Why do people hate Oblivion so much?

[kites]

I was in love with Morrowind for years. I absolutely hated Oblivion when it came out. At a base visual level it's disgusting. Every time I've tried balancing mods/etc it always breaks and I give up for a few more years. Maybe I have the worst luck with it. I guess I'll know in 2025 if that's the case.

 

[Sykar]

Oblivion is the one Elder Scrolls game that targeted modding can actually save and make redeemable. Priority number 1 is remaking the way enemies are always hp sponges.

 

[NecroLord]

Oblivion taught me how to ace an interview in real life by locking eye contact with the guild master.

 

[Robotigan]

I played Skyrim then went back and played Morrowind. I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Its implementation of level scaling is a warcrime.

Ugliest characters in any game.

Dialogue is so bad it became a meme.

Turned the cool and relatively original lore into generic fantasy paste.

etc.

 

[Robotigan]

Its implementation of level scaling is a warcrime.

Ugliest characters in any game.

Dialogue is so bad it became a meme.

Turned the cool and relatively original lore into generic fantasy paste.

etc.

Should have started with Skyrim like I did and then Oblivion would be a funny meme instead of the root of all seethe.

 

[Tyranicon]

Its implementation of level scaling is a warcrime.

Ugliest characters in any game.

Dialogue is so bad it became a meme.

Turned the cool and relatively original lore into generic fantasy paste.

etc.

Should have started with Skyrim like I did and then Oblivion would be a funny meme instead of the root of all seethe.

Should've just modded it. Best sex game of the decade.

 

[Sykar]

Ah, a Loverslab aficionado!

 

[KnightoftheWind]

Bethesda games aren't well-known for their raw graphical quality, but what they understand is how good aesthetics can compensate for lack of raw polygons or visual hoopla. Oblivion was released during that awkward transitional phase between the sixth and seventh generation of consoles, and yes I say 'consoles' because Oblivion was developed more for the Xbox 360 than it was the PC, for better or for worse. I rather enjoyed the game for it's sense of humor, both intentional and otherwise, and found it's more traditional fantasy aesthetic pleasant and energizing. Much moreso than the drab and depressing Morrowind. It also served to contrast the realm of Cyrodill with Oblivion, because if everything was grimdark then what would be the point?.

Oblivion must have done something right, because it popularized the Elder Scrolls series and made it an iconic franchise of gaming. And although popularity doesn't translate to quality most of the time, I can say that I wouldn't be a fan of this franchise if it weren't for Oblivion and it's streamlined approach.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Was there a side by side comparison of all Elder Scrolls games in what they added, stayed the same, how things worked, and specs. A table, spreadsheet, doc of some sort?

 

[Valdetiosi]

Was there a side by side comparison of all Elder Scrolls games in what they added, stayed the same, how things worked, and specs. A table, spreadsheet, doc of some sort?

There is UESP site.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I actually thought Oblivion looked quite nice.
I liked it more than Skyrim, anyway, which has this weird filter over everything that makes everything blue and dark, and the character models look worse in Skyrim to me.
I guess it's because they tried to go more for realism in Skyrim, and it looks off, whereas in Oblivion the character models look ugly but don't have that uncanny valley effect going on.

Morrowind doesn't look that good graphically. It was released 2 years after Deus Ex and it looks worse. But it does have great world design and art direction.
Oblivion also had some pretty impressive visuals, it was just restricted to Daedric Realms, Vaermina's Quest and that mage guild quest in the dream realm, as Cyrodil is supposed to be a "normal" part of the world.
I think the only thing that came close in Skyrim was Solstheim, which was just taken from Morrowind anyway, and Mora's realm, which is also in the Dragonborn DLC. Though that underground cave (Black Reach I think it was called?) was pretty impressive.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Bethesda games aren't well-known for their raw graphical quality, but what they understand is how good aesthetics can compensate for lack of raw polygons or visual hoopla. Oblivion was released during that awkward transitional phase between the sixth and seventh generation of consoles, and yes I say 'consoles' because Oblivion was developed more for the Xbox 360 than it was the PC, for better or for worse.

Yeah, I'm playing Morrowind right now it does feel much more like a game built for PC than Oblivion. The UI is much closer to Deus Ex's, SS2's, UnderRail's and Fallout's than to the more recent Elder Scrolls games.

 

[Bad Sector]

Yeah, I'm playing Morrowind right now it does feel much more like a game built for PC than Oblivion.

The weird thing is that the Xbox version has a gamepad-friendly version of the PC UI which is really just the same as the PC version except the windows are always maximized and you cycle between them. Also the conversation window allows you to pick topic with the dpad.

And despite being a conversion it is much easier to use with a gamepad than the Oblivion UI which was supposedly designed for gamepads.

Then again, Bethesda made a UI for Skyrim that despite being made up 99% of lists for some reason has two cursors for the current list item, making it very easy to select the wrong one. This was an explicit logic someone at Bethesda implemented, they didn't implement a broken UI because of laziness, what they did took more effort.

 

[JarlFrank]

I rather enjoyed the game for it's sense of humor, both intentional and otherwise, and found it's more traditional fantasy aesthetic pleasant and energizing. Much moreso than the drab and depressing Morrowind.

Fuck off you gargantuan faggot.

 

[Lemming42]

I want to play Oblivion again, despite having almost universally bad experiences with it. It's the one Elder Scrolls game I haven't poured hundreds of hours into at this point.

Does anyone have any crucial mods to make it less shitty? I think I asked this before not long ago but never actually went ahead with a proper playthrough. I'm thinking about actually leaving the mechanics as vanilla as possible but I can't stomach the fucking bloom-soaked Middle Earth aesthetic.

I've found a modlist that claims to turn Cyrodiil into the strange Mediterranean jungle it was described as in Pocket Guide to the Empire.
https://imgur.com/a/5KUpMqg

Looks pretty good.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I want to play Oblivion again, despite having almost universally bad experiences with it. It's the one Elder Scrolls game I haven't poured hundreds of hours into at this point.

Does anyone have any crucial mods to make it less shitty? I think I asked this before not long ago but never actually went ahead with a proper playthrough. I'm thinking about actually leaving the mechanics as vanilla as possible but I can't stomach the fucking bloom-soaked Middle Earth aesthetic.

I've found a modlist that claims to turn Cyrodiil into the strange Mediterranean jungle it was described as in Pocket Guide to the Empire.
https://imgur.com/a/5KUpMqg

Looks pretty good.

Apparently the reason why Cyrodiil no longer looks like a Jungle is because Tiber Septim / Talos willed it with his CHIM.
Or something weird like that.

 

[anvi]

Play EverQuest instead on P99. See an earlier game that is 1000x better.

 

[monilloman]

I want to play Oblivion again, despite having almost universally bad experiences with it. It's the one Elder Scrolls game I haven't poured hundreds of hours into at this point.

Does anyone have any crucial mods to make it less shitty? I think I asked this before not long ago but never actually went ahead with a proper playthrough. I'm thinking about actually leaving the mechanics as vanilla as possible but I can't stomach the fucking bloom-soaked Middle Earth aesthetic.

I've found a modlist that claims to turn Cyrodiil into the strange Mediterranean jungle it was described as in Pocket Guide to the Empire.
https://imgur.com/a/5KUpMqg

Looks pretty good.

I used Through the Valleys - PushTheWinButton's Vanilla Plus Modding Guide last time I tried to play Oblivion, only lasted for 10hs but I guess that speaks more about the game than the modlist.

 

[Berengar]

Lmao this thread rules

 

[Zlaja]

Oblivion must have done something right, because it popularized the Elder Scrolls series and made it an iconic franchise of gaming

Elder Scrolls was already popular, and Morrowind's successful Xbox port already made the console audience aware of the franchise.

And despite being a conversion it is much easier to use with a gamepad than the Oblivion UI which was supposedly designed for gamepads

Yeah, every time devs create a supposed "console friendly" UI it ends up being shit even on consoles. The way they did it in Morrowind's Xbox port was way smarter. They simply took the PC UI and only adjusted the bare minimum aspects of it to make it function with a gamepad. And the result was a much better interface for gamepads than the supposed "console friendly" garbage that is Oblivion's UI.

I'm thinking about actually leaving the mechanics as vanilla as possible

If you're gonna play Oblivion (don't you have better things to do?), you HAVE to use a mod that does something about the level scaling. The game is simply a chore to play without it.

 

[Lemming42]

Alright, I'm playing it now with a very minimal modlist. I'm having some fun - the Mages' Guild reccomendation quests are as fun as I remembered, and I've now stumbled into this quest where you go looking for a woman's husband and end up marooned on an island hunted by debased rich people who've paid good money to hunt human prey.

It's a point that's been made many times over the years but the ideas for many quests in this game are actually very good and far outclass anything in Daggerfall (ten generic guild quests over and over), Morrowind (ultra-linear fetch/kill quests with boring concepts and absolutely no reactivity or player choice) and Skyrim ("cinematic" high-stakes bullshit that's universally underwhelming).

As always though, the dullness of the setting and the fact that nothing quite works properly constantly threaten to undermine everything and render it boring. I'm not 100% sure why this game doesn't come off properly - you can point to lots of individual elements that are good, the gameplay mechanics aren't good but aren't significantly worse than Morrowind or Skyrim (probably about equally as bad in different ways), and yet it doesn't quite click in the same way that other TES games can do.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Essential Oblivion Mods:

Unofficial Patches
Better Cities
Unique Landscapes Compilation
Natural Environments
Alternative Start Arrive By Ship
Quest Message Popup Removal
Elven Map Redux
BTmod
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

 

[Sykar]

The most essential mod is called uninstall.exe

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Not gonna lie, playing Morrowind made me appreciate Oblivion's NPC routines and interactions. Those interactions in Oblivion made the world a little more interesting.
Oblivion did add a bunch of stupid shit that plagued later games, but it did have side good quests and introduced sleep and eating routines.