Bethesda's said it doesn't have to 'dumb down' Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in order to attract a big audience.
"Honestly, [making the game more accessible is] not something that we think about a lot, in that we've found that we're getting a pretty big audience making a game that we want to make," Howard said.
"We want to make it for whoever it is - even if you've played Elder Scrolls before, you haven't played this one, so you don't understand what a skill does yet."
The design director explained that instead he wants to remove some of the "confusion" from the latest Elder Scrolls instalment.
"We want to remove confusion, that's what I'd say. As opposed to making it more accessible, we'd like to remove confusion for anyone who's playing," he explained.
"What we're trying to do now is lead you into it more... In our games or others' games, they give you a character menu and say, 'Who do you want to be, what powers do you want?' [Players think,] 'I don't know, I haven't played yet!'
"What happens in Oblivion is you start the game, play for three hours, and then think 'I want to start over, I chose wrong.' So we'd like to sort of alleviate some of that. I also think the controls work better [too] ... it's more elegant.
"You look at Call of Duty, the most popular game in the world, and that's actually pretty hardcore. At the end of the day, it's a hardcore game, has RPG elements in multiplayer, making classes, picking perks. I think the audiences are there, and we tend to make our game more for ourselves and other people who play a lot of games."
A tonne of new Skyrim details emerged via a fan Q&A with the development team earlier this week.
Comments
29 comments so far...
budge on 8 Jul '11 said:
Bethesda, can you tell this to BioWare please?
gmcb007 on 8 Jul '11 said:
Could you tell the same to IO about Hitman and Ubisoft about Splinter Cell.
COD is the worst example he could have used. Since Modern Warfare, the series has been completely dumbed down.( MW2's nuke is a perfect example)
Jurdge on 8 Jul '11 said:
And to Lionhead about Fable.
ingy on 8 Jul '11 said:
Agreed,
now if we could just convince developers to remove flashing weapons, on screen scoring for every action carried out and the never ending prompts to 'press this, press that, pick up this' and the endless 'hide behind something till my health repairs'....phew,
almanac2015 on 8 Jul '11 said:
Why would they need to dumb it down? They already did it for consoles with Oblivion. Not that I'm complaining - as much as I like Morrowind I find it's far too hardcore for me and the journal and clack of compass confuse me greatly. But the fact remains they did dumb the series down.
metallicorphan on 8 Jul '11 said:
big fan of Howard but this is probably the only dumbest thing Todd Howard has said,COD has attracted more players because its been dumbed down since the glory days of COD2 and earlier,you no longer need any real skill for COD,at least this is my opinion anyway
ingy on 8 Jul '11 said:
I'm a bit concerned about being able to change skills on the fly.
I also played for a couple of hours as a certain class before starting again with a different choice,
while this was a bit of a pain, an rpg should be about persevering with the class you choose, that's the whole point of having different race/classes, you have to learn the pros and cons of each.
Otherwise you're changing skills for every different problem you encounter.
almanac2015 on 8 Jul '11 said:
The aim is to make changing class a difficult choice - a limit on how many times you can do it for example, or having to sacrifice certain gear etc. Or the best one - or a time limit (once every 30 hours game time or more preferably you can only change in the first few hours and then the time expires).
sweatyBallacks on 8 Jul '11 said:
+ 1.
And as much as I like Bethesda, there's no way this will not be 'dumbed-down' in some way imo.
Dumbing-down is bad, just to qualify my pov. Call me insane, but I like 'confusion' in games sometimes.
TheCrimsonFenix on 8 Jul '11 said:
Yet they insist with each game to remove certain things with the excuse of making the rest of the game polished. I loved those ninja stars, crossbows, spears, throwing knives and such in Morrowind. The level scaling system in Oblivion sucked ass too. Judging from Bethesda's last efforts, they're a good developer, just lazy in some ways. Elder Scrolls is still good, the problem is with each one it seems they're semi-forcing you to go a certain way.
gearyboy on 8 Jul '11 said:
As far as the 'dumbing down' hints, tips and flashing items thing go, couldn't developers just have option to turn on and off in same sort of way as many driving games have levels of assists e.g. Dirt 3. You can then tailor to own needs. Some games do indeed have these options but not many. Assume it would require a lot of additional development time...
nb_nmare2 on 8 Jul '11 said:
Morrowind was actually dumbed down itself, most likely because it was the first of the series to be released on a console (the original XBox). Arena and Daggerfall were considerably more hardcore.
RetroJB on 8 Jul '11 said:
As much as I agree that devs/publishers need to quit dumbing everything down to appease the video game grazers, seriously, CoD hardcore? Not at all. Simplistic, popcorn fodder for the masses.
Poor choice, Todd.
Felly117 on 8 Jul '11 said:
So if Skyrim is even dumbererer, then eventually the elder scrolls will descend into a wierd gray mulch that was once our brains!
almanac2015 on 8 Jul '11 said:
That doesn't surprise me really, I have just never played them (too old for me to get into them now).
I'd love the Skyrim quest compass to be optional.
TheCrimsonFenix on 8 Jul '11 said:
Never have understood the dumbed down argument by some people who blame consoles. It's easy to say Crysis 2 was dumbed down for consoles but it wasn't. It was just the result of Crytek choosing to go the more linear direction, for whatever reason it may be. Much like the transition between Daggerfall and Morrowind. They had a more detailed world to create whilst trying their best to get everything just as good if not better than it's predecessor. It's easier to create an open world game with Doom style graphics than it is to create one with a hell of a lot more detail in it.
Some developers just do not have to the time and money to devote a s**t ton of development in creating a truly great successor, so sacrifices have to be made. Others can just be lazy or want more sales, so come up with excuses. This generation it's been the "broader audience" excuse. At the end of the day, they're the ones making the game and will be the ones making the design choices. People being people, will buy it anyway.
"We want to make it for whoever it is - even if you've played Elder Scrolls before, you haven't played this one"
As much as loyal fans of a games series are, you're still going to be playing a new game and not the same one you did last time. They're not going to stick to the same game ideas throughout a series for worry it will be the same damn thing over and over, despite the fact people are very fine playing with mechanics and gameplay ideas that have very little wrong with them. Improve it, don't remove it.
He makes a comment about people wanting to start over if they're confused about a particular character class or race which they want to change. Wasn't the reason the whole ability to change your race, name, looks, class, and sign before exiting the sewers in Oblivion for that very purpose?
CrispyLog on 8 Jul '11 said:
Al RPGs have dumbed down since the days of board games with dice, I blame PCs.
nb_nmare2 on 8 Jul '11 said:
I've played some oldschool PC RPGs that were considerably more complicated than their pnp counterparts
.
flash501 on 8 Jul '11 said:
Damn bloody right they don't need to dumb it down. If people want to play something simpler, play Mario or something!
djs88 on 8 Jul '11 said:
They don't need to dumb it down for it to sell, there are MILLIONS of Elder Scroll's fans out there waiting to get this on day one, like me and eveybody else on here!
Uncharted 3, Dark Soul's and Skyrim are my most anticipated games 0f 2011
RetroJB on 8 Jul '11 said:
I blame Angry Birds and all that other s**t that your granny can understand.
jukkiz on 9 Jul '11 said:
Then why did you dumb down Oblivion, Bethesda?
Morrowind is still one of the best games I've ever played. Oblivion wouldn't even crack my TOP-250 list. Too dumbed down, world's too small, too easy, too short.
Not looking forward to Angry Skyrim.
Legend Turtle on 9 Jul '11 said:
ME WANT BE BIG TIGERMAN ONLY PRESS ONE BUTTON MAKE SHINY CLUB BASH
dragonjim on 9 Jul '11 said:
the elder scrolls isn't really that hardcore anyway
Deinsleaf on 9 Jul '11 said:
If it's for the better, then go ahead. Streamline the game. Just don't dumb it down too much. It loses all its intricacies. In the Elder Scrolls Series however, there is a reasonable difference between the generation gap between Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. In my opinion, Morrowind hit the sweet spot between the generations. But still, whatever works for Bethesda. I just hope it also works for the "hardcore" gamers that stuck with them from the start.
PlanesOutcast on 9 Jul '11 said:
If you asked 100 gamers what genre the Call of Duty series is and you'd get "FPS".
If you asked them if it was hardcore they'd say "it's just a shooter"
If you told them it was an RPG they'd laugh at you.
For Todd Howard to use Call of Duty Modern Warfare as an example worries the hell out of me!
It would be like trying to convince me the next STALKER game was going to be brilliant because
it was like Wii Fit in so many ways - and look how successful that title was on the Wii!
Legend Turtle on 10 Jul '11 said:
I totally disagree - his point wasn't that mw is an rpg but rather that the fps has got a lot more complex than it used to be and is still successful. So why should RPGs be dumbed down.
divinebeetle on 10 Jul '11 said:
I was with him till the Call of duty bit
Sixpack1976 on 10 Jul '11 said:
So is he saying that he wants to go down the COD route?
Basically running around at 60fps killing things acting like a headless chicken and then maybe sleep in a tavern when it gets dark......count me out.
Oblivion was ok but it didnt do it for me like the Baldurs Gate/IceWind Dale series.