Skyrim is worse than Oblivion in every way

[Carrion]

Aside from shoving quests in your face, the quests themselves are much worse than Oblivion as well. Sure, Oblivion's quests were mostly just linear crap, but at least they made you do lots of different things. Skyrim is a huge step backwards since the quests are just as linear but even more repetitive. I think it's alright to have an infinite amount of radiant kill/fetch quests since that is entirely optional content and can be easily skipped, but many of the "actual" quests are just the same shit. The Thieves Guild quests are mostly dungeon crawling, because apparently you don't fight draugr nearly enough in the game. The Mages' College is nothing but dungeon crawling, just like the Companions. Almost every Jarl has a shitty radiant fetch quest. Daedric quests, save for a couple of really short ones, are all very simple fetch/kill quests, some just have you running around more than others. Oblivion at least had some variety in these quests.

Sure, the dungeon crawling in Skyrim is more fun than playing Oblivion, but the quest design is still incredibly uncreative. The only really good Skyrim quest I can think of was the Windhelm murder mystery since it at least gave you some freedom and had multiple possible outcomes. The Thieves Guild quest in the Markarth Dwemer museum was fun too, and quite ironically it was the only time that questline actually felt like the Thieves Guild even though I got that quest from a fucking mage. Haven't completed the civil war yet but a couple of the Imperial quests have offered a nice amount of variety as well.

Why did they even bother having stuff like NPC schedules in the game? It's not like they use them in any way. The most fun I had with Oblivion was when I stole a rich guy's huge Ayleid artifact collection at level three which included stuff like bribing the orc that was guarding the house, pickpocketing the house key, entering at night when everyone was asleep, using invisibility potions to get past the remaining guard and casting a feather spell to be able to carry all that stuff out of the house, and I don't think that was even an actual quest, it was just something I decided to do to get some money. Skyrim doesn't really offer a lot of room for creativity because the cities don't have any interesting or challenging locations and the quests are all about dungeon crawling.

I also liked the way the guilds were made in Oblivion. That's one of the few things they actually got right. Each guild had a different structure and different requirements for joining. There were a lot of smaller quests you had to complete before you even got to the main plotline of these guilds. In Skyrim it's just *BLAM* WEREWOLVES IN YOUR FACE or OHSHITANANCIENTARTIFACTOFMYSTICPOWER right from the start. Three of the four guilds also have a Chosen One "plot twist" and the one that doesn't makes you sell your soul to a daedra. And of course it's not like you have a choice in the matter, you've just got to do this idiotic shit to advance in the guild. The Dark Brotherhood is overall very good, though. At least it somehow feels like a guild, the writing is at least passable and the quests are fun despite being too easy and simple. Although I'd really like to ask them why they sent a dozen assassins after me before I joined them, but apparently I can't do that.

 

[Gord]

Oblivions mage guild quest was pretty shitty, too, however.
That you had to do some tasks for each guild house in the different towns doesn't help to improve the bad writing of the later guild quests.

And I, too, don't like how some things get shoved down your throat during some of Skyrim's guild quests (Werewolf, Deadra pact, etc.). There should be some alternative path aside from simply stopping at that point.

I don't agree with you that the Thieves guild is "mostly dungeon crawling", though.
We have 11 quests along the main guild quest line, out of which 3-4 are dungeon crawls (I'm not so sure about the brewery quest, because while there is a short dungeon sequence, the quest consists of more than that).
Aside from that we get the radiant quests which, imho, do a nice job at simulating basic thievery tasks, none of which are dungeon crawls.
The four guild improvement quests again are not exactly dungeon crawls either. While 2 of them send you to a dungeon at some point of the quest, it's up to you how you approach it, both dungeons (a bandit cave and a cave/cellar occupied by a rival guild) can be completed without killing if you want to (although it might be hard), as your goal is to steal an item. Which is ultimately not that different from "go to a house of rich person x and steal special item y".
However, they would have profited greatly from making them less linear and including some alternative paths.

Of the two other thieves guild quests I know of one is a dungeon crawl, one isn't.

 

[Carrion]

Oblivions mage guild quest was pretty shitty, too, however.
That you had to do some tasks for each guild house in the different towns doesn't help to improve the bad writing of the later guild quests.

Yeah, the Mages Guild in Oblivion sucked ass, and the Fighters Guild was even worse, but at least they felt like guilds. It took some work to get into the Arcane University, but when you did, you could finally make your own spells and enchant your own stuff. The small quests at the beginning introduced stuff like black soul gems which would become important much later. Of course the writing was terrible, but the structure of the guild was pretty good if you ignore the quality of the actual content. Even Oblivion suddenly feels subtle compared to Skyrim.

I don't agree with you that the Thieves guild is "mostly dungeon crawling", though.
We have 11 quests along the main guild quest line, out of which 3-4 are dungeon crawls (I'm not so sure about the brewery quest, because while there is a short dungeon sequence, the quest consists of more than that).

Those dungeon crawls are pretty long compared to the other quests, though. I also think the brewery quest counts as dungeon crawling since aside from talking to a couple of people, the challenge in that quest lies in killing one guy and a shitload of skeevers. A warrior or a mage could complete that quest just as easily. The otherwise pretty good and refreshing "follow the Argonian in Solitude" quest also ends up being another bandit cave.

The problem with the quests is that you never really have to steal anything except for one single document in the first proper quest. Aside from a couple of quests, there's no reason to be stealthy at all. The East Empire Company warehouse and Dwemer museum quests are the only exceptions I can think of since you're facing city guards instead of draugr, Falmer or mercenaries, which means that killing everyone might not be a very good idea.

I haven't completed all the guild improvement quests, but they seem to be pretty decent. It's the main questline that sucks.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Dark Brotherhood has an option to destroy this whole Muslim Dark Brothehood if you play good/lawful Character. Also the fact that you are forced to choose between Blades and Throats is nice.... but the reason for this is derpy IMO.

 

[Wyrmlord]

The college was strange. One lecture for new initiates and then it's over? Why call it a First Lesson, when it was really the Last Lesson?

If you were supposed to study on your own in the college by going to the Arcanaeum, doing side quests for individual members, and paying money to the masters of each magical school for advancement, then there was no need for first lessons, was there?

What I rather wager was that this guild - like almost every other thing in Skyrim - was supposed to be a lot more fleshed out and complex, but corners were cut to keep up with other ambitions.

 

[Papa Môlé]

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.

What is so hard to comprehend about this? All this awkward use or misuse of polysyllabic words and you can't grasp it? It simply means Oblivion contains more features or elements traditionally regarded as belonging to or comprising a RPG, and Skyrim has less of these elements or they are less significant. Having more RPG-type features in your game does not translate into the game being better overall, except to the bonzes here who use RPG to mean "any game I like", it just means it will, of course, work better as an RPG than say a racing game but not necessarily be better than any racing game. Indeed, in the case of Skyrim one would expect it to be the better game precisely because in "streamlining" or simply jettisoning many old RPG elements, especially which tend to be complex, means there are less places for Bethesda to fuck up which they are rather prone to doing.

 

[someone else]

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TOTALLY AVOID QUESTS IN SKYRIM.

there are plenty of quests that you literally cannot avoid, and the only way to get them off your list is to do something horrible.

I've never played a game that simultaneously amazed me with the scope and variety of its quests and infuriated me with the inescapability of them. What makes it worse are the quest items that you can't get out of your damned inventory. I'm carrying six or seven things that, because of bugs or some non-traditional approach that I took, I can neither use nor drop.

On my current Skyrim playthrough, I got so mad at the citizens of Markarth that I decided to kill every one of them (I partly justified it because I was a vampire at the time) and found that half of them just wouldn't perish, no matter how long I stood over them, swinging my blade, screaming "Why...won't...you...die?!"

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-i-hate-most-about-skyrim.html

 

[someone else]

^ somebody moved my thread and I think we all know who. This edit time limit is annoying.

 

[Jaesun]

Problem?

 

[Orgasmic ThoughtCrime]

The other thing that really bugged me about guild quests is that they all fall under the MAJESTIC® school of design. Not only is your character The Chosen One in the main questline, but you’re also that for every fucking guild as well.
He’s the Listener of Sithis, the only jerk that a Secret Society of Long-Gone Mages™ decide to contact telepathically, The Nightingale of Nocturnal, and a mother-fucking Werewolf who single-handedly destroys the Silver Hands. Majestic as fuck. And they shove all that epic crap down your throat without giving you an actual sense of progression within a ranks. Join Guild → solve ancient problem they have because you’re the only motherfucker that can use the power of travelling more than 500m from the guildhouse → become guild master.

The only really good Skyrim quest I can think of was the Windhelm murder mystery since it at least gave you some freedom and had multiple possible outcomes.

True, but they managed to botch even that because if you play a stealthy char like I did and manage to steal the key and open the serial killer’s chest and find all the evidence, you have no way of informing anybody about that without going through the usual steps (talking to the court mage and catching the killer in the market when he tries to backstab that woman NPC)

 

[hoopy]

I don't even try to roleplay in Skyrim because it's just not possible. The game shoves quests down your throat even if you're just standing around doing nothing, and they almost certainly have only one solution. Leaving quests undone almost feels like LARPing because the game is built on the assumption that you're amoral and will do absolutely anything the quest log tells you to. And why not? It's not like there are any consequences for anything you do. I'm sure I could assassinate the Emperor by strolling in and letting everyone see me do it, and at worst I'd have to pay a fine (I don't know because I ghosted the whole thing).

I can only assume the game was made this way in an effort to streamline it.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

MAJESTIC® school of design

Yeah, I was enjoying brotherhood's big assassination until it turned out that at best you'd get just additional line to hear from pedestrians commenting on things you've done. There's a certain point when it all becomes too "epic" and killing emperors and turbo dragons seems like a chore.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Yeah, I was enjoying brotherhood's big assassination until it turned out that at best you'd get just additional line to hear from pedestrians commenting on things you've done. There's a certain point when it all becomes too "epic" and killing emperors and turbo dragons seems like a chore.

If only killing the Emperor ended the civil war then and there and forced the Empire to retreat because of a succession war in Cyrodil. Or something cool. If not, why such a grandiose thing like killing an Emperor?

 

[hoopy]

In most games assassinating an emperor would be a major plot point, but in Skyrim it's no more meaningful than finding somebody's lost sword.

 

[Gord]

Leaving quests undone almost feels like LARPing because the game is built on the assumption that you're amoral and will do absolutely anything the quest log tells you to.

No, that's just your OCD.

 

[hoopy]

No, that's just your OCD.

Yes it's that too.

Anyway this is what Skyrim is really all about:

 

[Wyrmlord]

Okay, I had stopped playing Skyrim for nearly about a week. I thought I was done with the game. But then...

I decided to load my first character and do the Markath mystery quest, which I had only done for my second character, who failed to open the Cidhna Mines quest by killing the corrupt guards stealthily.

This time, my first character is surrounded by hostile guards from all over Markath. I am blocking all their blows, but running low on health. I run up straight to the highest guard tower. Then I shouted them all with Unrelenting Force right from that peak. 12 guards fell 100 feet to the bottom of the city. They all died. And then more guards came. And I kept doing it. Over. And over. And over again. Like I could do it all day long

There must have been 40 or so guards in Markath, and all their bodies were strewn across the marketplace, waterfalls, sewers, and pavements. And I didn't earn extra bounty for killing any of them.

That's because I didn't kill them. Gravity did.

Doing all this revived my interest in the game. The last time in a game that I used to throw people off ledges hundreds of feet to their death was....the Jedi Knight games! YES, that's exactly what Skyrim often feels like!

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

In desperation, the dragons have created an abomination. Look out Dovahkiin, he's coming for ya. Oh yeah!



Edit: hoopy, is that a fuggin' Recettear avatar?

 

[Kraszu]

That's because I didn't kill them. Gravity did.

The game can't recognize when I had killed somebody, too funny 10/10 GOTY.

Doing all this revived my interest in the game. The last time in a game that I used to throw people off ledges hundreds of feet to their death was....the Jedi Knight games! YES, that's exactly what Skyrim often feels like!

Jedi forces incorporate well into melee combat, too bad that the combat system in Skyrim sucks so all that you are left with are gimmicks.

 

[Luzur]

how about some Skyrim songs sung by a good looking girl?

 

[Akasen]

Idea has popped into my head. In any Tabletop RPG, design your campaign like Bethesda would. Then do the exact same things to your players as Bethesda would.

Glorify your players. Make your players get all good items fast. Give them very little choice as to what they can do (railroad them).

Got anything else, add to it.

 

[roll-a-die]

Idea has popped into my head. In any Tabletop RPG, design your campaign like Bethesda would. Then do the exact same things to your players as Bethesda would.

Glorify your players. Make your players get all good items fast. Give them very little choice as to what they can do (railroad them).

Got anything else, add to it.

Eliminate their abilities to interact with the universe and really do anything meaningful. No killing plot important NPCs, no killing subplot important npcs. Always have each quest proceed in a purely linear fashion.

 

[RK47]

Yes it's that too.

Anyway this is what Skyrim is really all about:

 

[Sad He-Man]

how about some Skyrim songs sung by a good looking girl?]

How about two good looking girls playing Morrowind's theme?

 

[Wyrmlord]

You can kill a man and marry his wife in Skyrim?

Thonnar Silver-Blood's wife started hitting on my Nord when I murdered Thonnar in broad daylight of Markath's streets.