After 170 hours playing the PC version of Skyrim, my thoughts.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

See, give me, modding is NOT somehow synonymous with a great game. It's a nice bonus on top of a great game, but at the end of the day, I don't sit there and opine on the fact that I have to consider a great game to not be as good because the community can't create their own content and put it up for download. Much like how modding doesn't instantly make a shit, or even decent game, somehow instantly better.

 

Torchlight and Torchlight 2 both have the ability to be modded but at the end of the day I find them to be decent at best, and horribly dull at worst. And it doesn't help that the interface and dare I say, pieces of music feel like they were ripped directly from Diablo 2.

 

(Mainly because they were.)

[CrimsonOmegaLance]

Dragon Age: Origins was a much better game than Dragon Age 2.  It had a better storyline, better characters, better ending, (better) consequences for your actions, and IMO better action.  Dragon Age 2 was me just running around with a 2H sword chopping everyone in half and the gay mage healing me whenever I got low.

 

I asked for a moddable game, because that's how the community improves upon an already good game.  "I wish I could have added this into the game" - well you can with some RPGs, and can't with others.  Like think how many alternate endings there would have been (and good ones too) if Mass Effect 3 could have been modded.  And modding creates new games as well.  The entire MOBA franchise (DOTA2/LoL/HoN) were built off of a mod, which is now a multmillion dollar industry.

 

Anyway, most of us here have spent 200+ hours playing Skyrim/Oblivion.  I know I have.  To then turn around and complain about the company that has made this series and call them lazy, is purely retarded.  There is no other RPG that I have spent more time on than Oblivion and Skyrim. What's even better, is that most of everything that has been complained about in this thread, can be fixed by mods.  And fixed is not the right word here because there are plenty of people who disagree with you on one of your points and agree with another.  This is why mods are so great.  I can decide myself if I want to improve upon this specific part of the game and not touch another.

 

Skyrim has problems.  Of course I admit it.  It would be stupid of me not to.  I use mods freely because I feel they didn't do this part of the game right, but another part was done beautifully.  I have created my own mods to fix some of the problems myself.  But I don't complain about Bethesda being lazy.  There is no way a 'lazy' game company would have produced a game of Skyrim's quality.

 

I originally played Oblivion on the 360.  I loved it.  One of the best RPG's out there.  I didn't even start the DLCs because of college (IE, no Shivering Isles or Knights of the Nine).  When Skyrim came out, I played it on the PC, but with no mods again!  It still blew other RPG's out of the water.  Only after maybe 50 hours of unmodded Skyrim is when I first found out about Skyrim Nexus and started to add mods.  Now, after 150 hours on Skyrim, I still haven't finished the Saving/Capture of Whiterun, I haven't gotten past Kynesgrove, and the furthest I got on one of the four guilds was becoming a  Werewolf in the Companions.  In no other RPG can you play so much, have so much fun, and still not have finished any of the main questlines. (The Guilds, Civil War, Dragons)

 

One last point.  DIY.  Don't complain that a product doesn't meet your exact expectations.  Especially when they give you the tools to meet your expectations.

 

 

@ Divinity 2: No offense, but it looks like a Diablo 3 hack&slash coupled with Banshee flying in Halo.  I'll probably pick it up after it comes out and try it, but I don't have high hopes.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

Quality is subjective, and compared to several older TES games, Skyrim does not stack up. Skyrim is a lazy game, and no just because they let you mod their games doesn't absolve them of said laziness.

 

As I've said, the Imperial quest line is a shining example of how they didn't try. The fact that there's about a grand total of three different puzzles (with the weakest being the claw that tells gives you the answer being the most used), the decrease in number of dungeons (Bethesda themselves said this), the incredibly short quest lines for every "guild" (which are padded out with radiant quests), the lack of spells, armor being bundled down to four pieces, the complete reuse of a lock picking system used in two different games, the UI. the seemingly moronic concept of not having an oxygen meter...

 

And no, I should NOT have to make my own mods to make the game feel less lazy. Why in the name of all that is good and decent should I have to FIX AND FINISH what the developer couldn't, or wouldn't? I should not have to spend my own time making new puzzles, or revamping the quests, or remaking the armor system. I should not have to sit here and make my own lock picking system because Bethesda decided that it wasn't worth their effort. I shouldn't have to task myself with making something that can turn off their stupid kill cams because they couldn't be bothered to give me a simple option to turn them off.

 

Skyrim has consumed nearly 250 hours of my life, but that doesn't mean that the game cannot be lazy. There are people who spent thousands of hours on games like Madden or Call of Duty, and at the end of the day, they're lazy cash ins using virtually the same everything, only with a new skin.

[Guest]

That's because, in general, quest markers don't bother me. Yeah, yeah, zOMG N00B!!!!!!!!!1111 and all, but I like my quest markers. Ever since it took me hours to find the Cavern of the Incarnate in Morrowind with all the information given in dialogue, my in game map AND using online maps, I have been a fan of quest markers in general. Call me crazy, but I don't find being lost for hours looking for one cave and feeling so much frustration that I wanted to rage quit fun.

 

THAT SAID, it is a bit lazy that they don't even bother to actually give you even the slightest actual directions to locations, not even a major city where it's near. They could kind of get away with it being excused for the "radiant" quests (oh look, something that actually bothered to take from Daggerfall; random quests), but there isn't any excuse for quests that have a definite location in mind.

 

But that's the overall theme of Skyrim; Bethesda being lazy. It's almost like took a lesson from Square Enix and figured that they don't have to put effort into the game because the franchise name alone will sell copies.

Well, when done right, quest markers aren't needed. Your complaint on that cavern in Morrowind is valid, and I understand that sometimes having no aid when trying to find something can be frustrating. I just think that with a well done journal system along with helpful NPCs and books/maps this magical floaty arrow thingy isn't needed at all and furthermore should not be the half-assed alternative that Beth used in Skyrim. As for those radiant quests, I still believe Beth could've come up with something to make those not require this "omniscient arrow". I'm sure it's possible (even if they might would claim that it's not. I remember Todd once claiming that spears would be impossible to implement into Skyrim. Lo and behold, one of the devs created content with fully functional spears!).

 

 

But that's the overall theme of Skyrim; Bethesda being lazy. It's almost like took a lesson from Square Enix and figured that they don't have to put effort into the game because the franchise name alone will sell copies.

 

 

Color me crazy, but Oblivion's launch did not get the same fanfare that Skyrim's did.  Skyrim didn't sell copies because it was an Elder Scrolls game, it sold copies because you FUCKING FIGHT DRAGONS.  Skyrim made TES a 'mainsteam' game name which is a huge plus in Bethesda's books.

 

I'll leave you with this:  James Cameron basically said this to Neil Degrasse Tyson after NDT complained about a historical inaccuracy in the movie,  "Titanic made a crapton of money.  Think how much more money we could have made if we included *blank* in it"

 

 

Anyway, has the game gotten worse over the years? Yes/No. Is it still kickass? Yes.  Has Bethesda gotten lazy? Hell no.  Has it been 'dumbed down?' Of course it has.  I'd rather have the game be 'dumbed down' then improved by mods than the other way around.  It improves the accessibility of the game, which improves sales, which will improve the next products.

On paper, Skyrim seemed pretty bad-ass. The concept was mouth watering and the ads were well done. Bethesda also made sure it was well advertised. That's ultimately why it sold well. I must admit that I was really hyped for Skyrim. However I (along with many others) was left disappointed in the lack of depth and the enormous dumbing down. If I knew back then what I know now, I probably would've still bought Skyrim, but only after it begins lowering its price-tag.

 

I agree that Skyrim made TES mainstream, and while that's good in Bethesda's books, it's certainly not a good thing for the (how do I say this) "hardcore" (oh god I hate that word) TES fans. The ones that built the franchise. Ultimately becoming more mainstream means that in order to maximize profits Bethesda will have to appeal to the lowest denominator the most, which are the more casual gamers. This means tons of dumbing down, and that's just what they did. They made quests un-failable, they removed faction consequences, they dumbed down NPC dialogue and reactions, they even dumbed down the puzzles and much more.

 

It's a bit hard to say whether or not Bethesda is getting lazier or not. Perhaps it's more about greed and money making. Bethesda is (like any other company) looking to make money, so Bethesda decided to abandon their old fanbase in favor of maximizing profits. It just so happens that in doing so they can spend less time and effort making the game. Despite what I said earlier I'm pretty sure laziness did have some impact on the development, even if it was not the main reason why Skyrim was such a dumbed down game.

 

And for your statement: " I'd rather have the game be 'dumbed down' then improved by mods than the other way around.", I can sort of agree to this, but only to an extent. A game shouldn't be so complex that modders are required to make it more accessible, however, in the case of Skyrim, it's so dumbed down that there are things modders have little or no control over. Things like how the main quest plays out, NPC dialogue options, the journal system (which modders could technically improve, there are simply too many quests to add detail to that I think any modder team would give up before reaching completion), the puzzles, consequences for joining factions, the ability to actually have an affect on the world and more are for the most part very difficult if not impossible for the average modder to improve or make changes to.

 

And finally, yes, making the game more accessible will most likely improve sales, however this does not guarentee that their next product will be any better. It may prove to make it even worse.

[CrimsonOmegaLance]

Skyrim has consumed nearly 250 hours of my life, but that doesn't mean that the game cannot be lazy. There are people who spent thousands of hours on games like Madden or Call of Duty, and at the end of the day, they're lazy cash ins using virtually the same everything, only with a new skin.

 

I'm just saying a lazy game company would not have made a game that you've spent 250 hours of your life on, in the past 15 months no less.  They obviously did a lot of stuff right.

 

@MadGod - The Quest Markers have a mod - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11135. He's done this with almost every single quest.  No need for quest markers.  This is what I mean.  If you don't like something about the original, you can mod it yourself.

[Remy]

empire385, on 08 Feb 2013 - 01:17, said:

Dragon Age: Origins was a much better game than Dragon Age 2. It had a better storyline, better characters, better ending, (better) consequences for your actions, and IMO better action. Dragon Age 2 was me just running around with a 2H sword chopping everyone in half and the gay mage healing me whenever I got low.

 

I asked for a moddable game, because that's how the community improves upon an already good game. "I wish I could have added this into the game" - well you can with some RPGs, and can't with others. Like think how many alternate endings there would have been (and good ones too) if Mass Effect 3 could have been modded. And modding creates new games as well. The entire MOBA franchise (DOTA2/LoL/HoN) were built off of a mod, which is now a multmillion dollar industry.

 

Anyway, most of us here have spent 200+ hours playing Skyrim/Oblivion. I know I have. To then turn around and complain about the company that has made this series and call them lazy, is purely retarded. There is no other RPG that I have spent more time on than Oblivion and Skyrim. What's even better, is that most of everything that has been complained about in this thread, can be fixed by mods. And fixed is not the right word here because there are plenty of people who disagree with you on one of your points and agree with another. This is why mods are so great. I can decide myself if I want to improve upon this specific part of the game and not touch another.

 

Skyrim has problems. Of course I admit it. It would be stupid of me not to. I use mods freely because I feel they didn't do this part of the game right, but another part was done beautifully. I have created my own mods to fix some of the problems myself. But I don't complain about Bethesda being lazy. There is no way a 'lazy' game company would have produced a game of Skyrim's quality.

 

I originally played Oblivion on the 360. I loved it. One of the best RPG's out there. I didn't even start the DLCs because of college (IE, no Shivering Isles or Knights of the Nine). When Skyrim came out, I played it on the PC, but with no mods again! It still blew other RPG's out of the water. Only after maybe 50 hours of unmodded Skyrim is when I first found out about Skyrim Nexus and started to add mods. Now, after 150 hours on Skyrim, I still haven't finished the Saving/Capture of Whiterun, I haven't gotten past Kynesgrove, and the furthest I got on one of the four guilds was becoming a Werewolf in the Companions. In no other RPG can you play so much, have so much fun, and still not have finished any of the main questlines. (The Guilds, Civil War, Dragons)

 

One last point. DIY. Don't complain that a product doesn't meet your exact expectations. Especially when they give you the tools to meet your expectations.

 

 

@ Divinity 2: No offense, but it looks like a Diablo 3 hack&slash coupled with Banshee flying in Halo. I'll probably pick it up after it comes out and try it, but I don't have high hopes.

And how exactly isnt skyrim hack&slash lol?

 

All you do is pressing attack button and do kill quests....you make no sense.

 

In divinty there is this fun ability called mind reading, that you can use to find out secrets, stashed loot or other information, sometimes you just listen to funny toughts of people...in skyrim they didnt even bothered to use properly the persuasion system...well not that it would work anyway since topics you can talk with npcs are very few...

I never said skyrim is a bad game, even wrote i had fun in my first play wich was around 30+ hours, but after i spent the rest of it putting in mods and fixing stuff..in other words trying to fix it and mod it more then play it and plenty of people are the same.

Everything in that game lacks big time, but not because of engine limitations that i could understand but because they didnt bothered.

 

Divinity2 is a different game from skyrim, that goes without saying, but im talking here about the oportunity to make some intersting and fun from the setting with dragons.

 

Just because the game is moddable it doesnt mean now that everything should be left to modders to fix....why not give the whole game to modders then huh?

 

About complaining being retarded....as soon as someone starts to insult others because of difference in opinions anything they say looses credibility to me and its a typical fanboyish response, first insult others then tell them to stop complaining.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

I've owned Skyrim for about a month; my time is so huge only because of exploring. It doesn't matter how lazy everything else feels, or how much I dislike the game as a whole (Morrowind), if the world is a sandbox, I spend more time exploring than anything else. (If I really think about it, I've spent maybe 10 hours doing quests, the rest is just me running around in the world.)

 

Which I'll give them one thing; they didn't get lazy on the map... save for the tiny amount of enemies you could find. Which again, has always been a TES problem. Too bad when it came to things needing actual, serious effort (quest lines, dungeons, puzzle, etc,) they didn't deliver.

[Remy]

Yeah in terms of open world, they did a good job, i enjoyed just running arround for a bit...but the argument " you complain but you still put 200 hours into skyrim!!!111" is really flawed...you cannot make a review on such a big game if you havent put time into...and where does it says that all of these 200 hours were enjoyable...plenty of time you just run arround in hopes that something interesting happens, or wanna see what the game has to offer, only to find out it was so dumbed down, it takes any enjoyment away.

 

When i say i put 15 hours into skyrim, ill get a response that its not enough to judge the game, when i say i put 200, how dare i complain !!11.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

Beyond the enemy selection being tiny, my major complaint about the open world is how many damn mountains there are, and how it REALLY makes me miss Levitation.

[cornbreadtm]

I think you guys might be forgetting the fact that Skyrim isn't an RPG but an action game with RPG elements. Most of the "Problems" with the game is because of people not realize that there playing a game with faux nonlinear progression. If you notice all quests have 1 beginning and 1 ending and your can't deviate at all in the middle. It seems like you have freedom but you don't your playing an action game like DMC(cough3) with open world stages and bad combat and no puzzles....

 

Horses don't need to be fast cause there is fast travel.

Quests don't need to be long cause its 1 quest marker to the next then finish you can't challenge the power of the quest marker.

NPCs don't need personality cause there only there to give you fetch quests... I mean radiant quests and die from dragon and vampire attacks.

Combat doesn't need to be fleshed out cause that would require more work on Bethesdas part and your going to play for 200 hours any way.

 

But to be honest Skyrim is the most stable game Bethesdas ever made I constantly got 254 mods rolling in it and my only problem is the scripts get backed up but that's my fault. Can barely get get 50 mobs in FONV and my Oblivion experience doesn't count cause I didn't know what I was doing (crashed every 5 minutes; Still played 100 hours ). OMM for life!

 

tl;dr Its not an WRPG so stop comparing it to them it will always come up flat that way compare it to Action games with RPG elements.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

Damnit, you're actually right... look at me, being stupid to think I could get some serious RPG out of a game that's part of an RPG series. But like everything, streamlining has killed the RPG at its heart.

 

And yes, Skyrim is amazingly stable... now. I can't say if it always was, considering I got it at the most recent patched state. But something has to be said for the game's original state when, on the day of release, there was already a patch out.

[Guest]

I think you guys might be forgetting the fact that Skyrim isn't an RPG but an action game with RPG elements. Most of the "Problems" with the game is because of people not realize that there playing a game with faux nonlinear progression. If you notice all quests have 1 beginning and 1 ending and your can't deviate at all in the middle. It seems like you have freedom but you don't your playing an action game like DMC(cough3) with open world stages and bad combat and no puzzles....

 

Horses don't need to be fast cause there is fast travel.

Quests don't need to be long cause its 1 quest marker to the next then finish you can't challenge the power of the quest marker.

NPCs don't need personality cause there only there to give you fetch quests... I mean radiant quests and die from dragon and vampire attacks.

Combat doesn't need to be fleshed out cause that would require more work on Bethesdas part and your going to play for 200 hours any way.

 

But to be honest Skyrim is the most stable game Bethesdas ever made I constantly got 254 mods rolling in it and my only problem is the scripts get backed up but that's my fault. Can barely get get 50 mobs in FONV and my Oblivion experience doesn't count cause I didn't know what I was doing (crashed every 5 minutes; Still played 100 hours ). OMM for life!

 

tl;dr Its not an WRPG so stop comparing it to them it will always come up flat that way compare it to Action games with RPG elements.

That's how I've always viewed Skyrim, as an open sandbox action game with some RPG elements. What really pisses me off is when people constantly praise and proclaim that it's the "best RPG of 2011!". IGN put Skyrim as one of the top ten RPGs of all time in their list of the top 100 RPGs ever made. Then again this is IGN we're talking about (who for some unknown reason left out Dragon Age: Origins from that list, an amazing RPG and the Best RPG of 2009 in their books).

 

So if everyone is treating it like an RPG I think it should be graded like an RPG, and practically all RPG aspects in Skyrim are poorly done. And even if it was considered an action game it would fair poorly. The combat is a basic hack and slash button mashing formula that requires little strategy and effort to use. Even still, I've had fun roaming around the landscape and fus-ro-dah'ing Lydia off of High Hrothgar while playing Skyrim. It's not one of the worst RPGs/Action games of all time, but it is one of the most indistinguishable and certainly one of the most overrated.

 

I can agree with you on stability though. It's much more stable then Oblivion (which has left me ripping my hair out every time something goes wrong to this day   ).

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

Skyrim doesn't deserve to be in the top ten of anything... unless it was of massive disappointments.

[cornbreadtm]

It might be stable enough to fix... If Bethesda stops patching it... unless they patch in spears then thats okay. Honestly I like Skyrim, its fun but its no RPG like FONV. Its funny how they take its perks but leave its RPG elements. XD

[Absurdity]

I think you guys might be forgetting the fact that Skyrim isn't an RPG but an action game with RPG elements. Most of the "Problems" with the game is because of people not realize that there playing a game with faux nonlinear progression. If you notice all quests have 1 beginning and 1 ending and your can't deviate at all in the middle. It seems like you have freedom but you don't your playing an action game like DMC(cough3) with open world stages and bad combat and no puzzles....

 

Horses don't need to be fast cause there is fast travel.

Quests don't need to be long cause its 1 quest marker to the next then finish you can't challenge the power of the quest marker.

NPCs don't need personality cause there only there to give you fetch quests... I mean radiant quests and die from dragon and vampire attacks.

Combat doesn't need to be fleshed out cause that would require more work on Bethesdas part and your going to play for 200 hours any way.

 

But to be honest Skyrim is the most stable game Bethesdas ever made I constantly got 254 mods rolling in it and my only problem is the scripts get backed up but that's my fault. Can barely get get 50 mobs in FONV and my Oblivion experience doesn't count cause I didn't know what I was doing (crashed every 5 minutes; Still played 100 hours ). OMM for life!

 

tl;dr Its not an WRPG so stop comparing it to them it will always come up flat that way compare it to Action games with RPG elements.

You only forgot one important fact. It doesn't matter if it's an RPG or not because it's predecessors had almost all the mentioned features that Skyrim is lacking. But why fix something that ain't broken? To maximize profits and that means you have to appeal to even the lowest class of gamers, those who can't think for themselves, don't want a real challenge and prefer to be guided through everything. They don't want a satisfying experience, they just want to play for 1-2 hours because they got nothing better to do and that lowers the overall quality of games regardless of their genre.

[ElvenScoundrel]

I just wanna defend us mostly consolefags from being berated by the PCfags. Let it be known, I never asked for the game to be dumbed down for us console folk. I liked Morrowind, I still do, and I played it on both Xbox and PC, and the differences were minimal to non-existant, and people played the heck out of the Xbox version as well as the PC. Same with Oblivion, people played it on all consoles gladly, and no one asked for nerfs or anything. I have NO FUCKING IDEA why they decided that a console-centric menu was a good idea for Skyrim. But that's the least of Skyrim's problems. In the end, to ME, it's a poorly done, boring shell of an Elder Scroll game that isn't worthy to be called an Elder Scroll game. I hope they learn their fucking lesson and make the next TES game an ACTUAL TES game.

 

 

I haven't touched Skyrim in months now, and it's gathering dust over there, on the corner. Nevermind the fact that they fucked up us PS3 Skyrim owners royally, but I just don't feel the need to play it at all. The most fun I had was running around as a battlemage, but that got old quickly.

[Remy]

I just wanna defend us mostly consolefags from being berated by the PCfags. Let it be known, I never asked for the game to be dumbed down for us console folk. I liked Morrowind, I still do, and I played it on both Xbox and PC, and the differences were minimal to non-existant, and people played the heck out of the Xbox version as well as the PC. Same with Oblivion, people played it on all consoles gladly, and no one asked for nerfs or anything. I have NO FUCKING IDEA why they decided that a console-centric menu was a good idea for Skyrim. But that's the least of Skyrim's problems. In the end, to ME, it's a poorly done, boring shell of an Elder Scroll game that isn't worthy to be called an Elder Scroll game. I hope they learn their fucking lesson and make the next TES game an ACTUAL TES game.

 

 

I haven't touched Skyrim in months now, and it's gathering dust over there, on the corner. Nevermind the fact that they fucked up us PS3 Skyrim owners royally, but I just don't feel the need to play it at all. The most fun I had was running around as a battlemage, but that got old quickly.

That just means we werent talking about you, this is not a war against consoles or anything, i have absolutely no problem with consoles, but all of this dumbing down and simplyfying is happening to make the game esier/accessible for console children that do not care about consequences or anything deep in games and just want to get to the action right away.

 

Even that would be fine, i like action games, but skyrim fails even as an action game...the combat is so primitive, without any sort of real strategy..i never had the wow moment, when you do something awesome in combat, like a special move, or dodge, cuz skyrim simply doesnt have any of these.

 

Even if you put mods with combat moves or dodge, everything feels wrong, because the game clearly wasnt designed in mind with that.

[Jerbsinator]

Oblivion has just as many if not more problems than Skyrim does. Hell so does Fallout 3, pretty much anything Bethesda puts out has bad decisions written all over it. They are still good games, but I find Bethesda games to be like a lake, on the surface it seems like everything is great and there's so much to do but then you go deeper and you start to find the things that are not so great. I don't understand how people can possibly think Oblivion is better than Skyrim though....Vanilla Oblivion is an absolute JOKE compared to Skyrim and was practially a broken game right from shipping date. That level up system has got to be the worst RPG mechanic I have EVER seen in any RPG ever. I think Bethesda learned from that as I was very satisfied with Skyrims leveling system but still I paid full price for Oblivion and I got a completely broken game essentially. At least when I booted up Skyrim for the first time I actually had fun and was able to level up what I wanted instead of having to spend hours leveling up one hand skill on a fucking mage just so I can carry more shit....

[Guest]

Oblivion has just as many if not more problems than Skyrim does. Hell so does Fallout 3, pretty much anything Bethesda puts out has bad decisions written all over it. They are still good games, but I find Bethesda games to be like a lake, on the surface it seems like everything is great and there's so much to do but then you go deeper and you start to find the things that are not so great. I don't understand how people can possibly think Oblivion is better than Skyrim though....Vanilla Oblivion is an absolute JOKE compared to Skyrim and was practially a broken game right from shipping date. That level up system has got to be the worst RPG mechanic I have EVER seen in any RPG ever. I think Bethesda learned from that as I was very satisfied with Skyrims leveling system but still I paid full price for Oblivion and I got a completely broken game essentially. At least when I booted up Skyrim for the first time I actually had fun and was able to level up what I wanted instead of having to spend hours leveling up one hand skill on a fucking mage just so I can carry more shit....

I have to agree here. Vanilla Oblivion was quite a piss poor game. Character models were atrocious, the UI and menu systems were clunky and poorly made, the dungeons were repetitive and boring, same with the landscape, the animations were horribly stiff and amateurish, combat was bland and repetitive,  and of course the leveling system was horrible. Oblivion is only saved (partially) by the mods. Tbh if it weren't for the mods hosted here (Lovers, CLS etc) along with other big mods I would've given up on Oblivion long ago.

 

Skyrim did improve on some aspects like the ones you mentioned, along with more interesting dungeons, combat (but barely in all honesty), animations, graphics etc. Vanilla Skyrim is more fun to play than Vanilla Oblivion, even if Skyrim dumbed down dialogue, puzzles, reduced item prices, removed a slew of different attributes/skills and more.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

Oblivion has just as many if not more problems than Skyrim does. Hell so does Fallout 3, pretty much anything Bethesda puts out has bad decisions written all over it. They are still good games, but I find Bethesda games to be like a lake, on the surface it seems like everything is great and there's so much to do but then you go deeper and you start to find the things that are not so great. I don't understand how people can possibly think Oblivion is better than Skyrim though....Vanilla Oblivion is an absolute JOKE compared to Skyrim and was practially a broken game right from shipping date. That level up system has got to be the worst RPG mechanic I have EVER seen in any RPG ever. I think Bethesda learned from that as I was very satisfied with Skyrims leveling system but still I paid full price for Oblivion and I got a completely broken game essentially. At least when I booted up Skyrim for the first time I actually had fun and was able to level up what I wanted instead of having to spend hours leveling up one hand skill on a fucking mage just so I can carry more shit....

Explain what makes SKyrim better, and what makes Oblivion's leveling system a joke. Especially since the leveling system in Oblivion was much like the one in Morrowind; you know, like an RPG where you train stats relevant to your class to level up.

[Remy]

Agree, vanila skyrim is fun compared to vanila oblivion, that goes without saying, but after 6-7 years ( correct me if im wrong), you would expect alot more then this...basicaly the combat is the same, just with better animations and killmoves, but still the same paper hack&slash..i dont know if im too spoiled or something for wanting a deeper experience or a bit of creativity, seriously.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

I don't agree at all when it comes to Oblivion; if I were to pull all of my mods from it and start fresh, I would still have more fun doing anything in Oblivion than Skyrim. The majority of my mods are Lovers based (which I hardly ever use anymore), vanilla clothing replacers (which I'm getting sick of) or Modular Beautiful People (which is needed for Lovers), which adds nothing at all to the core of the game.

 

I honestly find Cyrodiil more interesting, the interactions with the NPCs to be more enjoyable, the dialogue system to be much more efficient while still having depth because you can actually have varying levels of an NPC liking you, not to mention actually being able to alter their disposition outside of one quest that makes them you best friend, the interface vastly superior to Skyrim, the dungeons to be far more interesting to explore, the story to be better (which is like calling one turd better than another turd) and, finally, the quest lines for the factions are much longer and, to me, infinitely more interesting.
 

Hell, Oblivion has my favorite quest in any game; Whodunit?. I love it so much that I have a special save file specifically right before entering the mansion so I can replay it over and over. And getting onto the Brotherhood, I love joining them. It's a joy in Oblivion; I love the NPCs to the point where I stop right after Permanent Retirement because of what comes after the fact.

 

I cannot name one decent quest in Skyrim, nor can I say that I even wish the Brotherhood to survive; and they're my favorite faction in Elder Scrolls.

 

But it' all piss in the ocean when it comes to Daggerfall.

[LordJerle]

I've felt, the past few years, that game devs are no longer about providing an experience to be enjoyed, thus making games that sell themselves based on their own merits, so much as they're about pumping out as many games as they can in order to make the most profit.  Case in point, the CoD series.  They pump out like two a year, all using the same engine, all with the same shit mechanics, and people eat it up.  You're essentially paying for the same thing, over and over, just with new models and textures.  Or the Pokemon series.  Yeah, there's no merits to the Pokemon series.  It was shit when they started it, it's still shit now.  I remember getting about halfway through one of the first ones on gameboy color, and going "Why the fuck did I buy this game?"  Compared to most of the mass produced dogshit these days, Skyrim for PC is a dream, though, I didn't actually play through the story until SkyUI came out, cuz the UI on launch was shit, and with the mods from LL, I spend a lot of time hunting for bandit camps so I can rape them, not just with a sword, but literally, and when my new PC comes, I'll be doing it in ultra high res  I never actually played Oblivion in its vanilla state, had about ten gigs in mods after I first got it, as I didn't get it until the GotY came out, and by then there was a ton of mods to choose from.

[Guest]

 

Oblivion has just as many if not more problems than Skyrim does. Hell so does Fallout 3, pretty much anything Bethesda puts out has bad decisions written all over it. They are still good games, but I find Bethesda games to be like a lake, on the surface it seems like everything is great and there's so much to do but then you go deeper and you start to find the things that are not so great. I don't understand how people can possibly think Oblivion is better than Skyrim though....Vanilla Oblivion is an absolute JOKE compared to Skyrim and was practially a broken game right from shipping date. That level up system has got to be the worst RPG mechanic I have EVER seen in any RPG ever. I think Bethesda learned from that as I was very satisfied with Skyrims leveling system but still I paid full price for Oblivion and I got a completely broken game essentially. At least when I booted up Skyrim for the first time I actually had fun and was able to level up what I wanted instead of having to spend hours leveling up one hand skill on a fucking mage just so I can carry more shit....

Explain what makes SKyrim better, and what makes Oblivion's leveling system a joke. Especially since the leveling system in Oblivion was much like the one in Morrowind; you know, like an RPG where you train stats relevant to your class to level up.

The leveling system is horrible for many reasons. For one the game discourages the player from leveling up. The leveling system makes it so that the game gets harder and harder as you level up, and not in a good way. For example, the most powerful destruction spells in the game take longer to kill a goblin at the higher player levels than the basic flare spell takes to kill a goblin at the very start. Plus these spells cost more to a master in destruction than a flare spell does to a new character. I've seen videos of high level master marksmen shooting dozens upon dozens of arrows at a goblin and barely doing any damage at all. It makes the game tedious and boring. It's better to avoid leveling up at all. There are probably ways to micromanage leveling and stats and whatnot but those require looking at outside sources and studying them for how to level up properly. Another huge issue with it is the equipment that enemies have at higher levels. At higher levels the common bandit can be seen with glass, ebony, and even daedric armor. It's ludicrous how the rarest and most powerful sets of armor and weapons can be seen on the common bandit. Don't get me wrong here, Morrowind had it's annoyances with its leveling system, but not to the degree of Oblivion.

 

However I can agree with you when it comes to NPC interaction. NPCs had a lot more to say than the NPCs in Skyrim. Guilds were more fleshed out, some quests also had different pathways. The DB quests are great examples. You can complete the quest or you could complete it in a different way and receive a bonus. Skyrim has only linear hand-holdy quests that don't really offer anything to the player except for some loot at the end.

[Jexsam]

Guilds were "much" more fleshed out?  Ehh...  maybe not much.  Definitely more, but... Oblivion's weren't exactly masterpieces, either.  With the sole exception of the DB, Oblivion's guilds were just better padded.  They were still pretty lame, just not as overtly bad as Skyrim's.

 

But yeah, Oblivion in retrospect was kind of a joke.   A fun joke, mind you - it succeeded just as well as Skyrim and Morrowind both at being fun to wander and dick around in - but it was a pretty shitty game.  Terrible character designs, little terrain variation, little variety in dungeons, a setting made out to be painfully generic...

 

Which isn't to say it didn't have its positives.  Combat was a few steps up from Morrowind's dice-based bullshit, the use of distant terrain made for some of the first times in a game I've ever actually stopped and looked just because it was pretty, and the addition of voice acting made a few of its quests, even the lame ones, memorable.

 

But then Skyrim came and did all of that, except maybe the voice acting, better.  Chargen is much improved, terrain is fairly varied, dungeon's don't feel quite so samey, the setting is slightly less bland, combat is further improved, and it feels like it provides more to do.