Elder Scrolls 6 likely won’t revert to “fiddly character sheets” after Baldur’s Gate 3 success, explains Skyrim lead

Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith explained that Larian’s success is an “exception” to the last decade of gaming trends, but one that shows a shift in desire from gamers.

There's been no shift, we've just been ignored and under-served for around two decades. But, sure, keep ignoring us.

"Streamlining" has been their mantra since Oblivion. TES6 is going to be even more watered down than everything else, but also crammed full of useless things. I'm willing to bet they'll let you build a town. But the town will do nothing and won't have any impact at all in the game.

The Magic System was simplified, but was made more reactive with things like igniting oil spills

Man, fuck oil spills. You walk into the first dungeon, you set fire to an oil spill with a spell. Then you'll try dropping one of those laterns, which are always conveniently placed above the Exxon Valdez. And then, that's it, the fun is over, the joke is told, that's all you can do with oil spills.

I'd also really like to know what other examples there are of it being more reactive. You can't freeze the ground to make enemies slip. You can't zap a river to fry some fishes. You can't set fire to wood.

It really feels like some dev thought to themselves, we've got oil lamps, maybe we could have some of that drip out, and then the Sweet Little Lies guy said fuck yes, put lakes of oil into every dungeon, so I can claim we've made the magic system more reactive or some shit.

Oof. I liked character stat screen in morrowind. I hate tjat newer bethesda games hide it.

Baldur's gate 3 characters aren't even that complicated. You pick stats at the start from a limited range of options, and then make very few choices when you level up. Some levels you don't pick anything at all. This ain't path of exile.

I got a mod for bg3 that gives you a feat every level and holy shit did that make it more interesting.

To WotC's credit, making character choice really shallow is probably why the game succeeded so well. A lot of people don't really want a lot of choices, especially when some are traps.

Skyrim turning star-signs into shrines was a brilliant move. Didn't oversimplify their effects, didn't put the quiz before the lesson, didn't give you any reason to delete a character and start over. And by making them in-world objects, at disparate locations, you couldn't just open a menu and rewrite yourself. So much streamlining, especially in the Elder Scrolls, paves over interesting systems in the name of approachability. But occasionally they nail it.

Obsession with character sheets comes from the misapprehension that the R in RPG stands for “roll” and not “role” imo.

Personally, I find that to be good news. I prefer ES's "just do the thing to get better at it" approach over arbitrary experience points to get better at whatever you decide to upgrade when you level up.

It also doesn't mean there won't be stats. The engine still depends on stats whether or not Bethesda makes UI for it or allows granular control of it. FO4's perks, for example, set various attribute and hidden skill points in the background to hard values because that's how the game handles the extra "power attacks" you can make. Instead of how it was displayed to the user in Oblivion, where you get these extra attacks at 25, 50, 75 and 100 points in a skill, you just upgrade the perk and it sets those values to the necessary milestone.

None of these simplifications stop it from being a good action adventure game. I think at this point if you still consider them to be RPGs first and not straight up action games, you're only setting yourself up for disappointment. They haven't been good RPGs since Oblivion first shifted the series to being more action-oriented.

I’m curious what people are hoping for. When was the last time Bethesda made a good game? I would bet maybe 5% of ppl working on Skyrim are still there. It’s unlikely they will be able to correct course, and we’ll get a new Starfield

Stats are incredibly boring. People want to see upgrades that actually do something, stuff like perks. Those are far more interesting and tangible than leveling your CHR stat from 32 to 33.

Water down the orange drink, Willie.

I've watered it down as much as it can go, it can't take no more!

I think I wanna fire up Morrowind!

Just cancel this game or give it to larian studios already, I don't want elder scrolls 6 anymore

So aside from Baldurs gate 3, who's actually making good RPGs these days?

Good to know they keep going their own way. We got more than enough carbon copy games nowadays, always excited for something unique.

Pathetic

Well it's good to have confirmation TES ended with Skyrim and we won't have to port oblivion to yet another game, ever, for any reason.