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teras
Village Dweller
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 12
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| Lets Discuss Some Major Flaws Of This Great Game |
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No, it's not sarkasm.
I have already stated in another thread that this is a great game.
I don't want to argue with people about their liking in the game.Besides it is really subjective for every individual.There is no "you shouldn't like " or "you should like" the game.It's just a game and we must have fun with it.
I really enjoy most of it so far but there some things that really bother me and these are not little things, minor details or something small to whine about.
I just want to know if I'm the only one to feel this way about it.
QUESTS!
I have only finished about 10 quests so far but I am not pleased with half of them.
ARENA
This should not be a quest to begin with.A quest is supposed to have a beginning and an end in my opinion.If the arena quest can't be completed because its neverending, there is no sense of acomplishment in it. Secondly, where are my choises in this quest?? Why do I have to kill the Ork Grand Champion without him fighting back, just because I revealed to him that his father was a vampire?"Kill me I want to die.." he said. I wanted freedom of choice like: A) Convince him that it is not his fault maybe, B) Walkaway, I didn't want to kill him without him fighting back. This is really an example of major lack of freedom in the game.
THOROMIR: Or something like that.I had to find out how a merchant in the imperial city could sell so cheap his stuff on behalf of the other merchants there, because they suspected he was doing something illegal.So I follow this Thoromir (or something like that) and find out that he got his stuff from some other guy whom I had to follow as well to his house.Then I had to sneak into his house and search for clues as to where he was getting the stuff to provide Thoromir his inventory, only to find out that he was graverobbing.Ok cool, so I get the book which contained proof of that to take to Thoromir and BANG: A guard arrests me.I reloaded the game because I thought it was bad timing or something.I didn't want to get caught isn't it natural?But NOOOO it didn't matter if nobody saw me going in the house, it didn't matter that I wasn't there to steal but only to get evidence to complete a quest as the good guy, I had to get caught by the almighty eyes of the law that know when you steal something in some magical way and make you pay for it or go to jail.It didn't matter that the book was still in my inventory after paying the fine.NO CHOICES, this is my point.Why can't I steal something unnoticed, why can't I murder some NPC unseen without getting caught for it everytime I see or talk to a guard?What kind of system is that?No freedom of playing.It's do this and you'll always have to answer to that.
GATES OF OBLIVION
Why, why, why do they have to be the same boring thing over and over again??Couldn't they design different gates?Did they (Testers,Devs) actually play a lot of hours before releasing the game and they didn't think it was boring? Am I insane or get bored easily?
THE CRAZY ELF QUEST
They are watching me, he said, follow them and report to me I'll pay you.
Three whole full days of watching "suspect" after "suspect" working and walking and doing nothing waiting for the big moment to uncover the big conspiracy.So there is no conspiracy, ok acceptable but why must he attack me after telling him the obvious, he's not being watched.What happened to "find help, or get over it, or ok now I'm releaved that nobody's watching me.No you have to kill the poor crazy bastard..or leave the Chief of Guard do it for you.
NO CHOICES.
I'm afraid that there wasn't enough attention to the plot and quests of this game.Sure, free travelling in vast forest areas is cool but the quests are more important than just looting forts and caves.The freedom should be in the things you can do in the game rather than the places you can go. |
Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:16 am |
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bjon045
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 02 Jun 2003
Posts: 234
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"Why do I have to kill the Ork Grand Champion without him fighting back, just because I revealed to him that his father was a vampire?"
Why did you challenge the white orc to a fight to the death if you didn't want to kill him? You shouldn't be fighting in the arena period if your role-playing a character with any morals - Did you have fun slaughtering the 3 argonian slaves? |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:15 pm |
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teras
Village Dweller
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 12
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You are simply saying "if you don't want to do it don't go to the arena"
The question is why don't I have several choices in the matter..?
It's all about not being linear.To have other possible solutions.
That's what I'm talking about. |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:12 pm |
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bjon045
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 02 Jun 2003
Posts: 234
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Choice 1: Do not fight in the arena.
Choice 2: Do the grey princes quest and reveal his identity but do not kill him in the arena - stay a champion.
Choice 3: Reveal his identity and murder him - become grand champion
Choice 4: Do not do the grey princes quest and beat him in a fair and square battle - become grand champion
Are you look for a choice 5? i.e.
Choice 5: Do the grey princes quest and reveal his identity which makes him "retire" allowing you to become the grand champion |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:10 pm |
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Wulf
The Shepherd
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 2312
Location: North/West.England |
@ teras...re: Thoromir,
I would almost agree with you about the Thoromir quest....but have recently found (doing other quests) that there is more than "one way to skin a cat" as they say, some quests can be achieved to a more satisfactory result if you think 'spatially' - try a different approach.
After being caught by the guards several times i decided to improve my technique, in stealth mode in the shadows (with night-eye ring enabled) i could see the guard waiting inside the vault where the graverobbers were, i killed the guy that approaches first (enticed him to near the door) looted his stuff and saved, then killed the other guy and "waited" (T) in the farthest corner from the door for several hours - the guard waited also! - then i carefully tip-toed out (in my blue suede shoes of stealth) right under his nose. Immediately outside i hit F4 and fast travelled to Bruma and the weapon shop. You will always get the quest update confirmation menu on a successful completion, you will also get a confirmation menu if completed in a different manner.
.......there are different solutions.....it's up to the player to apply some alternate logic. 
_________________
Forever aches my wretched soul, for Chromanin locked in that dark hole, though crypted key i've yet to learn, he knows one day i will return. |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:12 pm |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
Hm... I picked the graverobber's key from his pocket. He didn't catch me doing it, and I searched (and plundered) his house without anybody ever noticing me. And the graveyard guard came to my aid when my character - as a ranged fighter hopelessly outclassed in the confined tomb - tried to flee via the entrance. He dispatched of both graverobbers. I was very grateful for his assistance, and the law never suspected me of having done something fishy.
_________________
Jaz |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 5:09 pm |
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Wulf
The Shepherd
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 2312
Location: North/West.England |
Great! - that confirms my recent findings Jaz,
There you've described a slightly different player angle/viewpoint of how the quest unfolded, i am glad you explained your method details as it does indeed prove even more the subtle differences in approaching some quests can vary, much depending on the players "outlook" and "manner" of playing style. As i continue into the game, i will keep these not-so apparent subtleties under close surveillance - i thought at first reading some of the reviews that these differences had been omitted by the dev's, this suggests otherwise.
_________________
Forever aches my wretched soul, for Chromanin locked in that dark hole, though crypted key i've yet to learn, he knows one day i will return. |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:54 pm |
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Moriendor
Black Ring Leader
Joined: 19 Jul 2001
Posts: 1306
Location: Germany |
Agree with most of the points that were brought up so far and would like to add (in no particular order)...
- Horses suck  . The only thing a horse is good for is if you need or want to quickly explore an area. If you plan on getting engaged in combat, then you should make sure that your horse is as far away as possible. It is sooo... annoying that they draw aggro and get in the damned way all of the time.
- Pathing/Pathfinding. Seriously, my grandma could easily hop over some of those obstacles that you permanently get stuck on. It really gets old fast to get stuck on every little bump in the terrain. Oh, and don't even get me started on exploring the North of Cyrodiil. What's up with getting stuck on the slightest of slopes. Again. My grandma would fly up there basically while my character can't seem to handle climbing up most slopes.
- You can get irreversibly (OK, you can cheat but...) stuck between rocks etc.
- The relatively little amount of quests (compared to the number of NPCs) can be a little irritating, especially in the beginning of the game. It was not exactly overly exciting to check/enter each house in each district in the Imperial City only to end up with a handful of quests after so many hours. Yawn.
- Major bugs in mage and thieves guild quest lines that make it impossible to finish both quest lines w/o cheats. There might or probably will be more quests that can get broken but these two stand out because they are major quest lines.
- What's up with the low POV? I'm playing a Dark Elf, not a damned dwarf . I mean, you can barely see anything at all when you have grass all maxed out. It doesn't even feel like you're a dwarf but more like you're a grasshopper even. All you can see is grass, grass, grass. They should've raised the POV a little so it feels like you are actually walking on grass instead of crawling through it.
- The world borders are ridiculous. A screen message that tells you to turn around and go back? How original...  . I definitely would have preferred more natural borders.
- Some dungeons do not repopulate over time (I think that is a myth anyway... it seems like the respawn timer is 24h for most dungeons) but respawn instantly, i.e. you leave the dungeon and when you return, it's fully respawned again. I don't think we really need to discuss how much sense that makes...
- Master marksman 'Paralyze' does not seem to work right in conjunction with some enemies. Ghosts/wraiths, for example, do get paralyzed but you can't hit/damage them while they are paralyzed. Other enemies, however, do seem to still take damage. Strange...
- Treasure sucks a lot of the time. Was mentioned on these forums here as well. They need to put good, static loot at the bottom of dungeons. It's really not worth it to visit most locations due to the randomization of loot. We're in the 'Spoliers' forum, right? *checks* Right. OK, so here's an example... the Forlorn Watchman quest where the guy promises you some "ph4t l3wt" after helping him. Well, the so called "treasure" was a complete joke.
It's boring. I don't do random dungeons anymore but just the quest-related ones. I'm not much of a friend of dungeon crawling anyway so there's even less incentive with the current loot situation in the game.
- Summoned "helpers" (Conjuration) only serve as a distraction most of the time. Also, they share the getting in the way problem with horses. I definitely wish they would a) deal more damage and b) not get in the way as much as they do.
- Weight limit. I think they forgot a full decimal here. My character is currently able to carry around 460 units but I think it should be more like 4600.
Come on, whose idea of fun was it to force the player to make multiple trips to a dungeon to carry home all the loot?
With all the stuff I'm carrying around, I can usually loot three Dadric maces or so and then have to leave major amounts of valuable Daedric gear behind because of the weight limit.
Fine, my character is rich enough now so I don't really have to bother about multiple trips anymore but it pains the RPGers heart to just leave loot to rot in a cave .
- Major flaws in AI and level system. Those have been beaten to death though so I'm not going to repeat what was said. I would have preferred if they would have differentiated between creatures in the wild (no scaling) and creatures in dungeons (scaling). Also, there should have obviously been some fixed levels for e.g. the Arena championship (so you couldn't be champion before reaching level 20 and/or mastery in at least one combat skill).
- Lack of choice and consequence. This is probably my major complaint. You have very little choice and no matter what choice you make, it has ZERO consequence. Oblivion really feels a bit like an MMORPG except the M, the other M and the O is missing .
You can't change the world, you can't shape the world, ... nothing..., you just don't make a damned difference.
My character is currently leading the Mages guild, the Thieves guild and the Dark Brotherhood all at the same time. At least on paper (or screen).
How cool would it be if you could really do something with your position? Like dissolve the Thieves guild or put an end to all assassinations or reestablish Necromancy?
Of course, you can't. All you can do is run around in the guild leader's clothes and get silly remarks from the NPCs. Yawn.
Oh well, I know that this sounds like one big rant but the idea was to discuss the flaws, right? 
Despite all of the above, I'm still enjoying the game a lot and don't regret a single minute out of the 130 hours that I've played so far. This is an awesome game that could use a little polishing here and there but overall I'm quite impressed and am looking forward to finishing the Fighter's guild, the Arena, all of the shrine quests and then -finally- the main quest.
Not sure if I'm ever going to replay the game. It's a bit too epic for that IMHO. I don't just play RPGs exclusively so I'll probably move on to other games once I'm "done" with Oblivion but if Bethesda release a patch that changes the gameplay significantly (or adds meaningful, free content) then a replay might happen. And will keep my save games for any expansion(s), of course . |
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Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:27 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
There are several mods which alter how much weight you can carry and they are absolutely necessary IMO. I do find it silly that as Arch-mage, I can't change anything the way my predessor could and when I enter the mages guild for a Fighter quest, I'm not recognised in conversation!! As head of a Guild, I should be able to DO something to change how the world operates!! Still, I too am enjoying the game.
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:22 am |
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teras
Village Dweller
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 12
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quote:
Originally posted by Wulf
@ teras...re: Thoromir,
I would almost agree with you about the Thoromir quest....but have recently found (doing other quests) that there is more than "one way to skin a cat" as they say, some quests can be achieved to a more satisfactory result if you think 'spatially' - try a different approach.
After being caught by the guards several times i decided to improve my technique, in stealth mode in the shadows (with night-eye ring enabled) i could see the guard waiting inside the vault where the graverobbers were, i killed the guy that approaches first (enticed him to near the door) looted his stuff and saved, then killed the other guy and "waited" (T) in the farthest corner from the door for several hours - the guard waited also! - then i carefully tip-toed out (in my blue suede shoes of stealth) right under his nose. Immediately outside i hit F4 and fast travelled to Bruma and the weapon shop. You will always get the quest update confirmation menu on a successful completion, you will also get a confirmation menu if completed in a different manner.
.......there are different solutions.....it's up to the player to apply some alternate logic.
You used a lot of imagination there friend 
That's cool but what if you have a character like a knight or a warrior and haven't developed skills like sneaking and pickpocketing.
Of course I understand the meaning, try different approaches, but still wouldn't this require a lot of trial and error? Wouldn't it be easier if these approaches were somehow more obvious in each quest? |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:34 am |
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teras
Village Dweller
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 12
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quote:
Originally posted by bjon045
Choice 1: Do not fight in the arena.
Choice 2: Do the grey princes quest and reveal his identity but do not kill him in the arena - stay a champion.
Choice 3: Reveal his identity and murder him - become grand champion
Choice 4: Do not do the grey princes quest and beat him in a fair and square battle - become grand champion
Are you look for a choice 5? i.e.
Choice 5: Do the grey princes quest and reveal his identity which makes him "retire" allowing you to become the grand champion
Choice 1: How can you say no to a new quest without even seeing what its about?
Choice 2: After doing the quest for him, there was still the "becoming a grand champion in the arena" quest.Why would I want to leave a quest uncompleted?How was I supposed to know at that time that he was not going to fight back.Believe me if I knew I wouldn't challenge him.
Choice 4: Do you usually deny quests from NPC's, especially if these are of a moral nature?
Choices 3 & 5 : If I'm not mistaken they are the same, unless there is a way to make him retire without killing him.
You see, in order to see the possible outcome of this quest, you must first finish it one way.If you are not happy with the ending, then you must reload and try another approach.I don't think reloading five times to see all the possible outcomes is realistic.You can't really do that playing the game once.
It would be a lot better if I was given these as options from the first time. |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:49 am |
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cptmaxon
High Emperor
Joined: 19 Jun 2003
Posts: 557
Location: Israel |
I as I said in other treads didn't like the voice acting, it was too dull, and there were very few voice actors.
I have to agree with the point about the inivisible mighty hand of the law, how can they know?, and even wierder as long as I didn't loot agamirs house they didn't came, but just when I took something I got the message, "it's all over lawbreaker your speree(I just picked up a jug) is at an end" at least it was comical  , but anyway it's a problem I hope they will fix.
scaling the quest rewards made it really annoying to do them, for instance I went through alot of trouble doing the pale pass quest and in the end all I got was this lousy ring with 10% ressit frost, and the treasures within the ruins are quite unsatsafctory, nothing like defeating the king of the crypt for 3 gold coins...
I did feel that the oppents level varied because I used a mod called random oblivion, I recomended that to anyone, it helps alot.
I also used the mode called saddle bags, as someone said earlier horses are quite useless, so why not give them part of the burden?.
with these modes the game became more fun, although it still had alot of problems with broken quests.
_________________
"We're still flying"
"it's not much"
"It's enough" |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:59 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
Which quests are broken? I haven't failed to complete any yet and I've done about 65!!
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:20 am |
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Wulf
The Shepherd
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 2312
Location: North/West.England |
@teras, Re:
[Of course I understand the meaning, try different approaches, but still wouldn't this require a lot of trial and error? Wouldn't it be easier if these approaches were somehow more obvious in each quest?]
..personally, i like to find these things by intuition as the game unfolds, kind of "let the player seek to find" rather than too many give-aways, it adds 'spice' to the game...don't you think?
..also on the same subject Re:
[That's cool but what if you have a character like a knight or a warrior and haven't developed skills like sneaking and pickpocketing.]
...yes indeed, or as a monk wearing nothing but a monks robe a pair of sandals and bare fists! ....i believe it can be done -> - - - with magic, but it needs some studying and experimenting, i suppose in time somebody will achieve this. 
_________________
Forever aches my wretched soul, for Chromanin locked in that dark hole, though crypted key i've yet to learn, he knows one day i will return. |
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Wed Apr 19, 2006 2:14 pm |
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