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Oblivion is one of the worst sequels in gaming history

On top of that there were scaling enemies, scaling loot, scaling quest rewards, copy and paste dungeons, repetitive Oblivion dungeons
That's actually very true.

The game was really poor, mostly because of the "let's make it easy" aproach.
Such a shame.

Morrowind was simply superb.

This is pretty funny to see because Morrowind is largely scaled as well, and has a lot of copy/paste dungeons.

The higher your level, the more you start seeing diseased/blighted creatures, and the more you come across tough Daedra and undead - from scamps to ogrim, and from skeletons to bonelords.

But that doesn't mean I don't think it's done far better than in Oblivion. You don't get generic bandits coming at you decked out in full glass gear. And honestly I like the small size of most Morrowind dungeons, I think it alleviates the problem of them being often-repeated designs. At least I'm not there too long.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I originally played through Oblivion on PC with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul to remove level scaling etc, and the usual UI and texture mods amongst others.
It's not the greatest game I've ever played, but I enjoyed it enough to put in ~100 hours back in the day and in 2011 when I got the GOTY on Steam and modded the crap out of it... the combat is shite though.

OOO remains one of the greatest mods ever created. It really did make Oblivion into an entirely different, wholly better experience.
 

Gestahl

Member
I played Oblivion modded after Fallout 3 with zero exposure to the Elder Scrolls series and I can't really think of anything that was actually good about it. The writing and quest design was typical Bethesda schlock, the npcs were horrifying looking with some of the worst voice acting I've seen in a major AAA title outside the 5 minutes they got Patrick Stewart for, the towns were confusingly designed and filled with dozens of inconsequential named npcs, and all the dungeons bled together to form a mess of goblins and zombies. At some point the enemies upgraded and my guy turned into a noodle armed wimp so I gave up instead of dealing with the boring and monotonous combat on a lower setting.
 
Morrowind is the better game but I still enjoyed oblivion. Skyrim I found incredibly difficult to get into though, I could forgive the mediocre combat in Oblivion with it being early 360 but I kind of expected more by the time Skyrim came.

Idk why but I always found the combat in skyrim to be excellent. Of course there are better examples now, but in 2011 I thought it was great.

My main complaint for skyrim was far less quests in the guilds compared to oblivion. Usually not as interesting either.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
What the fuck is this thread?


Was it as amazing as Morrowind? No.


Was it a fantastic game for 2006? Yes,
 
My first TES game was Morrowind and I still played the hell out of and enjoyed Oblivion. I think part of what I liked about it was the lore, I read so many books in that game and even paraphrased one for an English assignment.
Probably played Morrowind for the first time at around age 12, all my friends were playing it at the time. I then got Oblivion a few years later at launch, couldn't even run it on my PC had to play on my fathers. Continued to play Oblivion for years, modding and enjoying the hell out of it.

-snip-
By the time Skyrim came out, I was really looking forward to it and I upgraded my PC for it. Even though it was technically better, the magic was gone. I only played a couple of days before getting bored with it. I was trying to recreate the experience from Oblivion but how could I with a game that's so much like it? The experience in the first place was something completely new.
-snip-

Very similar to how I was, I even bought that Dragon statue edition and then I don't think I have even played 100 hours of it. Not even mods could reignite the love for the franchise I had with both Morrowind and Oblivion. I am not sure if Skyrim really was worse, if I have grown tired of the franchise or if I simply cannot play Bethesda's style of open world game anymore.
 

kswiston

Member
I'm really tired of seeing this lame Bethesda "criticism".

The last few Bethesda games aren't great RPG's, no, you're right about that, but they're still magic whatever they are.

Some of it comes from (self-appointed) CRPG purists who take offense to games that don't have DnD levels of role playing in them or are not centered around combat. Some of it comes from former fans of 15-20 years ago who preferred the games when they did have more complex role-playing.

Perhaps we should just accept that modern Bethesda games are exploration/sandbox titles with shitty combat (pre-mods) but great scenery and pretty good lore. If you don't like that sort of thing, you're in luck, because 90s style RPGs with more combat/quest depth have made a huge comeback. Go play Shadowrun, Divinity, Pillars of Eternity, etc.

I actually wish that Bethesda would focus more on non-combat progression if they aren't going to fix their system that hasn't been very fun since at least Morrowind (I never played Daggerfall, so I can't comment on that). Other than that, I would be happy with Skyrim's level of detail and Morrowind's (or even Oblivion's) quests in the next Elder Scrolls game. Most of the quest lines in Skyrim were either forgettable or pretty obvious. I know that the combat is going to be adequate at best, so no point wishing for Dark Souls level encounters.
 

down 2 orth

Member
I've got mixed feelings for this game. On one hand it was a pretty cool game for 2006, but on the other hand it had the worst character design for NPCs and the worst dialogue of pretty much any RPG I've ever played. There was kind of some charm watching the NPCs say stupid things as they walked into walls and whatnot but after a while the game world got lonely, and RPGs should never have a lonely game world unless its by design.
 

Prine

Banned
The game died as soon as i realised the world is levelling up with me. Terrible game, hate it. Extremely generic to boot, infact, i dont like anything Bethesda make (hate Fallout as well, first person RPG's isnt for me).
 
Some of it comes from (self-appointed) CRPG purists who take offense to games that don't have DnD levels of role playing in them or are not centered around combat. Some of it comes from former fans of 15-20 years ago who preferred the games when they did have more complex role-playing.

I'm not really sure what this means. What's an example of an older game offering more complex role-playing?

"I walked up to a random Daggerfall NPC and had a long discussion with them about where local shops were located, can't do that in Skyrim!" ???
 
I hate hyperbolic topic titles like this. It's a decent game. It had problems. But worst sequels in gaming? Come on ...!

The biggest problem the game had was the level scaling of enemies. You never really felt strong and never felt weak. Just bad design. The world was fantastic for it's time though.
 
I don't know man. Morrowind had some real bullshit of its own like having to spend hours grinding your dagger against mudcrabs, watching your blade hit, but getting nothing but misses, despite the fact that you're clearly hitting it. God help you if you actually just head out into the world and start exploring.
 
32506-1-1277262709thx67.jpg


And Morrowind was a flawlessly designed game.
 

lazygecko

Member
This is pretty funny to see because Morrowind is largely scaled as well, and has a lot of copy/paste dungeons.

I think we're getting copypaste and the use of tilesets mixed up here. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all use modular tileset pieces (like walls, corners, hallway pieces with floor and ceiling and stuff put together into the same model) with different themes to create their dungeons. Morrowind and Skyrim's dungeon designs are still handcrafted. Oblivion's are literally copypasted. As in they made a few templates for entire room layouts and reused those rooms in most separate dungeons, with only the hallways and corridors connecting them being different. Some of those templates can be found in the editor as dummy dungeons.
 
I think we're getting copypaste and the use of tilesets mixed up here. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all use modular tileset pieces (like walls, corners, hallway pieces with floor and ceiling and stuff put together into the same model) with different themes to create their dungeons. Morrowind and Skyrim's dungeon designs are still handcrafted. Oblivion's are literally copypasted. As in they made a few templates for entire room layouts and reused those rooms in most separate dungeons, with only the hallways and corridors connecting them being different. Some of those templates can be found in the editor as dummy dungeons.

In Oblivion they only had 1 guy for the dungeons. Cant blame him for that mismanagement.
 
I hate hyperbolic topic titles like this. It's a decent game. It had problems. But worst sequels in gaming? Come on ...!

Yeah, really hate thread title like this. It's fine to have an opinion but can we please keep hyperbole in check? Can't the title be "I don't like Oblivion" or something like that?
 

kswiston

Member
I'm not really sure what this means. What's an example of an older game offering more complex role-playing?

"I walked up to a random Daggerfall NPC and had a long discussion with them about where local shops were located, can't do that in Skyrim!" ???

Maybe character progression would be a better term. There has been a lot of streamlining of stats and skills as the series progressed. Spell creation and enchantments were also more complex in games prior to Skyrim unless I am misremembering.
 

Cheech

Member
When your argument against someone's opinion is "Oh you're just edgy" or "You're being a contrarian", that's exactly how you come across.

And when somebody types hundreds of words slagging one of the best rated and best selling RPGs of all time, you'll have to forgive people who are going to accuse him of doing it for attention... they might have a point.

It's not even a polarizing game like a MGS entry. The ES games are all very well crafted experiences by anyone's RPG barometer. At least, by those of us that don't get off on shit stirring.
 

icy_eagle

Member
I've always found it bizarre when talking about Oblivion's flaws in relation to Morrowind, people mention poor combat and repetitive dungeons. Morrowind isn't much less guilty of those things.
 

Cetra

Member
I loved Oblivion. The Dark Brotherhood quests alone were worth 60 bucks to me. The crap that they called The Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim killed that game for me.
 
I think we're getting copypaste and the use of tilesets mixed up here. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all use modular tileset pieces (like walls, corners, hallway pieces with floor and ceiling and stuff put together into the same model) with different themes to create their dungeons. Morrowind and Skyrim's dungeon designs are still handcrafted. Oblivion's are literally copypasted. As in they made a few templates for entire room layouts and reused those rooms in most separate dungeons, with only the hallways and corridors connecting them being different. Some of those templates can be found in the editor as dummy dungeons.

Can you link some of these literally copy/pasted dungeons? I can't believe they'd be any worse than Morrowind's egg mines. I really don't consider a corridor going slightly down as opposed to slightly up as being different enough to consider it not copy/pasted.

Like here's a couple random Oblivion caves:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Goblin_Jim's_Cave
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Grayrock_Cave
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Greenmead_Cave

Here's a couple random Morrowind egg mines:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Panud_Egg_Mine
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Setus_Egg_Mine
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Vansunalit_Egg_Mine

I see little difference.
 

LordJim

Member
The ES games are all very well crafted experiences by anyone's RPG barometer. At least, by those of us that don't get off on shit stirring.

"If you don't like the games I like, you are just shitflinging'

Or maybe they cater to the lowest common denominator and are defended by people who would not know good rpg mechanics and interesting world building if their life depended on it.

Aren't generalizations nice?
 

Valnen

Member
Oblivion's combat is among some of the worst I've played in a video game, next to other games like Two Worlds. It's god awful. Proof real time isn't always better.
 

Rockandrollclown

lookwhatyou'vedone
Its a pretty good game, but the oblivion gates ruin it for me. On my first play through there came a time where I had done all of the 6 or so oblivion gate maps like 5 or 6 times each and I had enough. Shivering Isles is pretty good though. Its definitely a good game but one of Bethesda's worst imo. I'd rate Morrowind, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 all above it.
 

JediLink

Member
Well I'll tell you one thing: as far as video games go, Oblivion utterly fails as a thing that you're supposed to want to look at. Everything from the menus to the character models to the ridiculous font are offensive to my eyes. It's pretty bad for something so high budget.
 
There are 2 kinds of people. People who played MW when it came out first. And people who played Oblivion first.

People who played MW first like me were doomed to be disapointed by Oblivion. Others got to experience Oblivion in ignorant HD bliss.

No. Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time, bought it day one and played the hell out of it, and still loved Oblivion.

The music, atmosphere and sense of adventure in Oblivion represents why I love games.
 
This. Absolutely this.

Speak for yourself. I played Morrowind at launch, just like Daggerfall. I didn't play Arena at launch, but did play it early on.

Personally, I think the ES games, and Bethesda titles in general have improved tremendously from game to game. I had more fun with Daggerfall than Arena, Morrowind than Daggerfall, Oblivion than Morrowind, and Skyrim than Oblivion.

I only assume they will continue to improve on what is, IMO, the ideal game (giving me a world to just exist in and follow what threads I please based on how I've built my character).
 

RiverBed

Banned
I liked it and it forced me to buy an HDTV (the game had a notice saying it wouldn't run on an old egg TV). It was the final straw that made me pull the trigger on a flat TV.
As for the game, I was taken by how good it looked, great sound track and with horizon reaching scale. It was my first open wRPG.

The only thing that really broke the game for me (and after searching online found that a lot of people suffered from this game-wise) was the vampire virus/disease that I got out of the blue. It broke the game for me as I couldn't play half the time due to daylight and the requirements to remove the effect where hard and long- especially under those conditions. I had no guarantee it wouldn't happen again if I restarted the game since it was a random event. And in a long game, that bound to happen at some point. So I stopped.

Other than that, I enjoyed my time with it.
 
Can you link some of these literally copy/pasted dungeons? I can't believe they'd be any worse than Morrowind's egg mines. I really don't consider a corridor going slightly down as opposed to slightly up as being different enough to consider it not copy/pasted.

Like here's a couple random Oblivion caves:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Goblin_Jim's_Cave
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Grayrock_Cave
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Greenmead_Cave

Here's a couple random Morrowind egg mines:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Panud_Egg_Mine
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Setus_Egg_Mine
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Vansunalit_Egg_Mine

I see little difference.

veqfzzjknsix.jpg
 
It was really good for maybe about 5 or 10 hours, then the scaled enemies and lack of balanced content starts to show. The open world is still fun to run around in because of the visuals and music. It was the best looking open world rpg at the time for sure.
 

KHlover

Banned
Oblivion's combat is among some of the worst I've played in a video game, next to other games like Two Worlds. It's god awful. Proof real time isn't always better.

As bad as it is - it's still miles ahead of Morrowind's combat. Don't know what possessed them to not create ANY animation for failing a dice roll determining if an attacks hits or misses. You could quite literally spend like half a minute watching your sword pass through enemy models without doing any damage *near the beginning*. It's ridiculous.
 

massoluk

Banned
There are 2 kinds of people. People who played MW when it came out first. And people who played Oblivion first.

People who played MW first like me were doomed to be disapointed by Oblivion. Others got to experience Oblivion in ignorant HD bliss.
I never played Morrowwind, I have only played Oblivion and Skyrim. I hate Oblivion. The enemy scaling is dumb and also the fact that you actually have to deliberately gimp your character during character creation screen to maximize the skills was bizarre.

Oh yeah, fuck those Oblivion gates
 
I actually really enjoyed it, and I have a lot of good memories with that game, especially the Oblivion gates, which were pretty scary for me especially when doing them at night.

I'm probably much more forgiving though since Oblivion was my first PS3 game and was my first Elder Scrolls game too. I was 10 when I first played it. So I probably didn't know any better and enjoyed any games that I played on consoles anyway. I was pretty much a casual up until 2013.
 

SA007

Banned
Oblivion was my first RPG and honestly I loved every bit of it. Yes there were issues & repetitive dungeons but still I admired the world.

BTW guys I plan to play morrowind too. I mean is it really far better than oblivion?
 
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