First of all, as a huge fan of Daggerfall... nothing compares to its dungeons.
Having that said, I think Skyrim did the dungeons wayyy better than Oblivion and in some cases Morrowind as well. (not in terms of loot though)
As I've had several characters, I haven't noticed any random elements in dungeons which leaves little room for enthralling replay value. They need to at least have some sort of Diablo 2 style randomization, so you don't know where everything is.

I find them vastly improved, myself. I'll take linearity over 90% of caves having the exact same "big room" any day.

I had to run though nearly all the dungeons of the game for them to begin becoming repetitive. And the only clear abuse I've seen for now are Nord burials.

You guys sure love to complain for the sake of complaining. Sure, not all dungeons have unique meshes each single one of them, but they feel different enough to worth exploring all of them. It's not like they are like the Oblivion' ones, where you could explore one of each category, and you were as good as if you explored all of them already. They're more at Morrowind's level (even surpassing Morrowind).

I actually like linear dungeons. Having thousands of branching corridors that loop around just drives me crazy.

But I entirely disagree with you. Every dungeon I've been in has been completely unique, with a story behind it. They're fantastic.

TBh i like when theres one way to the destination, because if theres more then one i would have to clear them all because thats just how i am, and i rather not waste my time stayin in the same dungeon when there SOOOOO much other ones and diffrent stuff

Way to completely miss the point. Let's see :
- I've never, ever, used fast travel at any point in the game (only the carriages, and so far only twice).
- I'm talking about DUNGEONS and how linear they are. Fast travel is impossible in dungeons, and it has nothing to do with how they play, so where the hell does this ridiculous answer comes from ?


Anyway, I see from many answers that it's simply that people actually LIKE corridor-like dungeons. I can't understand for the life of me where is the fun in mindlessly following a rail, and I find a linear tunnel ten times more boring and repetitive than several dungeons sharing the same tileset, but it seems I'm in minority here.

This is a good description of what I'm feeling. Mostly, I would love the dungeons so much more if they did the hand-placed, unique loot thing, again... could use at least some hand-placed unique loot besides those useless (for a warrior) dragon priest masks. Regardless, the dungeons are pretty well-done. I just was really hoping for some hand-placed unique loot... and a bit more variety in dungeon types and enemies (too many draugr and bandits). I like the puzzles and traps, though, and they've nicely expanded on those two things I loved from some of Oblivion's dungeons.

I have not been inside many dungeons, so I couldn't comment, but for the gameplay?
It's been fine for me.
Tombs resemble tombs - and yeah they may look linear with a branch here or there that is closed, but who is to say that isn't what you'd find?
Celtic burials were semi linear labyrinths made to channel poachers through the planted traps.

The dungeons are very linear. They also are fairly similar in certain groupings,like we are using the crypt tile set. The dungeons under Markarth are pretty good IMO. But they are much better than oblivion's dungeons IMO, since they were just as linear, and even less unique in appearance.

Well, I definitely like how each dungeon seems to have its own story, whether it be bandit smuggling operations, necromancy experiments, wrecked encampments; each dungeon seems like a real place, that real people used to inhabit, and for that I really enjoy spelunking in Skyrim.

HOWEVER, in terms of design, layout, and enemy placement I think Skyrim's dungeons are barely any better than Oblivion's dungeons. In fact, I'd say Oblivion flat-out beats Skyrim in terms of multiple approaches and non-linear paths like the OP was talking about.

They are really improved.. The only dungeon that i hated was the Labyrianth.. It was like 2 hours long and had the hardest boss i ever fought at the end..

A lot of your completely missed what the OP was talking about. It is how the caves are much more linear compared to Oblivions, obviously they are a much improved as far as visuals and they are not typically the same, but they are definitely very linear. I could actually get semi lost in Oblivion. Skyrim is a most visual appearance, but greatly lacks any depth in these caves, dungeons etc. Like I was saying though many times in my threads, they always take steps forwards, but they take even greater steps backwards in their games. They might make a improvement to one area or add some nice touches, but then they remove things most of us enjoy or now miss in Skyrim.

While I think the skyrim dungeons are very linear the vast majority of oblivion dungeons were as well, most were basically a loop, if there was a side path it would end in a short distance. There were some decent kind of non-linear dungeons in oblivion, and I am sure there are a few in skyrim as well.

I completely disagree with everything you've said.

109 hours
225 Dungeons cleared
0 dungeons have been remotely the same
0 dungeons have been predictable
0 dungeons have been repetitive
226 dungeons have been hand crafted and widely unique in and of themselves

:shrug:

Yes, there are Draugr Ruins, Forts, caves, and dwemer ruins. That's more than Oblivion had, which had caves, forts, and ayelid ruins. That's it. Not to mention a whole 1 trap, ONE TRAP, the ENTIRE game. Every single dungeon I've been in has been amazing and they've all had various traps.

The dungeon experience is without a doubt leaps and BOUNDS above Oblivions.

Stop being an idiot. He's not lying to you. All the people in this thread are not lying to you. You however are starting to waste their valuable time with this dribble.

dungeons are much better than oblivions. i especially like using the tons of traps against the monsters themselves. glad someone over there at bethesda played dark messiah.

I can break down basically every dungeon in skyrim right now.

Enter dungeon
Travel down tunnel system
Fight the "boss"
Loot generic large treasure chest
Leave via the very very conveniently placed exit located right next to the boss

In fact, I would bet money, that the above were design requirements for every dungeon in the game. The level designers did a terrific job in handling them in creative ways, but it does break immersion quite a bit once dungeon crawling turns into -> run to boss -> loot big chest -> immediately leave.

The dungeons are vastly improved, what where you expecting a completely different theme for all 300 dungeons? There are only so many colors in the rainbow, most of them are bound to be similar, but as far as layouts go they are all completely different.

What else could be in a dungeon? Magic unicorns?

You go into dungeons to find loot and kill enemies. That's what they're for. I also absolutely love the exists in the boss rooms that lead straight out. I hated backtracking through the dungeons in Oblivion.

[img]http://www.nerdnirvana.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/fps-map-design.jpg[/img]

I think this is the trend which is plaguing the OP...

do the "clear white wolf cave" quest or whatever its called, i think i started it in solitude, i was blown away by that little dungeon cave thing.

I can agree on the linearity bit, though it certainly doesn't go for all dungeons.

Anything else feels improved though, visuals, caved in roofs, streams and waterfalls, logical placed and diverse traps, drawbridges, gates and doors with several methods used for opening, puzzles, uniqueness, diversity within the dungeon, very well dressed up rooms/caverns fitting to whatever occupies the dungeons and often with a clear function, flooded areas that make sense in connection with both the interior and outside situation, great atmosphere and lighting, the little secrets, logical placements of objects, and also, ruins, forts and caves are where you'd expect them to be in the terrain (unlike oblivions complete randomness).

All in all I find dungeons very much improved

You're right about the dungeon's not being vastly improved, but I think there has definitely been more than significant improvement. There are plenty of dungeons with outdoor areas now, which is really nice, and they're not like Oblivion's forts which were all the exact same tower. For instance, I've encountered tons of forts with Bandits, which are everything from two wooden towers with a bridge in between to an actual stone fortress built on a mountain overlooking the lake. Additionally, dungeons now have stories behind them, for instance, the Windchill Caverns or something like that, you found a caravan on the road with the drivers and horse dead, and a journal talking about how none of the caravans going through this area have returned, and that the driver has no money and must therefore go through with it. You can then follow a trail to an empty camp of two adventurers, whose journal states they were searching for whatever has been attacking the travelers, and they know its not Bandits or Animals, as they took prisoners. When you enter the cave, you find their two dead bodies, and proceeding farther in, you find it's a Falmer camp. Seeing as this was the first time I encountered Falmer, it was pretty awesome. And there are also some epic open areas inside the dungeons, for instance, the cave with a Malacath shrine had a massive interior cavern, with 5 or so giants wandering around inside, and a river running through it with plenty of trees, and multiple bridges you could shoot down from. Ustengrav had something very similar. And the dwemer dungeon inside of Markath had a huge central area which seemed like a town center, with different sections of the dungeon branching off the main area. And yes, there have of course been those boring dungeon crawls, but it is getting much better. So no, I'm not at all dissapointed. It still has plenty of room for improvement, but it's a big step forward.

*cough*Mzulft*cough*Blackreach*cough*Labyrinthian*cough*

Yeah I'd have to disagree with almost everything you said here. I've never seen an open world game with more varied dungeons. Least of all from Bethesda, the kings of oppressive copy and paste dungeon crawling (nearly wanted to shoot myself in Oblivion caves and FO3 office buildings)