The Elder Scrolls

[Pierre D'Olnique]

I despise the reworked chillrend in skyrim, the one in Oblivion was a monster of a weapon made for hyper aggressive playing, so good it used as a base for the DLC's Shadowrend and the (unfortunately bugged) Nerveshatter.

I don't think I've ever used it in Skyrim. Everything not immune to the ragdoll shout would just get thrown off the nearest cliff, and "challenging" fights ie. draugr death overlord or ancient+ dragons would just turn into a quickload fest if they decide to use one of those "fuck your everything here's an untelegraphed instakill" moves.
In Oblivion Chillrend was actually frustrating because of how early you could get it. That farm quest is so badly designed. The only time you can actually complete it reliably with both sons surviving is at the level 1-4 range and you'll be stuck with a piss weak Chillrend. Beyond that you will get overwhelmed by stronger goblin variants. At 25+ it's a constant stream of warlords.

The problem with Elder scrolls combat is that all weapons feel the same, there's virtually no difference between a daedric mace and iron sword, aside of swing speed and damage numbers, and maybe that's why Dark Souls is now considered by many the better medieval rpg that came out that same year.

Unfortunately that's just a base design flaw. Combat in TES is only supposed to exist and function, the game isn't built around it like DS is. Skyrim attempted to fix this by making it more complex (not better) and look where that got us, one gorillion total overhauls that all suck off FromSoft. Worse yet, they do nothing to help, because Skyrim's base combat doesn't even flow properly in Skyrim itself, so it's jank built upon jank.

Oblivions combat failures is that everything felt so floated and the enemies were sponges.

That's Skyrim. Oblivion is easily the most responsive and while endless scaling does bloat the enemy HP somewhat you shouldn't be really feeling it unless you try to smack them with an unenchanted dagger or something (or use destruction magic like a fool). Hell, even properly trained fists can easily dent everything. I once made a punchy Nord for fun and completed the whole game, with the biggest obstacle being myself, aka the clone you face near the end of SI.

 

[Strangolapreti]

In Oblivion Chillrend was actually frustrating because of how early you could get it. That farm quest is so badly designed. The only time you can actually complete it reliably with both sons surviving is at the level 1-4 range and you'll be stuck with a piss weak Chillrend. Beyond that you will get overwhelmed by stronger goblin variants. At 25+ it's a constant stream of warlords.

You aren't wrong about the wuest being assbut I still think it's more than worth the hassle to get the sword.

Unfortunately that's just a base design flaw. Combat in TES is only supposed to exist and function, the game isn't built around it like DS is. Skyrim attempted to fix this by making it more complex (not better) and look where that got us, one gorillion total overhauls that all suck off FromSoft.

When Dark souls came out everyone was sucking off bethesda's dick with skyrim getting award after award, it took a while for people to notice it but it quickly became a darling for both players, developers and journists alike.
Say all what you want about how retarded was giving DS the award of "Best game ever made of all time", but it says far more the fact that Skyrim wasn't among the nominees.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

When Dark souls came out everyone was sucking off bethesda's dick with skyrim getting award after award, it took a while for people to notice it but it quickly became a darling for both players, developers and journists alike.

Skyrim was getting sucked off because it was a multiplatform release of a venerated franchise so the masses were overlooking nearly every flaw. DS only came out on consoles, was a spiritual successor to a fairly obscure console exclusive and compared to Skyrim was also ballbustingly hard (both in terms of modding and gameplay).

Say all what you want about how retarded was giving DS the award of "Best game ever made of all time", but it says far more the fact that Skyrim wasn't among the nominees.

Skyrim is simply bland and directionless. It legitimately does not have any outstanding features that other games could aspire to copycat. It inspired no imitators. And Oblivion did. Twice, in fact. Everything about Skyrim is just kinda... there. White bread. White bread that you need to spruce up if you want to taste anything concrete.

 

[Asian tech support]

while endless scaling does bloat the enemy HP somewhat you shouldn't be really feeling it unless you try to smack them with an unenchanted dagger or something (or use destruction magic like a fool)

If you don't understand or fuck up your leveling, Oblivion enemies are way more spongy than Skyrim's. It's hard to gimp your damage output in Skyrim. Even harder for tourists who are gonna dump all their points into some combat skill and ignore everything else.

 

[Strangolapreti]

Skyrim was getting sucked off because it was a multiplatform release of a venerated franchise so the masses were overlooking nearly every flaw. DS only came out on consoles, was a spiritual successor to a fairly obscure console exclusive and compared to Skyrim was also ballbustingly hard (both in terms of modding and gameplay).

Yet the dsfix was released mere days after the pc port that came in 2012.
It's also noteworthy to point out that it was released aomost 2 month earlier than skyrim's overhyped 11-11-11, people just were overhyped Todd's words.

Skyrim is simply bland and directionless. It legitimately does not have any outstanding features that other games could aspire to copycat. It inspired no imitators. And Oblivion did. Twice, in fact. Everything about Skyrim is just kinda... there. White bread. White bread that you need to spruce up if you want to taste anything concrete.

You can easily find and watch the current lead writer at bethesda explain to an audience his writing process, he does sound like a talentless hack, with most notably his points being easily resumed in "gamers are stupid and don't care about the lore, so don't waste any effort on it".

If you don't understand or fuck up your leveling, Oblivion enemies are way more spongy than Skyrim's. It's hard to gimp your damage output in Skyrim. Even harder for tourists who are gonna dump all their points into some combat skill and ignore everything else.

You can fuck up skyrim the same if you level up stuff like illusion and alteration or alchemy early on.
What differentiates oblivion and skyrim is that the former's endgame skeletons doesn't carries any bow that can oneshot you from afar nor be able to use a spell that ragdoll you in order to prevent you from dodging said arrows.
I think no enemy from oblivion is as annoying as draugrs, falmers and even the fucking dwarven spheres, they all made me wish to go back to fight goblins and ogres.

 

[Asian tech support]

You can fuck up skyrim the same if you level up stuff like illusion and alteration or alchemy early on.
What differentiates oblivion and skyrim is that the former's endgame skeletons doesn't carries any bow that can oneshot you from afar nor be able to use a spell that ragdoll you in order to prevent you from dodging said arrows.
I think no enemy from oblivion is as annoying as draugrs, falmers and even the fucking dwarven spheres, they all made me wish to go back to fight goblins and ogres.

Yeah but that's a choice, albeit clearly a bad one. In Oblivion, you don't even get that choice. You jumped too much? You equipped armor? You sprinted? That's a dirty level now, boss. From the perspective of an experienced player, neither is an issue but for a new player, they're 100% going to fuck up their levels in Oblivion and probably not gonna level illusion or alchemy first in Skyrim.
If an endgame Skyrim character is getting bodied by archers, that's 90% a skill issue. The game gives the player adequate tools. Pure mages might have issues but stealth characters can pick them off first or get on top of them, and melee warriors are tanky and can do the . Todd gave everyone magic in the form of shouts.
Oblivion doesn't have enemies that are as annoying as Skyrim's and especially Morrowind's. Oblivion's enemies are mostly dumb meat sacks that have too much health if you messed up your levels. The worst enemies in Oblivion are ones with drain stat or attribute effects like elytra or gnarls. I never had a problem with dwarven spheres or draugr. The ragdolling from boss draugr is annoying but they stop becoming a problem as soon as you've got a few levels and can kill them from a distance or from stealth. Falmer are probably the worst and I like to avoid falmer dungeons early.

 

[Strangolapreti]

Yeah but that's a choice, albeit clearly a bad one. In Oblivion, you don't even get that choice. You jumped too much? You equipped armor? You sprinted? That's a dirty level now, boss. From the perspective of an experienced player, neither is an issue but for a new player, they're 100% going to fuck up their levels in Oblivion and probably not gonna level illusion or alchemy first in Skyrim.

Here's a funny thing about Oblivion, only major skills count for leveling, also you aren't leveling up automatically, you need to sleep first in oblivion and skyrim you need to access the menu for leveling.

If an endgame Skyrim character is getting bodied by archers, that's 90% a skill issue. The game gives the player adequate tools. Pure mages might have issues but stealth characters can pick them off first or get on top of them, and melee warriors are tanky and can do the . Todd gave everyone magic in the form of shouts.

Ok, i'll call that bullshit: draurs are tanky mother fucker and while you may be somehow able to apply it for the base game, it's complete bullshit in DLC areas, especially the first dungeon that just spams you with draugr death overlords.

Oblivion doesn't have enemies that are as annoying as Skyrim's and especially Morrowind's. Oblivion's enemies are mostly dumb meat sacks that have too much health if you messed up your levels. The worst enemies in Oblivion are ones with drain stat or attribute effects like elytra or gnarls. I never had a problem with dwarven spheres or draugr. The ragdolling from boss draugr is annoying but they stop becoming a problem as soon as you've got a few levels and can kill them from a distance or from stealth. Falmer are probably the worst and I like to avoid falmer dungeons early.

All skyrim builds ends up with the stealthy archer or the stunlock mage, all oblivion builds ends with the invincible 105% reflect damage 100% resist magic.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Yeah but that's a choice, albeit clearly a bad one. In Oblivion, you don't even get that choice. You jumped too much? You equipped armor? You sprinted? That's a dirty level now, boss. From the perspective of an experienced player, neither is an issue but for a new player, they're 100% going to fuck up their levels in Oblivion and probably not gonna level illusion or alchemy first in Skyrim.

I don't think that's fair. Oblivion doesn't require minmaxing and enchantments/artifacts exist to supplement your shortcomings and they're VERY easy to come by. You should really only care about increasing your Strength and Endurance. Personality is completely worthless because even a novice of illusion can cast a 50pt charm spell with 1 second duration, bribes exist, and in general the persuasion minigame is borderline impossible to fuck up if you have eyes. Intelligence is useless to a non-mage (and mages suck, why would you play one) since spell cost gets reduced the higher your skill is in a given school, and if the argument is Alchemy - you don't need more than restore fatigue/health/magicka potions. Cure paralysis, maybe. But in almost 20 years I've been paralyzed in combat maybe thrice. Similar case with willpower, which becomes COMPLETELY worthless if you picked Atronach as your birthsign. Speed does jack shit if you have low Strength, because the only thing that matters is the weight of your equipment, not your inventory. Agility and Luck are the only other two stats you can consider dumping points into.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Here's a funny thing about Oblivion, only major skills count for leveling,

And? Why wouldn't someone naturally level up their major skills while playing? I'm pretty sure every single pre made class in the game is set up in a way that would foster inefficient leveling outside of maybe pure mage and warrior?

And why would anyone think to pick skills they *won't* use as their major skills when creating a custom class?

Edit: I know that everyone loves to say that Bethesda doesn't test their games, but it really does feel like they don't even *play* their games because I can't believe anyone could play the game and not be like "this feels counter intuitive" at any point.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Wanted to follow up on a previous question I had asked, about making a Skyrim build for each race:

I was going to be running another character, this one backing the Stromcloaks; catch is, I was going to be having to use one of the two Beast races - Khajiit or Argonians. Basically, which race do you guys recommend for a Stormcloak character? I already have an idea for the build, so this basically just boils down to race.

To be honest, both races do feel like interesting options; given how the Khajiit are frequently Thalmor agents in-lore and tend to be the biggest race of degenerates, it does sound like a fun challenge making one that isn't a furfag and willing to actually fight for Skyrim. On the other hand, the Argonians are pretty badass in the lore, given how they overthrew both the Dunmer and invaded Oblivion, though the fact that they're kinda stuck in the Windhelm docks makes an Argonian voluntarily supporting the Stormcloaks a bit odd.

Admittedly, I am leaning a bit more towards the Khajiit, but which race do you guys think would be a more interesting option for a Stormcloak warrior?

 

[Strangolapreti]

Was thinking back about skyrim and emil pagliarulo saying "write what you know" and I find it quite ironic that the factions/guilds in that game were either lead by an incompetent/corrupted moron (mage/thief guild and dark brotherhood), corrupted by the influence of hunched monsters that vaguely resemble balding women (companions) or, like the empire, puppeted by a bunch of faggots that hates strong white men and a specific, very prominent religion.
Quite an unintended foreshadowing, I would love to say...

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Admittedly, I am leaning a bit more towards the Khajiit, but which race do you guys think would be a more interesting option for a Stormcloak warrior?

Khajiit, because stealth fits Stormcloaks' guerilla warfare style.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Admittedly, I am leaning a bit more towards the Khajiit, but which race do you guys think would be a more interesting option for a Stormcloak warrior?

A cat supporting supporting Ulfric would certainly be more unique, but make zero sense. Cats aren't even allowed into the cities proper save for one scripted Thalmor assassin.
A lizard Stormcloak at least could have the excuse of wanting to prove himself. IIRC they're kept outside Windhelm walls because they'd end up simply end up slaughtering the Dunmer out of vengeance. You can even beat the shit out of the guy who employs the lizards and this will result in them getting better pay and treatment. You won't see such animosity in Riften because everyone is treated equally. Equally shit.
Also imo lizards have better abilities. The racial power makes you unkillable for 60 seconds, permanent waterbreathing is one less enchantment/spell/potion you have to worry about (and when you realize you should have worried about it you're probably a few seconds from drowning), and resisting disease is always nice considering everything you fight in this game has AIDS. Cats do win out on raw unarmed damage, even if that's only useful in brawls which you will win as a lizard anyway.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

A cat supporting supporting Ulfric would certainly be more unique, but make zero sense. Cats aren't even allowed into the cities proper save for one scripted Thalmor assassin.

Was that Khajiit in general or just the caravans?

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Was that Khajiit in general or just the caravans?

There is not a single cat residing in any city in Skyrim. While not stated explicitly, it's strongly implied. The one sorcerer at the College of Winterhold doesn't really count, because, well, it's the College. They don't give a fuck and everyone shuns them anyway after the town itself collapsed into the sea. You can't even turn either of the available cat followers into a resident throught marriage because they can't become the player's spouse.

 

[Strangolapreti]

There is not a single cat residing in any city in Skyrim. While not stated explicitly, it's strongly implied. The one sorcerer at the College of Winterhold doesn't really count, because, well, it's the College. They don't give a fuck and everyone shuns them anyway after the town itself collapsed into the sea. You can't even turn either of the available cat followers into a resident throught marriage because they can't become the player's spouse.

skyrim was attempting a more darker edgy semi-realistic fantasy approach when compared to previous titles, morowind was attempting at sending you to a completely strange, almost alien world and oblivion is tour standard D&D campaign filled with minotaurs, goblins, unicorns and weird mudcrab people with pecs.
Considering the place and people that live it, it's quite understandeable that there's much less diversity when compared to Cyrodill.
Funnily enough, aside of the thalmor simps, trade caravan merchants and hunters for the Hircine quest, there are very few named kahjiit NPCs and all of them males: one is a skooma addict that you meet in the blackreach quest, the Peryte simp, M'aiq, a random enemy from a random nord ruin, J'zargo, the one you kill for the dark broterhood initiation and the Solitude's lighthouse guardian.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Allowed in the cities or no, the Khajiit are usually shown to be extremely pragmatic, abandoning allies when a battle goes awry (they expect this of their allies, too tbf). I can see a Khajiit throwing their lot in with the Stormcloaks given that the other side is in bed with the faction that wants them enslaved, or indentured servants at best. Especially since the Empire just tried to kill them for no reason.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Allowed in the cities or no, the Khajiit are usually shown to be extremely pragmatic, abandoning allies when a battle goes awry (they expect this of their allies, too tbf). I can see a Khajiit throwing their lot in with the Stormcloaks given that the other side is in bed with the faction that wants them enslaved, or indentured servants at best. Especially since the Empire just tried to kill them for no reason.

I mean, to be fair; pretty sure a lot of people would be willing to ally with the Stormcloaks if the Empire tried to kill them for no reason.

Taking a look at all the responses so far; there's quite a bit of interesting points to bring up with both races supporting the Stormcloaks, and it's fairly interesting to see how you could potentially write one of the beast races joining them. It's given me quite a bit to think about, frankly; the advantages and disadvantages of both races, the lore and story surrounding both, it's all giving me plenty of ideas. So, thanks for that!

Anyone has any more suggestions, ideas, lore to post, feel free.

 

[Strangolapreti]

Anyone has any more suggestions, ideas, lore to post, feel free.

There are a lot of nameless kahjiit serving as bandits and marauders, perhaps one of them could've moved to skyrim for fotrune, captured by the empire and decided to side with Ulfric because he was almost killed and an "enemy of my enemy" mentality?
Thinking about it, I don't really like how skyrim's removed classes and the reworked birthsigns.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Thinking about it, I don't really like how skyrim's removed classes and the reworked birthsigns.

Was there really much point to the class system after, say, Daggerfall though? Didn't everyone just choose a custom class? Unless you're talking about NPC-only classes, but they sill exist in Skyrim.