Do not get me wrong: I have poured dozens of my hours into TES: Skyrim already and am loving it to the bone, but - in my opinion - there are some fundamental flaws that need dire addressing in the following Elder Scrolls game. I will aim to sum up some of my complaints in the following blogpost, and hope to generate some response from the Skyrim blog community, with regards to what they think needs fixing.
Scarcity of resources and items.
If you've got more money than you can spend, then what's there to complain about? I, for one, was disappointed by the rate of which one is able to build up capital in this game. After (only?) 30 hours into the game, I was already sitting on a heap of cash big enough to buy all of the property available in the game, times two, with horses stabled in at least three settlements. I would've loved to have had more spending possibilities, as gold is too easy to come by, by selling enchanted items that are - regretfully so - abundantly present throughout the game, and scavenging urns and chests for their treasury contents.
Particularly iron ore can be found literally everywhere in the game, but what is most annoying is that all available ores can be bought in considerable amounts, for literally no gold at all (considering the amount you find) from merchants across Skyrim.
Exploitability.
If you don't wish to be aware of exploits, then skip this paragraph and continue with the 'sense of reward' section.
It is surprisingly easy to level up your blacksmithing skill to its maximum by utilising the aforementioned iron ore of which you will find and be able to buy loads, by crafting iron armour and weapons (what else are you really going to do with it, besides transmuting it into gold and gaining even more money from crafting - thus improving blacksmithing - jewelry and selling it, because it has no practical value other than holding your enchantments). It would've been easy to not reward the player for crafting items of a particular material after certain skill levels in blacksmithing have been reached.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that enchantments can easily be made disproportionately powerful by combining alchemy fortifications and enchantment fortifications, which is potentially game ruining. Introducing something such as a 'cap' on fortifications easily tackles this exploit.
Now I know what you're thinking: "You don't have to exploit these flaws in the game", but especially the leveling up from smithing iron armour/weapons (or jewelry after transmuting) is something you can't really avoid if you don't like wasting your ore.
Sense of material reward.
Because it is relatively easy to get your blacksmithing skill raised to a high level fairly quickly, one is usually able to attain the strongest armour available, early on in the game. Dragon armour - the second best armour available - may be crafted easily with dragon bones and dragon scales, of which you will gain huge amounts (slaying four or five dragons can be enough to craft you a set). It would've been a lot nicer to have the dragon armour be more exclusive, in my opinion.
I would've much rather seen the strongest armour and weapons (or perhaps crafting blueprints to craft them) be achieved through elaborate quests and conquering difficult dungeons (currently most dungeons only reward the player with some gold and a few generic items at the end). Quest rewards, as they are currently in the game, are often nothing more but disenchanting and selling material as strong armour and weapons are easily achieved through crafting and can be heavily enchanted to outmatch enchantments on 'unique' items.
Sense of achievement.
A complaint I've noticed quite often is the lack of recognition that the player gets for completing quests in the game, in that NPC's often do not change their attitude towards the player, regardless of their newly achieved status. A good example is the 'Thane' status players can get in every settlement, which is supposed to lift your status at least above that of the guards. Regardless, guards will keep addressing you in a disciplinary way and make sneery remarks when you pass them by.
User interface.
While some people think the user interface has come a long way from Oblivion, I think the user interface has become less effective, and evidently unnecessarily unoptimised for the PC. Really, the user interface could be easily improved by a few simple tweaks and I would like you to read this spot-on article, for some good alternatives and healthy bashing.
Little things.
Voice acting is surely an improvement from Oblivion, but it was unnecessary to give, especially the Nords, the horrible accents they currently have in the game. Refraining from giving the Nords a distinct accent would've been better in my opinion.
'Dynamic quests' feel tacky and mostly involve 'fetching' things for NPC's, often in dungeons that you may have already cleared. I do not think this is a particularly good addition to the game, and would have much preferred to have seen Bethesda design more small, unique quests around dungeons that are not involved in some greater narrative.
Closing comments.
Again: do not get me wrong, I love this game and have been spending most of my free, waking hours in Tamriel. I think Bethesda have done a wonderful job at creating a vibrant world with an enormous amount of good content, but I think this is a really good opportunity to discuss some of the things that we may not be entirely pleased with. Please do comment: what do you particularly dislike about Skyrim or would like to see improved?
Comments
1. A way to see what enchantments you already know without going to an arcane enchanter. I d... more