As much as I love Skyrim the things that annoy me the most are the backwards steps that seem to have been taken since Oblivion. Namely Skyrim needs:
--- to have staffs ("or should that be staves?") appear on your back if you have them equipped but "sheathed". The animation for taking a staff from your back in Oblivion was a little odd, but I'd rather that than my staffs despawning from my hand when I'm not using them.
--- to have more varied magic spells to cast. Don't get me wrong, the magic in Skyrim feels really powerful, it's great, but riding my horse across the water of the Niben Basin from the Imperial City to Leyawiin and fortifying my acrobatics to insanity - fantastic. it just seems that the abilities you can gain from magic have been needlessly reduced in number.
--- to have guilds that have multiple houses in different cities. It makes the events of a guild quest line feel very inconsequential if the guild isn't even important enough to hold a footing in more than just one major city of Skyrim.
--- a 1st person view for horse riding. A small thing, but speaking as a player that prefers to play in 1st person, a forced prolonged change to 3rd person is a little annoying.
--- larger cities, or at least one massive city. The Imperial City really felt like the hub of civilisation in Cyrodiil - you could spend an in game week without leaving the Imperial City and still have a wealth of things to do, whereas it took me a decent amount of gameplay to realise that Solitude was in fact the captial of Skyrim. They look great and all, but the cities of Skyrim still feel like little road stops in your journey through the land rather than places to live.
The fact that these things are present in Oblivion and not in Skyrim unfortunately makes them stand out all the more as being needed.
--- to have staffs ("or should that be staves?") appear on your back if you have them equipped but "sheathed". The animation for taking a staff from your back in Oblivion was a little odd, but I'd rather that than my staffs despawning from my hand when I'm not using them.
--- to have more varied magic spells to cast. Don't get me wrong, the magic in Skyrim feels really powerful, it's great, but riding my horse across the water of the Niben Basin from the Imperial City to Leyawiin and fortifying my acrobatics to insanity - fantastic. it just seems that the abilities you can gain from magic have been needlessly reduced in number.
--- to have guilds that have multiple houses in different cities. It makes the events of a guild quest line feel very inconsequential if the guild isn't even important enough to hold a footing in more than just one major city of Skyrim.
--- a 1st person view for horse riding. A small thing, but speaking as a player that prefers to play in 1st person, a forced prolonged change to 3rd person is a little annoying.
--- larger cities, or at least one massive city. The Imperial City really felt like the hub of civilisation in Cyrodiil - you could spend an in game week without leaving the Imperial City and still have a wealth of things to do, whereas it took me a decent amount of gameplay to realise that Solitude was in fact the captial of Skyrim. They look great and all, but the cities of Skyrim still feel like little road stops in your journey through the land rather than places to live.
The fact that these things are present in Oblivion and not in Skyrim unfortunately makes them stand out all the more as being needed.