Support NeoGAF

[Belmonte]

I don't think that is a justification.
Quests can be designed very well for a game without a quest compass.

Take Morrowind, for example. Quest givers usually describe where you can find someone/something good enough for anyone capable of reading to find them. Of course, there are some (famous ) exceptions, but many games did that and it works best if your dialogues with NPCs are saved somewhere (which is the case for Morrowind IIRC).
Taking routines into account would merely be a matter of adding those to a description if relevant. It's not like the routines of important NPCs are random, either. They'll do stuff that makes sense for them.

While quests designed for a game with a quest compass will often forego any interesting/immersive descriptions entirely, because you'll just be staring at the compass like a mobile phone zombie anyway.
That's also why most mods that remove the quest compass (and sometimes there's an option in the game itself to remove it) simply don't work: You end up with no good clue at all where to find something.
So then you'll truly run around aimlessly, thinking "man, games without a quest compass suck" - while the true reason is you are playing a quest compass game without a quest compass.

Yeah, agreed. I think your solution is superior to the compass. If they did well, it would add a lot of immersion.

It would increase dev time but it would be cool if the player could ask appropriate NPCs about the quest givers. For example, you need to talk to an NPC for a quest and he is not at home, but his wife is and when talking to her doing this quest, there is an option to ask where he is. "Oh, he has gone to the tavern".

It is a pity how many players are used to quest compass.

 

[johntown]

Oblivion is my favorite ES game! I love it more than any of the others. The side quests for me are what really does it in this game. The Dark Brotherhood, Mages Guild and Thieves Guild are excellent.

I love and greatly prefer the stat based leveling and the amount of choice you have in the game. The game is just a gem in every way. Yeah not very pretty to look at nowadays but mods can help a bit.

I also like the ability to go to daedric areas and Shivering Isles is one of the best DLC Bethesda has ever created.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Side note, this literally happens in the game and it is one of the most memorable and amazing side-quests in any game ever!

And yes I agree with all your points. Oblivion is high fantasy at it's finest. It is bright, colorful, mysterious, and wondrous all at the same time. The feelings evoked when playing are nothing short of magical and it is truly one of my favorite games.

It's more akin to the land of Narnia than Middle-Earth.

Oh yes, I remember that quest well.

 

[Memorabilia]

I'm actually going to continue where I left off in Oblivion (360) soon enough. Stopped playing 3-4 years ago. Or maybe I'll just start over. Dunno. I played a lot and just ignored the main quest.

I have the entire series on Steam and GOG too (no Skyrim on GOG yet). Don't know how that happened. Lol

Question for the experts: for the PC version are there good mods to help alleviate the level scaling problem? That's one big reason I'd be more than happy to start over on PC...

Aside from that issue, I remember loving my time with Oblivion despite the flaws.

 

[anthraticus]

Question for the experts: for the PC version are there good mods to help alleviate the level scaling problem?

Fixes a lot more than just that...

https://sureai.net/games/nehrim/

https://www.moddb.com/mods/nehrim-at-fates-edge

 

[Trogdor1123]

I love the world and want to play it badly but the leveling makes it impossible for me to enjoy

 

[Moogle11]

Oblivion is my favorite ES game! I love it more than any of the others. The side quests for me are what really does it in this game. The Dark Brotherhood, Mages Guild and Thieves Guild are excellent.

Agreed. While I liked all those guild quest lines in Skyrim, they just weren't as good as they were in Oblivion. It really felt like multiple games/narratives if you focused on mainlining each guild and then the main story rather than bouncing back and forth between them. I don't like the combat/leveling in either game so I just played on easy where I largely didn't have to worry about it and could focus on the stories and questing.

 

[xool]

Whilst people are name checking quests - I liked the "elven collector" one the most - the ayleid stones for some bookish guy for his collection - you know how that turns out.

[edit] I got a cool helmet from that one ..

 

[Mista]

One of the best games ever made and it is the best Elder Scrolls game to date

 

[Guileless]

Is the One X enhanced version a significant upgrade over PS3? By significant I mean is it worth paying $10 for the Xbox version when I already own the PS3?

 

[Agent_4Seven]

Morrowind (and its addons) is way, WAY better game than Oblivion and Skyrim, except maybe GFX, combat, character models and facial animations. Imho... obviously.

 

[Starfield]

Listen here noob.


Oblivion deserves a remaster before Morrowind

 

[TheCrimsnFuckr]

Is the One X enhanced version a significant upgrade over PS3? By significant I mean is it worth paying $10 for the Xbox version when I already own the PS3?

It's a beautiful game in 4k and it also runs flawlessly. I have no idea if the performance is as bad as people have said with the PS3 version but if you want to see the game in a modern resolution then yes it is worth it. Ignore the kind of annoying commentators, but here is a video showing the 360 version running on One S (native resolution but with some anti-aliasing I think) versus Xbox One X (full fat 4k)


In my opinion it looks beautiful in 4k on Xbox, but at the same time the art style works at any resolution so decide for yourself

 

[R6Rider]

Third best Elder Scrolls title for me. Morrowind will probably always be my favorite. That being said I can't get back into Morrowind to play it anymore, even heavily modded. Oblivion is still a fantastic game and the memes from it are great.

 

[TheCrimsnFuckr]

Honestly, I feel it is a lesser game than Morrowind, but still a much greater game than Skyrim. I really disliked how quickly enemies become total sword sponges and made every encounter a chore to deal with, as well as how bland the world is for the most part. I very rarely felt rewarded for exploring and I never had any crazy moments like with Morrowind. Also the Oblivion gates were annoying

 

[Zog]

Oblivion is much better than Skyrim. It has better quests, a better leveling system (Minor Skills and Major Skills instead of perks) and I personally enjoyed the green forests to the snowy mountains. Oblivion would benefit from Skyrim's improved combat though. I remember walking everywhere in Oblivion to build up my athletics skill and I liked running and jumping because it built up my acrobatic skill. In Skyrim....well there was no benefit to walking everywhere. I also thought the in game map was a downgrade but horseback riding was improved.

The Oblivion gates sucked but so did the dragons in Skyrim. When I play Oblivion I try not to play to the point of the story where the sky turns red, I just do everything except the main quest and ignore the Oblivion gates. On PC, I can turn off clipping and just go straight to the end of the Oblivion gate.

I do think that all the time I spent with Oblivion burned me out before Skyrim came out but Skyrim really wasn't as much fun. The biggest disappointment is that they keep rehashing Skyrim instead of making a new game. Consider this, the gap between Morrowind and Oblivion was only 4 years. The gap between Oblivion and Skyrim was 5 years but here we are 9 years later and we have no information on the next Elder Scrolls game. I am not counting the MMO's because I think that the single player games and the MMO's have different audiences.

 

[AXidenT]

From what I've played of them each (I've not finished any of them) I prefer Skyrim and Morrowind.

 

[Zog]

I don't know if it was Oblivion that introduced it, but the level scaling mechanic where the world and enemies scale up with your level is not only the worst RPG mechanic, it's probably the worst gaming mechanic in general that has ever been conceived.

Final Fantasy 8 had level scaling in 1999 and I doubt that's the first game to have it.

On another note, people keep talking about the need for the compass because of the less detailed quest descriptions. I am sure the voice acting had alot to do with the less detailed quest descriptions.

 

[R6Rider]

Final Fantasy 8 had level scaling in 1999 and I doubt that's the first game to have it.

On another note, people keep talking about the need for the compass because of the less detailed quest descriptions. I am sure the voice acting had alot to do with the less detailed quest descriptions.

The level scaling in Oblivion was pretty broken and unbalanced, especially for non melee/combat characters. I remember you had to carefully put your points into attributes a specific way or else you could screw yourself over. Mods fixed this, but base game was ridiculous.

 

[Zog]

The level scaling in Oblivion was pretty broken and unbalanced, especially for non melee/combat characters. I remember you had to carefully put your points into attributes a specific way or else you could screw yourself over. Mods fixed this, but base game was ridiculous.

So was Final Fantasy 8 but you just had to learn how to exploit it properly. It's easier to swallow in FF8 though because in an ES game you are supposed to be able to use any build you want.

 

[rofif]

Better than Skyrim for sure

 

[Fuz]

It's the best Elder Scrolls game.

lolnope

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Skyrim is much better. Although if someone played Oblivion a lot, I can see anyone getting burned out not being thrilled with Skyrim. Skyrim was similar but more of the same and had more realistic earth tone colours. Oblivion half the time was like staring at the sun.

This is just me comparing the two as I never played Morrowind. And my memory of playing old Arena and Daggerfall's was really limited. And those games were buggy pieces of shit.

To me it's like Fallout 3 and 4. If you got burned out of Fallout 3 (like me as I cleared almost the entire map) Fallout 4 was meh. But if I didn't play F3 a lot and went in pretty fresh with Fallout 4, I would have said F4 is awesome.

 

[Saiyan-Rox]

Absolutely!

I have more fond memories of Oblivion than I do Skyrim. Just a shame I couldn't go back and play it (I've tried)

Remake please.

 

[namekuseijin]

I often hear people saying Skyrim is dumbed down. I wonder what exactly is that, given it's the only TES game I have ever played - and in VR, so combat is a sword in my hand rather than button-mashing. Is it the fact you don't have fixed "classes" and can simply use and upgrade whatever skillset you want? That's freedom, not dumbed down in my view.

For the rest, it's a truly memorable wRPG, with plenty of exploration, quests, dungeon crawling and to my surprise much resource gathering and crafting. And books, tons of them recounting many tales from past games, no doubt.

Yes, I've played TW3 and Dark Souls as well. The former is a book turned RPG (that's why story is so fleshed out and memorable) the latter is an action game with some RPG elements. TES is more actual role-playing than either. I quite enjoyed it, my first wRPG as well. Also to me it can cast jRPGs in a bad light.

Btw, if any of you haven't yet, play it in VR. The true natural scale of the landscape and ruins like Markarth is staggering.

 

[GenericUser]

Out of the three "modern" elder scrolls titles (morrowind, oblivion and skyrim) I think oblivion is my favourite. Reason is simple: It's just super comfy to explore the world. I like the medieval setting and all the different locations. You have the swamps in the south, the gold coast on the west end, the classic high-fantasy towns in the east and the skyrimesque snowy areas in the noth. Morrowind is als brown/grey and lifeless and skyrim is too cold. Cyrodiil is just the perfect balance.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Didn't enjoyed it as much as I should've.

Mainly due to gameplay. People don't like witcher 3 gameplay but elder scrolls are on whole new level in terms of unplayability.

 

[Rickyiez]

One of the ugliest game of all time . It's not just the character model , the general art style as well

 

[Panajev2001a]

Out of the three "modern" elder scrolls titles (morrowind, oblivion and skyrim) I think oblivion is my favourite. Reason is simple: It's just super comfy to explore the world. I like the medieval setting and all the different locations. You have the swamps in the south, the gold coast on the west end, the classic high-fantasy towns in the east and the skyrimesque snowy areas in the noth. Morrowind is als brown/grey and lifeless and skyrim is too cold. Cyrodiil is just the perfect balance.

I mostly agree with you, Skyrim has very sparse environments... sure they saved money by dropping speedtree and other middleware, but well it shows . I think you are way too harsh on Morrowind though... it was fun to explore and be there because it managed to craft a very immersive theme and the environment was drenched in it. Still my favourite ES for now.

Oblivion could have gotten rid of level scaling, seeing bandits in full Daedra gear was more than just weird, and it would have taken top slot or shared it at least for me.

 

[Kenpachii]

Disaster. It was a mess visually when it launched.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

I don't know much about Oblivion, but.... have you heard of the High Elves?

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Melon , GET ITT!!!

 

[Rockondevil]

I was blown away when it released and I still hold it high on my favorite RPG’s.
There’s definitely some nostalgia at play, but I don’t mind. I love it either way and it’s my favorite Elder Scrolls game.

 

[Denton]

If one looks at it as RPG, it is pretty poor in many important aspects.

But if one looks at it as an action game with RPG elements, it can be pretty damn enjoyable. I quite loved it, despite its deficiencies. And yeah it was one of the first "nextgen" looking games, those forests were glorious back then.

 

[Bolivar687]

The level scaling in Oblivion was pretty broken and unbalanced, especially for non melee/combat characters. I remember you had to carefully put your points into attributes a specific way or else you could screw yourself over. Mods fixed this, but base game was ridiculous.

There was an in-game difficulty scaler that worked on a level of 1-100, where usually adjusting it a few points made the difficulty just right. I fully admit that it's a failure if you need the player to use your difficulty tool, but the goal of Oblivion was to make a game where you could go in any direction and find something interesting. They got it right in Skyrim but it came at the cost of a lot of other stuff.

 

[synchronicity]

I've already posted in this thread, but I just wanted to add that Oblivion is one of the few games that I felt *took me* to another world. I wasn't just playing a game - subjectively. The combination of all its elements together brought me into the world and my character better than the vast majority of games I've ever experienced. Just wonderfully absorbing.

 

[johntown]

I often hear people saying Skyrim is dumbed down. I wonder what exactly is that, given it's the only TES game I have ever played - and in VR, so combat is a sword in my hand rather than button-mashing. Is it the fact you don't have fixed "classes" and can simply use and upgrade whatever skillset you want? That's freedom, not dumbed down in my view.

For the rest, it's a truly memorable wRPG, with plenty of exploration, quests, dungeon crawling and to my surprise much resource gathering and crafting. And books, tons of them recounting many tales from past games, no doubt.

Yes, I've played TW3 and Dark Souls as well. The former is a book turned RPG (that's why story is so fleshed out and memorable) the latter is an action game with some RPG elements. TES is more actual role-playing than either. I quite enjoyed it, my first wRPG as well. Also to me it can cast jRPGs in a bad light.

Btw, if any of you haven't yet, play it in VR. The true natural scale of the landscape and ruins like Markarth is staggering.

The main reason is they removed most of the RPG leveling mechanics from the game and replaced them with a perks system. Instead of having multiple stats and skills to choose from they narrowed it down. This was done to make the game more appealing to the masses and lowers the learning curve quite a bit and makes it simpler to understand.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

I love Oblivion, I wish they'd remake that for current or next gen consoles.

 

[johntown]

The level scaling in Oblivion was pretty broken and unbalanced, especially for non melee/combat characters. I remember you had to carefully put your points into attributes a specific way or else you could screw yourself over. Mods fixed this, but base game was ridiculous.

Hahaha yeah the leveling system was pretty bad if you didn't know how to use it properly. I play summoner/mage and one time I choose wrong and decided to clear random dungeons on my way to Kvatch and by the time I actually got there I was fighting Daedroth and other high level enemies in Oblivion and got destroyed. Needless to say I had to start over.

I found I had to choose my skills in a way you would think to make sure I didn't level up too fast.

 

[DarkestHour]

I really enjoyed it and wish they'd take Skyrim's engine (or even a new one) and recreate it. Skyrim was cool, but the constant snow and bleakness was depressing where as Oblivion felt like a fantasy world full of color.

 

[Laptop1991]

I loved the game at the time, i preferred it to Morrowind, which i had just played before Oblivion came out, i thought the enviroment, the combat, and the more voice acting was alot better, it was also the 1st game that got me into using mods as well, which i would use a lot in Fallout 3/New Vegas and Skyrim afterwards.

 

[LazyParrot]

I often hear people saying Skyrim is dumbed down. I wonder what exactly is that, given it's the only TES game I have ever played - and in VR, so combat is a sword in my hand rather than button-mashing. Is it the fact you don't have fixed "classes" and can simply use and upgrade whatever skillset you want? That's freedom, not dumbed down in my view.

I didn't think Skyrim was much worse than Oblivion in that regard. The real difference is between those two and earlier entries like Daggerfall and Morrowind. They make Oblivion and Skyrim look like Baby's First RPG in comparison.

 

[lefty1117]

I used to lose track of what I was doing in Oblivion all the time. But I didn't care. I loved the depth of the world and sense of discovery. I remember it having some technical issues back then but they seemed more charming then for some reason. I remaster or remake of this game would be most welcome. In some ways ESO reminds me of Oblivion.

 

[TheContact]

I loved it at the time. It was my first elder scrolls game and I had a lot of free time then. Playing it on the 360 with my brother was such a fun experience. I wouldn't go back and play it now though.
(Combat is clunky, story is meh, the world is pretty bland and repetitive except for a few areas, and there's like 3 voice actors). One thing I really enjoyed was the class system though. I like Skyrim's as well (reminds me of UO in some ways)

 

[GinSama]

I remember buying a 360 for this game......

Fun days having had console with a huge RPG.
Love the dark brotherhood quests.

 

[JLB]

One of the best games I ever played. That intro, the music, the trailer. Masterpiece.

 

[Zog]

I often hear people saying Skyrim is dumbed down. I wonder what exactly is that, given it's the only TES game I have ever played - and in VR, so combat is a sword in my hand rather than button-mashing. Is it the fact you don't have fixed "classes" and can simply use and upgrade whatever skillset you want? That's freedom, not dumbed down in my view.

That freedom came at a cost. In previous games you got to select the skills you care about. There were Major Skills and leveling those would not only increase those stats but also after so many of those you would level up and get bonuses based on how much you used those skills. Then there were Minor Skills, these are skills you can increase the stats of WITHOUT raising your overall level and triggering the level scaling enemies. This is how you get around the level scaling if you want to. That's just a basic explanation.

Skyrim has perks because they didn't want players to have to choose their build at the beginning of the game.

 

[namekuseijin]

I didn't think Skyrim was much worse than Oblivion in that regard. The real difference is between those two and earlier entries like Daggerfall and Morrowind. They make Oblivion and Skyrim look like Baby's First RPG in comparison.

but why? because of old clunkier controls, more lag? lack of quick map, fast travel or intrusive and customizable HUD telling you where to go next or whatever?

old games have all sorts of technical limitations of the day that today we fondly remember as great, hard gameplay. I really disagree with nostalgia-based criticism.

or any actual good reason? In my view, people say Skyrim is dumbed because it launched on Playstation and became wildly popular, that's all.

I myself say its very popularity got it dumbed down, specially among pc kids ruinining the gameplay with thousand stupid mods. but otoh, it wouldn't be as widely popular without them.

btw, imagine bringing back those limitations of old games to a guy like this or to minicraft kids:

Didn't enjoyed it as much as I should've.

Mainly due to gameplay. People don't like witcher 3 gameplay but elder scrolls are on whole new level in terms of unplayability.

 

[DrJohnGalt]

It's my favorite Elder Scrolls game. I still go back and play every few years. Actually doing a new playthru right now. Love it!
Although like so many others, I absolutely cannot stand the Oblivion Gates.

 

[namekuseijin]

That freedom came at a cost. In previous games you got to select the skills you care about. There were Major Skills and leveling those would not only increase those stats but also after so many of those you would level up and get bonuses based on how much you used those skills. Then there were Minor Skills, these are skills you can increase the stats of WITHOUT raising your overall level and triggering the level scaling enemies. This is how you get around the level scaling if you want to. That's just a basic explanation.

Skyrim has perks because they didn't want players to have to choose their build at the beginning of the game.

so you liked minor skills because it allowed you to smash enemies more easily?