Whats wrong with oblivion?

Its a game which turns up in a lot of "overrated" threads, so why dose everybody hate SO it much, its normally the pc owners with a love for morrowind (i should probably try and play it some time). what did oblivion do so wrong.

i would really like detailed answers, but you can bring an RPG bias if you want.... im more interested becouse of the new hate for fallout 3 and the "oblivion with guns" argument.

I enjoyed Oblivion, but it had problems.

For me, the most glaring was the scaling. Enemies scaled to your level. Loot scaled to your level. It made the game boring - exploring the ass ends of the world would never result in any neat treasures if you were low level, and wandering into a dark tower brought no fear of danger, since you'd only come across enemies that you knew you could deal with. It lacked Morrowind's sense of exploration, where you had to be careful where you wandered and if you got lucky and snuck past or defeated a tough enemy, there would be a worthy reward waiting for you.

The environments all look the same, too - it's all medieval in design, and other than a bit of swamp and a bit of snow it's the same rolling hills, grass, and four trees copied and pasted over and over. Morrowind is a far uglier game, but it had a much greater variety in locations...swamps, plains, dust-ravaged barrens, smoky mountains, and some uniquely bizarre buildings for the other races. Even in all its pain to navigate, Vivec was an interesting city to explore.

To Oblivion's credit it does combat better, and there's far less frustration early on comapred to Morrowind where you're totally incapable of hitting a slug. It's just that most of the changes serve to make the game relatively uninteresting, and taking out any incentive to explore in such an open-world is extremely counter-intuitive. It can be patched in the PC version, but all the console versions are permanently broken.

i think oblivion was awful.

if u play an RPG the combat needs to be good otherwise its fail. i think there was a bit of story that was decent but i hate the bulk of the game.Fable 2 will pwn it

I enjoyed Oblivion, but it had problems.

For me, the most glaring was the scaling. Enemies scaled to your level. Loot scaled to your level. It made the game boring - exploring the ass ends of the world would never result in any neat treasures if you were low level, and wandering into a dark tower brought no fear of danger, since you'd only come across enemies that you knew you could deal with. It lacked Morrowind's sense of exploration, where you had to be careful where you wandered and if you got lucky and snuck past or defeated a tough enemy, there would be a worthy reward waiting for you.

The environments all look the same, too - it's all medieval in design, and other than a bit of swamp and a bit of snow it's the same rolling hills, grass, and four trees copied and pasted over and over. Morrowind is a far uglier game, but it had a much greater variety in locations...swamps, plains, dust-ravaged barrens, smoky mountains, and some uniquely bizarre buildings for the other races. Even in all its pain to navigate, Vivec was an interesting city to explore.

To Oblivion's credit it does combat better, and there's far less frustration early on comapred to Morrowind where you're totally incapable of hitting a slug. It's just that most of the changes serve to make the game relatively uninteresting, and taking out any incentive to explore in such an open-world is extremely counter-intuitive. It can be patched in the PC version, but all the console versions are permanently broken.

DJ_Lae

thanks for the post. but its left me confused, most of what you pointed out wouldn't matter in fallout, unless the level scaled enemies come back, which was annoying, IMO it was the fact weaker enemies seemed to disappear entirely, which made you feel your character was growing weaker. as for exsploring i can see your point.

I hate RPGs with no control over combat or slow combat that its boring see diablo, NWN, fallout, anything where turn based combat is.

Oblivion i had a lot of control over combat.

but what i would liked to have had in it know you invertory and your maps and jounrnal would be nice if it was a book your character took out to look at.

Its a game which turns up in a lot of "overrated" threads, so why dose everybody hate SO it much, its normally the pc owners with a love for morrowind (i should probably try and play it some time). what did oblivion do so wrong.

i would really like detailed answers, but you can bring an RPG bias if you want.... im more interested becouse of the new hate for fallout 3 and the "oblivion with guns" argument.

hip-hop-cola2

Usually when a game ends up in an over-rated thread it indicates that it is a game that defined a gaming generation, and since so many people like it, some people take it up on themsleves to whine and moan and nit-pick certain aspects of the game, such is the way of the interwebs. :D

[QUOTE="hip-hop-cola2"]

Its a game which turns up in a lot of "overrated" threads, so why dose everybody hate SO it much, its normally the pc owners with a love for morrowind (i should probably try and play it some time). what did oblivion do so wrong.

i would really like detailed answers, but you can bring an RPG bias if you want.... im more interested becouse of the new hate for fallout 3 and the "oblivion with guns" argument.

Sacif

Usually when a game ends up in an over-rated thread it indicates that it is a game that defined a gaming generation, and since so many people like it, some people take it up on themsleves to whine and moan and nit-pick certain aspects of the game, such is the way of the interwebs. :D

Dirty interwebs.....

[QUOTE="Sacif"][QUOTE="hip-hop-cola2"]

Its a game which turns up in a lot of "overrated" threads, so why dose everybody hate SO it much, its normally the pc owners with a love for morrowind (i should probably try and play it some time). what did oblivion do so wrong.

i would really like detailed answers, but you can bring an RPG bias if you want.... im more interested becouse of the new hate for fallout 3 and the "oblivion with guns" argument.

hip-hop-cola2

Usually when a game ends up in an over-rated thread it indicates that it is a game that defined a gaming generation, and since so many people like it, some people take it up on themsleves to whine and moan and nit-pick certain aspects of the game, such is the way of the interwebs. :D

Dirty interwebs.....

They have hacked the interwebs...which one?!?...ALL OF THEM! but yeah Oblivion's goodness or lack there of needs to be determined by you, not by people who may have differing tastes than you.

Although I personally didn't have a big problem with it, I know a lot of people were annoyed by the scaleable leveling. After seeing a number of preview videos of fallout 3, I can definitely say that the "oblivion with guns" description is pretty accurate. Luckily, in many interviews the developers have said there will not be scaleable leveling; if you go into an area with enemies far above your level, you'll get your ass kicked.

the main story was incredibly weak. it was an utter waste of the great voice cast. on the subject of the main storyline, the quests themselves were weak. hell, you dont even fight the last boss.

that was the same problem for a lot of the guilds as well. they were full of dull fetch chores (hardly quests). the only guild that had consistantly entertaining quests was the dark brotherhood, though the thieves guild had couple good ones. oblivion definitely had a ton of content, its just that a lot of it wasnt executed very well.

the world was generally fun to explore, but it could have been better. as has already been said, there wasnt much for variety in the overworld environment. this translated over to the dungeons. sure there were loads to explore, but many of them felt the same. off the top of my head, i can only remember 3 themes: castle, cave, and elven.

the combat system couldve used work as well. enemies leveling along with you was a drag, since you never quite got that feeling of empowerment. melee combat mostly boiled down mashing the attack button and throwing in a block occasionally. ranged combat was just fire, back up, repeat. i never made a pure mage, so i wont make a final verdict on that combat. though i will say that necromancy was pure disappointment due to the useless AI of the monsters you could summon.

however, i wouldnt say that game was horrible, just overrated. there were some excellent parts such as the music. the character creation screen was very in depth.

I love it, but many people say its nothing compared to what morrowind was. I think many PC gamers were mad that it go downgraded for the 360.

Personally my only few complaints are: Lack of Voice Actors, boring repetitive environments, not many guilds/factions, and some repetitive missions.

One thing that I don't think anyone else addressed was how at the end of the day, the levelling/stat building mechanic of Oblivion is really fundamentally flawed from everything I've been able to rationalize about it design wise. It is set up in a way that more or less comes off as counterintuitive when you go from level to level, and punishes players for designing characters who are inherently strong in an area skill wise (not so much stat wise), becuase of things like:

1. Max level being based on the difference between your major skills current level and each skill being maxed out at 100 (the formula would be: (700 - (your skills' current levels))/10), therefore if you start a game with a character that is inherently good at skills you are making your major skills, you cripple your character's upper levelling ability, and his/her stat building ability.

2. If you focus Major Skills into areas that you are going to be playing your character as, you will use those skills frequently, level frequently with low stat boosts, and ultimately become weaker than the other monsters as they scale up.

Therefore, in order to make a good fighter character...you basically have to build a character who's an inherently /bad/ fighter from the major skills standpoint and then work him/her up in a backwards fashion to keep the stat bonuses up in a meaningful fashion...meaning that at this point you are no longer just playing the game the way you want to...you are playing against the levelling system.

That's just one of the complaints I have against the game.

One thing that I don't think anyone else addressed was how at the end of the day, the levelling/stat building mechanic of Oblivion is really fundamentally flawed from everything I've been able to rationalize about it design wise. It is set up in a way that more or less comes off as counterintuitive when you go from level to level, and punishes players for designing characters who are inherently strong in an area skill wise (not so much stat wise), becuase of things like:

1. Max level being based on the difference between your major skills current level and each skill being maxed out at 100 (the formula would be: (700 - (your skills' current levels))/10), therefore if you start a game with a character that is inherently good at skills you are making your major skills, you cripple your character's upper levelling ability, and his/her stat building ability.

2. If you focus Major Skills into areas that you are going to be playing your character as, you will use those skills frequently, level frequently with low stat boosts, and ultimately become weaker than the other monsters as they scale up.

Therefore, in order to make a good fighter character...you basically have to build a character who's an inherently /bad/ fighter from the major skills standpoint and then work him/her up in a backwards fashion to keep the stat bonuses up in a meaningful fashion...meaning that at this point you are no longer just playing the game the way you want to...you are playing against the levelling system.

That's just one of the complaints I have against the game.

Skylock00

I never understood this complaint of yours saying that leveling up hurts your main stats. I played as an Assassin character and when I leveled my main skills and depending on what I leveled up, I got bigger boosts to either dex, str or cha...things my character needed to survive more.

I would say however that Oblivions Role Playing and leveling creatures pretty much forced all characters into the roles of either Warriors or Mages. There is no way a thief or assassin could stay stricly that because there's not really many ways you can solve a mission with stealth and if characters level up with you and you only get a fixed amount of bonuses for back stabbing someone, you eventually hit the point where it takes more than one hit to kill an enemy rendering stealth kills useless.

[

I never understood this complaint of yours saying that leveling up hurts your main stats. I played as an Assassin character and when I leveled my main skills and depending on what I leveled up, I got bigger boosts to either dex, str or cha...things my character needed to survive more.

smerlus

This hurts your main stats because stat boosts are based on the number of levels you've gained on either major or minor skills under a governing stat, with the maximum possible boost per stat available if you gain 10 levels in skills related to that stat (+5). Since can affect both this stat boost and when you level (when any combination of your major skills gains 10 levels), if all of your major skills are ones that you use extremely frequently, this makes it so that you will level, it's almost impossible for you to have a stat boost of +5 in one area, let alone multiple places.

More commonly (as was the case when I played the game this way), you'd end up with stat boosts in the +2 or +3 area for a few areas, which means that your stat progression will ultimately start slacking behind what you need to be able to defeat enemies on regular difficulty.

Furthermore, as I mentioned above, if your main skills start off at a high level, that restricts how many levels you are able to gain, which means that your stats can't be boosted as much during the course of the game, ultimately punishing you to some degree for making a character who's inherently good at skills you want him to be good at (making them start at higher levels and making them major skills).

It just seems like a completely backwards approach to things.

I never understood this complaint of yours saying that leveling up hurts your main stats. I played as an Assassin character and when I leveled my main skills and depending on what I leveled up, I got bigger boosts to either dex, str or cha...things my character needed to survive more.

smerlus

I played three character to max level and i never experienced any problems levelling up, either. Although i was a bit confused with my first character, but by the time i figured out how the system worked, the levels came easily (as they should in the beginning) then progressively became more difficult. I thought it worked wonderfully, and focused my choice in major skills, and it worked even better. I never once felt like i had to work against the system.

Overall, i just think that people get irritated when the majority of people enjoy a game more than them. And to those that say that Oblivion was geared for casual gamers is off their meds. I logged hundreds of hours in that game and i'm a huge fan of RPGs.

[QUOTE="smerlus"][

I never understood this complaint of yours saying that leveling up hurts your main stats. I played as an Assassin character and when I leveled my main skills and depending on what I leveled up, I got bigger boosts to either dex, str or cha...things my character needed to survive more.

Skylock00

This hurts your main stats because stat boosts are based on the number of levels you've gained on either major or minor skills under a governing stat, with the maximum possible boost per stat available if you gain 10 levels in skills related to that stat (+5). Since can affect both this stat boost and when you level (when any combination of your major skills gains 10 levels), if all of your major skills are ones that you use extremely frequently, this makes it so that you will level, it's almost impossible for you to have a stat boost of +5 in one area, let alone multiple places.

More commonly (as was the case when I played the game this way), you'd end up with stat boosts in the +2 or +3 area for a few areas, which means that your stat progression will ultimately start slacking behind what you need to be able to defeat enemies on regular difficulty.

Furthermore, as I mentioned above, if your main skills start off at a high level, that restricts how many levels you are able to gain, which means that your stats can't be boosted as much during the course of the game, ultimately punishing you to some degree for making a character who's inherently good at skills you want him to be good at (making them start at higher levels and making them major skills).

It just seems like a completely backwards approach to things.

I get what you're saying from a technical stand point. The way that the clas-ses are set up combined with the leveling system, they don't let you maximize your stats but I don't think that's the way the game was meant to be played seeing as all the clas-ses in Morrowind worked fine and you never have to abuse the system to be successful in the game.

It's just meant to be a system that offers total freedom. Someone could look at the game your way and have a max stat character, or someone could look at the clas-ses, races and birthsign and try to make the best character that way, or do what i did and offset a clas-ses weakness with a race that offers bonuses in other areas and a sign that further erases those weaknesses.

I get what you're saying from a technical stand point. The way that the clas-ses are set up combined with the leveling system, they don't let you maximize your stats but I don't think that's the way the game was meant to be played seeing as all the clas-ses in Morrowind worked fine and you never have to abuse the system to be successful in the game.

It's just meant to be a system that offers total freedom. Someone could look at the game your way and have a max stat character, or someone could look at the clas-ses, races and birthsign and try to make the best character that way, or do what i did and offset a clas-ses weakness with a race that offers bonuses in other areas and a sign that further erases those weaknesses.

smerlus

Eventually, I simply made a character where the Major skills were ones that I never used, and the Minor skills were ones that I use frequently, while focusing race and sign choices around the character I wanted to make. That time around, levelling came with more frequent +5 and +4 bonuses, and by the time I got to the same levels, there was still a challenge, but I actually could over come them, whereas before, that wouldn't have been the case at all.

I'm not even talking about maxing out the stats of a chracter moreso as I am talking about a system that favors making the skills that are important for your type of character minor skills instead of the more obvious choice of making them major skills, given how levelling, stat building, and how enemies operate is structured in the game.

The game does indeed have freedom, but as someone who tends to really focus on the character stat/skill building systems in RPGs, it fell flat with me personally, with something like Neverwinter Nights being a much stronger game in that regard.

The first few times I tried building a character, I focused on having my major skills being ones that made sense for what I was going to use the character for, and were ones that I was going to regularly used. By the time I reached level 5-7, there started to be a point where I simply couldn't defeat enemies easily without scaling the difficulty down, because most of my stat boosts were only +2 or +3.

Eventually, I simply made a character where the Major skills were ones that I never used, and the Minor skills were ones that I use frequently, while focusing race and sign choices around the character I wanted to make. That time around, levelling came with more frequent +5 and +4 bonuses, and by the time I got to the same levels, there was still a challenge, but I actually could over come them, whereas before, that wouldn't have been the case at all.

I'm not even talking about maxing out the stats of a chracter moreso as I am talking about a system that favors making the skills that are important for your type of character minor skills instead of the more obvious choice of making them major skills, given how levelling, stat building, and how enemies operate is structured in the game.

The game does indeed have freedom, but as someone who tends to really focus on the character stat/skill building systems in RPGs, it fell flat with me personally, with something like Neverwinter Nights being a much stronger game in that regard.

Skylock00

I think i'd blame it more on the RPG aspects and the leveling crap more than the character creation.

The character creation worked fine in all previous elder scroll entries simply because of different game designs. a Thief/Assassin in Morrowind could be a deadly character throughout the whole game but like I said in Oblivion it reaches a peak and then stealth is no longer of any use.

Plus you have a game where almost every single quest has to be resolved by combat.

I remember a friend and I were going through Shivering Isles and I had an assassin character that had 20+ levels while my friend's character had a warrior. The last battle went smoothly for her because her foe was at a level that was good for her and my battle sucked because my Assassin's Cla-ss bonuses topped out 15 levels prior.

This kind of situation would have never happened in Morrowind. There's simply no way a character that is all around better would have more difficult beating a character in that game.

This kind of situation would have never happened in Morrowind. There's simply no way a character that is all around better would have more difficult beating a character in that game.

smerlus

Plus, the enemies didn't scale. ;)

Oblivion was an Excelent game, its graphics was hectic. for those who dont believe me go look at what year it was released and what else was out then.

The storyling was soso, but i liked the fact that everything had audio, we all remember that reading sesions in other games.

as for combat, i was a archery thief... it was quite fun jumpin around shooting enemys with sneak atacks, and then later because i played it to much i became a mage as well. i was level 29 BTW and i excercised alot. I liked the whole concept of improving you ability just by runing. which had a sense of realism. i also loved the fact that you can go into any house you wanted to.

you were also able to enchant your weapons, or even create your own spells.

as for the gameplay going slowly, that just defers from person to person, i liked the fact that one can be quite strong on level 1, and also that you can finish the story on level 5.. if u realy rush it and know what your doing.

so the game was Excelent in all aspects... and umm just remember fable 2 is like 4 years older, so it should obviously be beter the oblivion

so yea, it was a great game in my opinion

This.

I personally couldn't have said anything that could have summed my thoughts of Oblivion up as well as Robbie's. I enjoyed the time I spent with Oblivion but the game itself is so incredibly flawed and piss-poor it doesn't deserve the critical praise it gets.
foxhound_fox

wow that almost perfectly sums up what I was wanting to say. For what it didnt say Skylook said it.

This.

I personally couldn't have said anything that could have summed my thoughts of Oblivion up as well as Robbie's. I enjoyed the time I spent with Oblivion but the game itself is so incredibly flawed and piss-poor it doesn't deserve the critical praise it gets.
foxhound_fox

Ahhh, the RPGCodex review. It still stands firm and tall to this day, with nary a person who can reasonably rebut it.

Basically, what that review and many other people are saying can be summed up in two words: internal logic. The game simply just has none.

I could've forgiven the rather lame quests, as I did in Morrowind, if I could go make my own fun. But I simply couldn't with the level scaling.

One thing that I don't think anyone else addressed was how at the end of the day, the levelling/stat building mechanic of Oblivion is really fundamentally flawed from everything I've been able to rationalize about it design wise. It is set up in a way that more or less comes off as counterintuitive when you go from level to level, and punishes players for designing characters who are inherently strong in an area skill wise (not so much stat wise), becuase of things like:

1. Max level being based on the difference between your major skills current level and each skill being maxed out at 100 (the formula would be: (700 - (your skills' current levels))/10), therefore if you start a game with a character that is inherently good at skills you are making your major skills, you cripple your character's upper levelling ability, and his/her stat building ability.

2. If you focus Major Skills into areas that you are going to be playing your character as, you will use those skills frequently, level frequently with low stat boosts, and ultimately become weaker than the other monsters as they scale up.

Therefore, in order to make a good fighter character...you basically have to build a character who's an inherently /bad/ fighter from the major skills standpoint and then work him/her up in a backwards fashion to keep the stat bonuses up in a meaningful fashion...meaning that at this point you are no longer just playing the game the way you want to...you are playing against the levelling system.

That's just one of the complaints I have against the game.

Skylock00

Very well put ... and yes, I consider this to be Oblivions greatest flaw.

I really hope that the next Elder Scrolls game doesn't use the same awful leveling system. I'm also hoping that they throw out the "NPCs level with you" mechanic.

I really like Oblivion,but the time it takes to get in and not to get lost between the 1 Million Sidequests and uninteresting items which makes me stop playing after a short while again and again.