistent. But the accuracy is rather quite inconsequential compared. Your primary accuracy comes from the skill in use itself and is already generally reliable by skill-level 50 (70+ for high level enemies like Umbra). Given that starting values for Major Skills in Morrowind range from 30(no bonuses) to 50(Redguard, combat specialization, Long Blade as a Major Skill), this is generally not a problem.

In Oblivion, staggering is nice to avoid, but this too is not very much in return for the sacrifice of the only attribute that increases melee damage. And carry weight. On top of that, Strength also gives stamina. And then there is the biggest problem of them all: I don’t need to make a choice between them, in either of the games. An Agility based warrior is going to be weaker than a Strength, Endurance and Agility based warrior. Which in turn is weaker than a Strength, Endurance, Agility and Speed based warrior. Etc. All of which is easily achieved in the system with little grinding. Hell, unless you intentionally go for suboptimal stats, it is the inevitable result of levelling a warrior character.

But this is not about implementation. Not really, anyway. Most would agree, in my experience, that the levelling system is hardly something to boast about even if they do prefer it over the (mostly the same) system in Skyrim. Which is not so much a different room in the house as just shuffling some furniture around.

The thing I dislike most with the class system in Morrowind and Oblivion, which says a lot given how much I hate the implementation whose only saving grace is “not being that much of a hassle”, is the core ideas underlying it. The fact that it is essentially a class-less system with unnecessary restrictions and faffing attached.

“Unnecessary restrictions?” you ask, thinking about how most class systems do impose restrictions that are, ultimately, arbitrary. “Just look at how many games, like Dragon Age, has decided for the player that Rogues use one of these 2 types of weapons and only this sort of armor. A lot of RPGs does shit like that and I don’t hear you complaining about them.”

Which is true, a lot of RPGs do impose such restrictions, but they are not “unnecessary” in the same sense. Most games I know of that have a class-system for your character, regardless of how free or limited the player is in outfitting them with arms and armor, tend to use the classes to differentiate and specialize.

If we continue with the Dragon Age examples (a system I think has had the wrong evolution regarding equipment freedom since the first one), let’s focus a moment on Origins. Between Warriors and Rogues, there is a bit of overlap, specifically in the archery and dual wielding skills. Does that mean that a Warrior who pick up sword and dagger will be the same as a Rogue who picks up sword and dagger? Nope. Even assuming the two characters are equipped the same, there is still going to be some fundamental differences between them. And all of these changes come from the underlying differences the classes work with.

Warriors have higher health and higher base stats like damage , with talents like Taunt, Disengage and Death Blow. They have the Reaver, Champion, Templar and Berserker specializations to choose from. Rogues have a higher number of secondary skills like Stealth and Poison Making, the ability to Backstab when flanking an enemy and talents like Dirty Fighting, Coup de Grace and Lethality. They have access to the Ranger, Bard, Assassin and Duelist specializations. These are quite significant differences even when assuming the same equipment, let alone what sort of differences in equipment these differences encourages.

Heck, let’s even take a quick look at a class system that does not impose any more equipment restrictions than the Elder Scrolls: Pillars of Eternity. Each class can equip whatever they want and this may or may not be encouraged by how their skills work. The Paladin, if designed to deal damage, is not overly hindered by a 2-handed weapon and medium/heavy armor, since they focus on high damage auto attacks, high base defenses and the occasional Flames of Devotion nuke to take down priority targets. A Barbarian, on the other hand, has skills that rely on duration (like Frenzy) and this supports quicker attacks for maximum effect. Quicker attacks are easiest to achieve with little to no armor and fast weapons like Hatchets and Daggers. You can switch the equipment of the two and it probably won’t be that bad, but you’re going to have to change the playstyle a bit on both of them. And even in the same equipment, they will play differently due to the fundamentals of their classes.

Those bright bastards among you might realize where I am then going to go with the criticism of the Elder Scrolls class system as seen in Morrowind and Oblivion. It imposes restrictions regarding what allows you to level up, without rewarding those restrictions with anything unique to that class. And this is one of the things that makes me say that the system in Skyrim is leagues above Morrowind and Oblivion, even as poorly implemented as it is. Investing in a skill in Skyrim actually differentiates it from other fundamentally similar skills.

If I, for whatever reason, have the same skill level in Blade and Blunt in Oblivion, it does not matter which is my class skill. They will perform equally well. If we just put the Blade and Blunt skills into Skyrim’s system (ignoring for a moment that they made a better separation with 1-handed and 2-handed), the one I have invested perk points in (Skyrim’s equivalence of a “class skill”), will have significantly more to offer me in terms of efficiency. Even if the skill level is the same. Hell, even if the skill level of the one I haven’t invested perks in is higher the one with the investment will perform better.

In short, I think that if you are to have classes in a game, I want there to be tangible differences in the mechanics to differentiate them from one another. Oblivion and Morrowind does not do this, therefor I think having a class system at all is entirely superfluous and counterproductive. The Elder Scrolls had to either remove classes to keep the general approach in gameplay or give unique skills/talents/mechanics to each class to keep a class system if they wanted to move away from that awful mess. Me, I am glad they saw that it was a mess and made a choice.

I have to admit, I would also have liked to see a Skyrim with more traditionally restrictive classes. Though I doubt there would have been any less outcry about that than it has been about the removal of the old system. Well, in name anyway. In practice Skyrim lets you level your character the same exact way as previous titles: Pick a skill and get to work. It just does it with less shit attached to it.

The Dissapointments of Oblivion

Is that title grammatically correct? I have no idea.

I am someone who likes my game-series to evolve over time, because, sure, I did enjoy Morrowind for what it was, but I don’t want it to be like so many other series in that it is just the same over and over. Call of Duty and Assassins Creed are modern examples of what I am thinking about.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I would say, does improve on most gameplay elements, giving the player more interaction as opposed to just having it happen automatically. I know not all think this is an improvement, but I think it does. I prefer my RPGs to let me decide what to do and the character I control to decide how effective that action is.

Something I need to make clear before I go on with this rant-ish thing is that I don’t consider Oblivion to be a bad game. I’ve had a lot of fun running around Standard Fantasy World #62983756. And I do think that people are ascribing undue originality to Morrowind. After all, “dark elves” worshiping gods everyone else thinks are evil, with a society that allows and emphasize backstabbing and infighting with a general insect-theme on their arms and armor does smell a little of the Drow Elves. And if we look around for a bit, I’m sure we’ll find a Drizzt Do’Urden in their ranks too. Possible candidates would be Symmachus, Sir Ralvas or one of the billion Dunmer NPCs we see in the Elder Scrolls Online.

But if I prefer Oblivion’s gameplay (and I do by a large margin) and think Morrowind is far less original than some would have it be, why do I still think of Oblivion as only the 3^rd best main series Elder Scrolls game?

The problem Oblivion has, in my eyes and it seems I am far from alone in this, is that it did not learn the lesson Morrowind should have taught it: A well-presented world that lets you learn a whole lot about it can make up for stale gameplay. Even elevate it above said gameplay to the point where people are still bitching about how the later titles are not as good 15 years later. And the reverse of this truth: A poorly presented world with few interesting things to lean can make a game a lot shittier than the sum of its parts.

Another thing I have to clarify before moving forward, because I am sure some apologist for Oblivion have spotted a common argument against it implied so far, is that I don’t mind if the lore is changed. Indeed, with time, I’ve become quite fond of the “controversial” additions to the lore, like the Ebonheart Pact, religion in Skyrim having changed or even that Cyrodiil was not what was expected (in principle anyway). An example that more clearly shows what I am thinking about would be Bane from The Dark Knight Rises; changed quite a lot from his original starting point, but still interesting and works very well in the story. Well, a story with loads of plotholes, but you know.

Would I have liked to see Cyrodiil as the Pocket Guide to the Empire 1^st Edition paints it? Yes, I would. Would I mind if they replaced things in order to create a better Cyrodiil? Not at all. The problem is that Oblivion removed most elements of Cyrodiilic culture (even erasing the difference between Colovian and Nibenese culture) without replacing it with anything. Which is the key part. They took something out, without filling something new in in its place.

What this led to, which is what disappoints me so much about Oblivion, is a very bland world. To make matters worse, there are few unique dungeons you can just explore. Not that there were that many unique dungeons in Morrowind, but most had something, some detail to make it stand out just a bit. Everything worth doing in Oblivion is tied directly into a quest you get somewhere else.

With poor presentation of the world and less reason to explore, Oblivion sadly does not do enough to surpass Morrowind as a game, IMO.