Some things Skyrim could have done better.

Fallout 4 was recently released, and while I didn't feel a strong desire to return to the wasteland, the buzz of a new Bethesda RPG made me decide to fire up Skyrim again and set off on another adventure in the world of Tamriel.

Skyrim is a great game, one of my favorite games ever in fact, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any ways for the game to be improved upon.  Here are some of my biggest gripes about Skyrim and some suggestions for how I think these weaknesses can be improved upon for the next installment of The Elder Scrolls.

Skyrim does a really bad job of explaining the mechanics of the game to players.  Luckily for us, there are some great wikis that contain the knowledge that devoted Skyrim fans were able to wring from the game, but for someone who does not want to do additional reading, Skyrim is a game with a lot of unknown information regarding what actually happens when you play it.  More specifically, the combat mechanics are barely even touched upon beyond short descriptions of weapons, spells, abilities, and enchantments.  A few examples:

-The damage number on a weapon is not useful except when comparing weapons of the exact same type due to hidden differences in attack speed between weapon types.

-The speed at which dual wield attacks are made are determined by the attack speed of the weapon in your left hand.

-Different enemies are weak and resistant to different kinds of damage.

-The rate at which you gain experience in Alchemy is based on the gold value of the potions you create.

-Power attacks when sneaking can provide up to three times as much experience, if all three attacks hit the enemy.

-And the list goes on...

I don't believe that players should have to deduce the gameplay mechanics from the game, there should be clear explanations of these things available to players who wish to know them.

The journal is weak when it comes to tracking miscellaneous quests, and keeping track of collection quests.  The journal is really good at showing you the location of main quest objectives, however the lumping together of all the miscellaneous quests makes its really difficult to keep track of more than a few miscellaneous quests without having to run through a long list whenever you want to add or remove a quest from tracking.  There is also an overload of quests in the log once you get to a certain point, and it gets difficult to separate the quests that actually have story built into them from the simple quests that are meant to point you to undiscovered locations.  Finally when it comes to collection quests, it is difficult to keep track of which items you need to complete the quest without going into your journal and swimming through the sea of miscellaneous quests.

What I would like to see is for them to do a better job of indicating which quests have actual story interactions included in them, and which ones are simple move to this location type quests.  An idea would be for there to be three tiers of quest: main quests that are fully featured and contain unique dialogue, locations, and/or characters; secondary quests which still contain unique features but are not meant to be full experiences, and tertiary quests which are simple and usually involve either discovering a new location or killing a generic NPC.  Something else I would like to see is the ability to hide quest objectives for the tertiary quests unless you are in very close proximity to them, as tracking too many miscellaneous quests can quickly clutter your map and your compass.

The combat in Skyrim is clunky, especially when it comes to melee combat.  As a melee character, it is difficult to make sure that all your attacks hit your target.  Yes this can be considered intentional because real melee combats are likely very hectic, but the player is often left feeling like they are playing whack a mole.  If you have a companion with you the combat becomes more chaotic still, and what should be a cool combat experience turns into the silly dance where you are just hoping that your horse or a downed companion doesn't run in front of your sword and force you to murder them.  

What I think might be a way that melee combat could be improved, would be for there to be a soft targeting system, whereby the player can choose to soft lock on a target, and the camera would follow that target loosely, so that if an enemy suddenly rushes behind you, your camera will follow it, and you can focus on making sure that you hit the areas of the target that you want to, instead of playing where's Waldo.

Potions and poisons are poorly implemented.  The use of potions and poisons in combat is extremely disruptive.  Stopping combat completely so that you can drink 20 potions is a chore, and the fact that poisons only last for a single hit can make playing a poison user into an exercise in tedium.  The number of different potions and poisons is overwhelming and you can quickly find yourself holding dozens of different kinds of potion and taking 5 minutes to sort through them all in the middle of combat.

What I would like to see is a better way of categorizing potions and poisons.  Lump all the healing potions into a single line on the inventory, and allow the player to expand it if they want to see the full list.  There should be poisons that last longer than a single hit, or at least the option to auto apply poisons so that you don't have to keep menu hopping.  Multi effect potions can really blow up your inventory, so I think it would be a good idea to really consider whether the diversity of potion choice is worth the chaos it creates.  Perhaps creating a potion that has both beneficial and detrimental effects would just spoil the potion, and it would simply become something to sell.  Speaking of your inventory...

The inventory system has some major issues.  In fact people were so dissatisfied with the inventory system that modders completely redesigned the UI in what is one of the single most popular Skyrim mods in existence.  My main complaints come from the huge amount of clutter.  In addition to the aforementioned potion explosion, I also end up with lines and lines of soul gems and Stones of Barenziah that refuse to collect themselves properly.

I think that the inventory needs to be streamlined better for Elder Scrolls VI.  There should be more categories of item, so that I don't have to go through all my soul gems and quest items when I am checking which smithing materials I have, or how many gems I have of a type needed for a quest.

Finally, one of my biggest complaints is that the game is not roleplay friendly if you are trying to play a good character.  A large amount of the game's main content is found in questlines that require you to perform evil actions like committing crimes or murdering innocent people.  In my first playthrough I tried to roleplay a good aligned hero, and as a result I never got to do any of the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood quests, nor was I able to do many of the Daedric Quests. I also decided my character did not want to be a werewolf so I missed out on the Companions questline.  There were many other side quests that I could not undertake without breaking my character's moral code, and it really sucked because I couldn't enjoy the game's full offering without throwing my character immersion out the window.

I would love to see more choice given to the player in Elder Scrolls VI.  If I don't want to join the Thieves Guild, then why can I take them down or work from the inside to convince them to change?  Elder Scrolls is supposed to be a role playing game, and the gating of content behind immoral actions made it so I could not play the game the way I wanted to.

I am eagerly awaiting news on the next Elder Scrolls game, and I still love Skyrim despite its flaws, but I hope that Bethesda is able to learn from the shortcomings of this game and work to make Elder Scrolls VI into something greater still.

Review: CLICKPOCALYPSE 2

INTRODUCTION

CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 is a browser-based fantasy dungeon crawling incremental game created by Jim808.  In CLICKPOCALYPSE 2, you create a party of 1-4 characters of various classes, and assist them as they battle through randomly generated dungeons and castles, in an attempt to conquer every castle on the map and end the eternal winter that has befallen the land.

VISUALS

CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 employs a smartly constructed, button based graphical user interface.  The main game window contains a small graphical representation of your party as it travels throughout the game world.  This display adds a nice visual touch to the game, and the sprite based graphics harken back to the era of early graphical PC dungeon crawlers.  Information is presented in a very straightforward manner and the layout of the different frames in the UI focuses on a smart use of space with a simple intuitive design.  Tabs are used to keep secondary information off the main game screen.  The only drawback of the game's visual design is that the interface does not rescale to fit the size of the browser window, which leads to sub-optimal sizing on some monitor resolutions.

GAMEPLAY

The player starts off by selecting a party.  There are six base classes to choose from, and the party can contain up to four characters.  The basic gameplay loop of CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 involves your party travelling to a dungeon and then progressing through each room, one at a time, defeating any monsters present and collecting any treasures they find.  This progression is entirely automated, and the player is unable to control the characters in any way.  Notably absent from CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 is a basic click mechanic such as a resource collecting button or the ability to damage enemies by clicking them.  Instead, the player is responsible for utilizing party-accrued resources to purchase various upgrades, including using experience points to level up party members and selecting character skills.  Additionally, the player has a small inventory of potions and scrolls which can be used to buff the party or to damage enemies that the party has engaged.  Finally, the player has the ability to press a button when the party enters a dungeon room that contains a lootable feature, such as a chest.  If the player does not click to loot these features, the party will pass by them without looting (unless there is a skilled rogue in the party).  As a result, the active component of this game is somewhat limited.  If the player has run out of potions and scrolls, and doesn't have enough resources to purchase a new upgrade there will be no way for them to interact with the game.  At early stages in the game this is a limit that a player who wishes to play actively will run into frequently, however as the game progresses, the player will gain access to a much larger scroll inventory, as well as potions that allow for unlimited scroll use, which allow for much more active gameplay.  Selecting the correct potion or scroll for the situation, or deciding which upgrade to spend resources on can require a small amount of strategy in an otherwise extremely easy and simple game.  The game does not progress while closed, and the game will even stop running if the tab that it is open in is not the selected tab in a non-minimized browser window.

PROGRESSION

Progression in CLICKPOCLYPSE 2 is based on a map that contains dungeons, towns, and castles.  The party will progress through dungeons room by room, and when the dungeon has been cleared, they will return to a town to sell off collected treasure, then move on to the next dungeon.  Each dungeon is associated with a castle, and when the party has cleared all the dungeons for a specific castle, the player may choose to attack that castle.  The game ends when every castle has been cleared.  On my first playthrough I ended up completing the game in approximately 40-50 hours.  This was done mostly idle with small sections of active play throughout the day.  Your party members will progress through static skill trees, unlocking new abilities and improving their stats; purchase a series of upgrades designed to present them with stronger and more rewarding challenges; and collect a steady stream of progressively stronger equipment throughout the game.  The player will also unlock and level up six different types of scroll throughout the game.

REPLAYABILITY

CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 has a moderate amount of replayability.  There are currently eleven different classes to play, some of which are locked to players who have not yet prestiged one or more times.  In this way the main draw of replaying the game would be trying out different classes.  The difficulty of the game is quite low, and there is no failure state, which means that any player will be able to complete the game given enough time.  Other than trying different classes, different replay goals would have to be limited to player created challenges such as speedrunning or single character runs.

SUPPORT

Support for CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 is very strong.  Jim808 is active in the CLICKPOCALYPSE subreddit, and updates have been released several times a week for at least a few months now.  It seems that CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 is currently in a period of rapid iteration, which will please players who desire an incremental game that has not gone stagnant.

CONCLUSION

CLICKPOCALYPSE 2 is a smartly designed incremental game with some fun flavor and interesting mechanics.  The lack of challenge and minor technical drawbacks should not dissuade fans of the genre from giving this outstanding game a try.

Ranked vs Unranked Matchmaking

Every once in a while someone will ask the question "should I be playing ranked matchmaking?".  I would like to posit my opinions on the purpose of separating ranked and unranked play, and also provide some questions to ask yourself to see if you would be better off playing in the ranked or unranked pools.

The Difference Between Ranked and Unranked

Dota 2 matchmaking uses a rating system to try to arranges balanced matches contain players of roughly equal skill.  The matchmaking rating, or MMR, that a player is assigned is based on how they perform in games, with wins awarding additional rating, and losses removing rating points.  Both ranked and unranked matchmaking pools assign different ratings to the player.  They are functionally identical, except that a player's ranked MMR is shown, and their unranked MMR is hidden.

Why Separate Matchmaking Pools Exists

So if the MMR for each pool is identical, why do they make two separate pools?  The answer is that some players want to know how they compare to others.  Some players want to be the best, to improve, to win games.  The ranked MMR serves as a metric for a player to identify their skill level, to track changes in that level, and to push their rating as high as possible for personal satisfaction and to indicate their potential to others.

Differences in Player Motivation

Dota is a competitive game.  Like any other competitive game, every player plays the game for different reasons.  Generally however, most players play Dota because they want to have fun.  The problem is that different players will have fun by playing the game in different ways, and sometimes the different ways that players like to play the game are not compatible.

Everyone can agree that winning is more desirable than losing.  However, there are often situations in which a player is faced with a decision that presents a trade-off between maximizing your own personal enjoyment of the game, and maximising your team's chances to win the match.

As an example, imagine you are in the pick stage, and your teammates have already picked three core heroes.  You were hoping when you queued for the game to play your favorite hero, Anti-mage, however, you know that if you were to choose AM now, your team would be heavily disadvantaged due to a lack of heroes who do not depend on items to perform.  In this situation, you have to choose between playing your favorite hero and having more fun in the game, or choosing a hero you enjoy playing less in order to improve your team's chances of winning the game.

I believe that the decision that a player makes when faced with choices like this is a strong indication of what matchmaking pool they should be queueing for.  It is not wrong to make a choice that maximizes your personal enjoyment of the game.  However, the purpose of separating the pools is to allow players who prefer to maximize personal enjoyment over winning to not be placed in a match with players who will always choose the option that maximizes their chances of winning.

What Matchmaking Pool Should I Be Playing in?

In order to determine which pool is the best one for you to queue in, you should first ask yourself some hypothetical questions.

Most importantly, when faced with a decision, will you always choose the option that you believe maximizes your team's chance to win the match?  This question can be applied to every decision that a player makes in a Dota match; from the choice of hero, to the choice of starting items, lane, ability build, item build, choosing to watch the minimap, making choices about when to farm, when to push, when to fight, when to rosh, when to retreat, how you choose to interact with your teammates, etc.

This question is also relevant to factors outside the game.  Do you actively pursue outside guides, learn mechanics, or read discussion, in order to improve your play?  Do you own a microphone that you can use for voice chat?  Is your internet connection poor right now?  Are you queuing with friends who are not as good at the game as you are?  Are you distracted by outside things like people or pets?  Are you taking intoxicants that will lower your effectiveness?  All of these are decisions that you can make which have an effect on your chance to win Dota matches, and if you are not making the choice that maximizes your chances of winning, then perhaps unranked would be a better fit.

At the end of the day however, no one can decide which pool you play in except for you.  Keep in mind though that ranked games attract players who have a stronger desire to win, and if you don't share that desire, and actively pursue victory over your own personal enjoyment of the game, there will often be friction between you and your teammates.  Unranked matchmaking is the place for people who just want to have fun and enjoy the game.