Why do people hate Oblivion so much?

[HarveyBirdman]

The reduction in the number of skills from Daggerfall to Morrowind is almost entirely accounted for by Daggerfall's language skills that were nearly useless and weren't missed. As for the number of factions/guilds that can be joined and that offer a large number of quests, this actually increased to 10 in Morrowind (House Redoran, House Telvanni, House Hlaalu, Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Imperial Legion, Imperial Cult, Tribunal Temple, Morag Tong) from just 6 in Daggerfall (fighters guild, mages guild, thieves guild, knightly order, temple, dark brotherhood), unless you're counting each knightly order and temple as a separate faction.

Good points, but I still think their removal was a mistake. Just because a skill was useless or a guild was largely identical to its sister guilds doesn't mean they couldn't have been improved upon in the future.

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

Not my favorite design choice, but Morrowind got way too easy way too fast. This was their solution to that problem at the time. Not the best solution (I would have reworked the entire way way skills work and damage is calculated), but a solution that didn't bother me while I played it.

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.

Same as above. In Morrowind, it was way, way, way too easy to get high level equipment right away. So once again, this was a solution to an old problem that should have been done better, but I see it as an improvement.

A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus.

Meh. I didn't think it was very tough and found the design charming. Also, listing things by alphabet, price, weight, etc. is a lot easier than scrolling through 50 identical looking potions for the right one.

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)

Agreed. And the guilds themselves were worsened in some ways (not being able to choose different sub-factions within the guild). But the quests were leagues better.

Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

Again, removing the sub-factions wasn't cool, but they were generally well-written. DB and Thieves Guild were great. Mages Guild was awesome up until the terrible ending; also should have allowed you to be a necromancer. Fighters Guild ended up kind of half-baked, but hey, its the most boring guild anyway. At their worst, the guild quests were on par with Morrowind's typically stupid guild quests.

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

False. The wikipedia style dialogue in Morrowind gave the illusion of depth. Unique dialogue remained more or less the same between the two games. Skyrim marks the point where dialogue actually diminished.

Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind

Books, yeah probably. Dialogue, nah. See above.

Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking

I enjoy the lockpicking minigame. Best lockpicking minigame I've seen. Only could have been (should have been) improved by making it real time, i.e. you can get caught in the act.
Speechcraft minigame didn't bother me. No better or worse than spamming or save-scumming admire.
And besides, minigames are so minor that this is almost a pointless criticism.

Elimination of certain kinds of items, such as thrown weapons, crossbows, and spears

Agreed.

Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons

Agreed.

Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously

What logisitcs? You mean waiting? They reduced a 5-second long step. This is a pro re: health regen, not a con. And on top of that, it makes being a mage much more fun, dynamic, and also lore-friendly (how is it that sleeping restores magicka, but illegally waiting or just sitting around doesn't? And magicka comes from passively absorbing the stuff from Aetherius, so of course it's going to regenerate passively.)

Elimination of different physiques (and animations) for Argonians and Khajiits

Only fags larp as furries, so who cares?

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

Patently false on the in-game map. Don't give a shit about physical maps.

Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited

Massive pro, not a con. Mark/Recall and then taking a train of silt striders or boats is nothing but tedium. Offers nothing time investment.

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

Agreed.

A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction

Yeah, should've been a jungle. But the towns are best in the series, and you can't pretend there weren't distinct biomes. Overblown criticism, but agreed.

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

Repetitive of the above.

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

The main quest is good, and mankar camoran is an excellent villain. And of course all the gates lead to the same plane... only one lord was invading. The only problem was repetitive gate-shutting.

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

Bethesda has never gotten combat right. Oblivion's is objectively better than Morrowind's from a playability perspective. In no universe, though, does it require player skill -- the combat is easier than your mother, Trebeck.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

• 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

This is not a failure, it's a decision to allow freedom of exploration regardless of the level. This is what allows the open world to truely feel open.

• 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.

Same as above

• A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus.

That can be fixed with a single mod. Morrowind sucks and cant be fixed with mods

• 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)

5 factions if you count the arena. Each faction has an interesting quest line.

• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

All of Morrowind is poorly written and boring. The other 3 factions quest lines make up for it by being extremely well crafted.

• 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

Still less retarded than Morrowind's wikipedia NPCs that dump immersion breaking tutorial tips on you when asked for secrets.

• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind

Better written than Morrowind. Books are boring in every TES game.

• Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking

Worthy addition that is more engaging than a virtual dice roll or skill check.

• Elimination of certain kinds of items, such as thrown weapons, crossbows, and spears

But a combat system that isnt pure garbage

• Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons

But a combat system that isnt pure garbage

• Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously

What?

• Elimination of different physiques (and animations) for Argonians and Khajiits

Better grafx

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

Better world crafting

• Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited

This is a plus

• 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

Better quest design overall and the game still has a few quests that dont rely on compass and make up for it.

• A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction

Morrowind looks like vomit

• 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

Typical circlejerk comment. The setting is fine.

• 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

Better than Morrowind's MQ that is awfully executed and unengaging

• 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

This is like exactly the definition of Morrowind's combat aside from requiring skill.

 

[Squid]

It says "Educated" below mfkndggrfll's name currently and I have a bad feeling it might give some people the wrong idea.

 

[Reinhardt]

Because it has worse graphics and less mods than Skyrim.

 

[Funposter]

The reduction in the number of skills from Daggerfall to Morrowind is almost entirely accounted for by Daggerfall's language skills that were nearly useless and weren't missed. As for the number of factions/guilds that can be joined and that offer a large number of quests, this actually increased to 10 in Morrowind (House Redoran, House Telvanni, House Hlaalu, Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Imperial Legion, Imperial Cult, Tribunal Temple, Morag Tong) from just 6 in Daggerfall (fighters guild, mages guild, thieves guild, knightly order, temple, dark brotherhood), unless you're counting each knightly order and temple as a separate faction.

Good points, but I still think their removal was a mistake. Just because a skill was useless or a guild was largely identical to its sister guilds doesn't mean they couldn't have been improved upon in the future.

The different Temple and Knightly Order chapters being removed was largely a scale issue. Daggerfall was a game where every province had a preferred deity, with small towns built around temples present all over the map, and with smaller cities within a province sometimes having a temple to a different deity. You simply can't recreate that within Morrowind. As much as I like the different temple chapters for the LARP factor and the character it can bring to each separate playthrough, rolling them all into the Imperial Cult in Morrowind was probably the correct choice. Morrowind may lack the variety of Daggerfall in this sense, but what it does well is give the player genuinely different and usually conflicting options. Mages Guild or Telvanni? Tribunal Temple or Imperial Cult? Hlaalu, Morag Tong or Thieves Guild? Redoran, Imperial Legion or Fighters Guild? The interplay between these factions is what allows for unique characters to be built in Morrowind, because often the choices can seemingly conflict but bring some texture to the world. What's to stop someone from being a member of Great House Hlaalu, devoting themselves to the local Dunmer religion, and also doing mercenary work for the Fighters Guild?

As for skills, many of the language skills from Daggerfall simply wouldn't have fit. If anything were to be retained, it should have been the Daedric skill, given the fantastic job that they did with the dialogue of various Daedra in Battlespire. If climbing had been included as a mechanic, it likely would have been rolled into Acrobatics much like Swimming and Running were combined into Athletics. Daggerfall of course has 26 skills if you remove Languages, while Morrowind has 27, but Morrowind also introduced skills for armour instead of class-based restrictions, Spears and Conjuration. It also allowed players to perform Alchemy and Enchant services independently. The combination of Streetwise and Etiquette was likely a mistake (Morrowind has no shortage of dealings with both nobility and peasantry), and Pickpocket and Backstabbing would have been nice to remain as separate skills instead of just being sort of all rolled into Sneak. Skyrim, of all games, corrected the situation with Pickpocket by reintroducing it. Medical should also have remained a skill in order to represent non-magical first aid, but it also doesn't gel with the game's design, since magical potions are far more abundant than in Daggerfall and the world generally verges even more towards the highest of high fantasy.

Ideally Morrowind would have retained many of Daggerfall's mechanics which were abandoned, combined skills (Running/Swimming, Jumping/Climbing, maybe implement Dodge into Unarmored) which would have been difficult to justify choosing with the smaller amount of skills in class creation (10 in MW compared to 12 in DF), and then had a skill list of about 33.

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)

Agreed. And the guilds themselves were worsened in some ways (not being able to choose different sub-factions within the guild). But the quests were leagues better.

I'm still not entirely sure if the quests in Oblivion were actually better. The Dark Brotherhood was certainly more involved and well-written, but the other factions verged in a direction which also annoyed me in Skyrim. Every faction questline needs to be an EPIC story with high stakes, quick pacing and a tense atmosphere. What's wrong with just letting the factions be more like jobs? I liked how mundane the factions in Morrowind often felt. It was easier to believe that these problems existed and were being solved alongside the more grand Main Quest storyline. The Mages Guild in OB and College of Winterhold in SK are the worst offenders. They feel like they should be the storylines to their own separate games.

Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking

I enjoy the lockpicking minigame. Best lockpicking minigame I've seen. Only could have been (should have been) improved by making it real time, i.e. you can get caught in the act.

Lockpicking minigames are basically a moot point now. The Fallout 3/Skyrim style is the de facto indutry standard, and it works well enough. Having them play out in real time would be nice. Kingdom Come: Deliverance does this, and it makes lockpicking into a stressful situation at times. Breaking a lockpick in that game is also quite loud, and will alert anybody that is nearby.

Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously

What logisitcs? You mean waiting? They reduced a 5-second long step. This is a pro re: health regen, not a con. And on top of that, it makes being a mage much more fun, dynamic, and also lore-friendly (how is it that sleeping restores magicka, but illegally waiting or just sitting around doesn't? And magicka comes from passively absorbing the stuff from Aetherius, so of course it's going to regenerate passively.)

The problem here actually lies with Morrowind. Resting to recover health/fatigue/magicka was a holdover from Daggerfall, where due to the time limits on quests, the choice between resting when you were at half health, or pushing deeper into the dungeon and potentially stumblind upon your objective was a central gameplay mechanic. Resting should take time, but it should also be a gameplay mechanic in and of itself, rather than something which simply consumes time in-universe and in real life. If there's no penalty to spending 24 hours sitting around recovering health, then why bother forcing the player to do so?

Elimination of different physiques (and animations) for Argonians and Khajiits

Only fags larp as furries, so who cares?

This is actually a good point. Khajiit and Argonians were unqiue in Morrowind, and when you look at some of the changes to them in subsequent entries (auto Waterbreathing for Argonians, buffed hand-to-hand damage for both but especially Khajiit) you wonder why they still don't have the different skeletons and the restrictions on boots and closed face helmets. Combine greater benefits to playing these races with the penalties that exist in Morrowind, and they would offer a fun and different experience to playing the regular humanoid races.

Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited

Massive pro, not a con. Mark/Recall and then taking a train of silt striders or boats is nothing but tedium. Offers nothing time investment.

The obvious solution is to imposeh a basic monetary cost on fast travel to simulate travelling via wagon/boat, or the purchase of supplies for camping. Camping would be cheaper, but take longer for you to reach your destination. Of course this is also a pointless distinction without time limits imposed on the player for quests. Morrowind's travel network also wouldn't work particularly well in other provinces. What makes Morrowind work is the interplay between coastal boats and in-land Silt Striders, with an inability to cross over the middle of the island due to a massive volcano. What's stopping anyone from easily hitching a ride to anywhere else in Cyrodiil? It's a flat, temperate province with a well established road network.

 

[Perkel]

Because it scaled enemies to your level like mad.
Because they removed most of interesting systems they had like magic crafting and got only husk of it.
Because they dumbed down equipment
Because they copy pasted same titlesets for almost every cave, tomb whatever.
Because most of npcs were reduced to single line of dialog.
Because fucking oblivion gates and whole retardation of it.
Because they used 0-25-50-75-100 skill tiers.

There are things that i liked like they improved archery and melee combat but aside from that
game was downgrade from Morrowind on most of the fronts and moment where betsheda simply
stopped caring about writting something good.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

"I'm still not entirely sure if the quests in Oblivion were actually better."

Considering that most of them involve combat or another mechanic that got improved, they are naturally more enjoyable.

"the choice between resting when you were at half health, or pushing deeper into the dungeon and potentially stumblind upon your objective was a central gameplay mechanic"

Lol no it wasnt. You could just teleport back and the quest timers were generous enough as long as you didnt try to do multiple quests at the same time.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

The level scaling and level up system were terrible. Otherwise it was a good game.

 

[abnaxus]

If they hadn't covered the spider daedra's titties, it would be a solid 4/10.

 

[Broseph]

 

[HarveyBirdman]

rolling them all into the Imperial Cult in Morrowind was probably the correct choice.

Absolutely, but patron deities would have been great. The imperial cultists even mention that Dibella is the most worshipped aedra, so the idea was still there, but never implemented.

Morrowind may lack the variety of Daggerfall in this sense, but what it does well is give the player genuinely different and usually conflicting options.

Sure, I have no problem with that. Just saying that in the process of improving most things, certain other things were lost in translation. That same tradeoff is present in every TES game. Morrowind and Oblivion gained more than they lost, IMO. Skyrim went a little overboard on the "lost in translation" part though.

As for skills, many of the language skills from Daggerfall simply wouldn't have fit. If anything were to be retained, it should have been the Daedric skill, given the fantastic job that they did with the dialogue of various Daedra in Battlespire.

I kind of agree. Learning to speak Ald Aldmeris in order to solve puzzles in ancient dunmer or dwemer ruins would have been stupendous. Same kind of thing for Oblivion and learning aylied to solve puzzles. Or using the thu'um for more than just shouts, i.e. working through dungeon puzzles. Also, non-puzzle related usage, like being able to read books that provide instruction on unique spells, or unique crafting techniques that you couldn't otherwise learn. And yes, Daedric as you mentioned. These things definitely have a place in TES, and I wish they would make a comeback/entry/expansion.

Ideally Morrowind would have retained many of Daggerfall's mechanics which were abandoned, combined skills (Running/Swimming, Jumping/Climbing, maybe implement Dodge into Unarmored) which would have been difficult to justify choosing with the smaller amount of skills in class creation (10 in MW compared to 12 in DF), and then had a skill list of about 33.

Ideally the whole system would get a complete overhaul. My little fantasy: hybrid DR and DT system with resistances based on damage type, like slash and thrust + tons of skill combination with lots of specializations located in perk trees.

For example:
- Melee skill for all melee combat.
- Strength stat and the melee skill determines base damage. This way you are capable of swinging a longsword, you aren't complete ass at swinging a dagger or hammer.
- Individual skill trees for short blade, long blade, axe, polearm, etc. Invest points into the skill tree to unlock active tactical benefits (not gay passive shit like N% more damage), a la "press X to hold longsword in power stance -- slow, broad strokes with chance to knockdown" or "press X again to hold longsword in finesse stance, quickly poking with the sword's tip for decreased base damage but increased armor penetration"

I'm still not entirely sure if the quests in Oblivion were actually better. The Dark Brotherhood was certainly more involved and well-written, but the other factions verged in a direction which also annoyed me in Skyrim. Every faction questline needs to be an EPIC story with high stakes, quick pacing and a tense atmosphere. What's wrong with just letting the factions be more like jobs? I liked how mundane the factions in Morrowind often felt. It was easier to believe that these problems existed and were being solved alongside the more grand Main Quest storyline. The Mages Guild in OB and College of Winterhold in SK are the worst offenders. They feel like they should be the storylines to their own separate games.

The only thing Morrowind did better than Oblivion with guilds was sub-factions. Choosing to side with one sub-faction in a power struggle for the guild's leadership versus another -- that's great. But the implementation was poor; why do you care who has power? The writing was a directionless random collection of quests. Mundane quests are totally fine and I think necessary, but it's just bad writing to have a bunch of completely contextless fetch quests and then all of a sudden you're assassinating your guild leader. Oblivion's guilds could have all been vastly improved by offering choice via sub-factions, but at least they were coherent.

DB's was a beautiful wild ride. Some people didn't like the spoopiness. I lapped it up. Death cults are a real thing, and some people are insane. These guys fit that bill.
Thieves guild felt like a thieve's guild. Loved it.
Mages guild I really enjoyed for the first half. Getting letters of rec from all the guild halls, meeting all the NPCs, and watching them all start to unwravel because Traven was a fabulous pussy was really great... and then it fell to pieces because you ended up just being his butt boy errand runner. And mannimarco was ruined.
Same kind of deal with the fighters guild. Great first half, and then it ended up being some random dunmer's personal crusade. Got boring.

Skyrim's LE EPIC CHOSEN ONE guilds were fucking gay. DB was the only acceptable one, but it wasn't anything special. I could go on for days about the flaws here, but don't feel like making myself angry.

The problem here actually lies with Morrowind. Resting to recover health/fatigue/magicka was a holdover from Daggerfall, where due to the time limits on quests, the choice between resting when you were at half health, or pushing deeper into the dungeon and potentially stumblind upon your objective was a central gameplay mechanic. Resting should take time, but it should also be a gameplay mechanic in and of itself, rather than something which simply consumes time in-universe and in real life. If there's no penalty to spending 24 hours sitting around recovering health, then why bother forcing the player to do so?

And that's probably why they added health regen to Skyrim. Wrong decision IMO. Don't CoD my TES.
Resting should not recover any health. Consumables and sleeping only.
Magicka and stamina make sense to recover passively, so let them recover with rest.
To make resting a gameplay mechanic, I don't have a problem with very limited survival requirements -- need to eat and drink something once a day, failure to do so results in penalties to health/magicka/stamina.

gay furries and stuff

Their inability to do it right bottles the mind.

The obvious solution is to imposeh a basic monetary cost on fast travel to simulate travelling via wagon/boat, or the purchase of supplies for camping.

I like that.

Morrowind's travel network also wouldn't work particularly well in other provinces. What makes Morrowind work is the interplay between coastal boats and in-land Silt Striders, with an inability to cross over the middle of the island due to a massive volcano.

It was half-baked. You should've be able to book a silt strider or silt strider/ship combo to reach any city or legion fort. "Different silt striders have different territories." I don't care. Then buy a cross-territorial ticket. Hell, have Morrowind Travelling Administration that you can't join but can do quests for.

 

[Funposter]

Ideally the whole system would get a complete overhaul. My little fantasy: hybrid DR and DT system with resistances based on damage type, like slash and thrust

I will get to the rest of the post at some point, but the damage type mod (slash/chop etc.) with resistances is being actively worked on by Merlord. It should also have locational damage. It's not posted on nexus yet but he's shown some videos of it in action in the Morrowind Modding Discord. MWSE is a fucking godsend to the modding scene. iirc different armor types should have resistance to different weapon types, which is how it will all be sorted, so maces will be better against plate armour, etc. Might finally give people a reason to dip into more than one weapon skill outside of LARPing

 

[HarveyBirdman]

I'll have to go find those videos. It's badly needed to give the combat depth.

 

[Funposter]

I'll have to go find those videos. It's badly needed to give the combat depth.

Modifiers in action:

https://streamable.com/0vb3w

Slow motion capability and HUD elements showing targeted body part:

https://streamable.com/vystm

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Thanks. That's awesome to see. With a bit of balancing (and a DT addition) that will be a one hell of a system.

 

[Anomander Rake]

@ Dark underlord

I summon thee to these lands

You are our hope and salvation

reading this topic gave me diarrhea

so I hope you will hear my plea

make me not regret the time I've lost

and when you've once again entered your post

cleanse the forum from all these posts

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

If we allow people who defend Oblivion, next we'll tolerate people who enjoy Baldur's Gate. Best to nip it in the bud.

 

[Wayward Son]

Melee skill for all melee combat.
- Strength stat and the melee skill determines base damage. This way you are capable of swinging a longsword, you aren't complete ass at swinging a dagger or hammer.

This can be solved a lot better without getting rid of skills by have Underrail-esque skill synergies.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

This can be solved a lot better without getting rid of skills by have Underrail-esque skill synergies.

Why bother? Combining certain skills and having vast skill trees within them accomplishes the same thing, but without the needless complexity of figuring out how much one skill will affect another. It's way easier to develop and is more intuitive-- instead of taking time to balance how much certain skills should affect others (and probably fucking up the balancing anyway), just combine base damage under one easy to balance skill/attribute combo, and then focus the customization on perks that provide active benefits.

Furthermore, I'm a big believer in keeping the number of Warrior, Mage, and Thief skills roughly equal. If Strength governs 14 skills, while Agility only governs 7, wouldn't you feel like you're gimping a character by choosing Agility? There should never ever be a meta.

How many Warrior skills do you want? I would want a ton of combat specializations -- hand to hand, short blade, medium blade, long blade, thrusting sword, short axe, long axe, two-handed axe, short mace/hammer, long mace/hammer, staff, spear, halberd, polexe, throwing weapons, bows, crossbows, unarmored, light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, block, and probably a bunch more too. And those are just combat specializations... What else do warriors do? They lead armies, so a leadership skill that governs the complexity of orders you can give to companions is necessary. They bleed a lot, so combat medic skills like learning how to set broken bones or wrap bandages are important. They need to march for days on end, so athletics needs to fall here too. And I could go on.

That's a lot of skills. There's no way you can stretch Thief to be so varied -- sneak, pickpocket, lockpicking, trap setting, acrobatics, climbing, speechcraft, mercantile, forgery, camouflage, acting, bard, a bunch of language skills with very specific uses meaning it should probably be one single language skill... and I'm running out of ideas. Maybe you bring in some of the combat skills, like short blade or throwing weapons, but you're still not going to get anywhere near the number of skills that belong under Warrior (and definitely not Mage). It would end up looking like a Frankenstein's monster of patchwork skills under those three major categories, and the intuitiveness of which skill belongs in which category would be lost (just like how in Skyrim Alchemy was a stealth skill, which doesn't really make sense).

So why combine skills and add massive perk trees? It's easy to balance, easy to understand, and just as robust a system as keeping skills separate.

 

[Broseph]

Oblivion is good for the memes and only the memes.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Because: instead of creating a improved successor of Morrowind, Bethesa decided to conquer the profitable console market instead. They just looked at what other successful xbawx games did and made that the new features.

Asided from shiny graphics being the main selling point at the time, one common assumption was console players tend to play only realtively short session of ~30 mins. They need to be able to jump right into the action, get some "challenging" fights and a shiny reward, before they log off again.

So... there cannot be any restrictions for them to do what they want rite nao! Or there will be angry posts on the internets.

Become arena champion at level 5? If they want to.
Become archmage without even being able to cast a spell? Sure thing.
Clear any dungeon/gate you come across without failing and walk away with phat lewt? Yup.
Walking on a road for 5 mins without any leveled monster coming out of the woodworks? Nah, that would make them log off.

Obviously console players rank Lolblivion much higher, while players coming from Morrowind (or earlier) feel unsurpsingly let down. Especially because the journalists overhyped the shit out of the game, making it (to me!) the first and most memorable example of "bought ratings".


Well, at least Beth found out with FO76, that even console players may have standards to be met.

 

[grugnik_]

To me it's mainly because after the interesting lore and backstory introduced in Morrowind where even retconning the endings of Daggerfall are explained in universe as well as the alien feel of even the so called "generic white dude faction" that is the Imperials. Oblivion went safe and depicted Cyrodil as a typical Middle Ages Western European fantasy instead of Roman aesthetic that the Imperials had along with the fantastical description we had of Cyrodil and the Imperial City in Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition. It feels weird that they presented the worship of the Nine Divines which were to me Roman style gods in a manner that is similar to Roman Catholicism and the Abrahamic God with cathedrals instead of temples, there's a dissonance between what the lore established the Imperials as versus what we got in Oblivion.

I understand that lore-wise it makes sense that Cyrodil is a temperate forest instead of a jungle but I'm just disappointed that instead of a cool environment that is both alien yet familiar to us. We got another generic Western European medieval fantasy game.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

"They just looked at what other successful xbawx games did and made that the new features."

You mean xbawks games like Morrowind, right?

"Obviously console players rank Lolblivion much higher, while players coming from Morrowind (or earlier) feel unsurpsingly let down."

Coming from Arena and Daggerfall I found Oblivion more than satisfying while I rank Morrowind in my top 5 of worst video games ever played.

 

[user]

@OP I belong to those who don't hate Oblivion at all. Mostly for 2 reasons:
1) I never played it without OOO.
2) I saw it in a new light after playing Skyrim.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The thread title is wrong.

It should be 'Why do you people hate Oblivion, yet sink 1000+ hours into it?'