I say the opposite, I think that Oblivion's main story, while yes, rather short, was decidedly more exciting and certainly more interesting than the dances with wolves knock-off in Morrowind. Sorry for thinking this, but defeating hell, and saving the empire, was way more exciting than fighting a crazy, deformed man making a giant robot.
And the sheer background mechanics of Oblivion definitely win out with the radiant AI, and while I love Morrowind's quests and guilds, isn't that sort of what modders are about?

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, the reason I loved Morrowind's story so much more was because it was so much deeper. The theme of "defeat the world from evil you are the hero" feels dry and overdone to me, and with Morrowind's story, which was, in my opinion, much more complex, there are times were you are forced to stop and think. It's impossible to fly through Morrowind without thinking - it's a game that requires you to connect with it.

I don't think fighting off a cult serving one Daedra Lord is really defeating the hordes of Hell. If that was the army Hell I would have expected something more apocalyptic in scale. And did you actually play Morrowind? That was a dead god, not a giant robot...this isn't your favorite anime. And the giant god didn't get up and attack you...it was only there to provide immortality to the fake gods of the tribunal and Dagoth Ur. Morrowind may have been smaller in scale...but the conflict was deeper and more intense.

Actually, that was a giant robot. A second Nuimidium built at the resting place of Lorkhan's Heart, which Dagoth Ur was going to use to drive the Empire out of Morrowind.

One of the main reasons I so enjoyed Morrowind's plot was that it was NOT clear cut. Dagoth Ur was not "bad" or "evil", I felt sympathy for him because he was insane. His motives were clear and respectable, but his methods were abhorrent, destroying the very land and people he sought to protect from the N'Wah. Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil were the real bad guys, when they started this whole fiasco hundreds of years ago when they murdered Nerevar, who Dagoth Ur tried to warn. This is definitely a case of bad vs good reversal roles, in which the real instigators (the Tribunal) caused all the crap, but because Dagoth Ur was driven insane, they end up being the only hope for Morrowind as they hold his tide of blight back and use the Nerevarine to end him. No side is totally trustworthy, as each of their stories and viewpoints are just that; viewpoints from THEIR OWN side of things. Of course, you can't even trust Azura, who basically used you as a pawn to get revenge, but then again we have the Trial of Vivec and the choking on Muatra. It seems everyone involved got their punishment.

It WAS a giant robot.

Bethesda aren't going down a path, the problem is that they are either too lazy or have too little time to development.

All Bethesda have to do to make them NOT LOOK LAZY is to........

1) NOT copy/place dungeons/tunnels.

2) Quit the randmom generated landscape.

3) Use more than 7 voice actors.

4) More variouse monsters and "sup-creatures".

5) More items.

6) Please make npc's diffrent hight and wight (skinny/fatness)

Really, both Fallout 3 and Oblivion suffured from most of these problems, and thats what made me think that hey are going down the lazy path.

I don't think it's fair to--to use the vernacular--"call out" fans of Oblivion for their want of more effective game mechanics, graphics, more friendly combat, etc. That being said I much favor Morrowind and its dice-roll combat system, but all the same it's fair to note all the positive feedback many aspects of Oblivion have gotten. Oblivion was a big, big change from Morrowind, but I think that Bethesda got enough positive and negative feedback on many issues from fans to better sculpt TESV. This means we will hopefully receive more personalized dungeons, more well thought-out quests and stories and overall more loyalty to already-established lore, and more addition to interesting lore. I think that Oblivion was a necessary change to see what fans liked and disliked, and was still a great game for it.

Well said...

Although, I rather enjoyed Oblivion's combat system. If I hit something (someone), I want to see health damage. To me, there's nothing worse than seeing me make contact repeatedly and 'missing' over and over according to a roll of a die.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1080894-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-thread-%23157/page__view__findpost__p__15741525

I personally don't agree with that. I think the combat system in OB was hugely better than Morrowinds. It's not hard to actually "hit" something with a stick or a long piece of metal. It's how effective that hit is, where you hit, how hard you hit, and at what angle you hit, that determines the devastation with your blow.

Kinda like a logger. Sure, anyone can hit a tree with an axe. But it's how well you know "how" to hit said tree with said axe. That's where it starts to be more efficient.

The question should never be "if" you hit the person, because anyone can do that. But it should be how HARD you hit and how much damage you do, varying from an apprentice to a master, and that's exactly what OB did? Makes perfect, sound logical sense for it to be that way.

Now, I'm not dissing Morrowinds combat system, I love Morrowind, and I also love OB. But OB's combat system WAS more realistic, and anyone who says otherwise just simply isn't looking at logical facts about swordplay and how it works.

To be honest I can't understand why people who have a problem with dice roll combat are playing rpgs. If they were playing risk would they get bored and start physically smashing units out of Kamchatka with a cannon and then boast to their friends about how they'd improved the game?

Well, a tree is not a dynamic moving object that may or may not be capable of anticipating and responding to attacks.

I contest that anyone can hit a person. In fact, when I wrote the mock-up for that system, I was using roughly 3/4 of what Oblivion already brings to the table. In Oblivion, did you never cast a spell or fire an arrow, only to have your opponent sidestep out of the way? Did you never swing your blade, only to have them circle you or run backward and cause you to miss? These are things that happen in vanilla Oblivion all the time; they're hard-coded percentages within the combat AI packages. Oblivion has "missing." Oblivion has "chance to hit." And that's what I want to work with. All the current combat AI routines don't dynamically factor in player or NPC skills/attributes, and by and large, that's all I would change.

That way, an NPC runs backward or circles you or sidesteps because your attack is too slow, or because their agility is high, or any other sensible factors that might be plugged in. Same thing for block or parry. All it's doing is taking what's already present within Oblivion and giving it more factors to consider than just a base dice-roll (because, ironically enough, that's what's being used to determine combat AI actions right now).

Ok, lets use the example you brought to the table. A tree is not a moving, dynamic object. It's a stagnant, permanent object with no ability to "not" be hit.
I'll buy that.
Say the tree is attached to the back of a truck, sitting in the bed, ready to be hauled away. You swing at that tree, but the driver gives the truck some gas, causing you to miss the tree.
Did that miss happen because of your "skill" with a longblade?
No, you missed because the damn thing moved.
A players agility, in my opinion, should be the only factor in whether you actually "miss" or not. And by miss, I mean simply not even connect the blow.
Like you said, a moving object is hard to hit. But anyone with a brain can hit something that is not moving. Has nothing to do with your skill.
Enemies that can strafe/move, and their agility should effect how hard they are to hit, not your personal skill. I never mentioned a game where every blow hit, I was simply talking about the pure mechanics of the system, where if a object is there, and you swing at it, you're going to hit it.
Now throw in radiant AI into the picture, dodging, strafing, etc, sure, you can miss. But THAT should be the only factor. Just have to apply the two sciences and come up with that result.

I'mma jump over to the Suggestions thread to answer this, cuz we might hijack the "Bethesda's doing things wrong" thread.

Right, right, but it was never finished. You don't fight it. It doesn't even factor in as an object itself other than that Dagoth Ur was going to finish it. Heh, I almost completely forgot about that part. Anyways, it was the heart that was important, not the machinery around it.

But the real problem with games in general, and Oblivion more specifically, has already been mentioned. Simplification in order to gain a larger playing base. I've always used the graphics point because I personally feel that increased graphics are something companies use to get a broader spectrum of players and not really go after people who already enjoy the genre. Everyone seems to get impressed by graphics and resource allocation demands that the more you spend on one point the less you spend on the other. While graphics may not be the real problem, they are a symptom of the problem. Older games were so deep and complex they can be unplayable to anyone but the truly dedicated...and I've really noticed this while trying to play a lot of my old games. Wizardry...oh I love that game...but it is a pain in the butt some times and it isn't nearly the worst of all. Today, games are made so that any casual gamer can pick up the game and jump in, which is good...but it shouldn't limit the game to only the basic play. The more complicated, the better...especially if you manage to layer the game so that players can play at their own level.

But I would argue that roughly the same percentage of time and effort goes into graphics, gameplay mechanics, etc. exists now as it did back then. It's not as though Bethesda had the same budget and development schedule for Oblivion as they did for Daggerfall. This is true of the entire game development market-- it took four years for Blizzard to release Diablo 2, and nearly a decade for them to release the third game. It's not that the developers spent 6 months making the combat animations perfect and then said "OH [censored] WE ONLY HAVE $50 AND A WEEK TO DESIGN A COMBAT SYSTEM BETTER SIMPLIFY THAT [censored]." It was a conscious decision to streamline the game and make it more accessible so that more people would be able to get into it and have fun. I think that is a better strategy than just making it punishing from the get-go (as I play games to have fun), but I would argue that there's a happy compromise between the two, and it's the concept of "easy to learn, difficult to master." Fighting games tend to do this, where anyone can pick up a controller and button-mash their way to victory against AI opponents, but only the truly dedicated will master its mechanics and get the most out of the game. Dragon Age is a fantastic example of this-- on the easy setting, it's a boring right-click 'athon, but pretty much anyone can play through it and enjoy the story and characters. On the harder difficulty settings, it's a lot more tactical, and a lot more satisfying. Maybe Bethesda should consider a system like that.

The problem with combat in BOTH MW and OB was that one didn't reflect the intentions of the player, while the other didn't reflect the abilities of the character. The graphical animations for "missing" weren't present in MW, so it looked ridiculous to have your weapon pass through an opponent. On the other hand, the failure to take character skills into account for anything beyond damage made OB feel like an arcade game instead of a RPG, where the character's skills became meaningless. Something that takes BOTH into consideration is badly needed.

Hitting an inanimate object is easy, only because there's no attempt to prevent it. More REALISTIC combat would have to use the DIFFERENCE between the skills of the participants, with some limited amount of random variation to keep it interesting.

I do agree that Beth is putting more effort into making the games accessible to a broader market than making them more complex, but I think Fallout 3 was a step in the right direction, and with the fan feedback from the 3 games, TES V should turn out pretty good.

Oh, and I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring in the whole combat mechanics debate and say that I think they should go back to dice rolled combat. It's not easy to hit something with a pointy stick if you're used to hitting something with a weight on a stick, and the game should reflect this. Plus, dice rolled combat would make fatigue and luck more important, and increase replayability, because a fight might go either way, while with hit every time combat, you'd get the same result most of the time.

Now, isn't this more fun and original than "Stop the big bad guy"??


Do some people comment about this without actually playing Morrowind to the end? If you have anything higher than a low skill level, you don't miss. If you choose a weapon skill as your major skill, when you first start you'll hit 70-80% of the time. If you swing a sword at someone, there is a chance that you'll miss, which will be lower the better you are at using that sword.

you're right. morrowind doesnt have the best graphics, or the best combat system, but it isnt hiding behind amazing graphics or other stuff. morrowind is gripping whereas oblivion is just " do this, do that so i can do this." and then it ends. i have been playing morrowind for a few years now, and i havent even done everything in the game, but ive been playing oblivion for half of a year, and ive played it over twice. yes, i think bethesda is going down a bad road, and they should do a self-evaluation right about now.

I consider Oblivion's worst flaws to be over-reactions to complaints about Morrowind.

The combat animations in Morrowind were extremely limited, with no "miss" animations to give you some reason or excuse for not hitting your target, even though your weapon went right through them. Blocks, parries, dodges, and just plain bad swings all showed the exact same animation as for a hit, except without the satisfying "thud" and little visual impact splash on the screen. Obviously, there were complaints about people "missing all the time". Oblivion fixed that by making every swing on target hit. Your character stats don't matter now, you always hit. One extreme becomes the other extreme.

There were complaints that Spears, Crossbows, Throwing Stars, etc., were underpowered and not worth using in Morrowind, so they were taken out of the game, instead of adjusted to make them useful. Likewise with Medium Armor, where it got the proverbial "short end of the stick" in terms of high-end non-unique gear in the basic game, although the expansions tried to make up for it. Cut in Oblivion.

Alchemy was lamented to be too abusable in Morrowind, so it was hacked down into something boring and generic in Oblivion (poisons were a definite improvement, though), as was Enchanting.

Lack of late-game challenge with a maxed-out character in Morrowind was an issue, so Oblivion introduced heavy scaling to keep the challenge boringly consistent throughout.

As has been said, "Be careful what you wish, you just might get it."

I'd probably run like hell. I think games that look good and have speaking are just superior in those areas. I would never buy a game with text (although Morrowind was great) it's just too old now. Oblivion's graphics were fine, (they're still good now) but it was too lovey-dovey and atmosphere. Everyone wanted to be your friend and you knew exactly what you had to do. I like MW much better when everyone hated you and you were kind of in the dark for most of the game.

i guess you have a hard time reading books then, since those are not voiced.

Voice acting is much more immersive, but I can't handle the information trade off. I'd rather read an interesting book than watch a documentary about mudcrabs.