Has anyone else noticed that Skyrim's strengths are Oblivions weaknesses, and vice-versa? It's like Bethesda realized what the negative qualities were with Oblivion, and fixed them, but forgot to include the things which made Oblivion great. For example the quests and guilds in Oblivion were excellent, but they are lacking in Skyrim. On the other hand, Skyrim has vastly improved on the leveling and leveled loot system, which was pretty bad in Oblivion. There are many more things but those are just examples. The only sad thing about it is that most of Oblivion's bad qualities can be fixed with mods, but Skyrims bad qualities are much harder, if not impossible to simply mod. Thoughts?

Ignore this comment.

Lets hope TES VI will have both.
But still, Oblivion and Skyrim are just amazing games, and I am really glad I had a chance to play both.

No, I think they follow the same philosophy, get a chunk of the fabled cash cow herd to play an RPG, as if they need special consideration to play...an RPG.

needless streamlining, atleast Morrowinds "streamlining" made sense, new engine, new world new rules, all those language skills? pointless when none of the creatures "talk" in the sense the ones in Daggerfall...and all Daggerfalls language thing did was stop them from attacking you, that fell to the wayside with Calm ;p

I don't understand why you would think this, after (I think rightly) singling out the quests and guilds as Skyrim's shortcoming. Those are definitely moddable.

Nope. Skyrim's weaknesses can be clearly related to Oblivions (ala story, factions and "plot"). The only advange was that Skyrim's combat was improved, but this is due to influence from the modding community and not Bethseda having a "wow we made a really [censored] game" type of thought process.

For example - how were the factions in Oblivion excellent? Rather than in Morrowind with an overarching theme and plot to each faction which either took time to develop, or would present itself near the end (only factions without plot: Imperial Legion, Imperial Cult, Tribunal Temple and Morag Tong. Tribunal Temple can get away with itself due to having an overarching theme which is piety, humility and so on.). Such as with Hlaalu you know by several missions that there is a internal fight between 'Good' Hlaalu and the corruption of the House. However it only fully presents itself as both a threat and a huge-internal matter when you realize Ovras Dren is behind it all. (on most other occasions it's just Cammona Tong, Cammona Tong influenced guy or someone whose just a dike)


The Fighters Guild theme was already present by those random conversations as well as the fact that several acts of dialogue (even before missions) you could tell it'd be a Black Wood Company vs Fighter Guild. Same with the Mages Guild only it was even worse. With the Fighters Guild, it did not solely revolve around the BWC, however the Mages Guild fully revolved around the Necromancers with few exceptions (The imitation quests except Cheydinhall). It had no depth concerning the Necromancers or Necromancy despite the fact we were not in Morrowind where it's actually illegal and where the practice of it can be really seen as an insult to the culture and religion of the Dunmeri. (ancestor worship/ALMSIVI)

DB like MT had no plot besides death.

Arena had an overarching plot but in terms of let's kill the Grey Prince, the only thing deviating from it being that you can find what the Grey Prince actually is thus making the fight all the more easier and making you almost a dike.

Oblivion's factions and Skyrim's factions plainly svcked. Only thing that saves Oblivion's factions is that there is more fodder quests, that you can easily speed through. Skyrim had little quests and overall made you feel as if Skyrim was just an overhyped p.o.g.

Please point me in the direction of a mod that rewrites all four guilds in the game from the ground up, as well as fixes the radiant quest system and half of the side quests, that also includes full voice acting. I'll wait.

Of course there is unlikely ever to be a single mod that does everything you happen to want, but most people are ok with installing more than one. And if you want good story writing, it will take a bit of time for a lot of that to arrive, yes. The best mods didn't arrive overnight for Oblivion, either.

However I was thinking of adding new quests - rewriting the existing ones would seem rather dull and pointless to me.

I have yet to find an area where Skyrim didn't improve on Oblivion, including quests. The only caveat is that the only major questlines I've played are the Companions and the Main Quest, but both those are superior to their equivalents in Oblivion.

Me neither. It just boggles my mind that some people think oblivion was better or even equal to skyrim. Not that skyrim is perfect or anything.

The only problem with some of the guild quest lines in Skyrim is that they are too short. Only 3 quests and the Companions make you a member of the circle. I find the actual guilds themselves better in Skyrim.

Hmmm: http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/666/_57c8a1a431a592af806925e57258202f.png

But all in all, it is kind of true. The guild quest weren't as good as they were in Oblivion. Especially the Thieves' Guild. I also didn't find the Companions not that interesting either.

See I like Skyrim's thieves guild so much more. Hated the Robin Hood aspect of Oblivion's guild, and I strongly disliked the Grey Fox. Every time he said "capital" I wanted to jab a dagger in his eye. I want to be a master criminal not a merry man, or the Fox's errand boy.

I didn't mind it really.

I think a lot of Skyrim's guild's had very interesting concepts, but they all failed at execution or were just dropped. The Eye of Magnus was intriguing, but then we just learn about Savos's backstory, and the Psjics take it away? The werewolf thing could have made for some interesting inter-faction conflict, but you're forced in, and bam, Kodlak's dead.

True I didn't really care for that aspect either.

I agree. Oblivion's thieves guild quests weren't bad, but the whole Robin Hood angle being the guiding hand of the lands largest crime organization was a pretty big turn off.

I did enjoy Skyrim's thieves guild a bit better. I'll admit that the mage college questline was very weak though.

Careful with the spoiler-ish comments, guys.

Dark brotherhood and thieve's guild were miles ahead imo, was a shame the companions/mages didn't follow suit.

I do think that the guilds in Skyrim probably could have used some reworking...

I have no idea how to do a spoiler tag, so I wrote the spoilers in black. You can use text select to read them.


The mage's guild was OK, though I'm of the mind that you should have had to work your way up through the ranks, with certain skill levels required before you could become archmage.

I like the Companions' radiant quests, but I don't like the fact that you lose out on them if you choose not to join the Circle. They say they're letting you choose, but they're effectively not. I'm thinking of hiring on that woman in the Bannered Mare as my companion, since we both seem to be (effectively) Companions rejects.

The thieves' guild plotline is problematic both early on and later. First, to begin, you have to take down one of the game's few general goods sellers. Whatever Brynelf says about him serving "a few days" in prison, he never gets out. Also, my characters might not be the most pious out there, but they generally choose not to sell their souls to daedra.

And considering that the Dark Brotherhood is the game's darkest and most evil faction, it seems strange that the opening quest involves killing one of the game's most despicable characters. Most of my characters are relatively compassionate souls, not given to unprovoked acts of violence. But none of them have any reservations about slaughtering Grelod.

Eh I love both games, like Oblivion's guild questlines a bit better but Skyrim has more major joinable factions and I love the environments and gameplay in Skyrim. Oblivion introduced me to the series and then Skyrim improved upon it. So I am happy

CoW did have some good side quest stuff though. The main guild quest should have been longer.

Why is it that Oblivion was like Dungeons and Dragons on certain parts of the leveling system everyone says it was a problem. Sorry but simple is not better. This game is not a true Role Playing Game it is an action adventure game not even on par with Oblivion on the respect. Everything else with Skyrim is excellent except not releasing Dawnguard for the PC or PS3.

How does Skyrim's leveling system not make it an RPG?