Not sure what you mean here, you don't have to do the main quest line at all and can skip it by never visiting Jauffre or Kvatch's Oblivion Gate which aren't required for anything else other then the main quest which is easy enough to do, just like how never visiting the Jarl of Whiterun means dragons never spawn in skyrim.



Granted, they were primarily computer generated, there was only I believe 1 dungeon level designer on Oblivion compared to I believe 8 on skyrim, it shows but I'm still disappointed as to me, some of the dungeons while unique in design still feel generic in style, a Dwemer ruin is always just carved stone walls/floor and golden/blue ornaments.



All of Oblivion guild quest lines were good but the Dark Brotherhood really stood out with the thieves guild in a close but still behind 2nd place. Even the mage's guild in oblivion pees all over the college of winterhold in terms of how good they actually are and the mage's guild questline in oblivion had the biggest joke of a final boss fight ever by completely wasting a good part of TES lore.



No, just no, it's dreadfully short and many of the NPCs related to it really have no personality at all (especially the blades), Oblivion's MQ characters weren't 1-dimensional and had a good back history unlike skyrim's MQ characters.. Also in oblivion at least you can get rid of oblivion gates by completing the main quest... Dragon attacks never stop and they get even more annoying in the end.

Magic and guild-quests were better IMO. Otherwise, Skyrim->Oblivion.

Especially hate the way you zoom into people's faces when you speak to them in Oblivion. Scares the shizzle outta me at times.

I think that Skyrim is an overall better experience than Oblivion. There are two things that makes me not like Oblivion as much as Skyrim.

1. Oblivions leveling system was one of the worst ever put in a video game.

2. The level design of Oblivion was repeated over and over again, the copy and pasted environments made for an utter lack of depth to the world.

Now Skyrim has a world rich in depth, and its interesting to see the world the world seems so alive. It is a world rivaling Vvardenfell and that is saying something. The main two things holding the game back is bugs first and foremost. Then lack of content in terms of depth, while there is a lot of content it lacks overall depth. Look at the magic system, there is the lack of spell creation and several spell types. Then the faction quest lines are short. The cut skills and attributes is questionable.

All in all I love this game but it needs the bugs removed and added depth.

Hey everyone, i'm back. For those of whom that think i am trolling or being sarcastic, i am not! I will now list the things i think are better in Oblivion:

- Dialogue: Yeah, soe of it was stupid, however, it was just better. At least i don't hear crap repeated all the time

- Main Quest: Most people on here feel as if the main quest on Oblivion was horrible, in my opinion, i feel that both, the main quests in Skyrim and Oblivion are well written, but i must say, Oblivion's was constructed better

- Guilds: The guilds were longer and more memorable (E.G: Whodunit, i can still remember that mission, even though i havn't played Oblivion in well over 3 years), whereas, i can barely recount a memorable mission in Skyrim, there wasn't any! In fact the only mission i can remember (funnily enough) is the Peace talk.

-Side Missions: Since Oblivions side quests were all hand written, they are better, more memorable (I prefer them over go there kill/rob quests of Skyrim),

These are just some of the reasons as to why i feel that Oblivion is better than Skyrim

Edit: Also, i must point out, i played Oblivion for ages! After completing all the guild quests in Skyri plus numerous side quests, and the main quest, i feel no desire to play Skyrim (Not to mention ALL the bugs in it, unplayable on PS3)

And on a discussion board of all places.

Guilds and Magic were much better in Oblivion. This is pretty much not up for debate. As I play mostly Wizardy type characters, I feel this a lot. The Wizard's college guild quest line is possibly the worst Guild quest in TES history (although I barely remember pre-Morrowind guilds existing even though I played Arena and Daggerfall). The spells are lacking in Skyrim a lot and no spell creator is awful, a core of the game for wizard characters who like to "play the way they want to play". That said, I think the new combat system itself is more fluid and fun even involving magic, I just think the magic itself is bad. Make sense? No?

Also, Cities. Cities are MUCH better done in Oblivion which is dissapointing. I know we wouldn't see cities as big as the Imperial City but the cities in Skyrim are really lacking and one of the biggest dissapointments of the game. Hopefully some DLC or expansions will add a bigger city or two and the CK will help existing ones.

Pretty everything else is better in Skyrim, possibly excepting reaction from NPCs to your in game achievements/guild rankings. I think that may have been better handled in Oblivion too. But it's disappointing in both games.

But Dragons >>>> Oblivon Gates. And Skyrim is actually a beautiful place to adventure in; right up there with Morrowind. Cyrodil is kinda blah.

As my mother used to say:

"Opinions are like ***holes, everybody has one, and they all stink."

Oblivion was very meh. It was stripped down to open up the game to a new audience. Skyrim is far more open ended which I like. The quests come fast and furious which prevents the checklist completing that went on in Oblivion.

The story (And the lore used in those stories) is better in Skyrim, overall the quality is better in Skyrim but the low quantity annulled the quality while in Oblivion the low quality was surpassed with high quantity and humor.

Skyrim College:



Oblivion Mage's Guild:



The Questline is more "epic-ish" in Skyrim, but (again) the low quantity makes it fell a little rushed and annulled the quality.

This.

I would say the guilds, horses, and stat system was better in oblivion. Also, somehow, alot of the textures were less garish in oblivion. Combat, atmosphere, lore, dialogue, music, level-scaling system and dungeons are all miles better in Skyrim, which makes Skyrim the better overall game imo.

Why is this something that you have to see in text in game? You can't just say "I'm a runemaster," or "I'm a spacegoblin?"

I think this is almost certainly true.



Again I agree, the spells we do have in skyrim are more fun then their oblivion equivalent but the limited spell set is bad and the fact your damage as a mage does not really scale all that well to your level in destruction is terrible, you can not really dominate in any other way then using impact to stun lock... which isn't really a fun way to play and doesn't work at all well against a crowd.



When I've said this in other topics people always argue with me on it, I agree, 4 of the cities are generic clones and white run is half clone/half unique. Oblivion's cities were more unique and even mixed their style up a bit, like how the waterfront is different to the rest of the IC or how layawiin has big rich houses at one point and next to that is poor small houses. The style of houses in Skyrim barely changes at all in any city, and 4 cities are near totally identical on the building style.



At least you can close all oblivion gates for good, you can not stop dragons from coming back and there is actually less variety in dragons then there is oblivion gates in oblivion. In reality there is only 2 dragon types in Skyrim, Fire and Ice anything else is just a re-skin and higher damage/health





This is the reason I think most people really hate Oblivion, the level scaling was dreadful in oblivion. My issue in skyrim is it's gone too much the other way and now there doesn't really feel like there is any hard dungeons at all, all difficulty goes into the boss fight itself and only that. A few dungeons which always contain level 50 mobs no matter what level you're would have been nice just to show you there is something you need to be progress in the game to be able to do...



As I've said, they weren't copy and pasted, they were literally computer generated using a common series of prefabs, Skyrim's dungeons also appear to have a lot of too common prefabs, it makes dungeon design easier but it's generic.



the crash bugs and texture bugs really do need to be sorted, Skyrim a lot of content on side missions but almost completely forgot about the main story to do it, now the main story just feel shallow as do the guild quest lines .



STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!

Haha, that's an exception, it was cool unlike "stop right there by order of the Jarl"

I have to kindly disagree.

Yes, the guards in skyrim don't ever say anything unique, the guards in oblivion often had things they only said for a number of game days after something happened and NPCs in generally had a lot more to talk about, many NPCs in skyrim say very very little at all. In oblivion this helps since it means NPCs could guide you to where you needed to go, in skyrim in some cases without the compass you'd have no idea since you can't ask people where things are.



Wrong and I'll show you why



This is some what accurate





This is not,

Oblivion will continue to be better than Skyrim until the next Elder Scrolls, in which case Skyrim will suddenly become amazing and better than said new game.

I don't like how mages are weak in Skyrim, but that's the ONLY thing in my opinion that makes Oblivion better then Skyrim.

In my opinion Skyrim is at least 5x better then Oblivion.

If this were true then everybody would be saying Oblivion is better then Marrowind, which is definitely not the case. In my opinion skyrim has had a honeymoon period which is slowly starting to drop and so people are starting to more legitimately compare it back to Oblivion and Marrowind then they were a few weeks ago.

@JumpingGinger

how about the fact oblivion actually had storyline, how about the fact oblivion had more equipment slots, let's remember Oblivion had cities that were more unique and larger then those of skyrim? You're summarizing the issue in an entirely false way.

Guilds, spell-makimg, magic, all quests and stories other than the main quest, and dungeon size (and only size) ... Oblivion was better.

In all other aspects, Skyrim is better.

i think that they are equal... the reason being is that while skyrim does some things SO MUCH BETTER they took a step back on things they just strait up should not have changed. Dialog was good enough in oblivion, im glad they changed the interface but they should not have changed how much dialog there was in the game. Another thing is vampires were fine in oblivon, they could be a pain, but it WAS a curse, and it did have SOME advantages that actually helped. if they hadn't tried to fix things that wern't broken then skyrim would be better, skyrim is still my favorite game right now, and ill be playing it for years.

I really miss spellcrafting and the utility spells from the earlier games.

The magic system in Skyrim is just too dumbed down for my liking.

IMHO

I put a lot of time and love into Oblivion so I am not going to trash it.. but even though I have only put in 50 or so hours over 1 month I have to say I am having a better time playing Skyrim than I did Oblivion. At least in it's vanilla state.

I am willing to bet in 2 years time modded Skyrim will blow modded Oblivion out of the water as well.

Uhm Vanilla OB didn't have spellmaking, did it?

(added in the magetower xpac afaik)

I totally agree with this post, I haven't played Skyrim in 2 days now, I just look at it and just say to myself Nope, but in Oblivion that was a totally different story endless gaming, might be because I got older, but I'm not sure....