Skyrim - What's New @ GameSpy

GameSpy has a general summary of changes in Skyrim. I can't see anything new but it does offer a broad overview:

The New Rogue: Poor sad, weak bow and arrow. The weapon of choice for ranged players was never very impressive in Oblivion, no matter how good one's skill. But in Skyrim, the bow has become a formidable tool of assassination. Bethesda got the idea from playing an Oblivion mod where skillful players could take down foes with a single arrow. Yes, you too can now perform a one-hit kill with a bow and arrow in Skyrim (depending on the health of your foe and if your skill and equipment – not to mention aim – are good enough). Players will still zoom in to aim, but now, the longer a bow is drawn back, the more powerful the shot will be. And we hate to burst your bubble if you're suddenly envisioning an arrow-filled inventory and a quick conquest of Skyrim, but Bethesda has made arrows expensive and rare in the game. Treat those babies like gold.
In addition, Bethesda has tweaked the stealth system, making it more difficult for enemies to become alerted to your presence, and skillful rogues can sneak up on enemies and pull off one-hit assassinations. Oh, and the rogue's bread and butter, lock picking, has also been given an overhaul to mimic the mechanic found in Bethesda's Fallout franchise.

More information.

Gosh, actually treating bows and ammunition realistically?? Perish the thought!

No game has ever treated bows and arrows (or guns or swords or …) realistically. Some get pretty close (like JA2 1.13), though.

I love this.

Bethesda notes that these dragon battles are not scripted, so expect each and every one to be a unique challenge.

Or they are exactly the same, just like each Oblivion gate wasn't scripted?

And don't worry about getting stuck in a particular class — set classes have been thrown out the window in Skyrim, allowing players to develop a character based on the way they play the game.

Err, OK…

As you make your way up to the theoretical level cap of 70 you won't have to worry about adding points in eight different attribute categories like in previous Elder Scrolls games.

Yay! No thinking required!

Please circle the odd item in the following list:

circle
circle
circle
square

Next question, please circle the out of place verb:

working (various jobs)
eating
drinking
sleeping
killing

Bethesda has made arrows expensive and rare in the game. Treat those babies like gold.

How does this make any sense? Is there a shortage of wood in the game?

Just arrowheads. They are made from dragonbone, apparently.

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
How does this make any sense? Is there a shortage of wood in the game?

Seriously?


http://www.thefletcher.co.uk/specialist/warbow-arrows/

And if we absolutely must be modern about this:

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/st…hString=Arrows

The Marriage is news to me, I foresee lots and lots of player mods for that one.

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
How does this make any sense? Is there a shortage of wood in the game?

Handmade arrows take a lot of time and skill to make well. I suppose if they wanted they could make super-shitty arrows really common but as the link provided above should show you arrows are not a cheap disposable ammunition.

Not only does making a straight shaft require a significant ammount of skill - and waste since many potential shafts will inevitably warp due to weather and other uncontrolled variables; the creation of a balanced and durable arrow head and fletching is also non-trivial. Heck in larger more advanced medieval economies the production of arrow shafts and arrow heads would have been split to different specializations.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I love this.



Or they are exactly the same, just like each Oblivion gate wasn't scripted?



Err, OK…



Yay! No thinking required!

Classes were totally meaningless in every TES game so it makes sense to remove them.

Deciding what perks you are going to choose probably takes more thinking then picking your attributes at level up.

Like playing rangers wasn't already a pain having to buy and carry arrows around now they are rare ..
From the collected information pure archers (that do not employ sneak) have slow bows, rare arrows, they can not jump to high places & running backwards is much slower. In a scenario where you enter this tutorial full of enemies building they presented in gamescon do you think they have a chance ?
It looks unbalanced to me .

They're probably balancing the archery approach in a way that makes each arrow count a lot more.

Makes sense to me, but I'll have to see it in action to know if they've hit the right balance.

I've started to prefer bow/arrow over pretty much everything else in fantasy games these days, and since I always favor stealth gameplay - I'm hoping they've balanced the game to make that approach viable. I'm pretty sure they have, though, and I don't get the bitching in this thread.

Well, I do get the bitching, but I can't draw a line from it to a reasonable disposition.

Just read this:

To enhance the defense system, Bethesda has added a timing-based blocking system that requires players to position their shields appropriately to parry incoming blows, and backpedaling has been nerfed so players can't blindly run backwards as quickly as they run forward.

What is you are a pure mage (unarmoured) and don't use a shield and you don't have a staff? How do you flee from an encounter which is going pear-shaped? This must be a way to reasonably disengage. Sounds like turning around to flee would be a bad idea, and people can easily knock you donw if you don't keep your guard up.

So if every arrow counts i guess level 3 characters will still land all their blows , or there will be no way you can miss .

Originally Posted by guenthar
Classes were totally meaningless in every TES game so it makes sense to remove them.

Hey , many of my characters had classes i randomly picked from my hat and levelled appropriately so no classes were not meaningless but add to replayability



booboo o don't think unarmored will be a skill

I somehow believe that the GameSpy piece is slightly inaccurate. It wouldn't surprise me if what they really meant in the context of archery/stealth/rogue gameplay is that the HQ arrows that allow you to one-hit kill enemies will be extremely rare. I'm finding it hard to believe that regular arrows are going to be scarce.

I believe that the GameSpy sentence should actually read like this:

And we hate to burst your bubble if you're suddenly envisioning an arrow-filled inventory and a quick conquest of Skyrim, but Bethesda has made [high quality] arrows [that allow you to one-hit kill] expensive and rare in the game.

Originally Posted by booboo
Just read this:

What is you are a pure mage (unarmoured) and don't use a shield and you don't have a staff? How do you flee from an encounter which is going pear-shaped? This must be a way to reasonably disengage. Sounds like turning around to flee would be a bad idea, and people can easily knock you donw if you don't keep your guard up.

Cast chameleon or invisibility, turn around and run. Or summon a critter behind your foe and run when he's distracted. Or create a shield to absorb/reflect damage for you. Or paralyse/burden your foe and run away.

Yes, as always, if you have the right spells you can do all sorts of things - but backpedalling made combat while fleeing possible, which had a huge impact. It will be interesting to see if combat is now appreciably harder, and if certain "classes" are disadvantaged.

For what its worth, I think back-pedalling is effectively an exploit, but that didn't stop me from using it as a tactical option.

I liked using stealth & bows in Oblivion. I think I'm going to like it in Skyrim. What I'm skeptic about is dragon battles. How are you gonna battle dragons using a bow? You can's go into stealth mode, you can't backstep and fire, if you try to turn your back and run… well, you can't outrun a flying dragon. And on top of that, bow ammo is scarce. How am I supposed to fight a dragon with a bow?

Originally Posted by blackcanopus
I liked using stealth & bows in Oblivion. I think I'm going to like it in Skyrim. What I'm skeptic about is dragon battles. How are you gonna battle dragons using a bow? You can's go into stealth mode, you can't backstep and fire, if you try to turn your back and run… well, you can't outrun a flying dragon. And on top of that, bow ammo is scarce. How am I supposed to fight a dragon with a bow?

I may be going out on a limb here, but I expect that to fight a dragon with a bow, you'll probably have to shoot arrows at it.

What happened to Smaug in The Hobbit?