The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Depth and complexity

[Xbust]

I bring this up because I read somewhere that Skyrim would have quest markers. This troubles me a bit, and once again I'll use DA2 as an example. The quests in DA2 were horrid. Side quests where you collected random things in boxes that you psychically knew Random NPC A had recently lost. I also hated the quest markers everywhere, as I found myself just following them on my compass and not actually looking at the rest of the screen most of the time. I tried turning them off, but unfortunately, they weren't designed with that in mind. Oftentimes, the quest markers are the only thing you have to work with.

[Gustav m]

I can see why you're concerned, but DA2 was made in a year, while Skyrim was made in 3 years and by Bethesda. I am actually satisfied with most of the things I've seen. Although, I did not really like them taking out the classes though, like you said, being a good at everything would be stupid. But then, I would jack up the difficulty to max. Easiest way to do things. I am as well curious; how will they contribute strength into this? How can you raise how much you can carry? Is it a perk?

[MacIntel]

Around 18 months for DA2, I believe, but you're right, the shorter development cycle likely had a lot to do with it. However, some of those things are becoming quite common in games, such as less character customization and quest markers, regardless of development cycles. Not just the lack of difficulty, but I feel like my character has less 'character' when he/she is equally good at everything. I find it hard to role-play that.

[Common]

I think the issues with what I heard from E3 are two-fold. One is "moving away from stats". This usually symbolizes decline in quality for an RPG, wherein almost everything is affected by the PC's stats. You can defend it as "you can do the same stuff, it's just less numbers", but often times the numbers and how they affect what you do is important to give a feeling of character growth. Other is the "you can do anything" phenomenon, which I cannot understand. From a gameplay standpoint, this destroys the purpose of make "your" character. Instead, you will end up making the character that everyone else has- the one that can do anything.

[desilva]

Attributes in the Elder Scrolls have traditionally had virtually nothing at all to do with anything except your ability to kill things. The overwhelming majority of the quests in every Elder Scrolls game to date involve you killing something. The overwhelming majority of the criticism for every Elder Scrolls game to date involves combat. Is trying to make the act of killing something fun really that bad? Anyone who thinks this series has ever NOT been an action RPG is either in denial or has never played an Elder Scrolls game before.

[RyanInt]

Complexity and depth are two different and typically unrelated things. Morrowind had depth, but it wasn't complex. In fact, it was pretty damn simple to get a hang of most of the systems and become as proficient in them as one could in a rather short space of time. This is a lack of complexity. StarCraft has (gameplay wise) little depth, but great complexity. It is relatively impossible to master the game since the level of complexity is huge, even though the depth is relatively shallow.

[AZUL]

I agree with your opinion of Dragon Age 2, it was a massive disappointment to me. I still enjoyed the game, but it just wasn't up to par with the rest of Bioware's titles. And I do hate when the words 'streamlined' comes up in RPG games. However, there have been some exceptions to this. I thought the streamlining in Mass Effect 2 led to a much better improved sequel, and an amazing game overall. In Dragon Age 2's case, not so much. It really did hurt the game a lot, and I hope EA & Bioware learn from that.