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How was Oblivion better than Skyrim?
- Thread starter Alpha Phoenix
- Start date
i thought consensus was Oblivion was the weakest modern elder scrolls. skyrim fatigue perhaps? it's the one of the three i spent least time with so i couldn't really do a point-by-point on what it did worse... but i always thought skyrim felt like a more realized take on the post-morrowind, 'console-centric' formula despite some regressions
Pretty much
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Oblivion had some actually good questlines and guild stuff.
Skyrim is a joke of an RPG and fallout 4 even moreso
Skyrim is a joke of an RPG and fallout 4 even moreso
SirMossyBloke
Member
Much better environment basically. Castles+forests VS Skyrims towns+snow and mountains.
Also some better side quests and better music. Although Skyrim music is fantastic, it's not as good as Oblivions.
Also some better side quests and better music. Although Skyrim music is fantastic, it's not as good as Oblivions.
shadowsdarknes
Member
-More varied world
-Spell Creations
-Athletics and Acrobatics letting you jump high
-The allowance of using spells while still using two arms for combat. I hate that I cannot use a 2 handed weapon and still use spells in Skyrim.
Skyrim has technology on its side. Dragons got really old.
-Spell Creations
-Athletics and Acrobatics letting you jump high
-The allowance of using spells while still using two arms for combat. I hate that I cannot use a 2 handed weapon and still use spells in Skyrim.
Skyrim has technology on its side. Dragons got really old.
OnionPowder
Member
Skyrims quest design was god awful. Every game Bethesda gets worse and worse.
Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim
In terms of playability now plus the design
Oblivion > Morrowind > Skyrim
Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim
In terms of playability now plus the design
Oblivion > Morrowind > Skyrim
RoboGeorgeForeman
Banned
I agree on the Morrowind >> Oblivion > Skyrim thing
But yeah Oblivion had much better factions, quests, towns, NPCs, enemy variety, and magic system than Skyrim. Skyrim had... well it didn't have the awful Oblivion gates, but instead we got dragon fights which stop being interesting after the first half dozen or so.
Plus magic was absolutely useless in the lategame. It took 20+ casts to kill most enemies as a destruction mage (which is now limited to one of three flavors). Things got so bad that I ended up grabbing silent casting so I could fight enemies without having to kite enemies around while casting the same spell over and over again for twenty plus minutes at a time. Although crouching and spamming fireballs wasn't that much more interesting.
But yeah Oblivion had much better factions, quests, towns, NPCs, enemy variety, and magic system than Skyrim. Skyrim had... well it didn't have the awful Oblivion gates, but instead we got dragon fights which stop being interesting after the first half dozen or so.
Plus magic was absolutely useless in the lategame. It took 20+ casts to kill most enemies as a destruction mage (which is now limited to one of three flavors). Things got so bad that I ended up grabbing silent casting so I could fight enemies without having to kite enemies around while casting the same spell over and over again for twenty plus minutes at a time. Although crouching and spamming fireballs wasn't that much more interesting.
Professor Renegade
Banned
I played Oblivion before Skyrim and didn't progress any further than escaping the prison. Oblivion was jank af and was such a visual downgrade that I literally couldn't take it.modding aside, I don't know how anyone could say that it's the superior game lol.
StereoVsn
Member
I thought Oblivion had better side quests, better main story and better expansion. Also I preferred visuals (at the time) to whites and greys of Skyrim.
The man issue was a dumb leveling system and Oblivion gate frequency but a few mods take care of that and then the game is damn good.
Edit:
The man issue was a dumb leveling system and Oblivion gate frequency but a few mods take care of that and then the game is damn good.
Edit:
Of course Oblivion has worse graphics then Skyrim. It's a game that came out 5 years before. However overall art direction was better and spruced up with some mods it was perfectly serviceable.
I eventually went back and finished the main story. I can assure you, it was not worth it. There's no real fireworks at the end, it just kinda ends like any quest line and it's not even one of the better ones in the game.
I also slogged through the whole Civil War questline only to be rewarded with the final "boss" being invuln-tagged. Yay.
Goddamn the memories. It instantly gives me a sense of wonder and adventure Skyrim never did.
Some of the quests were better I suppose, but overall I don't think Oblivion comes close to the total package that Skyrim offered.
How the hell is Skyrim a joke of an RPG lmao. That's just silly.
How the hell is Skyrim a joke of an RPG lmao. That's just silly.
The hideous faces that only a mother could love added to the charm.
The boring blah-faces from Skyrim just cant compare.
joecanada
Member
Part of it for me is familiarity like Skyrim is a cool follow up but I don't feel it improved enough to consider the sequel better so once you've played through Oblivion Skyrim is like meh ok it's fun but not improving over time. Even great series like GTA suffer from this in some ways
UncleSporky
Member
Oh god don't get me started on Skyrim combat magic.
Well...too late I guess.
- You can smith weapons to improve their damage, and also enchant them...there is nothing like this for magic
- Weapon power attacks take stamina, but you're never completely unable to attack, and you can even do a power attack with a single point of stamina...pure mages run out of mana and then it regenerates extremely slowly in combat so you're just sunk
- The above suddenly becomes a non-issue as soon as you can enchant your cast costs down to 0, but again there are NO enchants to increase the damage or power of spells
- Weapons can get up to a 200% damage bonus with 5 perk investment at the bottom of their tree...spells get a 50% bonus per element, with 2 perk investments per element, so essentially +50% for 6 perks
- Also, the destruction perks that increase elemental damage ALSO increase the damage of your enchants on weapons. Even trying to be a good mage and investing in your mage perks, you can't help but make melee combat stronger too
- Magic can't be used to sneak attack and get a 2x/3x damage bonus
- You have to play the elemental resistance game, something you don't have to worry about with weapons. In Skyrim literally everything resists ice, in Solstheim just about everything resists fire etc. Typically in games magic is more powerful than melee but the downside was managing elemental weaknesses...not so here
- Some of the few items that buff magic damage are dragon priest masks, which are heavy armor, which conflict with mage perks for wearing little/no armor
- Every spell except some of the lightning ones causes massive physics disasters and throws shit everywhere, sometimes glitching it out or putting it in hard to reach places, and you can miss out finding obviously placed loot. Plus a big radius of friendly fire.
In the base game without abusing the resto loop glitch, bows can do like 1500 damage, 4500 if it's a 3x sneak attack, while spells top off at less than 300, stretching things as far as you can using added gear from Solstheim.
So to sum up, spells deal less base damage, you can't buff it through smithing or enchanting, perks provide fewer benefits, have to screw around with elemental considerations, run out of mana, and also fling objects around every room you cast in. Pure destruction mages have a terrible time in Skyrim. (I say pure destruction because other spells can be awesome...just not in a strict damage-dealing way.)
TheVampire
Banned
Love those lush green forests ov Oblivion.
Skyrim dry tundra and snowy areas are meh
Skyrim dry tundra and snowy areas are meh
UncleSporky
Member
Pretty sure they mean in the sense of making meaningful decisions while questing, having a lot of discussion topics with NPCs, verisimilitude of the world and not feeling too action-gamey.
Skyrim and Fallout 4 both leaned much more heavily in a less role-playing direction.
StrategyFan
Member
if you have the pc version of the game, you can just grab whatever music tracks you want
they're just mp3s
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Only thing about Oblivion better than Skyrim was the Dark Brotherhood and the one quest where you go in the painting world. Also Oblivion's central cities were more memorable than Skyrim's. Even then, Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood is pretty good and in pretty much every other aspect, Skyrim is the better game.
Of course, opinions may vary. This one's just mine as someone whose bought Oblivion on 360, PS3 and PC and Skyrim on 360, PS3, PC and recently PS4.
Of course, opinions may vary. This one's just mine as someone whose bought Oblivion on 360, PS3 and PC and Skyrim on 360, PS3, PC and recently PS4.
I didn't find Skyrim destruction magic so bad when I played a mage recently. I mean, it definitely does suffer from some scaling issues, but its possible to keep pretty decently ahead of the game - though there's a bit of cyclical issue where the game gets harder for a bit until you get good enough to repeatedly cast the next magic spell in line to boost your DPS.
Its definitely flawed - as is shown by the mods that improve it - but even in vanilla Skyrim I prefer it to Oblivion destruction magic which was more about zapping something with my "I Win" spell
Its definitely flawed - as is shown by the mods that improve it - but even in vanilla Skyrim I prefer it to Oblivion destruction magic which was more about zapping something with my "I Win" spell
Karsticles
Member
The series has been a fastfall downhill since Morrowind. I played the games primarily for character creation, and with each sequel they cut the number of skills. Now most characters are pretty much the same.
disappeared
Banned
I go back to Oblivion every few years just to remind myself what the series was before Skyrim happened. Still love the game, warts and all, and it remains closer to an actual RPG than any of Beth's work since the fuckery that was Fallout 3.
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
Skyrim progress is pretty damn slow.
Serenitynow
Member
When it comes to Oblivion I guess you could say I'm an
Head.spawn
Junior Member
They were both pretty disappointing, enough derp in both of them it probably evens out.
TheVampire
Banned
Ghosts in Oblivion could only be killed with Silver weapons or magic.
Ghosts in Skyrim could be killed with anything. Even your fists or a stick.
WTF
Ghosts in Skyrim could be killed with anything. Even your fists or a stick.
WTF
The bestiary of Oblivion was definitely heaps better. Pretty much none of the mainstay daedra creatures of the franchise are in Skyrim, aside from the 3 elementals primarily used as summons. Being so overly focused on the regional theme really limited the way they could apply what little they had. It's more difficult to use draugr as regular zombies since they would feel out of place outside of nordic ruins and tombs. You don't really see the falmer outside of dwemer/snow elf related locations either. Dremora are in the game but are extremly rare.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
It really sucks that Bethesda screws up their own settings. Oblivion and Skyrim both would've been awesome if their tech could live up to their own concepts.
Fortunately the Morrowind community picks up the slack
https://youtu.be/Ftwn8ZUXUCI
https://youtu.be/uCT_Xao5ASE
At least the Imperial City is more of a city than Whiterun (trading hub for an entire province) or Solitude (the capital of Skyrim lol)
Fortunately the Morrowind community picks up the slack
https://youtu.be/Ftwn8ZUXUCI
https://youtu.be/uCT_Xao5ASE
At least the Imperial City is more of a city than Whiterun (trading hub for an entire province) or Solitude (the capital of Skyrim lol)
GenericUser
Member
This. In Oblivion, each corner of the world felt unique. The gold coast where anvil sits is very different from the swamps of bravil. I loved that sense of journey and mystery. Skyrim lacks that sense of feeling. Love both games btw.
HyperCroutons
Member
I've always liked Oblivion better because the quests were more interesting and actually felt like you accomplished something. The Thieves Guild with the epic heist to
was awesome and the betrayals and pure creepiness to the Dark Brotherhood quest-line. Hell even the Mages Guild was more interesting than Skyrim's version with the battle between the mages and necromancers. Also Oblivion had better DLC too with Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine. Oblivion had more customization too with the spell crafting and how you can get attributes to be permanently higher than 100 making you unstoppable plus poison apples.
I like Skyrim too though, for instance the world, art design, and combat was more interesting in it but the quests were unremarkable and I really can't remember any of them except maybe the Dark Brotherhood
and the Main quest ending.
I hope Bethesda finds a nice medium between Morrowind, Skyrim and Oblivion for their next Elder Scrolls.
capture an Elder Scroll in the White Gold Tower
I like Skyrim too though, for instance the world, art design, and combat was more interesting in it but the quests were unremarkable and I really can't remember any of them except maybe the Dark Brotherhood
were you kill the Emperor
I hope Bethesda finds a nice medium between Morrowind, Skyrim and Oblivion for their next Elder Scrolls.
I can see the points that most people are making in this thread, but this one right here is crazy.
Skyrim's environments show their age now, but they looked way more natural than Oblivion.
I hope that Fallout 4's lack of GOTY awards and post-launch sales (when compared to Skyrim) sort of give Bethesda the hint that they are heading in the wrong direction with the role playing aspects of their games. Pull back on the simplification, and focus on better quest writing. I'm not expecting them to go back to Journal hints for quest progression like it's 2003, but it doesn't have to be brain dead either.
uncleniccius
Member
The main thing for me. Standards of rpg combat had moved massively but skyrim combat improved much less than it should have done.
Which one had the dark brotherhood questline where you
accidentally kill all the leaders of the dark brotherhood
Because its that one.
Skyrim had much improved archery, and they did try to update the magic combat (to mixed effects). Melee was still terrible though.
I get that Bethesda designs their stuff as first person experiences, making an expectation of Dark Souls-like combat impractical. However, there have been several first person melee games on PC recently that they could take inspiration from.
Skittzo0413
Member
It wasn't. Morrowind was my first TES game and it's still my favorite by far, and while Oblivion's quests were actually interesting the gameplay was terrible compared to both Morrowind and Skyrim. Skyrim did things very differently from Morrowind obviously but what it sets out to do it does quite well, like the skill perk system. Oblivion though seems to have been caught between the much more RPG/numbers focus of Morrowind and the action/physics focus of Skyrim but doesn't really do either very well.
This is just from a gameplay perspective of course. Oblivion's quest lines were so much better than Skyrim's- the latter was pretty disappointing.
This is just from a gameplay perspective of course. Oblivion's quest lines were so much better than Skyrim's- the latter was pretty disappointing.
Dragonborn was really really cool. Maaaaaybe a bit better than Shivering Isles even I think.
Bethesda's games have been getting considerably worse with each iteration. As they've tirelessly simplified and become more 'cinematic', they've completely lost their charm and creativitiy. Morrowind is still the best Elder Scrolls game, and I suspect that will never change.
In the same vein, Fallout 4 is a cookie cutter snooze fest where every quest can be broken down into: Get quest, go to place, shoot shit, get loot, leave. Barely anything interesting occurs in most side, or main, quests barring a few exceptions. I can't help but think Skyrim was just a stepping stone for them in that regard.
I miss the old games, I really adore them, and I'm not just rose tinting here.
In the same vein, Fallout 4 is a cookie cutter snooze fest where every quest can be broken down into: Get quest, go to place, shoot shit, get loot, leave. Barely anything interesting occurs in most side, or main, quests barring a few exceptions. I can't help but think Skyrim was just a stepping stone for them in that regard.
I miss the old games, I really adore them, and I'm not just rose tinting here.
HyperCroutons
Member
Also even though the Oblivion gates got repetitive at least they ended after you beat the main quest, feels like you did something seeing the old remnants of an oblivion gate somewhere while in Skyrim you beat the game yet dragons still fly around so what did I do exactly to save the world.
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