Really? For me combat/sneak in skyrim was one of the weak points (and i think in the witcher 2 was even worse). The sword fight was really limited, the magics were the same (ice bolt, thunder bolt, fire bolt;summon fire spirit, that has ranged attack and 10 damage, summon ice spirit, ranged 25 damaege, summon thunder soirit, ranged with 35 damage... And so goes on). And sneak was by far better developed, mixing blades,spells and positioning, but just compare with dishonored and you'll see how many light years is far the skyrim stealth (used as example because is another bethesda game) (the great on skyrim was the atmosphere and the mmo off-line style). But this is my opinion, as stated by you, is subjective, for me the simplistic game was a fault
Well that's cause the great on skyrim was this, no one is copying skyrim combat or skyrim story, but his world style ,and this is not a totally good thing, DAI tried this so hard that probably some core features were broken (perhaps an example related with EA is always a bad example, and batman arknight and tw3 are using the open world for good)
And sales aren't argument (cough cough AC cough cough CoD cough cough)
Now, I don't need a masterpiece stealth if is optional, some times some stealth system realistic is nice and so, and also stealth for some moments, I don't want it to be a common feature or even make it as a fix feature, I mean a stealth like skyrim were you activate/deactivate it (the reference to skyrim is only an example, I'm not trying to talk bad about it)
I personally always enjoyed how immersive and engaging combat is in The Elder Scrolls. I love the fact that I control my left hand and right hand. I can choose to block, shield bash, power attack, swing vertically or horizontally, and the addition of killing moves was a fantastic compliment. Is it perfect? No. I believe BGS has a great foundation for their first person combat, however, and just need to work to polish and add to it. As far as sneaking is concerned, I personally enjoyed having to hide in the shadows, wait, and then come up behind for an assassination. Some of my most memorable moments were doing the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild with that kind of gameplay. There's always room for improvement, but it was certainly fun and enjoyable for me.
Also, I should point out that Skyrim is made by Bethesda Game Studios, and Dishonored is made by Arkane Studios. Bethesda Softworks is the publisher (BGS used to be a part of them pre-Morrowind) and they are all under the umbrella of ZeniMax Inc. So as far as the studio and developers are concerned, there is no cross-over between The Elder Scrolls and Dishonored. Secondly, Dishonored was a mediocre assassin game. Part of the reason I say this is because if you wanted a low chaos (good) ending you couldn't actually kill. You had to knockout every enemy and take out major targets in non-lethal ways. Not to mention most of the tools and powers you received were for killing, so no, I don't believe Dishonored was a great assassin game. It tried to mesh Bioshock and Thief into one with rough results. The game was okay, but vastly overrated.
As far as fun and being able to choose what I could do, I must enjoyed doing finishing moves with a dagger in Skyrim rather than the monotony of knocking out enemies or using sleep darts to incapacitate them in Dishonored. Just my personal opinion on the matter.
BGS and TES is known for making the best open world RPGs in the industry. We can debate the quality of their products, but their success is irrefutable. As far as DAI, it's not a true open world. In order to prevent the story from being crippled, they needed some structure and have divided Thedas into large zones. It's essentially DAO on steroids. It's not really like Skyrim at all, even though BioWare did use Skyrim as a template for exploration. TW3 is much more like Skyrim as CDPR even admitted to using the open world template for TW3.
Also, sales are a very valid point. The difference between Skyrim and AC or CoD is that it's
not an annual release. Ubisoft and Activision can release the same crap every year and people will eat it up. A better comparison is to compare Skyrim to Grand Theft Auto. Both franchises release a new installment every five years or so and have sold over 20 million copies from one game alone. Not to mention, all of Rockstar's and BGS's most recent games have won GoTY, respectively, back to back. So on the contrary, I have to disagree. From Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim, we have seen huge leaps in innovation, creativity, and reimagining of the franchise. To not recognize these realities is to do the monumental achievement of The Elder Scrolls a huge disservice. BGS is one of the few developers that actually pioneers and innovates in each and every one of their games. They don't do typical sequels, and CDPR is following their line of philosophy as well by truly building from the ground up each new game.
As far as TW3 is concerned, I think a stealth mechanic could have been interesting with monster hunting. If you cause too much noise or don't conceal yourself well enough on the hunt, you may gain the attention of the predator and it may try to preemptively attack you or run away. There could have been possibilities, but again I'm not overly-concerned by its omission.
