Things from Oblivion/Morrowind Skyrim could've kept

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Papoy

DON'T EXPECT SPOILER WARNINGS FROM ME
I didnt play any of past TES games (though I did take time to read their main storylines). So I'd like to know what people actually prefered with oblivion/morrowind. So far, i heard about spell-crafting in oblivion, journal in morrowind and that skyrim changed leveling system. What are your thoughts?
 

Nephor The Shadow Stalker

Strike swiftly and silently.
I've played Morrowind and Oblivion. I've even played Redguard and the lesser known Battlespire. I recently played Daggefall for the first time and it was pretty fun but replaying these games does have a tendency to turn off more moder gamers and casuals. Redguard is the most different and the most fun I say. It's a swashbuckling pirate tale set in the Elder Scrolls universe. The others are similar. They have the level system which all should be familiar with if they played Oblivion and yet they're built like classic RPG's with high level areas for adventuring. The biggest difference is no fast travel. I don't find this as bothersome as others might but I do hate looting and needing a quick trip to the market. Still if you're looking for some challenging gameplay with Skyrim flair go ahead and check them out. Be warned. They are rather difficult. Myself I feel that Skyrim is an improvement. Of course it's not perfect but neither are the other games. Except Redguard. :D

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Kohlar the Unkilled

Time for some ale
Aside from the afore mentioned spell crafting, (which is huge by the way), in Oblivion you could pay a mage to recharge your enchanted weapons. It was expensive, but it just seems intuitive that this should be an option. Casting a spell in your sword hand without the need to unequip/reequip your weapon was also huge. ...And touch spells, which I used often. I miss those. Oblivion also had variable speed horses, the black horse being much faster than the paint horse, with the other varieties in between with both speed and stats. :beermug:
 

Nephor The Shadow Stalker

Strike swiftly and silently.
I know what you mean but it was completely unbalanced. Oblivion was the closest but also the most delicate. Level up one skill too much and the game gets unplayable at times. Morrowind was pretty absorbing and most of it was the music. Yes the writing and atmosphere helped a lot. Battlespire was memorable for being outright brutal but addictive in way that's like one more hour. Daggerfall was seemingly the hardest with magic being really geared towards magic based characters. Point is they all have their high points and low points. Skyrim manages to have more highs because of its versatility and playability. Even with the spell creator you were limited by what tools were available. Then the modding came in and became huge. I don't care for mods. Partly because I play on console but mostly due to enjoying the game from start to finish as is. Yes Skyrim never ends but we asked for it because of Fallout 3. If Skyrim had a definitive ending the community wouldn't have gotten as creative as it has. Sorry if I seem rambling. [emoji14]

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Lady Redpool the Unlifer

Pyro, Spirits Connoisseur, and Soulless Anarchist
Spell crafting(which was mentioned already)
Touch spells were fantastic.(Already mentioned)
Being able to block when fighting unarmed.
Where the hell are all the weapons we had in morrowind(had the same complaint about oblivion)?
Requirements to join the various guilds(recommendations for the arcane university, either hunting down the thieves guild, or going to jail, murdering someone before joining the dark brotherhood)
I think Skyrim really should have an arena. How the hell do the nords not have a fighting arena of some sort?
Feather and unlock spells.

I understand that they were rushing to a release date, and that it was a whole new game setup and engine, but come on, some of these would have been pretty easy.
 

Nephor The Shadow Stalker

Strike swiftly and silently.
All of you played Skyrim but have you even been paying attention to the games evolution and why it has evolved in such a way? Skyrim is not Cyrodiil where they can kill each other for sport. Haven't you ever noticed that Skyrim is really hard to traverse? Course not it's all easy when you're just playing a game. Then there's the closed off communities with loads of problems and false facts being thrown around. The collage of Winterhold collapsed half of the city hence why magic is distrusted and why Skyrim doesn't have mages like Cyrodiil, Daggerfall etc... If you played the other games (which I recommend to everyone) you pick up on these things and understand why they are the way they are.

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quests like the one in the Oblivion DB were you kill the whole house of people with no one knowing who you are. Or the one were you slip francios mottiere into a coma with a poison then wake him up.
See I DO love the DB in skyrim though. I do wish there were a couple more clever assassinations but the clever assassinations are there in the game. Most people just dont know. you have to know how to find them. On every contract ask for advice from everyone.
Things like how in the bound until death quest have the following clever assassinasions. You can ask gabriella for advice and she will tell you of a "present" she left you on a balcony oposite were vicci is that is perfect for a long range kill. It is a bow called firnriels end elven bow with 20 frost damage. 6 elven arrow and a leveled archery potion. Or the same quest Babette tells you of a loose gargoyle you can push down on vicci. Things like that make it more fun and make for more challenging and clever assassinations. It also gives more of a feel of family and helping each other.
I chose the bow for the assassination of vicci.
 

Lady Redpool the Unlifer

Pyro, Spirits Connoisseur, and Soulless Anarchist
All of you played Skyrim but have you even been paying attention to the games evolution and why it has evolved in such a way? Skyrim is not Cyrodiil where they can kill each other for sport. Haven't you ever noticed that Skyrim is really hard to traverse? Course not it's all easy when you're just playing a game. Then there's the closed off communities with loads of problems and false facts being thrown around. The collage of Winterhold collapsed half of the city hence why magic is distrusted and why Skyrim doesn't have mages like Cyrodiil, Daggerfall etc... If you played the other games (which I recommend to everyone) you pick up on these things and understand why they are the way they are.

Sent from my LGMS428 using Tapatalk
I get the not having an arena thing. It's just that I as a gamer want one, not necessarily that it would fit in the setting.

The magic thing though, it shouldn't be as scarce as it is. Yes the general community of skyrim distrust it, but I feel like that's actually a fault of Skyrim as a game. The lore of the elder scrolls doesn't depict Nords as distrustful of magic until this game. As a matter of fact, they used to be rather reverant of it, especially the restoration schools. Hell, they used to have an affinity for frost magic in previous games. Besides that, the College of Winterhold is one of the oldest institutes of magic in Tamriel. They should not have less magical knowledge than the mage's guilds of Cyrodil nearly 300 years earlier. Especially because several of the spells that are missing still exist mechanically in the game(tower stone's unlock ability, increase carry weight enchantments, water walking and waterbreathing enchantments). It's a half baked magic system, likely because they were pushing a release date(We KNOW a bunch of stuff was unfinished because of their schedule. Civil war, several college of winterhold side quests, etc.).

On that note, I guess I can forgive them the lack of weapon varieties. Even if I'm not happy about it, animations for different weapon types aren't easy to make, and many of the weapons were cut from the series in Oblivion, not with the release of Skyrim. Hell, they DID give us back our crossbows.

While we're talking about weapons: What's with staves being so lame? No xp for using them, the animations suck, and......well, they fixed the "we can't make our own" thing.

Actual requirements for the various guilds: I stand by this one. The college not letting you in until you cast a spell(or shout and prove you're dragonborn) is alright, but the dark brotherhood doesn't recruit you for murdering an innocent, they find you because you steal an exceptionally easy kill(for which there are no consequences), the thieves guild doesn't care if you've never commited a crime before(or that you might be broke as plops, so obviously not profitable), and the companions.........I've got alot of problems with the companions as they are, different discussion, different time.

My personal biggest gripe though is the absolute plops that is unarmed combat in Skyrim, including not being able to block while unarmed. Would it really have been that difficult to give us some kind of block mechanic? Treat them like a 2-handed weapon with incredibly low weight and damage instead of as dual wielding and ta-da, we have blocking within the engine without destroying unarmed combat's speed, or unbalancing it with too much damage.

Just my thoughts. I love Skyrim, but I feel like they definitely cut some things out, that should have been in. Wouldn't have killed them, or us, to miss that precious 11.11.11 release date to make an overall more complete game.
 
  • Actual, relevant guild quests. In Skyrim, the Thieve's Guild questline was... well, about half-way through, you stopped being a thief and became either Lara Croft with a vengeance kick. Seriously - a heist in a Dwemmer ruin? It's not a friggin' heist if the original owners are dead and nobody knows where it is! You're not doing thieving, you're doing archaeology! I want to steal an Elder Scroll from the Imperial tower, gosh darn it! Something with stakes, something that's actually stealing! And like Yingvar said, the options in the Dark Brotherhood quest were just amazing fun, and that house party one was so memorable! I can barely remember any of the quests from Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood except for the one where you assassinate Vitoria Vicci - because it was so open-ended! And I love the Mage's Guild quests, as I got a real 'I'm a student at magic school' vibe from that, at least for the first couple of quests, but... you didn't need to know any magic to go through it!

  • Speaking of which, better progression through the guilds too. It makes no sense to walk into a place one day, then be running the place two days later. I don't think it should be locked behind skill barriers like you did in Morrowind (except, perhaps, for the Mage's Guild... at least make me need to learn some magic!) but at least make me work for it. Or even better... you don't have to make me the leader of the guild at the end, you know! I really felt like I worked for it in Oblivion. I also didn't quite feel like the guids simply up and died straight after finishing their main quests, either. They felt like they continued working, somehow, and I didn't get that from Skyrim.

  • Better guild recruitment, too! I loved how if you accidentally killed someone in Oblivion, you'd get an unexpected nighttime visit from Lucian. Or how you had to ask around about the Thieve's Guild and get yourself arrested. I don't actually want a return to the Morrowind system, where you'd make enemies of one faction if you joined another that they hated - it doesn't make a huge amount of sense for the Companions, for example, to have any idea if you're a member of the Thieve's Guild, so I'm glad they don't acknowledge that - but some kind of Oblivion-style, memorable or tricky recruitment process would be nice. I mean... the Thieve's Guild approaches you! As soon as you walk into Riften! And tries to put you up to framing someone else for theft! Even if you've never stolen a thing in the game! It's no wonder they're falling apart if that's how they recruit people - how many potential candidates have immediately gone running to the guards and ratted them out?! How doesn't Mjoll know what Brynyolf is up to? Does he do that to everybody who enters the city?!

  • More spell variety. I don't actually think we should have the option to craft our own magic anymore. I'm glad that's gone. It was so overpowered. But can't we have more spell variety? Where is the water-walking, or levitation, or teleportation? The best 'spells' in the game are the abilities the Vampire Lord has!

  • More nuanced quests. Going off what I said about the DB, the quests in Oblivion especially were just so unique. Who can forget renting a room aboard that boat inn, only to wake up and find yourself out at sea on a hijacked boat? Or the time you delved into a painting to rescue the artist who created it from his own work? Or what about the time you stumbled upon a village and were startled to find that the entire population was invisible, and they didn't know why? How about when a paranoid conspiracy theorist randomly approached you in Skingrad and had you investigate all his neighbours, only for the him to attack you if you tell him they're all innocent? The quests were so much more interesting, and rarely went the way you expected them to. In Skyrim, though, you can reliably expect one thing - you'll be killing draugr.

  • No more radiant quests. No, Bethesda, radiant quests aren't entertaining. Stop doing them. They suck. They're not a replacement for hand-crafted quests. Get your Morrowind writers back on the team and put them to work, pronto!

  • Fame/Infamy. I've just saved the world from Alduin, the World-Eater, defeated a vampiric invasion, and assassinated the emperor. Please have people acknowledge this in some way, besides guards making smarmy comments (how do they find out that I've joined the Dark Brotherhood so quickly, anyway? One guard knew before I did!). I loved how if you were a murderous criminal in Oblivion, your disposition with people would go down and the Nine would refuse to offer you blessings, while contrariwise if you were a world-saving goody-two-shoes everybody worshipped the ground you walked on. It doesn't have to be a complicated system, like something out of a Bioware RPG, but the fame/infamy system was perfect.

  • Degrading equipment. I don't think it should exactly as it was in Oblivion - I think they could integrate it into the new crafting system in some clever way. But once you've crafted and improved your best weapons and armour, that skill tree is completely pointless for the rest of the game and you never use a crafting station again. Why would you? You already have Dragonplate armour, a sword made out of Alduin's unmentionables, and a shield made out of Alduin's face! I'd love them to reintroduce equipment degredation in some way - marrying it with the smithing skill and the crafting stations perhaps, so that you have to keep on making use of that skill even after you've maxed it out.

  • First person horse riding! I don't actually play in first person most of the time, but I don't understand why this was removed.
 
  • Actual, relevant guild quests. In Skyrim, the Thieve's Guild questline was... well, about half-way through, you stopped being a thief and became either Lara Croft with a vengeance kick. Seriously - a heist in a Dwemmer ruin? It's not a friggin' heist if the original owners are dead and nobody knows where it is! You're not doing thieving, you're doing archaeology! I want to steal an Elder Scroll from the Imperial tower, gosh darn it! Something with stakes, something that's actually stealing! And like Yingvar said, the options in the Dark Brotherhood quest were just amazing fun, and that house party one was so memorable! I can barely remember any of the quests from Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood except for the one where you assassinate Vitoria Vicci - because it was so open-ended! And I love the Mage's Guild quests, as I got a real 'I'm a student at magic school' vibe from that, at least for the first couple of quests, but... you didn't need to know any magic to go through it!

  • Speaking of which, better progression through the guilds too. It makes no sense to walk into a place one day, then be running the place two days later. I don't think it should be locked behind skill barriers like you did in Morrowind (except, perhaps, for the Mage's Guild... at least make me need to learn some magic!) but at least make me work for it. Or even better... you don't have to make me the leader of the guild at the end, you know! I really felt like I worked for it in Oblivion. I also didn't quite feel like the guids simply up and died straight after finishing their main quests, either. They felt like they continued working, somehow, and I didn't get that from Skyrim.

  • Better guild recruitment, too! I loved how if you accidentally killed someone in Oblivion, you'd get an unexpected nighttime visit from Lucian. Or how you had to ask around about the Thieve's Guild and get yourself arrested. I don't actually want a return to the Morrowind system, where you'd make enemies of one faction if you joined another that they hated - it doesn't make a huge amount of sense for the Companions, for example, to have any idea if you're a member of the Thieve's Guild, so I'm glad they don't acknowledge that - but some kind of Oblivion-style, memorable or tricky recruitment process would be nice. I mean... the Thieve's Guild approaches you! As soon as you walk into Riften! And tries to put you up to framing someone else for theft! Even if you've never stolen a thing in the game! It's no wonder they're falling apart if that's how they recruit people - how many potential candidates have immediately gone running to the guards and ratted them out?! How doesn't Mjoll know what Brynyolf is up to? Does he do that to everybody who enters the city?!

  • More spell variety. I don't actually think we should have the option to craft our own magic anymore. I'm glad that's gone. It was so overpowered. But can't we have more spell variety? Where is the water-walking, or levitation, or teleportation? The best 'spells' in the game are the abilities the Vampire Lord has!

  • More nuanced quests. Going off what I said about the DB, the quests in Oblivion especially were just so unique. Who can forget renting a room aboard that boat inn, only to wake up and find yourself out at sea on a hijacked boat? Or the time you delved into a painting to rescue the artist who created it from his own work? Or what about the time you stumbled upon a village and were startled to find that the entire population was invisible, and they didn't know why? How about when a paranoid conspiracy theorist randomly approached you in Skingrad and had you investigate all his neighbours, only for the him to attack you if you tell him they're all innocent? The quests were so much more interesting, and rarely went the way you expected them to. In Skyrim, though, you can reliably expect one thing - you'll be killing draugr.

  • No more radiant quests. No, Bethesda, radiant quests aren't entertaining. Stop doing them. They suck. They're not a replacement for hand-crafted quests. Get your Morrowind writers back on the team and put them to work, pronto!

  • Fame/Infamy. I've just saved the world from Alduin, the World-Eater, defeated a vampiric invasion, and assassinated the emperor. Please have people acknowledge this in some way, besides guards making smarmy comments (how do they find out that I've joined the Dark Brotherhood so quickly, anyway? One guard knew before I did!). I loved how if you were a murderous criminal in Oblivion, your disposition with people would go down and the Nine would refuse to offer you blessings, while contrariwise if you were a world-saving goody-two-shoes everybody worshipped the ground you walked on. It doesn't have to be a complicated system, like something out of a Bioware RPG, but the fame/infamy system was perfect.

  • Degrading equipment. I don't think it should exactly as it was in Oblivion - I think they could integrate it into the new crafting system in some clever way. But once you've crafted and improved your best weapons and armour, that skill tree is completely pointless for the rest of the game and you never use a crafting station again. Why would you? You already have Dragonplate armour, a sword made out of Alduin's unmentionables, and a shield made out of Alduin's face! I'd love them to reintroduce equipment degredation in some way - marrying it with the smithing skill and the crafting stations perhaps, so that you have to keep on making use of that skill even after you've maxed it out.

  • First person horse riding! I don't actually play in first person most of the time, but I don't understand why this was removed.

That victoria vicci quest is prob my favorite.
 

Kohlar the Unkilled

Time for some ale
DarkBecky, the fame/infamy thing is something that I've preached since, since the beginning. Since Talos became one, instead of three.

I feel that all town's folks should immediately flee from an evil character, exceptions being Brynjolf, Madesi, Khajiit caravans and such... The point is: Acknowledgement of major deeds, good and bad. This should affect the entire game in terms of interactions in towns/cities/settlements.
:beermug:
 
DarkBecky, the fame/infamy thing is something that I've preached since, since the beginning. Since Talos became one, instead of three.

I feel that all town's folks should immediately flee from an evil character, exceptions being Brynjolf, Madesi, Khajiit caravans and such... The point is: Acknowledgement of major deeds, good and bad. This should affect the entire game in terms of interactions in towns/cities/settlements.
:beermug:
Plus, if the Guild and Brotherhood are 'secret', why do you strut around in immediately identifiable armor? This should pretty much ensure everyone will be on high alert.
 
DarkBecky, the fame/infamy thing is something that I've preached since, since the beginning. Since Talos became one, instead of three.

I feel that all town's folks should immediately flee from an evil character, exceptions being Brynjolf, Madesi, Khajiit caravans and such... The point is: Acknowledgement of major deeds, good and bad. This should affect the entire game in terms of interactions in towns/cities/settlements.
:beermug:
Plus, if the Guild and Brotherhood are 'secret', why do you strut around in immediately identifiable armor? This should pretty much ensure everyone will be on high alert.

Well this is before the days of photographs and TV, so most people probably wouldn't know Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood armour if you threw it at them. Likewise, they wouldn't know you were a member of those organisations either. The guards may have - and do - have inklings that you are up to no good, but they wouldn't know.

So I don't think we should go back to the days of Morrowind, where membership in one guild would automatically and instantly disbar you from others (how do they even know?!) unless you bribed them enough (which kinda took away from the idea of them being intractable enemies anyway). But after you've committed enough crimes, surely people would be talking about someone who kinda fits your description going around murdering people? And that's why the fame/infamy thing worked well for me - you could imagine that people weren't necessarily sure that you were the shadowy murderer that had occupied the town's gossip all week, but you sure as hell matched their description, so they were a bit suspicious of you. I think it was vague enough that it worked.
 

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