The Elder Scrolls V

[tiredinnuendo]

It seems that hating Oblivion is the big thing, but no one seems to have any reasons. They just do it. What is it that makes Morrowind the savior and messiah of RPGs and makes Oblivion the equivalent of a pile of elephant shit? Am I the only one in the world who is not a complete idiot and thinks that Oblivion was better?

I guess I could make a joke about how your statement of "not a complete idiot" is contradicted by "thinks that Oblivion was better", or I could point out that your requested reasons have already been pointed to right here in this very thread, but if you don't want to go looking for them...

1) Console-tarded. Oblivion was built from the ground up to be a console game, and was later ported to the PC. Considering that Oblivion is a member of a series known for being very open in its choices, the oversimplification did nothing for it. There were far less skills, there were far less weapons, there were far less spells (and less spell mechanics), there were far less items, there were far less unique locations, there were less guilds and factions with less consequences for joining them, there were far less ways for your character to be altered by his experiences, and I could go on, but I think you get the point. There was far, far less. Add onto this the fact that the PC interface was clearly built for someone who sits 15 feet away from their screen.

2) Procedurally generated level design. Most of the Elder Scrolls games have had every inch of the game world built by hand. This lead to some really cool moments, like my aforementioned "quest directions" and neat stuff like the boat sitting inside a cave. It gave you a world where you never knew what was going to be inside the next rock with a door in it. Oblivion's entire world was built by a computer. Every interior was designed by randomly assembling the same pieces in a slightly different order. The spawn points, the treasure locations, everything was identical. Don't even get me started on how bland being outdoors was.

3) Level scaling. To combat the droves of people who complained about how easy Morrowind became at high levels, Bethesda decided to show off their extreme lack of innovation via level scaling. Now the world levels with you. BUT WAIT! Don't take this to mean that every creature in the world is always your level. What this actually means is that only about 4 creatures appear in any given level range. What this means in practical terms is that (combined with my last point) when you're looking at a ruin you've never explored before, you already know the exact layout, spawn points, enemies you'll find, and all the loot that will be in any of the boxes. Remember the Vivec vaults, containing untold riches and vaunted treasures? No more! All the "loot" not in boxes is salt shakers and broken swords. So basically, there's absolutely no reason to explore.

4) Oversimplification. I'm good at FPS's, so at level 1 I'm able to complete the arena. I can manage to hold the mouse in my hand, so I can pick any lock in the world even with a lockpicking skill of one. I can manage to count, and therefore can persuade any random total stranger that I'm their new best friend. Actually, to return to that point about being level one, it's actually easier to finish the main quest at level one than it is at level 20.

5) Class limitations. You can be a mage, or a fighter, or a theif. Or a mage-theif. Or a fighter-mage. Or a fighter-theif. Or the incredibly common fightermagetheif. That's it.

6) "Radiant" AI. I'm not even going to say anything about this, but yeah, Bethesda can't build AI for shit. They never could. Trying to put more of their bad AI in was a bad decision.

So there's some reasons. I can give more if you really like.

- J

EDIT:

As for the "magic compass", there are no shortage of mods to address that issue. PC gaming FTW.

The fact that the gaming community saw that Oblivion was terrible and fixed it does not excuse it from being terrible. Don't get me wrong, I had the PC version too, and modded the hell out of it just to make it decent, but that doesn't excuse Bethesda for their terrible, and at times just plain lazy, design work.

 

[Limos]

I just want Bethesda to take a hint form the momdding community and add some of the crazy shit you see in mods. Like Deadly Reflex Combat moves. Or better yet find the guy who made the Oblivion script extender and HIRE him to work on the game. Most of the really advanced mods need Oblivion script extender to work.

I think the most important change would be to update the animations. Especially the run and jump cycles. The jump in every elder scrolls game has totally sucked. If possible make it so third person combat actually works.

 

[poleboy]

Like I have already stated, I think that Oblivion is in some ways a better game than Morrowind. Oblivion is nicer too look at (not really surprising), more user-friendly and not hostile towards players not familiar with the series. It generally tries to make your experience with the game as smooth as possible and avoids putting you in a situation that you cannot escape from.
I think this is what annoys people who played Morrowind. There was tons of ways you could break Morrowind. It gave you a lot more freedom of choice than Oblivion. You could kill a major NPC and the main storyline would be closed for you. Or kill one of the faction heads of a guild and effectively kick yourself out of the guild for good. You could even kill Vivec - and trap his soul in a gem if you were feeling particularly malicious.
I'm not one of those people who enjoy murdering an entire city, even if it is just in a video game. I never did any of those things, at least not without reloading my game. I like that Oblivion has an "immortal" tag for some NPC's, although I think they got a bit zealous with it. However, I also liked the fact that I knew the other people in the world (in Morrowind) could die. By placing more restrictions on how the game can be played (killing NPC's is not the only one), you are constantly reminded that it's just a game. And that goes completely against what I thought was Bethesda's vision for TES series.

That was about immersion, and so is this. Morrowind was loaded with dialgoue. You had a library of topics that expanded as you played, most of which you could toss at any NPC during dialogue in the game. Some NPC's had little to say, others a lot. Most had something.
Your typical Oblivion NPC has exactly three. Background, city x and rumors. Some have a few extra quest-related topics, a few major NPC's has up to ten and guild members have varying amounts, depending on whether you are a member or not and what you're doing for them. While this works pretty well for the more fleshed-out NPC's, the "man on the street" becomes an annoying cardboard cut-out. If you've spoken to him once, you will never do it again, because you KNOW he has nothing new to say. This was made worse by the fact that every city has a very limited amount of rumors.
I know that they spoiled us by adding full voice-acting for even the lowliest NPC and I love that but frankly, a lot of them feel very hollow without you even needing to look behind the surface.

 

[MikeTheElf]

I can't wait for TES5, hopefully Bethesda improves some stuff though:
-No fast travel
-mounted combat
-more guilds
-A mix of morrowind/oblivion skills (mostly oblivion because I seriously hated light/medium/heavy armour, long/short blade, etc., but axe is definitely needed)
-better immersion
-better character animation
-"difficulty" switch has to edit more than just health and power of enemies (for example: less information provided by journal in quests)

Regarding the fast travel though, it's meant to be unique to Cyrodiil. Silt striders cannot live in the climate of Cyrodiil, and there aren't enough waterways for boats. I think that instead of fast travel being available, horse-pulled carriages- but then there's the whole immersion argument: wouldn't bandits still attack? I'd vote for random encounters while traveling, kind of like in Morrowind when resting the the wild (which was also cut from Oblivion for some reason).

 

[Limos]

One thing I have to add since I see a lot of mod talk.

I installed Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and I like all the added items, less level scaling, new enemies and such. But the one thing that bugs me is that it takes SO MUCH LONGER to level up. You have to specialize your character just to survive in the early levels, but if you are too competent then you can't seem to level up because you do too much damage or somesuch.

I made a new character and completed the thieves questline, the Dark Brotherhood questline, the Fighters guild questline, and the Arena questline. At the end of this, I was level four. Normally you would hope doing quests would make you level up faster. But really the only thing to do is go out and grind on bandits and wolves to level up.

 

[Manfesto]

They should make in more realistic.

 

[vede]

It seems that hating Oblivion is the big thing, but no one seems to have any reasons. They just do it. What is it that makes Morrowind the savior and messiah of RPGs and makes Oblivion the equivalent of a pile of elephant shit? Am I the only one in the world who is not a complete idiot and thinks that Oblivion was better?

I guess I could make a joke about how your statement of "not a complete idiot" is contradicted by "thinks that Oblivion was better", or I could point out that your requested reasons have already been pointed to right here in this very thread, but if you don't want to go looking for them...

1) Console-tarded. Oblivion was built from the ground up to be a console game, and was later ported to the PC. Considering that Oblivion is a member of a series known for being very open in its choices, the oversimplification did nothing for it. There were far less skills, there were far less weapons, there were far less spells (and less spell mechanics), there were far less items, there were far less unique locations, there were less guilds and factions with less consequences for joining them, there were far less ways for your character to be altered by his experiences, and I could go on, but I think you get the point. There was far, far less. Add onto this the fact that the PC interface was clearly built for someone who sits 15 feet away from their screen.

2) Procedurally generated level design. Most of the Elder Scrolls games have had every inch of the game world built by hand. This lead to some really cool moments, like my aforementioned "quest directions" and neat stuff like the boat sitting inside a cave. It gave you a world where you never knew what was going to be inside the next rock with a door in it. Oblivion's entire world was built by a computer. Every interior was designed by randomly assembling the same pieces in a slightly different order. The spawn points, the treasure locations, everything was identical. Don't even get me started on how bland being outdoors was.

3) Level scaling. To combat the droves of people who complained about how easy Morrowind became at high levels, Bethesda decided to show off their extreme lack of innovation via level scaling. Now the world levels with you. BUT WAIT! Don't take this to mean that every creature in the world is always your level. What this actually means is that only about 4 creatures appear in any given level range. What this means in practical terms is that (combined with my last point) when you're looking at a ruin you've never explored before, you already know the exact layout, spawn points, enemies you'll find, and all the loot that will be in any of the boxes. Remember the Vivec vaults, containing untold riches and vaunted treasures? No more! All the "loot" not in boxes is salt shakers and broken swords. So basically, there's absolutely no reason to explore.

4) Oversimplification. I'm good at FPS's, so at level 1 I'm able to complete the arena. I can manage to hold the mouse in my hand, so I can pick any lock in the world even with a lockpicking skill of one. I can manage to count, and therefore can persuade any random total stranger that I'm their new best friend. Actually, to return to that point about being level one, it's actually easier to finish the main quest at level one than it is at level 20.

5) Class limitations. You can be a mage, or a fighter, or a theif. Or a mage-theif. Or a fighter-mage. Or a fighter-theif. Or the incredibly common fightermagetheif. That's it.

6) "Radiant" AI. I'm not even going to say anything about this, but yeah, Bethesda can't build AI for shit. They never could. Trying to put more of their bad AI in was a bad decision.

So there's some reasons. I can give more if you really like.

- J

EDIT:

As for the "magic compass", there are no shortage of mods to address that issue. PC gaming FTW.

The fact that the gaming community saw that Oblivion was terrible and fixed it does not excuse it from being terrible. Don't get me wrong, I had the PC version too, and modded the hell out of it just to make it decent, but that doesn't excuse Bethesda for their terrible, and at times just plain lazy, design work.

Okay. I guess you've got it.

But, for your number two, that's not true.

Morrowind is the only Elder Scrolls game to have hand-made everything. Due to memory restrictions, Arena and Daggerfall were procedurally generated.

Also, not all the dungeons were identical. You make it out to be like the game has the exact same cave every time, which is not true. Yeah, they have the same texture, but they are all different. This was the main allure of the game to me; the dungeon crawling was very, very fun.

 

[poleboy]

-A mix of morrowind/oblivion skills (mostly oblivion because I seriously hated light/medium/heavy armour, long/short blade, etc., but axe is definitely needed)

So you think a two-handed sword handles exactly like a dagger, but an axe is completely different than a mace? I'll have to disagree. I didn't like that they lumped all bladed weapons into one category because they are hugely different, not only in size and weight but in handling as well. On the contrary, I felt that the choice to add axes to the blunt category made sense (there's even a book in the game with a detailed description of why axes count as blunt weapons) because of the similar techniques used. The perfect set of weapon for TES5 skills look like this to me:

Long Blade
Short blade
Blunt/axe
Spear/polearm
Bow
Thrown
Perhaps an extra category for crossbows, or maybe merged into bows.

Regarding the fast travel though, it's meant to be unique to Cyrodiil. Silt striders cannot live in the climate of Cyrodiil, and there aren't enough waterways for boats. I think that instead of fast travel being available, horse-pulled carriages- but then there's the whole immersion argument: wouldn't bandits still attack? I'd vote for random encounters while traveling, kind of like in Morrowind when resting the the wild (which was also cut from Oblivion for some reason).

Interesting thought. I had never actually put the fast travel into the perspective of TES universe. It makes sense, though I still feel it could have been handled more elegantly.

 

[SimuLord]

One thing I have to add since I see a lot of mod talk.

I installed Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and I like all the added items, less level scaling, new enemies and such. But the one thing that bugs me is that it takes SO MUCH LONGER to level up. You have to specialize your character just to survive in the early levels, but if you are too competent then you can't seem to level up because you do too much damage or somesuch.

I made a new character and completed the thieves questline, the Dark Brotherhood questline, the Fighters guild questline, and the Arena questline. At the end of this, I was level four. Normally you would hope doing quests would make you level up faster. But really the only thing to do is go out and grind on bandits and wolves to level up.

That's why you combine it with KCAS. Still viciously, unforgivingly, maddeningly difficult at lv1, but customize the level rates (hell, set 'em to the ones in vanilla if you hate long grinds so much) and you'll advance as quickly as ever.

As an aside, Poleboy, you have the single most awesome avatar on this entire site.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

Okay. I guess you've got it.

But, for your number two, that's not true.

Morrowind is the only Elder Scrolls game to have hand-made everything. Due to memory restrictions, Arena and Daggerfall were procedurally generated.

Also, not all the dungeons were identical. You make it out to be like the game has the exact same cave every time, which is not true. Yeah, they have the same texture, but they are all different. This was the main allure of the game to me; the dungeon crawling was very, very fun.

Apologies, I had wandered away mid posting and kinda lost my place with point two. That's my bad. It was supposed to be about how Morrowind was a step up from Daggerfall due to the hand-drawn world and Oblivion had stepped back.

And yes. All of the dungeons were identical. Just like all of the box-factories in City of Heroes were identical. Seeing the pieces assembled in a different order didn't make it any different.

- J

 

[vede]

In that case, pretty much every house in developed countries is identical to most every other one, and so are the cities. And so is the world.

You've got hills or flat landscapes with trees or grass, or you've got mountains with trees or grass, or you've got deserts, or you've got water. Occasionally there's a cave, which is basically just a hole. Sometimes they're in different places. I guess Earth is just too static to be entertaining.

 

[Drumming Panda]

this thread made me join the escapist forums...anyways..

I played both Morrowind and Oblivion, and they're both good in different ways. I can see that almost everyone thinks Oblivion sucks cause its not like Morrowind...well yeah cause its not Morrowind, otherwise it wouldve been called The Elder Scrolls 3.5 or TES:3 Morrowind the Re-...blah blah blah. Besides there's mods for that as people clearly state so go get a mod if your not happy.

I personally liked Oblivion more and yes it has major flaws, but i thought it was better than picking either heavy/medium/light/unarmored, short/long, axe/blunt stuff. Someone made a comment saying something about a dagger and a 2 handed sword not handling the same. Well of course not but they're both blades right? and i think any average person who mastered a dagger could at least do well with a 2h sword.

What i'm getting at is a thing people say when they get tired of hearing so many people bitchin and ranting: IF YOU LIKE MORROWIND SO MUCH GO PLAY MORROWIND...

 

[tiredinnuendo]

In that case, pretty much every house in developed countries is identical to most every other one, and so are the cities. And so is the world.

You've got hills or flat landscapes with trees or grass, or you've got mountains with trees or grass, or you've got deserts, or you've got water. Occasionally there's a cave, which is basically just a hole. Sometimes they're in different places. I guess Earth is just too static to be entertaining.

Why else would we play games?

But all joking aside, if you can't tell the difference between these two ideas then you're just being obtuse.

In Morrowind, the caves were all different, but were technically all made up of hallways and earthen walls.

Oblivion's caves went something like this:

Cave 1: Stairwell 2, then Hallway 1, followed by Stairwell 1, then Hallway 2
Cave 2: Stairwell 1, Hallway 2, Stairwell 2, Hallway 1

The spawn points, treasure boxes, and what have you that are in Hallway 1 are *always* in Hallway 1, no matter where in the order it falls.

See the difference?

- J

 

[Drumming Panda]

oh yeah i forgot to say one thing....these complaints are completely off topic.

TES5 has been confirmed in an interview but they're focusing on Fallout 3 right now.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

One thing that has gone unmentioned: Morrowind did much to add to the lore of TES with great story-telling and tons of interesting reading material. I think you could make a strong case that Oblivion worsened the lore of the TES by using a a very cliched look and feel for Cyrodil, not at all similar to it's description in previous TES titles. Among other things.

The Romanesque interpretation of Morrowind was very cool. Gone forever, I'm afraid...

I don't think Oblivion was bad: I played it to death with no regrets. Just not what it should (in my opinion) have been.

 

[DarkHyth]

i think any average person who mastered a dagger could at least do well with a 2h sword.

Uhhhh ok, I somehow doubt that. A dagger weighs nothing compared to a huge claymore. If you have mastered a dagger, then you are used to being able to move quickly, flow your attacks together etc. Try doing this with a heavy claymore. Not to mention the fact that you require BOTH hands to swing a 2h sword, meaning you can't do whatever you're used to doing with a dagger's off-hand.

Anyway yeah this is getting way off topic now.

Another thing I'd like to see in TES5: darkness. Oblivion was way too bright and happy and colourful, Morrowind was dark and mysterious.

 

[dib_dib_9@hotmail.co.uk]

Reading all the posts...I wish other people would before reposting statements already made.

 

[Chechosaurus]

I hope they don't make another one. Morrowind was just so ball wettingly good and then along came Oblivion. Ok, it was sexy but it was also blonde. I think that they really ballsed it up and I'll admit, looking back at Morrowind its not the prettiest of games but it is expansive and orginal with emphasis on adventure and a real sense of role play. Oblivion kicked this in the face with spikey mountain cleets and I think that ES V would do the same.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

this thread made me join the escapist forums...anyways..

I played both Morrowind and Oblivion, and they're both good in different ways. I can see that almost everyone thinks Oblivion sucks cause its not like Morrowind...well yeah cause its not Morrowind, otherwise it wouldve been called The Elder Scrolls 3.5 or TES:3 Morrowind the Re-...blah blah blah. Besides there's mods for that as people clearly state so go get a mod if your not happy.

I personally liked Oblivion more and yes it has major flaws, but i thought it was better than picking either heavy/medium/light/unarmored, short/long, axe/blunt stuff. Someone made a comment saying something about a dagger and a 2 handed sword not handling the same. Well of course not but they're both blades right? and i think any average person who mastered a dagger could at least do well with a 2h sword.

What i'm getting at is a thing people say when they get tired of hearing so many people bitchin and ranting: IF YOU LIKE MORROWIND SO MUCH GO PLAY MORROWIND...

Thank you for not adding anything to the conversation. Do you think those of us who like Morrowind have stopped playing it so we can instead complain about Oblivion? How is suggesting that we play it relevant to anything at all? That's like saying "I'm incapable of coming up with a good defense for that which I like, so I will instead ask you to not question it" - the equivalent of going "LA LA LA" with your fingers in your ears. So I put this to you instead: if Oblivion is so great, why do you get insecure when people criticize its quality?

As for my take, I agree that both have their positives and their negatives. I miss a LOT of the things they left out from Morrowind (levitation, the skills, the unique items with set (non-leveled) stats, etc.) and I hate the way they nerfed the gameplay. The menu system overhaul wasn't needed either (replacing four boxes with a dozen tabs? Yeah, waaaaay better.). I found the quests in Morrowind to be more fun and clever, too. However, the combat in Oblivion is unmatched, the magic system is a vast and much needed improvement, and the graphics rule. Both games have stability / random crashing issues and rather weak stories, overall. Things Morrowind did wrong: CLIFF RACERS and bland scenery (for the most part), skill-based hit percentage system for combat, exclusive magic OR combat stances... you couldn't do both on the fly... actually, come to think of it, the magic system in Morrowind was pretty worthless overall. All it was really good for was the basic utility stuff like levitation, mark/recall, interventions, shield, and feather. Everything else of use could be done with enchantments.

Since immersion is suddenly being tossed around here, I'll mention that, too. Morrowind had it. It wasn't a game when I was exploring those Dwemer ruins. I was exploring those ruins. Oblivion... is a game. At no time did I feel like it was ME that needed to run away, and since everything was set to my level anyway, all I had to do was re-think my strategy if something wasn't working (ex. those damn Will-O-The-Wisps... GRR!). Morrowind took me more than a month's worth of nights to finish completely. I stopped playing Oblivion about half-way through out of boredom (I have since finished it, natch).

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both games tremendously... I just enjoy Morrowind a lot more.

 

[poleboy]

On the topic of immersion...

I actually think they did the dungeons and caves in Oblivion quite well. They were very dark and creepy most of the time. Some of the cave textures looked kinda odd and plastic-like (I think this has something to do with their lighting system. Probably needs a bit of tweaking) but I enjoyed most of the dungeon-crawling in the game. If you think about it too much, you can begin to predict how they were put together, like someone has already mentioned. But honestly, this is true for most games. If you pick at the seams that holds the illusion of reality, it unravels. You have to imagine part of the experience yourself, just like any other media.