lol Consider it noted. There are lots of little ways, but I'll try to focus on a few of big ones. I think the elephant in the room is the removal of stats. Rather than repeat myself, I will ask you to please view my earlier post to see why I think removing stats actually added sophistication to Skyrim, even though superficially that sounds dissonant. The expansion of the perk system added new depth, specialization, and meaningful choice that Oblivion simply never had.woodaba said:Please tell me where Skyrim is more sophisticated than Oblivion. And don't say Story/Quests or I will HURT you. Not really. Symbolically.
Another big one is exposition. By far the most shocking disappointment of Oblivion was how the region of Cyrodiil itself did not feel explained and explored and examined in depth. Oh, any old game has these qualities to some extent, but Morrowind had a detailed and interesting explanation for every goddamn thing. And everything fit together and played off everything else to create a really interesting and believable landscape. There was so much to learn, and every location 'felt' real. Dwemer ruins contained Dwemer artifacts. A slavers' hideout contained things you would expect to find there. Oblivion didn't lack these expository elements completely, but they were emphasized much more in Skyrim. This may sound like a small thing to worry about, but in The Elder Scrolls it's everything.
And at the risk of being symbolically hurt, I am going to bring up the story lol. But maybe not in the way you think. This ties in to my point about exposition. Politically, culturally, and economically, Oblivion was fucking boring town. No one was having any kind of major political struggle or upheaval. In a game that is specifically about a region. Oh god, someone kill me! Maybe you'll call me an idiot because the Emperor just got assassinated, but that was an external threat for all intents and purposes. I mean, the man got murdered, and what happened to his Empire? Absolutely nothing. Talk about a missed opportunity for storytelling and world-building! Skyrim's attempts at reintroducing these elements were a little awkward, but they were very effective sometimes and they definitely weren't such colossal failures that we would have been better off without them.