5 Niggling Things: Skyrim

It’s been a little while since I wrote something on gaming so here’s another entry. This time I’m looking at what many consider to be Bethesda’s biggest and best effort into the role playing genre and the fifth main entry in the Elder Scrolls series. A game as massive as Skyrim is bound to have some faults here and there so let’s get right to it; episode two of five niggling things.

1. Competent if slightly underwhelming swordplay

As an RPG franchise, the Elder Scrolls has never really been known for deep and complex combat, instead opting for the three simple play styles of direct warrior, ranged mage or stealthy thief. But when you look at countless other RPGs on the market today, especially The Witcher series and the way they go much further with their combat systems, Skyrim’s seems very basic by comparison; the third person kill cams ripped from Fallout are satisfying to watch and the way your character’s attacks become progressively stronger is certainly rewarding but let’s see a wider array of combat moves and styles in the next game. I’m thinking of jump attacks for warriors, wizard duels for mages and evasive rolls for thief characters as well as special attacks and combat techniques geared to specific weapons and spells.

2. Bugged quests

This is a tricky one, considering Bethesda’s track record of releasing games that always have a few bugs lurking within the code but during my time with Skyrim I had the misfortune encountered more bugged or unfinishable quests than perhaps any other game I’ve played in the genre. Waking Nightmare, The Forsworn Conspiracy, Blood on the Ice and several others often came to a screeching halt, forcing to me to either abandon the quest completely or make use of codes to force the game to proceed onward; not to mention that if you're playing on console, there's no way to fix the quests at all. The problem really stings for some quests as it breaks their sense of immersion and the often highly detailed lore they contribute to the universe of Tamriel. Despite a few patches from both Bethesda and the generous support of the modding community, many quests in Skyrim are still relatively easy to break and this is something which the developer needs to work on for next time.

3. An inconsistent reputation system

In Skyrim, there are all kinds of factions to join and skills to develop and each of these draws different comments; for example if you put time into upping the pickpocket skill, guards will say “I find your hand in my pocket, I’m going to cut it off” or if you join the Companions, NPCs will make different comments depending on the stage of that quest-line. This is fairly good for progression but unfortunately that’s where the nature of the reputation system ends. There should be a more dynamic system to make NPCs react to the Dragonborn in different ways; perhaps something that refines on the reputation system seen in Fallout New Vegas. If the player is dressed in Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood armour then the guards could be more wary of the player and this in turn would reinforce the need to stay hidden when moving through civilised areas as a criminal in Skyrim. In turn joining different factions could yield additional benefits such as store discounts on certain items, depending on the faction. It would certainly be a lot more engaging than walking past characters and having them greet you like normal even when you’re clearly a member of a sinister organisation.

4. Disruptive loading screens

Open world games need to load; because their worlds are so massive and varied, it’s a really difficult task for developers to have areas directly stream across the entire experience. The load times may not be quite as tedious as those in Fable 3 but again, other RPGs have taken steps forward by trimming down their loading times more coherently whilst Skyrim has to have one every time the player character enters a new area. The modding community, most notably “Open Cities” by Arthmoor (Download it here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8058/?) has proven that several areas of Skyrim’s vast land can still function without the need to drop to a static black screen. It would go a long way towards building and maintaining immersion in the world if Bethesda was to cut down on the loading times for future instalments in the series.

5. Perks with little purpose

Skyrim’s level trees involving star constellations look great and were a progressive step up from Oblivion’s static menu systems and for the most part the perks you unlock are very useful in enhancing your chosen play style. Unfortunately a problem still persists that several studios as well as Bethesda have trouble with; a somewhat lack of ingenuity in the perks you choose. In Call of Duty, the useless perk was eavesdrop (listen in on the enemy’s voice chat when barely anyone used a headset), in Far Cry 3 it was firing a pistol while on a zip line, and in Skyrim the main two are “fists of steel” (an increase to the damage of hand-to-hand attacks) and “quick reflexes” (slows down time when blocking an enemy’s power attack). The former is more of an issue as players must unlock it to progress through to the far superior “Conditioning” perk (Makes heavy armour weigh nothing). Every perk should have a practical purpose, which will make the levelling up process a far more rewarding undertaking and this applies not only to Skyrim but to all games which possess some kind of perk system.