Holiday games, something about this years crop

[Fei]

It's the difficulty slider that ruined Elder Scrolls games for me... why bother min-maxing when you're just gonna slide the difficulty down?

I know I don't have to adjust the difficulty, but knowing that I can removes the inspiration that hitting a wall provides.  Instead of going into critical thinking mode with regard to my stats, I go into critical thinking mode in regards to "should I adjust the difficulty?"

If the only way to proceed is to do math, I will do math.  *shrug*

[Azrael]

Maybe I'm wrong, but the Skyrim leveling seems par for the course as far as WRPGs go. The presentation is nice as hell, but it seems pretty much like typical skill trees. I have to say, I'm certainly intrigued by Skyrim but I don't think I'd get it. The Elder Scrolls games never did much for me honestly. Maybe after enough time has passed I'll give it a whirl when it's cheaper. I don't think there's any game coming out any time soon that really interests me. Maybe Assassin's Creed, but I still gotta get on the earlier ones. Been meaning to do that.

[DPB]

It's the difficulty slider that ruined Elder Scrolls games for me... why bother min-maxing when you're just gonna slide the difficulty down?

I know I don't have to adjust the difficulty, but knowing that I can removes the inspiration that hitting a wall provides.  Instead of going into critical thinking mode with regard to my stats, I go into critical thinking mode in regards to "should I adjust the difficulty?"

If the only way to proceed is to do math, I will do math.  *shrug*

That seems a strange thing to focus on when lots of games have adjustable difficulty levels in-game, like every Bioware RPG for instance. Don't bother with the powergaming, just make a character that seems interesting to play. It's not like they're so difficult that making an optimal character build is even necessary, even at the higher difficulty levels.

[Fei]

I think it's just the way I experienced it... I was struggling in an Oblivion gate, noticed the difficulty slider, and went from getting beaten horribly to utterly destroying the exact same enemy. 

Maybe if I had just started on easy, the difficulty would have ramped up more slowly perhaps... it didn't feel like easy mode, it felt like I was cheating.  I play Bioware games on easy, and it's fine...

It's just that the only thing Oblivion had going for it was character development, in my opinion... alone in a brutal world, make yourself into a badass, yay.

[daschrier]

It's the difficulty slider that ruined Elder Scrolls games for me... why bother min-maxing when you're just gonna slide the difficulty down?

I know I don't have to adjust the difficulty, but knowing that I can removes the inspiration that hitting a wall provides.  Instead of going into critical thinking mode with regard to my stats, I go into critical thinking mode in regards to "should I adjust the difficulty?"

If the only way to proceed is to do math, I will do math.  *shrug*

Or on the other side like Oblivion, if you didn't level up "correctly" or invest in the right skills, the enemies would level up with you and become far more powerful than you.

[Kevadu]

Yeah, the difficulty in Oblivion was really broken.  If you didn't level up in exactly the right way (or just increase your skills but never level up at all like I know some people did...) then the game could become ridiculously difficult, making the slider practically a necessity.