Scorpia's Oblivion review

[butsomuch]

http://www.scorpia.com/?p=145#more-145

If there will be an Elder Scrolls V, some changes come to mind that would improve things. First, a new beginning. 3 of the last 4 games started off in prison. The exception - Daggerfall - had you shipwrecked, which was hardly better. Surely, by now, the developers can come up with something a bit more interesting and creative?

Second, speaking of creative, how about a main line that is more than repetitious padding? Some of the unrelated side quests were far more interesting to do. More variety in what is, after all, the story of the game, would be appreciated.

Third, return to the traditional style of combat, or at least provide a choice between “reflex” and “dice roll”. Not everyone who plays CRPGs came up through Mortal Kombat or Doom. Shooter-type fighting doesn’t really belong here. But I am all for choice, so each player can have the kind that is preferred.

Fourth, dump time-limited stuff, or at least give a reasonable period so that constant restoring and trying over and over isn’t necessary.

Fifth, dispense with the “leveled monsters” system. It is ridiculous that a low-level character can go anywhere and do anything, including finishing the game. This also makes for a lack of suspense, since you know that whatever is in the dungeon, you can, with care, handle it.

Finally, go back to named saves. Simply because they may not be available on consoles doesn’t mean they should be left out on the PC. Just remember guys, if it weren’t for the PC games, you wouldn’t be here now.

So, is Oblivion horrible? By no means. There is much to enjoy in this game, just as there is much to scream about. In fact, you can have a lot of fun by avoiding the main line and doing guild quests and jobs for individuals. Or you can finish the main line quickly, then do all the other things, as the game doesn’t end when Mehrunes Dagon is defeated.

Overall, if you liked Morrowind, you will probably like Oblivion, despite its flaws. However, if real-time, reflex-based combat leaves you cold, you might want avoid this one. I’m no fan of that style, but I am playing again - although this time, I’m skipping the main line

 

[whatusername]

Atleast he doesn't like twitch-combat.

 

[Romanian_Dude2005]

One thing that would realy make the ES charracter creation perfect (asuming we're looking at Daggerfall) would be to remove levels. Most RPGs where you are often taken out of your charracter and forced to add points to certain skills and stats, this ruins the imersion for me, it's like when you pause the game to go to the bathroom.

TES simply drops you off in a giant snad-box and lets you play the charracter however you want, throughtout most of the game, you don't even realise what skills you improoved or how better your charracter got.

This kind of imersion is half the reason why I play TES, but the only problem is the fact that sooner or later I need to go to sleep and wake up knowing I risen a level. If the stats would improove automaticly based on what skills you trained and there would be no "*Beep**Beep* Congrajulations, you are now level 10" to brake my imersion, then I would consider the charracter creation complete in what it tries to acheive


just my 2 cents

 

[elander_]

The sugestions in that review are of someone who wants to transform Elderscrolls games into a 3D Baldurs Gate game. Theres no need to unify every game. The use-based skill system and the leveled monster system works if done right.

My sugestions would also be to remove levels and besides that classes and any traces of AD&D in the Elderscrolls. Either use AD&D fully or SPECIAL or some other solid char system or don't try to copy features from other system just because it sells. Removing advantages/disadvantages was very stupid. Adding perks was ok but that was an obvious addition and we have no control on the perks we gain.

Like i said the use-based skill system works. The problem was that they balanced it like an AD&D system with experience gained per kill or successful usage instead of having a maximum and minimum threshold on the number of skills usages per day and acounting for the spell power and mana used. Which is the right way to increase use based skills.

On leveled monsters finding every lousy thief suddenly using daedric armor and weapons is ridiculous. Sudenly there are no rats in the world anymore and all the goblins have been replaced by Ogres anywhere you go. Thats a way to completely shot your own foot and kill the games immersion and economy. Leveled monsters should stick to the same race/species (for example other humans) and used only for ocasional random encounters. The bulk of the game population shoud only be leveled within the same species and only within an aceptable interval for skills and equipment.

 

[HanoverF]

So, is Oblivion horrible? bY no mEanS.

 

[whatusername]

You got the code!

 

[AlanC9]

The sugestions in that review are of someone who wants to transform Elderscrolls games into a 3D Baldurs Gate game. Theres no need to unify every game. The use-based skill system and the leveled monster system works if done right.

Examples? I haven't seen an instance of either that didn't suck.

 

[Jim Kata]

The sugestions in that review are of someone who wants to transform Elderscrolls games into a 3D Baldurs Gate game. Theres no need to unify every game. The use-based skill system and the leveled monster system works if done right.

Examples? I haven't seen an instance of either that didn't suck.

Silent storm does it really well, bug has a few bugs in its implementationt hata re annoying.

 

[Lumpy]

Enemy levelling should be done like in Morrowind. Or maybe a little more.
Here's another example of a feature ruined by levelling - highwaymen. In Morrowind, there were few, but they were high-level, so at low levels you had to pay them. In Oblivion, there are many, but all of them are pointless. Since they are tied to your level, there's no reason not to fight them.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

I had no idea she was still reviewing games. She kind of vanished into obscurity after CGW dumped her reivews in the 90's. It was too bad because she was almost always right on the money and at least back in the day never pulled any punches.

 

[elander_]

Examples? I haven't seen an instance of either that didn't suck.

My comments were more about use-based skill systems than leveled monsters and loot. I think modern games could get rid of leveled tricks and use a more inteligent aproach.

Daggerfall was suposed to be a glorified rogue game with action combat, a complex storyline with parallel paths and some rp elements. The strong points of its dungeon crawling was that there was more than 1000 proceduraly generated dungeons and we would never get to play the same dungeon in a quest. Quests are proceduraly generted by randomizing elements from quest templates. When you pickup a quest from one of the usual quest feeders the game allocates a dungeon from its set of available dungeons and links it to the world when instantiating that quest. You didn't have highway man in Daggerfall the wilderness because the wilderness was mostly empty until a new quest would put something in there. But for random dungeons the loot and enemies had to be scaled for the player because there was no other simple way to do it.

I think leveled stuff is just a poor way to generate or tweak game scenarios for rogue like games. They already decided they didn't wan't rogue like gameplay in the Elderscrolls with Morrowind then why doing another step back in Oblivion and implement an half-assed disfunctional rogue features instead of improving upon Morrowind faults? This is the kind of shit that smells mediocrity and lack of gameplay knowledge. Either do it one way or do it the other way but do it well and go deep in the improvements. It pisses me off when years of well paid work spent perfecting some gameplay is raped and thrown away by a bunch of clueless new monkeys.