Ways that Oblivion is superior to Skyrim

[cocoadog]

Perhaps because every location in oblivion is identical. A forest with the occasional hill. Even the dungeons were repetitive. Skyrim is a huge improvement in nearly every way and maybe even the best elder scrolls game to date.

 

[i7omahawki]

I am glad you enjoy fighting the dragons in this game. I enjoy it too, just as much as I enjoy slashing a wolf and it flies a few feet. Nothing special about that dragon avatar.

Well that's a ridiculous argument, as you've pointed out yourself in that comparison.

The dragon flies, circles, hovers, lands, and attacks depending on your position. It behaves like a dragon. This creates an actual experience rather than splashing stats all over your screen. I'm in it for the experience, to feel like I'm in a different world, with different experiences in it. Not to feel like an angry accountant jerking off to the matrix screensaver.

They've captured something really well here in this game, I think. And well, I've attempted to explain as best I can why the dragons add so much, but there's only so much one can state, if the clearly visible isn't observed.

 

[TheSaw]

I miss the "Stop right there criminal scum!"

But seriously, I much prefer the cities in Oblivion, they just seem more lively. I do like the ones in Skyrim and I can understand why they're smaller and less busy, but yeah. I liked the cities in Oblivion more.

 

[DaJoW]

The UI, the map and the removal of customizing hair colour are the ones that really bug me, but mostly the UI. Different menus for magic and items, no way of sorting (which I feel is a big deal, especially when looking for a better weapon), the way it is clearly meant for consoles and PC interface is basically "WASD is D-pad" rather than making use of the mouse... They've also done a fairly poor job at equipping stuff, at least on the PC, though that's not really a way Oblivion was better since that could never be an issue.

Overall I do find Skyrim better and more engaging. Plus, no more mudcrab discussions!

 

[RazielXT]

Mages have their quests a bit weaker compared to Oblivion, Mages university is really just small place for magic shopping and short, weak questline and you become archmage in no time, I was hoping for little Hogwarts, oh well...

Other than that, Skyrim is much better for me. (PC)

 

[Darkmantle]

reasons skyrim is better than oblivion

-my character doesn't look like crap
-they have an actual art direction
-the environments are gorgeous
-the AI is significantly better
-the opening scene isn't boring as all hell.
-Skyrim preforms waaaaaay better than oblivion


I'm sorry, but 40% of your complaints stem from "I don't like the UI"

that's the best you got?

 

[Karochi]

The running and jumping was ridiculous in Oblivion. You're not supposed to jump 3 meters straight forward while in full daedric armor... just... no.
Also... Making your own gear! I don't remember doing that in Oblivion!

 

[Smooth Operator]

To be even clearer, a rat is a wolf is a lion to me and a dragon is a giant is a mammoth to me. High level enemies and low level enemies are the only two types I see.

Sorry are you an accountant by any chance?
Because that is the most soulless and saddest thing I ever heard from a gamer, and it really makes me wonder why you even play games...

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Fair points, EXCEPT for athletics & acrobatics, those broke oblivion(like Morrowind) so bad.

They break Oblivion if you choose them as Major Skills. If they are minor skills, they are fantastic.

Unless he's talking about the crazy shit you could pull with a high acrobatics. Which got even more mad when you added buff acrobatics 100 points spells and cast more than one at the same time! You could jump up oblivion gate towers!

 

[NightHawk21]

IMO Skyrim is like a refined version of Oblivion with Dragons. Truth be told the only things I miss about Oblivion that aren't in Skyrim are the inventory sorts, sine it makes it kind of hard to find one specific item that I need in my chest of like 300 random weapons, and the fact that I can't search every box, and the searching is not so much for the fact that I want to search every box (I don't), but I wish I had more storage room in whiterun.

Other than that, I feel like Skyrim is an amazing game and its the most fun I've had with a game in a while.

 

[not_you]

I guess I understand your views... And that regardless of what I, or anyone else for that matter says we're not going to change your mind...

But, with the arguments you do have, I guess I can try to counter them differently from what other people have....
Athletics and Acrobatics were pointless skills in my opinion... I mean, when you have to literally press auto-run into a corner and leave the game for what turned out to be nearly a day to max out the perk, THAT was more annoying than anything else... Sure, you could run faster, but, I wouldn't care... Having to spend so much wasted time trying to level the damn perk would never amount to anything... Acrobatics is the same... standing in a corner mashing the jump key doesn't sound like my idea of fun....

Characters look exactly the same at the end of the game anyway....
Everyone is running around in the same bits of armour so the only thing you would notice is the face... And even then, you'd be staring at the back of their head or, not see the character at all...

Compared to Oblivion, I MUCH preferred the UI... Sure, it got a little annoying at times but once you got used to everything being sorted alphabetically then you know where to go for what you're looking for... But this is personal preference...

And what do you mean by Oblivion performs better at it's worst...?
I was damn surprised to find that Skyrim was so well optimised... I mean, I play it on my laptop which has an HD 5730M, and it runs on max with very slight hiccuping when massive bits of world are in view... Of course, that's a PC perspective, if you're complaining about console then I can't say I know what you're talking about....

 

[VoidWanderer]

Umbra. Oh, and making your own spells was kinda cool too (unless you deliberately broke the game with them) These are the only things I miss from Oblivion.

I like the fact that the PC is the one supposed to kick the main bad guy's ass, and not a whiny young man who does it out of 'duty'.

I like the fact that the cities seem more populated than any of the others in Oblivion.

I like being able to smith my own equipment, something I had prayed for since Morrowind.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The loss of the spell creator seems like it would be a real blow to Mage focused characters.

Skyrim's interface is prettier, but fussier. Both interfaces were terrible, but Oblivion's was less prone to hijinx and ergo more functional.

Oblivion's deeply fucked up leveling/stats/skills scheme was more complex than Skyrim's. Those who could tolerate how anti-intuitive it was might lament the streamlining.

That's about all I've got. I replayed a heavily modded up Oblivion pretty recently, too, and being as objective as possible Skyrim rather handily eclipses it in most core elements of game play. I'm really struggling to understand why ANYONE would prefer Oblivion other than pure nostalgia/rose colored glasses.

 

[Crazy]

Skyrim cons:

- The selection menus (pause) is more complicated.
- Pulling weapon animation.
- Magic in some ways.

I'll think of more as I get along.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I don't think Acrobatics and Athleticism really offered something substantial, gameplay-wise. I'm glad that they took what was relevant from that skill and put it in some skill trees. I just wonder why they took Unarmed out of it, I mean at least that was a combat skill. I want to make a Bruce Lee character dammit!

For me, its the fact that I enjoyed Oblivion wholeheartedly.
Skyrim......I did not.

Thats my argument over with I guess, just need to sit back now and wait for the "your gay" responses to come flying at me again.

An argument would follow with "Because..." etc. So I wonder; why is that? Just, y'know, curious.

I was afraid that the perks were going to replace the natural skill building. That is not a positive to me.

They didn't replace the natural skill building, that's still there, you still build your skills as usual, you can just choose extra bonuses with those perks.

When the game wasn't lagging, maybe the combat was more fluid. To be honest though, I didn't think the combat was that much different from Oblivion. You hit X, you swing your sword and you hit something. Am I missing something?

I agree that there isn't that much different, but weapons did seem to connect a bit better, swings felt more fluid.

I have read that there are very few spells to be had.

Not true, I've seen quite a lot of them already, and that's just in the Novice-Adept range.

Just a bunch of presets. Most of which suck.

Uhhh, no? I still fiddled around with plenty of good ol' sliders.

Wait, hold up a minute. Skyrim's UI is worse than Oblivion? How is that even possible? Well, a decent UI mod will be the first thing I source for Skyrim when I buy it in three years.

It isn't, really. It still suffers from some design flaws, but it's a lot cleaner and responds a lot quicker than Oblivion's.

 

[Lineoutt]

Number of dragons in Oblivion: 0
Number of dragons in Skyrim: infinity

and thats a bad thing.... how?

EDIT:
Oh yeah while I think concerning vanilla skyrim vs vanilla oblivion, skyrim wins a million times and disintegrates oblivion into a trillion tiny dust flecks, I think heavily modded oblivion had aspects superior to skyrim. However I bet that all of those superiorities will be reproduced and improved even more when the creation kit is released. Hurry it up bethesda!!

 

[godofallu]

Oblivion had a spell/powers button instead of a powers/Shout button. Using restoration magic or spells while holding a sword/shield was awesome.

Also Oblivion had a better character creator, and allowed you to pick tag skills.

Oh and Oblivion had the custom spell creator.

Plus Oblivion had a better tutorial.

And I liked Oblivion's leveling up system more, you don't get underpowered by accidentally leveling up speechcraft and lockpicking.

I also liked Chameleon, it was cool.

All things considered I would have gladly spent 200 dollars on each game.

 

[NightHawk21]

Spoiler

Also isnt there something under one of the skill trees that makes u run faster. I can't quite recall but I think its somewhere in the theif.

I was afraid that the perks were going to replace the natural skill building. That is not a positive to me.

While I agree the menus need refining I have to say the game was absolutely stunning. the combat was so much more fluid it was insane and I found myself shield bashing my way to victory more times than I can count (much betetr than having to rely on some 10% chance crap like in oblivion)

When the game wasn't lagging, maybe the combat was more fluid. To be honest though, I didn't think the combat was that much different from Oblivion. You hit X, you swing your sword and you hit something. Am I missing something?

Spells are also greatly developed. While not as Overpowered as melee is when u are at end game I love how diverse the spell system is rather thn oblvions method of shooting different colored orbs everywhere.

I have read that there are very few spells to be had.

Dragons. Nuff said.

Oh boy a different enemy avatar! Could be a cliff racer for all I care.

Also I found the character creator to be nice and actually functions alot better than in oblivion.

Just a bunch of presets. Most of which suck.

For the few negatives I have about skyrim I have to say that the positives outweigh it by a truly insane amount.

I hope it will grow on me but as of now, I can't agree.

1) The perks allow you to make a more specialized character and they make your character more unique than in Oblivion IMO. In oblivion I rolled a knight and ended up being a well rounded character with maxed magic, sneak, and lockpick. In skyrim I'm a mage who melts people with lighting, but I sure as shit can't hold my own against any stronger enemy with my axes.

2)I haven't spent much time with physical weapons (I only killed one dragon with my axes when I ran outta mana, but there are execution moves and the skill tree is the very good looking. Saying you press X to swing a sword or axe or whatever is saying that CoD and Ratchet and Clank also have no differences between the weapons, because you push a button to shoot things and you hit it or you don't.

3) In any one particular school sure, but in comparison to Oblivion I'm almost certain there are more core abilities. Sure oblivion had a make your own spell feature, but the core amount of abilities that it had is less than the spells in Skyrim I think.

4)Dragons are cool. If you don't care about anything other than stats you might get more enjoyment out of a text based game. Saying a game has enemy variety (true variety in that dragons don't act like any other enemy) is never a point against the game.

5) I find the character creator to be better than in Oblivion. The models look nicer and more distinct from each other. Besides in the end you never see your character's face anyway. My mage has been wearing a mask since I've found it.

 

[Instant K4rma]

Number of dragons in Oblivion: 0
Number of dragons in Skyrim: infinity

I don't care and I have never cared about the inclusion of dragons. They're pretty weak anyway but let's be clear that dragons could be replaced with any other creature not present in previous TES games and I would have cared the same, none. To be even clearer, a rat is a wolf is a lion to me and a dragon is a giant is a mammoth to me. High level enemies and low level enemies are the only two types I see.

That everyone was so hyped that there were dragons in this game, I just never understood.

So what it really comes down to is personal preference. You don't care about dragons while others, me included, love them. I guess I don't see the point of this thread in that case. If you like Oblivion over Skyrim, then play Oblivion. Case closed, I guess?