[cerveza_fiesta]

sorry to derail...

Solo leveling in Wow is a grind fest. Whether you're questing or grinding, it's all still grinding since quests are generally detached story-wise and inevitably amount to killing X of monster Y or gathering Z herbs from a place populated by monsters. It's ok...not saying it's terrible or anything, there's just no way around grinding in WoW.

On topic:

I like that actually, now that I think of it...if you did that in Oblivion, it really would encourage more exploration and knowledge of the map because you would actually need to seek out stuff your level and skirt the high-level areas rather than just randomly attacking shit in the woods. I find I get a bit lost in the huge RPG worlds though, so maybe it would be better to do it by wide geographic region...starting you in the immediate vicinity of the capital city, then once you level up you can handle the stuff surrounding the next quest hub, then the next. Nothing actually prevents you entering the high-level areas but you do so knowing of the potential ass-whipping.

I admit it would be awesome to go by a bandit camp once in awhile and not have an epic fight for my life every single time.

[Garak]

Morrowind was the one I enjoyed the most - though if I'm really honest, I enjoyed because of the great atmosphere and not the gameplay or story (which was ok but nothing mind blowing).

[Gothos]

The way you put it, CF, Oblivion's just about the same

[ansible]

I heavily modded Oblivion when I played it. I removed level scaling and gave enemies fixed range levels, changed the size/layout of the inventory interface, plus myriad other changes I can't remember at all. It definitely improved the experience. Oblivion was a great game, worth the many hours I sunk into it, but Morrowind was better. The summer I discovered Morrowind, I disappeared for two months and emerged a new man. Morrowind is one of those games that reminds you of everything an RPG can be and why you ever wanted to play them in the first place.

[Silencer]

I come back from a two-day tramp (with only a brief interlude in-between that and a camping trip to an island) to find that, what do you know, we're back on Oblivion vs Morrownd.

Do I really have to post another point-by-point analysis of why level scaling sucks, the removal of skills, factions and depth suck, so on and so forth ad nauseum? XD

No, instead I shall point out that Two Worlds did levels geographically. Go south, get your ass kicked. Stay in the north, survive to level up. It was actually one of the best parts of that game, imo, because it was fairly simple, kind of made sense based on the setting, and gave you an incentive to level.

Morrowind did it better, though.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Briar King, on 14 December 2010 - 06:31 PM, said:

Yeah I agree. I just found Oblivion so fucking frusterating when it came to fighting. Ive never turned the difficulty down on it as I got to pissed off by character 3 I just put the game down and havent played it in 2yrs or so. Morrowind is so dated now but I can still put that on and feel a since of epicness vs. running from a rat in Oblivion for my life LMAO!

It is frustrating if you are not a melee character and do not spec yourself for self sufficiency for that fighting style. The only character I've been able to seriously progress with (without modifying the difficulty) is my warriror...and then only when I devoted all my level up points to very warrior-specific skills and abilities. I got quite a way through with my rogue and basically didn't get anywhere with my casters. They were just too weak to deal with enemies of the same level. The warrior at least can hide behind a shield but for a rogue/caster you need room to backpedal and slam arrows into shit.

RE the level scaling and mods:

I understand how certain enemies could be restricted in terms of max/min level, but how do they deal with the way the game re-populates dungeons and random wilderness with higher-level stuff? The first few ayelid ruins you go into it's all just skeletons and rats....then after a certain level it's all skeleton warriors and ghosts and zombies...etc. So even if you restrict a wolf to, say, max level 3...at a certain point the woods aren't populated by wolves anymore and the game starts making them all into bears / cougars.

Not that I can mod my PS3 version anyway, just wondering.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 15 December 2010 - 12:09 PM

[Gothos]

Piranha games don't use any random placements. Everything is placed by hand by the developers. Every little hill, cave, monster, building - it's all handcrafted, as opposed to mass production. Sure, world size isn't as huge as, say, Morrowind (Oblivion is tiny for a TES game), but each location has just so much more character.
How to avoid hundreds of bears? Stay with wolves, just make them come in packs. At least in Piranha games, every enemy you fight at once beyond the first is a large step up in difficulty. Especially if they have stun/lockdown mechanics.

As the game progresses... well, it doesn't have to be entire zones being higher level. In example from Gothic II, there's a certain small cave near Khorinis, the 'starting town', so to speak (even if you get around the whole island quite fast). It happens to house a Shadowbeast. Now, you can try to take it on, but it's a very, very challenging fight. Most players might take the cue from pools of blood and piles of bones littering the area and just go on their merry way, and come back for him later.
Other things may come - various caves get indeed populated with stronger enemies, or become active areas at all, as the story progresses - say, goblins and black goblins later replaced by lizardmen.

In any case, I don't think that a game should offer challange suitable to your level at all times. A certain amount of linearity, at least in terms of what kinds of enemies you can take on, should exist.

[cerveza_fiesta]

I think you misunderstood what I was asking...

I do get that there are different ways to approach enemy placement and other games do it better

I mean in Oblivion specifically, with the mods people describe, how do they deal with the game constantly changing the enemy types as you level in addition to making the wussy ones more difficult.

[Silencer]

cerveza_fiesta, on 15 December 2010 - 02:09 PM, said:

I think you misunderstood what I was asking...

I do get that there are different ways to approach enemy placement and other games do it better

I mean in Oblivion specifically, with the mods people describe, how do they deal with the game constantly changing the enemy types as you level in addition to making the wussy ones more difficult.

The enemy 'evolution' mechanic is a part of the levelled lists afaik. It's not a global scaling, each spawn has its own mechanics for when a lower level creature will be replaced by a higher level one.

And I personally think it would be better if instead of scaling level, they increased quantity of foes, if they were determined to have some form of scaling. One skeleton becomes three skeletons. Three skeletons becomes three skeletons and a skeleton champion, etc. Makes the fights more interesting, too.

And all wolves should be in packs, and be essentially one- or two-shot kills, because how many wolves do you know can survive a sword to the chest?



RE: character archetypes, I've never had trouble with Oblivion. In Morrowind, as a mage, you were fucked for the first ten to fifteen levels. You ran from most fights. In Oblivion, you kick ass from the get-go, and the only thing that can fuck you over is magic resistance, which is rare. Though if you slavishly follow the main questline and go straight to Kvatch, yes, you might have a tougher time as a mage than a warrior...but so you should. Linear warriors, quadratic wizards, as the saying goes. (not that it was done very well at all in Oblivion, due to level scaling, but...)

[Seras]

^ WOOO, saw the debut trailer yesterday.



Can't wait until next fall

This post has been edited by Erayle: 16 December 2010 - 01:08 AM

[Morgoth]

Jenisapt Rul, on 14 December 2010 - 09:25 AM, said:

Stupidly so. At normal difficulty, fighting a deadra was like Temper trying to hold back the Tyrant in NoK.

Are you serious? Oblivion was so ridiculously easy at the normal difficulty I did not die or flee once. Shit, I hardly used healing at all.

My first character was a mace wielding, heavy armored Norse who only used self enhancing spells. Walked through the game without any difficulty. Bought every house, did all the quests I could find and so on and so forth.

Thinking that was a bit too easy I ramped up the difficulty to about 75% and made an unarmoured, knife wielding mage, which turned out to be even easier! Man, if you think mages were overpowered in Morrowind...

Anyways, my point is that Oblivion was ridiculously easy.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Especially if you made 100,000 +15 ice (might have been fire, don't remember) damage arrows using the duplication glitch before it was fixed, lol.

[Silencer]

STAY AWAY FROM THOSE GOD-FORSAKEN WORKS MISTAKENLY TITLED 'NOVELS' INSTEAD OF 'ABSOLUTE SHITE'.

>.>

No, seriously, they suck. Like, REALLY BAD.

[Illuyankas]

Second.

There's one called The Burning City, and I can best sum up the plot of it as "Hey, remember how much you liked Morrowind? FUCK YOU, RED MOUNTAIN ERUPTS AND VVARDENFELL IS NOW KRAKATOA! ALL THE PLACES YOU LIKED FROM THE GAME ARE BURIED UNDER MOLTEN LAVA! NOW TAKE YOUR MEDIEVAL KNIGHTS IN STEREOTYPICAL ENGLAND INSTEAD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE MIXED WITH THE AZTECS IN THE JUNGLE AND SUCK IT!"



On a more entertaining and optimistic note, we know a couple of things about the Nerevarine and Akavir. We know the Nerevarine is now immortal after Divath Fyr's help toward the whole prophecy thing, and we know he went to Akavir and hasn't been heard of since. We know the leader of one of the races in Akavir (tiger people or something, it's been a while since I read it) found out how to become a dragon, and he's currently the only dragon in the world, hanging out in Akavir all tiger striped and whatnot. Except there are dragons attacking Skyrim. What if they made the Nerevarine the bad guy for ESV: Skyrim, righteously pissed off at their dickishness towards the Dunmer and having conquered Akavir by himself? They could randomly generate which race he is in the end battle (and skills to compliment that race), to represent the uncertainty of which Nerevarine people completed Morrowind with, and he could be riding a tiger striped dragon. Tell me that wouldn't be cool. Tell me that wouldn't be an awesome sendoff for a main character from a previous game.

[Aptorian]

New article filled with little morsels of information:

http://www.gamersmin...d-more-detailed

Quote

TES: Skyrim Blowout: Game length, gameplay and more detailed
Recently, Dutch Power Unlimited magazine have released lots of information regarding the fifth installment of Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim.

Essentially, the developers have said that “Skyrim is an evolution within The Elder Scrolls, and not a revolution”, meaning it would be more of the same breathtaking experience ushered in the series, with the “magic of the world that Bethesda has created unequivocally present”.

Graphically, the game would look fabulous, as a lot of progress has been made since Oblivion. “Even in third person, animations look really good”, stated the developers. 3-D plays a big part, with every item having a 3D-preview option in the Flash based inventory, where you can twist, turn, rotate every item in the game and preview it from all possible angles. Sometimes you will solve puzzles by analyzing these 3D-previews. You can even read in-game books in 3-D.

Gameplay wise, lots of new features have been implemented. There is no level cap, however you will not be able to choose all perks with one character. All weapons have different properties, which you can take advantage of by choosing the right perks. Maces ignore a percentage of armor, and axes have bleed damage over time. Fast Travel has been incorporated to revisit the visited places instantly. There is also Active blocking, which makes melee more fun to play with.

Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion, with five big cities and more than 130 dungeons. Dungeons in this case are not rare, however, they will be locked at their level once you have been there. Story wise, the Dark Brotherhood is back, with “the overarching narrative of the Dragons being less prominent than the Oblivion Gates were in Oblivion, which won’t give you the feeling that you are doing ‘useless’ quests when you lay aside the Main Quest”. However, every dragon you kill will make you stronger. A piece of his soul will be transferred to yours. Overall, Main Story is approximately 20 hours long, with hundreds of hours for other quests.

For the lazy, here’s the new info in bullet-point format:

• “There is no level cap. You will nevertheless not be able to choose all perks with one character.”
• “Technically speaking, Skyrim is an evolution within The Elder Scrolls, and not a revolution (but everything looks fabulous). The magic of the world that Bethesda has created is nevertheless unequivocally present.”
• “All weapons have different properties, which you can take advantage of by choosing the right perks. Maces ignore a percentage of armor, and axes have bleed damage over time.”
• “You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier.”
• “Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion.”
• “Five big cities and more than 130 dungeons.”
• “Low-Fantasy”
• “The overarching narrative of the Dragons is less prominent than the Oblivion Gates were in Oblivion, which does not give you the feeling that you are doing ‘useless’ quests when you lay aside the Main Quest.”
• “Dragons are not rare.”
• “Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”
• “Even in third person, animations look really good. There has been a lot of progress since Oblivion.”
• “You can read in-game books in 3-D.”
• “Every item has a 3D-preview in the Flash based inventory, which you can twist, turn, rotate, etc. Sometimes you will solve puzzles by analyzing these 3D-previews. Not only armor and weapons can be explored in great detail, also small rings and herbs can be investigated from all possible angles. Every single item in the game can be previewed in the inventory screen.”
• “The Dark Brotherhood is back.”
• “Active blocking makes melee more fun to play.”
• “More traps and puzzles.”
• “Main Story is approximately 20 hours. Hundreds of hours for other quests.”
• “Every dragon you kill will make you stronger. A piece of his soul will be transferred to yours.”

Here’s some key points derived from an interview in the Mag with Todd Howard

• “There are special animations for sneak kills with daggers.” (The way it is written in Dutch does not imply that there are no special animations for other weapons btw…)
• “We primarily look at how we can improve facial expressions and animations, graphics-wise.”
• “The game won’t support Kinect. It takes too much memory.”
• “We are working at pop-up issues, and we want to make sure that the graphics of the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 are alike. All three will look just as good, aside from the higher resolution and the anti-aliasing of the PC of course.”
• “It is not yet possible to combine forms of magic. It is difficult. Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage. If we would allow the player to use fire magic in one hand, and frost magic in the other, it becomes much more complex. Maybe we will implement this though, but for the time being, ‘No’.
• “Someone modded Oblivion by changing the physics of shooting an arrow. It made you shoot slower and you almost had to remain stationary to shoot, which increased the arrow’s impact. We liked this mod so much, that we implemented it in Skyrim by default.”

With even more traps and puzzles, Skyrim shows a lot of promise.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases on November 11, 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

[Trull's son]

Skyrim may be amazing. I hate the fact that they still insist on using fast travel, but it could be worse. In the meantime, Nehrim is an excellent version of what Oblivion should have been, but in German.

[MTS]

[Luzburg]

MTS, on 16 February 2011 - 02:19 PM, said:

Haha. I just watched the trailer and I must say, I felt like that . I loved being a Nord in Oblivion, now my dream is come true. Norse based Elder Scrolls XD

[Silencer]

First gameplay video!!!!!!!!!!!!! - drops in 6 hours-ish from the time of this post.

And a copy-paste of the post I made on ModCraft about this/the game:

Silencer, on 24 February 2011 - 08:50 AM, said:

Ooooooooooooooooooooh.


Oh man, this coincides so bad with my recently kindled enthusiasm for the game. Mainly because of the combat overhauls which I finally read a good explanation of: Game Informer. But specifically?

Fireball spell. Can also be held for FLAMETHROWER SPELL. Or placed for FIRE BOMB TRAP SPELL. FINALLY BETHESDA YOU ARE BECOME GODS OF THE GAMING WORLD. >.<

This, more than anything...fuck. Yes.

Oh, and MAGE DUELS. I love the fact that you can duel wield weapons. I love the fact bows are now deadly but slow. I love the fact that daggers are once more a threat, at least when backstabbing/assassinating (which makes sense, and is how it worked before Oblivion). But. Mage. Duels. To the tune of keeping one Ward spell (not sure if it was Bethsoft who chose that wording, or GI, but it makes things sound so much cooler) in one hand and an offensive spell in the other, so you have to time your attacks and your defense when fighting another mage...glorious. Absolutely glorious.
Which, btw, also implies mages vs non-mages will be kinda dangerous as fuck, seeing as if you have to defend magically against a mage to survive, people who can't defend themselves magically....muahahahah.
Oh, and also, TWIN FLAMETHROWER SPELLS. Or rapid-fire fireballs from alternating hands. Uses lots of magicka fast but OMGOMGOMGOMG. And lightning spells now have an actual purpose other than being a slightly different form of damage, too, with the whole magicka drain thing. One thing I do want, though (and I know, greedy as hell): If I'm throwing a gout of flame in your face, IT SHOULD SLOW YOU DOWN. I.e. no you don't just walk through fire to hit me with a sword. Even if it uses *boatloads* of magicka because of this, it should do it. It would make sense.


IF they get the level scaling to a reasonable place, and have a good set of storylines, I will not emerge from this game for YEARS. *giddy*

...and to think, I was doing so well not getting prematurely excited. *sigh*


But....VIDEO. YAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY.

[MTS]

I think Silencer needs new pants.