Hot Topic #1: The dumbing down of Oblivion

[chris 07]

Plus me, plus the whole GS community, how much is that together? More than 300000 people. Will they do something now?

[21603]

It makes me wonder what community (if any) Bethesda actually listen too. Do they listen to the PC users who complain a lot about all the annoying little things the games has/does, or do they listen more to the console community who praise the game and never have a bad word to say about it.

[verndewd]

Hot Topic #1: The dumbing down of Oblivion

 

This is the first of (hopefully) many semi-debates regarding the Elder Scrolls series in some way to take place here at TESSource. The idea is to encourage visitors to throw around their own ideas on the games on the forums and get some deeper conversations started. If you have something to say then get in there and chime in; no doubt the Bethesda devs are watching! On with the topic...

 

Many people have referenced what has come to be known as the "dumbing down" of Oblivion (from Morrowind and other ES games before it) as one of their reasons for their disappointment with Oblivion. Examples include the reduction of 38 skills in Daggerfall, to 27 in Morrowind and 21 in Oblivion (with axes being categorised as "blunt" weapons) and the removal of crossbows and darts.

 

Despite this many people, including myself, still thoroughly enjoy the game even in its vanilla form. My TESSource Hot Topic #1 question is this:

 

Is Oblivion the game you were hoping for? Do you enjoy playing it and, if you were lead developer of Bethesda, what specific, major changes would you make to the game that you think would improve it?

 

Honestly I want the rest of the map populated and would like to see political quests involved in other areas. I wouldnt mind seeing the map as a globe that could be turned with mouse control and the different parts of that globes questing activated by area links.

 

I dont really care if the entire game is 20gb or better. But having a global approach is what I would like to see. As well as space travel to encounter the dwemer and whatever civilizations went with them. The game has broader appeal than just one series of incompatible maps and games. Redoing morrowind on this engine and the past games as well and adding them to the globe as well as creating an evolving global drama.

 

maybe finding a way to upgrade the engine and gfx to retain global content and add more. Things change over time.

 

Looking at the full globe of the planet cyrodil exists on and having ages selections as it expands so that you can play any age of elderscrolls content. And evolving modern unique and futuristich tech and storylines. And tying it into the history. As a whole it would become compelling.

[Kenshkrix]

Large problems that I have with Vanilla Oblivion:

Biggest Problem: The enchantment system sucked. They should have went with MW's system, with the variable soul sizes, and the variable item enchantment capabilities. They made static enchantments for clothing/armor, they also took out the ability to enchant an item with a cast-spell, I really liked having a ring that I could shoot fireballs out of. I also would've added the capability to add a self-aimed negative effect which INCREASES the capability of your enchantment an equal amount, so you could actually make an item that could compare with the uniques, even if you would have to balance it with negative effects. I would've added the ability to use multiple souls as well, at less efficiency.

Two: The leveled-lists, and leveled monsters were horrible, in Oblivion there isn't anything that can kill me, at all, since they're all based on my level. The second problem with this, is that when I'm level 50 something, I want to feel powerful, instead, I end up using my enemies as training dummies, and they take too long to kill.

Three: The 255->0 circle, in MW, I could enchant all of my clothing/armor to do the same thing, such as Fortify Acrobatics, and get 500 Acrobatics and practically fly around. A general guideline that I would use in an RPG game, is that you should not set such limitations. Instead of capping everything at 100, they could've just set the upgrade rate above 100 to 10X slower, compounding every 5/10 or so, so you COULD become an ultimate-master at something, I was going to make a mod to this effect, except I wanted to make it unlimited...

 

This is one of the most important things I'm going to say here: You should NEVER take out content, if you're going to continue a series of games like TES, you should be continuously adding more and more stuff, not taking stuff out. They lowered the # of skills, # of spell-types, # of clothing/armor slots, and # of items. Graphics are not worth it, unless they were graphics so incredibly awesome that you can't tell the difference between them and reality, and even then, they don't make up for lack of gameplay.

 

Despite all of the problems in Oblivion, it is a great world to play around with, though sadly I now find it more fun to mod Oblivion then to play it.

[Switch]

Is Oblivion the game you were hoping for?

 

No. I do enjoy Oblivion, even vanilla Oblivion, but it's taken me a while to adapt to the fact that it doesn't match up to the hype. To be honest I was rather naive with the Oblivion pre-release campaign as it was the first game I followed pre-release, so I thought all the wonderful things they promised would come true. :P After playing for a while I realised they hadn't, so I became a bit jaded about Bethesda and the game. Though now I just try to enjoy Oblivion for what it is, a decent action/adventure title with a few RPG elements, and NOT a worthy successor to Morrowind. Thankfully the modding community have made up for a lot of what Bethesda screwed up.

 

If you were lead developer of Bethesda, what specific, major changes would you make to the game that you think would improve it?

 

#1: Make it more in favour of the PC rather than the Xbox. Add functionality for additional hotkeys, not having to be prompted for selling every little bit of loot, a less chunky interface, and proper modding support out of the box for things like models and animation. Basically all the stuff the community's had to do in Bethesda's place.

 

#2: Get rid of all this voice acting nonsense - for major characters perhaps, but not every single NPC in the game. It's gimmicky and limits dialogue a lot.

 

#3: Deliver on the Radiant A.I. front; don't just make it a glorified scheduling system. If chaos ensues, maybe add the option to turn the Radiant A.I. off and switch back to normal scheduling.

 

#4: QUESTS. Actual quests, not fedex and "go here kill that/collect this" stuff we've seen a thousand times for pity's sake.

 

#5: Lose the nanny system. I don't need a journal entry for every single little obvious thing, nor do I need a pointer to show me where to go. Maybe leave in functionality to turn these things on if you want to.

 

#6: Get rid of fast travel and add things like boats for getting around. It's too tempting to fast travel everywhere and miss out on one of the few things they did extremely well in this game: the exterior.

 

#7: Admit that the levelling system is stupidly flawed, tear it down and rebuild it from the ground up.

 

#8: Release all the "nickel and dime" mods for free and reimburse everyone who purchased them with a formal apology for making people pay for tiny little shreds of content.

 

#9: Fire Pete Hines. That's not a game change admittedly but it'd do the company a lot of good. ;)

 

#10: Apologise for screwing Morrowind players around in favour of $$$ and add everything else in that was promised.

 

#11: Probably a bunch of other things I haven't thought of. :P

[Erse son]

Played morrowind and enjoyed it.Have been playing Oblivion since day one and still love this game.Any game can be improved upon.I think Bethesda accomplished what they set out to do and that was to introduce this style of game to a whole new group of people who have never played an RPG or similar game,and they accomplished that.On the bethesda forum new people are joining daily since January of this year and many ars also beginning to play morrowind.Yes,Bethesda hit it on the head,but it also needs some improvement.This opinion is mine and mine alone 8)

[Dark0ne]

#4: QUESTS. Actual quests, not fedex and "go here kill that/collect this" stuff we've seen a thousand times for pity's sake.

 

I haven't really found many of these quests yet: I mainly do the TG and DB quests and find them wholely amusing. Whoever implemented the house party DB quest needs a medal! Loved it!

 

#2: Get rid of all this voice acting nonsense - for major characters perhaps, but not every single NPC in the game. It's gimmicky and limits dialogue a lot.

 

Agreed. Have your voice actors for the emperor, martin, etc. but not for every NPC. Limited dialogue, as you say, is a big turn off for this game.

 

#6: Get rid of fast travel and add things like boats for getting around. It's too tempting to fast travel everywhere and miss out on the one of the few things they did extremely well in this game: the exterior.

 

Yes yes yes. Definately. I miss the fast travel in Morrowind and just thinking about it makes me want to play Morrowind again.

 

#7: Admit that the levelling system is stupidly flawed, tear it down and rebuild it from the ground up.

 

Oh yes.

 

#8: Release all the "nickel and dime" mods for free and reimburse everyone who purchased them with a formal apology for making people pay for tiny little shreds of content.

 

Couldn't care less. It's more the limited resources they provided to modders that was the kick in the teeth. If they want to charge money for sub-par mods they can but don't shoot the foot of the people who do it better than you, for free.

 

#9: Fire Pete Hines. That's not a game change admittedly but it'd do the company a lot of good.

 

There seems to be a lot of PH hate in the ES/Fallout community. I don't really keep in touch with the community as much as I probably should so I don't know where it comes from. I speak to Pete when a release is coming up or I need some info, which is extremely rare (once a year, if that) and he's always been happy to help and quick to respond. Then again, I'm rarely critical of things around here so maybe I'm just a hackie for Bethesda. Personally I couldn't care less: I enjoy the games and harbour little hate for what has become of them.

 

#10: Apologise for screwing Morrowind players around in favour of $$$ and add everything else in that was promised.

 

Appeal to the hardcore Morrowind fans (probably less than 100,000) or appeal to the general audience (2,000,000+)...I know what direction that board meeting went...

[Switch]

#4: QUESTS. Actual quests, not fedex and "go here kill that/collect this" stuff we've seen a thousand times for pity's sake.

 

I haven't really found many of these quests yet: I mainly do the TG and DB quests and find them wholely amusing. Whoever implemented the house party DB quest needs a medal! Loved it!

Actually yes, the TG and DB quests are the exception that proves the rule. :P

 

#9: Fire Pete Hines. That's not a game change admittedly but it'd do the company a lot of good.

 

There seems to be a lot of PH hate in the ES/Fallout community. I don't really keep in touch with the community as much as I probably should so I don't know where it comes from. I speak to Pete when a release is coming up or I need some info, which is extremely rare (once a year, if that) and he's always been happy to help and quick to respond. Then again, I'm rarely critical of things around here so maybe I'm just a hackie for Bethesda. Personally I couldn't care less: I enjoy the games and harbour little hate for what has become of them.

I know you've had a reasonably positive experience of the bloke but he gives me the impression of being quite two-faced and he was responsible for a lot of the hype campaign prior to Oblivion's release. He also seems to have a habit of lying through his teeth, like a couple of weeks before the announcement of SI he said that they had no plans for an expansion... though a lot of PR guys are like that. But this is off-topic. ^^;

 

#10: Apologise for screwing Morrowind players around in favour of $$$ and add everything else in that was promised.

 

Appeal to the hardcore Morrowind fans (probably less than 100,000) or appeal to the general audience (2,000,000+)...I know what direction that board meeting went...

Yeah, this was if I was in charge. From a money perspective, the general audience will win every time.

[21603]

#1: Make it more in favour of the PC rather than the Xbox. Add functionality for additional hotkeys, not having to be prompted for selling every little bit of loot, a less chunky interface, and proper modding support out of the box for things like models and animation. Basically all the stuff the community's had to do in Bethesda's place.

 

The console community is where the money is. Since the price of a console game now is upwards of $120, why would they waste time making two separate games. It's all about the money.

 

#2: Get rid of all this voice acting nonsense - for major characters perhaps, but not every single NPC in the game. It's gimmicky and limits dialogue a lot.

 

I could not agree more. That's what I loved about Morrowind, you could talk to an NPC practically about anything, including their background. Now it's just a specific rumor if you're lucky. Voice acting on everyone also makes modding very hard, if your mod has tons of new dialogue and no voices it's rather odd.

 

#3: Deliver on the Radiant A.I. front; don't just make it a glorified scheduling system. If chaos ensues, maybe add the option to turn the Radiant A.I. off and switch back to normal scheduling.

 

I foolishly thought the A.I in the game was Radiant A.I. Clearly I was mistaken, and I think the loading screen describing it should have been removed :(

 

#4: QUESTS. Actual quests, not fedex and "go here kill that/collect this" stuff we've seen a thousand times for pity's sake.

 

I hate generic quests. I'm not an NPC's personal delivery monkey.

 

#5: Lose the nanny system. I don't need a journal entry for every single little obvious thing, nor do I need a pointer to show me where to go. Maybe leave in functionality to turn these things on if you want to.

 

I don't want to, but I have to mention the consoles again. The game console is geared to a clichéd audience of morons (no offense) and as such most games on them are well... dumb, and again why make two versions when one will suffice.

 

#6: Get rid of fast travel and add things like boats for getting around. It's too tempting to fast travel everywhere and miss out on the one of the few things they did extremely well in this game: the exterior.

 

I won't get involved in the fast travel debate because my view of it involves the consoles again. The exterior has many flaws. Trees, rocks, plants, and many other things are floating and not just a little bit, but way up in the air sometimes taller than the PC. That's just being lazy and when I come across something like that it completely ruins the immersion.

 

#7: Admit that the levelling system is stupidly flawed, tear it down and rebuild it from the ground up.

 

The leveling system is designed for ease of use, and you can see where I'm going. Damn I hate the console version.

 

#8: Release all the "nickel and dime" mods for free and reimburse everyone who purchased them with a formal apology for making people pay for tiny little shreds of content.

 

I know again with the consoles, but this one has merit. It's because of Xbox Live Marketplace that PC users are forced to purchase those mods. If you think about it, it makes sense.

 

#9: Fire Pete Hines. That's not a game change admittedly but it'd do the company a lot of good. ;)

 

I don't know him, but from this:

 

"responsible for a lot of the hype campaign prior to Oblivion's release."

 

I hate him. Oblivion was hyped up so much that the images they were showing off prior to release were all gussied up, and not just with special effects like HDR, I mean physical things, like more trees, rocks mushrooms, bushes, everything.

 

#10: Apologise for screwing Morrowind players around in favour of $$$ and add everything else in that was promised.

 

It feels like Bethesda have sold out to the console market and it makes me sad and angry at the same time. I don't have anything against consoles, but when they do things like this it really poos me. Consoles should have console games and vise versa. Come to think of it Morrowind on Xbox was pretty poor too, Raven Rock wouldn't even build.

[Olurum]

Pretty much everything has been covered here by people. But I still need to just list a few of my gripes.

 

1. Psychic Guards with GPS Navigation and a Personal Teleporter.

 

You are the only one with another NPC in a house, whos asleep, you need to take 2 hits to kill him since your first sneak attack didn't do enough damage. Since the NPC is awake now, he telepathically communicates with a guard and now you have a 40 gold bounty on your head. If you are in a city, the guard will probably appear in the very room you are in within a few seconds.

 

I have a mod that fixes this off course but before I discovered this great website I was tearing my hair out.

 

In the end I'd like a revamped justice system, where a crime doesn't instantly mean every guard in the vicinity is justified to attack you and kill you. NPCs being able to be locked up. I was getting training of a redguard who worked in the fields near Skingrad, but one day he decided to pickpocket someone and got his butt kicked by the guards. I couldn't get anymore training... I had to reload a save from a few minutes back to save him.

 

2. I can live with random items around the world being leveled... but when a quest reward is leveled then I want to scream. You shouldn't get a bigger reward/better enchantments on something for simply doing the quest at a higher level.

 

3. A sense that you are changing the world. I have defeated the invasion of Kvatch and saved the new to be emperor. I am Grand Champion and Arch Mage. Despite this, other citizens may only vaguely comment on your achievements... even if they seem to be oblivious of that it is you who they are talking about, because they always seem to "tell" you what happened as if you had no idea, etc...

 

4. Provide dialogue choices to suit all character types. I don't fear Mannimaro, but the options that were given to me made it seem that way. This may be purely role playing but I don't like being forced to choose 'wimpy' or 'very concerened' like options when I'm a DB member with 200+ infamy and hundreds of murders.

 

5. Revamping the Disposition system... I dont like every tramp and citizen dying when I fight a few guards because I had a high personality and fame and they decided to give me some 'help'. The cities are empty enough as it is without the entire population disappearing due to their 'heroic' actions.

 

People of a certain faction should never be able to attack one another. I've seen a imperial huntsman attack a deer and, for whatever reason, a second huntsman then attacked the first one. So I just came across two huntsmen owning each other with bows. This seemed so bizarre to me. I have seen plenty of instances were normal guards attack one another, combined with dispositions, leading to the deaths of many guards and citizens.

 

6. There being more to becoming the top dog in any given guild. Being listener is fairly lame... I'd love to be a speaker, having to get into someones house undetected and make a deal with him. Perhaps a system depending on your success and failures or parameters met in certain quests. You would end up not always at the very top of the chain. ie... muck up a few quests in the fighters guild? Perhaps the dark elf (forgot his name) becomes Guild Master instead of you, but you get to be '2nd in command'.