User blog:Draevan13/The streamlining of the Elder Scrolls series, and some Skyrim flaws.

A brief note...
This blog is only about the three Elder Scrolls games on consoles, i.e Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, as I haven't played Arena or Daggerfall and thus cannot comment on them.

And, of course, this is my OPINION. This is not fact.

The good things.
I'll get the good out of the way first: obviously, the sequels have added good things. Of course, every sequel has better graphics and physics than the one before. Oblivion changed Morrowind's awful combat system. (I always thought it terribly flawed when I could stab someone with a claymore and deal 0 damage) Skyrim greatly improved combat, especially with the crafting of armor and weapons and kill-cams. (Not necessary, but adds to the immersion) The crime system in Skyrim is also much better, along with the fact they added more weapon and armor types. I'm sure there are more improvement I'm forgetting, feel free to add them in the comments!

Now, to business.
I'm sure that I'm not the only one to notice how each successive Elder Scrolls game seems to be getting simpler, dumbed-down, streamlined, whatever you want to call it. Every game has less: less skills, attributes, spells, etc, and what there is seems so simple. Don't get me wrong, though, I still love the series and have played preposterously long hours on all three games. But it's because I love it so much that I feel I have to say something.

Skills and attributes
Let's take a look at skills.

Why remove these skills, I wonder? A lot of people say: "No one uses them!" I find this to be incredibly arrogant. If YOU don't use them, that doesn't mean NO ONE uses them. I, for one, liked my Unmarmored Spearman in Morrowind and my Acrobatic Martial-Artist in Oblivion. Another reason: "It's too complicated!" (Yes, a lot of fans supposedly said Oblivion was too complicated) How? What is complicated about, say, Hand-to-Hand? It increases the damage done with fists. Medium Armor is for people who don't want their armor to be too cumbersome, but want more protection than Light Armor. It's actually quite simple, especially when every skill is explained in detail in-game. Less skills means less depth, less complexity involved. What about the next Elder Scrolls games? Are we going to eventually be down to 5 skills: Melee, Ranged, Light Armor, Heavy Armor and Magic? It seems to be the path the series is on.
 * Morrowind: 27 skills.
 * Oblivion: 21 skills. Medium Armor, Spear, Enchant and Unarmored have been removed entirely, while Long and Short blade have been merged, along with Blunt and Axe.
 * Skyrim: 18 skills. Acrobatics, Athletics, Hand-to-Hand and Mysticism are gone althogether, while Blade and Blunt were changed to One and Two-Handed (though it's still two weapons skills, so it doesn't matter), but Enchanting is back.

And then there's attributes. When I saw that Skyrim removed them completely, I was perplexed. Attributes have been a staple of RPGs from the days of Dungeons and Dragons in the pre-computer days. Why remove them entirely? Again, I heard the reason: "They're too complicated! I don't know what they do!" Even though, once again, their use is clearly detailed in the game. Strength increases melee damage and carry-weight. Speed increases... well, speed. Agility increases total fatigue and chance of getting staggered. It's really quite simple, if you take a few minutes to read their descriptions.

Now, in Skyrim, a character wearing 500 pounds of heavy armor runs at the same speed and jumps the same height as a naked character. Makes perfect sense...

The only attribute that should have been removed, or at least modified, was Luck, since it's description pretty much said it didn't affect any skill.

Magic
Ah, magic. Who doesn't enjoy blasting a pesky bandit away with a fireball, or shielding themselves in an aura of magic? Skyrim saw the magic aspect severly reduced. Conjuration was hit hardest by this trimming. 35 spells in Oblivion versus 25 in Skryim. Although dual-casting was introduced, Spellmaking was removed entirely, meaning the only way to obtain new spells is to buy them from vendors or find them in random loot. Enchanting was improved by the "destroy item to learn its enchantment" instead of "only spells you can cast can be applied". However, only certain spells can be applied to certain item, i.e muffle can only be applied to boots. No "Ring of Muffle", sadly. It's unnecessarily restrictive. And Shield can no longer be applied to armor or clothing, again restricting.

Quests
The backbone of RPGs, along with exploring. Questlines have changed greatly in the sequels, sometimes better, sometimes worse. The Dark Brotherhood questline is more or less the same in Skyrim as in Oblivion, both in length and depth, and in some aspects improved. The Thieves Guild is vastly improved in Skyrim, especially with the odd jobs Vex and Delvin give and the length of the questline.

Main quest and Civil War
I'm not going to discuss them, since anything I have to say about them has already been covered by The Milkman in his blog "Skyrim's Smorgasbord of Shortcomings". Go read it if you haven't, it's great.

Faction and Side-quests
The Companions and the College of Winterhold. So very, very brief. I breezed through both in six hours apiece, including the radiant and side-quests each faction offers. The only reason I can think of for this is that those two were done last, and they ran out of time to make them more complex. Especially when compared with the Fighter's and Mage's Guild of Morrowind and Oblivion, both of which took me twelve hours apiece to finish. And before you say "Well, Skyrim has repeatable quests!" I will not do those identical quests over and over again. There's no variety in them: Go to place A, kill thing B, return for reward. I'll do them once, maybe twice. Not over and over.

I liked the side quests and Daedric quests in all three games, though. Always nice and varried, and well done.

What do you think?
And now, to hear your opinions, elderscrollswiki users. Am I the only one to notice this streamlining? Comment, if you please.