[quote]It wasn't an argument until you started disagreeing with my opinions, which I'm now backing up. I wasn't making an opinion to start an argument, I was answering the topic at hand. Snipily, sure, but still. I wasn't giving a straw man because there wasn't an argument or debate going on when I posted initially. [/quote] 
Right, but now we are discussing it, and the points made after we started are being used.  

[quote]Ah, but that IS the learning curve. It introduces you to all three basic trees of Red, Blue, and Green, you probably get a level up or at the very least close to one which imparts how the level up mechanic works, you get your combat tutorial, and even a lesson in stealth with the bear at the end. It's the same thing with Oblivion's intro except Skyrim is mercifully shorter at the expense of having a far longer scripted section with the cart ride and the dragon shit.

Skyrim is not a deep game mechanically which is why Helgen is all a player needs before they understand literally how everything in the game works except maybe speechcraft. But who the fuck needs that, right?

Sidebar: Really want to break your immersion from the start? When you climb the tower right after you get control and Alduin breaks the tower, just don't move and let him burn you. [/quote] 
Most games from my experience have far more of a linear story line to the gameplay, particularly in the beginning, and Helgen is very very short compared to breaking out of Oblivion's prison for instance (which you did acknowledge) so I suppose it's a much shorter learning curve, you're correct on that. Though it only explores the basics and doesn't go into smithing or riding horses or shouts or soul gems or what is effective against different beasts unless you happen to find the right people/trainer for that later on, which a lot of games just hand feed you. (Though if you decide to go straight for the Civil War quests, it does help. Like the Blacksmith ready to help teach you once you reach Riverwood).  

[quote]But again, that doesn't forgive the problem that is the quest design as a whole. Being able to kill a bandit leader in a different way doesn't make the experience any more worthwhile the second or third time around.[/quote] 
Yes it does. You can assassinate him with a well placed bowshot. You can sneak in and shout him off the walls to fall to his death. You can be open about it in combat. You can cast a spell to summon something that wreaks havoc in the base to distract him or the guards. It takes multiple playthroughs to get tired of it for many. Particularly if you've explored everything and the newly randomized encounters or even set enemies seem new the 2nd or 3rd time because...well you've explored everything and can't remember half of it. (Saw the rest of your section of the post, I just replied and didn't quote the rest because it might confuse me/you).

[quote]It's still selling because Bethesda keeps putting it out on consoles and because it's practically free whenever there's a sale going on on Steam. Number of players isn't an argument for quality the same way that a movie being the top grossing movie of a year doesn't mean it's a good movie. There are people that adore Skyrim. There are people that haven't played it. There are people that think Skyrim is the greatest game ever made and they are allowed to think that just the same as I'm allowed to never really go to them for an opinion on something. There are people for whom Skyrim is a meaningful game for a variety of reasons.

Now substitute Skyrim in the above paragraph for Halo or ANY game and it can likely apply. [/quote] 
Not true. There isn't 'any game' that has those kinds of numbers or statistics. And even taking away mods, it would still be more played than most games out there. And re-releasing it on other platforms let's people play it...because they want to. Because they like it. There are only a handful of games in the world that could claim to be as well sold or as frequently played as Skyrim. And even if it has some free to play sometimes, an everyday statistic is far more than can be accounted for that as reasoning. 

[quote]The quests themselves are not the sole factor in why I think Skyrim is a bad game. They are a contributing factor. And you could say that in Halo all you do is pull the trigger but Halo isn't an RPG nor does it have side quests and thus, in the first trilogy anyway, the moment to moment gameplay is different. And it's a fundamentally different argument anyway since this is about flaws (of which Halo has its share as well). But for the sake of argument, you could say the same about Halo that you defend about Skyrim. It's open ended on how you complete a level. You can choose which weapon(s) to use or turn on modifiers for a different experience or even play it with other people but the fundamental experience won't change on repeat runs through the campaign because you'll still have to play through the god damn Library in Halo 1 and you'll still have to fucking play the fucking Cortana level with the fucking Flood in Halo 3.

Skyrim is a sandbox that doesn't have the decency to fill up the box all the way but still tells you to have fun building your whatevers. Some people get a lot of mileage out of that sand but it's still lacking.[/quote] 
But Halo is constricted by levels (that have no different biomes or random enemies and encounters) and actual static dialogue, with no open ended anything, with even more limited game mechanics that in turn limits the scenarios in which you beat it, and without a myriad of different things an RPG has.   


[quote]I do think Skyrim is uninteresting and that's because Bethesda is better at lore (unless it's Fallout which wasn't even theirs to begin with) than they are at storytelling. I'm allowed to think Skyrim is a bad game and I have my reasons for thinking that. My thinking Skyrim is a bad game because the story is uninteresting, though part of it is because of how little is done with its more interesting parts like the Civil War. [/quote] 
You're definitely allowed to say it's a bad game. And I definitely agree that Bethesda's lore is better than it's storytelling. I think the same on Game of Thrones/ASOIAF stuff too. Some series are better at lore than getting you through their own adventure. However you're saying it's a bad game through reasoning I think you can use for a lot of different things to make them sound bad.

From your entire set of posts, I can tell that you don't find Skyrim immersive (which you did say plainly, bear with me), which is what is needed in order to enjoy a game. A lot of people find it very immersive. You have approached Skyrim with an "A+B=C" kind of outlook, when every game can be reduced to that and seem dull. [u]You might be serious and if you don't find it immersive[/u], [u]then that's your right[/u]. But a lot of internet trolls use that kind of logic to just shit on a game to be alternative. 

Not saying you are, like I underlined. But that was why I initially said "might have watched too many angry game reviewers" which also didn't inherently mean I completely disagreed with your initial post. 

[quote]It does bring merit because Bethesda style games are basically in their own genre within the larger WRPG genre the same way that 'Ubisoft open world' is basically its own thing that constantly gets derided because it's climbing towers. Bethesda has proven with just its last two releases alone (Fallout 4, Skyrim) that they're less about compelling gameplay experiences and more about giving the idea that there's a lot to do when there actually isn't. Fallout 4's settlement shit is just Skyrim's radiant quests. Skyrim got rid of a lot of the more systems and crafting mechanics of Oblivion which already gutted spell crafting and such compared to Morrowind; Fallout 4 got rid of entire systems to make everything homogeneous and remove player agency. Bethesda pulls the wool over the eyes of the consumer with the promise of open world freedom and then they forget to craft a reason to care about or invest yourself in the world.

They make their games to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and in so doing sacrifice a lot of actual, genuine, true player choice and freedom.

Skyrim is the Bethesda version of No Man's Sky.[/quote] 
I still don't completely understand exactly why we're talking about Bethesda as a whole, but I will say yes. Bethesda brags about things in the same way Fable famously bragged all those years about it's 'freedom/realstic world' gameplay, they leave bugs, and use some gimmicks to distract players. Totally. I really enjoy Bethesda games but I'm not a blind follower of them. 

Also I've not played No Man's Sky. (Googles). Damn it got a 5/10 on steam, and at best 7/10 everywhere else.