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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion is probably my best answer. Remains the only modern Elder Scrolls that I've only played through once with no desire to return to. Feels clunky and sluggish, the world is washed out and bland, the enemy scaling is a slog, itemization is not interesting or impactful, the UI is uncomfortable, etc. While it does a lot of things better than Skyrim, I just can't bring myself to enjoy the experience like I did Morrowind, and I admit I've sunk far more hours into Skyrim as well.
This one is wild to me. Oblivion very well be my favorite game of all time. I love the world it is set in so much. Skyrim is actually my answer for this question because I was expecting the game to to be as good as Oblivion.
I was going to say the same thing. I've still only played Skyrim once, but I've played through oblivion at least a few times. I played through Morrowind even more, but oblivion surpasses Skyrim without question for me.
I can't go back to older ES games. The levelling system is just too much boring work for me. I have been a tES fan since the early 90's when I got Arena, but Skyrim is the only one I'll pick up anymore. I'd love to do another Morrowind playthrough with Skyrim's systems (and I hear there's a mod out for that, but I've never dug into it)
There's a mod for it, but i never add it to the manager when I replay Morrowind. Maybe because I only played it once, I can't even remember the difference in the leveling. What did they change in Skyrim?
Levelling and skills are dramatically simpler in Skyrim than in previous titles. The Elder Scrolls games and Fallout games generally have a middlegame where mislevelling can lead to you being dramatically underpowered. It's still hypothetically possible in Skyrim, but a lot less so because it's easier to just not screw up a build.
Others here call it "watered down". I guess it technically is.
I'm sorry for asking, and I'll look it up if you don't want to explain it here, but can you give me just an example of the gameplay experience of what you're talking about? Just elder scrolls to elder scrolls player.
I'm sure it is there, I'm just curious because I didn't notice it when I was playing Skyrim, but like I said, I only played it once.
And I think that was about the time they stopped providing user manuals which i always read before games so I don't even know if I got to read the skill tree.
Dude I remember when Morrowind came out, I read that pamphlet like a tome multiple times.
With Skyrim I don't remember anything except running from dragon to dragon, then killing the main dragon and then I couldn't believe the game was over so quickly, and I thought it was like a false ending, but it wasn't.
And there was a really cool laboratory on a mountain near the wizard school that was very versatile but didn't actually matter but I felt like it should have played some part in the main storyline.
Yeah as you can tell, sorry, my memories aren't super strong of that game.
Sure.
Oblivion is a great example. In Oblivion, skills level similarly to Skryim (with use). Unlike Oblivion, a lot of skills do not provide survival value as feedback. Simply "living your best life" often leads you to have a master of Acrobatics and Atheletics. You run and jump too much, you end up finding enemies are outpacing you because they scale from you running and jumping too much.
This exists to a lesser extent in Skyrim. The difference? Feats. Your feats improve your build focus in two ways. They're virtually ALL good even if you only dabble in your skill of choice. And they create a pressure to focus on a skill to reach the feat. Yeah, you could blow 10 levels in heavy armor and then run around naked, but dead builds are a bit more contrived.
But then, there's part 2. In Oblivion, the skills drive your attribute gains. When you level, you pick an attribute to gain, but how much you gain is based on how many skill points you spent. If you overblow a level, you will find you have to choose between 2 or 2 maxed +5 (I think +5 was max), and then in future levels you will have fewer increased +x options. It's a great little spreadsheet game to be "better", but if you screw it up, you feel it.
Actually, check out "the Leveling Problem"
Ditto in a way with Morrowind. I had to google to remind myself. Morrowind is similar to Oblivion, but still had more "firm" classes. How you level and train will still affect whether your attributes are good or shit, even if you end up levelling basically the same skills with basically the same overall attribute goals.
In both, you are heavily disincentivized from organic leveling because "some of this, some of that" gives you a net lower attribute gain. And level after level, you start to feel it.
I'm glad you attached "the leveling problem", I understand what that's saying.
I don't think I pay close enough attention to leveling in these games because if any enemy is too strong, if I level fireball or long blade whatever or any skill, as long as I move correctly, I can circumvent the challenge. Or there's a boulder available for me to throw fireballs from, I'm fine no matter what the enemy is.
The challenge of the game definitely until Skyrim anyway, is undoubtedly limited by the controls available to us and as a result, the enemies we're presented with.
And there's always a way available to solve any sort of direct defeat in an elder scrolls game (run backward until they swing one step back, one step forward after they swing, strike, run backwards again. Repeat).
I guess the details of leveling differences never made a difference to how I played the game (maybe tes 6 will be different) since the underlying combat system, while fun and engaging, is not yet very challenging to be understood and overcome.
I actually love to Play the game this way, I'm not casting aspersions, I'm glad if I just spend enough time punching people and animals in the face, I get so good at punching things that I get to dominate the entire world, that's very fun in a video game.
That's why I never noticed the leveling details, because the leveling of the characters just incidental to all of the stories told within each game, but that is interesting that there's an entire article about "the leveling problem."
I know I used a Morrowind mod where I limited all skills to 40, that seems like the only practical solution to the leveling problem as far as I understand it.
Once elder scrolls 9 comes out and we're all just in virtual worlds ducking and running and jumping with dynamic fields of view and enemy behavior, the fighting will be way more interesting.
Did you play Skyrim a different way because of the leveling system that you noticed while playing it?
Fair enough! Ultimately, I like the game to reward levelling in general with a reduction in difficulty, so I don't have to obsess over "levelling well" or "gitting gud". I don't usually play Soulsborne games for that very reason.
And yeah, I played Skyrim differently. More "fast and loose". More casually. I didn't constantly wonder what skills I could/should/would level. If my levelling got imbalanced, the feat system gave me a gentle nudge towards levelling the skills I actually wanted because "shoot, I have these feat points, and can't put them into anything but potions. I'm a freaking barbarian. Time to go wreck stuff"
Makes sense, I definitely can't be bothered with leveling "properly". I don't mind choosing different feats or paying casual attention to how I allocate skills gained through experience, but I don't want to turn an open-world adventure into a detail-oriented spreadsheet journey toward an ultimate ratio, haha
Exactly. Which is why I ended up with over 1000 hours between Skyrim and Fallout playthroughs, and far less than that in all the other games of both series' combines
I didn't work any harder building up a skill tree in Morrowind or oblivion then Skyrim, I'm usually just walking around talking to people or looking at the forests instead of thinking about the skills at all. Playstyles.
When you mentioned fallout, do you mean that the newer fallout games were easier for you to navigate the skill tree as well?
Kinda. Fallout 4's levelling system (and decisions) is dramatically easier than earlier games. I'm a bit rustier, but I early-quit my last New Vegas playthrough over it.
Yeah, I realize it's an insanely unpopular opinion. Oblivion, on paper, is an objectively better RPG that is truer to the Elder Scrolls formula than Skyrim, but I just don't know, man. I've always had great difficulty liking it and tend to come up with nothing but gripes. I will give it another honest shot if this remake I've heard wind of ever comes to fruition. I owe it that much.
To each their own, obviously. Some games just don't click for some people.
Hard disagree on that one. It's truer to the Morrowind formula, but Morrowind itself was a radical departure from the previous TES games' design philosophy. And I despise Oblivion precisely because of that, because it slavishly apes Morrowind's formula without really understanding what made it tick. I'll spare you the diatribe. Morrowind was a great triumph but also a turning point for Bethesda. Up until that point, they used to make varied games. Ever since they found success with Morrowind, they've stopped trying to innovate and improve and have just been remaking the same game over and over with a slightly different coat of paint each time.
You ain't the only one. To this day, it's the only proper Elder Scrolls game I have not completed. I've even beaten Arena.