Why do people hate Oblivion so much?

[Broseph]

It wasn't received well due to the bugs

You know, I really love John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. The Thing has a few things wrong with it, especially the end sequence with the stop motion Blair, which looks way worse than the rest of the VFX in the movie. If I were writing a review of that movie, I might say "the VFX in the end confrontation with Blair look really shitty" but that wouldn't stop me from giving the movie a high score, or all of a sudden mean that I disliked it. You are able to give an overall positive review of a product (which might end with you saying something like "is it worth a purchase? Definitely.") while noting that it has some problems that stop it from being perfect, which this reviewer has done.

And you ignore the rest of the article moron. Welcome to the stupid list.

Because the rest of the article is arguably irrelevant in the face of the final verdict. Bethesda's games have always been buggy and it has never stopped them from receiving positive reviews up until Fallout 76 which was finally a breaking/tipping point for both journalists and mainstream consumers, although both parties were less enamored with Fallout 4 than they were with Skyrim, so Bethesda was already on a downward trajectory. You've provided a single source which wasn't even negative. It's a positive review. He tells you to buy the game. "Bug/s" are mentioned a total of six times in the review - once in the opening paragraph, and then a further five times in the paragraph directly above the final verdict. In the very first paragraph, it's said that the game "avoids any major blunders". Features endemic of decline - the tutorial that thrusts you into the main quest, the quest compass, the fast travel - are met with glowing praise and said to "make Oblivion a great title for anyone still wary about RPGs". Even with all of the skills and systems culled from Morrowind, it supposedly has "depth and gameplay options" that "may be daunting". He thinks the persuasion minigame is ENGAGING, for God's sake.

I'm left wondering if you have actually read the review, or whether you simply googled "Oblivion bugs review" and clicked on the fifth link because you saw it mention "frustrating gameplay", which doesn't really come up again in the view, by the way. He singles out a few skills as being "useless" (Acrobatics and Athletics) and says that you shouldn't select Luck as a primary attritube because it doesn't directly affect anything. I bet he loved Skyrim after it got rid of these.

9.3/10 is not a negative review.

You are under the impression retard that I said the game didn't review well. That's not what I said. I said it wasn't well received by the players and you ignoring the entire point behind me posting the Gamespot review that highlights the bugs only makes you the retard. Nice backpedal though.

If by players you mean the hardcore Elder Scrolls fans and RPG connoisseurs, sure. The normie masses loved Oblivion when it came out and still do to this day.

Yes, the same masses that love McDonalds and other shit things in life. Let me guess the sheep's opinion actually matters to you huh?

Your posts reek of butthurt.

And your posts reeks of retardation, but I don't hold it against poor retards like you. If you can't debate the facts then you're the one that is butthurt.

EDIT for your stealth edit: I never said it was retard. You failed reading comprehension didn't you? You also failed debate and how to properly argue your position. That's obvious with you creating strawmen to attack someone with. Attack why I SAID not what you THINK I said retard.

It’s you making the assumption that I agreed with the normies when I said normies like Oblivion, dumbfuck. Kill yourself.

Learn to read fucktard because I never said that. This is you being a fucking retard to create a strawman to keep arguing like the little princess you are. Get an argument that touches upon what I ACTUALLY SAID. God you people are so stupid.

Bitch you were failing at reading comprehension before I even entered the thread. You have no self-awareness.

 

[JamesDixon]

It wasn't received well due to the bugs

You know, I really love John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. The Thing has a few things wrong with it, especially the end sequence with the stop motion Blair, which looks way worse than the rest of the VFX in the movie. If I were writing a review of that movie, I might say "the VFX in the end confrontation with Blair look really shitty" but that wouldn't stop me from giving the movie a high score, or all of a sudden mean that I disliked it. You are able to give an overall positive review of a product (which might end with you saying something like "is it worth a purchase? Definitely.") while noting that it has some problems that stop it from being perfect, which this reviewer has done.

And you ignore the rest of the article moron. Welcome to the stupid list.

Because the rest of the article is arguably irrelevant in the face of the final verdict. Bethesda's games have always been buggy and it has never stopped them from receiving positive reviews up until Fallout 76 which was finally a breaking/tipping point for both journalists and mainstream consumers, although both parties were less enamored with Fallout 4 than they were with Skyrim, so Bethesda was already on a downward trajectory. You've provided a single source which wasn't even negative. It's a positive review. He tells you to buy the game. "Bug/s" are mentioned a total of six times in the review - once in the opening paragraph, and then a further five times in the paragraph directly above the final verdict. In the very first paragraph, it's said that the game "avoids any major blunders". Features endemic of decline - the tutorial that thrusts you into the main quest, the quest compass, the fast travel - are met with glowing praise and said to "make Oblivion a great title for anyone still wary about RPGs". Even with all of the skills and systems culled from Morrowind, it supposedly has "depth and gameplay options" that "may be daunting". He thinks the persuasion minigame is ENGAGING, for God's sake.

I'm left wondering if you have actually read the review, or whether you simply googled "Oblivion bugs review" and clicked on the fifth link because you saw it mention "frustrating gameplay", which doesn't really come up again in the view, by the way. He singles out a few skills as being "useless" (Acrobatics and Athletics) and says that you shouldn't select Luck as a primary attritube because it doesn't directly affect anything. I bet he loved Skyrim after it got rid of these.

9.3/10 is not a negative review.

You are under the impression retard that I said the game didn't review well. That's not what I said. I said it wasn't well received by the players and you ignoring the entire point behind me posting the Gamespot review that highlights the bugs only makes you the retard. Nice backpedal though.

If by players you mean the hardcore Elder Scrolls fans and RPG connoisseurs, sure. The normie masses loved Oblivion when it came out and still do to this day.

Yes, the same masses that love McDonalds and other shit things in life. Let me guess the sheep's opinion actually matters to you huh?

Your posts reek of butthurt.

And your posts reeks of retardation, but I don't hold it against poor retards like you. If you can't debate the facts then you're the one that is butthurt.

EDIT for your stealth edit: I never said it was retard. You failed reading comprehension didn't you? You also failed debate and how to properly argue your position. That's obvious with you creating strawmen to attack someone with. Attack why I SAID not what you THINK I said retard.

It’s you making the assumption that I agreed with the normies when I said normies like Oblivion, dumbfuck. Kill yourself.

Learn to read fucktard because I never said that. This is you being a fucking retard to create a strawman to keep arguing like the little princess you are. Get an argument that touches upon what I ACTUALLY SAID. God you people are so stupid.

Bitch you were failing at reading comprehension before I even entered the thread. You have no self-awareness.

Ad hominem and doesn't actually touch upon what I said. You are lacking self awareness. Suck start a shotgun and give it a deep blow.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Holy shit why can't you fags quote properly? This thread is going to be 80 pages of you fuckers quoting each other at this rate.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

^This.

Quote the line you're responding to. We don't need the whole conversation 20 times per page. We don't need any of it ever, really, but just quoting better would be an improvement.

 

[Machocruz]

Arguing about Oblivion is like running in the Special Olympics...

Even if you win, Bethesda are still retarded

Spoiler

-ly wealthy

 

[jackofshadows]

We don't need any of it ever

Nah, I had such a good laugh, honestly. You guys have found shit to argue over

 

[Funposter]

JamesDixon accuses others of strawmanning when it's all he's done for the entire retarded argument.

 

[ChaDargo]

McDonald's is p. good tho

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Arguing about Oblivion is like running in the Special Olympics...

S.p.e.c.i.a.l olimpics

 

[Cael]

Arguing about Oblivion is like running in the Special Olympics...

S.p.e.c.i.a.l olimpics

Great. Now you are dragging Oblivion with Guns into this thread...

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

The ride never ends...

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

So like... this is a bit right? You guys are having a pretend retarded argument so you can laugh at us for thinking you're retarded or something, right?

It's most well-known in the public consciousness now as "the funny radiant AI game", and as a hallmark of late millennial nostalgia, but at the time of release it was incredibly well-received and hailed by mainstream outlets as one of the greatest RPGs of all time.

When did I say that I liked the game? I said that mainstream journalists and consumers liked it.

Lol that's a hell of a backpedal. "It was incredibly well received" != "Mainstream journalists and consumers liked it".

I was also there. There were shitloads of complaints. Skyrim is a better example of what you're saying.

EDIT:

Wow JamesDixon you are a sore loser if you feel the need to vote every response of Funposter as "retarded" just because he disagrees with you.

To be fair, every response by Funposter is individually retarded for a different reason. Also who goes around checking stickers lol, did you also check his post history to see if he's contradicted anything he ever said before?

It's hilarious to be lectured by someone that wasn't alive when the game was released and you saw everything firsthand. Yet, I'm the one that is wrong on the fact it wasn't well received and had a ton of complaints about bugs that weren't fixed by Bugthesda until after the modders did it for them. It's the I know everything even though I wasn't alive to see or experience it. Even then there were complaints about how bad the game was in scope compared to Daggerfall. But we're all wrong.

Nobody can even tell who you are talking to here because you're so bad at quoting and replying. It looks like you're disagreeing with me going by the quote, but the content of your post is you agreeing with me.

And seeing who called someone retarded and counting all the times they called someone retarded and seeing other things they have said before to throw in their faces is not "fact checking". It's at best, ad-hominem. More typically, it's a sign that you've completely lost the argument. Which is sad in this case, when you're objectively right.

 

[AW8]

2) Stupid gameplay decisions that make no sense, like being able to become the champion of the arena in 20 minutes.

I'm not sure what your problem with this specific point is. I checked the wiki and it seems there are 22 arena fights before you become champion, plus one optional dungeon-delving quest to make the Champion suicidal during your title fight. Seems like plenty of fights, and the whole questline seems to take over an hour according to this video:



It's pretty silly for the player to become the head of several different guilds, but becoming No. 1 in a place where you rise in the ranks by simply killing the other contenders? That's the one place where such an accomplishment makes sense for a vicious murderhobo.
And while Bethesda games generally have awful writing, the Arena is actually decently written. Uncovering the Champion's true heritage is a neat, believable way to make him lose the will to fight, and Michael Mack is hilarious as the player's trash-talking handler.

 

[Drop Duck]

Arguing about Oblivion is like running in the Special Olympics...

Everyone is a winner?

 

[Funposter]

I'm not sure what your problem with this specific point is. I checked the wiki and it seems there are 22 arena fights before you become champion, plus one optional dungeon-delving quest to make the Champion suicidal during your title fight. Seems like plenty of fights, and the whole questline seems to take over an hour according to this video:


It's pretty silly for the player to become the head of several different guilds, but becoming No. 1 in a place where you rise in the ranks by simply killing the other contenders? That's the one place where such an accomplishment makes sense for a vicious murderhobo.
And while Bethesda games generally have awful writing, the Arena is actually decently written. Uncovering the Champion's true heritage is a neat, believable way to make him lose the will to fight, and Michael Mack is hilarious as the player's trash-talking handler.

By all accounts the Arena is a victim of a cut content and was probably meant to be a bit longer and more in-depth, but most of it was cut due to development deadlines and disk space. Emil Pagliarulo said that every city was originally supposed to have an arena, and the game files feature quite a few cut NPCs, lines of dialogue, rumours related to Arena quests etc. I'm sure that the Arena was originally supposed to stand alongside the MG, FG, TG and DB in the original design document, but the realities of the game's development mean that it's a bit unfair to look at it as a fully fledged faction. Something had to be cut and the guy who worked on Thief 2 decided that, unsurprisingly, he'd rather it be the Arena questline than the Dark Brotherhood.

 

[Caim]

Arguing about Oblivion is like running in the Special Olympics...

Everyone is a winner?

There's a new version every four years?

No wait, that's Skyrim.

 

[Valdetiosi]

snip

I think that's misquoted, it's not about really length of the arena questline, but rather the challenge. Since NPCs level scale with you, you can become Champion of the Arena as level 1.
The only one who doesn't level and actually has static level higher than 1 is Grand Champion, but yeh, you can cheese him out by doing his related quest.

 

[Funposter]

With the way Arena combatants scale, I'm pretty sure the Grand Champion is actually weaker, even at Level 1, than he was supposed to be. One of the fights just before him has a level offset of +7, so presumably the Grand Champion would have been +10 (min. level 11) and I'm pretty sure the UOP does fix that. As mentioned, the problem with him as that his quest negates the challenge entirely.

 

[AW8]

I think that's misquoted, it's not about really length of the arena questline, but rather the challenge.

I thought this was what Decado meant at first, but then he explicitly put Level Scaling as a different point just underneath it.

By all accounts the Arena is a victim of a cut content and was probably meant to be a bit longer and more in-depth, but most of it was cut due to development deadlines and disk space.

I don't think the Arena needed any more content, it delivers exactly what it promises: Fights in an enclosed space. It's straightforward and it should be. No need for a bunch of cutscenes, a convoluted mystery plot or an ending where you join a secret arena cult and sell your soul to the Daedric god of personal combat.

The big problems with the Arena stem from Oblivion's general game design: The combat is trash (a TES staple) and level scaling minimizes initial challenge and makes levelling counter-productive. If the game had good action combat, they could have cut down the number of fights and instead worked on making them all unique by scripting and changing the arena geometry. In a world where people can fly and shoot lightning, would the people of the Imperial City really be content watching two combatants run at each other on a flat surface? Floating islands, magic jump pads and powerups would not only work in the setting, but actually make the fights exciting.

It's obviously absurd to think that they would go full arena shooter in 2006 when the advancements in action combat taken from Morrowind consisted of manual blocking and the removal of dice rolls. But for TES 6, there isn't really an excuse for them to not take at least some element from family member Id's DOOM series.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Valdetiosi]

ngl the only thing I really liked about Oblivion when I first played it, and even now, is just the world design. It looks beautiful.
honestly Bethesda should have just done unofficial clone of Lord of The Rings, as that's what was in my head more than elder scrolls while playing it.

 

[JamesDixon]

ngl the only thing I really liked about Oblivion when I first played it, and even now, is just the world design. It looks beautiful.
honestly Bethesda should have just done unofficial clone of Lord of The Rings, as that's what was in my head more than elder scrolls while playing it.

They did and it's called Daggerfall. It's one of the largest rpg worlds ever made with the main quest being entirely optional. You can live hundreds of years in the game and explore 47 complete regions with dungeons etc... It's 80,823 square miles with over 15,000 towns, cities, villages, and dungeons. You can own houses and a ship. If you want to play a mostly bug free version today there's always Daggerfall Unity.

Todd's pathetic TES games pale in comparison.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

The funny thing is that Todd worked in Daggerfall as an additional designer.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

The funny thing is that Todd worked in Daggerfall as an additional designer.

His level of decline is not funny at all

 

[Cael]

The funny thing is that Todd worked in Daggerfall as an additional designer.

Additional whatever usually just means errand boy for that division.