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XmirroR
Village Leader
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 89
Location: South CA USA |
| My Annoyances with Oblivion ( What are yours? ) |
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Not looking to be flamed...
Just want to share my frustrations ( valid or not ) in a public forum...
I'll try to keep this post up to date for a while via Edits...
Annoyances by Priority ( think BASIC line number programming )
10. It's clear it was XboX ported to PC ( not the otherway around ), the menu gumps waste a great deal of screen space to afford huge fonts ( which scream : "YOUR PLAYING A CONSOLE GAME" ).
11. It feels that because of the limitations of XboX, that quick access to the sub-menus of the F1 ( stats ) F2 ( inventory ) F3 ( spells ) and F4 ( map/quests ) are limited to F1 thru F4. Honestly, I'd pay another 3 dollars US currency, to buy a patch that will let me access the appropriate sub-menu below the available menus that I might have been looking for, by key stroke. Obviosly "in-game" the numeric keys across the top of the keyboard are used for quick inventory. But they are completely ineffective once the TAB menuing system is invoked. Why can't I hit F4 then numeric key ( non-keypad ) number 3 to access the 3rd page of the 4th menu, or in specific terms the "Active Quest" page. ( UI MOD here VERY NICE!! )
12. Bartering with Shopkeepers is a nearly endless task... Morrowind while 'uninspired' trade was the watch-word, at the very least let me do a shopping list of stuff before I had to confirm my desire to purchase whatnot. I would imagine this affects alchemists more than anyone else. It was also much easier to sell the bounty of ones explorations. And as such Thieves and Alchemists are probally the worst off for the Consolism of the trade screens.
20. Melee Combat attack is : "While Mouse1 pressed swing swing swing"; No swing back and release for melee weapons. ( Tho, archery is pullback and release as one might expect ) The swing can be affected by the PC movement, but there is NO ability to affect the timing of the swing in pure melee.
21. As the game progresses this becomes a much harder issue to deal with. It is simply defeating itself. Without control of the swing-time, melee combat is nearly useless against tough and fast footed opponents.
30. Archery is crying for a Thief style zoom. ( oops, zoom aquired as Journeyman Marksman skill ) [ I am thinking zoom sooner, but degree of zoom different per level, anyone? )
31. Archery also needs a Cancel "Ready to Fire"... ( I drew the bowstring back, but I have no target, slowly release drawstring without firing the arrow, and put arrow back in quiver )
32. Can you say crossbow?
33. With melee comprimised, Archery feels reduced to true FPS circle strafe, and simple duck and cover, with the obligatory run backwards fast as you can while notching another arrow when fighting critters.
40. The Morrowind community spent a great deal of time developing "Realism" MODs, and I am happy to say some of them were adopted by Oblivion. But so -- so many werent.
41. Harvesting ingredients from plants should make the plant at the very least disappear. I'd Prefer a different model, for some Flora, but lets face it if I pick a mushroom, it shouldn't remain visible. On the otherhand if I pick the blossom of a MorningGlory, it doesn't need to disapear but the blossom sure as heck should.
42. Different people in the Morrowind community went to huge lengths to develop realistic weight MODs ( clearly Gold Coins weigh something, forks shouldn't weigh 2 pounds, a single sheet of blank paper shouldn't weight more than a dozen scrolls ). Oblivion shuns this belief by not only making Gold weightless yet again, but torches, and other essential dungeoun-diver equipment. ( um, why is Garlic weightless? )
43. Realistic wildlife is shunned as well, Maybe it's my colonge.. but not a single living organizism large enuf to cause me trouble has fleed as a first response, nor has it ignored me. It will always engage and attack the moment it sees me. Seriously, Darwin would be ashamed.
44. No Clocks, I can easily tell the time if I approach an acceptible bed to sleep in and begin the REST procedure ( how then do I know the time? ). But at no other point in the long day can I tell the time. There are no clocks, nor wrist watches, nor pocket watches. The Map interface tells the time and date, So I shouldn't complain, But it frustrates me none the less.
50. It is nearly impossible to see underwater. ( nice MOD fix here ALMOST PERFECT )
51. I can run at full speed for days on end, but cant hold my breath underwater for more than a few seconds.
60. Quests have a predefined route. I don't know how often this will come up, or if it was just me finding the one bad seed very early in the game, but the Quest: Canvas the Castle ( spoiler here ) has a definative order that cannot be avoided. I dont want to spoil the quest, but suffice to say if you find clue 'C' before 'A' and 'B' clue 'C' wont actually be recorded by the quest engine, and you'll need to go back to clue 'C' later. I certainly hope there aren't many of these issues.
70. While most NPC faces are acceptable, there are some NPCs that are painfully deformed. I am guessing that a random itteration of the same software routine that lets you customize your PlayerCharacter's face was used to develop all NPCs, but someone somewhere let some truely unnacceptable combinations into the mix.
120. Necrophilia humor is at best childish. It should have been avoided in the main release altogether. Perhaps an official MOD with appropriate warnings could have been released. Not that I mind at all... But somehow I'd prefer to avoid Take #2 on "Take2"'s Hot Coffee controversy.
160. Same damn "plastic" engine quality used to poor affect in DuesEx 2 and Thief 3.
250. LOD is extremely hard to fine tune. While random things 'popping in' isn't a game breaking experience, it would be nice to tune it effectively so I had my own level of detail. Currently I cant find a good balance, and I get the popping of this or that depending on where I am.
Well I suppose that's it for now... I LOVE Oblivion and all the Elder Scroll games, I certainly appreciate everyone at Bethesda for preparing my much over due RPG fix. And I have every belief it will hold me until my Gothic 3 fix happens later this year ( did I JinX it? ). If you are on the fence about buying Oblivion because you were personally frustrated with Morrowind... I hope this helps. If you've never heard of the Elder Scrolls I hope you get out of elementary school in one piece ( and I hope my diatribe helps ). If I've upset you by bashing your most favorite game ever ( for the moment ) please take a deep breath.
Honestly, I am not looking for a response, as much as I a looking for a place to vent. I am not looking to antagonize anyone, I am just looking to share my experience.
And for those of us amoung us, who think "if you dont like it, fix it; it's modable" : well I am already working on a Harvest MOD that removes flora if the ingredient has been picked.
I encourage people who want to rip me a new aHole for speaking forthright, to open a new topic, "XmirroR is an ass" or other such endeavors. I'll do my best to stay attuned and respond.
I ALSO encourage other people who are enjoying Oblivion except for <fill in the blank> to post their concerns and issues. If you agree with my basic prioritization, feel free to added a line number to your complaint.
Heh, it already feels warm...
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Last edited by XmirroR on Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:47 am; edited 10 times in total |
Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:31 am |
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ToddMcF2002
Leader of the Senate
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 317
Location: Boston MA |
Swing back release on melee? I've never played a game that had that. Is there one? Interesting idea though.
I'll be putting in a few hours with this thing tonight. The interface simply bothers me to no end - but I will not let it ruin my experience (or so I hope). I could probably deal with it but I have so much anger about consoles ruining PC gaming in general that the constant reminder in Oblivion is really grating.
Hopefully, once I get out of the tutorial dungeon I'll forget all about it.
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"For Innos!" |
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 3:15 pm |
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Zakhal
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 188
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I dislike the fact that beth seems to think that user-friendly UI is not important. They think it is so "not-needed" that they dont mind making it worse than in the previous game. Talk about evolution. I can understand lack of user-friendly UI 10 years ago in the first beth games, but now with all that experience they decide its okay to-go-back-in-time and make it suck again.
Its not like good UI is som genious new AI or graphics algorithm that needs to be invented. The standard drag & drop paperdoll UI is so well known that all you need to do is just code it (if you know how to code). Its simply hard to like games that are purposely made worse than their predecessors.
Oblivion is like this new expensive mercedes car that has a unchangeable motorcycle steering stick. You can use it but it feels stupid to use motorcycle steering on an othervice superb car.
I still play and like the game (its not like there is a huge influx of great PC RPG games), but I will never be a friend of game companies that pull crap like this. |
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:35 pm |
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XmirroR
Village Leader
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 89
Location: South CA USA |
| Re: My Annoyances with Oblivion ( What are yours? ) |
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quote:
Originally posted by xSamhainx
Sorry, you must be thinking of a different forum
You are right, my apologies...
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:51 pm |
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Joeman
Protector of the Realm
Joined: 03 Jan 2004
Posts: 254
Location: USA |
You can't delete spells. I don't want to scroll down a long list of spells. It forces to think about if I really need certain spells or not. THAT's annoying.
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Arguing over the internet is like competing in special olympics. Even if you win, you are still retarded. |
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:26 pm |
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XmirroR
Village Leader
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 89
Location: South CA USA |
quote:
Originally posted by Joeman
You can't delete spells. .... THAT's annoying.
I haven't run into this yet, but yes very annoying. It's shades of Might and Magic 3,4,5... Clearly an oldskool error...
Anyone remember The South Park movie? And the lovely little tune "Blame Canada"? I have it stuck in my head with the phrase "Blame XboX"... It's not quite the right cadence, which is just furthering my frustration.
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:39 pm |
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Incindium
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 17 Oct 2001
Posts: 187
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quote:
43. Realistic wildlife is shunned as well, Maybe it's my colonge.. but not a single living organizism large enuf to cause me trouble has fleed as a first response, nor has it ignored me. It will always engage and attack the moment it sees me. Seriously, Darwin would be ashamed.
The Deer will run away from you and actually spook pretty easy. I killed one but it was with a long distance shot.
quote:
44. No Clocks, I can easily tell the time if I approach an acceptible bed to sleep in and begin the REST procedure ( how then do I know the time? ). But at no other point in the long day can I tell the time. There are no clocks, nor wrist watches, nor pocket watches. ( well untill I find a place to publish my PocketWatch.MOD ).
There is a time listed on one of the map or quest menu interfaces. I also think it may display it if you try the Wait procedure. |
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 8:12 pm |
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XmirroR
Village Leader
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 89
Location: South CA USA |
True and True...
Deer do run, and spook... I suppose they are the exception to the rule. There may even be more.
And yes the time is on the Map interface, but how does anyone in the gameworld actually know what time it is?? ~shrug~ It's not a big deal, but surely it could have been accomplished. We need mantle.table/carriage clocks and grandfather clock models, and a pocket watch model...
Perhaps you're right tho, it migt be a bit nickpicky.
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Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:30 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
All valid complaints, actually. I believe there is a bow zoom when you achieve a higher level of marksmanship, by the way.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:23 am |
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xSamhainx
Paws of Doom
Joined: 11 Sep 2002
Posts: 2192
Location: San Diego |
quote:
Originally posted by ToddMcF2002
Swing back release on melee? I've never played a game that had that. Is there one? Interesting idea though.
Yes, I'd venture to say you have. In sword-wielding games, particularly if youve played Morrowind is a good example considering, this is the way swordfighting is handled. To put it simply, when I draw my sword back for a strike, I need to be able to bring it down when I determine it is time. Not a second before or after, period. It also is how you "power up" a strike, if you will, the longer held the harder strike.
This game delivers the blow on it's own, you have no choice when to actually strike your blow other than immediately or wait a second or two until the game determines it is time. This is a major combat problem in my opinion, that is just starting to rear it's head now that people such as I are getting past the simple pissant goblins and entry-level wolves and giant rats, and are progressing into the far more deadly enemies and the "special moves" of advanced swordfighting. These are all automatic moves, and youd better learn the timing and distance of each one.
Factors such as "the longer you hold it, the more forceful the strike" are no longer a factor at all, but such things are trivial when it comes to the real problem - the timing. That's just crucial, no two ways about it.
If I want to run around town for a half hour chasing someone with a sword up over my head, I should be able to do that. I need to be able to do that. There is no such mechanism as I can see thus far in this game, and it's starting to really wear thin on me. While this is indeed important for all melee classes, it's arguably far more of an issue for 2-handed claymore or axe users such as myself. I dont have ten quick swings, I have four slow crushing blows, and I had better hit my mark or I'm in trouble.
For example, I have this sort of rushing move in Oblivion where go a few steps forward and deliver a heavy blow. Sounds good, but the problem is that I have no control when I make the actual strike. This means I'm either running past my enemy and bringing down the auto-blow too late, or bringing it down too soon, before I reach my mark. In either case, I dont make contact, meanwhile getting pounded like a noob.
My powered-up waist-level thrust to lance encroaching foes with, or charge with if I so choose, is completely gone. My jumping final chop of death, my signature finishing-move for my Nord cannot be done in this game so far as I can see. The block sure is nice, but I feel the sword combat has unfortunately taken one step forward, and two back.
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“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”-Mark Twain
Last edited by xSamhainx on Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:42 am |
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RPG Frog
Blade Runner
Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 748
Location: the Matrix |
I've got zero complaints. I love this "console" game. It's running smooth @ 1280x720 progressive-scan on my Samsung LCD!!! Thats on 360 with HDR & AA running!!!
This game is netting a 95% for both PC & Console versions...
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/927345.asp
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/924363.asp
My complaints are the Daggerfall-like fast-travel and the lack of an in-game mini-map like Morrowind.
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Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities…there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars…Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand…to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet. - Robert E. Howard |
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Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:44 pm |
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XmirroR
Village Leader
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 89
Location: South CA USA |
quote:
Originally posted by RPG Frog
I've got zero complaints...
My complaints are the Daggerfall-like fast-travel and...
How can you complain about someything you aren't necessarially forced to use?
Or does the XboX360 actually force you to fast travel. That would be worth complaining about. In theory X360 will be moddable via 360Live, so since there is already MODs to remove fast travel, and as seperate version to remove compass pointers, and similar variations on the theme, I would expect a MOD for you guys isn't far behind. Course that said I suppose I am assuming that 360 MODs wont be limited to Official addons/MODs ( which after careful introspection I gonna guess is wrong ).
I don't know jack about Consoles ( expect that they are affecting my PC experience hand over fist ), so I'll just go hide now.
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Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:07 am |
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