I've only played Oblivion, and to a much lesser extent, Daggerfall, but I think this is relevant to the whole Elder Scrolls series, so I put it in this section.
When I first started playing Oblivion, I had limited time to play it, and as such, I went around doing every quest I could find, and picking up every good piece of armour I found. Eventually it occurred to me that I was, in a way, spoiling the game, as I was rushing through it without taking time to explore the world, or go through the game properly. So then I changed my playing style. Instead of using fast travel to go everywhere, I explored the province. I stopped doing quests all the time, and took time to explore and roleplay. Often when I found a new, better piece of armour, I refused to wear it, opting to stay with my current piece of armour and "save it (the newer piece of armour or weaponry) for later." These days, I now feel guilty whenever I do too many quests at a time, or when I rush through armour or weaponry sets. I'm curious to see if anyone else is like this, or if it's just me. I know that many other people don't rush with quests, but does anyone else feel reluctant to constantly upgrade your armour/weaponry in ES 1, 2, 3 or 4?

People upgrade armour? I've been following the philosophy of "fashion over function" for years now.

I do the exploration roleplaying thing too, but I also do every quest I can get my hands on. I'm kind of an all-rounder.

One of the problems with Oblivion was that the landscape wasn't as intresting as it could have been :cold:

missing jungle anyone?

Aye. And there were so few quests that, yeah, of course I felt some slight remorse when I plowed through five of them in one sitting.

And I'm definitely guilty of fast travel, especially in dungeons - who wants to back track through 3 or more boring levels of caves when they could just fast travel back to the cave entrance or the nearest town to sell the loot?

The world is so small, too. I spent a lot of time taking my character into the wilds to hunt deer, gather ingredients, and just explore every nook and cranny. After two or three romps across all of Cyrodiil, the province started to feel smaller and smaller to me. I knew it like the back of my hand, and it didn't take but a few minutes to travel from Anvil to the IC at a scurrying sneak.

Since when can you fast travel in dungeons?

No, I don't play that way. My first character in Oblivion was my mage, who did only the Mages Guild storyline. I then made an assassin, who did both the Thieves and Dark Brotherhood stories. I never played the Fighters Guild story.

My characters in Morrowind were similar. My mage character was a member of House Hlaalu and the Mages Guild, with my assassin being part of Hlaalu and the Morag Tong. I only ever had one short lived fighter character, and another longer lived (but still pretty short) Redoran and Temple devotee. I had a paladin devoted entirely to the Imperial Cult (Although he accepted the nature of his work there and also did some work for the Fighters to pay for fees and costs).


You can not. His memory is mistaken.

Naw. I never constantly upgrade my armor/weapon. Quest-wise, I take it one at a time, savoring each quest. Two or three at most, if necessary.

Very different from my playthroughs.

In Morrowind and its official expansions, there are more total "sets" of armor, including the entire Medium Armor class, although many of the sets are only partial. Many of the unique items had their own distinctive style and shape. Some partial sets, like the Imperial Newtscale cuirass and Templar bracers, included only a single item or pair, while others such as Dreugh, Duke's Guard, Trollbone, and Imperial Dragonscale included a "reduced" set of usually a cuirass, helmet, and sometimes a shield. There was also more flexibility in terms of mixing and matching seperate left and right pauldrons and individual bracers or gauntlets. The game included all of these items in the world from the start, although the better ones became more common as it went, so it was possible to get just about anything early if you knew where to look. More importantly, there was often a tradeoff between protection and weight or other factors, so you might use something "less than the best" with good reason to do so.

In Oblivion, there was a painfully obvious "progression" of armor types as the game went along, regardless of whether you chose Light or Heavy. The higher forms of armor and weapons simply didn't exist in Tamriel until you reached a certain level, and then all of the lower level stuff started to become rare. Failing to progress made no sense, because everything about the "next" armor that came into existance was just "better". Many of the "unique" items were only uniquely named and re-statted, and looked like any other item of their type, or at most had a different texture for an otherwise identical mesh.

My MW characters usually find something that suits them, and stick with that for the rest of the game, with the possible exception of an occasional unique or unusual item being mixed in or an enchantment added. In OB, I felt like I had to keep swapping armor and weapons to keep up with the "rat race", not use what I felt best suited the character. I really lament the "simplification" of the series into a linear character progression in an otherwise non-linear worldspace.

In Morrowind, you can't do all of the quests with a single character, although there's more than enough to keep a character busy for months or even years in spite of that.

Yea what about that?

Since when was this a "Let's bash Oblivion!" thread, people? :rolleyes:

Anyway, my gameplay style is similar, but I'm a "fashion over function" type of person, as previously mentioned. I only have my characters wear armor that suit them, not the best of the best out there. I don't think I've had a single character wear daedric or glass armor.

But also, I'm selective with which quests I do with which characters. Never do I do a 100% playthrough on any of my files. My nightblade (assassin/mage) character only does Dark Brotherhood, Mages Guild, and a few side quests (such as the quest involving Umbacano, given his interest in the Ayleids). My CoC character does the main questline, KotN, and SI, primarily. I have a character for the Fighter's Guild, and one for the Thieves Guild as well. Whatever quests are relevant to the character in question, be it faction quests or just side quests, I only do those on the file.

I also get very specific with how my character behaves while exploring, too, among other things. I'm a big roleplayer outside of video games (one on one roleplaying) so I put a lot of effort into the minute details.

on the fast travel in dungeons - Beth is usually good at making a quick route back to the beginning of the dungeon, but sometimes I'll ~TCL and just skip back to the beginning.

I usually have my characters explore every dungeon, gate and fort he came across so that he didn't miss anything until eventually I realized that there was no point in that since everything is randomly placed. Exploration was boring in TES5 and eventually I got really sick of running into another gate since I always kept that 100% explored mentality. Hopefully tes5 will have fewer forts that are handmade by someone who gives a damn. quality over quantity please.

I try to strike a balance with armor. 1st priority is stats for me, then style; but if I can accomplish both at the same time. :thumbsup:

I've changed my play style overtime though. I used to fast travel a lot and now I don't at all.

I'm glad Cyrodiil isn't all jungle. With Skyrim in the north (being mountainous and probably mostly snowy) and Hammerfell to the northwest (desert, or at least dry and grasslandy), I think it makes sense for Cyrodiil to be a temperate region, rather than having extreme climate changes occur when crossing the border.

I'll admit the standard medieval fantasy setting isn't for me, but what can you do?

Anyway. If you want jungle, there's always Blackwood.

Oh how true this is. Only difference is, I started out role playing then found out you got no in game benefit so then "power: gamed, then realised it was more fun to role play and that's what I've been doing ever since.

Since the dungeon designer installed immediate exit doors right on the bottom of the last floor of (almost) each cave?

I play both Morrowind and Oblivion, MW on PC and OB on PS3.



NO!

I like to balance doing quests and exploring, because doing quests can be interesting, and certainly helps to give the player a sense of direction, but there's so much in the games to do that isn't part of a quest, and you miss out a lot if you do only quests. Sometimes, I also explore the regions that my quests take me to. As far as upgrading armor goes, it depends, I want my character to be well protected, that's the point of armor, after all, but I also want my character to look good, generally, at low levels I tend to focus more on protection, since at the time, you need it, and most of the low level armor you can find doesn't look very interesting anyway, when you start getting Daedric and ebony, though, a few points of armor protection isn't going to make that much difference anymore, and I start to pay more attention to apprearances, although especially in Morrowind where finding high level armor could be quite difficult, when I find say... a single piece of Daedric armor, it is often a matter I must debate whether I should where it now for the protection or wear something that goes better with my other armor for now and wait until I have more pieces, and things can get really difficult when you find artifacts, as these generally don't come in full sets, and it can be diffuclt to find armor that fits well with them. Of course, sometimes having mismatched armor can have its own appeal, which is one of the reasons why I liked Morrowind's larger number of armor slots, if I like the look of having different gauntlets on each hand or not wearing pauldrons, I can do just that. In general, though, I don't just upgrade as soon as I find a better piece of armor, I need to take into account both its function and its appearance, and decide whether I want to use it now or not.



You can't, you have to go to the exit, and leave the dungeon, though in Morrowind, you could, as the game featured divine and ALMSIVI intervention spells as well as mark and recall spells that could be cast even inside dungeons, the former two would instantly bring you back to the nearest Imperial Cult shrine or Tribunal Temple, respectively, whereas recall would teleport you back to the last location where you successfully cast mark, but in Oblivion, these spells were removesd, so there's no way to instantly leave dungeons and travel to some other place, though as noted, many dungeons have a secondary exit accessable from the end of the dungeon which will take you back to near the entrance, most likely, this is Bethesda's answer to players not wanting to trek back through the entire dungeon they just explored now that they can't just teleport out.



Regardless of logic, the lore says Cyrodiil should be jungle, Bethesda shouldn't change this without a logical explanation for this, and no, the "explanation" they give is not a logical explanation, it's what TV Tropes calls a handwave, and besides, if you're going to go changing things in the world, then at least make it better in doing so, turning Cyrodiil into Generic Faux-Medieval Fantasy Land doesn't make it better, it makes it more boring. And it didn't even have to be all jungle, Bethesda could have kept the further north regions and those of higher altitude as temperate (this wouldn't look so odd if the map were bigger.) while having jungle in warmer areas.

And if you'll note, judging from what you can see beyond the borders in Oblivion, the climates don't seem make dramatic changes the moment you cross into another province, in fact, it looks like what lies beyond the borders is pretty similar to the environment in the regions of Cyrodiil that border those provinces, and you only get to see dramatically different climates once you get beyond the areas visible in the game.



Blackwood is not really what I'd call a jungle, the name "jungle" invokes several things, among them is very dense foliage, which Black Wood does not have. Black Wood is more like a big swamp, which kind of makes sense, since it borders on Black Marsh, but it doesn't exactly make Cyrodiil look like how I'd have envisioned it from the lore written before Oblivion, even if you take into account that the Pocket Guide may have been exagerating a lot to make the Imperials seem more impressive.

Oh. Well, it's been a year since I played. Now that you mention it, I do remember back tracking. Jeez, that was annoying. But once I got out, why walk to the nearest merchant when I can fast travel to one that has a high disposition toward me?

It was a good change for the series as a whole. It may not have made much sense at first, but in the future this new geographical lore will feel fitting. The world now makes a lot more sense.

More importantly though, i've never really understood the argument behind Cyrodiil's landscape being 'boring'. Generic I can understand, but boring I can't. Each city had its own region and style of countryside surrounding it. Chorrol's high rolling hills, with an amazing view of the Imperial City along the road towards Weye, and along the road leading to Bruma. Skingrad's region was laden with deep red colours in the flora, and covered in huge scarred rocks and boulders. Anvil had golden hued long grasses seemingly blowing in the sea breeze, and some of the trees along the road leading down to this city seemed to create arches above the player. Leyawiin had its distinct swampy feel, and I always loved the road leading up to Bravil, following the Niben river and so often covered in a thick fog. Cheydinhal was incredibly green and vibrant, and I always think of Willow trees when I recall that place. They must have been pretty prominent up there. Bruma is unique for obvious reasons. Asides from the cities and their respective locales, the Nibenay Basin truly felt wild to me. There were points where if you looked around, all you could see were hills covered in ancient forest, and untouched lakes below. This was a place where you just knew an unwary adventurer could get truly lost.

So obviously i'm a massive roleplayer! I never fast-travelled, and I honestly believe that anyone saying "Cyrodiil's landscape was so boring that I ended up fast-travelling to avoid it" hasn't seen much of the varied landscape on offer, and is really missing out. I can recall the layout of every single road in Cyrodiil, and several of my own 'shortcut' paths through the Great Forest and the Imperial Reserve, and they are far from bland. Generic? Yes. But only in the sense that generic means 'more familiar'. There may not be any giant mushrooms or foyadas in Cyrodiil, but the more traditional landscape on offer just serves to make the unique sights of Vvardenfell more impressive and enchantingly foreign in my opinion. So in that respect I agree on Cyrodiil being generic, but strongly disagree with it being boring.

I myself have way too much free time on my hands, so no. I do whatever I feel like lol

My first post


How do I play Oblivion? Well to be honest if I dont like the way I have completed the quests in terms of order I go back to an earlier save and do something different. I like to give the character a reasonable history rather than a strange order. That is one of the things the main story never seems to let you do. It does not feel right to deviate from the main story nor does it feel right to complete it and do something else after it. However I tend to do all the vanilla stuff first then the main quest then all the expansion side quests then the expansion.

In terms of character I play as a Mage but will then level everything up. I dont like the idea of previously powerful new items from older games being not so good because you did the mission earlier on so I max out the character before playing. I felt that the character traits have never been quite right in TES but then if you know the work arounds you just get round them.

My mage does not need armour in fact armour is not any good in Oblivion. I have a character that negates others attacking it because I have 100% sneek and 100% chameleon so any attack with any weapon usually kills the character. The magic always comes back before I loose my chameleon spell. If I was in a direct fight I have a spell that kills the oponent through absorb magicka, absorb health, damage health, poison excetra, restore health on self all in one spell so I can just keep recasting they are cast on touch as one spell so this makes the game quite easy.

I prefer morrowing but you can max out all stats (except repair???) through training and can buy anything and sell anything for profet to do this so merchant characters have an advantage.

If I were to forget the loop holes I would just explore and follow the missions as and when I get them. I remember Morrowing was a lot of fun that way I explored everywhere and had every unique item. Oblivion I got bord of the main quest so it was a stuggle to complete, once I worked out the Mage stuff it was easier to get through. I find the faction and side missions more fun on Oblivion then Morrowind but Morrowind had the better main quest and things were harder to find. You can get everywhere easily on Oblivion where in Morrowind there was a challenge as some things were difficult to remember.

Sadly, although I've not rushed through the quests, I've done every guild, thus mutilating my character's backstory. *Sigh* I'll have to find a way around that. :shrug:

The exploration in Oblivion fell short from Morrowind's example. While it was nice at first. There was little more than the scenery to entice you. An example was, in Morrowind, you could explore a dungeon and not know what you would find. You could sneak your way past a vanguard of Daedric Lords that could easily kill you, or get lucky and kill a high level bandit and then your heart began to flutter at what Might be. I remember this hit home the most when I found Chrysamere. I was just exploring, I found a dungeon off the Sadrith Mora island, I went in and killed the Mage and to my surprise, an amazing claymore, the likes of which I had never seen. And I was only level 8.

Now in Oblivion, you always know you're going to find leveled Items, all the amazing artifacts are quested (Though in Morrowind many could be quested, they did not require a quest, save for the Goldbrand and Ebony Mail) so it added to the real feeling of exploration. You may, or may not, uncover something amazing. In Oblivion, you always found the same bandits, in the same armor with the same weapons, with maybe an enchantment on it.

Now Fallout 3 came, it made improvements to exploration. It's still nowhere near as alluring as Morrowind was (Opinion) but a step in the right direction to be sure. The saddest shortcoming about Oblivion (And don't get me wrong, I hold Oblivion in very high regard, which is why it's so easy for me to criticize it) was it cut back in areas that didn't call for it. Exploration, RPG elements, World depth. All to make room for physics calculations and shrubbery (but nice looking shrubbery, I still think the speed-tree grass is almost a vital part now of world design, adds a layer of depth to empty texture map). Look at Dragon Age, that game is amazing, critically acclaimed, and yet, something about it seems so yesteryear. Old school, if you will. Bethesda expirmented and that's fine, but I hope they see where they had a real niche specialty in Alternate world emulation.

I hope with the next Elder Scrolls installment, Bethesda continues along the path that they faltered from in Oblivion, but found anew in Fallout 3. There is room for strong, balanced (more or less, single player RPG's are needed to be perfectly balanced) RPG mechanics in the modern gaming age. Even more so now with certain economic situations, frugal gamers are MUCH more likely to shell out full MSRP (59.99$ USD) for a game that promises incredible gameplay potential.

Oh yah, and Don't forget the Spears, Crossbows and Throwing weapons this time...

That's one of my favourite things about OOO in Oblivion: it fixes it to an extent in that there is actually a proper choice about which armours you use. It makes it extremely difficult, though, to not rush through all the armours, and not to just try each armour when they don't fit your character. (Hopefully Elder Scrolls V won't need a mod like that.)