Ok, when Oblivion was announced, I had a bunch of worries, along with a bunch of other people. We put up quite a fight, but eventually we either lost interest or couldn't stand the ravenous [censored] telling us that Oblivion would be perfect. Turns out we were entirely right. Don't get me wrong, I've purchased Oblivion 3 times on XBox 360 (first one broke, third one I bought cause I'm in the Navy now and my brother has all my old XBox stuff) and once for PC. It's a fun game, definitely worth buying and playing. But there's a difference between a good game and a great game, or, in the case of Oblivion, a HUGE difference.

The game releases 11.11.11. Obviously it's too late to make a difference (don't disagree, you'll just be wrong. In this stage of development, the game is not going to go through any significant changes. But I still feel the need to point out the terrible shortcomings of Oblivion. If The Elder Scrolls makes it to TES VI, as we all hope it will, if the developers actually read feedback maybe they can gather up the effort to make another game as good as Daggerfall and Morrowind (Arena's good for it's time, but it didn't age well).

First, the NPCs. Ironic that the whenever the developers addressed things like no mounted combat and no crossbows or throwing weapons and no spears, their argument was that they didn't want to half ass anything; that if they were going to do it, they were going to do it right. Ironic then that NPCs were done SO horribly. They had the most ridiculous conversations with each other, their facial expressions were robotic and lifeless, the voice acting was ehhhhhhhhh, and they all said the same things. Radiant AI was also wasted. It was a quest gimmick that didn't have wings outside of that. All the things gamesas did to try and bring life to the NPCs had the opposite effect. The Morrowind NPCs were more convincing and far less ridiculous (as well as more useful).

Second, the stealth/guards. I was glad when I heard one of the developers from the acclaimed Thief series was on board and had plans for the stealth system. But when the game was released... I'm not seeing what he might have done, if anything. Killing people in their own homes was very poorly done. Crime reporting was very poorly done. The whole thing was horrendous. The only way stealth was playable was to learn all the flaws and work the system, but it was very poorly done and playing a stealth character was a chore and not at all natural feeling. Leading the guards on a high tension chase through the town was really fun... until you noticed that they'd chase you halfway across Cyrodil... even though you broke the line of sight 10 minutes ago. And, breaking the line of sight, they still ALWAYS knew where you were.

Magic was decent. It was kind of disappointing in a single player only game that the power of the spell system would be gimped so horribly. I could make some spells in Morrowind that, while they might not be the most practical, were badass as [censored]. I could jump across the entirety of Vvardenfall in a few jumps. In Oblivion you can do damage in a few different ways and hurl objects around harmlessly. The only cool spell was paralyze, but that was cool because of physics. Enchanting items was gimped, spells were gimped, so while the magic system wasn't bad, it wasn't good, and I still prefer the clunky Morrowind magic system, BY FAR. For magic, I'd like to see tiers. Tier 1 is magic with a weapon out. It's quick, it's convenient, it's easy to incorporate into combat. Tier 2 is magic without a weapon equipped. Two handed magic. It's quick, but you're vulnerable. It's a little more powerful than Tier 1. Tier 3 is the height. It's the equivalent of a charged attack with a sword. You hold the casting button down. You have no weapon equipped. It's two handed, full focused magic. This is where things should approach Morrowind territory where some truly powerful things are accomplished. It takes longer to perform, you're vulnerable for longer, but the effects are more powerful. I'd also like to see old magic brought back, levitate, lock, etc... It's kind of annoying to see a company like gamesas relying on modders to complete their game, especially when there are console versions of the game that don't benefit from those mods.

Combat was also decent, but it also had a touch of down syndrome. Weapons attack with pretty much the same speed and do different damage depending on what skill you're good with, and that's pretty much the depth of the weapon types. In Morrowind I could burden someone to the point that they couldn't move (or damage strength, which was more fun cause they were helpless), and then use a spear to attack them from a range they could do nothing about. But Oblivion didn't really make the different weapons feel any different. It was different based on where/when you found them, what you were good with, and what type of weapon artifacts were. If you did a horizontal power attack with a sword, you hada chance to disarm. If you did a horizontal power attack with a hammer, you had a chance to disarm. Christ, is there really such a lack of creativity at gamesas that axes and swords and hammers and daggers hadto be carbon copies of each other? I suppose with what a let down Oblivion was it isn't too surprising but damn. It's hard to imagine that Morrowind came from the same developers.

I dunno, there's so much wrong with Oblivion that it's hard for me to bring all of it up without getting disorganized and sporadic. From the ridiculousness of level-scaling to the retardation of quest-NPCs that were invincible (not everyone who plays TES on every playthrough wants to complete the main quest), there's so SO many things that take what could have been a GREAT game and instead keep it as a slightly above average game in a niche with little competition (which is why it did SO well). I'm really hoping Skyrim isn't more of the same, but at this point it's too late to make a difference. We can only wait until the middle of January and HOPE that they haven't made the same mistakes and have actually put TES back on the right track as the amazing series it should be and used to be. Maybe when I've had time to organize more of my thoughts on the shortcomings of Oblivion I'll post more.

I'm interested in all of your thoughts as well. Try to keep discussion civil, though (not that I set the best example). Discuss.

I agree with everything. Oblivion was good, but failed in so many fields where the series succeeded before.

Indeed, I do hope they address the issues you've pointed out, that certainly are some of the most noticeable flaws.

Well I anticipated Oblivion to be the 2nd Morrowind. In doing so I ruined what was actually a pretty decent game in the end.

I won't do it a second time.

Couldn't agree more with you. I hope they learned from their mistakes and make Skyrim a great game.

I believe this is a side effect of the issues they ran into with Radiant AI, in addition to learning the specs of the 360 just a few months before the game was released. A lot of what happened to Oblivion can be tied back to their ruined schedule due to not knowing the specs. They also were getting rushed due to those compounded issues (such as dynamic shadows, which they could not get working properly on the 360). I have a feeling this is what caused many of the numerous problems from Oblivion.


That's always been one of my biggest issues with stealth. "Re-hiding", as one may call it, is impossible. Once they start chasing you, they won't stop, despite finding a dark corner and attempting to sneak. It seems that instead of working on line of sight, they only need initial line of sight to "lock on" to you, and then they'll never lose that "lock". It was very frustrating, not to mention the psychic guards...


As far as I am concerned, magic was the worst its ever been. Not even decent. Certain skills, like mysticism, were completely neutered, while others, like restoration, were made to do far more than they had the right to do. Enchanting and spell making were made into jokes by the process that you had to go through. I would have much rather had ACTUAL perks for magic rather than the "novice/journeyman/master/etc caster" perks that resulted from them removing spell failure chance.


What I ended up seeing was a large over abundance of swords, but that happened in Morrowind as well, due to the number of artifact swords. What happened in Oblivion was that almost every weapon ended up being compared with every other weapon type, which really shouldn't happen. They should all be good at something, but they all ended up feeling the same with minor differences.

For me, Level Scaling killed the game. I shouldn't feel LESS powerful as I level up. I was just totally inverse to every game experience I've ever had. I'll never understand how that system made it past play testing.

I totally agree :tops: and you and I know that you only tipped the top of the iceberg.
I too bought OB 3 times (regular, collector's, GOTY), but OB was although a very good game, compared to MW a far more shallow game.

Um... no? Morrowind and Oblivion are the most recent predecessors of Skyrim. I didn't create TES; I'm not a developer on Skyrim. Morrowind is my favorite game, and I enjoyed Oblivion for what it was. I'm merely drawing on my experiences with those games, and pointing out flaws and advantages/disadvantages and what I liked and didn't like. This thread is 100% about Skyrim (or whatever comes after) and what I think needs to change. And it's about gamesas acknowledging their mistakes and working to rectify them in the future. There's no reason for this to be locked.

Totally agree with OP and Orzorn. I am hoping as well that they learn but seeing how most game series go I can't put to much faith into it.

I can allow missteps. Hopefully they are things Skyrim will learn from.

In Morrowind, you could steal something in front of a swarm of guards and walk out a door and you were good to go. In Morrowind, guild quest lines were somewhat dry and impersonal and when you reached the head of a guild it was a dead end. Morrowind had cliff racers. There's no reason for me to talk about Morrowind's shortcomings that have been rectified by Oblivion since, well, they've been rectified already. You obviously didn't read the thread. Morrowind is my favorite game, but it didn't do everything right. If it did, I wouldn't give a rat's ass about Oblivion or Skyrim because I would be content to play Morrowind for the rest of eternity. Oblivion did some things right. I do feel that what it did right was overshadowed by what it did wrong, but it definitely did improve on some of Morrowind's flaws as well. The purpose of this thread is to express what I feel will put the series back on track and to create a discussion that isn't about some ridiculous fear that Skyrim will be Fallout with swords (someone with time on their hands should count how many of those threads there are). I want Skyrim to be as good as it can be, and in line with traditional TES and to be as immersive as possible. That's what this thread is. I see that there are as many illiterate [censored] as there were when I did the same thing for Oblivion. Goodie.

Well Oblivion did a lot of stuff worse, maybe a lot of people would realize it if they gave it a chance? Dated graphics and dice-roll combat system>cliche plots and shiny graphics. Oblivion didn't do everything wrong, it just did almost everything wrong.

wow........I feel anyone that knocks the OP didn't completely read his post :confused:

Can't say much more really, thats my hope. that they learned rectified and expanded in a positive sense on Oblivions flaws, don't really care what anyone else thinks about the game, in my eyes it was less then it could have been.

I bash the devs more than I should. My irritation with them comes from the fact that they were very community involved during Oblivion's development, and they shot down a lot of my concerns telling me to trust them and that they were only doing things they would do right, and then the game came out and they ended up doing a lot of things wrong and simply cutting things I usedto enjoy in Morrowind. So it's hard for me to trust them. But that's not to say I'm completely hopeless looking ahead at Skyrim. gamesas made Morrowind. I've already mentioned it's my favorite game. You can tell from Oblivion to Fallout that they did learn from SOME of their mistakes pretty quickly, and from Fallout to New Vegas they learned more still. I'm hopeful that they see eye to eye with me on many of my complaints for Oblivion, and I feel like they can DEFINITELY put the series back on track, but it's still important to put feedback out there and go indepth about what's wrong with Oblivion so that we aren't back here a year from now talking about the same things being wrong with Skyrim. I would like to play Skyrim with as little to complain about as possible, and I'd like my favorite game to be more modern so I can play agame with physics and great graphics and all the new features of modern gaming and think to myself "this is my favorite game".

The OP knows what he is talking about and before anyone post anything try reading his post first. I really liked the ideas you have for magic with tiers, would really like that implemented into Skyrim.

Wow, i can't disagree with you about anything, Pilo_T.

Just don't say gamesas lacks creativty. Games are works of art that must sell and cater to a mass of superficial players. To justify spending millions to produce a single game, one must be able to sell millions of copies of said game. No matter what ideas or creativity you possess, you must work with sure-fire formulas and catch a broader range of players every time. This means making things more generic and accessible, pleasing a little everyone. As you said, you bought it three times. I felt in your same way, but still bought it twice. Blame society, blame capitalism, but don't insult gamesas for doing their job well.

I kind of stole that idea from a First Person Shooter. Well, rather, a mod for a first person shooter. If you have Jedi Academy, check out www.moviebattles.com

Anyway, if you have Force Lightning, you can use it with your lightsaber and it's pretty standard. Put your lightsaber away and it becomes more powerful because you're focusing ENTIRELY on lightning and not defending or wielding a lightsaber. And if you send someone flying with it and then lightning them again before they get up, it does more damage still, and it all makes sense. The more concentration and effort you put into some magical power, the more powerful you would expect it to be, no? If you can form a fireball with your hand, won't you do that better when you're not swinging a sword around at the same time? I would suggest the inclusion of hand gestures and incantations, too, but I don't know if any of that would fit with the lore. I might not read all the books in the games and I might not be familiar with every lore aspect of TES (despite being a major TES fan), but I do care about the preservation of the lore, whether I know about it or not, because that helps with overall immersion. Regardless, I would like to see something like that.

I would also really like to see the spell crafting system restored to its former glory, where I could make some spells that truly made me feel asthough my character had mastered whatever magical practice he was using. Going from 20 damage per second for 3 secondsto 25 damage per second for 4 seconds doesn't feel nearly as cool as casting a fortify strength spell with a jump spell and a fortify acrobatics spell to jump clear across the map. I just liked that really cool feeling of power you got from magic in Morrowind. It's a single player only game, so while I can see the need for balance and not having an attack spell that kills everything in one hit, why can't we do cool things like that that really mess with things and make you feel powerful? I understand why levitation would have broken the cities of Oblivion, but I think levitation and jump and slow fall and all that need to be brought back because TES has always been good about that cool/wow factor that was noticeably absent from Oblivion.

Also, there is ONE thing I think NEEDS to be added to TES that Fallout kind of did. In Fallout 3, if you had lots of morality, you were hunted for a while by Talon Mercs. If you had lots of negative morality, you were hunted by those Rangers. I'm not saying there should be a morality system with a copy/paste of that. But I like the idea of certain actions making you randomly hunted by powerful foes, regardless of where you are. I like the idea of them coming to you instead of you going to them. Perhaps completing certain quests or something could get the Dark Brotherhood to stalk you and attack you ever few days, or necromancers, or the mages guild. And it'd be nice if they were opponents that maybe you can't always beat and you're not always ready for. Maybe sometimes you have to run away (unless the infinite lock on from Oblivion still exists, in which case that would be annoying). I just think it's interesting to be attacked when you're not expecting to. I mean, if I'm trekking into the woods of Oblivion, I can rest for a while first and go in at 100%, but if I'm going TO a city or trying to get somewhere without intending to take on a bunch of monsters, it's exhilarating and intense to run into something that's out looking for YOU. I really liked that in Fallout 3 (and I even suggested that for Oblivion back in the day; having vampires or assassin's stalking you from the shadows, utilizing invisibility and stuff to up the tension.

I thought it was a commonly known that what is OB is a consequence of them reading the feedback of the former game, just like F3 has addressed a lot of the shortcomings of OB with regards to the things they had in common, like the sandbox elements and quests.



I agree that they could be better, but not that MO NPC's were more convincing, they sometimes had ridiculous conversations, Morrowind NPC's didn't have conversations at all. OB sometimes had robotic expressions, MO didn't have expressions at all.

Basically OB didn't come 1. place in the race, but MO didn't even participate, and it didn't save it's NPC's from sometimes appearing ridiculous either:

Ask someone about "background": "My name is [insert name here]. What I do is my own affair."
Ask the same person about "my trade": "I'm an assassin. I kill people for fun and? profit."



I agree, the stealth system could easily have been better, not that it wasn't bad in Morrowind, it was just bad for other reasons, which I'm sure you already know.



I agree, but again I'm not a fan of MO's way either, MO had potential, but OB had viability, In Morrowind I can make a powerful mage, but he will never be pure magic, because the whole separate melee magic stances is such a major combat weakness that didn't even exist in Daggerfall. In OB I can only conjure single creature, but in MO that creature wont attack my foes until they they try to strike me, which makes them ridiculously ineffective if all it takes is for me to die is get hit once or twice.



I agree, your suggestion isn't bad, it probably wont be what's in SK, but I hope that Beth will have done some of the same thoughts when they were making the magic system in SK.



I don't recognize your experience with combat here, daggers were a lot faster than two handed weapons, they were essential if you wanted to use the fact that you can stack enchantment spells. Your example of MO doesn't sound like something I can't do in OB either. I've used drain strength and burden in the same spell before, as well as the advantage of reach.



I don't understand you here, in MO there weren't any power attacks other than the fact that you could hold down the button to gain a chance of higher dmg, and the difference between attacks were negligibly to the point where pick "always use most powerful attack" were the only reasonable choice. It sounds like your critiquing of something not being creative enough, in an area where MO didn't have creativity to begin with. I mean in OB at least using the different power attacks had a purpose, you could gain something more than a simple difference in dmg interval.



I understand the lvl scaling argument, but not how invincible NPC's forced you to complete the main quest, not everyone wants to complete the main quest, and not everyone did, I have several characters that haven't even touched the main quest.

My problem with Oblivion was the magic, left me wanting more...If i am able to make any spells I want they should look the same XD
The world also felt lifeless, I'd want there to be more people around, and more customization option in the new game, I find myself quite attractive and my female dark elf was not so

Verrry verry interesting idea. :thumbsup:

How about adding some variety as well. :wink_smile:

For instance if you cast magic while sneaking, then you cast your magic silently which would decrease it's effectiveness, but would not cause an instant detection, but when you cast that magic while not sneaking you would raise your chanting voice while charging the spell, and you might alarm nearby monsters.

Wands and staffs could also channel magic powers and enhance the power of your spells in their own different way, or they might contain their own magic that you could cast equally in power even when sneaking, or holding a sword in the right hand and a wand in the left hand.

Yes, wands and staves should increase spell power, as well as being able to hold their own enchantments. So a wand could act as a mages sword.

OooOO Wands, I do love those...Demon's souls made me love them again x]

Nice critique for Oblivion, and hopefully they do improve on these aspects.

Specially enchantment.

Yes. Many of the things I'm complaining about are not things that people wanted after Morrowind. It could just be that the way they implemented some things caused them to make critical mistakes in other areas, but no one asked for awkward NPCs, no one asked to remove Crossbows, no one asked to cut out a majority of what made the magic so awesome, etc...


Yes, and that's my point. You can't criticize someone for failing who hasn't tried. But if someone tries and fails miserably, it can look ridiculous. In this case, NPCs from both games were pretty lifeless, but through Oblivion's own blunders, it seems more lifeless just because it tried and somehow managed to have the opposite effect of what it was attempting. I'm not saying Morrowind did NPCs well, the only reason there is to compare is to emphasize how BAD Oblivion's NPCs were.


Aye. Stealth has always been pretty [censored] in TES. svcks cause I'm a major stealth fan (all the splinter cell games pre-DoubleAgent I played to death). Hopefully someday stealth can be decent in a TES game. Hopefully that game is Skyrim. But I won't hold my breath because there aren't any stealth fans on the development team.

I never had a problem with magic-only characters in Morrowind, and your summons will attack a foe that you strike, so you don't have to wait to be hit first. And that's more a problem of age. Morrowind is dated. I think, like many others in this thread, you feel I'm intending to compare Morrowind to Oblivion, though I'm not.



I haven't experienced daggers being a lot faster than two handed weapons in Oblivion. I can take the heaviest hammer in the universe and still swing it around like a baseball bat in Oblivion. And you can't use spears the same way in Oblivion because they don't exist. I was talking about planting someone to the floor and attacking them from a range where they can't even swing at you. That was more an example of a fun application of clear-cut weapon differences than a demand of Skyrim.

Again I believe you've misunderstood my intentions entirely. I'm not comparing Morrowind to Oblivion, I'm comparing both games to what Skyrim should be. Because of the standard Morrowind vs. Oblivion arguments, I can completely understood why people are jumping to that conclusion, and I thank you for not being a mindless [censored] about it like many of the others who have come here and clearly not read anything I've posted. You're the kind of person I like to debate with in a thread because, while you might not entirely agree with me, at least you show signs of intelligent, so, really, thank you. But again, there's no Morrowind to compare to here. In this point, I was actually just letting Oblivion defeat itself without anything to compare it to. I think the power attacks for a dagger should have different effects than the power attacks for a hammer. I don't understand why any weapon would paralyze; that was kind of a stupid idea, but, for more than variety and distinction, different types of weapons should have different types of power attacks simply because a dagger does not serve the same purpose in combat as a hammer, etc... Anyone familiar with weapon use, or any weapon enthusiasts would cringe at the sight of the horrible, HORRIBLE implementation of all weapons in Oblivion. I prefer the always hit combat style of Oblivion, but for every step that Oblivion took forward in the combat system, it took 3 steps back. I understand a dagger and a sword disarming an opponent, and I understand a hammer sending an opponent through the air, but I don't understand a dagger sending an opponent through the air (talking about power attack+backwards effect granted by lvl 75). A little creativity would have helped there, and it wouldn't have been a difficult feat.

Yes, I understand that, and I am the same way, so when I have a character in combat, not doing the main quest, etc... and I'm just terrorizing some villagers or something, running into an opponent that I can't kill is very annoying and completely eliminates the immersion of the game. I can stab someone 5,000 times and they're still gonna get back up, it's kind of stupid. It wasn't like in Morrowind you didn't know when you killed someone vital to the main quest. It would display a pretty obvious message when you've done so and suggest that you reload a game. I mean, if you're going on an NPC killing spree, you would save the game first anyway if you're not [censored].

Actually, another thing I'd like to see from Fallout is a hardcoe mode which effects parameters of the game to completely change the play style. I REALLY like that feature in New Vegas. Such subtle changes that effect the game so deeply. No reason not to keep that one around, especially since it's totally optional.

Another big thing I'd like to see is the return of Daggerfall's advantages/disadvantages idea. Not necessarily in character creation but in any aspect where it applies. I'm talking about adding disadvantages making something more accessible or efficient. For example, an enchantment that does some REALLY powerful stuff, but also does something negative to the user to balance it out. Or a spell that does something really powerful, but maybe drains some of your life, etc...