Skyrim is worse than Oblivion in every way

[roll-a-die]

This is physically impossible. Even Daggerfall had less bland environments than oblivious, and yes, I'm speaking of exteriors here.

It's mostly a preference to green than to brown and the white to black spectrum.

 

[Stinger]

Why are people writing like this?

My dialogue box is white. The font colour is white. I can't see anything I'm actually writing, I'm guessing that's the problem others are having so that's why they're colouring their text.

 

[Commissar Draco]

DraQ said: ↑

This is physically impossible. Even Daggerfall had less bland environments than oblivious, and yes, I'm speaking of exteriors here.​

It's mostly a preference to green than to brown and the white to black spectrum.

You fight good fight for Oblibion with your words Comrade?

The Cyrodil exotic Jungle land inhabited by Romans and Greeks... o_O

With rich Green green palette and exciting vistas....

 

[roll-a-die]

With rich Green green palette and exciting vistas....

Let's compare shall we, considering you used press shots, I'll use the same.

Skyrim with it's rich palletes of the white and grey and brown,

Even the green looks brown and the blue looks grey.

 

[roll-a-die]

Note the color palette in both are practically the same, I just find green a more pleasant color to look at than fields and fields and fields and mountains and mountains of grey and brown.

Not only that but the color palette in oblivion seems to have more variance and vibrancy with certain places having some bright reds and some pure whites. While Skyrim tends to stick with a more muted palette, which often leads to the whole thing looking drab, and just frankly boring.

 

[markec]

Problem is not with the color palette but with design. In Oblivion there is only one huge forest and thats pretty much it, Skyrim has a little more diversity but when everything is colored in brown so it looks the same. In contrast Morrowind while smaller then both Oblivion and Syrim has clear difference in its regions that vary from tropical, desert, mediterranean and swamp like climates all with its own flora.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Problem is not with the color palette but with design. In Oblivion there is only one huge forest and thats pretty much it, Skyrim has a little more diversity but when everything is colored in brown so it looks the same. In contrast Morrowind while smaller then both Oblivion and Syrim has clear difference in its regions that vary from tropical, desert, mediterranean and swamp like climates all with its own flora.

Not to mention cultures. It was 3 great Houses, Velothi/Tribunal, Ashlanders and Imperial cities (except ashlander who lived in yurts) with distinct look and feel. Point is Cyrodil was exiting place in Lore retconed to general pseudo Anglian High fantasy setting while Skyrim was always a backwater place with few towns (4 in game really) and youth who joined legions to escape poverty and boredom.... It was supossed to be dark and solemn land... All those brown and whites.... fuck it Skyrim Mountains are MAJESTIC.

 

[Sul]

Not to mention cultures. It was 3 great Houses, Velothi/Tribunal, Ashlanders and Imperial cities (except ashlander who lived in yurts) with distinct look and feel. Point is Cyrodil was exiting place in Lore retconed to general pseudo Anglian High fantasy setting while Skyrim was always a backwater place with few towns (4 in game really) and youth who joined legions to escape poverty and boredom.... It was supossed to be dark and solemn land... All those brown and whites.... fuck it Skyrim Mountains are MAJESTIC.

Still better than Oblivion (and less of a lore rape), that's for damn sure.

 

[torpid]

Over Christmas my little cousin got Skyrim on his 360, and since this kid, while he's a good kid, is a declinefag of massive proportions (actual quote, "they could've made the quest compass bigger," and no it wasn't sarcasm), he was quickly overwhelmed by the game and ended up thrusting the controller into my hands. I didn't have time to do much, I just bee-lined from city to city and loaded up on the starting quests that they give you, but one thing I noticed in the "Worse than Oblivion" area is the handholding. Skyrim is more dumbed down than Oblivion in that respect.

It already starts with the Companions fighting outside of Whiterun and telling you to come join them, which activates "Join the Companions," but that's not so bad, since they're a public guild. But when it comes to the Thieves Guild, compare:

1)Oblivion: to find the Thieves Guild you had to either go to jail then talk to a beggar afterwards, or go into a back alley of the Port district in the middle of the night, and no one told you how to do it or where to find them. The only clues were loading screens with messages like "beggars are in tight with the guild," but that's only a very partial clue.

2)Skyrim: enter Riften, guy walks up to you: "stranger, wanna make some moola?" Boom, you're in.

Daedric quests are the same. In Oblivion, you had to find each shrine to start each quest, and the shrines were hidden in the wilderness all over the map. In Skyrim, you get a few thrown at you in each city. First some guy tells me to visit the shrine of Azura. They ask me to find a dog and it's a talking dog and he's "A Daedra's Best Friend" (name of the quest). In Solitude it's herpderp I'm a nutty worshipper of Sheogorath. Then there's some weird cannibal shit in the stone city, which also features an abandoned house with a mwahahaesque Molag Bal. In another city people are having bad dreams and a priest recruits your ass as soon as you arrive and yes, it's another Daedra thing. There's also a museum devoted to Mehrunes Dagon from Oblivion.

Bethesda doesn't want to take the chance that you miss a quest so they're constantly shoving them in your face as soon as you step into a city, often with a little scripted scene to grab your attention. It's blatant and annoying and takes away the pleasure of discovering people and places on your own, which was one of the strengths of Morrowind.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Yeah, I didn't like that.

Every daedric quest is shoved in your face. They are not secret or hard to find. You are browbeaten into getting those quests. Enter Markath and a Vigiliant of Stendarr requests you to help him fight Molog Bal. Enter Falkreath, and everybody tells you to find Clavicus Vile's dog. Walk around casually and a Boethiah Cultist attacks you.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

The introduction of each daedric quest was very very very bad.

 

[The Black Chimes]

But this element of the game breaks the other element which is the reward-based gameplay ; levelling up effectively makes you weaker in this game. Sure, this isn't absolute - you can't take on the huge ennemies at level 1, so this is good - but there's still enough level scaling to make every dungeon you go into a pain. You'll never feel much difference, unless you face the exact same ennemy at a greater level, which doesn't happen that often.

Well, basically, you're completely wrong.

(Enemy) level scaling in Skyrim doesn't scale enemies to your level. It draws enemies from a pre-made list that are close to your current level according to a certain algorithm. The difference is huge, because enemy lists don't go on forever - for example highest non-boss bandit is level 25.

Furthermore, the algorithm I mentioned makes sure to always mix things up a bit. Even when you're level 81 and enter a Bandit Hideoun #68, you won't only see the level 25 Bandit Marauder - there will be few Plunderers(19), Highwaymen(14) and even Thugs(9). Hell, on more than one occassion on level ~50 I've seen the very basic level 1 Bandit. Who of course at this point get one-shotted by a normal melee attack.

This of course works both ways - lowest-level Falmer is level 9, which makes Falmer dungeons "hard". Giants are another obvious example, as they're always level 32, completely owning you at low levels and giving you a sense of progress once you're finally able to go toe-to-toe with them. Sure you can be a dweeb like roll-a-die and use AI exploits to kill them at level 1(though it should be noted that AI is improved compared to Oblivion and in most cases won't stand staring at you as you plink it with arrows and will try to run away and hide), but that's down to your own devices, might as well open the console and type in tgm and spare yourself the effort.

Not really, environments are blander than Oblivion. Snowy area with pine trees, snowy area without trees, not snowy area with trees, not snowy area without trees, there's Skyrim's main regions summarized.

Cool story bro. I would almost call this desperation posting. There's more than enough nonsense in Skyrim so that we don't need to come up with BS.

 

[roll-a-die]

Well, basically, you're completely wrong.

(Enemy) level scaling in Skyrim doesn't scale enemies to your level. It draws enemies from a pre-made list that are close to your current level according to a certain algorithm. The difference is huge, because enemy lists don't go on forever - for example highest non-boss bandit is level 25.

Same is true for oblivion. Enemy lists didn't go on forever, they actually ended at about 25. With certain mobs like liches scaling to 30-40.

Furthermore, the algorithm I mentioned makes sure to always mix things up a bit. Even when you're level 81 and enter a Bandit Hideoun #68, you won't only see the level 25 Bandit Marauder - there will be few Plunderers(19), Highwaymen(14) and even Thugs(9). Hell, on more than one occassion on level ~50 I've seen the very basic level 1 Bandit. Who of course at this point get one-shotted by a normal melee attack.

Indeed, this is one of the gameplay improvements I like.

This of course works both ways - lowest-level Falmer is level 9, which makes Falmer dungeons "hard". Giants are another obvious example, as they're always level 32, completely owning you at low levels and giving you a sense of progress once you're finally able to go toe-to-toe with them. Sure you can be a dweeb like roll-a-die and use AI exploits to kill them at level 1(though it should be noted that AI is improved compared to Oblivion and in most cases won't stand staring at you as you plink it with arrows and will try to run away and hide), but that's down to your own devices, might as well open the console and type in tgm and spare yourself the effort.

Ah yes, aspects like USING POSITIONING TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE OVER ENEMIES, are being maligned as cheating, very clever, discourage creativity and emergent mechanics, encourage staying with what the developers intended you to do. You know what would have made me not able to trick pathfinding, ensuring every enemy had a ranged and melee weapon. Whether that be magic and a sword. Or a bow and a bound dagger. More than that, make is so the AI doesn't completely disregard changing states after the first state change. Cause really fun times are to be had with bandits, running around getting them all to switch to melee weapons, then jumping from the wall of the keep onto a tent and plinking away at them with arrows as they run futilely towards the tent with swords drawn. Fuck make those giants THUUM users and force shout me off the fucking rocks I was using.

Cool story bro. I would almost call this desperation posting. There's more than enough nonsense in Skyrim so that we don't need to come up with BS.

Note I elaborated on this earlier, basically, it doesn't matter that the environments are somewhat different, when your main pallete is BROWN, GREY, AND DARK GREEN. And your colors are so muted they make the environments look indistinct.

Enjoy your gray hill side with its grey trees, and the trees brown leaves.

Also the orange leaves in that screenshot are from a mod. The original's were much more indistinct, and muted. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=141

 

[The Black Chimes]

Ah yes, aspects like USING POSITIONING TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE OVER ENEMIES, are being maligned as cheating, very clever, discourage creativity and emergent mechanics, encourage staying with what the developers intended you to do. You know what would have made me not able to trick pathfinding, ensuring every enemy had a ranged and melee weapon. Whether that be magic and a sword.

And what ranged weapon would you give to a bear?

Note I elaborated on this earlier, basically, it doesn't matter that the environments are somewhat different, when your main pallete is BROWN, GREY, AND DARK GREEN. And your colors are so muted they make the environments look indistinct.

Snow is white. And fix contrast on your monitor.

 

[roll-a-die]

And what ranged weapon would you give to a bear?

I meant for humanoids, IE the TOUGH SMART enemies in the game. Also excellent deflection, not really focusing on my point, but blithely centering the focus on another aspect.


Also keep in mind that Giants along with Dwemer and Dark Elves held a HEFTY political faction in the late Merethic and early first era. Giants aren't big dumb and stupid.

Snow is white. And fix contrast on your monitor.

Point, albeit a small one. White is technically a hue of grey as grey is a shade of white. But whatever. Again nice deflection and attempt at refocusing. Next time try to address my arguments rather than picking at minor points in then.

 

[Gord]

Bethesda doesn't want to take the chance that you miss a quest so they're constantly shoving them in your face as soon as you step into a city, often with a little scripted scene to grab your attention. It's blatant and annoying and takes away the pleasure of discovering people and places on your own, which was one of the strengths of Morrowind.

Yes and no. There are a lot of quests in Skyrim (of varrying quality, but generally it's more on the quantity side) and many of them are hard to miss.
After some time however I stopped caring that I constantly had more than a dozen quests in my journal and only did those that interested me. If you care that much about hand-holding, disable questmarkes (and quest compas) and play that way. It works better than in Oblivion if you pay some attention.

Anyway, there are also a lot of quests that are not so obvious, but ultimately it's a game for the mass-market, what do you expect?

 

[Ermm]

 

[racofer]

 

[Tel Velothi]

I'll be probably cpt. Obvious - it's fake (and quite old), but lol'd anyway. :D

Oh, and my ears are bleeding now - I was on headphones.

 

[markec]

Note I elaborated on this earlier, basically, it doesn't matter that the environments are somewhat different, when your main pallete is BROWN, GREY, AND DARK GREEN. And your colors are so muted they make the environments look indistinct.

Enjoy your gray hill side with its grey trees, and the trees brown leaves.

And Oblivion is one huge green forest. World of Skyrim is much more diverse then world of Oblivion but as you said the coloring (or lack of it) makes the entire game looks the same. Point is that modders without actual construction set in few weeks managed to make Skyrim look much more colorful and diverse. On the other hand after several years of modding Oblivion modders have still been unable to make the world of Oblivion any less generic.

Also in Syrim level scaling is much more limited but still quite broken. There are many enemies that stop leveling very quickly and many that are much higher level then you when you start the game. In Oblivion ALL enemies level with you even wolfs, goblins and bandits also their equipment which doesnt happen in Skyrim. I tried once manually level myself through console up to level 40 and see how leveling works and was, not pleasantly, surprised that goblins had huge amounts of HP on level 40 and was forced (on medium difficulty) fight several minutes with one.

Now Iam not trying to argue that Skyrim is a good game, but anyone who thinks that Oblivion is a better game or that it does many things better is seriously delusional. There are many things to bitch about Skyrim but when someone starts discussion how world of Oblivion is much more diverse or like our dear Skyway said that Oblivions dungeons are much more interesting then Skyrims I think its just a waste of time.

 

[DraQ]

Color palette:


Seriously, everyone who uses this colour palette argument, you're retarded, have been born retarded and will die retarded.

Especially if you make Morrowind your counterexample, because despite all the landscape and generally environmental diversity of Morrowind, it was mostly fucking brown. People complained about it being brown. They even created all sorts of derpy, psychedelic texture replacers that make Morrowind look as if a toddler ate a whole bunch of crayons and puked all over it, merely in effort to make it less brown.

If Skyrim only has greyish blue, brown, muted green and white, it still has about four times the usual colours you can see in Morrowind, and THANK FILICIDAL GENOCIDAL FUCKING GOD, because, oblivion with its rich and vibrant colour palette looked like Morrowind only with most garish and distasteful texture mods installed (in other words - crayon puke), only viewed on slightly sublethal dose of LSD.

Also bloom, in Skyrim I haven't even bothered to turn it off while in Oblivious it was like Tzar fucking Bombas going off at 60Hz.

@quests:

Well, Skyrim's quests at least (from my limited experience) provide directions in addition to derp-compass, which is already an incline.

Also, even if they are integrated with the gameworld in a stupid manner, they are at least integrated which is more than you can say of many oblivious quests that were just thrown in the gameworld like games of their own.

In this regard they are more like Morrowind quests, which often had subtle leads or bread-crumb trails to help them attract players.

Ah yes, aspects like USING POSITIONING TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE OVER ENEMIES, are being maligned as cheating

There is a difference between legitimate advantage (like chokepoint, or actually standing/levitating in unreachable place while the enemy has nowhere to run or hide), and exploiting derpy AI (like standing on a table or standing in unreachable place while the enemy futilely charges in place, never running away despite the obvious futility of attacking and never ceasing rain of pain).

 

[roll-a-die]

The answer is still then for devs to program better AI. Or at least AI that can jump.

The flaw in a gameplay mechanic doesn't lie in the exploiter it lies in the developer for allowing it to exist.

 

[torpid]

@quests:

Well, Skyrim's quests at least (from my limited experience) provide directions in addition to derp-compass, which is already an incline.

Also, even if they are integrated with the gameworld in a stupid manner, they are at least integrated which is more than you can say of many oblivious quests that were just thrown in the gameworld like games of their own.

In this regard they are more like Morrowind quests, which often had subtle leads or bread-crumb trails to help them attract players.

I still find the way it's done worse than in Oblivion, because it's in every town, it's so in-your-face and so obviously done to make sure you don't miss the content. Oblivion took the standard RPG route that had you going up to people and milking them for quests, so their setup was no worse than in the average RPG, however bad the quests were themselves. As for my Thieves Guild example, in Oblivion it was integrated into the game world -- if you went to jail and then spoke to a beggar after your release, he'd point you to the Guild since you were obviously a character with criminal penchants. Or you could find them at night in the back alley, which was also fine. The difference was that it involved a bit of figuring out on the player's part. In Skyrim, you enter Riften, and it's not even that the guy is right there waiting for you, no he actually walks up to you and sucks your dick asks you to join the Guild.

As for the Daedric quests: if Bethesda simply must shove quests into your face, they could've at least spared those involving the Daedra. Coming upon a Daedric shrine/a gathering of cultists in a clearing somewhere is more rewarding than "hey bro, interested in cannibalism?" "Stranger, follow me into this house!" "hurrdurrdurr I'm crazy in the middle of the street help me find my master."

 

[CorpseZeb]

And Oblivion is one huge green forest.

Except Bruma surroundings and "depression" side of Shivering Island.

Now Iam not trying to argue that Skyrim is a good game, but anyone who thinks that Oblivion is a better game or that it does many things better is seriously delusional.

Funny fact, someone earlier wrote that Skyrim is better game but worse "RPG game", which ironically imply fact, that Oblivion while worse game is better as "RPG game". Not having Skyrim yet, I'm unable to compute these facts into one coherent entirety.

 

[BlitzKitchen]

The answer is still then for devs to program better AI. Or at least AI that can jump.

The flaw in a gameplay mechanic doesn't lie in the exploiter it lies in the developer for allowing it to exist.

I have always thought this.

 

[Wyrmlord]

As for the Daedric quests: if Bethesda simply must shove quests into your face, they could've at least spared those involving the Daedra. Coming upon a Daedric shrine/a gathering of cultists in a clearing somewhere is more rewarding than "hey bro, interested in cannibalism?" "Stranger, follow me into this house!" "hurrdurrdurr I'm crazy in the middle of the street help me find my master."

Exactly.

The only decent daedric quest, which had the minimum amount of subtlety, was the Hangover quest that starts in any random inn. Nobody really knows that the drinking contest is anything other than a drinking contest, so it is not taken that seriously by the player. Upon investigation, it turns out to be a deadly prank by a terribly powerful being.

The initiator of this quest may only call you from a distance, and then leave you alone. He won't shove himself in your face like the daedric dog and almost force you into doing the quest.