Things you don't like about Skyrim

[Quimby]

@gallows_fodder

Also (taking a break from playing) – it drives me crazy that the quests in the Miscellaneous category don’t give you clues to their locations. I have a lot of “return X to Y” but there’s no hint as to where Y may be. The “show on map” function works sporadically if at all.

You have set Misc. quests to be shown on the map and then the individual one within the list also.

[Der_Trihs]

@Quimby

You have set Misc. quests to be shown on the map and then the individual one within the list also.

And only one at a time or things can get confusing.

[Arrogance_Ex_Machina]

Between quest tracking and the Clairvoyance spell, Skyrim is actually very good at showing you where to go. Sometimes it even makes things a bit too easy when you can see the bandit chief’s movements through walls if he has a bounty on his head. Somebody was complaining somewhere that the dungeons are too linear, but for a guy like me who gets lost in games way too easily finding where to go in Skyrim is definitely on my list I like about the game.

[XaMcQ]

@gallows_fodder

I’ve been playing for ~50 hours; I’m at level 23, I think.

It seems like there aren’t really any choices in this game. You customize your character to the extent that you choose how he/she kills things, but the quests and the dialogue “trees” are so linear. In the Fallout games, you had to make significant moral decisions that had major impact on the trajectory of the game, you could double-cross quest-givers, what factions you sided with mattered, what kind of reputation you had with each faction mattered, there was such a thing as reputation and alignment so your choices stacked… You get the idea.

I feel like the only real choice I have in this game is the order in which I do the quests. The outcomes of the quests are already a given.

Also, you don’t get to develop real relationships with any of the characters. Your followers can’t have meaningful conversations with you and are just packmules, your spouse is just a means for you to earn more money and get a perk for sleeping next to, they’re not distinct at all. The game doesn’t give me reason to care about anybody I help out via a quest. They’re all nobodys. One thing Dragon Age got right was giving all of your companions vibrant personalities – there were certain characters I took with me in my party just because I liked hearing their banter with each other in that particular combination of characters. Skyrim is quite shallow in comparison.

The Northern Lights at night sure are pretty, though.

Absolutely. The lack of consequences is the biggest flaw in the game, imho, with the lack of meaningful interaction with your companions being a close second. I really don’t think I should be able to be Listener for the Dark Brotherhood, and a Nightingale for the Thieves Guild, and leader of the Companions. I’ve totally lost track of how many Daedra are going to be competing for my soul in the afterlife. I kind of like the Dragon Age system where you chose a type of player and were channelled into playing them a certain way, because it made a difference. I played through every origin, and will probably go back and do them again with different choices, but right now I’m thinking when I FINALLY get through with Skyrim, I probably won’t ever go back to it.

[Johnny_Angel]

Terrain-based pathfinding. You know where you need to go, but there’s a damned mountain in your way, and you have to hunt around for a slope you can actually get up. It keeps popping up in games – Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect, and now Skyrim. Worse, in Mass Effect you’re also having to deal with an unwieldy damned vehicle. They came up with a hover vehicle for Mass Effect 2, so I thought hot damn, the fun of planetary exploration without the hassle of pathfinding. Oh, so wrong. It was still a tedious pathfinding excercise, only now also with jumping puzzles and reflex tests.

I think I know why this crap keeps popping up. There has to be some vociferous fan with a lot of purchasing power who just loves looking around for a passable slope across a mountain. What madman could this be? Kim Jong Il. Who else is 1) crazy, 2) has tremendous resources to spend on thousands of copies of a game instead of, say, food for his people. Now that Kim Jong Il is dead, I’m hopeful that there will be no need for this crap in Mass Effect 3.

[Jophiel]

@Johnny_Angel

Terrain-based pathfinding. You know where you need to go, but there’s a damned mountain in your way, and you have to hunt around for a slope you can actually get up.

All my enchanted gear for Rico’s grappling gun from Just Cause 2!