Thoughts on this 20-hour critique of Skyrim, /vrpg/?
Morrowind fans adore this guy. Bear in mind this is a man who said Morrowind's npc AI was "the best in the series".
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Watched the whole thing AMA
>Bear in mind this is a man who said Morrowind's NPC AI was "the best in the series"
I don't remember this, feel free to timestamp, with the context of what he was saying as well.
>Watched the whole thing AMA
are you mentally ill? why would you want to watch some moron's 20 hour long let's play of Skyrim? I mean, maybe if it was a hot girl, but some dude?
>are you mentally ill?
Yes
>why would you want to watch some moron's 20 hour
Because I have fun, it lets me be an armchair game designer too, sometimes I stop the video to think about how I would have done things if I was a dev.
As for the time, the longer the video the better, it just means I can enjoy it for more time (as long as there isn't a quality drop as a result of length, in this case there is not. Of course I don't watch it in one sitting, that would be madness.
>let's play
It's not a let's play
>I mean, maybe if it was a hot girl
I would not listen it since I would assume she holds unbearably stupid opinions on every matter.
>It's not a let's play
It's absolutely a narrated let's play, you can't talk about a video game for 20 hours dude, what is there even to say, you'd just regurgitate what happens in the game and provide some basic commentary, like oh this quest was pretty cool, or that part really sucked etc
>It's absolutely a narrated let's play
That's not the case in this video.
You haven't watched it so maybe you shouldn't make statements about its contents so confidently.
Absolutely based.
>shitty Morrowind models
Poor OP getting devastated by a based schizo.
>are you mentally ill?
>Yes
>are you mentally ill?
Do you not realize where you are?
>watch some moron's 20 hour long let's play of Skyrim?
Is it better or worse than reading your novel's worth seething about Morrowind?
not an rpg
>a game in which you can roleplay as an alchemist that justs sells potions is not an RPG
lol, lmao even.
Guess what is not an RPG, yep, baldur's gate, has a linear narrative, therefore you can't roleplay, it's just a simulation of actual choice.
>11:11:10
lol, fail
He cut it that way on purpose to reference the original release date
The original release was 11/11/11 you fricking moron
He should write it up, instead of doing a no doubt extremely decompressed video.
It's good 2nd monitor content.
He makes this really weird nit picky point about how it would be impossible to build/transport a statue halfway up a mountainside in Skyrim, mocking the game's world building in it, but never holds Morrowind to the same scrutiny. There are innumerable aspects of Morrowind's world building that either make no sense mechanically, or just make even less sense from a lore PoV, like the world-breaking implications of cheap mage guild transport which is never explored or explained.
There are a number of other things he goes on about that are just plain untrue or lies by omission:
>Skyrim has a meaningless reputation system that didn't have the implications Morrowind's did
This is untrue. Skyrim's reputation system has more lines of dialog corresponding to varying reputation, and more NPCs who trigger in response to these varying reputations.
>You are "forced" to go to Riverwood at the beginning of the game, following the Helgen tutorial
I was bemused by this one as even normies have done Skyrim playthroughs without first going to Riverwood
>Morrowind is more difficult than Skyrim
I'm sorry, what? Both are easy games. Incredibly easy games. There are objectively more and easier ways to break Morrowind's systems than there are Skyrim's. This is even touted as a feature by Morrowind fans.
>Dungeon size and scale
Skyrim's average dungeon size is objectively larger in terms of character mesh to cell scales, and it has factually more hand-crafted dungeons
>Both are easy games. Incredibly easy games.
I don't necessarily disagree, but Morrowind is definitely harder than Skyrim. Not only from the combat being more complicated mechanics wise, but also the complete lack of a quest compass alone makes Morrowind much harder.
Morrowind is hard for all of 30 min until you steal an alchemy set and permabuff yourself to 9999 in every stat lmao, have you even played the game
The average player wouldn't find that out
>but muh guides and gamefaqs
The average player doesn't use that shit.
>Morrowind isn't hard if you abuse exploits
Really? Even if you have 9999 in every stat the game still isn't going to tell you where that dwemer puzzle box is lol
Stop lying. TES games are universally easy. Especially Morrowind during the first 30 minutes.
I didn't say it was hard, only that it was harder than skyrim.
Morrowind isn't harder than Skyrim. Both are in the bottom of the barrel in terms of difficulty.
Does the lack of a quest compass make the game harder or just more annoying and tedious? I don't think it makes a difference to difficulty, just the time you're investing.
With a quest compass you guarantee that the player will always be able to find the goal eventually (unless it's terribly inplemented, but that's a design problem). Not so without one, look at all the players who got filtered by the puzzle box.
I like finding my way in 3D games through landmarks alone, it's fun. Really makes you feel like you are exploring an area. FP RPGs are inferior though.
People couldn't even find Caius Cosades.
>Skyrim's average dungeon size is objectively larger in terms of character mesh to cell scales
There's no way that's true.
>it would be impossible to build/transport a statue halfway up a mountainside in Skyrim
That's dumb because the fourteenth century saw hundreds of Bavarian and Transylvanian (by Saxon immigrants) castles being built on mountainsides, and that's in a world without magic.
It's like his other TES videos: You'll like it if you love Morrowind and hate Oblivion and Skyrim. As states, he more or less holds the latter to a different standard than he holds the former to, so if you hate the direction TES has taken it will function as a sort of confirmation bias for this because his criticisms of Oblivion/Skyrim are far more granular.
Imo there's a market for a longform "In Defense of Skyrim" video.
>In Defense of Skyrim
I can make a video to contrast some of Patrician's odd nitpicks, but I can't make a in defense of skyrim video because ultimately he is right: the companions suck, the college sucks, the thieves guild could have not sucked but starts sucking midway trough the questline and doesn't stop.
I love skyrim, I really do, but there are some flaws in the game that cannot be defended no matter how many mental gymnastics you try.
Some arbitrary decisions Todd seems to have made specifically to piss people off
>thieves guild sucks
And thieves are a mechanical build are virtually unplayable in Morrowind.
Which produces the better simulation of a fantasy world? That's the crucial question.
There is a 10 year gap between skyrim and morrowind, the franchise is supposed to improve mechanically WITHOUT regressing narratively.
And it's not like he praised stealth in his morrowind video either.
>And it's not like he praised stealth in his morrowind video either.
In an 8 hour video he spends about a MINUTE on it. Stealth is flat out unplayable in Morrowind. Do you not think this has roleplaying implications? But nooo. MorrowBlack folk can do pew pew fireballs with the equally broken spell creation system while jumping around so an autist so that makes it a good RPG.
What you are proposing is not a "in defense of skyrim" video, it's a "an attack to morrowind"
Morrowind having a flaw doesn't excuse skyrim's dogshit writing
And the stealth, while a clear improvement, isn't good enough to deserve praise either.
>Morrowind having a flaw doesn't excuse skyrim's dogshit writing
lol you really want me to apply the same critiques to say, Morrowind's dialog as I'm doing to its roleplaying simulation elements? Trust me, it's not going to come out on top.
I don't get your point, how does that make a defense of skyrim video any more viable? Once again you are proving not that skyrim is a good game, but that morrowind is overrated.
How about you read his post again, you fishbrained moron?
>>the series is supposed to improve mechanically WITHOUT regressing narratively
>WITHOUT regressing narratively
Look up the definition of the word "narrative", moron. Kirkbride is not a good narrative designer, nor is he a good writer. Morrowind is riddled with huge holes in its worldbuilding.
So your argument for why Skyrim is good is that... Morrowind has flaws? You sound exactly like the kind of person who thinks that's worthy of a ten hour video, you should get started on it right now.
>So your argument for why Skyrim is good is that... Morrowind has flaws
No the argument is that if your standards of quality are at Morrowind then Skyrim easily surpasses them.
That wasn't his point at all, merely saying that skyrim has flaws seems to whip you guys into a rabid flurry of
>but morrowind did this worse
Or
>but oblivion sucked in this way
No one is debating that the games don't have flaws but you do need to accept that Skyrim does have flaws, a lot of them, it's also does some things very well but you would have to be delusional to say it's perfect
>Some arbitrary decisions Todd seems to have made specifically to piss people off
Someone thought it was a good idea to make almost every unkillable child an butthole for no reason
The thing is that all the things that suck in Skyrim are even worse in morrowind which pretty much cuts any point he can make.
You can't call writing,characters,story,mechanics etc in skyrim bad and then go on to praise morrowind of all games.
>all the things that suck in Skyrim are even worse in morrowind
You are delusional beyond all belief
There is a lot of stuff morrowind does better, namely magic, actual factions, reputation and disposition, and the world and atmosphere are just better.
>Reputation and disposition
Wrong. Rep and disposition only affects bartering in Morrowind. In Skyrim it can affect quest resolution and it also has, as a matter of statistical fact, more lines of dialog among more NPCs corresponding to disposition rating. It's also hidden now, which makes more sense.
>factions
Debatable. There's an entire faction in Morrowind (thieves guild) for which the baseline mechanics are not only simply broken, but which don't work with any broader system since NPCs stay in the same place for the entire game.
Oh and disposition corresponds to stuff like doing tasks for NPCs, not engaging in gay mini games or just hitting "give one hundred gold" on an ugly UI.
>In Skyrim it can affect quest resolution
Do provide examples, please
Beating up an NPC will lower my rep with him, but it won't change ANY quest
You need to raise the disposition of NPCs to become a thane. If too many NPCs hate you in a hold you cannot become a thane in that hold.
Is that... the quest resolutions? That's just a fetch quest to "help the people", provide some quests that are affected by that narratively.
Like an NPC refusing to help you, maybe Balgruff doesn't help me if I steal in front of him and beat his kid? But he fricking does.
>Is that... the quest resolutions
Becoming a thane is literally a quest
I don't know which mental gymnastics are you going to employ to say otherwise.
>Like an NPC refusing to help you
you mean like you not becoming the thane because NPCs hate you?
This is one case and it's a fricking fetch quest anon, i'm asking for something of more consequence. It's also ONE example you could find, hardly a mechanic the game uses often as you implied.
>I don't know which mental gymnastics are you going to employ to say otherwise.
Seems pretty straighforward to me, there is no quest resolution, the quest won't complete to 0 indication as to why since the quest is to "help 3 people", not anything about making friends.
What resolution are we talking about exactly? The quest straigh up doesn't get a resolution, there is no dialogue to even acknowledge such a thing happens. The jarl telling you you are an butthole would be enough to be honest.
>it's a fricking fetch quest
Do you want us to bring up the excel sheet that shows exactly what proportion of Morrowind's quests are fetch quests? Or would you prefer we talk about how Morrowind's wilderness is empty?
What is this need to constantly move goalposts? Aren't we talking about factions and reputation systems right now?
What are you even doing right here? You are a legitimate fricking sperg, I can't believe I am actually being accused of being a morrowgay, you are beyond fricking deranged.
>Seems pretty straighforward to me
Yeah your mental gymnastics are pretty straight forward.
>the reputation system is better than morrowind
>it gets used once and badly at that
?
Imagine being such a nostalgiabrained moron you think a game which literally has no NPC AI whatsoever is better than a game which has multiple background systems at play.
I don't think the game is better, what makes you think that? Is pointing out glaring flaws in someone's argument not allowed now?
Its not even nostalgia, these homosexuals have never finished morrowind. They praise it because someone else did it. Cargo cult mentality.
You could have pointed out the fact that it doesn't matter since it's never an issue. 99% of Skyrim players probably don't even know about it. Instead, you launch into a moronic point over what is or isn't a quest. Stop arguing like morons, you are losing to Skybabies.
That's not really affecting quest resolutions, is it? It doesn't give you alternative paths, it's literally just a check as to whether you satisfy a condition before you can proceed. You could just as easily say "you need high disposition in Morrowind to become the Hortator". It's completely meaningless anyway, disposition doesn't otherwise affect npc behavior and unless you go out of your way to kill people you can always raise your disposition by investing in stores or giving people shiny things.
>kill people you can always raise your disposition by investing in stores or giving people shiny things.
iirc Skyrim has disposition hard locks if you do things like kill their spouse.
But those hard locks won't affect absolutely anything because the guy that hates you will still cooperate with you when a quest demands it.
you go out of your way to kill people
Yeah, but unless you go on rampant murdering sprees it's pretty hard to get yourself locked out of it, the requirement is extremely low per hold (five if I recall correctly). Skyrim also has the lovely feature of NPCs being able to be your friend and enemy simultaneously because it doesn't track some states properly.
>being able to be your friend and enemy simultaneously because it doesn't track some states properly
Thats not a thing, disposition is a single integer that goes into negatives to represent hatred
Why even lie about something this basic?
The internal disposition updates but it doesn't always clear the previous state, so if you do someone a favour and then make them dislike you you can end up in a situation where they treat you both ways simultaneously, giving you dialogue for both. This has been a known issue since release, haven't you actually played the game? Do you get all your info from a wiki?
>Do you get all your info from a wiki?
He does, because there is 0 indication in the game about the thane quest being related to disposition, hence why after over 1500 hours between playstation and pc I never knew about it but he does.
It also never comes up during actual play since it's so easy to have good disposition with NPCs.
>The internal disposition updates but it doesn't always clear the previous state
Again not a thing
The game sets disposition to specific values based on your actions and the NPCs deliver responses on that.
There are other conditions for them to deliver responses which aren't based on disposition, like ysolda hating you for killing mikael.
Again, this is basic shit you would discover if you either played around the game or just opened up the construction kit. No need to lie about it.
>because there is 0 indication in the game about the thane quest being related to disposition
Are you actually 40IQ?
I'm sorry for expecting the jarl to tell me it's about disposition (something that could only happen if I go around murdering people's wives anyway). One line of dialogue reactivity is too much to expect from this complex disposition system apparently.
>The game sets disposition to specific values based on your actions and the NPCs deliver responses on that.
>There are other conditions for them to deliver responses which aren't based on disposition, like ysolda hating you for killing mikael.
Yeah, which means you can have a situation where someone is supposed to be your friend and then says someone completely contrary, or supposed to hate you and then thanks you for helping them out that one time. I didn't think it's that difficult a concept to grasp.
>Are you actually 40IQ?
He's right, though. There's nothing in-game to tell you it's related to disposition instead of, say, successfully completed quests/favours.
That's what he always does both on Ganker and here. He has a mental breakdown over Morrowind's NPCs, makes up a bunch of shit and gets btfo by multiple people, and then he goes on the wiki to pick some minute detail to start an endless circular argument over.
The proliferation of online wikis and its consequences has truly been a disaster for the quality of online vidya discussion.
is this another one of your mental breakdown over the romanian living in your head rent free?
>That's not really affecting quest resolutions, is it?
>this quest resolution doesn't count because...IT JUST DOESN'T
>It doesn't give you alternative paths
This is why discussing things with you homosexuals is useless.
You can level up your speech and then then invest into businesses as a way to raise disposition. You yourself acknowledge that but apparently that doesn't count as an alternate solution.
Are you genuinely illiterate? My point is that disposition doesn't affect quest resolutions, so having one arbitrary check of "do enough people like you to become a thane" is pointless because of how many ways there are of raising disposition. Making someone your friend doesn't let you skip even the simplest of quest steps, making people hate you won't make them refuse you service or lock you out of quests because you're an butthole. Being the most despised guy in the hold doesn't make the jarl say they refuse to make you the Thane because you've been too much of a dick to people.
>My point is that disposition doesn't affect quest resolutions
And my example proved you wrong immediately which is why you're doing your usual mental gymnastics of how it doesn't count.
>And my example proved you wrong immediately
It didn't, though. Do you get an alternative resolution for not having enough disposition? Does the quest fail? Does the jarl refuse you if you've made an enemy of them personally, even if you satisfy all the conditions?
I'm sure you'll have some more buzzwords to trot out, though.
>namely magic
magic in morrowind is fricking dogshit, both from a usability perspective and balance perspective
>actual factions
what is that supposed to mean?
>reputation and disposition
reputation only determines quest availability(do x fetch quests before you can rank up)
skyrim has disposition too and its actually affected by your behavior instead of just being an arbitrary number
>and the world and atmosphere are just better.
now this is delusion
which part of a completely lifeless and static world populated with signposts called NPCs contributes to the atmosphere?
>magic in morrowind is fricking dogshit, both from a usability perspective and balance perspective
Still better then skyrim's set spells that are only good when you use exploits to cast for free since you can't improve their damage.
You're supposed to graduate to better spells as the game progresses.
And they do increase damage, with perks.
Ask yourself, what's better, finding that your lighting is lacking so you upgrade to lighting bolt, or oneshotting everything in the entire game because you made a le epic on touch spell and never using anything else?
I've never heard another game praised for having mechanics so completely broken.
I'd like to see spellmaking brought back in some form but as a mechanical system it was dogshit in both Morrowind and Oblivion.
oblivion needs it to be broken because its the only way the player can cope with the level scaling
morrowind really has no excuse as even if you make a broken spell it ends up being worse than just hitting the enemy
magic damage has 0 scaling but weapon damage(even ranged weapons) scales off of your strength so instead of chugging potions to cast a fire spell 5 times per bar you can just chug booze and one shot everything with chitin spears
>Still better then skyrim's set spells
no, not even close.
The fact that you have to bring up skyrim to defend the absolutely awful spell system in morrowind only shows how little you know about it.
>every single spell has the same spell casting animation
>experience is granted based on spell use and not on damage or spell magnitude
>stronger spells are practically useless
>late game enemies come with passive reflect because frick you
anyone who praises morrowind's awful magic hasn't played it
>every single spell has the same spell casting animation
how it looks affects the player's options for playing the game?
>experience is granted based on spell use and not on damage or spell magnitude
Correct but you won't examine why the alternative is done, nor recognize Skyrim cut out variables anyway. The damage, range, magnitude, and radius of the spell affected the price and magicka cost of the spell, but those 2 could be further modified by the attributes and skill values involved. MW opted for the easy #cast = #xp because it would have been a nightmare of math to balance. Skyrim, rather than implement the necessary math, removed spellcrafting altogether, so that damage and magnitude were always known, fixed values. In Skyrim you end up only casting the strongest spell for the most experience. There is no reward incentive for using a spell at the right time or exploiting the right weaknesses.
>stronger spells are practically useless
balance issue, the player could craft 100+ damage spells when the enemies can't catch up. This was why Tribunal/Bloodmoon have damage sponge enemies
>late game enemies come with passive reflect because frick you
balance issue, it was either reflect or more HP to keep the enemy a threat to the player. You're of the opinion that if the developer can't think of a new threat, may as well just remove a feature from the player.
>how it looks affects the player's options for playing the game?
For him, yes. Skyrim players prefer meaningless cool-factor features over quality gameplay. See here for another example
>meaningless cool-factor features over quality gameplay. See here for another example
So NPCs just shouldn't react to the world around them at all?
This is why people hate Morrowind fans. You don't even know my opinion on the game. I offered a broad criticism around how static and lifeless the world feels and you reacted angrily to it. Why?
As I said before, a lot of Morrowind fans just headcanon that stuff away ("Caius was probably testing me"). This isn't meant as a criticism, I wish I still had that childlike ability to ignore the emptiness, but I don't anymore.
>Game having pretty graphics doesn't make it abetter game.
>"Ahh, so you are saying game shouldhave BAD graphics?"
I bet you also like nu-Total War games.
Not talking about graphics, I'm talking about systems. Morrowind has an almost total absence of world reactivity and NPC AI. These are genuine problems with the game that make roleplaying within its world less enjoyable.
Cope and seethe.
>I bet you also like nu-Total War games.
But Morrowind is like nuTW game here. Instead of properly simulating interactions it abstracts them as mentioned here
Now in TW formations are just % buffs and debuffs instead of trying to simulate an advantage of Turtle formation with physics. Instead of Banners and officers on the battlefield they are just a stat bonus researched by tech. In Rome 1 and Med 2 units stronger units were pushing through weaker ones, because game engine simulated their entites better. Now this doesn't happen and battles are more static.
That's exactly the difference between newer TES games and Morrowind. Skyrim properly simulates disposition with organic interactions between NPCs. Morrowind are just stats, instead of utilizing an advantage simulation in video games allow for.
>Skyrim properly simulates disposition with organic interactions between NPCs
>properly
I wouldn't go that far.
>shogungay thinks he can speak when his game has the most dumbed down campaign in the franchise
Disgusting
The air was filled with smoke and blood.
I'm not shogungay. I don't like Shogun2. But it's a nice webm showing yet another case of a downgrade
>obsessed with reloading
>"nu-total war"
You are a shogungay and I know which shogungay you are, you scottish gay vegan communist fricktard, but let's humor you, let's assume you are a rome 1 gay, or a medieval 2 homosexual.
There is nothing those games do better than newer total wars apart from some animations CA got lazy with.
Worse diplomacy than three kingdoms, worse battles than attila, worse faction diversity than warhammer.
I wish CA did more historical titles and less warhammer, but you cannot say the franchise dumbed down when it did the literal opposite, three kingdoms has the most complex campaign of a total war title, and attila has the hardest.
The other guy is a moron, graphics don't matter, but you dug your own hole.
Nah, I'm Med2king. I criticized Shogun2 extensively on this site already
If your only argument for the superiority of Med 2 is "it has reload animations" fine, keep being delusional.
Post soigun games have multiple game breaking issues. Chief of which are of course general only armies, magical replenishment and arbitrary provinces instead of singular cities. Even a single one of those makes them irredeemable garbage, no matter the other features. And all post-Med2 games have shit battles in a game series focused on battles.
>Even a single one of those makes them irredeemable garbage
Those are literally just your gay preferences
General only armies are good, filtered
Magical replenishment is not ideal, but on it's own it doesn't make a campaign unbearable, you literal schizo
the province system is a good thing and adds depth to the management part of the game, once again, filtered.
>General only armies are good, filtered
Wrong. Not only they are nonsensical, they also force other garbage design decisions like magical replenishment and godawful recruitment system
In my Angmar campaign I could properly reinforce and regroup my armies. Weaker armored units were sent south to deal with primitives and barbarians, while heavier and more elite troops went to fight against Dwarfs and Elves. When Sauron called for an Invasion, I assembled my few top tier units into my mightiest army yet and accompanied by two weaker ones went to sack Thranduil's halls and Erebor. Since there was no magical replenishment my army was naturally dwindling and I couldn't reinforce it by sending small forces through a hostile terrain. I only managed to fend off two more full scale Dwarf attacks while being exhausted in Erebor. Since I was not regenerating and could only merge my existing units, I abandoned it and had to run away with a small remnant of my army. I managed to wreck havoc among my enemies and cripple their industry, but I dearly missed my elite units. You see, being an absolute masterpiece of a game design, Medieval 2 has proper recruitment system. I can't just shit out elite stuff constantly. It takes time to recruit elite, multiple turns must pass before player is even given a chance to recruit them. If you needlessly put them at risk, you will have to send them back to retrain them, at the cost of a new possible unit of this type.
If it was Warhammer, I would simply insta recruit an army full of Shades and Blackguard and raze with it entire Norsca and Chaos Wastes, occasionally chilling in Norscan villages to regenerate my elite forces out of nothing, before attacking Kislev. Apparently it's normal for a frontline unit of all Malekith armies being his personal bodyguard that replaces basic Spearmen and can be recruited in a single turn everywhere in the world
supplies exist in three kingdoms, which is a superior game to med 2 in all areas except the fact it needed a better setting
All NuTotal War titles are utterly fricked at their core. All other bloat is irrelevant for as long as core game features are fricked. Since general only armies are still a thing and magical replenishment is still a thing, they are shit.
Difficulty is irrelevant and specialization of cities in nuTW isn't hard anyway. It's completely nonsensical and in turn forces player to act in a nonsensical, nonlogical way. That's the problem. Same thing with pod system in NuXcom that punishes player for scouting and encourages overwatch creep.
Win conditions are gamey and utterly irrelevant bullshit. They may as well not exist.
>if I like it it's a core feature if I don't like it's bloat
Also it's hilarious how you talk about making sense as essential but you complain about armies needing a leader.
It's almost like it only needs to make sense when it's convenient to your argument. Med2 can be nonsensical, but if another game dares try it...
A good diplomacy system is far more important than the province system being in or not, but you will ignore that because you would have to acknowledge how much total war has in fact not dumbed down as you'd like to believe.
>Also it's hilarious how you talk about making sense as essential but you complain about armies needing a leader.
There is no need for a general or a lord to personally lead a single unit from one castle to another
>A good diplomacy system is far more important than the province system being in or not
No, it isn't. Especially in Total War. And there is nothing particularly better about diplomacy in nuTW. It's still just NAP, alliance, military access, war and their variations. Flavor and bloat while games are shit at the core.
>Flavor and bloat while games are shit at the core
Once again, every time something proves you wrong you call you bloat and move on. Truly, seething, coping and mental gymnastics at their peak.
I'm done shitting up the thread, it's /vrpg/, not /vst/, let's agree to disagree.
>let's agree to disagree.
Ok, I'm going to sleep anyway
>A good diplomacy system is far more important
If you want a strategy where you can trick AI into not considering you a threat, go play a Paradox game.
Shogun 2 AI recognises that the player is in it to win it and acts accordingly, with mechanics such as Real Divide that midwits love to complain about.
*Realm Divide
>the province system
It's nonsensically arbitrary and forever cucks settlements like Aquitaine into irrelevance. Gamey bullshit that also forces player to attack settlements that there would otherwise be no reason to attack. And arbitrary amount of building slots only magnifies this issue because apparently there is no more room to build anything in the city after building a smithy
>having to choose what my provinces specialize in? Nooo I want my cake and to eat it too!
Why are old total war gays so fricking easy to filter?
>Gamey bullshit that also forces player to attack settlements that there would otherwise be no reason to attack.
So like how every faction in med2 has Jerusalem as one of their win conditions?
Don't speak for me. I am a Shogun 2 gay.
The problem will ultimately be not be "Morrowind the best and perfect, stick to it forever", but instead that that what it did that had potential should have been iterated upon rather then dropped.
Spells were done a bit off, but rather then make the system better they killed it.
Even with all its issues, Morrowind still had a better magic system for base/vanilla user function. All skyrim does good comes entirely on the modder side when they 1. Make a greater variety of spells and 2. lets you increase the amount of damage a spell can do (rather then skyrim's method of making you just cast a spell more)
Also,
>stronger spells are practically useless
In what way?
>late game enemies come with passive reflect because frick you
This is and the other are more a balancing issue then a problem with the spell system entirely (but I guess everything does feed into everything else)
But again these are growing pains that should have been iterated rather then dropped (the shear quantity of spell types skyrim had would have made crafting spells so much greater)
>Morrowind still had a better magic system for base/vanilla user function
Absolutely not lmao
Reminder that Hircine has a spell reflect of 50%
>Reminder that Hircine has a spell reflect of 50%
Again, balance issue. Not an issue with the function of magic in it of itself.
Even then all that means is to just have more variety in your spell load out, don't be a one trick pony
>the final boss of the last expansion only reflects your spells 50% of the time
What's the issue?
Yes, and the game has way to counter this. Stack up on Resist Lightning and only use Lightning Spells. Or get Spell Absorbtion and get back the mana from reflected spells.
Literally just think for few minutes before launching into a big battle.
Or I just whack him instead
Instead of giving out tips you yourself have never done in the game try them yourself.
When you're done drinking 50 magika potions just to cast enough spells to deplete his HP while also tanking 100+ damage per hit you can come talk about the game.
I presumed you were playing a mage character, butif you are a spellsword, sure. Just go whack him. What was your problem in the first place then?
Even then, there is a way for a mage to do this - get a spell or an enchantment to boost melee stats. An inneficient way, but a way nonetheless.
>Reminder that Hircine has a spell reflect of 50%
I wish skyrim even had mechanics as complex as that.
But it has not, because Todd hates when games become too "spreadsheetty"
Speak up about it. YouTube critics are absolutely fallible and need to be critiqued just like the media they analyze.
But yes I also watched his TES videos, as well as Private Sessions's. Both have overall grounded and reasonable perspectives on the game, and there isn't much I disagree with them on about Skyrim.
The game took years of decisions and work to make; and potentially hundreds of hours to complete everything even once. To explain everything critically and with any sort of real knowledge, it's going to take time.
A surface level 10 minute "review" isn't going to tell you much aside from whether or not to buy it.
>Imo there's a market for a longform "In Defense of Skyrim" video.
Just a matter of time. Boomers and the zoomer poseurs oversold Morrowind way too hard with all this hype and exaggeration. It's a shame because Morrowind IS a good game, but the eternal Gankertard tendency to draw a binary of "it's the greatest thing on earth/it's utterly shit!" means no nuance is ever given. Pat's video on Morrowind is a great case in point, he never addresses the fundamental questions of Morrowind's mechanical failings (I'm not talking about the swing->miss, that's relatively small) and the impact this has on one's ability to roleplay within the world.
>Thoughts on this 20-hour critique of Skyrim, /vrpg/?
It is logistically impossible for a country to fight a world war on 3 different continents and arrest, imprison, execute, and dispose of six to eleven million people.
>t. never used cheat engine
Instructions unclear. Used cheat engine and there are now more semitic people on the continent than there were before the war.
>said Morrowind's NPC AI was "the best in the series".
I'm sure you're just too autistic to understand sarcasm in his fairly monotone morrowind video.
too much of just straight up narrating, just like the rest of his tes videos
> 80 hours shit called "retrospective, analysis and review of *game*"
> most of the time it's the narrator playing the game 100% and saying what he does in the game
> "man, i just shot a guy in the head... the game truly excels at shooting people in the head..."
> "here i just started a questline, that questline is bad because it is mmkay next questline"
> some interview clip that is irrelevant to the point he makes
> narrator describes the time he's been playing the game for the first time for 40 hours
> "i've played the game completely naked while sitting in the lotus pose, let's play this game three times like this because it's the intended way"
> narrator makes a reference that only 1,6 people will understand that takes too long
> narrator says that sequels did things wrong every 15 seconds
> narrator just straight up gives up and decides to talk about the sequel instead because he probably likes it more but doesn't like losing cred
> narrator inserts either a "mmmmmmm this game in current year... not up to current year" or "anyway here's my full political allegiance if you don't like it have a nice day" out of the blue because he needs to hit more time so people will click it more
Just listen to sci-pop audiobooks at this point if you want info you'll never use or low-tempo music if you want white noise.
That's all in your head. Even the stupidest israelitetubers don't make that kind of videos.
i like his dunmer mommy
Proud to support Morrowind.
If your game critique is more than 30-45min long you are better off writing it instead of making a video.
They do. It's called a script.
But I would argue it's a better piece of work if you can easily show evidence to support your arguments, which is easy to do in a video format
Hey Pat, i know you made this thread, do me a big one and release the pattern for the red nirnroot hawaiian shirt,i desperately need it.
The rise of Ganker pandering longform stuff is so irritating in its transparency. Creetosis and Pat both need to off themselves.
It's odd you would call me a morrowdrone after acknowledging several things from morrowind like stealth were shit.
But that doesn't make skyrim better, nor does it make morrowind terrible.
They are both good games with very apparent flaws.
The guy """reviewing""" the games is clearly wrong tho and you've been defending the decision to shittalk skyrim's bare but functional stealth but only say nice things about morrowind's actually unplayable turd of a stealth system this entire time.
>and you've been defending the decision to shittalk skyrim's bare but functional stealth
Yes
>but only say nice things about morrowind's actually unplayable turd of a stealth system this entire time
No, I have never ever defended this, take your meds schizo.
Do you ever think about the broader implications, within the context of an immersive sim/RPG like TES games of one having non-functional stealth and non-functional systems around that stealth versus having functional stealth mechanics and systems to support it?
Granted, it's not Thief: TDP, but you *can* roleplay a thief in Skyrim. You can't in Morrowind with anything approaching even a vague simulation of the thing.
The systems supporting stealth in Skyrim are a full OOM better than Morrowind's. Consider the fact you can kill witnesses to your crimes to get rid of your bounty, or the fact bounties are hold specific, so you can roleplay a character escaping a hold to another hold where they aren't wanted to lay low for a while.
MorrowBlack folk like to poke fun at these systems if they occasionally don't always work perfectly in tandem which is funny because Morrowind OBJECTIVELY has LESS SYSTEMS AT PLAY in the background than Skyrim does, less passive complexity and less ability to simulate roleplaying.
>or the fact bounties are hold specific, so you can roleplay a character escaping a hold to another hold where they aren't wanted to lay low for a while
Reminder that daggerfall had this but morrowind removed it because its a tiny thumbtack of a worldspace
Low IQ bait. That only works on plebs.
Wrong board
Worshipping old dogshit games and making them core to your personality doesn't make you "high IQ" or "patrician"
get over yourself
Taking criticism against subpar new games and how much they've been dumbed down to entertain the lowest common denominator as a personal insult doesn't exactly make you look smart.
>subpar new games and how much they've been dumbed down to entertain the lowest common denominator
enough about morrowind
You are the hero this board needs. Please continue triggering the MorrowBlack folk.
Look at all these Gankertards seethe. Morrowind best game.
>dumbed down
A major criticism of Skyrim is that systems are harder to break and you can't become a flying God within half an hour though.
And? You don't seem to understand what dumbed down refers to in this context.
Angry Gankertard Romanians. Stay filtered, Morrowind is RPG of the millennium.
>Anon I don't think this proves skyrim is very goo-
>STOP PRAISING MORROWIND
>NOSTALGIATARD! MORROWIND SUCKS
>WHAT ABOUT MORROWINDS WORLD EH? WHAT ABOUT THAT!?
I am baffled, this board wasn't like this the last time I visited, what the frick is going on here?
I think it's because the OP is about a specific video series that is very harsh on Skyrim and Oblivion but much lighter on the criticism with Morrowind.
For the record, did Pat ever bring up NPC AI in the Morrowind video? I genuinely can't recall him even talking about it. Surely he understands that an open world immersive RPG where guards don't even bother to attack enemies can sort of... make it a little difficult to suspend disbelief sometimes?
>an open world immersive RPG where guards don't even bother to attack enemies
They do though. Except for the tribunal assassin, but that's because tribunal is a hackjob
>They do though.
No they don't
they only attack entities that are hostile to them, so you can have an animal or a guy chasing you but they won't bother
Why do Morrowind fans lie?
I think Morrowind fandom is related to ones ability to headcanon/imagine away flaws. I don't even mean that in a negative way. I mean they're just roleplaying things that don't exist in the game itself, like say, Caius being angry at you for not doing things on time or whatever.
>like say, Caius being angry at you for not doing things on time or whatever.
Why would he do that? He repeatedly tells you to take your time with things, pretty much the only way to piss him off is to kill one of the NPCs critical to the main quest or a Blade.
It's just a random example. My general point is that to enjoy Morrowind you have to headcanon a lot that doesn't really reflect back at you within the game and its systems.
I was just making a joke, anon. I hope you have a good day.
Absolutely, 100% correct and if you look at a lot of Morrowind fans' posts when they're not being overly defensive and pretending they're honest about the game, this carries through. Case in point is pic related:
>Just imagine the dialog is actually conversational and not wikipedia article tier
>Just imagine the combat isn't dog shit
Ah yes my favorite rpg Youtube.
instead of shilling his shit all over the place, he should edit his damn video so that it is no longer a age restricted
Anon, why is your youtube age restricted?
because google can suck a big one if they thing i give them PII
Man this thread went to shit. It was an e-celeb thread but at least interesting discussion was happening before it became another Morrowind v. Skyrim shitflinging thread.
One of the things I liked about disposition in Skyrim is that it affects if non-guard NPCs will attack others who are attacking you, or whose side they take in a fight. It seems like a small thing but it's jarring to sleep in Caius' bed and him just stand there literally two feet away while sleepers attack you lol. I will never understand why video essays on Morrowind don't talk about the "staticness" of the world more.
this feature exist since oblivion, which can lead to some funny situations
>I will never understand why video essays on Morrowind don't talk about the "staticness" of the world more.
Uh, this has already been discussed. They're not interested in a legitimate critique of Morrowind, just using it as a foil against Oblivion and Skyrim.
I've been defending Morrowind pretty much every week on Ganker since 2006 but I think I'm losing heart bros. More people seem to genuinely hate it given that we're proselytizing about it more these days.
why do you care? for example i like every mainline tes game i played so far, with morrowind being my favorite closely followed by daggerfall and i dont give a frick about some squabbeling. people like what they like
>why do you care?
He doesn't, it's probably just a shitpost from the usual homosexual.
We need good soldiers like you on the front line brother
I believe if you need to 20 hours to "critique" something then you probably have nothing to actually say
Uhm, it's "xir" actually, but thanks.
Genuine question, I'm replaying Morrowind now and when you speak to some NPCs they'll give you this robotic introduction like: "I'm Boomer, commoner™".
Why did they think this was good dialog? Did they not have editors or any understanding of characterization?
What's wrong with this, it's quick and to the point.
in skyrim everyone has some fruity voice acted response that bloated the budget, it's why you could no longer have wondering npcs for flavor, whiterun is 11 people
>wandering NPCs for flavor
Skyrim has plenty of NPCs on the roads. Are you implying Morrowind NPCs "wander"? They don't go anywhere lol.
>What's wrong with this
Because it's an information dispenser machine, not an actual character with some characterization behind them. Are you really this much of an aspie that you can't parse between different registers and tones? Morrowind NPCs read like robots.
It's a carryover from DF and Arena, and it's ultimately an abstraction Julian doesn't want to waste time. I would like to read your suggestion for how conversation should open in MW without 1) forcing spoken dialogue on every line, and 2) without prohibiting the keyword inquiry mechanic to all but a handful of NPCs.
>Are you implying Morrowind NPCs "wander"? They don't go anywhere lol.
It's worse because they actually DO wander in a bad way. Everytime a cell loads, the NPC is re-plopped on the spot, but this is always slightly off coordinate. This gets worse if the NPC has a walking animation (predefined path from point A to B). Eventually an NPC can stand in a different room or even a different floor altogether. Oblivion actually fixed this, one of the few improvements the game managed.
The keyword inquiry mechanic shouldn't come back if it is going to be implemented in the same way Morrowind's was (tonally inconsistent NPCs, tons of repeteated written dialog). Thing is here they don't even have the excuse of it being voiced.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a debug feature that they didn't remove.
All the background option does is let the NPC tell you its construction kit assigned class and its one of the few options that are prebuilt for NPCs(the other being rumor IIRC)
This leads to stupid shit like NPCs identifying themselves as assassins and dreamers.
MW is the only piece of media that I've liked initially and for which the fanbase made me hate it over time. Zeldagays and NVgays are more bearable and willing to accept criticism.
So, what's this thread about?
Total war: hyenas
Morrowind Bad
Skyrim Bad
Nu-Total War bad
The sequel to Morrowind should have improved on its mechanics rather then drop them
Who the frick gives a shit about what some random frickwit on youtube thinks?
Gtfo
>Who the frick gives a shit about what some random frickwit on youtube thinks?
Me, I care.
Are going to say I don't matter anon? Really?
>oh shit, here we go again
Literally nothing wrong with anything written in this entire image and I've never even passed Morrowind. Have you morons seen the official wiki? It's fricking trash.
Morrowind fans are fine. Morrowind elitists are delusional. I'll just give a simple example. Morrowind probably has the coolest civilizations in the franchise, but the wilderness is terrible. Too many creatures meandering around like in an MMO. If they had cut down on that crap, they would have had more overhead for custom assets to break up the monotony of exposed heightmap. Also, no one gives credit to random events. Those absolutely make Skyrim feel more like a real place.
>wandering around like an MMO
Frick off poser. Most moronic bait in this thread.
Yes, creatures specifically have like 12 of them in a tiny area pacing back and forth... just like an MMO. I didn't say the entire game was like that, just this one aspect.
Absolutely moronic. Go and skim the UESP some more.
Show us where the Romanian touched you.
I'm 100% certain this is nothing but wiki-reading like his dumb Morrowind one. Speaking as a fan of Morrowind, it would have been vastly more satisfying to see the game's various strengths be summed up and his own emotions and feelings towards it expressed, instead of him just reading UESP and summarizing every single guild quest like a sperg would. How does one come to the conclusion that the video needs to be that long? Is it a Youtube thing where they pay you more for more video length, or are people genuinely this autistic and need every single little detail expressed to have a decent review of something?
>How does one come to the conclusion that the video needs to be that long?
It's a two-edged sword: The length hides the terrible points he makes, While giving the appearance that Skyrim is so horrible that it required 20 hours to say everything, so that people who've "watched" it can point to it as an example of why Skyrim's bad, without realizing how shit the points he actually makes are.
He basically made it so that people can parrot his opinion without thinking or backing it up, relying on the length to dissuade anyone from actually looking.
Stopped watching randogay youtuber analysis/retrospective video essays, which are all uninsightful and pretentious. I find the GDC lectures by the actual developers much more interesting.
He literally said the opposite, commenting on how casters and archers endlessly backpedal away from you and how friendly npcs on escort quests need constant babysitting.
>Bear in mind this is a man who said Morrowind's NPC AI was "the best in the series"
I clearly remember hearing him say otherwise, saying that the only aspect in which skyrim is objectivelly better is in the AI department.
Don't pay too much mind
Every thread about this guys vid mischaracterizes his attempts at deadpan sarcasm as complete seriousness
It only took one recomended video from this guy for me to block him. Absolute crinnge.
Okay Todd.
I swear ong you morrowboomers are so delusional fr
Kinda glad you're all gonna die of old age soon no cap
I'm a legit zoomer, I started playing vidya waaay before Skyrim came out, I played both Skyrim and morrowind and I 100% prefer Morrowind, it has way more mechanical depth and freedom.
Why so many gays hate morrowind for no reason?
Like, do you actually consider Skyrim a fun game? Because it's not, and only nostalgia could make you think that. Morrowind in the other hand is a legendary RPG in many ways.
because they weren't prepared
I doubt they even made it that far. Most Gankertards who got filtered are always whining about that Hrisskar quest or how tombs are not a big dungeon.
>Like, do you actually consider Skyrim a fun game?
yes
> Because it's not
for you
It's literally the product of an era in which RPGs were out of fashion and FPS were the hip thing, and it shows in every part of its design. People that play it nowadays only do so because of the porn mods, now say that about morrowind lol
Morrowind graphics are too shit for porn, which is why noone plays it at all.
Name five ways to have fun in Skyrim. Ive been playing this shit in so many mod variations at this point that the only fun I have is by breaking the game and even that barely. Since it's first release in 2011 or whatever I still haven't finished the main quest more than once, neither most of the docs and side quests either because it's abysmally dull and awful just like everything else shat from Bethesda. Skyrim deserves to be broken, which is why autistic videos about this are more fun and entertaining than anything Todd could piss out in his entire life. Seriously write five non autistic or meme ways to genuinely have fun in Skyrim, you can't
>Skyrim is only fun with porn mods
Why take you seriously?
Because most people who still play Skyrim do it for the porn mods, that's why you're so bored of it.
>Name five ways to have fun in Skyrim
Assuming you can mod:
Larping as a vampire
Larping as an illusionist
Larping as a werewolf
Playing a survival hardcore playtrough
Playing a coom porn comedy gold playtrough
>"Assuming you can mod"
You just single-handedly ruined your case.
I also had fun with skyrim vanilla years ago, but after several hundreds hours I need some fresh stuff to be invested.
>Basically become a coomer or just make up your own fun bro.
Why not just play another game, like a cyoa or sandbox instead? Skyrim is just an empty barren game that is only good for breaking(which is basically make your fun too).
none of those will allow me to larp as well
for you
I'll be honest none of these sounds fun. If I launch it right now I know none of these will be fun at all...
Vanilla TES is trash and even mods can't save the trash writing and horrendously boring guild questlines that plague Skyrim.
is there any way to fail a quest on skyrim?