An assessment of Oblivion after having first played Skyrim, then Morrowind

[Sjukob]

The world would have been better if TES and Bethesda died with Daggerfall .

 

[Sykar]

The games are not the main problem, the fantards are.

 

[Mastermind]

getting used to the slow skyrim/oblivion speed was one of the worst parts. i dunno wtf you're talking about. in morrowind you can easily get the boots of blinding speed and zoom around the map until you start finding scrolls of windform or enchant shit that lets you fly across the island in a manner of seconds. and this is the kind of stuff that makes it shit all over skyrim and oblivion, even if the combat is terrible and characters whip out giant warhammers out of thin air like a warner brothers cartoon.

 

[Sigourn]

One word: Restraint.

For what purpose?

Talking about restraint when it comes to broken mechanics is no different than "roleplaying" by eating three meals a day. The player has no reason not to break the game, because it isn't a particularly difficult way to break it: you can discover it completely by accident and it takes just a couple of neurons to use it to your advantage, whereas breaking the game in other games takes much more experimentation and knowledge of the mechanics.

 

[Eriador]

One word: Restraint.

For what purpose?

Talking about restraint when it comes to broken mechanics is no different than "roleplaying" by eating three meals a day. The player has no reason not to break the game, because it isn't a particularly difficult way to break it: you can discover it completely by accident and it takes just a couple of neurons to use it to your advantage, whereas breaking the game in other games takes much more experimentation and knowledge of the mechanics.

So, what is the difference between horribly exploiting the broken in-game economy and using cheats?

I mean, you can just open the in-game console and give yourself 1000000 gold in like 5 seconds.

I did only one playthrough where I deliberately tried to exploit the broken game mechanics. The only reason it held my interest was because finding new and exciting ways to break the game was really fun. If I just wanted to turn into a demigod that permanently levitates around hurling 50m AOE fireballs at cliff-racers, I cold just use the console.

 

[Sigourn]

So, what is the difference between horribly exploiting the broken in-game economy and using cheats?

One is bad game design and the other is cheating?

I never felt the need to abuse Morrowind's broken mechanics, but I'd rather have good mechanics that work properly and cannot be exploited. That's what I like about BTB's Game Improvements.

 

[Sykar]

One word: Restraint.

For what purpose?

Talking about restraint when it comes to broken mechanics is no different than "roleplaying" by eating three meals a day. The player has no reason not to break the game, because it isn't a particularly difficult way to break it: you can discover it completely by accident and it takes just a couple of neurons to use it to your advantage, whereas breaking the game in other games takes much more experimentation and knowledge of the mechanics.

What is the purpose of any game? Having fun. What takes away the fun? Breaking the game, considering that every retard I see who breaks it is just complaining later. This is doubly retarded since every type of breaking the game is easily prevented since they do not happen by accident.

But let me guess, if a mod does not remove the Crabmerchant and the Creeper you are too retarded to ignore them as well and then complain about the broken economy.

So yeah, if you willingly break the game by abusing game mechanics willingly you are a fucking retard.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

On the subject of Morrowind vs. Oblivion, there is a lengthy list of failings of the latter relative to the former:

• Comprehensive creature-leveling such that all monsters and NPCs are set at the same level as the PC, with weaker types of monsters disappearing after the character gains enough levels, and stronger types of monsters not appearing when the character is low-level
• Comprehensive item-leveling whereby a high-level PC will not only encounter similarly high-level bandits but said bandits will have random pieces of extremely expensive armor and weapons, while a low-level PC will never find weapons/armor of such powerful material; or a weapon on display in a glass case in a castle will be a worthless replica if the PC is low-level but the real thing after the PC gains enough levels.
  
• A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus.
  
• Reduction in the number of joinable guilds/factions offering many quests from 10 in Morrowind to 4 in Oblivion, keeping the more generic ones (Fighters/Mages/Thieves guilds)
• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring
  
• Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else
• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
  
• Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking
• Elimination of certain kinds of items, such as thrown weapons, crossbows, and spears
• Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons
• Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously
• Elimination of different physiques (and animations) for Argonians and Khajiits
• Both in-game and out-of-game world maps that offer far less information than their Morrowind equivalents
• Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited
• A quest compass that points to your next destination, the use of which is made necessary by the combination of uninformative journal entries and an inability to ask directions
• A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction
• A generic, medieval fantasy grab-bag setting, without even the coherence offered by Daggerfall's Iliac Bay region much less the spectacular sui generis setting of Morrowind
• A dull, poorly-plotted main quest, with the only plane of Oblivion featured in the base game (except at the very end) being a generic hellscape with little variation
• A half-baked action-oriented combat system so that success in combat depends greatly on the player's physical skill, yet is boring and tedious

Conversely, Oblivion had a better stealth system, and did a better job on the stealth-based guild quests (Thieves Guild & Dark Brotherhood versus Morrowind's Thieves Guild, Morag Tong, and House Hlaalu).

 

[Ash]

In one sentence: Better gameplay than Morrowind, and somewhat worse than Skyrim

Morrowind's gameplay is highly imperfect but it's considerably more engaging than the absolute bland garbage that is Oblivion and Skyrim in nearly every respect.

 

[Max Damage]

Can somebody explain me how is Morrowind a walking sim? It has many means of fast travel and running speed improvement. I don't think any other game in the series has as many.

 

[Wayward Son]

Both in-game and out-of-game world maps that offer far less information than their Morrowind equivalents

This is the one point I disagreed with. The Morrowind map only tells you the names of locations you've been to, as opposed to the location and name of every major city and some minor ones and every quest target. In fact, the map being too unrealistically detailed was far more of a failing IMO.

 

[Roguey]

Can somebody explain me how is Morrowind a walking sim? It has many means of fast travel and running speed improvement. I don't think any other game in the series has as many.

When I say walking sim I mean "the best 'gameplay' is walking around finding people so you can talk to them." Nothing to do with speed or method of travel.

 

[Max Damage]

TIL people who like having dialogue options in RPGs are wrong in the head.

 

[Sigourn]

What is the purpose of any game? Having fun.

So Skyrim fans did nothing wrong?

What takes away the fun? Breaking the game, considering that every retard I see who breaks it is just complaining later. This is doubly retarded since every type of breaking the game is easily prevented since they do not happen by accident.

This is a lie.

1. Buy ingredients to make potions.
2. Make potions.
3. Realize the potion is more valuable than the ingredients that make it up.
4. Profit.

Hardly "not by accident". Other ways of breaking the game (like the Intelligence potions trick) requires more knowledge of the game's mechanics. It doesn't matter: these broken ass features ask the question "why is the PC the only one that knows how to break Vvardenfell's economy and become stronger than any other NPC to have ever lived?".

BTB solved the question by nerfing (to logical levels) or removing (consistently with other features) these problematic mechanics.

But let me guess, if a mod does not remove the Crabmerchant and the Creeper you are too retarded to ignore them as well and then complain about the broken economy.

Ahh, yes. "If I ignore it, it doesn't exist". Your example is terrible BTW, there's nothing wrong with the Crabmerchant and the Creeper, they work as intended: vendors who have more gold than others. That is the reward for finding them. To break alchemy by buying a handful of common ingredients and making very basic potions is not a reward, it's poor game design.

I take it you have never played with BTB's mod either. Only a retard can defend Morrowind's broken ass features otherwise with the excuse of "it's fun!!!".

 

[Scroo]

I used the least-intrusive mod I could find to fix the messed-up level scaling

Which mod was it? Did it work? I want to play oblivion again too but digging through the mods is burning me out before I even start

 

[Ventidius]

Can somebody explain me how is Morrowind a walking sim? It has many means of fast travel and running speed improvement. I don't think any other game in the series has as many.

When I say walking sim I mean "the best 'gameplay' is walking around finding people so you can talk to them." Nothing to do with speed or method of travel.

Then Morrowind is the least walking-simmy of the more recent TES games. It is the only one of them that has actual gameplay grafted into the overworld exploration through survival mechanics whose value Bethesda forgot about and has only recently started to rediscover (let alone build up on). It is a game that requires resource management and where the overworld encounters are more lethal and harder to flee.

All of the "clunky" mechanics that people hate add to that: no regen, no fast travel, limited weapon and armor durability, and yes, even the slow walking speed. Bethesda has been making a big deal about adding Survival Mode in their recent games when what they are doing is largely adding some (not even all) of the features that were removed after Morrowind (though I admit there have been some interesting new additions like hunger and fatigue mechanics).

This also increases the value of the unique loot you can find throughout the overworld, and searching for the latter enhances the exploration in a way in which Skyrim's itemization, with its crafting, can't. Mechanically, overworld exploration is handled very well in MW.

Of course, it could be argued that all of this is moot since you can break the game rather early and enchant gear that grants you more speed, regen, and other things that trivialize the exploration*. But that's also part of the fun with MW, the crazy powergaming options that allowed you to truly make the game your sandbox. You can play it either way or both at the same time and it comes off as superior to Oblivion either way.

Also, the game's lore, world-building, and to an extent art direction are still unmatched amongst Bethesda games, and they certainly beat Oblivion's potato people generic fantasyland, and that by a country mile. These things, needless to say, enhance even further the overworld exploration, though in an aesthetic rather than mechanical way.

*Though this, of course, nullifies the complaints about how slow it is.

 

[DosBuster]

Saying that Morrowind had better dialogue than Oblivion is totally laughable, sure every NPC in Oblivion has just one thing to say about their city or whatever and that's it, but every city NPC in Morrowind had the same dialogue for every topic. Although, there were a lot more options which is better than Oblivion very quickly you realize that no NPC has any sort of personality or even story (minus quest npcs and a select few, I'm talking mainly about the ones in the towns and cities).

 

[Zenith]

Wikiwalking is exploration too.

 

[Luckmann]

Oblivion is still more of an RPG than Skyrim.

That's like saying that worms are more food than dirt.

I mean, you're not wrong, but who the fuck cares?

 

[Nerevar]

Oblivion was a crazy game I remember having to do quests at certain levels to get the best stuff. I ended up having a character that had 100% reflect magic and damage.

Overall Morrowind > Oblivion > Codrim: Modern Warfare

 

[Sykar]

What is the purpose of any game? Having fun.

So Skyrim fans did nothing wrong?

What takes away the fun? Breaking the game, considering that every retard I see who breaks it is just complaining later. This is doubly retarded since every type of breaking the game is easily prevented since they do not happen by accident.

This is a lie.

1. Buy ingredients to make potions.
2. Make potions.
3. Realize the potion is more valuable than the ingredients that make it up.
4. Profit.

Hardly "not by accident". Other ways of breaking the game (like the Intelligence potions trick) requires more knowledge of the game's mechanics. It doesn't matter: these broken ass features ask the question "why is the PC the only one that knows how to break Vvardenfell's economy and become stronger than any other NPC to have ever lived?".

BTB solved the question by nerfing (to logical levels) or removing (consistently with other features) these problematic mechanics.

But let me guess, if a mod does not remove the Crabmerchant and the Creeper you are too retarded to ignore them as well and then complain about the broken economy.

Ahh, yes. "If I ignore it, it doesn't exist". Your example is terrible BTW, there's nothing wrong with the Crabmerchant and the Creeper, they work as intended: vendors who have more gold than others. That is the reward for finding them. To break alchemy by buying a handful of common ingredients and making very basic potions is not a reward, it's poor game design.

I take it you have never played with BTB's mod either. Only a retard can defend Morrowind's broken ass features otherwise with the excuse of "it's fun!!!".

Who the fuck makes potion for anything but personal use? It is really not hard to not make too much money from potions. Never mind that most merchants who buy potions have a fairly limited amount of money anyway.
The rest is the same problem you have in every fucking RPG. Does not matter if it is Fallout, Baldurs Gate, Wizardry, etc. take your pick. You or your party amasses riches and consumables which exceeds that of anyone else in the game by far. Economies are broken in every RPG. If you are so fucking retarded to exploit an economy when you will amass a lot of money anyway around midgame anyway you really deserve nothing but getting laughed at for your utter retardation.
So tell me why do the enemies in Baldurs Gate not amass thousands of golds and hundreds of poitions and a small kingdom worth super powered weapons and gear? Why am I the only one in Fallout who has literally a hundred stimpacks and a thousand shots of ammunition for premier weapons alongside dozens of chems to make me nigh invincible?
Why am I the only one in Arcanum to amass dozens if not a hundreds of fatigue potions so I can spam my spells ad nauseum?

BTB solves nothing and in facts castrates couple of aspects of iirc Enchanting and Spellmaking also. BTB is completely uneccessary to anyone who has an ounce of brain and restraints.

And no this has nothing to do with LARPing. Exploitation to maximize a character is something fundamentally different from LARPing. Worse by your own admission abusing eploits is no fun yet you abuse them unless a dumbass like BTB gives you a mod preventing you from something you could do yourself with a minimal amount of restraint like using selfbrewed potions for personal use only. You are a fucking hypocritical retard, period.

 

[Scroo]

We are now in a day and age where oblivion is considered a classic. This is what the old ones tried to warn us about, yet we did not listen.

 

[Mastermind]

lol @ scrubs

One word: Restraint.

For what purpose?

Talking about restraint when it comes to broken mechanics is no different than "roleplaying" by eating three meals a day. The player has no reason not to break the game, because it isn't a particularly difficult way to break it: you can discover it completely by accident and it takes just a couple of neurons to use it to your advantage, whereas breaking the game in other games takes much more experimentation and knowledge of the mechanics.

What is the purpose of any game? Having fun. What takes away the fun? Breaking the game, considering that every retard I see who breaks it is just complaining later.

wrong, i broke the game every chance i got and i still put 1000+ hours into it

 

[Kalon]

All of the "clunky" mechanics that people hate add to that: no regen, no fast travel, limited weapon and armor durability, and yes, even the slow walking speed.

Somehow I get the feeling that Skyrim is a game that doesn't want the player to stop running all the time. Running doesn't make you tired and less able to perform taks, you can run while your health regenerates itself, and you don't need to stop and repair your armor.

 

[Sykar]

lol @ scrubs

One word: Restraint.

For what purpose?

Talking about restraint when it comes to broken mechanics is no different than "roleplaying" by eating three meals a day. The player has no reason not to break the game, because it isn't a particularly difficult way to break it: you can discover it completely by accident and it takes just a couple of neurons to use it to your advantage, whereas breaking the game in other games takes much more experimentation and knowledge of the mechanics.

What is the purpose of any game? Having fun. What takes away the fun? Breaking the game, considering that every retard I see who breaks it is just complaining later.

wrong, i broke the game every chance i got and i still put 1000+ hours into it

Do you complain about the game being too easy then? Oh and do you play with BTB mod?
Also scrubs, seriously? In a fucking single player RPG game? Lol moron.