Do you know what happens if you reach LVL 50, become Dragonborn, kill Alduin, become Arch-mage of the College & complete many other quests that would make you world famous; then return to join the Companions in Whiterun? You get the same dialogue that you would have got if you had joined the Companions as a LVL 1 nobody. They discuss how they have never heard of you before and how you are one of those people who will achieve fame AFTER joining the Companions.

Creetosis. You missed a thing talking about the Khajiit. Their Claw passive ability does not give them an extra 15 points of damage in Unarmed attacks. They deal 12 more damage because there is a misprint in that perk. The text say 15, but the bonus is only 12. It is a problem the devs never bothered to fix.

10 years ago, I saw my roommate play the intro, and never picked up my pre order lmao. I listened to Todd's lie that they learned from the overly streamlined oblivion. I shit you not he said "it will be more like morrowind" What a fool I was. What a grand and intoxicating innocence.

The core problem of Skyrims design is that everything in it was developed in a complete vacuum. Not one singular design decision really "clicks" into another to produce something bigger than those two feature individually. Dual wielding for example could have easily been used as a means of dealing with low HP but high damage enemies, shouts could have been used as specialized puzzle tools to allow for more complex dungeon designs, orc strongholds could have easily been used as source of troops for the civil war and so on and so on. It might not be so bad as Fallout 4 where one design decision directly undermines another but its exactly the same problem of never viewing the game as a whole. To use a cooking metaphor again its a if you were making your own pizza and instead of using toppings that compliments each-other, you would just randomly throw in whatever tastes fine. Now I am sure that brownies, vinegar fish and pesto taste just fine on their own but somehow I doubt they would work together covered in cheese on a slice of pizza. That is bethesda design in a nutshell, individually fine ingredients mixed in the most atrocious way possible.

"I've been looking forward to this!" - Count Doku

Something you may not be aware of is that Mage NPC Magicka Pools are virtually infinite, so as to allow them to cast spells for more than 15 seconds of the encounter. I tried a mod to fix that and from what I remember, most mages would pull out daggers after firing 3 or 4 spells.

What's sad about the spinning puzzles is that there was one puzzle that was actually pretty cool where you have to read a book and match the animals to where they were described, like matching the snake to the pillar in the grass. It was simple but it was better than evey other puzzle in game.

Found Creetosis a week or so ago and now is a top youtuber for me. However I can not believe that after 2 YEARS, HE HAS NOT MADE A PART TWO. Please Creetosis, I need it

11:44 Unless you're using the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, ALL races get the imperial luck bonus upon completing the tutorial quest.

Love how people on the internet cant accept people can enjoy a game and still be critical. I grew up playing skyrim and i have spent so many hours into it. Ive seen so many flaws over the years and i criticise it all the time. I love ur vid creetosis

I just want to beat Father Elijahcal to the punch with a "feathery" or Tootsie Pop comment. However, I'm going to have to steal a line a from him: I don't hate Todd Howard, but Todd is a leprechaun. Leprechauns always lie because they don't want you to know where their pot of gold is.

"If a game needs mods for it to be good, then it's probably not a good game." I've been saying this for YEARS!

Great video but some quick corrections/extra points: Lightning spells generally don't affect dragon priests since lots of them use staves instead of casting spells themself. But if you've seen mages of playable races not being affected then it's probably a base problem. Frost spells all apply an unmentioned slow effect, you can catch it if you go into the effects menu right after being hit by one. Dragon breath/NPC shouts are internally treated as spells, so they work off of magicka instead of cooldowns, an easy way to show this is to find a melee draugr and stand somewhere it can't reach. On magic characters being much worse than melee or ranged, the thing is that against staggerable enemies the game is a joke thanks to the Impact perk, but using any other school as your primary one either leads to the npcs fighting each other problem that you mentioned, or having no combat spells except for DLC outliers. Mainly using Illusion screws you out of most of the longer dungeons until 90 skill, since most of them are full of undead or dwemer robots. Stagger values are nuts, perks can make bows/destruction spells turn any 1v1 against humanoid enemies an instant win, and shield power bashing can stunlock literally anything as long as you have stamina, but daggers have no stagger value against anything, so there's no reason to use them outside of extra sneak attack damage. The game doesn't tell you anywhere about how almost every bow has a different speed modifier, while melee weapons are usually consistent across categories. Dawnguard's explosive bolts aren't actually locked behind siding with them or even completing their quests, since there's an area that the game never tells you about(Dead Drop Falls) that respawns them. Dual wielding always uses the speed of the weapon in your left hand for attacks with both hands, so power attacking with a dagger and mace nullifies the weaknesses of both. Since slower weapons have higher stagger values(which the game never tells you). You can't fight while swimming, so the only water bound enemy is much harder than it should be, and approaching enemies from water means breaking stealth and letting them get a few free hits unless you take a long way around them. The only reason to use light armor is stealth, but if you have the muffle spell, or the Silence perk at 70 sneak it doesn't matter since they fully remove all noise from moving. Alternatively the Muffled Movement perk at 30 sneak and muffle enchanted boots makes you completely silent, but the problem is that there are no guaranteed spawns of disenchatable muffled gear, but there are 3 different pieces of unique equipment that 100% silence you, but one of them is probably a bug, since level 32+ Nightingale boots give 35 muffle, which is normally a 0-1 scale.

You forgot to mention how BROWN this game is

One thing that was missed about lockpicking, there is a rune stone that allows you to unlock any lock except for master locks once a day. It also doesn't count towards picking a lock, that way you can technically beat the thieves guild quest line without ever being a thief. So yeah, that is where the lockpicking spell went, and was made worse overall.

I still can't believe my eyes when dark messiah first person melee combat is much better yet responsive feedback than Skyrim at that time.. like I said, Bethesda's first nature pretty much having too much ego, that they won't even hire professional animator nor better lead writer.

Crazy to think it’s been 10 years now since I was first disappointed by this game

Perfect timing, just finished STAG 6, let's goooooo - Jim

I will say this, Bethesda's work ethic and their developers are total EGOISTIC in nature. Despite modding community fixing every bugs every potentially crash to desktop issues bloated save files etc etc, Bethesda are too EGO to learn from it.

For anyone interested, the mod Requiem addresses a lot of the issues with the mechanics of the game. It’s still the same basic combat with the same terrible quests and dungeons, but it removes level scaling for enemies and items, which allows you to get that demigod experience at high levels and prevents drawn out slapfights. You can’t just kill dragons at level 1 anymore, for example, but you aren’t punished for leveling up too quickly. Stamina actually means something since low stamina cuts your speed and damage, and increases damage taken and spell costs (NPCs, too). Magic is extremely powerful to the point it’s kind of a meme how unbalanced high level magic is. Stealth doesn’t let you just crouch in plain sight to become effectively invisible. Perks are essential to using skills effectively at all, preventing “jack of all trades” characters. Unique items have very powerful (and unleveled) effects that far surpass what you can enchant. Potions heal over time, so you can’t just spam health potions to recover instantly. Heavy armor and light armor actually have meaningful differences with movement speed, protection, and spell casting. There are very few essential NPCs, allowing you to kill almost anyone (previously essential NPCs can only be killed by you), including ones that are vital to quests. The list goes on. It’s a very expansive overhaul. I consider it a requirement for my enjoyment of the game and highly recommend it. You can visit the Skyrim Requiem subreddit for installation instructions and tips.

I'll never understand Bethesda's obsession with long ass intros that don't allow you to do anything for 20+ minutes

Oh my…this is in my sub feed. This going to be a interesting 5 part series.

"Supposedly [the Falmer] do hear better, but does that actually function in game or is that just lore?" It is in game, but it's buried in system interactions that are way more sophisticated than the average player will ever see. Moving in stealth generates, "noise," based on the weight of your equipped gear. Falmer have an easier time detecting moving players. They also have an 80 point blind spell on them, which doesn't affect ranged attacks, but does reduce their ability to detect players if they're standing in light. The real upshot is just that you don't take the full lighting penalty when sneaking around them, and if you stop moving you become much harder for them to detect. So, the entire, "blind with better hearing," lore around the Falmer in Skyrim only applies if you're trying to sneak past them.

Agree with 99% of criticism but I'm pretty sure the falmer in game are blind. I remember playing as an assassin, and unlike other enemies if you cast muffle or or have high sneak you can walk right in front of them.

I have a confession to make: I never beat Skyrim. I played it only one time, but in that one time I wasted about 100 hours leveling up and crafting and all that stuff but then I abruptly realized how pointless all of it was and I stopped playing the game and never touched it since. This was way back when it came out. So I never actually seen the ending to the game, even though I got close. I just never really cared. I also never married my character in the game because all of the marriage options are basically the same and don't really mean anything. Like critics said at the time: Skyrim has an ocean of content, but the depth of a mudpuddle. That said, even though I haven't seen the ending of the game, I'm not concerned about spoilers because I don't even care. So therefore I will watch this video.

What's really stupid is when you bribe someone in Skyrim the amount you give them is dependent on your level not your speech skill which means you can have a speech kill of zero but because you are level 500 you successfully bribe them with zero gold

When I think of Skyrim and how good it is I think of my 1st playthrough. Going back to it now it doesn't hold up very well. Like Fallout 3 it was a lot of people's first experience with a fantasy RPG.

Time to watch this while I play Skyrim

If I do not use the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch, my main skyrim game just does not work. The carriage rides bugs out and the carriage spins out of control.

In regard to the long tutorial. Oblivions tutorial while long did teach the player about traps, alchemy, magic, different weapon types, staffs, and tons of other stuff. Skyrims tutorial is a long dungeon set crawl That sometimes mentions things.

I dont know why i love this game, there is so much bs but when im exploring and i see the landscape and hear the music, i feel happy.

Oh boy, this is gonna be fun. This game made me lose hundreds of hours of my life as I desperately tried to fix it with hundreds of mods. However, no matter how many mods I shoved in it, the combat still felt shallow, the story writing was still bad and annoying, and the RPG elements were still neutered. I have no idea how I fell in love with this game five years ago. It might've been because I just came off of Fallout: New Vegas and just thought of Skyrim as the fantasy New Vegas back then, lol. Edit: Fixing grammar and spelling.

I hope part 2 comes soon , I love these reviews because you guys go in depth.

I think any kind of standard combat is at its best when both you and the enemies die in just a few hits, kind of like in Cruelty Squad or, to an extent, Hotline Miami. This keeps the pace and stakes at a steady level, and helps make it feel like more of a power fantasy. It's okay for bosses and minibosses to be a bit more damage sponge-y than common enemies, but there still has to be some feedback to your hits, so you can actually tell you're dealing damage. Having to slap a draugr forty times instead of the usual eight just because he has a beard and different prefix to his name is fucking stupid. Another thing I'm not a fan of is how heavy armor works in these games. Rather than just reducing a higher percentage of damage, it should give you the ability to completely negate hits from weaker enemies or light weapons, with a chance for blows to deflect or glance off of your armor completely, leaving the opponent open for a counter, at the cost of weaker mobility and maneuverability. Dark Souls 1 did this pretty well, with poise allowing you to tank a lot of weaker hits without staggering, while Skyrim did a particularly shit job, with your character's animations being the exact same regardless of whether you're buck naked or clad in full plate armor.

Magic was a big sore spot for me. I loved playing mages in the older games. Honestly the speech mini game is super easy. That said it's not remotely hard to get Charm 100 points for 2 seconds.

All those questlines Bethesda made and yet I've found the most enjoyment in Skyrim is being allergic to the main quest and instead playing as a mercenary doing odd jobs to pay for my farming homestead where me and my wife farm wheat with our adopted kids. This is how Skyrim was meant to be played dammit. Anyway great video I agree with pretty much everything you said despite being one of those "loves Skyrim subjectively" people, it's the only reason I ended up getting the anniversary edition upgrade. The creation club content individually is obviously overpriced but $20 for all of it isn't bad, to me at least. Plus to Bethesda's credit they fixed how the quests would all start automatically and fill up your quest log, now they all start more naturally as in you have to do something like visit an innkeep and ask for work.

I award this video a 10/10 and a badass seal of approval

Definitely should come back and finish this Series

45:37 Aaaahhhh Dark Messiah... the Medieval Fist of the North Star simulator.

A big thumbs up for Creetosis and Setch for making this great video. And another big thumbs up for the modders that fix and improve Skyrim

Liking before I even start watching, I think that speaks to your developing track record as someone who is extremely thorough and objective when making content

ayyy lets go excited for the new series, cree!

Really hope a part two comes from you one day. This format is great

"Bukka-tagaak! Bukka-tagaak! Buk-Buk-Buk-Bukka-tagaak!" Ahh, the sound of the mighty Cliff Racer.

I’ve waited two years for part 2… I’ve been so eager for the second part… please GOD, tell me this isn’t an abandoned project.

Can’t wait for this series to end at part 2 and the inevitable "Hey guys, part 3 is coming, I’m just gonna work on [Insert new project here] first" community post. I’ll enjoy this one while it lasts though.

9:45 To be fair to Oblivion, they actually gave thought about the long tutorial and made a hard save right before you got out of the sewer and allowed you to change pretty much everything as far as i can remember and it tried to teach you more things like alchemy and sneak attack too for example. 10:03 The magic centered races start each with a spell corresponding their race most proficient school of magic, but yeah, it's still not much nor a gamechanger. 14:07 There is actually a working lockpick spell in the game, it's tied to the tower standing stone and opens a single expert locked thing per in game day, so you could in theory open everything that's not master locked with patience, but still, your point still stands because it's a single occurrence in the game and you would have needed to get prior knowledge, compared to the other games where there actual was alteration spells for that. 29:00 That exactly show that they wanted players to be a jack of all trades, if you want to upgrade your armor/weapons, the only option is to survive boredom and level up the the smithing skill, i don't even want to image if you only could repair weapons yourself in the earlier games. 30:02 The even worse thing, is that this spell that's only something you'd do somewhere safe actually costs a lot of magicka, if you don't have put much points into the magicka stat, you have to cast it once, wait an hour, cast it once, wait another hour because of how slow you regenerate magicka by default. 32:37 And since the enemies just get more health and usually keep mediocre armors with nothing really unique, you're not even "rewarded" for the tedious task of killing them. 40:20 There is actually a difference between each type of weapons, but it's simply a matter of Sword being faster than Axe, but doing less damage and Axe being faster than Mace, but doing less damage, while still being slower and doing more damage than Sword, and that's it if we don't account for the perks. 49:49 The funny thing is, dual casting is not cost efficient, you spend 2.8x the amount of magicka needed to have an spell power upgrade of 2.2x, it's pretty much only useful on spell effects that can't stack, for a skill you have to spend a skill point for. 53:03 The issue with lightning too is that it pretty much only works early on, because npcs regenerate magicka at 70% of their normal rate in combat, and you, as the player, regenerate it only up to 30% of your normal rate, which is why, when you've leveled up a bit, the drain magicka of lightning does basically nothing against the bigger magicka pool and regen rate of the npcs, and the same thing applies for health and stamina regen rate, albeit at different values. 1:19:15 And there's also a radiant quest you can get from the greybeards to make sure you don't miss those shouts. Pretty great video, can't wait to see the others when they'll be done, also sorry you had to play vanilla Skyrim, as a former console player that spent quite some time on the original edition, i know what it feels like.

I am *hurting* for the other parts!! This is so good!

Whoooo booooy, you dont know how much ive been looking forward to this one

This is perfect timing Cree and Setch you amazing bastards

Happy Anniversary Bois played and loved it since 11.11.11!…Now that Todd left the room may god have mercy on our souls if we have to pay for Skyrim another 10 times all over again.

Watched STAG stream #1 *mentions Skyrim video*. Look what just popped up in my recommended. Holy crap the timing. Just wanted to say loved your vids on fallout 3 + 4. Can’t wait to hear what you have to say about Skyrim.

Bethesda-Twice the Pride, Double the FALL. Hey you, your finally awake, Got caught trying to cross the border from the Mojave by the Legion. TRUE TO CAESAR XD

It's finally here and let's hope that God Howard doesn't smite this off the face of the earth.

Was literally wondering a few hours ago how your video series was progressing, and here come part 1, ooh baby, my body is ready.

what happened to the other parts

Been waiting for this to come out!

I've played Skyrim for thousands of hours without mods over the years and thoroughly enjoy the game. But I respect people's right to complain, hell that may make the devs make ES6 an even better experience so keep at it.

I’ve been wanting and waiting for you to do this for so long I look forward to making and breaking so many of my relationships with this Video sincerely thank you Creetosis!

You should retitle this vid to part 1 of 1 😂

Ahhh… my favorite closeted avian.

Hopefully between you and Patrician TV, we can finally see good objective eyes on Skyirm even as one who has a bit of a place for me as my first elder scrolls game I always disliked how so many content creators barley talked about the main faults of it.

This is where the fun begins.

Oh God, thank you for highlighting the problem with sneak. Especially the B-lining straight for you despite having never seen you.

I know Skyrim is shit but i like it (With mods lol)

1:19:53 I said this on the discord and I'll say it here. I agree with most everything in your video. But I'm still gonna call it out. _Dragon Aspect was a Shout invented by Miraak, the First Dragonborn. It was created by a human being with a draconic soul so he could further tap into the power of said soul._ If you use the shout during the boss fight against Miraak, he outright says _"So, you use my own Shout against me. You learn quickly."_ Idk how long ago that part was recorded, but I did have to come and say it.

The leveling system is a good *base.* Skills leveling based on what you do directly, aggregating into your character level... Perks to enhance skill effects... But a base does not make a good full package. Having reactive stats (similar to the bonuses in prior games) work in a similar manner as character level (e.g. leveling more "mage" skills increases your "mage" stats) would have been a good addition. As would having a fucking unarmed skill. And while we're at it, so would having an additional, hidden "skill" bar for quest exp. Works the same as skills, but increases when you finish a quest... Y'know... Like a RPG does.

I still play this game regularly. There's something deeply relaxing just exploring them ruins

*scream* Thank you, Creetosissssss ! 🦉💜

Another mechanic I want to add onto the discussion is leveled unique items. The idea behind it is that it allows players to have access to any quest at any level they want without getting an overpowered items that can break game balance, however in practice it is detrimental to the game since the level of items is set the first time you enter an area this encourage players to *not* explore further until they reach a high enough level. This also includes quest completion as well.

Finally got through all the STAGs and now you post this? At least I know what I'll be doing at work

I can't wait for part 2 to come out maybe next year :)

Best memories I have of Skyrim is playing it in the first few weeks it came out. All of my friends got it too, and we’d all talk to each other while playing. But I guess I didn’t really need Skyrim for that?

Can't remember who said it, but basically: the universal currency is gold, yet it's a world where everyone can perform magic, and there's a novice spell that turns iron into gold. When i heard that my opinion on Bethesda went from 'yeah they are kinda trash, but you can have some fun' to 'holy shit, i hope it all burns down'.

I really appreciate the gen I and II pokémon background music.

The Unofficial Skyrim Patch comes in clutch a lot of the time. Especially since it fixes the Arcane Point quest glitch that prevents you from finding other Shouts via the Greybeards telling you where they are.

Cree's reviews excel at making me want to play Legend of Dragoon again. Such an underrated OST.

For myself, I think the reason Skyrim is still loved is because it's pretty much the only 1st person RPG where you truly create your own character, and explore an open world without restraint. Nobody else really makes that, as far as I've seen. It's why Fallout is still a favorite of mine. Whatever I might say about Skyrim, I have hundreds of hours in it. And that's a shame. I wish more people made these. Then maybe I'D have more options.

Been waiting for this, king

To be fair I do love the one with the giant launching you into the next universe

Another problem with dragons is that despite Bethesda trying to make them super dangerous threath , when one spawn above any village, every NPC just charge him and starts fighting him. Grandma come we are going to fight dragon.... And most NPCs are grneric or Essential so they are going to win eventually.

Oh ew... Was that Oxhorn? Gentlemen extraordinaire, fair use fighter, and professional Bethesda ball sniffer? Damn i though he died under a pile of cigars and burbon like a wannabe Churchill.

I can't wait for you to tear into the story/world building in part 2

Can't wait for part 2. Love your stuff cree. I remember part 2 being up but I guess you gotta re edit. Take it easy bro

NEW CREETOSIS DROPPED, LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO

Shoutout to Zaric Zhakaron. I recommend everyone here check out his Ideal Elder Scrolls, Before Skyrim, and Elder Scrolls Lore playlists.

This is why Todd took peters crown, even fable three had spell weaving my guy.

A new Kinotosis video. I'll admit, as far as Elder Scrolls goes, I know of Skyrim, seen some speedruns of the other games, and that's about the extent of it. Thus I would not be able to offer much insight. "Mods will fix it." If there's one thing that Fallout 76 ought to get credit for, it's finally exposing why this was such a bad argument. Since the game couldn't be modded, whatever problems Bethesda left in there, stayed there until Bethesda themselves fixed it. And boy, there was a lot of problems people probably really wished modders would have been able to fix. The very state the game was launched in almost signifies that Bethesda themselves became overly reliant on the modding community. No wonder they pushed for paid mods. Modders are practically Bethesda employers in all but name. I know if I made a bug fix mod for Bethesda's titles, I'd put "Officially worked for Bethesda" on my resume. "Lore" Kind of bodes poorly for Bethesda's writing given that they're the ones who made Elder Scrolls in the first place. With Fallout, there's 3 games with consistent lore between them and so a lot of the rules are firmly established and thus it's possible to definitively say that something is lore breaking. With Elder Scrolls, if things change so frequently between games, there's not really much you can state other than "I guess Bethesda decided this is true now." It doesn't help that Elder Scrolls bases it's world building on magic, which seems to be a very easy way to find yourself digging deeper into the nonsensical unless you immediately reign yourself in and set iron hard limits on what can and cannot be done. If you can abra-cadabra your way out of any lore issue, your lore is going to get sloppy quick. "It does have a perk system to substitute the removal of classes and specialization." Why does that sound so familiar? "RPG" Probably one of the saddest things is that at this point, there's very little difference between a Bethesda RPG and the modern Assassin's Creed games. Bethesda's RPGs used to have an element of complexity, but were simplified to such great degrees that the mechanics are recognizable as those of RPGs but with nothing to distinguish them from the lot of other RPGs dedicated to casuals out there. Similarly, Assassin's Creed has been adding more RPG elements over the years, like choosing your sex, skill trees, multiple dialogue choices, and so on to the point where they've taken very simple stealth games and turned them into role playing-lite. These are two sorts of games that should only intersect gameplay-wise if someone really goes out of their way to play a stealth killer build, but functionally both Skyrim and the most recent AC games play the same. The overlap looks to be more evident with games like Skyrim, but could apply to Bethesda's Fallout games as well. They do seem to be, unironically, Skyrim with guns. "Speech" I've put some thought into how Bethesda might be able to improve their game design. It's pretty clear that in general, their idea of how to set up a quest is that you talk to an NPC, go to a dungeon, kill/collect a thing, and return. The problem being that this lends itself to very limited design philosophies when it comes to quests. You have the option of what sword/gun you want to use against the thing you need to kill, but ultimately the end result is going to be exactly the same. If they were able to really commit to the idea that they need to have at least three different ways of solving the quest, be it a violent way and two non-violent ones, two violent ones but one very indirect, certain skills might let you solve the quest as soon as it starts or may lead to an alternate ending, etc-might go a long way in helping Bethesda improve their quest designs overall. They can't rely on their incredibly linear way of handling things if more than one play style needs to be accommodated, and if they do need to brainstorm different ways of solving quests, it might actually lead to some interesting ideas they otherwise might never have thought of if they didn't have that requirement. It's overall rather depressing how technology had improved substantially but games overall had gotten simpler. Developers of the past were incredibly limited in what they were able to do, so they had to try and push as many different game mechanics to the limits to get as much as they can out of the limited hardware of the time. Now that hardware is far far less restrictive, developers have opted to play things as safe and bland as possible, dumbing down everything they could and making sure that as many people's play styles end up being as similar as possible in what should be an even more varied and open ended RPG. "Merchant gold pools" One possible solution to this sort of problem would be for an area to have a series of interesting quests, large and small, that if you solve, allows for the merchants to have larger amounts of money. The implication in world would be that the quality of the area had improved and thus encouraged more trade, and that the merchant isn't spending their own money trying to help fix the various issues plaguing the town and is able to thus save up more. This could also affect what supplies they sell as more trade means more opportunity for better items from farther away to end up being exchanged. It would be a small thing, but one that helped give a bit of life to the world and give a real sense of impact beyond seeing the quest title declare itself to be completed. They kind of did this with Fallout 4's settlement system but still ended up relying heavily on using a special perk when it came to bartering. "Axes" It's also worth pointing out that they had a use outside of combat. In fact, their use in cutting down trees and chopping wood was their primary purpose. With that, if you are part of a town of any sort, there is going to be an axe somewhere and thus the likelihood of them being used in combat is increased by proxy. They don't need to be specially smithed like a sword or warhammer, and axe is an axe is an axe whether you're chopping limbs off of trees or people. Given that throughout history, it was typically farmers and peasants who made up the majority of an army as opposed to distinguished knights, it's not surprising they'd rely on tools they already had on them as opposed to spending what little they had to commission new ones. "Can't cripple heads" Seems weird that you can't because that was a thing in Fallout 3. I know Bethesda's games code is basically a gordian knot, but it seems odd that they didn't just port over the code that checked which part of the enemy was damaged and how much overall damage that does to the enemy as a result. For all the memes about once being an adventurer before taking an arrow to the knee, shooting people's knees with arrows have no discernable impact over any other part of their body. "X can fight like bandits" I'm getting some real flashbacks to the fact that multiple enemies in Fallout are effectively raiders with different skins and character models. I see you've gotten outside help with your script as well. If you are willing, I'd love to work with you on something as well.

Alright about the whole "oh you have a lot of the choice how you defeat a dragon - with sword, axe, magic or bow - therefore its an RPG!" That arguement is absolutely wrong. Let me bring a simple example taken from TTRPGs how and what the whole gameplay loop consists of. It consists of the *encounters* Encounters can have absolutely different scale and the amount of outcomes. Some of them dont have options therefore they are called "railroaded". And its not a bad thing - if used correctly - as a starting point of the adventure or as a result of a previous chain of encounters or, in rare cases, a final event that players were preparing for. Everything else, in most cases, should have a wide range of options or atleast some. See the bandit? You can kill him. You can bruise him and talk him out. You can pay him off. You can fright him he leaves by your look or skill demonstration. You can persuade him you are of the same views and essentially a bandit too. Its just a simple example of what players might do with a bandit in TTRPG. We probably cant have a huge branching story for such a simple encounter to not make it repetitive in videogame RPG. The problem is Skyrim *does not have* the choice. All your encounter options are kill or ignore. The second option being a questionable content skip at times. Thats all. What could save us from it? Quests with branches and options. Guess what - we almost dont have those. We cant susbtitute the item or make a fake of it we were ordered to bring. We cant majority of times talk out with the hunted enemy or bring them alive. We dont have alternative entrances or exists in dungeons to get items/targets you would need your other skills than combat ones. What is the beforementioned weapon choices then you might ask? Simple. Its an option to handle the kill encounter. Not the whole encounter but only the "kill" option. The very core design is an RPG-lite at best because of that.

Why I do keep rewatching these? Why, or even how these videos make me wanna go back to these products and re-experience them? Thank you regardless

My biggest problem with combat is that only four things stagger enemies: power attacks, block bashes, offense based shouts, and dual cast destruction spells if one has taken the impact perk. That means that enemies will shrug off the basic attack of a GIANT warhammer without even flinching but if you hit a little harder than normal with a knife they'll stagger. Not to mention ALL of these ways of staggering use a limited resource: either stamina, Magicka, or shout cool down. Meanwhile you're still taking hits from enemies that can often damage you far more than you can damage them.

Long man short

Damn. No Part 2 on the Channel.

I'm surprised you didn't mention how Speech and bartering are so needed, not only for the gold they have, but for the they are willing to buy. So it's doubly restrictive, as even when they have the gold... They will just refuse to buy what you have until you have the lv50 Speech perk.

Oh, in case you wanted to know, I did figure out the conversation wheel in oblivion. Each option has to be done for every rotation, and the fullness of that slice of the wheel is the "strength" of that choice. You tell which one is the big positive, small positive, small negative, and big negative by the face expression, and it's a game of make the bigger wheel slices line up with the positive options, and the smaller slices line up with the negatives. Once you do it right, you raise disposition with npcs really really fast, doesn't even take much time.. Not that I ever found a reason to increase npc disposition but then I only played oblivion for 100 hours or so.

Oh shit it's here! Grumpy owl shaking the pillars of heaven.

Since I never get the chance to complain about this to anyone else, I'll say it: I absolutely hate the concept of Dragon Breaks, at least how they're used. Having an in-universe situation that can break BASIC CAUSALITY, to the point where mutually exclusive things can happen and we just have to accept that, makes it impossible to care about the world as a whole. How can we care, or indeed even think about, a world where it can simultaneously be true that Cyrodiil has always been a jungle but also has never been a jungle at any point, or the fact that somehow ALL of the possible endings to Daggerfall are canon despite them involving giving the Totem of Tiber Septim to different people. If the universe itself doesn't care about its lore, why should I?

Alternate start is the only way to not be treated like a demigod by everyone. Being a vampire sucks lol

Now this is what i've been waiting for!!

Lol Skyrim is a complete joke of a game, it's a terrible RPG, and it's just.... eugh. But that has not stopped me from putting near to 2,000 hours into the game between LE, SE, and on Switch. Never will I ever call this game good. Just fun for me, with mods especially.