a detour through skyrim

Since its release I've sunk around 70 hours into Skyrim...

Since its release I've sunk around 70 hours into Skyrim during time that I probably should have been working on some personal programming projects, so I figured I'd get the whole thing out of my system by writing down a few thoughts. I'm going to assume you're familiar with this topic so I can avoid defining terms or acyronyms; if you're not already familiar, I bet you'll leave rather quickly.

A little background: My favourite game genre is the open world RPG, so Skyrim and TES in general are pretty much the pinnacle for me. What follows is not a review, since there are tons, but more my analysis of the parts I don't like. Obviously any game I spend dozens of hours on I like more then well enough, but for the most part I'm going to avoid talking about the many, many things I think they did right.

The open world RPG genre appeals to me so much because there are two main systems that draw me into a game: Exploration and character progression.

exploration

I think providing enticing environments is one of the most-right things about Skyrim. The world is simply amazing, from the mountain peaks to the deep forests to the architecturally diverse cities and dungeons. In this round they've made more use of 3D space, where you can look down from, say, a bridge, and see layers of bridges and other explorable areas below you. Personally I'd like to see this go even further, pushing towards the kind of intricate environments found in Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creeds games, but hey, you can't do everything, and what they've done is fantastic. One of my most impressive moments in the game came from climbing stairs up a very tall mountain and feeling truly grateful that I happened to be headed up on a clear day so that I could take in the beautiful view.

The environments are visually impressive enough that I suspect they've already hit the point of diminishing returns, with further iterations not seeing as noticeable improvement as between Morrowind and Oblivion. Even the Oblivion to Skyrim improvement owes much to the attention to design and unique locations, not just the engine enhancements.

In future iterations, there are three main areas I hope they can advance:

A regionless world. It will be a huge win when the world is truly seamless, with no dungeon/town/house load points. This is particularly painful when it comes to owning houses, where each one is essentially a windowless cave; It would be exhilirating to own a house on a cliff face with a magnificent view. I assume this issue is based more on making memory tradeoffs on current hardware, so hopefully future hardware improvements can resolve it.

Physical environments. The ability to interact with the environment, instead of simply navigating it, is the biggest piece missing. I can't imagine when we'll have the ability to literally chop down any tree we want, move boulders around, dig pools, etc., since we've made virtually no progress, other then a few outliers, in that direction in 20+ years of gaming.

Evolving environments. Worlds where a farmstead can become a village, a village a town, and a town a city will be another large leap forward. I'd like to think they're in the process of laying the groundwork for more dynamic worlds through systems like "radiant story." Something like that could well be a prerequisite towards evolving environments.

character progression

When I'm playing a RPG, I want a sense that my character is gaining abilities and proficiencies during the course of the game. The most common "improvements" characters go through involve increases to damage caused by attacks. This also happens to be one of the least satisfying ways to provide that sense of improvement, since generally enemies will become tougher over the course of the game, effectively negating the progression.

I've become convinced that for action/RPG hybrids, the best way to provide feedback about character improvement (beyond acquiring new skills) is to have the game feel fundamentally better to play as you advance. While I think TES probably pioneered this technique, it's actually gone backwards with Skyrim (notably, faster running and longer jumping via the improved Athletics skill is missing). Instead, Borderlands, with its FPS-perspective, has evolved to include improvements to such things as weapon reload times, which I found enormously satisfying. The most obvious Skyrim perk that touches on this topic, Archery's Quick Draw, is disappointing. Whatever speed improvement it provides is essentially lost by what I think is a very broken game mechanic: the frequent reliance on using a button-up motion to complete an action.

A basic rule of feedback is that the more responsive the controls, the more satisfying the interaction. Having gestures that require holding a button immediately create a disconnect between performing an action and seeing the result. This is all through the interface: Spells are often initiated with the button, but not cast until you release after they go through a warm-up animation. Bows are released on button-up. Shouts are most effective after holding a button. Weapon thrusts are more powerful after holding a button. There's a reason dedicated combat games generally have different buttons for hard vs. fast attacks. In my opinion what's even worse is that these delays dovetail perfectly with providing feedback for character progression. For example, it seems pretty obvious to me that as a character becomes more proficient at a certain type of magic, the warm-up animation should be faster, but if that's happening, I can't tell.

Of course, far better to rework the system to elimate animation cycles between button down/button up. For example, the more I play, the more I think they should have either removed long bows or at least also added crossbows. With long bows, it makes sense that a button down would draw the bow, requiring a button up to release the arrow, but it's pretty unsatisfying. At least with crossbows, you maintain a reload cycle, which you can improve through skill progression, but the reload can occur before a button press, so pressing the button immediately releases the arrow.

This is true all through the magic system, too. I'm suprised the sustained attack spells, like Flames, don't have periodic cool-down periods, such as shaking the hands due to overheating. Delays like that can be shortened as the skill increases, providing that tangible feedback about progression.

Hopefully future iterations of TES will start taking more cues from the action/RPG hybrids that are emerging from the FPS genre, which are doing some interesting thinking around the proper ways to integrate traditional RPG mechanics into realtime frameworks. Foremost amongst these are the ideas around making players, not just characters, feel more powerful that emerge when you make the game play better over time.