Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls

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I'm thinking of buying the elder scrolls at the end of the year but I'm not too sure what it offers. I've heard mostly good remarks about it. Does it follow an RPG game format?? And are there mages and spells in it?? I Love Mages And All Things Magical!

 

It's a good game, but I found with Oblivion and Morrowind that the games are too open ended and allow for unbalanced play. Alchemy for example allows the player to break the economics of the game by simply doing it. Much of the combat side of it is mouse and keyboard work, rather than strategy, sadly.

In addition the training system utterly forces powerplaying. And the system which determines your level is badly designed since you could end up level 10 and weak, or level 3 and extremely powerful. That is slightly offset by the level limits on certain items, but that's a cludge fix. Oh, and the enemies perfectly scale to your level. When that is factored in it encourages you to go for high skills and low levels. If you don't powerplay you get owned. Powerplaying is, I'm afraid, intuitive and something you'll do because the game encourages it.

The graphical engine is very good though, visually it's utterly impressive. You WILL find yourself looking at a nice view in the same manner you would if you walked to the top of a hill in the countryside.

The game world itself is vast, and there is plenty to see. There's lots of little easter egg style things in there too, which make it a joy to explore.

It's just a shame the difficulty on the game is messed up by the decision to go for a bad level/skill system just to ensure they don't copy the D&D style system, or copy a system which heavily restricts character abilities.

I've dragged the game out a few times with the intention of playing it properly, but I quickly either lose interest or get sidetracked and end up focusing on one element and end up losing interest.

Overall though, despite my criticisms, it's a great game.

 

1) There's nothing to do in it. You grind enemies that are scaled to your level for hours. The missions are boring (except dark brotherhood). I guess some people hit level 100 or so, but for me, lvl. ten was enough.
2) Like I said in number one, it's boring. Biggest flaw a game could have. Maybe it's the bloom. And the scaled enemies.
3) You'll end up as "jack of all" at level 6.
4) There's no actual role playing. It's an action-action RPG.
5) Voice acting's bad, vast spaces filled with nothing, bandits with ridiculously good loot etc.
6) "Mudcrabs. Horrible creatures. I avoid them whenever I can." There I said it.

Doing the dark brotherhood quests and then completing the main one is kind of awesome. Then you get bored.

 

I utterly agree with what has been posted so far. Shivering Isles (the expansion) is great though, the atmosphere is so special that it allowed to forget the game's shortcomings (at least for a while).

Level scaling is just silly you can do many things in the main quest with a low level character and that is just nonsense!

Spoiler

For instance I did the first gate with a level 3 character.

The graphics are the strong point and some quests are fun (like Trellheim I loved the Dark Brotherhood) but (like Halk posted) it's not an RPG.

I wish it was more like Might and Magic 6, in that game you didn't know if a dungeon was too difficult for your party before you ran into a monster that would kill half of your party in one blow.

Nevertheless if you like powergaming and exploration you may enjoy it.

 

I agree with a lot of what has been posted. This is a graphic game and a modder's delight. By now the game should be cheap to get. Be sure to get the official plug-ins. I love Shivering Isles.

Most people say the Dark Brotherhood quests are the best but personally I prefer the Thieves Guild although by the time I get near the end of the quests I want to bash the Grey Fox. Some of the miscellaneous quests are quite fun. I like the main quest.

My biggest complaint of the game is that IMO it is not integrated; IE: You become Archmage and who cares? You can join everything, do everything. It is an open ended game and Bethesda states that clearly.

Now what makes this a great game and not a mediocre one?

Mods! Don't like something there's a mod to fix it. Leveling mods, fighting mods, eye candy mods, companion mods, alternate start mods and quest mods. I have about 80 mods installed and about 60 mods activated in my last game. Some people have more than 250. Yes, there is a way to get around the 250 limitation.

Warning: There is no way that all mods can be 100% compatible. No matter how hard a modder tries to make his mod compatible to other mods there are bound to be conflicts. nexus has over 10,000 mods listed and there are mods which are not on nexus. When you start modding your game be sure to get a mod manager, there are several. I have both OMOD and Wrye Bash. Load order is very important. The last mod loaded overwrites prior mods. If you load mods A and B with A first and B second then B may possible overwrite things that A uses.

Do I recommend the game? Yes, buy it cheap, play for a while, see what you like and don't like then mod it.

Oh yes: RPG? You can role play it. But it is more an adventurers' game.

 

There is a simple solution to Oblivion and Morrowind's open-endedness: just because you can do everything, don't.

I had the most fun with both games by limiting myself from the outset. If I was playing a mage, I stuck to casting spells and brewing potions. If I found some uber sword or suit of armor, I didn't use it even though I could.

If I decided my character was a law-abiding, ethical guy I'd not break into people's houses and steal all their stuff.

Also, there are mods for both games to fix the unbalances, such as the magic system and alchemy. There are mods that make the level-scaling less heavy-handed.

Having said all that, I do agree with what most have already said. Oblivion feels like a rogue-like, i.e. you spend hours killing generic monsters in generic dungeons and picking up lots of generic loot. It looks great but is really lacking in soul. The game just doesn't have that hand-made feel which all the best RPGs have.

 

I liked both games (I liked Daggerfall too). I'm with Fink on the openendedness. If you want to power play, then power play. If you want to role play, then be disciplined and role play.

I found them to be fun, interesting and exciting. The gates in Oblivion get repetetive, but other than that, I really liked it.

 

That's the thing I don't like. It's not table D&D. You're not supposed to RP in a CRPG, the game is supposed to provide that. You're supposed to bring some character to your PC and that's it. Not motivation and restrictions.

BTW. Is something powergaming if it's really the most sensible way? Say I'm a beginner dunmer mage, with low magicka. I'm in some ruin hall and all the doors are locked. If I had Fink's übersword stashed in my invisible bag and there are three trolls in the other side of the hall, would I use it? Yes I would, that's just common sense.

This goes a long way in the "IMHO" alley of course.

 

RPing Oblivion is hard. I find it easier to RP Morrowind. When I say role play I mean choose what type of character my character has. The two really good rewards in Oblivion you get by being a thief and a Dark Brother. I found it rather fun to play Knights of the Nine after becoming the Grey Fox and the head of the DB.

As far as Oblivion gates go there is a cheat to close them and yes I now use it. I don't think you can use it for Kvatch or Cheydinhal (sp?). I don't use it for any of the main gates. Oh, of course you can't use it for the Bruma gate. You do not get the sigil stones but I have a mod that adds stones that are better than the sigil stones so no loss there. I believe there are potentially 100 gates you can close. After several games where I closed between 40 to 50 gates each game I got really sick of them.

Actually there are two cheats, one closes the gate before you enter and the other closes it after you enter. I use the second because you get credit for closing the gate.