Give it to me straight, how is this game?

Give it to me straight, how is this game?
I've finally gave skyrim a chance after all these years and it's pretty good. The melee combat sucks ass but the spells are interesting. some caves have good lore behind them but most of them are boring and theres a ton of stuff to do. Also the graphics are really good, and it made me want to play another TES game. Morrowind is to old for me, so I've tried going into retroactive order to ease myself into it.

Now, I've never played oblivion. How does it fare against Skyrim? Is the combat better? Are the dungeons more varied? are the quests cool? Are there mods to fix the abortion that are the faces in that game?

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Everything about the roleplying elemens is more sophisticated, the world feels more real and the stories are better. But you should just go right to morrorwind to see where the series really shines

Cyrodil is really boring and bland when compared to Morrowind and even Skyrim.
The quests I recall being a lot of fun though.
>enter a painting
>that Mage's Guild quest where they tell me to go fetch something from a well but give me an item that over encumbers me so I'd have drowned
>except I had a waterbreathing ring on
>stealing an Elder Scroll for the Thieves' Guild
>the mystery behind the past of the arena Grandmaster
Yeah, Oblivion was fun.

It's like Skyrim except the quests are actually good which creates a much more rich, consistent world

Gameplay wise it's fairly similar to Skyrim. Only instead of perks you have stat points. It's pretty okay until you level too much and level scaling makes every hostile encounter a spamfest where you unload tons of damage on enemies capable of sponging attacks for literal minutes before going down.

Theres 1000 npcs and like 17 voice actors all of which sound generic as fuck and were given no direction in the recording studio.

It tries to be immersive but falls flat even with mods you can barely forgive the flaws (and there is lots)

Still has bugs from morrowind hard coded in the game engine (so does skyrim to an extent) and even FO4

The oblivion crisis was really the oblivion inconvenience since daedra hardly do damage at all.

Its shit, just mod the hell out of skyrim.

I think I only still like and play Oblivion to this day simply because it was the most amazing game I ever played when I was like 9 years old.

It's really silly and badly designed looking back on it, but it's still fun for me.

when i think of fantasy RPG, i think oblivion. nothing will ever beat it in terms of comfyness as far as fantasy RPG's go. everything that you could like is there, that particular aesthetic about the graphics, the plants and trees, the crazy bloom, everything somehow comes together in a very inspired way. the music is fucking top tier, and even the UI is so beautiful and consistent looking.

there are plenty of great quests. the main quest will take you to several cool parts and let you do cool stuff, but the great thing is everything else. the faction quests are top tier, the daedra quests are top tier, the DLC quests are top tier.

if you want, a lot of people often suggest mods that balance out the leveling system and things like that, but i often play vanilla desu (but objectively the game is better with mods).

this is coming from a guy who fucking hates bethesda

the combat is technically worse, although the weapon design is much more inspired, and you can cast spells while both of your hands are occupied which makes it a lot less tedious to play as a battlemage, which in my opinion is the only way to play elder scrolls. dungeons aren't as varied, there's a lot of caves and ruins that look the same, although the enemies you find in them are more interesting. the quests are very good and arguably the best in the series unless you prefer lots of exposition like in morrowind.

Oblivion is great. It's the best TES game by far. It does require one mod to make it more enjoyable, and a second mod is very recommended: one to remove enemy scaling and one to fix the leveling. However, even the base game is playable if you don't mind the only enemies you'll ever see being mudcrabs, imps and humanoids.

The quests are 10/10 and you're bound to happen upon the coolest quests out of nowhere, just as you're exploring. The combat isn't very good but hey, TES game, It's also better than skyrim anyway.

Also, there are many hidden world interactions, like the way to make alcohols manually (read the book about it, it sounds like pure flavor - turns out the instructions can be followed literally).

Meh, skyrim is precisely as bland as cyrodil in my opinion, and morrowind is blander on account of everything being brown and more brown. Giant mushrooms is fun for all of 5 seconds.

Quests are better, combat is about the same just mechanically less sophisticated due to the time of release and engine limitations. World is much more tolkien-y and the "radiant AI" is crap. Potato potahto, I maintain that quests make or break these games and Oblivion definitely wrecks Skyrim in this regard.

>be dumb kid who doesn't know shit about RPGs and only got this because friends said it was great
>become vampire
>have no clue how to fix it
>just be a vampire, kill people and wander the world because that's fun too
I wish I could capture that feeling again.

Oblivion is fun. Unlike SKyrim you'll laugh, and that's a good thing

When I think of it I can't remember one time when I had a good laugh in skyrim, out of playing with ragdolls

How viable is magic in this compared to skyrim?

The only really badly designed part is the level scaling, which made it so that unless you knew how to place these arbitrary points (nobody did) then you'd eventually be outscaled by the enemies. Which is good and bad because it makes the game challenging, but all your progress feels for naught.

You can use magic and alchemy to break the game like any decent Elder Scrolls.

Mage-only builds are clunky as shit unless you have a staff. Otherwise, more viable in the late game than in the early because there are randomly generated spells (as far as I remember) and you can craft your own for a fee. In Skyrim, they had static damage, and successive points in whatever magic school made the spells simply cost less. Stupid.
There's also one other tree of magic that is functionally useless but could be used for a few quests.

...

Except morrowind actually had like, depth to it's world beyond "normal" or "viking".

Skyrim has the same issue though, except without the ability to fix yourself. Grind crafting branches and you get one-shot by even mudcrabs while you need to hit them a thousand times to down them, unless you wear cheatgear.

mysticism is actually very useful if you know what you are doing. It is gimmicky, of course.

Yeah but it's much less pronounced in Skyrim because of the perk system. At least with physical damage, Mages get fucking wrecked.

Nah, all it had was "brown shit for ground with water".

>stealing an Elder Scroll for the Thieves' Guild
Such a fucking good final thief quest. As opposed to Skyrim, where the Thieves' Guild has nothing to do with stealing at all and is just a shitty half-assed crime solving quest that makes no sense.

I found the opposite to be through precisely because of perks. In oblivion you get perks simply by getting a skill to 50, 75 or 100, which can be done without leveling. In skyrim, you need to level, which becomes increasingly difficult, and downright impossible once you can't fight anything because you made the mistake of not investing everything into melee at least early on.

Better in almost every way.

Skyrim is better in terms of crafting, visuals, and the melee combat, but Oblivion is a better RPG.

Daggerfall is the best TES game though.

all you have to do is put the difficulty slider in the middle and you shouldn't have any trouble. start off with it closer to the right so you aren't one-shotting everything, then lower it when minotaurs, gloom wraiths, and dreughs start appearing.

>physical environment is the only thing which makes a setting
It had a unique and interesting culture, history, and political landscape. What made it interesting wasn't the countryside scenery.

>Daggerfall is the best TES game though.
what the fug :DDD

>Better in almost every way.
>combat

The combat is the exact same shit.
Skyrim having slightly more involved animations and swinging your screen around more isn't a difference.

why would you grind crafting without balancing it with a combat skill? did you actually think that was going to end well?

>What made it interesting wasn't the countryside scenery.
Still, the dude you're replying to is wrong. Morrowind has a lot of variety in landscapes. Deserts, volcanic ashlands, swamps, islands, flowery meadows. Towns where the buildings are giant hermit crab shells.

>Why the hell would you increase your skills in an RPG, did you really not assume the game would level-scale everything to fuck you in the ass for not playing the game the way they wanted?

>how is this game

It's one of the greatest games ever made and by far the best vanilla TES.

>oblivion
>difficult at any point without increasing the difficulty

user... you were just retarded. I bet you thought +2 +3 +5 for your base stats when you level up were completely random

i mean why did you just sit around in whiterun or riverwood grinding? must have taken hours. and where did you get the money for all the crafting materials? pickpocketing? you have to leave town eventually. also oblivion had level scaling so you should have been prepared for the worst. and elder scrolls games were never about grinding. even in morrowind there were lots of places you could explore without getting shit on by high level enemies.

>make shit argument
>get btfo
>"w-why did you reply to my argument? NOT AN ARGUMENT WAAAAAAH MOMMY!"
Lol

Vanilla Experience
Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim

Modded Experience
Oblivion > Skyrim > Morrowind

You are the cancer that's killing video games.

How many skill focuses can you have in Skyrim before the level scaling fucks you? I always find myself falling into the temptation of trying to become a jack of all trades because I''m playing as a sword and board guy but feel left out not doing the college quests.

magic is hundred times better imo.

it's less flashy but does it's job better.

it was the dumbest thing ever that skyrim just made spells cost less with the only way to buff damage through perks and assigning them to hands was dumb as shit.

in oblivion you can have a different spell ready for whatever the occasion, find awesome custom spells (fingers of the mountain?) and even make your own.

I played on console and my favourite spell was a self-paralysis spell which I used to roleplay a disabled character.

Spells also got me through the level-scaling bullshit - cursing enemies with elemental weakness was the best shit ever.

To be fair most of those ARE kind of just bland and brown, but that's mostly just the old shitty graphics. You're right about the towns though, how could you say ald-ruhn is generic. Especially in a sandstorm.
>hurr durr its all brown
Wow user, I'm so completely blown the fuck out, how am I even able to keep responding?

Well, yes the game rightfully fucks you in the ass for making stupid decisions with your build. This is how it should be, because otherwise it wouldnt award you for having a clever strategy

No, retard. The difficulty slider does not make up for poor scaling algorithms. I was a little retarded but this is a problem that is well documented and experienced by many.

>implying modded Skyrim is good

Literally a polished turd.

Alchemy buffed spell damage and effects user

That type of shitposting belongs in a console war topic, get

I just bought oblivion on PC but I've only ever played it on console before.

What mods should I get to make it better without altering the experience too much?

And are there any good quest mods that add more quests that fit well into the setting?

The same thing can be said about oblivion, though, except the main city isn't 4 identical brown cubes with no external features whatsoever which make it absolutely impossible to orient yourself. If 4 identical featureless brown cubes aren't bland to you, unlike a vibrant walled city, why would you even bother speaking up? You have much more urgent problems to solve.
Oblivion had its plains, mountains, forests, planes of oblivion and swamps. It also had mushrooms in the realm of sheogorath. The shell city is cool in theory but its presented just as blandly as any generic city in reality.

Has anyone found the right mod/difficulty combo that makes Skyrim gameplay the right balance of challenging and fun? I am forever finding it impossible to strike the balance without having to slide around the difficulty - currently running Wildcat on Master and occasionally switching to Legendary when Master becomes too difficult in certain situations.

you can only reach the level cap by getting all of your skills to 100, or making a skill legendary and leveling it over and over. so the game is balanced around jack of all trades characters. once you get to about level 45, that's pretty much as hard as the combat is going to get.

>stupid decisions with your build
That's not it though. You don't have a build, and you're not progressing. If you do a certain non-combat thing while fucking around and the game decides to make everything everywhere stronger to "compensate", and that's just plain stupid.

The setting sucks because Cyrodiil is fucked up beyond recognition compared to what it's described as in the in game books.
As much as combat in Skyrim sucks it's still better than Oblivion's.
The melee combat is floaty as fuck and feels worse than Skyrim's.
Magic in Skyrim looks and "feels" better than in Oblivion but Oblivion's magic system is much deeper because you can craft your own spells.
Ranged combat is better in Skyrim.
Oblivion has by far the better quests and guilds.
Skyrim has the better dungeons but that's not saying much.
Oblivion has a better balance of time spent not killing stuff and time spent killing stuff (Which is to say that there's less killing stuff than in Skyrim). Some of the best quests in oblivion don't even require combat.

I'd say Skyrim is better but not by much. Morrowind is much better than both once you get into it.

Yea, many fucking idiots

The game was not hard, at all, at any point.

care to elaborate?

>something for the leveling, that stops enemies from becoming damage songes later on
>something to balance the amount of oblivion gates
>better UI
>(optional) graphical enhancement

Let me rephrase - when is it (roughly) safe to start refocusing your character a bit? E.g. levels 10-25 seem like a dangerous time to be trying to invest in a variety of skills.

You're scared of admitting that it's brown because it reminds you of your butthurt and that makes you uncomfortable, that's literally it.

alchemy is supposed to be a thief and warrior skill, magic should cover everything that it does.

I dont see how this can be a problem. How many non-combat things would you even have to do in order to level up enough for this to become notable?
Just also do actual combat

I also ask because I hate going to start, say, the College quests mid-game, looking to become proficient in magic, but getting fucked around cos there's no way lvl 27 destruction is gonna cut it for draugr deathlords by that point (Really miss the skill level cut offs for promotion in the guilds)

You (the person making this post, which I'm quoting) are the cancer (a tumor that has metastasized) that is killing (robbing of life; destroying) video games (Sup Forums's former favorite hobby)

Good for alchemy.

I just bought an enchanting buff potion and made some gear that reduced my casting costs by 85% and spammed lightening bolt until I was bored as shit. I wasn't even that good at fucking enchanting and I could do this.

The problem with Skyrim is that spell variety went out the window and the stupid fucking hand thing.

In Oblivion you could get awesome fire DoTs that made enemies weak to the damage they deal.

You could get shock spells that paralysed like a taser.

You could get life-drain spells that actually did something.

whenever you've got a combat skill that you're comfortable with so you can fall back on it if things get hairy. don't wait too long or you'll finish too many quests without getting to use the other skills.

i meant why?

>Give it to me straight, how is this game?
+ detailed world, great western medieval atmosphere, open world exploring
- hardly anything that can be called gameplay, design or mechanics. everything is scaled, nothing matters, no challenge.

Tired of the elder scrolls circle jerk. Why cant everyone just accept each game for what they are?

Wouldnt that be a circlejerk? One of us doesnt understand what that term means, and I'm pretty sure it is you

Let's hear you both define circlejerk.

The absolute madman

If you want a real fantasy rpg oblivion is the way. Its a 10/10 in my book. I was really into knights and fantasy and this game captures that and knocks it out of the park, amazing.

>Bandit Marauder
What nonsense.

Shut your whore mouth, he was a good friend of mine

The melee combat in Skyrim is slightly better than Oblivion. It's more action-y and the attacks have more impact.

Stealth archery is the same and magic is worse in Skyrim.

>This circlejerk should stop. I want a new circlejerk that I agree with

Pure faggotry thats what. The argument is invalid, it just goes round and round and no one will ever be able to prove what game is best.

In other words you don't know what it means. Go drink your skooma.

So i have a stealth archer character with sneak maxed out, is it really necessary to wear light armor when I can just wear some heavy armor to tank some more hits?

thats not what a circlejerk is user....

a circlejerk is a bunch of people just jerking over how great something is in their little circle with no outside criticism.

this happened to a guy hired for the sole purpose of sacrificing him at boethia's shrine

That definition is like 25% of the way there. God knows I hate circle jerks where I only get 25% of the way there.

Is oblivion the only elderscrolls game with mounted npcs?
I don't remember seeing any in Skyrim.

Can you explain how combat is worse?

I just started playing skyrim

and i hate the combat

It feels slow and clunky

In oblivion i could shoot a weakness to flame spell while closing the gap for melee combat
and then beat them with my flaming short sword

Also where the hell are the short swords?

Keep only finding daggers..

Worth it just for the Shivering Isles.

When mentioning Oblivion quests nobody ever mentions SI for some reason, the thing is really good and I was expecting something similar to it when I first played Skyrim but oh well.

>cherry picking 101

The cart drivers.

heavy armor makes noise when you're sneaking. you'll need a muffle spell, or do boethiah's daedric quest and get the ebony mail.

I vaguely remember the occasional mounted hunter, but it may just have been one of the NPC behaviour mods that added them.

back when i was a kid a circle jerk was when you jacked off the guy next to you and so on til the last guy is jacking off the one that started it thus completing a circle. at least thats what i know from experience. its pure faggoty bullshit and this thread is rampant with faggots.

>it just goes round and round and no one will ever be able to prove what game is best
Thats literally every discussion about art that includes multiple people and isnt a circlejerk

i meant the actual combat, i agree that there are lots of useful spells missing in skyrim. animations are better in skyrim and blocking is more versatile, also you can't just hop on top of a boulder and use ranged attacks like you can in oblivion, because enemies in skyrim will run away until you've come down.

>So i have a stealth archer character with sneak maxed out
This is how I end up in every fucking TES game. Every fucking time. I love it, but hate that I am not even adventorous in a fucking game

They don't actually move though, they're just waypoints.

iirc you can meet a noble on horseback as a random encounter.

Oblivion is a lot of fun and still looks great with mods. It doesn't matter which Elder Scrolls game is the best, it is still a good game on it's own merit.

youtube.com/watch?v=2fxVeAVl2I8

I think it's also the only one where some of the NPC's travel between towns and sometimes die on the roads.

But thats only merchants I think. The Imperial legion patrols just rape everything in their way.

>Morrowind is to old for me
Daggerfall I can understand but there's no way Morrowind is too old for you unless you're a fucking baby

2002 was almost 15 years ago.