How does this mod compare to Skyrim?

[Gift]

What's the pro's and con's and your final verdict?

[Sidian]

Enderal has a smaller world, fewer dungeons, performance issues and a very lenghty introduction.

But Enderal also has the better designed dungeons, a much better main story (comparing the depth of the story and the main quests quests), it's looking a lot better (compared to Skyrim without mods), has a better balance, is a bit more difficult, has a different leveling system (experience points instead of leveling skills by using them), better rewards for exploration, Set items, a more interesting magic system and a lot more interesting skills (again, without taking mods into consideration).

And it's kinda funny that some of the voice actors who worked for Enderal for free are better than most of the paid voice actors who worked on Skyrim.

[MikeBob2013]

Originally posted by Sidian:

(...)

And it's kinda funny that some of the voice actors who worked for Enderal for free are better than most of the paid voice actors who worked on Skyrim.

I completely agree with your comparison up to this point.

I do believe the (English) voice acting in Enderal is very good, but I also rate Skyrim's as some of the best I've heard, bar none.

It's at least as good as Enderal's, and certainly in no way inferior to it (in my opinion, that is - who got paid versus who didn't, notwithstanding).

And the gratuitous profanity in Enderal doesn't get any points in my book, incidentally. I personally don't believe it adds anything of value to the game. (If I wanted to, I could listen to the very same foul language - on virtually any street corner, on TV, on YouTube, or in the movies - all day long. One of the reasons I play my games - particularly rpgs - is to take a break from all that noise.)

[Sidian]

Originally posted by MikeBob2013:

I do believe the (English) voice acting in Enderal is very good, but I also rate Skyrim's as some of the best I've heard, bar none.

Sorry, i played in german. Should have clarified that.

[Rüdiger J Simpson]

Originally posted by Sidian:

Originally posted by MikeBob2013:

I do believe the (English) voice acting in Enderal is very good, but I also rate Skyrim's as some of the best I've heard, bar none.

Sorry, i played in german. Should have clarified that.

yup, the german VA is awesome!

for me it's very hard to compare it to skyrim, since enderal has it's own approach (way more oldschool RPG style, character builds actually matter), which i really enjoy. so my diplomatic answer would be: both games are great in their own way and well worth to be played.

[Deadbubble]

I can say this much so far: The main story of Enderal has me deeply engrossed, and I really want to know just where the hell its going with the concepts its introduced. Skyrim never ever reached that in any capacity.

[UBER1337H4X00R]

Since everyone else has been listing very valid pros so far, I'll just list the one con I've encountered so far during my first playthrough (which is dependent on your playstyle BTW):

I tried to do a stealth archer build and I've found that it is difficult, near impossible to play properly, especially compared to Skyrim. It seems as though you absolutely have to shoot enemies in their back at a specific angle in order to benefit from the damage multiplier, although I've gotten it from shooting the sides at great distances, so I've been stumped as to how exactly you're supposed to reliably proc it. Also, I've found that enemy detection is a bit different from Skyrim because there have been occasions where I found myself instantly detected even though I was a significant distance away from enemies and out of their line of sight after shooting a single arrow.

Besides that, the game is fantastic and I've heard that melee assassin builds are more viable than ranged, in case you're interested. I decided to switch to a one-handed and shield build though, and although there is no respec function, you can download a mod which adds it.

[Gearwar]

I just found this mod two weeks ago and maybe it is unfair to compare it to skyrim because I did play skyrim about 250 hours (years ago) and if you would ask me now Id instantly give the trophy to this mod.

That being said, I do believe this game is overall the deeper rpg experience. It has a smaller world yes, so overall less things to explore, but it has not yet (maybe it will) suffered the same issue skyrim had... which is that once you have seen a lot of dungeons in the game you realize they are more or less the same. I also doubt you can become a master of everything in this game as you could in skyrim (sure, my 2h babarian Orc with heavy armor is the best choice for being the leader of the Mage guild, even though he has not cast a spell ever)

A minute detail but an interesting one is how both games handle "books". You can really feel that this mod caters to people who played older rpgs. In Skyrim most books have 4 pages. If you open a book here you can do a lot of reading (if you wish) to get a grasp of what the book is about. Some impressive stuff indeed.

Overall it looks like skyrim but it feels a bit like morrowind (which is great). I really recommend this mod, especially if you got the base game and dont pay a thing for it. So far its really good.

[Chillin]

This is superior to Skyrim.

[Zanzus]

I'm not done yet, near the end I think, and honestly the quests are Witcher 3 level, the exploration trumps Bethesda's best and everything feels hand crafted, even insignificant areas with no quest attached or important items present.

The voice acting even in English is superb, I didn't doubt it's authenticity for a second, and the RPG mechanics are so good, little things like a mark and return spell, the skill/crafting/talent XP system are excellent.

Above all there is a mystery in the game's story that permeates everything you do, making you question and think complimented by the game thrusting you into morally grey situations where you don't get all the information to make the obvious choice. Yes it is better than Skyrim.

[Zanzus]

Originally posted by William Curd:

I'm not done yet, near the end I think, and honestly the quests are Witcher 3 level, the exploration trumps Bethesda's best and everything feels hand crafted, even insignificant areas with no quest attached or important items present.

The voice acting even in English is superb, I didn't doubt it's authenticity for a second, and the RPG mechanics are so good, little things like a mark and return spell, the skill/crafting/talent XP system are excellent.

Above all there is a mystery in the game's story that permeates everything you do, making you question and think complimented by the game thrusting you into morally grey situations where you don't get all the information to make the obvious choice. Yes it is better than Skyrim.

In fact I'm gonna post this as a review.

[Sharkad]

A couple more pros of Enderal:
- Most of the side-quests are connected to each other and the main story in some way. It is amazing compared to what you see in Bethesda games (where it feels like quest lines of organizations are from another time, because nobody cares that the world is ending, people instead worried that someone is hunting werewolves or has stolen some magical artefact).
- Exploration is actually interesting. You can find mushrooms which give you permanent +1 to carry weight, and many dungeons have named bosses. Also there are set items to colect.

Originally posted by UBER1337H4X00R:

I tried to do a stealth archer build and I've found that it is difficult, near impossible to play properly, especially compared to Skyrim.

That's true - it's quite dificult to stay undetected, enemies find you rather quickly and you have to deal with it. It gets better when you upgrade sneak though. Personally I chose to invest in Sinistra memory tree to summon monsters which will distract enemies and it is working perfectly. Also there are talents which allow you to heal by devouring corpses and mind-control enemies, which is perfect for ranged stealth archer.

[Mayor]

Although the game is very good, one area Enderal severely lacks compared to Skyrim is ability to make choice and have your own character. NPC Characters rarely ask you about your past and if they do it is basically tell them about your dreams (cut to black scene) or ignore (lose character opinion). You never really get to roleplay your own character or history like in Skyrim. In Skyrim you have many options to choose dialogue and get small bits of lore or backstory. I like Enderal alot but this one part about it I felt just was not as good as original Skyrim and SureAI could have done it this way as well since it would only require a few additional lines of dialogue and voice acting.

Anyways as a free game it is def worth it regardless.

(edit) example: In Enderal, NPCs have great backstories, and they tell you about them in depth. I wont spoil. However the PC is never really touched on that much, and if asked it is usually "Oh this is a long story..." then cut to black. These moments really take away immersion for me. I would have liked a more interactive moment where I can explain my own story. Since the game leaves this kind of lore out in the open to interpretation anyways I don't understand why the PC was railroaded so much.

[StiffMeatMallet]

I can;t even play this i find it so boring!

[Nexarath]

How does it compare? Well, basically, it gives you a reason to buy Skyrim. No, seriously, though, this game is smaller in scope (but still HUGE!), has the odd cringy dialogue (less so than Skyrim, though.. much less) and can be pretty tough for people who are used to Skyrim's overly easy gameplay, but anything that I can think of in terms of what matters to me in a game is incomparable, basically - the main and side quests are not even in the same ballpark... we are talking this game is up there with the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood/Thieves Guild questline, and far, far better than both anything Skyrim has or Oblivion's main game quest. I'm not kidding. The story in this game is up there with the best RPG's.. it's not super original or something that has never been covered in popular culture or philosophy before, but it's done in such a mature, adult way, there are so many intricacies to the main story alone (let alone the phenomenal quests such as Cuthbert's Legacy and the amazing guild questlines, especially for the Rhelata) that honestly, you can't really compare Skyrim.. it's in a league way above.

Furthermore, combat is still terrible Skyrim stuff without mods, but this game adds plenty of fun and cool perks and skills/skill synergies, so that's a lot better, too, no joke. So yeah, what does Skyrim do better? Well, even more world building and lore, ofc, though imho less interesting lore.. more choice and consequence, which was always Beth's saving grace with these games and of course the availability of many many many many many more cool mods, and not just quest ones either, which work with Skyrim but don't with Enderal.
But yeah, comparing the games only on their merits as interactive stories and regarding gameplay... this game is legitimately much better than Skyrim, and I sincerely mean that.

[Gearwar]

Originally posted by Mayor:

Although the game is very good, one area Enderal severely lacks compared to Skyrim is ability to make choice and have your own character. NPC Characters rarely ask you about your past and if they do it is basically tell them about your dreams (cut to black scene) or ignore (lose character opinion). You never really get to roleplay your own character or history like in Skyrim. In Skyrim you have many options to choose dialogue and get small bits of lore or backstory. I like Enderal alot but this one part about it I felt just was not as good as original Skyrim and SureAI could have done it this way as well since it would only require a few additional lines of dialogue and voice acting.

Anyways as a free game it is def worth it regardless.

(edit) example: In Enderal, NPCs have great backstories, and they tell you about them in depth. I wont spoil. However the PC is never really touched on that much, and if asked it is usually "Oh this is a long story..." then cut to black. These moments really take away immersion for me. I would have liked a more interactive moment where I can explain my own story. Since the game leaves this kind of lore out in the open to interpretation anyways I don't understand why the PC was railroaded so much.

Just read this and have to disagree with the statement made here. Literally in the first village of the game there are multiple NPCs that acknowledge the background of your character, depending on what you picked (I picked Azarelean(not sure if thats spelled correctly)).
I even could decide wether one of my parents was either a savage or part of the cultivated areas in Azarel (again not sure if thats the correct spelling for the place). I could also say I do not know or tell the NPC to shove off.

So there def. are roleplaying elements here for your PC.