Bethesda General Discussion Thread

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

To be fair, you can completely disable the kill cams in Skyrim, and have always been able to since day 1 IIRC.

Or am I thinking of New Vegas?

Also, it doesn't matter that they inform you of the last enemy in a pack, the combat music already does the same thing in both Skyrim and Oblivion, because it fades upon killing the last person.

 

[Yosharian]

Can't you just turn kill cams off? I agree they can be a bit annoying.

 

[Orange Clock]

Not true, Skyrim has far superior dungeon design then Oblivion as they have elements of environmental storytelling, scripted events, some creative encounter and level design. Unlike in Oblivion where every single dungeon looks and plays the same.

Dude there's no game on earth with worse dungeon design than Skyrim. They're straight corridors occasionally broken up by """puzzles""" or copy-pasted encounters against a single enemy type.

It's peak comedy that Skyrim gives you a local map when you're in a dungeon.

What are you even talking about? "Spin the pillars to match the icons" and "put the hand in the slot" are the most intelligent puzzles ever designed, and you need to be a high-IQ gamer to solve them!

But, despite being mostly gutted, Oblivion has at least a hint of RPG systems still left over from Morrowind. The skills mean something, the quests often have multiple endings or non-combat solutions, and it's possible to build different characters of different styles.

Maybe we played different games or something, but of what multiple endings or non-combat solutions in Oblivion quest are you talking about? Are you referring to using sneak or illusion to complete quests? Well, same could be done in Skyrim too, but I won’t call it a “solution”, rather a way you achieve said solution/ending, and I can’t recall multiple endings or even choices in Oblivion quests/questlines (maybe some minor ones like failing Thieves guild initiation or fighter’s guild protection quests, maybe final fight in Arena; but all of them boil down to same conclusion). While in Skyrim you have mutually exclusive branching paths with some C&C. (Legion/Stormcloaks, Greybeards/Blades, Dark Brotherhood/Penitus Oculatus, daedric quests, redguard’s quest etc).
It’s possible to build different characters in Skyrim too, sure you can easily switch between them, cause that’s the direction they went with: one long and continuous playthrough compared to Oblivion’s lack of any direction, except auto-level everything and call it a day.

Well for instance, there's one quest that involves finding who stole a painting from a castle, which is essentially open-ended. It doesn't hold your hand (I mean it kind of does, but it does it through requiring you to comprehend and understand unreliable dialogue rather than a big fat quest marker saying "search this room for a clue!!!"), and at the end you can essentially blame whoever you want, which will remove them from the game permanently.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Canvas_the_Castle

There are several quests like this, and I don't remember anything equivalent existing in Skyrim. When Skyrim DOES offer open-ended quests, it's always "Follow quest marker to option A, OR follow quest marker to option B". Even though it's a choice, it never requires any thought, reasoning or intelligence whatsoever.

The quest that made me completely uninstall Skyrim was the "discover why the house you bought is haunted" quest (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_House_of_Horrors). When it was first given to me, it was presented in such a way that I thought it would maybe be an investigation, and allow me to think about something. It uses wording like "investigate the abandoned house", which I thought meant investigate the abandoned house. What I ended up getting was a completely linear quest that essentially amounted to following a quest marker to pre-determined points in the house, and not make a single worthwhile decision or observation. It was designed as a theme park ride, nothing else. This is par for the course for all quests in Skyrim and it makes the game a miserable experience to try and actually play.

Oblivion is definitely not the smartest or most well written game out there, and it's FAR from perfect, but in comparison to Oblivion, Skyrim is literally a game for retards

Again, you’re talking about some minor quests, and as I wrote in my post, I’m not saying that Oblivion doesn’t have different solutions in them, but Skyrim has different solutions for an entire major questlines.

Also you confusing two quests from Oblivion and Skyrim. The quest in Skyrim starts by talking with NPC, who says: “Follow me, I need you help with daedra”, and then you hear noise and run to it (just read your own link). The “discover why the house you bought is haunted” quest is from Oblivion. And it’s not some deep investigation, that makes you think either.

Yes Skyrim is a game for retards, just like Oblivion; but at least it has an artistic(courtesy of Adam Adamovich), narrative(thanks Kurt Kulman) and gameplay(Bruse Nesmith) vision. While Oblivion is just bunch of random quests with LOTR imaginary. The only thing it has over Skyrim is Radiant-AI, but even it was tuned down at release.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

I agree it's very nice that the Stormcloak/Imperial questline has 2 possible paths, that can change the world in some ways. But these are the exception, not the rule.

Oblivion and Skyrim are both, for the most part, full of absolutely braindead quests.

Skyrim comes across as far more retarded because so many of it's quests are just COMPLETELY mindless. Oblivion at least occasionally takes away the quest markers and forces you to engage with the game. It's rare but it happens. I can't think of a single quest in Skyrim that isn't "follow the quest marker". Even the "open ended" or "pick a side" quests are just "follow the quest marker" down one of 2 separate paths.

The castle painting quest I linked has multiple endings based on players choices during the quest and their investigation. You're not railroaded into each choice by choosing a specific "side" in the dispute. It's more nuanced/clever than that. A particularly unobservant player is likely to accuse the wrong person. I have no doubt had it been a Skyrim quest the clearly guilty cariacature "evil" orc would have burst through the door and given you 2 dialogue options "support him" or "don't support him <begin combat>" which would have "decided" the quest for you. Oblivion lets you at least think about your decisions in that instance and possibly deliberately accuse the wrong person, accuse nobody, etc. It's truly open ended, not bullshit Skyrim "pick 1 of 2 paths and go down the linear story until you reach the end" open ended.

Obviously this kind of thing is a rare case in Oblivion, but this one quest has more nuance, choice and substance than every quest in Skyrim combined.

 

[Losus4]

To be fair, you can completely disable the kill cams in Skyrim, and have always been able to since day 1 IIRC.

Have you dorks even played Skyrim? No you cannot disable killcams without mods. Funny you're sitting here debating the game yet seem ignorant of some of its most basic facts.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

To be fair, you can completely disable the kill cams in Skyrim, and have always been able to since day 1 IIRC.

Have you dorks even played Skyrim? No you cannot disable killcams without mods. Funny you're sitting here debating the game yet seem ignorant of some of its most basic facts.

Do you really, REALLY expect me to reinstall that garbage just to check some minor points on a gamer forum?

 

[markec]

I agree it's very nice that the Stormcloak/Imperial questline has 2 possible paths, that can change the world in some ways. But these are the exception, not the rule.

Oblivion and Skyrim are both, for the most part, full of absolutely braindead quests.

Skyrim comes across as far more retarded because so many of it's quests are just COMPLETELY mindless. Oblivion at least occasionally takes away the quest markers and forces you to engage with the game. It's rare but it happens. I can't think of a single quest in Skyrim that isn't "follow the quest marker". Even the "open ended" or "pick a side" quests are just "follow the quest marker" down one of 2 separate paths.

The castle painting quest I linked has multiple endings based on players choices during the quest and their investigation. You're not railroaded into each choice by choosing a specific "side" in the dispute. It's more nuanced/clever than that. A particularly unobservant player is likely to accuse the wrong person. I have no doubt had it been a Skyrim quest the clearly guilty cariacature "evil" orc would have burst through the door and given you 2 dialogue options "support him" or "don't support him <begin combat>" which would have "decided" the quest for you. Oblivion lets you at least think about your decisions in that instance and possibly deliberately accuse the wrong person, accuse nobody, etc. It's truly open ended, not bullshit Skyrim "pick 1 of 2 paths and go down the linear story until you reach the end" open ended.

Obviously this kind of thing is a rare case in Oblivion, but this one quest has more nuance, choice and substance than every quest in Skyrim combined.

There are quite a few quests in Skyrim that has multiple choices and consequences. Also often they are in fact not marked by quest marker. For example in Whiterun you have a quest to free someone from jail, that's it, how you do it it's up to you.

Now I could list more examples but to be honest I don't find Skyrim quests particularly interesting and I do find many Oblivions side quests more memorable.

The thing is that most of your arguments for Oblivion being better can apply to Morrowind. You can say that Oblivion has better combat and more choices and consequences then Morrowind quests. But same with Skyrim it's pointless in bigger picture.


Even if Oblivion had great combat it's wasted on horrible world, dungeons and level scaling.
So I would rather play Morrowind and Skyrim with their combat in their worlds and dungeons then Oblivion with it's combat in it's world and dungeons.

Same with quests, no matter how good few Oblivion quests are they don't compensate for everything else.

Also the idea that more choices is automatically better is nullified by Morrowind as it has very few of them but instead uses quests to build upon the lore and the setting of the world. Something that Skyrim also tried but manages to do it quite poorly.

 

[Butter]

Spell crafting is fun and all but let's be honest it's pretty broken. I miss the mechanic but not Bethesda's fucking incompetent balancing

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

I agree it's very nice that the Stormcloak/Imperial questline has 2 possible paths, that can change the world in some ways. But these are the exception, not the rule.

Oblivion and Skyrim are both, for the most part, full of absolutely braindead quests.

Skyrim comes across as far more retarded because so many of it's quests are just COMPLETELY mindless. Oblivion at least occasionally takes away the quest markers and forces you to engage with the game. It's rare but it happens. I can't think of a single quest in Skyrim that isn't "follow the quest marker". Even the "open ended" or "pick a side" quests are just "follow the quest marker" down one of 2 separate paths.

The castle painting quest I linked has multiple endings based on players choices during the quest and their investigation. You're not railroaded into each choice by choosing a specific "side" in the dispute. It's more nuanced/clever than that. A particularly unobservant player is likely to accuse the wrong person. I have no doubt had it been a Skyrim quest the clearly guilty cariacature "evil" orc would have burst through the door and given you 2 dialogue options "support him" or "don't support him <begin combat>" which would have "decided" the quest for you. Oblivion lets you at least think about your decisions in that instance and possibly deliberately accuse the wrong person, accuse nobody, etc. It's truly open ended, not bullshit Skyrim "pick 1 of 2 paths and go down the linear story until you reach the end" open ended.

Obviously this kind of thing is a rare case in Oblivion, but this one quest has more nuance, choice and substance than every quest in Skyrim combined.

There are quite a few quests in Skyrim that has multiple choices and consequences. Also often they are in fact not marked by quest marker. For example in Whiterun you have a quest to free someone from jail, that's it, how you do it it's up to you.

Now I could list more examples but to be honest I don't find Skyrim quests particularly interesting and I do find many Oblivions side quests more memorable.

The thing is that most of your arguments for Oblivion being better can apply to Morrowind. You can say that Oblivion has better combat and more choices and consequences then Morrowind quests. But same with Skyrim it's pointless in bigger picture.


Even if Oblivion had great combat it's wasted on horrible world, dungeons and level scaling.
So I would rather play Morrowind and Skyrim with their combat in their worlds and dungeons then Oblivion with it's combat in it's world and dungeons.

Same with quests, no matter how good few Oblivion quests are they don't compensate for everything else.

Also the idea that more choices is automatically better is nullified by Morrowind as it has very few of them but instead uses quests to build upon the lore and the setting of the world. Something that Skyrim also tried but manages to do it quite poorly.

Honestly, the best TES experience you can get is Morrowind, with the Comprehensive Rebalance mod.

Fuck Oblivion and Fuck Skyrim