I actually think Oblivion was WORSE in the department of making it seem like your actions had no effect on the world.

Personally Oblivion is my least favorite...I find it funny that people are all nostalgic for it. Skyrim has it's issues, but personally I find it overall a much deeper experience.

Oblivion is WAY deeper than skyrim...ATTRIBUTES, skills derived from those attributes, health mana and stamina all derived from those attributes. Factions and people around the world actually REACT ACCORDINGLY TO YOUR PREVIOUS ACTIONS.

basically in OBLIVION if you dont really know how to build your character, get the right attribute boosts when you level, and get the most from your skills, you're game is going to svck. It honestly takes more intelligence (on the actual PLAYERS part, not the attribute lol) to have a successful character in oblivion. if you're dumb, you will svck at oblivion. If you're smart and read, it can be amazing.

in SKYRIM, you do what you want and all results are the same no matter what you do (for the most part, 85%)

Ohh sure, it takes more intelligence... Take all that you'll use as minor skills, dont sleep ever, make overpowered spells by spellcrafting... GG.

Edit: Morrowind and Oblivion were easy games, i think its not bethesda goal making hard games. Skyrim can be very challenging if you want, just put it on master and dont powerlevel, the same morrowind and oblivion. I remember having boring times in oblivion, i was playing, then a major skill up, and then "damn it, i need to stop now, lvl a lot of minor skills to get the cap, then sleep, then go back to my quest". Well, i felt very smart after spending all this time jumping, casting spells on myself, runing around sneaking, just to get a (censored) cap to lvl... I skyrim i can choose not doing this, and i love it.

Oblivions leveling system is DEFINITELY BROKEN, i will admit that. But you need to be SMART to overcome the developers oversight.

No, you just need to be informed and know it's broken. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Personnally, i think Skyrim is a refinement. I find it much more interesting and more engaging with fewer annoyances that existed in the previous game. For instance, i found myself breathing a sigh of releif that I no longer have to carry around umpteen black smithing hammers. Weapons and wore down entirely too quickly, to the point of being annoying.

Combat seems a lot more fun. The game world itself seems much more genuine. The overall ambience of Oblivion smacks of high fantasy, its all very picturesque. Skyrim smacks more of a dark fantasy and is much more gritty. As the character development system goes, you really do have A LOT more freedom to pick and choose what you want to do. And it occurs to me that once i have my skills of one arc type maxed out, i can hit the stones and change it to be something else and develop other skills.

The game world, the radiant quests and the like, i think they're all design so the world is perpetual. So one can develop a character and play in it as long as they like. This game facititates that much better then oblivion with the radiant quests i think.

I noticed some people were complaing that the game got too easy. They're godlike and can't be killed. Im about to that point myself running around in legendary dragon bone plate at level 36 or so. Two things come to mind:

a.) This is why diffculty levels can be adjusted. I find it hard to rachet up the difficulty level myself, but maybe its time i did.

b.) In oblvion alot of people complained they couldn't become godlike because the NPC's leveled with them. No sense of achievement being unable to go back and squash formerly insurmountable foes like insects beneath their boots. Now that they can become godlike, people are still complaining.


To me, this game is a great refinement over Oblivion. I'm hoping for some serious DLC's in the future. With mulitple DLC's and a whole lot of modding, this is a game i could easily play for the next couple of years. Yeah its a bit consolized, but it's still pretty freaking epic and has all the right refinements in the right places.

Also, some people don't like change. They just want more of the same with prettier graphics, im just not one of them. Skyrim has taken a slightly different direction, and it's a lot of fun.

ill have to clarify and say that i think skyrim is a better game than oblivion.

i just think oblivion has more depth, thats all.

Being forced to make up for bad design decisions is not intelligent gameplay...bloat is not 'depth'.

I'm talking specifically about raising attributes in Oblivion of course, as there were some things I wish they hadn't removed.

I did find the Oblivion MQ more engaging. What really helped it was having a memorable, sympathetic character like Martin and the Siege of Kvatch was a dramatic intro.
Skyrim's cast of characters is weaker and there is no individual/s who really draws you in and makes you care about the world and the current crisis.

But I still think Skyrim is the stronger game with some very unique areas with fascinating backstories like the Reach. It feels like it has more culture and lore than Oblivion which was more of a generic fantasy setting.

Arena was a lake.
Daggerfall was an ocean.
Morrowind was a lake,
Oblivion was a pond.
Skyrim is a pool.

See a trend? TES VI will be a puddle.

Uldred

Lets see,
Morrowind released in 2002.
Oblivion released in Mid 2006.
Fallout 3 released in Late 2008.
Skyrim released in Late 2011.

*Not including that Bethesda had to take time for some team members to make DLC or Expansions.

Most of there games have had about 3 years development total, and when you consider that they had to completely rebuild the game engine for Skyrim it's not hard to figure out why Skyrim feels less deeper when there development time has stayed near the same since 2002. Skyrim is a much larger project in terms of voice acting, technology, and graphics and should need much more time to make, and that is likely the reason were getting a product that doesn't feel finished.

Bethesda is trying to keep development times the same, and it is showing...

Thank you. I don't want to get into OB vs. Skyrim vs. etc, but I do think that Skyrim doesn't get enough credit for the dozens of small stories like these that it contains. These round out the world, and add to the overall "story" of Skyrim. A lot of effort and care went into these, and if some of the guild quests are a bit lacking, these more than make up for it, to me.

ilu

none of the games are deep enough to be considered so, read a book or something. the lore is good though

Behold, the sacred master of making sense!

I think where skyrim lacks in the main story and guild quest lines it picks up in the rest of the game. Ive walked into so many quest dungeons I thought were just another dungeon but turns out to have its own story and issue to solve. There is a lot more variety out in the world. Oblivion had very little of that.

But Ill see, Ive only played 80 hours of skyrim vs 500+ of oblivion.

this is entertaining.... Morrowind die hards having a fight with skyrim and oblivion die hards and vice versa. Why can't we all just shut the hell up and agree that every ES game despite their faults are some of the best gaming experiences you will have in your life. Also You're pissing of M'aiq.....

As a fan, I've gotta say that neither game is exceptionally Deep.

That said, Oblivion is the deeper one.

Everyone knows Daggerfall is the deepest in the series.

I think this is where everyone that isn't on the Skyrim is flawless bus is going, OB was shallower than Morrowind was shallower than Daggerfall, OB wasn't a flawless experience, some of the stories sagged too, but the questing was generally better, I could play the thieves guild and DB several times over and still want to play again, now it is just go here, kill that, come back

Where OB loses in graphics and the interactive world it wins in inventive objectives and questing structure


Oh,Did someone steal your sweetroll?

disagree with Anthotis statement

They improved the serie a lot, even if I criticize a lot. On my side I suggest improvements, and I m fully aware of all the improvements that were done.

For starter, armor & clothing wise, I see a lot more consistence this time arround. The renaissance gear is gone. In general most of the stuff is viking inspired and feel coherent. For each culture they added a bit of flavor, like for the alikr or the thalmor.

Some parts are not as well done, like the orcs in the orc stronghold not wearing orcish gear or using orcish weaponry. I feel because of the size or the orc and dark elf presence, they should have expanded gear for those two races. more gear (armor, clothing, weapons) and put that gear on those character. It s especialy a sore sight for the orcs when you see an orc wearing a full plate armor (imperial style I guess) in the middle of an orc stronghold !!!! At least the forsworn were better done. They are always consistent.

For dark elf it s not as bad, because they lack access to netch and kwama which they need to make those bone armors, and being stuck in windhelm, it would be a bad idea to attract attenton by dressing up in full telvani regalia or full suit of redoran bonemold armor. I m not even mentioning the suicidal tentencies needed to dress up in full tribunal armor !!!! or start preaching the almisivi religion !!! Still, a hidden almisivi shrine or redoran stronghold near the morrowind border would have been nice.

One thing however that shine is the dungeons. Even now that I ve reached level 50, it s still fun to go exploring, as I m mostly a scout type character that like skulking arround, and I pretty much play the same way I did, going where I m not welcome, not being noticed, and defacing daedric altar (those forsworn worship daedras)

So I m amazed when I find hidden dungeon and uncover deep mysteries, like the darkreach dungeon. And I still love coming back to taverns, and speaking to the merchant, or just toying with sibbi black briar who is stuck in jail (I always steal his silver plates). I do wish haelga was really giving private dibela .. ahem ... instruction ... you know....
at least what fetch quest there are are misc quests and unobstrusive, mostly asource of income.

most of the quests I got from radiant quests are investigation quests that often send me to dungeons. so they are quite interesting.

the only thing to fix is the level up system (get rid of it) and the challenge level. which are really connected.

personaly I find the skill-perks interface anoying. and hard to navigate. I would have prefered a classic character sheet. I know they wanted to focus on a level up progression and impress peoples with it, its just not working, not for me anyway. and it cause ballance problems.

lets face it, currently no one in his right mind use perks from: speechcraft, lockpicking, and most of pickpocketing, and only a few essential mage perks (mostly destruction)
this is due to having too few perks which force players to choose combat efficiency, which in turn lead to imbalance due to multi-level perks like bladesman that end up combining with smithing, stealth and alchemy to produce ridiculous amount of dammage

as a no-level game, it would have been more balanced, hunting perks as mission-rewards instead, and only increasing health, stamina and magika through appropriate action like close combat fighting when getting hit (health) spellcasting (magika) and I guess archery when zooming (stamina) or when doing power attack (stamina)

I seriously absolutely fail to see how anyone can call Oblivion deeper than Skyrim.

I absolutely cannot see it. There are literally no reasons.

I wouldn't say they were wrong..

Yes

Skyrim is shallow in terms of how the world changes (it doesn't) and how the NPC's react to things, eg progression in guilds.

TES is however deep in lore.

no one ever said that

dafferfall quests were ridiculously random.
find the magical bra of fireball in dungeon xyz

that s how deep it got. but from the player side, it meant another random dungeon and that was all we cared about !
no game really had depth in that era

Morrowind lacked 3 things that daggerfall had

(1) classic aspect
daggerfall was verry european, and tried to have forests and wildlife
but didn t do that well for that part because of technical limitations of that era...
and mostly for poor design choices such as 320x200 low res graphics
(everyone moved to 640x400, and of course baldur gate launched with a bang)

(2) size

daggerfall was unsurpassed in that aspect, a bit monotonous compared to might and magic 6
but at least it tried to have a giant random world
if they had done more content to fill the randomnes ... more varety
it would have been much better

many say that daggerfall shined in scope, but might and magic 6 shined in variety

which is why it s not that strange that skyrim remind me a lot of might and magic 6
(probably the most classic crpg game)

(3) player house and boat

let s keep in mind that daggerfall allowed one house, one boat, and the containers could not be used
(bug that made stuff disapear) and objects dropped on the ground were safe but showed as loot bag

(in that same era, diablo I didn t had houses, but objects dropped on the ground showed as objects)

(4) some extra skills

climbing (not that well done, the thief serie would do better)