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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 6354014" data-attributes="member: 8835">All those are valid data points about game design, Skyrim in particular.I can see how an observer might come to the conclusion that the intent was to "dumb it down".  I don't think the reality is that deliberate or nefarious.  Instead, these data-points are the outcome of a variety of probably well intentioned decisions or natural progression of design/technology.1) You can't fail (except to die and reload in the same place).In the arcade, you used to feed quarters to keep playing.  Making it to the end of the Dragon's Lair was more about wallet than skill.On the PC, the inherent nature of the medium is to save frequently and often.  Which means backup points.  A game would have to deliberately destroy your backup files to prevent you from reloading.  There's also the "are you programmers morons" effect.  People get interupted.  Cut scenes and check points to saves are the number one peeve to gamers who get interupted.  From a computer science standpoint, any programmer who can't enable saving at any time is a moron who doesn't understand how to serialize game state to file.2) No consequences for faction membership (or, the Imperials don't care if you're a Rebel).I assume the goal here was to not lock a PC out of any action.  I only play one character in Elder Scrolls.  I don't want to make multiple characters and replay a bunch of content so I can access the "different" stuff.  I'm likely the target demographic for this feature, though I agree its stupid from a "that's not realistic" perspective.3) You make little impact in the world.Ah, the joys of sequels.  A game that is part of a series has to maintain continuity across series.  if the Player makes radical changes in Game 1, then Game 2 has to account for them.  Which is really complicated when 100,000 players make 100,000 different radical changes.The resulting solution is to neuter the player's impact on the game world.  If a game's world was designed as a one-shot (no sequels), then it could allow the player to do whatever damage to in a given save file, with no worry about trying to fit it into the sequel.4) The quest and journal system (does little more than make you walk toward arrows).After taking a year long hiatus from Skyrim, that little arrrow was pretty handy to indicate I was in the middle of an active quest, that more specifically had me following a dude in a tower.Had those arrows not been there, I'd have completely mucked up the mission I was in the middle of as I had no clue what was going on and would have wandered out because I though i was just exploring a tower.5) NPC conversations are heavily reduced (and bear little significance).crappy writing is crappy writing.  I long to see text to speech and voice recognition technology get to the point where a zillion NPC voices can be made from the text, and I can talk to the NPC in character.  Chatbot engines should be the future of NPC conversations.  But it ain't yet...6) Massively oversimplified puzzles (usually, with the solutions in plain sight).Because GMs have discovered that nothing craters an adventure like a clever puzzle that the players are too stupid to think like him to figure out.puzzles are risky game elements.  Plus, in a time sensitive situation (hurry up and solve this before  the cultists sacrifice the farmer's daughter at midnight), the players could spend HOURS of real time figuring it out (or just google it), and the in-game time limit needs to expire (which bugs me that the game quests don't have reasonable time limits.  Those cultists will wait DAYS for me to make it into the ceremonial chamber.7) The value of (special) items has been reduced (and supply has been greatly increased).Everybody likes loot.  It is a very modular system for customizing the power and look of a character.  So it happens.  a lot.</blockquote>

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