Divinity vs Skyrim aka Classic RPG vs Action RPG

[Warren]

I have noticed in many threads that, everytime time someone pronounces Skyrim, a horde of bloodseeking daemons jump on it like is pseudonym of Jon irenicus to hack him in pieces.
Well, I spent some 200 hrs on last Beteshda born, and I got fun in exploration, building a home with DLC, fighting in dark dungeons and putting down giant dragons.
The game was somehow immersive, in his own sandbox gigantic world, yet I felt something was missing: a true story, true characters, and true roleplaying. Also, there wasn't a single time where I felt challenged by quests, puzzles or fights. It was plain. Gigantic, beautiful to see, fun but plain. It was 80% exploration and action, 20% roleplaying.
That's where I feel the real difference with a game like DoS. In Larian game, you can feel personality and individuality ooze from your protagonists, and quests can really be hard, even only for the simple fact there are no directions, no markers, and you have to explore, talk and think to succeed. The fights, in the true nature of crpg, are turn-based, and require tactics and careful attention in building your team. The story, even with some occasional dull points, and without being original, has enough cohesive force to let me feel there's a main goal behind the many subquests and fights. Also, the duality in the interaction between the couple of hunters grants a greater interactivity on a social basis, and even the rock-paper-scissors dialogue mode, with all its questionable aspects, adds deepness to the rpg element of the game.
Still, admitting I am an old crpg lover, and being that, inevitably loving this game and its welcome return to the origins of roleplaying, I cannot deny I found Skyrim entertaining and a fun to play. That's why I can't always understand the raw hate that inevitably falls upon it in every thread of this forum. From a genre point of view, they belong to two different branches of rpg: the classic and the action. Like Torment and Diablo, or Fallout and Icewind Dale.
I believe even the most faithful pure rpg follower can have fun with a game like Skyrim without feeling shame for that or playing it for hundreds of hours and then denying he liked it.

Well, sorry for the long consideration. Comments and delucidations on your personal experience in living this duality as rpg players will be welcome.
Where do you think the border that make a rpg derivative from a crpg stands, it's what I feel the most important matter. Still, I don't think that difference makes the derivative necessarily a worse game.
And this from a guy who considers Torment and Fallout the top of the cream.

[Dorok]

To summarize it very quickly about DoS vs Syrim. I don't like Skyrim for all the elements that tried target DoS. And I reproach Bethesda to haven't yet launch any RPG license trying target:
- Put much more effort in designing a less hand guided gameplay, and yeah that includes come back to spend time in designing hints instead of throwing arrows or direct TODO expiations.
- trying design RPG where fillers and areas size aren't the main goals but gameplay density and quality,
- party RPG instead of single character action RPG as are all AAA RPG.
- Turn based instead of action because it's the only way for a deep party management during combats.
- Put a much bigger effort in puzzles, tricks, riddles, secrets, all the stuff that fill the RPG and avoid it's just a rush from dialog to next combat to next dialog to next combats..., and in between some "nice" tourism sections.

[CharliezFrag]

Skyrim isn't a ARPG as far as I know. ARPG's are the likes of Diablo, Titan Quest, PoE, etc...but I do get OP's point.

I've tried a couple of times to play Skyrim but I just couldn't. I found the game too dull/bland for my tastes. The story was beyond mediocre ( I think that's not just my opinion, but the overall consensus ) and the exploration in it just didn't do it for me. I never got immersed. But even then, there's people who found the exploration and other aspects of the game to be fun and you gotta respect that.

D:OS didn't do it ( is not doing it I should say ) for me either in terms of story but the combat system is so fun that I just keep playing it.

To each their own I guess.

[Kristoffer]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Dorok:

Sigh in a thread about Skyrim vs DoS pinpoint DoS combats weakness, lol. The problem is skyrim combats are crap. And that's definitely one of the a main reason why I give up Skyrim a long before finish it.

You're having a hard time keeping up with this whole English-thing, aren't you? Try rereading what I wrote and you'll see that I cited combat as a weakness of Larian's games and then noted that DoS improved the combat.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

And what roleplaying elements does Skyrim have? Levels and skills? That's not a definying trait for rpgs. Skyrim is just an open map with 100% linear quests scattered all over. And terrible quests at that (go there and kill this guy or pick up this item). Hell, even the protagonist is not a role-playing character. You can be a warrior, mage, ranger or whatever you want at the same time. There are no choices and no decisions bearing any weight. It's literally a teem-park open world. It primarly offers great exploration (in a fairly well crafted world) and huge amounts of content. That's why it's completely misleading throwing it in the same category as classic rpgs like BGs or anything really spawned from D&D and Divinity:OS.

Skyrim has all those crazy things found in roleplaying games...
Like you mentioned yourself, quests, levelling, character creation and so on. Linearity has never been the defining trait of an RPG. Lack of exploration was due to lacking technological capabilities, not necessarily a choice of the designers. Cross-classes have been a staple of old RPGs for sometime and were introduced in old D&D. You're not weakening Skyrim's case here, you're strengthening it.

[ModerateThundr]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kristoffer:

Man I don't know why they hate Skyrim, all the mods turned that game into a dream. Same with Fallout New Vegas. It's the modability and freedom of exploration that makes those games enjoyable, even if the core-experience is a bit lackluster.

Larian's games, however, have such great writing that the lacking combat can easily be forgiven. Especially when they field innovative mechanics like mind-reading (at xp cost) and completely dominate when it comes to homestead creation. That said, DoS shaped up the combat but at an arguable cost to exploration.

I usually end up enjoying the inbetween, games like knights of the old republic.

This could be my post to the letter. Wow. This is almost exactly what I would have just said, had he/she not beaten me to it.
Let me add to this though... I have about 170-200 mods running on Skyrim at any given moment (I try new ones all the time... I have about 40 staples though), and the game is truly a wonder to behold. It looks AMAZING, photorealistic sometimes, and the sheer amount of mods make playing all of the new content an impossibility (currently over 35,000 on Nexus). So give Skyrim another shot.. don't use workshop though, use Skyrim Nexus instead, since you do have to learn some of the basics - you cant just throw in a bunch of mods and expect them to play nice.

That being said, I am absolutely enchanted by this game. I love it sooooo much. I am a hardcore RPG player, and I want depth and immersion more than anything else, and (excepting the citizens repeating the same dialog out loud over and over when you are trying to explore areas around them) this game has so many things that make it feel like you are stepping into a real story. I LOVED the premise of the introduction... two detectives, sent to find out a real murder mystery - I was hooked by that. The combat isn't BAD, it's just not terribly exciting. My favorite RPG of all time is Baldur's Gate II, and this game reminds me A LOT of that.
I can honestly say that this is easily the best traditional RPG that I have played in years. And the modding scene for this game is barely out of the womb, so I expect this game to bring out even more greatness when the modders reall start to get into it. That was one of the things that made Neverwinter Nights and NWN II have so much replayability. I was even part of an NWN 2 mod game that was a totally persistent world.

I am seriously excited about this game, and it's future!

[Dorok]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

And what roleplaying elements does Skyrim have?...

Im' not hyper fan of Skyrim, not even of roleplaying in the head of the player without any clues/feedback of it in the RPG world. But there's a ton of roleplaying of this level ie mainly in player mind, because of the freedom and sandbox approach.

The problem is either it's like the puppets game, after a certain age, only few still enjoy play with puppets, either it's a matter of personality. I tend think that past a certain age it's just hard to enjoy any roleplay just in your head. But I could be wrong and it's a matter of personality.

The second point is I won't consider DoS very strong on that point either. At least in Skyrim, even if guilds are a bit screwed up, they are a mechanism here and they definitely setup a roleplay element in the game, playing the mage or the warrior isn't just a character building, DoS don't even have that.

But ok perhaps DoS has a lot more dialog pure roleplay choices, et least it's not just in your head. But myself perhaps it's because of the dual character approach but it isn't working well, it tends be overridden by the greedy temptation related to traits. Moreover the random mechanism game is another element that pollute for me that DoS gameplay element. Eventually at replay I'll enjoy more this part but at first play, the feeling is it's a point of DoS with good and bad.

[Free Luigi M.]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kristoffer:

Skyrim has all those crazy things found in roleplaying games...
Like you mentioned yourself, quests, levelling, character creation and so on. Linearity has never been the defining trait of an RPG. Lack of exploration was due to lacking technological capabilities, not necessarily a choice of the designers. Cross-classes have been a staple of old RPGs for sometime and were introduced in old D&D. You're not weakening Skyrim's case here, you're strengthening it.

First, there is no case. cRPG vs Skyrim is ridiculous. There is a market for games like Skyrim and a market for classic rpgs. You can prefer one to the other, but none of them is inherently "bad" or "good". It's a matter of tastes. Some people feel the need to turn everything into a direct competition, I don't.
Now to answer the main points:
Linearity in quests is an anti-rpg element. It means you just strap your belt for a ride and follow the quest. THIS is certainly bad in a role-playing game.
Lack of exploration? Not sure where you are getting that from. Old rpgs have a lot of eploration, and so does Skyrim. Nothing to argue about here.
Cross classes are "classes" themselves, following specific rules and mechanics to balance them. While Skyrim doesn't have classes and choices at all. You can raise everything and be everything AT ONCE. Again, this is simply terrible for role-playing. Don't compare a proper cross-class from D&D with anything from Skyrim. That's just ludicrous.
Finally, quests, levelling and character creation. None of these is a definying element of role-playing games. This would require a lenghty insight on what "rpg" means, but a staple of rpgs is choices and consequences and important decisions. Be in creating your character's personality, role or place in the game world. Skyrim has none of that. That's why it can only be considered "rpg" if we use that term in a modern sense. Meaning that having "levels", "abilities" and "quests" (elements common to pretty much every genre nowadays) would suffice.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Dorok:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

And what roleplaying elements does Skyrim have?...

Im' not hyper fan of Skyrim, not even of roleplaying in the head of the player without any clues/feedback of it in the RPG world. But there's a ton of roleplaying of this level ie mainly in player mind, because of the freedom and sandbox approach.

That's a good point, but every role-playing you have to "imagine" yourself is not part of the game itself. It's not an experience offered by the developers and thus cannot be taken into account when judging a videogame for its content. Skyrim offers great possibilities for imagination exactly because it doesn't offer any other role-playing element whatsoever. Emptiness can easily be filled with your fantasy.

[Dorok]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kristoffer:

You're having a hard time keeping up with this whole English-thing, aren't you? Try rereading what I wrote and you'll see that I cited combat as a weakness of Larian's games and then noted that DoS improved the combat.

Lol ok I didn't even read further, next time go to the point, nobody care of your opinion Bethesda vs Larian, you play developers? Make a general overview is quite non interesting.

So ok we agree Skyrim combats nth repetition of tedious ARPG Fantasy combats with a single character ie boring and too much seen already. DoS much deeper and much more interesting party RPG turn based combats.

[Dorok]

Wooo I totally disagree on comments that Sryrim and DoS are just two different type of games for different type of players. That is going much deeper than that.

Skyrim, I'd love play Skyrim like game if Bethesda finally find ways to get out of the curse they started with Oblivion ie RPG with baby sitting.

DoS is right at the opposite of this because of all the sweet and design effort to avoid as much thant possible an excessive baby sitting. Give me a Skyrim with that design effort and you'll see I can love Skyrim like game.

EDIT: Well there's also another element, the emptiness and excess of tedious fillers that suffer games like Skyrim, but that point is perhaps harder to target in this genre, I don't know. Morrowind was better on that aspect but still a bit full of fillers and voids.

[Kristoffer]

Chip, you're grossly overestimating the outcome and consequences of choices in older RPGs in comparison to Skyrim. It's also a laughably narrow view of what an RPG is, and a definition that is driven by none other than you. The fact that things such as levelling up and quests have become more widespread doesn't suddenly mean that they are no longer RPG traits. It has nothing to do with exclusivity.

You're also acting like balance wasn't an issue in older DnD modules (wrong). You started the initial argument that because cross-classing in Skyrim didn't work just like they do in DnD, it's not an RPG element, which is a very faulty line of logic. Many RPGs have cross-classes different from the ones in DnD, but diverting from the DnD format doesn't suddenly mean that it's not an RPG. Many RPGs have also taken the approach that you skill up what you use, which is what Skyrim does. The fact that you can level 'everything' at once is just a result of the game not having a time-limit. In any long enough running module you could practically do the same.

You're making up your own definition as you go along.

[Dorok]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

That's a good point, but every role-playing you have to "imagine" yourself is not part of the game itself. It's not an experience offered by the developers and thus cannot be taken into account when judging a videogame f...

Wrong, it requires build the concrete spaces, actions and contexts available for the player, it's not void but a lot of work. It's really interaction with the game, just for no reason but roleplay, example fishing, pearls hunt, hunt in woods, build your house, get married, many more, survival in woods, serial killer, many more. All those roleplaying in the head of the player require a lot of design and development so players has a space to play their own game.

Understand that if I can enjoy punctually this sort of thing and it can be a high fun and an important part in building well a RPG... World. And for me it's clear roleplaying, I don't disagree with you that it's not a roleplaying with real interaction with the RPG world than just kill stuff or eventually build stuff.

But the truth is no matter the RPG, the roleplay element as you intend is in fact very limited.

[Free Luigi M.]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kristoffer:

Chip, you're grossly overestimating the outcome and consequences of choices in older RPGs in comparison to Skyrim. It's also a laughably narrow view of what an RPG is, and a definition that is driven by none other than you. The fact that things such as levelling up and quests have become more widespread doesn't suddenly mean that they are no longer RPG traits. It has nothing to do with exclusivity.

You're also acting like balance wasn't an issue in older DnD modules (wrong). You started the initial argument that because cross-classing in Skyrim didn't work just like they do in DnD, it's not an RPG element, which is a very faulty line of logic. Many RPGs have cross-classes different from the ones in DnD, but diverting from the DnD format doesn't suddenly mean that it's not an RPG. Many RPGs have also taken the approach that you skill up what you use, which is what Skyrim does. The fact that you can level 'everything' at once is just a result of the game not having a time-limit. In any long enough running module you could practically do the same.

You're making up your own definition as you go along.

Choices and consequences are really just one of the elements in an rpg. Not the only one.
Levels and quests are usually found in rpgs, but putting them in any game doesn't make it an rpg, get it? That's why Skyrim is not really an rpg.
Balance? Never talked about balance.
As for cross-classes, Skyrim doesn't have any classes. At all. Much less cross-classes. You can just put points in everything, sacrificing nothing. Youb are not faced with choices on what to be, what role to play, you can just be everything at the same time. You can decide to discipline yourself into stick to a role, but that's beside the point and the game mechanic itself.
Leveling up what you use is great, but skyrim does it very poorly. Infact, in a "long enough running module", as you call it, you would un-learn things by not practicing them, you wouldn't be able to reach mastery of everything. You would need to constantly keep yourself trained into whatever you choose, therefore neglecting all the others paths. You would learn different things in different ways and not with the same efficiency. Or you could eve argue that magical or martial affinities are innate qualities and not something you can just develop. And so on and so forth. Learning from experience is a difficult and complicated system to recreate well, and Skyrim can't do it. It simply allows you to do whatever you feel like doing.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Dorok:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

That's a good point, but every role-playing you have to "imagine" yourself is not part of the game itself. It's not an experience offered by the developers and thus cannot be taken into account when judging a videogame f...

Wrong, it requires build the concrete spaces, actions and contexts available for the player, it's not void but a lot of work [...]

It's like someone renting you an empty house and telling you to imagine the furniture. You can say they had to do a lot of work to build the walls, but you know the emptyness I am talking about. And that's nothing to celebrate. Try to understand my post better.

[Dorok]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

Try to understand my post better.

Explain better next time, moreover your comment is just because something is clearly out of your reach to understand it, but I won't lost time with you.

[Dorok]

A little bit of warning for next bash that will come for those that bother me on that.

When someone smart see or think that someone else don't understand something he tried explain:
- First the smart guy wonder if himself understood everything before to think the other is an idiot.
- Secondly he tries explain it differently, not some stupid, you haven't understand. OMG

You pretend be smart and I have to make your education on such basic base??? SERIOUSLY.

[feralgal]

I agree with most of what you say and was going to say something similar. But I disagree with some of the things you said.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

First, there is no case. cRPG vs Skyrim is ridiculous. There is a market for games like Skyrim and a market for classic rpgs. You can prefer one to the other, but none of them is inherently "bad" or "good". It's a matter of tastes. Some people feel the need to turn everything into a direct competition, I don't.

This. Many posts in the DOS forum seem to put other games down. Skryim seems to be a favorite target. I don't understand why people feel the need to put down other games or what other people like to play (even console games). Some of them may not be games that I enjoy but then I like games that many of my friends don't. It doesn't make either of us right.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

Now to answer the main points:
Linearity in quests is an anti-rpg element. It means you just strap your belt for a ride and follow the quest. THIS is certainly bad in a role-playing game.

I also strongly prefer non-linear cRPGs. But I think that the storytelling is generally better (and easier to do well) in linear cRPGs. And non-linear cRPGs are closer to PnP RPGs than linear ones.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

Cross classes are "classes" themselves, following specific rules and mechanics to balance them. While Skyrim doesn't have classes and choices at all. You can raise everything and be everything AT ONCE. Again, this is simply terrible for role-playing. Don't compare a proper cross-class from D&D with anything from Skyrim. That's just ludicrous.

IMO this is another preference. I prefer classless systems like The Elder Scrolls, Fallouts, and DOS. IOW, I prefer more GURPs-like cRPGs to more DnD-like RPGs. I don't understand how one is more of a "proper" RPG than the other.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

Finally, quests, levelling and character creation. None of these is a definying element of role-playing games. This would require a lenghty insight on what "rpg" means, but a staple of rpgs is choices and consequences and important decisions. Be in creating your character's personality, role or place in the game world. Skyrim has none of that. That's why it can only be considered "rpg" if we use that term in a modern sense. Meaning that having "levels", "abilities" and "quests" (elements common to pretty much every genre nowadays) would suffice.

I don't think that choices and consequences are a defining element of cRPGs (most seem to have very few IMO), although I strongly prefer RPGs with strong choice and consequences and important decisions. I think that Skyrim is weak in those areas. I think that it''s a lot more difficult to do that in large, open world games like Skyrim than it is in smaller, less-open world games like DOS. OTOH, I also love to explore and I don't get the feeling of freedom or exploration in DOS. Trade-offs.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Joe Chip:

That's a good point, but every role-playing you have to "imagine" yourself is not part of the game itself. It's not an experience offered by the developers and thus cannot be taken into account when judging a videogame for its content. Skyrim offers great possibilities for imagination exactly because it doesn't offer any other role-playing element whatsoever. Emptiness can easily be filled with your fantasy.

I disagree with this to some extent. In PnP RPGs you mostly have to "imagine" your character while the DM provides a setting and consequences for your actions. I think that Skyrim offerns several role-playing elements: you define your character by choosing stats, deciding where to explore, deciding what quests to undertake, how to solve those quests, etc. (The quests are shallow but there are a lot of them. Most cRPG quests are shallow, unfortunately, including many in DOS.) There is a large world to explore and, for the most part, you decide how your character will explore it. (FWIW, I've never understood anyone who played TES for the main quest.)

It mostly comes down to preference IMO. I like both. I was more disappointed in Skyrim than DOS but that's because I had much higher hopes for Skyrim. (I was hoping for another Morrowind.)

[Dorok]

Początkowo opublikowane przez feralgal:

...Many posts in the DOS forum seem to put other games down. Skryim seems to be a favorite target. I don't understand why people feel the need to put down other games or what other people like to play (even console games). Some of them may not be games that I enjoy but then I like games that many of my friends don't. It doesn't make either of us right.

And that's where you and Chip short view don't understand the key of the problem. Sryrim and DoS aren't just two different type of games for different type of players. That is going much deeper than that.

Skyrim, I'd love play Skyrim like game if Bethesda finally find ways to get out of the curse they started with Oblivion ie RPG with baby sitting.

DoS is right at the opposite of this because of all the sweat and design efforts to avoid as much than possible an excessive baby sitting. Give me a Skyrim with that design effort and you'll see I can love Skyrim like game.

Well there's also another element, the emptiness and excess of tedious fillers that suffer games like Skyrim, but that point is perhaps harder to target in this genre, I don't know. Morrowind was better on that aspect but still a bit full of fillers and voids.

So the problem of Skyrim is to be unable to get out of a baby sitting gameplay. And that's possible, the clue is Morrowind. That's why it's going much further than gameplay preferences. And that why I don't agree with the Chip basic and short viewed comment you adopted for yourself.