51:53 The dragonstone is referenced after that. First, as you give it to Farengar, he gives it to a hooded figure, who is clearly Delphine. Later, in the mission when you go to Kynesgrove to kill the dragon, if you ask Delphine how she knows that a dragon will be in Kynesgrove, she will explain that the dragonstone she received shows all the dragon burial sites.
The way to get around spam crafting items to get your perks up to 100 is through a store. If Bethesda enabled us to be store owners and/or a master's apprentice; that's gives the player the perfect excuse to craft thousands of items. Imagine being in Solitude and getting an purchase order from the Imperials. Telling you he needs sets of 100 swords and armor for his men. Or potions and poisons for the war effort. Problem solved 👍 You could even add employees after you get your store to higher tiers. Finally when your tired of that life, you could sell the company to the jarl or put someone else in charge and pickup the weekly earnings.
To add to the idea. How about doing that for mages, fighters and so on? Everybody gets a chance to open up a kind of little store or "agency", where folks stop by time to time and give you a couple of unique quests and some minor ones. Like a mercenary place for example.
I just wanted to say Amazing job on the video and the editing, you really worked your a** off on this one and I am very grateful for you filling my time reviewing this timeless gem. Once again, thank you and good luck!
Hot damn. Got halfway through before realizing you only have 3k subs. You're underrated man! With practice and determination, you'll be another Joeseph Anderson or MatthewMatosis!
Alright, I gotta step in here. Skyrim's leveling system was trash. If this is how it works in TES6, I'm not buying. The problems are as follows: First, someone who goes into a game with a clear idea of what kind of character they want to roleplay in a given playthrough will find themselves incredibly disappointed. The main reason for that is leveled gear. Meaning that unless you want to grind the crafting skills on every single character, completing quests that fit your character's build and alignment early is actually a detriment for you, as when you continue to level, those interesting artifacts become more and more obsolete due to scaling. The only way for a thief to get a useful version of Chillrend is to complete the final stages of their respective guild at a very high level, very much late into the game. Which is where the second problem lies, namely how a character enters the later stages of the game at all. It's not like that thief character we used in our example can just pick pockets and locks and get to level 60 and up that way. No, the only two ways for you to progress your character past a hard cap is to either spend literal hours grinding away at skills that are completely irrelevant to your character, or to have your character hit themselves with a brick hard enough to actually forget everything they knew about certain skills they had already mastered. This is not a good system. This is a completely shit system. Worse than Oblivion even. The problem with Oblivion were the passive skills and how the enemies in the world scaled to your levels. The actual system itself, with a clearly defined set of skills and attributes serving as the building blocks for your character, was superior.
A great review, you covered everything and i agree with pretty much everything. And by the way, this is impressive! For someone with only 3k subs, you are insanely professional.
the dragonstone was a map of dragon burial sites. delphine explains it later in the questline. that's how she knew alduin was gonna show up at kynesgrove
The dragonstone has been rubbed onto the back of the map of dragon burial sites Delphine has. You can actually see where she just set a piece of parchment over the dragon stone and rubbed charcoal over it.
Hello! My Skryim retrospective video currently dominates the search results, and I discovered this video by perusing my analytics and noticing that my Skyrim retrospective got quite a few views from the suggested videos feed on this video. Anyway, I'm 7:41 in, and I have noticed a major flaw in your assumption in the way many players view the Imperials vs. Stormcloaks. You clearly see the Imperials as simply "the bad guys," and that joining them is equivalent to joining the Dark Brotherhood, in that yes, you have the option, but it's still so clearly the evil option that the option itself is more of a formality than anything else. Before I continue this discussion, I want to emphasize that I do indeed agree with you that the Stormcloaks are the good guys. This comment is not meant to refute your beliefs, but rather, to show you that there is indeed some moral ambiguity that you may not be considered. You liken Hadvar's request for trust to a thug breaking into your house and trying to kill you, only to then ask for your assistance in fleeing a natural disaster. Well, we must bear in mind that the Imperials were, at least from their perspective, acting with sovereign authority. Now, whether you acknowledge their sovereignty is a discussion for another day. However, some people do believe that the Imperial Empire has jurisdiction in Skyrim. For those who acknowledge the Empire's sovereignty, then they see the Imperials' actions in the intro as the equivalent of ... a police officer coming into your house to arrest you, and then asking for your assistance in evacuating civilians in the wake of a natural disaster. Even if you believe you are innocent of the crime for which you are being accused, for the vast majority of law abiding citizens believe that this is a dispute to be resolved through the court system, not by resisting arrest or trying to flee, and certainly not by actively working with someone you know damn well to be a wanted criminal (e.g. Ralof). Does this help you understand why some people may actually side with the Empire without any hyperbole whatsoever?
idk I think most people like me didn't like stormcloaks because ulfric is a huge racist, I still remember my first playthrough I went to join the stormcloaks but I was a dunmer so was like nahhhh im outta here (basically its not black and white which is nice). The imperials are the defeated nation that have to accept harsh conditions for peace and stormcloaks are being oppressed by these conditions it an interesting debate over a videogame that is still going on today xD
Reddit has very strict advertising rules and I don't want to pay to promote it, I was mostly hoping people like yourself would stumble across it and enjoy it, thanks for the love!
This was pretty comprehensive. I appreciated that you weren't afraid to drill into things you didn't like. It's also nice to hear praise about things in general too. I've recently started replaying on my Xbawks 360, and this was nice background commentary when I was doing the intro over again. I tend to find I do the guilds in relation to what I'm playing or what my goals are for a character nowadays. My mage has no business trying to be a Companion, but I'm probably gonna do the Thieves Guild anyway because I'm fishing for daedric artifacts, and it is just a fantastic guild storyline.
You fundamentally misunderstood key plot points that explained things such as the importance of the horn of jorgen windcaller etc, still good video tho
I know this is a late reply but i think him missing key point is a point in itself. I always found that Skyrim was bad at conveying most world information. there is an explanation but it seems so easy to pass over. this is me projecting, but when I play it I feel like many aspects of the story and lore are disconnected from the game. Morrowind kind of forces you to learn the lore of the land through gameplay but they're not too worried about book smarts in Skyrim. I love Skyrim, not for the stories it gives but for the stories I've made. and mods.
if anyone is reading the comments for some reason just a psa: combat in skyrim is god awful if you expect something engaging, its basically press 1 button until enemy dies, if enemy has better numbers than you you are dead (unless you are playing stealth archer which just bypasses skyrim's terrible combat), you can see it quite clearly when attacking the same enemy at the start of the game and later on, there is no skill involved excluding the ability to breathe and press 1 button, its all about the numbers, melee is point and click, magic is point and click but at medium range, archery is point and click but you have to lead your shots which is a nice change of pace after not having to think about anything also there is a bunch of mainline quest breaking bugs that are as old as the game itself and which bethesda never bothered to fix so you will have to go to 11 year old videos and blog posts to find fixes skyrim is probably the most overhyped games i've ever played honestly, its only really good feature is the fact that you can change it so drastically with mods that you will have a completely different and very likely better game (in every way)
I think the best quest line in Skyrim is the Dawnguard DLC. I loved every second playing that, each quest was fun and interesting, I gave a shit about the characters and the story not to mention the voice acting was spectacular, especially from Laura Bailey and it felt like your choices actually mattered, the locations were new and interesting. A real 10/10 for me. Dragonborn comes at a close second.
@Ralis Sedarys Nothing in dragonborn could compare to the stupidity that is a vampire hunter escorting a vampire princess, no questions asked, to her vampire clan with an elder scroll. And ldb hardly becomes a puppet of hermaeus mora. Mora can keep claiming that as much as he wants to. As ldb can keep entering and exiting apocrypha as he pleases and never even enter apocrypha again or bother talking to hermaeus mora, s/he is hardly mora's puppet.
Ah I love vids like this, I enjoy sinking back into the nostalgia of skyrim and enjoy people’s takes on this game. Besides Red Dead Redemption 2, this is one of the best games I’ve ever played, dare I say, the best. I remember first completing this on PC with experience just playing it at a friend’s house years before. RDR2 impacted me the most emotionally, but if it weren’t for skyrim, I wouldn’t be nearly as invested in rpg games. It’s a game you can never truly get tired of. Yes you can get burnt out by it from playing too much but you always come back. It’s always a breath of fresh air to play again
51:55 the dragon stone does have a purpose in the plot. Delphine uses it to track the dragon graves. She says so in game. It's how you know dragons are coming back to life. Delphine is in Whiterun, in Dragon Reach if you go straight to Whiterun.
No hate from me whatsoever, but did you not pay attention to the story of this game? - The reason why Farengar asked you to retrieve the Dragonstone is because it details the location of all dragon burial mounds. Delphine went to all of them, only to find out that all of the dragons there were revived, and that Kynesgrove was next. - The Greybeards asked you to retrive the Horn of Jorgen Windcaller because it is part of the trial that would officially make you part of the Greybeards as a form of tradition and nothing else. Delphine knew of this tradition, so she went out to retrieve it before you do so that she enters contact with you. I get that Skyrim's story wasn't the best, but there is just a lack of effort on your part to understand its story; this kinda invalidates your criticism.
@@AL-Chemist9 "Oh no, Dragons!" is not a very deep plot if you ask me. There's lots of lore and the civil war side plot is actually interesting but the main plot? Shallower than a puddle in summer with no shade.
Coming from someone who played skyrim on the ps3 and a bunch on pc with mods, this is my opinion: Very few quests from skyrim are memorable, you need to do 5 fetch or hunt quests until you find a decent quest, like the monk in dawnstar. You can say the same about dungeons and locations, you pass 3-5 dungeons, especially the dull dwemer dungeon, maybe even more, until you hit a unique one, like the vampire drug operation. Last but not least, the guilds questlines are bad and some are decent compared to oblivion, especially the brotherhood. Overall, the writing is the worst part of skyrim, i love skyrim, thats why its my most played singleplayer game, but you cant deny that almost everything in the writing deparment is bad. Everything that i said is applied to fallout 4, played a bunch too, Skyrim effect perphaps?
The Dragonstone gives Delphine the map she uses to predict that the next dragon Alduin revives will be in Kynesgrove. It's supposedly a map of ancient dragon burial sites.
Yeah same, always thought the stormcloaks were radicals taking things too far when it seemed to me, they benefited from being in the empire. Also probably a bit biased for the empire due to playing and loving oblivion
I have to disagree with ur opinion about the npc actions. Cuz i think its just more immersive to have NPCs that like u more than other one. And to implement dispositions choosed by ur playerrace is more natural in the game. They may be not liked by human races but damn, Kahjiit can look in the darkness and Argonian can breath underwater. This are abilities for races u can see and feel, and its very OP (Like u can see more creatures and loot in the darkness as kahjiit, so u get ur money kinda back i suppose) . Sounds like a fair deal to me. Great video, i hope u get more attention!
I play Oblivion to see how "annoyin" it was for yall. But for now, it looks pretty normal. And woah, the weather is better made then in Skyrim. Leyaween Storm is incredible
I think it's a good thing that it's so hard to raise Enchanting, Smithing and Alchemy. Once you raise one of those skills, you basically become a demi god. You're overpowered as fuck and you will never die again even on Legendary difficulty. Those skills break the game and make you auto win. Not to mention it makes exploration pointless cuz you will never bother with the items you find when you can craft godlike gear yourself.
lmao. 53:15 the horn like a holy artifact to the greybeards and all of that information about jurgen being the founder is also right there easy to find in dialogue options with arngeir after being given the quest. most of your complaints seem to source out of lack of attention or effort 9 times out of 10. maybe we just play the game radically different, do you ever read books in game?
More than that, if you make an informative video, you should always do a little research to make sure that the information you share is correct and not just based on your own opinion. This is a common problem. Any Skyrim wiki would have cleared this up for him in minutes.
Alduin probably attacked Helgen to save Ulfric, seeing as he was gaining strength by eating the souls of those killed in the civil war, it makes for him to want to drag it out for as long as possible.
I might be a bit late but from what I remember Alduin didn't have any plans at all with the attack on Helgen. Directly before the attack on Helgen, Alduin was ejected out from the time portal that the three Nord heroes of old caused. For everyone else thousands of years passed but Alduin more or less directly appeared again... and in his confusion and rage he attacked the first settlement he saw to kill humans, his true enemies, the rebels that tried to end his tyranny. Notice that Helgen is basically right next to the Throat of the World, just on the other side of Ivarstead. After that attack Alduin took some time to forge a new plan and revive his dragon subordinates.
Hi I'm late to this party and I'm sure someone has already pointed this out, but the Dragonstone is actually a map of ancient dragon burial grounds. You can see Farengar and Delphine talking about it together after you deliver it, and if you look closely at the tablet, it looks similar to the map you see from Delphine later on.
Your comments on combat animations made me appreciate playing the game in VR a bit more (especially with mods). The flexibility to swing a weapon how you like is pretty cool although you can technically exploit it by just wiggling your sword in the enemy hitbox. There is still the lack of feedback i.e. when your sword does damage but just clips through your target. Worth a try if you ever get the opportunity, if only to experience the sense of scale that VR can provide. Edit: I also think your comments regarding the choice of Imperial or Stormcloak miss the fact that many players have a role play character idea or prior lore knowledge/experience going into Skyrim... But I chose Stormcloak almost every time like you said so praise Talos I guess lol. I love this style of video essay/commentary and I imagine they take ages to put together, but you have a talent for this so keep it up!
hadvar is setup as the imperial who is most against killing you, and his dialog while escaping helgen does kind of make you understand the imperials.... but i did that might be rose tinted glasses after having done both quests
If you start the game following the Stormcloaks you can get steel armor and weapons early in the beginning, if you go with the Imperials you get a bunch of free stuff from the blacksmith. It's a difficult choice but I usually go with the free stuff from the blacksmith (especially since I usually take EVERYTHING on my way out of Helgen.
Skyrim... As big as an ocean but as shallow as a puddle. I think that's one of the better ways to describe this game personally. Ultimately I thought it was a very average game with mostly woeful writing and extremely bland characters. But it was interesting to hear your thoughts and I agreed with plenty of your points and views.
@@tylerb2438 ok yes theres no real consequences but in the dark brotherhood you kill the emperor that should change everything but it dont. I meant the set up is good. In that I know what this war is about and why x fights y. Neither side is all good or all bad.
In the imperials defense...if you were about to execute a murderer and a dragon landed on your house and summoned a meteor storm, you'd probably forget why you there to begin with as well.
This whirlwind sprint door would be so easy for a non-dragonborn to hack. All you need is a companion to walk through the stones while you stand waiting for the gates.
6 ish minutes in and I have a few things. The Imperials didn't shoot Ulfric, even though there was time to, because they were in shock. No one (other than the Greybeards unbeknownst to everyone else) had seen a dragon in living memory, and this is taking place in Skyrim, where they had had some of the most historical influence. Most of these legionnaires were local recruits, and while they haven't seen dragons, they live in the shadow of their influence, there are ruins, burial mounds, and skeletons all over the place, not to mention their legends and folklore. Then, when Alduin actually attacked, they were far more concerned with trying (futilely) to protect the town or escaping themselves to worry about a handful of escaped prisoners, no matter how politically valuable one of them might be. Don't just put yourself in the game or the plot, put yourself in the culture, the society. As for why Alduin attacked, he *did* know the dragonborn was there, he just didn't invite who it was. If you hang around outside long enough without escaping, he actually notices you and then ignores everything else to focus on you, specifically. He could sense the dragon soul in the area, but couldn't pin it down immediately, just like Mirmulnir later, *he* doesn't realize what you are until the final blow is struck. Worth noting, I picked the Empire the first time I played the game, partially because of nostalgia from Oblivion, partially because of the bigger picture arguments provided, and because I'm a big history nerd and really like Rome. On the other hand, I also picked Ralof to escape with for the reasons you highlighted, and because I really wanted to kill that officer who was going to execute me even though Hadvar said I wasn't on the list. Yeah... The animations for the player at least... Never really had any impact on me. I literally never play in 3rd person. Ever. The only games I've ever played in 3rd person are games where that's the only option. 20:37 Uh... What? Those are some of the easiest skills to level in my experience. Disenchanting that guaranteed sword of cold from the boss in Bleak Falls Barrow will usually give me two levels in enchanting on its own. At the very least it's extremely easy to level up early on. Smithing is a bit harder, it requires more resources, but given how easy money is to convert by in Skyrim, buying a bunch of leather strips, hides, and leather, and iron ingots and ore, top craft a bunch of iron daggers isn't especially burdensome except on my clicking finger. Alchemy is easier than smithing, though still harder than enchanting.
Great video must be a lot of work to complete. Congratz man , but theres quite some misinformation like -word wall is not randomized -higher skill doesnt give more experience per skill up
Higher skill DOES give more overall EXP, it's just that he didn't explain it really well. Took way too much for the " The higher your skill that you level up is, the more exp you gain towards overall level up increase" done. Word walls indeed aren't randomized and he was wrong about some things, or missed some things, but it was a great video indeed! :)
It's 2020 now, and its so strange for me to listen to all of this...been playing the game with mods up the azz and there were a lot of the mechanics I kinda forgot about lol
This is probably THE single best retrospective of Skyrim I've ever seen. Very well done, sir. And I agree with just about every point you've made throughout. My one criticism entails your assertion that it is not necessary to participate in every quest if not desired. I must point out that, during the Main Quest, the player is FORCED to participate in a theft for the thieves guild in order to ascertain the location of Esbern. I'm not a veteran player of Skyrim, so I haven't yet found a way around this problem. But based upon the community comments on Steam, UESP, and other Skyrim websites, it is supposedly impossible to avoid this part of the main quest line. This has always annoyed me to no end. The very idea of forcing the player to participate in a guild that may be contrary to their moral standards seems just wrong. Yes, yes, I know it's just a game. But even you make the point that Skyrim is so well done that the player easily can be lost in this world, making most decisions seem and/or feel far more important than they should.
Great video! I disagree with almost all of it though. The ability to switch playstyle for example takes away all the weight of who your character is meaning you end up being a master at everything. And the removal of atributes is just..... I mean it strips away so much depth.. Oblivion may have screwed it up by combining it with the worst level-scaling in history but what about willpower making you more resistant to magic? Or strenght influencing not just how much you can carry but also how fast you can move when you carry around 20 swords. What about speed increasing? What about the ability to change how well you can move through the world? Morrowind had levitation, increased jumping and fortify so by the time you reached a certain level you were able to move around the world very fast. And that ment something because at the start you had to take the bus... Skyrims perks where a cool idea though and the game had a nice action-flow which is what you seemed to enjoy the most? I just wish it was more roleplay and less action.
I recently played it on the original Xbox 360. Let me tell you. 1 minute loading screens that sometimes glitch out and it takes a minute to load the loading screen. 30fps, bugs that were in version 1.0 still happen, sounds would not trigger etc. Im so glad technology changed.
Mid video comment ill edit it if necessary but there is a few things wrong thus far. First being a sneak archer doesnt mean you level sneak or archery faster when you use sneak or archery it wont "move the needle faster" it will level it up more but not faster than other skills. Secondly you can master every skill (unless he is talking about the original version) i am aware he said before he was talking about the original version earlier in the video. If this stems from ignorance please let me know.
I been playing since 2013. I seen the game in passing or on youtube and never knew what it was. One day I just decided to see what it was about. No Regrets.
I haven't watched the video yet in full, but I just want to put my two cents out there and say that compared to other games that released the same year, Skyrim was little more than a hollow husk of an RPG. Systems that rewarded tedium, a story that was little more than "save Tamriel because oooohh, spooky demon dragon's gonna kill us all," (gee, that hasn't been done over a THOUSAND times over just with a different creature as the big bad), and pointless side quests that offer little to no incentive to do so. Oh, and they tried to monetize the work of countless modders because they realized that their game was shit. After all, the "graphical upgrades" the special edition release had were mods made by the community, not Bethesda's work.
While I do think Skyrim's skill and leveling mechanics are an improvement over Oblivion, you missed some major flaws in Skyrim's levelling. One issue is how enemies scale according to the player's overall level, so it disincentives getting perks in non-combat skills because this increases the difficulty of the game rather than making the player feel more empowered. Also, simply scaling enemy level according the player level reduces the sense of satisfaction from leveling up, because getting a perk to do more damage doesn't feel very impactful when the health of the enemies also increases. A better system for scaling would be something like Breath of the Wild where it spawns more difficult variants of enemies according to level, so you can still fight low-level enemies and feel how your strength has grown. Skyrim's trees do not always follow a logical lay-out, for example in the sneak tree you need to get the perk to get the sneak damage one-handed weapons perk before getting the sneak damage for bows perk. So if you are playing a sneaky bow-man, the game forces you to get a perk you will never need for no reason other than to keep the tradition of skill trees. There are other issues with skills like using alchemy to increase enchanting abilities to enchant items that increase alchemy abilities into a never-ending loop of infinitely powerful weapons. It's also just a bit unintuitive how increasing a skill doesn't actually improve the skill, but it levels the player up which gives perks that can be spent on any skill, meaning theorhetically you can level a skill up to 100 without ever improving the skill. This creates an unimmersive exploit in level-grinding, where a player can spend hours grinding dagger crafting just to get more perks to spend in restoration magic. The perk skill limit does help keep this in check, but at times this strange quirk can be abused. I don't want to see Skyrim's skill system copy-pasted into ES:6, but I do hope they keep the dynamic classless element.
I thought Skyrim’s enemies was were a mix of scaling with you and staying the same. Not sure the exact system but you do still get low level and easy enemies or see progress in being able to defeat large enemies. Being able to finally be able to take down a giant for frost troll on your own for example. Again, I don’t really know the exact system per enemy or much about enemy scaling in general but I do think there’s still a level of progress felt
@@aly6573 Skyrim's system is a bit overcomplicated. Human enemies scale in a range, like bandits can be level 1-28 and the higher level ones spawn as the player levels up. On top of this system there is a leveled list which gives the enemy random gear according to the level. Creatures do not scale in level but the spawns do, by spawning higher level creatures. Loot also has level lists, so you won't get good loot until you are higher level. There is also difficulty scaling in terms of exploration, the further from the starting area the tougher the enemies like how Falmer and Forsword are tougher in general. The fact that all this scaling is determined by the player's overall level rather than the player's combat perks means spending multiple perks in non combat trees will scale the enemies anyways and make you weaker by default. This is also why trying to switch playstyles is brutal, because all the enemies were scaled up but you are starting from the beginning again because skills have no transferring power. For example there is no strength stat that improves melee combat and archery power, so moving from a melee character to an archery character to late could devastate your experience. Breath of the Wild avoids this by having it's hidden scaling system only increase scale when defeating bosses in combat and also not having skill trees. So it directly responds to player experience and skill. The game levels everything down so you never enter an area or dungeon overleveled, but that means I never get the satisfaction of being too weak for an area, coming back later in the game, and being able to do it. Dark Souls is revolutionary for giving the player the freedom to explore into completely overleveled areas. Skyrim is arcady and about accessibility, guilds don't need skill requirements, bosses don't need you to be a certain strength, they just want you to always feel strong and feel rewarded by the shiny thing at the end of the cave. I think the way this harms immersion is personally worse than the way this harms challenge, I'm not against easier games, but I just can't immerse myself when caves and dungeons are designed bright so the player can always see, and linear so the player doesn't get lost, and with a shortcut so the player never needs to backtrack or even remember the way to get out. The whole world revolves around the idea of giving the player ease and advantage, and unfortunately it harms the world-building and story-telling.
Qersojan Okay thanks for explaining the leveling out and I do agree especially when it comes to trying to switch play styles. The guilds are also frustrating especially the college of Winterhold, I remember being so excited to learn about magic and increase my skills only for you to never even need magic and just go through a bunch of dungeons ): I’m new to combat games honestly so at first everything was a challenge in general but now when I play I do crave some harder bosses to fight! I have heard of Breath of the Wild and I’m now considering buying it next to try out a more challenging game
the greybeards sent you to retrieve the horn as a trial, not because they needed it. delphine knew about this because the greybeards probably made previous dragonborn do this too, which as a blade she would know. she probably got into the tomb through the back exit
1. The contradictory nature of Dragonborn being able to hold a billion other faction titles doesn't have to be a problem if once again there's just more choice + agency, accommodating more rp + gaming styles. Devs could make all "leader" positions in factions your choice to take on as PC but also give you choices letting you close the questline another way, from letting you walk away supportively ("I know you'll figure it out now that ___ is gone." to roguish or mean ("not my circus, not my monkeys; deal with it") &/or an optional "farewell" activity before it just ends. Also, Bethesda forgot how gratifying it can be in rpgs to be able to aid worthy folks (re)claim what they deserve, not just take everything for our own glory --- to be able to elevate/nominate another, whichever NPC from the faction/q-line you think is best fit for leadership, or recruit from your followers or farther afield (eg housecarl from another hold) which could cascade into mini quests filling multiple roles as a consequence chain of your original decision, or at least you have to convince each side + get them to meet/negotiate. If you're a mischief maker, maybe a clashing, dull, weird, misfit, or annoying follower in charge (wrong game but imagine Adoring Fan as Arch-Mage of the college or the Night Mother's Listener...) & then every Dragonborn visit subsequent is just more chaotic, maybe it even resets the quest or generates another if your mischief isn't containable. 2. You should be allowed to try to fake deaths with stackable chances of succeeding if your Dragonborn is ambivalent of the Brotherhood, exploring them or a double agent, or has pity for an individual victim or another motivation to keep someone alive, esp as multiple games show the DB as being hijacked/jackable by leaders who are not doing Mother-bidding or contracts, so there's room for hesitation on occasion. This should be exploitable both ways, maybe victims have a chance to offer something, with higher speechcraft, intelligence, bribes, etc than PC, or even evidence of DB malice/wrongdoing...or PC gleans "unreliable narrator info/setup" via Bethesda TM Overheard Conversation or Revelatory Letter that gives PC pause or more reason to investigate. A little deeper + more choice for whatever suits PC/rp style. 3. Should be #1 but I wrote these in order as I listened. Even with BGS commitment o "neverending" games, Donuts is right (lol or was 5 years ago, I am SO LATE). A BIG point was made in this video in a bit of an aside that I'd never heard before so pointedly given: general lack of closure, acknowledgement, & in particular, celebration of questline accomplishments, with maybe some epilogue-ish ongoing consequences shown incidentally if you are in the same region or run into same characters later. CELEBRATION in particular. The Witcher series got those moments of tension release right, & they go so far into defining your own Garrett + deepening other character. Imagine a Feast in Sovnguard before the afterlife returns you, with a wishbone of uncertain status --- maybe a souvenir, maybe it saves you just once in a hopeless situation if you break it + wish on it but you don't know. Imagine the captured dragon being a summonable fast-travel all over the world, & the PC gets little conversations with them as they fly, revealing similarities + differences than PartySnax, & maybe you've talked them into being a pacifist so you can summon them to fly but not fight. It'd be sweet if you could start bringing your fly-dragon treats sometimes, like when people being horses apples. Something vegetarian to go with the pacifist lol. Maybe there's some mushroom or shrubbery that's like dragon catnip lol. Anyways having a totally different dragon-POV might be interesting for dragon culture exposition. 4. By the Nines please allow PCs to tip, esp couriers & servers/service workers. Have it influence some things in a positive way, not negative if you don't unless it's sudden PC behaviour change with someone previously tipped. Warmth, gratitude, upgraded room/service, a special bit of advice/hint or odd trinket that unlocks optional quests or sideplay or buffs or even a fun curse could result. An ex-courier could open their own service or transfer shop bc of PC. Maybe tipping influences a hidden karma mechanic. Bribes should also still work sometimes on some NPCs as an invisible background mechanic so it's a rp/play-style option rather than explicit choice. 5. I stayed til the very end of the video & even tho it's 5 years later, thanks for the video, thanks for the wishes of a great day, & Donuts I hope you are thriving.
i agree with mostly everything you said, except I wish that the Dark Brotherhood questline had an option to save Astrid at the end. she clearly felt guilty at the end because she got everyone killed and ruined everything, and tbh i didn't want to be the new leader of the DB. but i also understand why they wouldn't add that questline because i think the way they wrote it at the end made Astrid seem like she wanted to be sacrificed and wanted to die because she felt so guilty about her screw up.
If previous games had only 15 voice actors, Skyrim has like 6. Half the male characters have the exact same voice and accent as the first Jarl and the smith's husband in Whiterun
I joined the imperials on the first play through solely for the reason that I played a load of oblivion and i didnt want to fight against my boy Martin's people
the dragonstone was refferenced again by delphene when she takes you to her secret basement and she pulls out a map that was copied from the dragonstone so without the dragonstone it would have taken longer for you to realize where the dragons where coming from, but as you said you must have overlooked this information.
I prefer to describe Skyrim as being as wide as a lake, but as deep as a puddle. I love being on the lake, but I wish I was able to swim in it. If I use my imagination, I'm able to, but that shouldn't be the case. I hope TES VI has that depth.
I for sure agree Dawnguard is one of the best questlines, but I think the idea of having two opposing unique factions is pulling the wool over our eyes a bit on Skyrim's part. Both factions share 4 out of 5 of the main story quests and the one that is unique (blood chalice and finding new members for the Dawnguard) is by far the weakest of the bunch. The roleplay is also more or less the same as well because in both cases you are bonding with Serana while trying to foil Harkon's plan. Its a good DLC with decent story, interesting locations and new assets, but defo doesn't hold up to being marketed as two unique playthroughs.
This is obv an older video but since Spacelawn came out I've been seeing some positive re-appraisals + essays about Skyrim either coming out new or, like this one, getting picked up again by the algorithm & on my For You. I wonder if enough people hated it that they checked to see if they really enjoyed these older games from Bethesda. A lot of people seem pleasantly surprised they still appreciate the world + game returning to it, despite seeing the limitations. *aka Starfield
Skyrim is as successful as it is because it hits the accessibility sweet spot. If you know the game, you can grind and min/max to a stupid extent. But, if you’re a noob you can grab the controller and just run around and still have fun. As an RPG, it’s not as deep as it could be but it’s the most fun for the most people for the most time.
I’d argue that only the people who *pay attention* pick the Empire. You said that it’s sketchy to trust someone who just tried to kill you, but... Hadvar is the only Imperial who *DIDN’T* want you dead. It was his *Commanding Officer* who *ordered* your unjust execution. He’s just doing his job, mate. No hard feelings. He even said “I’m sorry” before ushering you with the rest of the Rebels. If he was the one in charge, do you think he might’ve even let you go? Listen, if you get apprehended because you were near a terrorist attack, but then escaped by divine providence, would YOU go “Hmmm. *Joining* the terrorists is a GREAT IDEA.” Yeah, that totally doesn’t validate the Empire’s unjust and impromptu decision to off you. That totally doesn’t paint an even *bigger* target on your back. I think you should get busy on clearing your name first. Maybe volunteer some “community service” to garner some trust with the “local authorities,” wink wink?
Ive modded the combat for Skyrim to look like Dark Souls and Elden Ring tbh. At first Vanilla combat was fun. after putting 1000 hours into, i felt it needed a bit of a change.
I think I chose to side with Stormcloacks once before I found out how racist and bigotted they were. I've been with Imperials ever since. (Playing since release, first xbox360 then PC and immense modding)
@@veteran0121 Yes, the Altmer (or really, the Thalmor) are tribal as fuck. They're also the bad guys, literal fucking Nazis. You sound like a raving fucking lunatic.
What the hell is with this comment chain? It's like none of you agree with each other, I didn't even know it was possible for four people to all be on different sides of such a stupid argument. The Nords are stupid, barbaric, and bigoted. They don't let beast races inside their cities and the stormcloaks view all elves as Dominion supporters. The thalmor (not the dominion) are bigoted in the sense that they just believe in Altmer supremacy. This said, they are far from nazis, and comparing the two makes no sense. Believing in racial supremacy does not equate to nazism. There's more to this chain that's stupid but I don't care enough to get more into it.
Imagine taking walking as your main skill in oblivion and then exploit it to boost level... just to end up with enemys that run around with Glass and other high level armor and weapons, while youre a peasent with iron short sword, that can jump 9 feet high... great exploid xD
@@serathaevistille995 Well in most RPGs leveling boosts you overall but in Elder Scrolls it usaly made your enemys stronger overall and you just got better in specific things you did. It was the worst in Oblivion, in skyrim they even that out so its not broken anymore.
I'm only like 25 minutes into the video so this may be mentioned at some point, but it's not impossible to get enough skill points to max out everything. You can make skills legendary and start leveling them all over again. It would take forever but you could eventually get enough perk points to unlock everything
I wish there were stats besides the proficiencies such as strength dexterity stuff like that. so like if you had a high enough strength stat you could wield 2 hand weapons with 1 hand allowing for a more creative build or like adding spears and your stats were higher it would add a damage buff if the weapon was related to that stat like the way you boost damage in dark souls. I just wish the RPG elements were much more fleshed out instead of the FF2 style they do here. (ps, I play on console and stuff so there could be a mod that does what I said here and if so let me know and leave a link and I might get the pc version). this is a fun game it is just boring for me sometimes, and I don't like their eternal playtime philosophy that Bethesda has which is why FONV is like one of their best games.
I disagree heavily with your statements on classes. In the previous four games it allowed players to get a jumpstart on what kind of playstyle they wanted or to help them figure out what playstyle appealed to them. These ranged from singular classes like Warrior, Mage, or Thief, to more varied classes like Knight, Battlemage, and Bard, it also offered deeper immersion since you started out good at these things instead of being a pleb at everything like you do in Skyrim.
The gems you find in a chest is over done when you finish the vex stone quest it got to the point where i stopped selling them because i had so many hate that quest i hurry through it to quickly finish it
Hopefully they add a new system with no carry weight for quest item and a new slot in the inventory specifically for quest items makes it more manageable at least for me it would not a mess and the whole damn elder scrolls systems need to fixed or redone
Skyrim's character creator was advanced for it's time? White Knight Chronicles came out 3 years earlier and that let you adjust height and weight by the foot and pound respectively. A year later Dragon's Dogma came out and had different body times and posture. Skyrim's character creator was on par to mass effect and dragons age baring the race selection and pitiful weight slider.
I shit on the thieves guild a lot because they suck ass as a guild but I do love the sneaking. Also Lucian is my favourite character in Skyrim. he has bought millions of septims worth of potions off me over the years.
51:53 The dragonstone is referenced after that. First, as you give it to Farengar, he gives it to a hooded figure, who is clearly Delphine. Later, in the mission when you go to Kynesgrove to kill the dragon, if you ask Delphine how she knows that a dragon will be in Kynesgrove, she will explain that the dragonstone she received shows all the dragon burial sites.
The way to get around spam crafting items to get your perks up to 100 is through a store. If Bethesda enabled us to be store owners and/or a master's apprentice; that's gives the player the perfect excuse to craft thousands of items. Imagine being in Solitude and getting an purchase order from the Imperials. Telling you he needs sets of 100 swords and armor for his men. Or potions and poisons for the war effort. Problem solved 👍
You could even add employees after you get your store to higher tiers. Finally when your tired of that life, you could sell the company to the jarl or put someone else in charge and pickup the weekly earnings.
To add to the idea. How about doing that for mages, fighters and so on? Everybody gets a chance to open up a kind of little store or "agency", where folks stop by time to time and give you a couple of unique quests and some minor ones. Like a mercenary place for example.
This is a fucking great idea. I would pay for it in the creation Club.
@@Vixen1525 stop paying for mods you dumbass
@@Exigentable Perhaps he plays on console. Not everybody is blessed with a computer.
That’s fucking epic
Nah nah, Thieves Guild is the best because it has TWO people that voice only one character.
This game is an old worn comfortable hole filled jumper that is so familiar that it makes me relax.
I just wanted to say Amazing job on the video and the editing, you really worked your a** off on this one and I am very grateful for you filling my time reviewing this timeless gem. Once again, thank you and good luck!
Hot damn. Got halfway through before realizing you only have 3k subs. You're underrated man! With practice and determination, you'll be another Joeseph Anderson or MatthewMatosis!
Means a ton bro, thank you :]
Wow, very well put together, I have 400 hours in skyrim and oblivion and feel that you do the game great justice, good job man!
SKYRIM HAD 70 VOICE ACTORS AND IT STILL FEELS LIKE EVERY OTHER NORD IS THE SAME GUY?! Lord have mercy
Alright, I gotta step in here. Skyrim's leveling system was trash. If this is how it works in TES6, I'm not buying. The problems are as follows:
First, someone who goes into a game with a clear idea of what kind of character they want to roleplay in a given playthrough will find themselves incredibly disappointed. The main reason for that is leveled gear. Meaning that unless you want to grind the crafting skills on every single character, completing quests that fit your character's build and alignment early is actually a detriment for you, as when you continue to level, those interesting artifacts become more and more obsolete due to scaling. The only way for a thief to get a useful version of Chillrend is to complete the final stages of their respective guild at a very high level, very much late into the game.
Which is where the second problem lies, namely how a character enters the later stages of the game at all. It's not like that thief character we used in our example can just pick pockets and locks and get to level 60 and up that way. No, the only two ways for you to progress your character past a hard cap is to either spend literal hours grinding away at skills that are completely irrelevant to your character, or to have your character hit themselves with a brick hard enough to actually forget everything they knew about certain skills they had already mastered.
This is not a good system. This is a completely shit system. Worse than Oblivion even. The problem with Oblivion were the passive skills and how the enemies in the world scaled to your levels. The actual system itself, with a clearly defined set of skills and attributes serving as the building blocks for your character, was superior.
A great review, you covered everything and i agree with pretty much everything. And by the way, this is impressive! For someone with only 3k subs, you are insanely professional.
the dragonstone was a map of dragon burial sites. delphine explains it later in the questline. that's how she knew alduin was gonna show up at kynesgrove
The dragonstone has been rubbed onto the back of the map of dragon burial sites Delphine has. You can actually see where she just set a piece of parchment over the dragon stone and rubbed charcoal over it.
Hello! My Skryim retrospective video currently dominates the search results, and I discovered this video by perusing my analytics and noticing that my Skyrim retrospective got quite a few views from the suggested videos feed on this video.
Anyway, I'm 7:41 in, and I have noticed a major flaw in your assumption in the way many players view the Imperials vs. Stormcloaks. You clearly see the Imperials as simply "the bad guys," and that joining them is equivalent to joining the Dark Brotherhood, in that yes, you have the option, but it's still so clearly the evil option that the option itself is more of a formality than anything else.
Before I continue this discussion, I want to emphasize that I do indeed agree with you that the Stormcloaks are the good guys. This comment is not meant to refute your beliefs, but rather, to show you that there is indeed some moral ambiguity that you may not be considered.
You liken Hadvar's request for trust to a thug breaking into your house and trying to kill you, only to then ask for your assistance in fleeing a natural disaster. Well, we must bear in mind that the Imperials were, at least from their perspective, acting with sovereign authority. Now, whether you acknowledge their sovereignty is a discussion for another day. However, some people do believe that the Imperial Empire has jurisdiction in Skyrim.
For those who acknowledge the Empire's sovereignty, then they see the Imperials' actions in the intro as the equivalent of ... a police officer coming into your house to arrest you, and then asking for your assistance in evacuating civilians in the wake of a natural disaster. Even if you believe you are innocent of the crime for which you are being accused, for the vast majority of law abiding citizens believe that this is a dispute to be resolved through the court system, not by resisting arrest or trying to flee, and certainly not by actively working with someone you know damn well to be a wanted criminal (e.g. Ralof).
Does this help you understand why some people may actually side with the Empire without any hyperbole whatsoever?
idk I think most people like me didn't like stormcloaks because ulfric is a huge racist, I still remember my first playthrough I went to join the stormcloaks but I was a dunmer so was like nahhhh im outta here (basically its not black and white which is nice). The imperials are the defeated nation that have to accept harsh conditions for peace and stormcloaks are being oppressed by these conditions it an interesting debate over a videogame that is still going on today xD
@@Tricykel *"ulfric is a huge racist"*
He's not! th-cam.com/video/RH-J0sDaso4/w-d-xo.html
@@Acerthorn ok im gonna watch it and come back
you should post this video somewhere, Reddit or whatever, advertise it. It shouldn't have 200 views, it's a great video.
Reddit has very strict advertising rules and I don't want to pay to promote it, I was mostly hoping people like yourself would stumble across it and enjoy it, thanks for the love!
This was pretty comprehensive. I appreciated that you weren't afraid to drill into things you didn't like. It's also nice to hear praise about things in general too.
I've recently started replaying on my Xbawks 360, and this was nice background commentary when I was doing the intro over again. I tend to find I do the guilds in relation to what I'm playing or what my goals are for a character nowadays. My mage has no business trying to be a Companion, but I'm probably gonna do the Thieves Guild anyway because I'm fishing for daedric artifacts, and it is just a fantastic guild storyline.
That's great to hear! Enjoy it :]
But bro, you don't level up your player. You are the player.
The dragon stone is mentioned by Delphine, it’s the map of Dragon burial mounds that Alcuin is raising.
You fundamentally misunderstood key plot points that explained things such as the importance of the horn of jorgen windcaller etc, still good video tho
I know this is a late reply but i think him missing key point is a point in itself. I always found that Skyrim was bad at conveying most world information. there is an explanation but it seems so easy to pass over.
this is me projecting, but when I play it I feel like many aspects of the story and lore are disconnected from the game. Morrowind kind of forces you to learn the lore of the land through gameplay but they're not too worried about book smarts in Skyrim.
I love Skyrim, not for the stories it gives but for the stories I've made. and mods.
Did you play morrowind? There was a lot of looking back to Oblivion, but not the earlier games.
He says Solstheim is brand new, and mentions Glover Mallory instead of Neloth, so I'd assume not.
Thanks for sharing! I loved Skyrim back on my first play through and it and it was great to reminisce by listening to your review!
Thank you for the kind words Benjamin. :]
if anyone is reading the comments for some reason just a psa: combat in skyrim is god awful if you expect something engaging, its basically press 1 button until enemy dies, if enemy has better numbers than you you are dead (unless you are playing stealth archer which just bypasses skyrim's terrible combat), you can see it quite clearly when attacking the same enemy at the start of the game and later on, there is no skill involved excluding the ability to breathe and press 1 button, its all about the numbers, melee is point and click, magic is point and click but at medium range, archery is point and click but you have to lead your shots which is a nice change of pace after not having to think about anything
also there is a bunch of mainline quest breaking bugs that are as old as the game itself and which bethesda never bothered to fix so you will have to go to 11 year old videos and blog posts to find fixes
skyrim is probably the most overhyped games i've ever played honestly, its only really good feature is the fact that you can change it so drastically with mods that you will have a completely different and very likely better game (in every way)
I think the best quest line in Skyrim is the Dawnguard DLC. I loved every second playing that, each quest was fun and interesting, I gave a shit about the characters and the story not to mention the voice acting was spectacular, especially from Laura Bailey and it felt like your choices actually mattered, the locations were new and interesting. A real 10/10 for me. Dragonborn comes at a close second.
Worst writing quality ever.... Has the most nonsensical narrative in the game rivaling the thieves guild.
@Ralis Sedarys Nothing in dragonborn could compare to the stupidity that is a vampire hunter escorting a vampire princess, no questions asked, to her vampire clan with an elder scroll. And ldb hardly becomes a puppet of hermaeus mora. Mora can keep claiming that as much as he wants to. As ldb can keep entering and exiting apocrypha as he pleases and never even enter apocrypha again or bother talking to hermaeus mora, s/he is hardly mora's puppet.
Ah I love vids like this, I enjoy sinking back into the nostalgia of skyrim and enjoy people’s takes on this game. Besides Red Dead Redemption 2, this is one of the best games I’ve ever played, dare I say, the best. I remember first completing this on PC with experience just playing it at a friend’s house years before. RDR2 impacted me the most emotionally, but if it weren’t for skyrim, I wouldn’t be nearly as invested in rpg games. It’s a game you can never truly get tired of. Yes you can get burnt out by it from playing too much but you always come back. It’s always a breath of fresh air to play again
51:55 the dragon stone does have a purpose in the plot. Delphine uses it to track the dragon graves. She says so in game. It's how you know dragons are coming back to life. Delphine is in Whiterun, in Dragon Reach if you go straight to Whiterun.
No hate from me whatsoever, but did you not pay attention to the story of this game?
- The reason why Farengar asked you to retrieve the Dragonstone is because it details the location of all dragon burial mounds. Delphine went to all of them, only to find out that all of the dragons there were revived, and that Kynesgrove was next.
- The Greybeards asked you to retrive the Horn of Jorgen Windcaller because it is part of the trial that would officially make you part of the Greybeards as a form of tradition and nothing else. Delphine knew of this tradition, so she went out to retrieve it before you do so that she enters contact with you.
I get that Skyrim's story wasn't the best, but there is just a lack of effort on your part to understand its story; this kinda invalidates your criticism.
“The plot in Skyrim...”
The what?
@@AL-Chemist9 Whatever you say dude
Al-Chemist I’ve played the game for hundreds of hours and never finished the main quest storyline
@@AL-Chemist9 "Oh no, Dragons!" is not a very deep plot if you ask me. There's lots of lore and the civil war side plot is actually interesting but the main plot? Shallower than a puddle in summer with no shade.
@@AL-Chemist9 By deep you mean the generic save the world story with like little to none interesting characters?
morrowind's plot is deeper still
I’ve never enjoyed a video that almost entirely disagreed with. Nice video!
Coming from someone who played skyrim on the ps3 and a bunch on pc with mods, this is my opinion:
Very few quests from skyrim are memorable, you need to do 5 fetch or hunt quests until you find a decent quest, like the monk in dawnstar.
You can say the same about dungeons and locations, you pass 3-5 dungeons, especially the dull dwemer dungeon, maybe even more, until you hit a unique one, like the vampire drug operation.
Last but not least, the guilds questlines are bad and some are decent compared to oblivion, especially the brotherhood.
Overall, the writing is the worst part of skyrim, i love skyrim, thats why its my most played singleplayer game, but you cant deny that almost everything in the writing deparment is bad.
Everything that i said is applied to fallout 4, played a bunch too, Skyrim effect perphaps?
A really well made analysis. Well done!
This video is sick! Thank you !!
The Dragonstone gives Delphine the map she uses to predict that the next dragon Alduin revives will be in Kynesgrove. It's supposedly a map of ancient dragon burial sites.
I actually Played as an Imperial in my first playthrough but maybe that just me
Damn faithless imperials.
Yeah same, always thought the stormcloaks were radicals taking things too far when it seemed to me, they benefited from being in the empire.
Also probably a bit biased for the empire due to playing and loving oblivion
I have to disagree with ur opinion about the npc actions.
Cuz i think its just more immersive to have NPCs that like u more than other one. And to implement dispositions choosed by ur playerrace is more natural in the game. They may be not liked by human races but damn, Kahjiit can look in the darkness and Argonian can breath underwater. This are abilities for races u can see and feel, and its very OP (Like u can see more creatures and loot in the darkness as kahjiit, so u get ur money kinda back i suppose) . Sounds like a fair deal to me.
Great video, i hope u get more attention!
I play Oblivion to see how "annoyin" it was for yall. But for now, it looks pretty normal.
And woah, the weather is better made then in Skyrim.
Leyaween Storm is incredible
So excited to be playing this on switch! And it runs so well! I love this game so much, even with its flaws
This is amazing you deserve more subscribers
I think it's a good thing that it's so hard to raise Enchanting, Smithing and Alchemy.
Once you raise one of those skills, you basically become a demi god. You're overpowered as fuck and you will never die again even on Legendary difficulty. Those skills break the game and make you auto win. Not to mention it makes exploration pointless cuz you will never bother with the items you find when you can craft godlike gear yourself.
love these types of videos bro great work
lmao. 53:15 the horn like a holy artifact to the greybeards and all of that information about jurgen being the founder is also right there easy to find in dialogue options with arngeir after being given the quest. most of your complaints seem to source out of lack of attention or effort 9 times out of 10. maybe we just play the game radically different, do you ever read books in game?
The Dragonstone is very relevant and Delphine uses it to locate the Dragon Burials.
It has a very clear purpose. That guy isn't paying attention.
More than that, if you make an informative video, you should always do a little research to make sure that the information you share is correct and not just based on your own opinion. This is a common problem. Any Skyrim wiki would have cleared this up for him in minutes.
@@HadassaMoon144 Yes, that's what I would have done =)
What about the Bard college?
ah yes my signature class in oblivion: fuck
Lol I have an orc warrior who gets 5 shotted by a mud crab
Alduin probably attacked Helgen to save Ulfric, seeing as he was gaining strength by eating the souls of those killed in the civil war, it makes for him to want to drag it out for as long as possible.
I might be a bit late but from what I remember Alduin didn't have any plans at all with the attack on Helgen. Directly before the attack on Helgen, Alduin was ejected out from the time portal that the three Nord heroes of old caused. For everyone else thousands of years passed but Alduin more or less directly appeared again... and in his confusion and rage he attacked the first settlement he saw to kill humans, his true enemies, the rebels that tried to end his tyranny. Notice that Helgen is basically right next to the Throat of the World, just on the other side of Ivarstead. After that attack Alduin took some time to forge a new plan and revive his dragon subordinates.
This vid is great, subscribed!
Hi I'm late to this party and I'm sure someone has already pointed this out, but the Dragonstone is actually a map of ancient dragon burial grounds. You can see Farengar and Delphine talking about it together after you deliver it, and if you look closely at the tablet, it looks similar to the map you see from Delphine later on.
Your comments on combat animations made me appreciate playing the game in VR a bit more (especially with mods). The flexibility to swing a weapon how you like is pretty cool although you can technically exploit it by just wiggling your sword in the enemy hitbox. There is still the lack of feedback i.e. when your sword does damage but just clips through your target. Worth a try if you ever get the opportunity, if only to experience the sense of scale that VR can provide.
Edit: I also think your comments regarding the choice of Imperial or Stormcloak miss the fact that many players have a role play character idea or prior lore knowledge/experience going into Skyrim... But I chose Stormcloak almost every time like you said so praise Talos I guess lol.
I love this style of video essay/commentary and I imagine they take ages to put together, but you have a talent for this so keep it up!
hadvar is setup as the imperial who is most against killing you, and his dialog while escaping helgen does kind of make you understand the imperials.... but i did that might be rose tinted glasses after having done both quests
Fantastic video, I really enjoyed it!
If you start the game following the Stormcloaks you can get steel armor and weapons early in the beginning, if you go with the Imperials you get a bunch of free stuff from the blacksmith. It's a difficult choice but I usually go with the free stuff from the blacksmith (especially since I usually take EVERYTHING on my way out of Helgen.
Skyrim... As big as an ocean but as shallow as a puddle. I think that's one of the better ways to describe this game personally. Ultimately I thought it was a very average game with mostly woeful writing and extremely bland characters. But it was interesting to hear your thoughts and I agreed with plenty of your points and views.
The civil war plot has depth both sides aren't all good and all bad like in most wars.
President Kudsi The civil war part of the game was an absolute joke. Such an half arsed effort.
@@tylerb2438 ok yes theres no real consequences but in the dark brotherhood you kill the emperor that should change everything but it dont.
I meant the set up is good. In that I know what this war is about and why x fights y. Neither side is all good or all bad.
In the imperials defense...if you were about to execute a murderer and a dragon landed on your house and summoned a meteor storm, you'd probably forget why you there to begin with as well.
This whirlwind sprint door would be so easy for a non-dragonborn to hack. All you need is a companion to walk through the stones while you stand waiting for the gates.
6 ish minutes in and I have a few things. The Imperials didn't shoot Ulfric, even though there was time to, because they were in shock. No one (other than the Greybeards unbeknownst to everyone else) had seen a dragon in living memory, and this is taking place in Skyrim, where they had had some of the most historical influence. Most of these legionnaires were local recruits, and while they haven't seen dragons, they live in the shadow of their influence, there are ruins, burial mounds, and skeletons all over the place, not to mention their legends and folklore. Then, when Alduin actually attacked, they were far more concerned with trying (futilely) to protect the town or escaping themselves to worry about a handful of escaped prisoners, no matter how politically valuable one of them might be. Don't just put yourself in the game or the plot, put yourself in the culture, the society.
As for why Alduin attacked, he *did* know the dragonborn was there, he just didn't invite who it was. If you hang around outside long enough without escaping, he actually notices you and then ignores everything else to focus on you, specifically. He could sense the dragon soul in the area, but couldn't pin it down immediately, just like Mirmulnir later, *he* doesn't realize what you are until the final blow is struck.
Worth noting, I picked the Empire the first time I played the game, partially because of nostalgia from Oblivion, partially because of the bigger picture arguments provided, and because I'm a big history nerd and really like Rome. On the other hand, I also picked Ralof to escape with for the reasons you highlighted, and because I really wanted to kill that officer who was going to execute me even though Hadvar said I wasn't on the list.
Yeah... The animations for the player at least... Never really had any impact on me. I literally never play in 3rd person. Ever. The only games I've ever played in 3rd person are games where that's the only option.
20:37 Uh... What? Those are some of the easiest skills to level in my experience. Disenchanting that guaranteed sword of cold from the boss in Bleak Falls Barrow will usually give me two levels in enchanting on its own. At the very least it's extremely easy to level up early on. Smithing is a bit harder, it requires more resources, but given how easy money is to convert by in Skyrim, buying a bunch of leather strips, hides, and leather, and iron ingots and ore, top craft a bunch of iron daggers isn't especially burdensome except on my clicking finger. Alchemy is easier than smithing, though still harder than enchanting.
Dude, you're underrated as fuck. Great vid!
extremely underrated video
Best hour of my life
Great video, I watched every second
“Morrowind was boring”
STOP RIGHT THERE
How will you ever cope?
Great video must be a lot of work to complete.
Congratz man
, but theres quite some misinformation like
-word wall is not randomized
-higher skill doesnt give more experience per skill up
Higher skill DOES give more overall EXP, it's just that he didn't explain it really well. Took way too much for the " The higher your skill that you level up is, the more exp you gain towards overall level up increase" done.
Word walls indeed aren't randomized and he was wrong about some things, or missed some things, but it was a great video indeed! :)
It's 2020 now, and its so strange for me to listen to all of this...been playing the game with mods up the azz and there were a lot of the mechanics I kinda forgot about lol
This is probably THE single best retrospective of Skyrim I've ever seen. Very well done, sir. And I agree with just about every point you've made throughout.
My one criticism entails your assertion that it is not necessary to participate in every quest if not desired. I must point out that, during the Main Quest, the player is FORCED to participate in a theft for the thieves guild in order to ascertain the location of Esbern.
I'm not a veteran player of Skyrim, so I haven't yet found a way around this problem. But based upon the community comments on Steam, UESP, and other Skyrim websites, it is supposedly impossible to avoid this part of the main quest line. This has always annoyed me to no end. The very idea of forcing the player to participate in a guild that may be contrary to their moral standards seems just wrong. Yes, yes, I know it's just a game. But even you make the point that Skyrim is so well done that the player easily can be lost in this world, making most decisions seem and/or feel far more important than they should.
Maiq dislikes videos with weirdly placed ads
Great video! I disagree with almost all of it though.
The ability to switch playstyle for example takes away all the weight of who your character is meaning you end up being a master at everything. And the removal of atributes is just..... I mean it strips away so much depth.. Oblivion may have screwed it up by combining it with the worst level-scaling in history but what about willpower making you more resistant to magic? Or strenght influencing not just how much you can carry but also how fast you can move when you carry around 20 swords. What about speed increasing? What about the ability to change how well you can move through the world? Morrowind had levitation, increased jumping and fortify so by the time you reached a certain level you were able to move around the world very fast. And that ment something because at the start you had to take the bus...
Skyrims perks where a cool idea though and the game had a nice action-flow which is what you seemed to enjoy the most? I just wish it was more roleplay and less action.
Yeah I can confirm, I only went with the Imperials on my first playthrough because I was way too distracted to notice the Stormcloaks 😂😂
Amazing review, literally just wanted to hear someone talk about this game I love and found GOLD
I recently played it on the original Xbox 360. Let me tell you. 1 minute loading screens that sometimes glitch out and it takes a minute to load the loading screen. 30fps, bugs that were in version 1.0 still happen, sounds would not trigger etc. Im so glad technology changed.
while disposition meter minigame for oblivion didnt make much sence, i kinda liked doing it on every new character i met
Mid video comment ill edit it if necessary but there is a few things wrong thus far. First being a sneak archer doesnt mean you level sneak or archery faster when you use sneak or archery it wont "move the needle faster" it will level it up more but not faster than other skills. Secondly you can master every skill (unless he is talking about the original version) i am aware he said before he was talking about the original version earlier in the video. If this stems from ignorance please let me know.
I been playing since 2013.
I seen the game in passing or on youtube and never knew what it was.
One day I just decided to see what it was about.
No Regrets.
This was great!!
I haven't watched the video yet in full, but I just want to put my two cents out there and say that compared to other games that released the same year, Skyrim was little more than a hollow husk of an RPG. Systems that rewarded tedium, a story that was little more than "save Tamriel because oooohh, spooky demon dragon's gonna kill us all," (gee, that hasn't been done over a THOUSAND times over just with a different creature as the big bad), and pointless side quests that offer little to no incentive to do so.
Oh, and they tried to monetize the work of countless modders because they realized that their game was shit. After all, the "graphical upgrades" the special edition release had were mods made by the community, not Bethesda's work.
While I do think Skyrim's skill and leveling mechanics are an improvement over Oblivion, you missed some major flaws in Skyrim's levelling. One issue is how enemies scale according to the player's overall level, so it disincentives getting perks in non-combat skills because this increases the difficulty of the game rather than making the player feel more empowered. Also, simply scaling enemy level according the player level reduces the sense of satisfaction from leveling up, because getting a perk to do more damage doesn't feel very impactful when the health of the enemies also increases. A better system for scaling would be something like Breath of the Wild where it spawns more difficult variants of enemies according to level, so you can still fight low-level enemies and feel how your strength has grown.
Skyrim's trees do not always follow a logical lay-out, for example in the sneak tree you need to get the perk to get the sneak damage one-handed weapons perk before getting the sneak damage for bows perk. So if you are playing a sneaky bow-man, the game forces you to get a perk you will never need for no reason other than to keep the tradition of skill trees. There are other issues with skills like using alchemy to increase enchanting abilities to enchant items that increase alchemy abilities into a never-ending loop of infinitely powerful weapons. It's also just a bit unintuitive how increasing a skill doesn't actually improve the skill, but it levels the player up which gives perks that can be spent on any skill, meaning theorhetically you can level a skill up to 100 without ever improving the skill. This creates an unimmersive exploit in level-grinding, where a player can spend hours grinding dagger crafting just to get more perks to spend in restoration magic. The perk skill limit does help keep this in check, but at times this strange quirk can be abused.
I don't want to see Skyrim's skill system copy-pasted into ES:6, but I do hope they keep the dynamic classless element.
I thought Skyrim’s enemies was were a mix of scaling with you and staying the same. Not sure the exact system but you do still get low level and easy enemies or see progress in being able to defeat large enemies. Being able to finally be able to take down a giant for frost troll on your own for example. Again, I don’t really know the exact system per enemy or much about enemy scaling in general but I do think there’s still a level of progress felt
@@aly6573 Skyrim's system is a bit overcomplicated. Human enemies scale in a range, like bandits can be level 1-28 and the higher level ones spawn as the player levels up. On top of this system there is a leveled list which gives the enemy random gear according to the level. Creatures do not scale in level but the spawns do, by spawning higher level creatures. Loot also has level lists, so you won't get good loot until you are higher level. There is also difficulty scaling in terms of exploration, the further from the starting area the tougher the enemies like how Falmer and Forsword are tougher in general.
The fact that all this scaling is determined by the player's overall level rather than the player's combat perks means spending multiple perks in non combat trees will scale the enemies anyways and make you weaker by default. This is also why trying to switch playstyles is brutal, because all the enemies were scaled up but you are starting from the beginning again because skills have no transferring power. For example there is no strength stat that improves melee combat and archery power, so moving from a melee character to an archery character to late could devastate your experience. Breath of the Wild avoids this by having it's hidden scaling system only increase scale when defeating bosses in combat and also not having skill trees. So it directly responds to player experience and skill.
The game levels everything down so you never enter an area or dungeon overleveled, but that means I never get the satisfaction of being too weak for an area, coming back later in the game, and being able to do it. Dark Souls is revolutionary for giving the player the freedom to explore into completely overleveled areas. Skyrim is arcady and about accessibility, guilds don't need skill requirements, bosses don't need you to be a certain strength, they just want you to always feel strong and feel rewarded by the shiny thing at the end of the cave. I think the way this harms immersion is personally worse than the way this harms challenge, I'm not against easier games, but I just can't immerse myself when caves and dungeons are designed bright so the player can always see, and linear so the player doesn't get lost, and with a shortcut so the player never needs to backtrack or even remember the way to get out. The whole world revolves around the idea of giving the player ease and advantage, and unfortunately it harms the world-building and story-telling.
Qersojan Okay thanks for explaining the leveling out and I do agree especially when it comes to trying to switch play styles. The guilds are also frustrating especially the college of Winterhold, I remember being so excited to learn about magic and increase my skills only for you to never even need magic and just go through a bunch of dungeons ): I’m new to combat games honestly so at first everything was a challenge in general but now when I play I do crave some harder bosses to fight! I have heard of Breath of the Wild and I’m now considering buying it next to try out a more challenging game
the greybeards sent you to retrieve the horn as a trial, not because they needed it. delphine knew about this because the greybeards probably made previous dragonborn do this too, which as a blade she would know. she probably got into the tomb through the back exit
1. The contradictory nature of Dragonborn being able to hold a billion other faction titles doesn't have to be a problem if once again there's just more choice + agency, accommodating more rp + gaming styles. Devs could make all "leader" positions in factions your choice to take on as PC but also give you choices letting you close the questline another way, from letting you walk away supportively ("I know you'll figure it out now that ___ is gone." to roguish or mean ("not my circus, not my monkeys; deal with it") &/or an optional "farewell" activity before it just ends. Also, Bethesda forgot how gratifying it can be in rpgs to be able to aid worthy folks (re)claim what they deserve, not just take everything for our own glory --- to be able to elevate/nominate another, whichever NPC from the faction/q-line you think is best fit for leadership, or recruit from your followers or farther afield (eg housecarl from another hold) which could cascade into mini quests filling multiple roles as a consequence chain of your original decision, or at least you have to convince each side + get them to meet/negotiate. If you're a mischief maker, maybe a clashing, dull, weird, misfit, or annoying follower in charge (wrong game but imagine Adoring Fan as Arch-Mage of the college or the Night Mother's Listener...) & then every Dragonborn visit subsequent is just more chaotic, maybe it even resets the quest or generates another if your mischief isn't containable.
2. You should be allowed to try to fake deaths with stackable chances of succeeding if your Dragonborn is ambivalent of the Brotherhood, exploring them or a double agent, or has pity for an individual victim or another motivation to keep someone alive, esp as multiple games show the DB as being hijacked/jackable by leaders who are not doing Mother-bidding or contracts, so there's room for hesitation on occasion. This should be exploitable both ways, maybe victims have a chance to offer something, with higher speechcraft, intelligence, bribes, etc than PC, or even evidence of DB malice/wrongdoing...or PC gleans "unreliable narrator info/setup" via Bethesda TM Overheard Conversation or Revelatory Letter that gives PC pause or more reason to investigate. A little deeper + more choice for whatever suits PC/rp style.
3. Should be #1 but I wrote these in order as I listened. Even with BGS commitment o "neverending" games, Donuts is right (lol or was 5 years ago, I am SO LATE). A BIG point was made in this video in a bit of an aside that I'd never heard before so pointedly given: general lack of closure, acknowledgement, & in particular, celebration of questline accomplishments, with maybe some epilogue-ish ongoing consequences shown incidentally if you are in the same region or run into same characters later. CELEBRATION in particular. The Witcher series got those moments of tension release right, & they go so far into defining your own Garrett + deepening other character. Imagine a Feast in Sovnguard before the afterlife returns you, with a wishbone of uncertain status --- maybe a souvenir, maybe it saves you just once in a hopeless situation if you break it + wish on it but you don't know. Imagine the captured dragon being a summonable fast-travel all over the world, & the PC gets little conversations with them as they fly, revealing similarities + differences than PartySnax, & maybe you've talked them into being a pacifist so you can summon them to fly but not fight. It'd be sweet if you could start bringing your fly-dragon treats sometimes, like when people being horses apples. Something vegetarian to go with the pacifist lol. Maybe there's some mushroom or shrubbery that's like dragon catnip lol. Anyways having a totally different dragon-POV might be interesting for dragon culture exposition.
4. By the Nines please allow PCs to tip, esp couriers & servers/service workers. Have it influence some things in a positive way, not negative if you don't unless it's sudden PC behaviour change with someone previously tipped. Warmth, gratitude, upgraded room/service, a special bit of advice/hint or odd trinket that unlocks optional quests or sideplay or buffs or even a fun curse could result. An ex-courier could open their own service or transfer shop bc of PC. Maybe tipping influences a hidden karma mechanic. Bribes should also still work sometimes on some NPCs as an invisible background mechanic so it's a rp/play-style option rather than explicit choice.
5. I stayed til the very end of the video & even tho it's 5 years later, thanks for the video, thanks for the wishes of a great day, & Donuts I hope you are thriving.
i agree with mostly everything you said, except I wish that the Dark Brotherhood questline had an option to save Astrid at the end. she clearly felt guilty at the end because she got everyone killed and ruined everything, and tbh i didn't want to be the new leader of the DB. but i also understand why they wouldn't add that questline because i think the way they wrote it at the end made Astrid seem like she wanted to be sacrificed and wanted to die because she felt so guilty about her screw up.
I used to be an adventurer like you until I took an arrow in the knee
If previous games had only 15 voice actors, Skyrim has like 6. Half the male characters have the exact same voice and accent as the first Jarl and the smith's husband in Whiterun
Great video
I joined the imperials on the first play through solely for the reason that I played a load of oblivion and i didnt want to fight against my boy Martin's people
the dragonstone was refferenced again by delphene when she takes you to her secret basement and she pulls out a map that was copied from the dragonstone so without the dragonstone it would have taken longer for you to realize where the dragons where coming from, but as you said you must have overlooked this information.
I prefer to describe Skyrim as being as wide as a lake, but as deep as a puddle. I love being on the lake, but I wish I was able to swim in it. If I use my imagination, I'm able to, but that shouldn't be the case. I hope TES VI has that depth.
I dont remember a single good Quest from Skyrim, but I still remember 10 Oblivion Quests.
I remember a lot but to each there own
23:30 legendary skills.
I for sure agree Dawnguard is one of the best questlines, but I think the idea of having two opposing unique factions is pulling the wool over our eyes a bit on Skyrim's part. Both factions share 4 out of 5 of the main story quests and the one that is unique (blood chalice and finding new members for the Dawnguard) is by far the weakest of the bunch. The roleplay is also more or less the same as well because in both cases you are bonding with Serana while trying to foil Harkon's plan. Its a good DLC with decent story, interesting locations and new assets, but defo doesn't hold up to being marketed as two unique playthroughs.
This is obv an older video but since Spacelawn came out I've been seeing some positive re-appraisals + essays about Skyrim either coming out new or, like this one, getting picked up again by the algorithm & on my For You. I wonder if enough people hated it that they checked to see if they really enjoyed these older games from Bethesda. A lot of people seem pleasantly surprised they still appreciate the world + game returning to it, despite seeing the limitations.
*aka Starfield
Good job, man.
Skyrim is as successful as it is because it hits the accessibility sweet spot. If you know the game, you can grind and min/max to a stupid extent. But, if you’re a noob you can grab the controller and just run around and still have fun. As an RPG, it’s not as deep as it could be but it’s the most fun for the most people for the most time.
I truly LOVE Skyrim, and this video encapsulates all the reasons why.
I’d argue that only the people who *pay attention* pick the Empire.
You said that it’s sketchy to trust someone who just tried to kill you, but... Hadvar is the only Imperial who *DIDN’T* want you dead.
It was his *Commanding Officer* who *ordered* your unjust execution. He’s just doing his job, mate. No hard feelings.
He even said “I’m sorry” before ushering you with the rest of the Rebels.
If he was the one in charge, do you think he might’ve even let you go?
Listen, if you get apprehended because you were near a terrorist attack, but then escaped by divine providence, would YOU go “Hmmm. *Joining* the terrorists is a GREAT IDEA.”
Yeah, that totally doesn’t validate the Empire’s unjust and impromptu decision to off you.
That totally doesn’t paint an even *bigger* target on your back.
I think you should get busy on clearing your name first.
Maybe volunteer some “community service” to garner some trust with the “local authorities,” wink wink?
Ive modded the combat for Skyrim to look like Dark Souls and Elden Ring tbh. At first Vanilla combat was fun. after putting 1000 hours into, i felt it needed a bit of a change.
I think I chose to side with Stormcloacks once before I found out how racist and bigotted they were. I've been with Imperials ever since. (Playing since release, first xbox360 then PC and immense modding)
@@veteran0121 Yes, the Altmer (or really, the Thalmor) are tribal as fuck. They're also the bad guys, literal fucking Nazis. You sound like a raving fucking lunatic.
What the hell is with this comment chain? It's like none of you agree with each other, I didn't even know it was possible for four people to all be on different sides of such a stupid argument.
The Nords are stupid, barbaric, and bigoted. They don't let beast races inside their cities and the stormcloaks view all elves as Dominion supporters.
The thalmor (not the dominion) are bigoted in the sense that they just believe in Altmer supremacy. This said, they are far from nazis, and comparing the two makes no sense. Believing in racial supremacy does not equate to nazism.
There's more to this chain that's stupid but I don't care enough to get more into it.
@@veteran0121 I like how halfway through your argument you completely lost your shit and turned into a dick lol
Imagine taking walking as your main skill in oblivion and then exploit it to boost level... just to end up with enemys that run around with Glass and other high level armor and weapons, while youre a peasent with iron short sword, that can jump 9 feet high... great exploid xD
Exactly. Levelling doesn't matter much in RPGs unless you actually have combat skills giving you those levels.
@@serathaevistille995 Well in most RPGs leveling boosts you overall but in Elder Scrolls it usaly made your enemys stronger overall and you just got better in specific things you did. It was the worst in Oblivion, in skyrim they even that out so its not broken anymore.
I'm only like 25 minutes into the video so this may be mentioned at some point, but it's not impossible to get enough skill points to max out everything. You can make skills legendary and start leveling them all over again. It would take forever but you could eventually get enough perk points to unlock everything
Yeah its 251 but you need to be level 252 to unlock everything
I wish there were stats besides the proficiencies such as strength dexterity stuff like that. so like if you had a high enough strength stat you could wield 2 hand weapons with 1 hand allowing for a more creative build or like adding spears and your stats were higher it would add a damage buff if the weapon was related to that stat like the way you boost damage in dark souls. I just wish the RPG elements were much more fleshed out instead of the FF2 style they do here. (ps, I play on console and stuff so there could be a mod that does what I said here and if so let me know and leave a link and I might get the pc version). this is a fun game it is just boring for me sometimes, and I don't like their eternal playtime philosophy that Bethesda has which is why FONV is like one of their best games.
NVM lol what i described was oblivions leveling system except mine is better because it has actual perks to leveling up that stuff
I disagree heavily with your statements on classes. In the previous four games it allowed players to get a jumpstart on what kind of playstyle they wanted or to help them figure out what playstyle appealed to them. These ranged from singular classes like Warrior, Mage, or Thief, to more varied classes like Knight, Battlemage, and Bard, it also offered deeper immersion since you started out good at these things instead of being a pleb at everything like you do in Skyrim.
The gems you find in a chest is over done when you finish the vex stone quest it got to the point where i stopped selling them because i had so many hate that quest i hurry through it to quickly finish it
Hopefully they add a new system with no carry weight for quest item and a new slot in the inventory specifically for quest items makes it more manageable at least for me it would not a mess and the whole damn elder scrolls systems need to fixed or redone
A shame this has so few views
I picked the empire the entire game
Skyrim's character creator was advanced for it's time? White Knight Chronicles came out 3 years earlier and that let you adjust height and weight by the foot and pound respectively. A year later Dragon's Dogma came out and had different body times and posture. Skyrim's character creator was on par to mass effect and dragons age baring the race selection and pitiful weight slider.
I shit on the thieves guild a lot because they suck ass as a guild but I do love the sneaking.
Also Lucian is my favourite character in Skyrim. he has bought millions of septims worth of potions off me over the years.