OK Himu. I probably should have used the Elder Scrolls series then. I HEAR (
) that series is getting dumbed down with each iteration in addition to being the same old stuff. WHERES THE INNOVASHUN
huh? Skyrim was hardly dumbed down. Anyone who says it is, is a dumbass. In any case, Elder Scrolls isn't the same thing over and over, they have different stuff. Skyrim has a complete retooling of the skill system. Past Elder Scrolls had point allocation, Skyrim allows you to do whatever x amount of times to level up your skills, so doing blacksmithing a lot will raise your blacksmith skill rather than start a new game and allocate points into blacksmith. This changes the entire game because it makes playstyles more fluid. That's hardly dumbed down, because many rpgs have been doing that since the goddamn 80's.
Previous Elder Scrolls worked in similar ways, you do things and it levelled up the relative attributes which govern a skill, each attribute has 3 skills. Skyrim did away with the old attributes (where you divided between major and minor) whittling it down to health, magicka and stamina, keeping skills and adding perks. They definitely simplified the old systems a lot (dumbed down if you will) which was good since Oblivions skill system was ridiculously esoteric and grindy and Morrowinds was similar but slightly less distinguished mentally-challenged, not to mention the complexity of getting into alchemy or enchanting. Skyrims simplified systems were nowhere near perfect though, they were really, really abusable; 5 hours into the game you could have a build that would destroy anything on Master without cheating (I didn't mind this since ES is about exploration). Perks were a good addition and taken from their better game (Fallout 3) but the 'constellation' menu has to be one of the worst examples of form over function in menu design I've ever seen, I remember Todd Howard going on about how they took design cues from Apple.... lol. tl;dr they just replaced the old attributes system with perks, but their thin layer of polish hardly covered the fact it was just as broken if not more so than previous ES games.
Then again, I'm talking to a guy who described Morrowind as wanky.. What the hell does that even mean? For a series that should excel in exploration Morrowind was the only game in the series that really nailed it. So in that sense Skyrim was most definitely dumbed down.
I've had a completely different experience with Skyrim and prefer Skyrim to Morrowind. I find Skyrim rewards exploration better than Morrowind, and I played 60 hours of Skyrim and still have trouble with my archer build. But more than that, your argument is not convincing. More simplistic does not equate to dumbed down. Dumbed down is taking out options and features to make a game feel more anorexic in terms of depth and customization, especially in regards to rpgs. Skyrim does NOT in any way offer LESS options. Dumbing down is Baldur's Gate 2 allowing you to customize your characters shit from alignment (which ranges from chaotic, neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful;etc), race and more to KOTOR and Mass Effect's only allowing you to play as a human with a crappy alignment system that only allows for two ( or even a gray-ish third) playstyle.
THAT is dumbing down. Does Skyrim still allow you to do same shit you could do in Morrowind except not force you to allocate numbers? Yes? Then it's not dumbed down, it's just a more simplistic and more fluid example of the same exact play style/
When did I say Morrowind was wanky? I don't even know what you're talking about. Continuing from Morrowind, Morrowind has a crappy JANKY (I think you mean) battle system that is action-based and yet turn based. Swinging your sword at a mud crab that you SO TOTALLY HIT and miss because of the roll of the dice is retardo, and saying that Skyrim is in any way a neutered version of that is asinine.
