In Oblivion there were dungeons and caves everywhere. Every five steps you'd see a fort or cave on your compass. I found this quite annoying. The caves were boring and repetitious (same layout).

I'd like Skyrim to be different. I'd like every cavern and grotto to be unique. With unique artifacts and monsters, but it needs to be hard to explore caves. You shouldn't be able to explore dungeons at level 1, it needs more preparation and skill. I'd also like the dungeons number to be at a minimum, keep it a rarity.

A map should mark where every dungeon is, like in Oblivion. So you can save each grotto as a treat for later. Or you're not skilled enough, but please keep out the "magic marker".

What do you guys think?

Loved the caves. Keep me going after the game was over. Add more

Inevitably, if there are going to be loads, then there will be at least an element of 'cut and paste'

But I hope they have more with unique features, artifacts or some sort of back story. I remember going through Vilverin and thinking that every Oblivion ruin was going to be as uniquely crafted. What a let down that hardly any of the others had anything distinctive about them.

So, in summary, I think it is unrealistic to think that there will be hundreds of totally unique dungeons. But there should be more than there was in Oblivion.

I like caves. I used to keep going back and clearing the same ones over and over every few days in Oblivion.

There should be more unique caves and less randomized. I still want randomized, but a realistic level.

I kinda like that I really hated the dungeons in fallout because they were all quest related and sometimes I just wanted to level up my character

Quality over quanity.

I agree. And I kind of said that there should be as few caves as possible. Fewer caves equals quality

I keep hearing about how caves and temples and everything in oblivion was so ordinary and boring, but the more I actually explore the more variety I come across. I am wondering if this is just a myth.
For instance, the other day, I came across this cave that was submerged under water and was packed full of argonians. So basically I was battling argonians with daggers underwater most of the cave while trying not to drown...also while casting light and feather so I could loot the place silly. It was cool!

And yes there were a lot of dungeons in oblivion, but that is because oblivion is a big place, not because they over did it. I like the number.
I like the caves, temples, forts for the most part. At the same time, I see where you are coming from. A bit more variety could be good.

Not true. It isn't copy and paste if they use the same textures as another dungeon. What matters is that no part of a dungeon is the same as any other. Which they have alluded to many times and seeing as how many devs they have, they have plenty of people to work on making all the many dungeons unique and still be able to work on the other aspects of the game at the same time. People need to stop being so pessimistic and realize that Beth is working with a brand new engine they created, meaning they know every aspect of the engine and they have over 100 people working on the game. There is plenty of man power and software power behind this game to make it the best one yet.

@OP Actually, no fort or ruin was ever the same. They were always a different layout. They had only so many room prefabs but they pieced together each fort and Ayleid ruin together differently, I found the differences to be sufficient. Other people just seem to go through it but only see it as exactly the same even though it isn't.

The way to gain both alot of places to look at and some realy very good ones is to use a dungeon generator to start you off add in by hand alot of detail and then add in a random little dungeon.cave/mine/sewer generator and say 2-300 points where each type of thing can pop up.

So as you walk around a city you see a few dozen sewer grates...you know some of them lead to grand sewer s.. but most just lead to an old blocked section of the old sewers...

You come across a small mine.. you know its likely a small abaondoned mine but heck there might be something in there.

A grand mine opening with mine carts and a shack out front show you will find a big detailed mine .

A tiny tille hole somewhere might just be a bear den or a hermits home.

I want them to be HUGE.

I want to be lost in a cave for days at a time.

Caves which dwarf even the biggest dungeons in daggerfall.

caves which start as caves... then slowly as you go deeper, a great subterainean network of ruins begins to form, and deeper still within the ruin, a crystalline cave deep within the earth comes, deeper still, rivers of magma.

if there is a hardcoe... I want to be in the depths of a dungeon running out of food and literally not even know the way back out of the dungeon.

Oblivions dungeons were simply a connection of tunnels at right angles...

In skyrim I want huge underground caverns with multiple canyons and pitch black tunnels, crumbling scaffholds used by ancient miners.

1. I want dungeons to not to be so cramped up. It shouldn't look like this: http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/newssi/15000/18861_0_org.jpg
Add a greater distance between dungeons. It's not realistic or fun that there is a huge dungeon every 100 feet.
I also want dungeons to be in more strategic places, rather than having a big underground dungeon in the middle of a forest.

2. I want dungeons to be more unique. The dungeons in Oblivion all pretty much felt the same. Eventually when I was exploring and saw a dungeon, I thought "Bah. It's just like all the other dungeons. Nothing special. No need to explore."

3. Kind of off-topic, but I don't want any "magic icons" that shows you the exact locations of all nearby dungeons and other locations. It completely removes the excitement of exploring and finding supposedly hidden dungeons (which really didn't exist anyway in Oblivion), according to me.

All of the above points pretty much ruined my incitement to explore dungeons in Oblivion. A big thumbs down in a roleplaying game.
I'd say 65% quality, and 35% quantity. That's how Bethesda should focus
In Oblivion it felt like 80% quantity and 20% quality.

Having 300+ dungeons, of which many are the same like in Oblivion, is really bad in my honest opinion. Because it will end up, in theory and in feeling, you exploring only a few different dungeons.
I'd say variety is the key. That meaning both how the dungeons look & feel, and how they are placed in the world. I think having 5 dungeons within 100 square feet is bad.

I agree! I agree! :celebrate: But, wait wait, is there anyone who does not agree?

I loved the mass amount of dungeons, maybe a few more unique ones but I'd honestly rather have 300 dungeons with similar layouts than 25 good ones. I say 150 copy and pasters and around 15 unique ones if you're catching at all what I'm throwing.
EDIT:
My reasoning is definitely for the sake of loot and quantity, I could care less if there are only 25 mega dungeons, I could easily explore them in a day but enchanted loot in dungeons is why you explore them again and again, I would enjoy if some dungeons were unique but as I said not all as we would sacrifice quantity entirely.

300+
I don't mind if they are Oblivion quality, I want a lot!

I don't agree. I'd like just as many as Oblivion had. However I'd like the questmarkers to only mark the location of the dungeon and not mark what your looking for in the dungeon.

Thank goodness for HUD-less gameplay!

I want a medium number but all hand made. I hated the repetitive dungeons that was so anoying and can they not be closed cell all the time? I like some open things more open citys again I hope.

Or we can have as many as Oblivion and all hand made. No need to sacrifice quantity and have quality. They have a giant team now after all, so it is possible that they could've spent alot of their time working on them. I mean, if you look at the time-lapse video, the person was fighting a cave troll in front of a cave and that was in 2009. They've had over a year of development after that so I'm thinking they have plenty of great content to give us.

Quality and quantity please! The only thing I disliked was annoying traps, weird lightning that made it hard to explore and level scaled monsters interfering with the visual experience.

Oblivion had the right amount...maybe too many, the problem was that they were all within a few feet of eachother and more or less identical, no quests, very few notes or interesting things, just traps, monsters and bandits, traps, monsters and bandits :banghead:

As many dungeons as Oblivion but have at least one dungeon be a snow cave with the surface of the cave be in Snow.

Im going to have to disagree with the OP. I NEVER ran out of things to do in Oblivion thanks to the absurd amount of dungeons, caves, and ruins. Not to mention the fact that they repopulate with enemies and treasure after 3 game days. It's one of the main reasons I have played Oblivion ever since it came out. I think Skyrim should have just as many dungeons with the same repopulation ability. However, I do agree with the aspect of variety. I really believe that Bethesda s going to make our dungeon crawling experience rewarding and fun, with variety.

Always loved the number of dungeons in the Elder Scrolls games (and the number of cities in the earlier games). Don't care if they were randomly generated. One of its main selling points, IMHO. As opposed to something like Dragon Age Origins, with about 5 or 6 big dungeons overall, doesn't do it for me.

They have more budget know, so they can hire more dungeon designers and add to both quantity and quality at the same time.

No need for all the dungeons to be attached to a quest, but they can add back story to each dungeon, by placing items and notes around.

And let Raniant Story select the place for any odd quest that it chooses.