SureAI

I am not trying to troll, I post this because almost everyone else loves Enderal so maybe it is worth having another opinion.

I think you did a good job at continuing Skyrim, it feels just the same, looks the same, plays the same, you created more Skyrim for people who love Skyrim and if that was your intention, then you succeeded. But personally I was hoping for something different. I think Skyrim is an incredibly boring game, very dumbed down, very simplistic, and very sedate. Sadly Enderal does nothing to fix all the shortcomings I find with Skyrim.

The main problem I have with Elder Scrolls games is the combat. I know they are supposed to be action games and not tactical RPG's, but it really shouldn't have to be so dumb. You should be able to have an action RPG that also has deep and challenging combat, and Skyrim (and Enderal) completely fail at that, and don't even seem to care. The xp for doing things instead of xp for quests amounts to nothing, as does the changes to the character building. Why bother creating 3 stone pillars with upgrades on when Skyrim already had the constellations thing? It looks the same and plays the same. Also the abilities themselves are no different to Skyrim, especially if you already played with some mods.

But the combat itself is identical to Skyrim, and it is really really bad. I tried to play as a mage and every mob dies with 2 or 3 hits of whichever spell I use. Either 2 wolves run at me, or some Highwaymen, but their AI is dumb like Skyrim so they run straight at me, and I just run backwards shooting fireballs at them. I repeat this 100000 times and go through the levels, and then I just have to uninstall out of boredom. I suppose some people will not understand me because they enjoy gameplay like this, but to me it is offensively dumb gameplay. I expected SureAI to completely revamp the way combat works in Skyrim (because it is so bad), but you really did nothing to change it. It is a long time since I played Nehrim, but Nehrim felt like you were doing Oblivion but better. This does not. This feels like you are just doing more of the same Skyrim.

I find it really sad that with modern gaming, one of the only places I can get good tactical action is from a 1 man made tiny indie roguelike like TOME. Or I have to play old games like BG2, TOEE, Icewind Dale, Everquest, etc. It seems like modern RPG's died and the dumb mainstream action RPG took over. I would have thought a team like SureAI would understand this and would try to do something about it, but it seems I was very wrong.

Unfortunately I have to say that you obviously had completely wrong expectations for Enderal. Enderal is all about the Story, it's characters, exploring a huge new world and delving into it's lore. It introduces some changed gameplay elements, like the exp based leveling system to support an exploration focused playstyle and to make characterprogession feel more meaningful, but SureAI never intended to completely revamp the, admittetly flawed, combat system and the AI. These things are mostly hard coded and can't be changed without tremendous efforts or even can't be changed at all. There are some combat overhauls for skyrim that work with Enderal you could try, but if you dislike skyrims combat so much that it takes out the fun of all the other aspects this game has to offer, than Enderal is just not for you.

I am sorry to say that, but looking for an oldschool tactical RPG experience (like the ones you named) in a mod based on Skyrim is a certain way to get dissapointed...It's like going to a soccer match and expecting a chess game...

And by the way Nehrim didn't change the oblivion combat at all. It did pretty much what Enderal did. It increased the difficulty, took out level scaling for enemies and introduced an exp based leveling system. The core combat mechanisms stayed pretty much untouched.

Well they should have explained what they were intending to do better, there was very little info from the devs for years. They said they were planning to make changes to the combat etc, but nothing they did really changes anything. Nehrim did feel different because mobs were harder and needed to be dodged, and it made spells and things more meaningful. Enderal doesn't feel any different to Skyrim, I still just run backwards and kill every enemy with a few clicks of my spell.

Also it is not as different as soccer and chess. A game like Skyrim could have deeper and more tactical combat. Morrowind has better combat than all of these newer games because you had to use things like Paralyze and damage over time to survive. Also one of the games I mentioned was Everquest which is a real time, first person/third person game just like Skyrim. It just has a lot more depth to it. For example pets can be told which enemy to attack, and can be told to back off, or wait, etc. They can also be buffed and healed and give them equipment. Mage type players had to balance their mana usage, and their most powerful spell would get blocked by trees or things getting in the way, but they had a weaker spell that would go through anything. Also damage shields, and spells that summon useful items that let you levitate or breath underwater etc. It was a real RPG in other words, all things that this game COULD have but they chose not to because they wanted to dumb it down, and Enderal did nothing to bring any of those things back.

At least they did changes to the combat?
No health regeneration different mana regeneration.
Monsters dont scale with yourself.
More spells.

For me all that is inclded into combat.

Glad you posted that. Had my own thoughts about it, but was too chicken to say anything.

I'm only playing at level 3 (average) difficulty.

Bound /Overwatch & suppressing fire to outflank isn't possible because you don't have a team. Basic tactics that you're probably using like finding a hide, securing the perimeter, exit plan & 'funnel' baddies into an ambush on *your* terms... These seem to work all too well!

As you've probably noticed, at max range, drop a Baddie, and the AI will have other NPCs go to the exact same spot! End up with five or six of them in a pile.

Every once in a while one *will* go to where AI "thinks" the arrows were coming from, but by then, I've already moved. Who fires and stays in the same place!

Am sure you'll agree that fire fights are fluid battles where both sides are constantly trying to outflank & pin down one another. Not going to get that from Skyrim based AI!

And if you play puzzle games like the old Tomb Raider series, Enderal puzzles might be disappointing too, but they are *much* better than the ones from in Skyrim.

Enderal is a challenging game because of its story. Does it make sense, or just playing head games with us? I like to think the writer does have something he wants to say and isn't just being a jerk. He doesn't strike me that way fwiw.

So I hope you'll give the game a chance. Small group of people spent years working on it and in spite of the bugs and maybe some mesh errors-- wow! What an achievement!

Best wishes

PS: These places might be fun. "Never get complacent"

[+]

You are probably expecting too much, not sure a true revamp of the combat system is possible, the game engine is what it is and modders even as talented as SureAI can't do that much about it (I guess), if the combat is too easy try increasing the difficulty (the option is here for that purpose).

Enderal is mostly about the story and the design of the landscapes and dungeons. Basically I think of it as a playable graphic novel. Frankly, I don't want to have a 10-minute battle with every wolf I encounter; I'm perfectly happy with one whack and it's dead. I don't need to prep myself with 10 different spells, nor leap, spin, roll, dodge, feint & block to kill it.

Lmao, they didnt change combat in Nehrim either. In fact they changed combat in Enderal more, since they added combos etc.
Well, that explains it. I thought TOME was incredibly boring, dumb and ugly game, I managed to play it for 2 hours before uninstalling. And i have over 2000 hours played in Skyrim. Its a matter of taste

game was designed so a dumbass that pick perks randomly and don't craft can finish the game with his fail character

there are mods for that, like combat evolved that edit combat styles of those stupid npc that aren't allowed to do much
a npc edited by that mod is an object reference in their esm, game will crash when loading that object if you don't delete that conflict
that's the kind of problem you get when you mess with skyrim esm instead of making a mod like everyone else

when i got to the castle with calia, i was too weak to face 4-6 of those skeletons (how was i supposed to know my level was too low to start that?)
going from expert to novice didn't help much, was still getting destroyed
didn't won the first fight, when i was fleeing while shooting at those npc, because if they caught me i am dead, they died when i left the castle

Sorry to disappoint you, but our Skyrim.esm is not Bethesda's (our German version of Enderal is not localized) - hence we said from the beginning that most mods for Skyrim will not work in Enderal without being adjusted...

See http://forum.sureai.net/viewtopic.php?f=136&t=5894 for reference.

How about instead of skipping tutorials you try to read them? 1 hour into the game you get a tutorial explaining what the stars in front of a quest objective mean - then you could have known that.