The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review
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Much was made of NPC schedules due to AI advances in advance publicity, all of it preternaturally glowing. However, this was also possible in Morrowind. It simply wasn't used very much by a development team that had other priorities. And truth to tell, it isn't used very much on the NPCs in Oblivion's towns, who generally move to and from work, or engage in brief, standardized activities, or flat conversations that have the disconnected quality of dreams. (I dub thee Stepford NPCs.) No, the AI changes can best be seen, instead, in the improved NPC combat as mentioned above, that affects not only your enemies, but any summoned creatures or friends that have temporarily joined you. The latter are more pro-active than before, wading into battle rather than waiting for you to be attacked. They let you know when you've accidentally hit them in battle, and are more forgiving of this; and they no longer target enemies with lethal spells that have the minor side effect of killing you, as well. Fixing What Ain't Broke
Unfortunately, Bethsoft has chosen to draw upon the Morrowind experience to correct some aspects of basic gameplay, and these don't work well, at all. For instance: in Morrowind, you didn't have to level your character up at any given time. You could do so, or keep playing at that same level until you had accumulated sufficient increases in different skills to get large attribute multipliers. Then, when you finally leveled your character by sleeping, you would acquire a strength (or intelligence, agility, etc) modifier of 4 or 5, instead of 1 or 2.
Not so, in Oblivion. Whether you like it or not, as soon as your major skills improve sufficiently through use, you're informed that you've made a character level and should sleep. Any further improvements to your skills will not affect attribute multipliers on that level, but the next one. Thus you no longer have the option of deciding how quickly you want your attributes to rise, which is annoying. And as a bonus, you have to pay undo attention to character creation and advancement. Should I choose Athletics as a major skill, or will that go up too quickly because my character runs a lot, forcing me to level up before I've improved enough skills to affect my other attributes? What other skills should I avoid assigning as major ones while creating my character, to slow down its advancement? The whole character leveling part of the game, transparent in Morrowind, has become a strategy game in its own right, and a boring one, unfortunately.
There are additional legitimate reasons for not leveling too quickly. One is that due to game balance issues, a very new character will find it extremely easy to complete a raft of quests, because Bethsoft has made the appearance of nearly every potential enemy in the game dependent upon your level. Regrettably, the skew is such that as you improve, your enemies tend to improve far more, gaining considerably greater strength and endurance. As a result, by level 15 or 20 you're getting the bonemeal beaten out of you by (appropriate) enemies, where at level 3 you were managing to hold your own.
Or consider treasure leveling. In Morrowind, there was baseline treasure you'd find on bodies and in chests, with a slight chance of something showing up that was better. The lure of these better items kept you out hunting for more occupied, hitherto unknown caves and potential loot. But Bethsoft now believes all loot should be tied to character level. Their (improvement) makes certain you never see any treasure, in merchant shops or on the kill, that is inappropriate for your current character. Just finished an epic battle with three opponents that nearly took you and your summoned creature out? You can hardly wait to open that boss treasure chest.then you discover it contains nothing different from every other chest you've seen so far in the game, and all of it exactly what a character your level would already own.
One more example: if you killed the nefarious occupants of a cave in Morrowind, left and returned a week later, the place was still empty. You could go away for three months then show up, secure in the knowledge that it was still open real estate. Perhaps it was to stop players taking over such places and making them into private homes, but in Oblivion you'll find that new, equally nasty inhabitants move into any dungeon you've cleared out within a matter of days. Solving one problem, Bethsoft has created a worse. There's no good reason now for the player to explore new dungeons in the wilderness, since they'll find new monsters in the old dungeon they've investigated ten times before, right outside town. And as monsters and treasure will be leveled to the character why seek elsewhere?
Dumbing. As in, Down.
Let's briefly consider quests. They were fairly open-ended in Morrowind. You got one, and you were expected to find one of (sometimes) potentially several solutions to it, frequently without any hints. In Oblivion, you're not only directed every step of the way, with a map that tells you exactly where to go, but messages show up telling you how you think and feel, and what you should do next, even when it isn't directly part of the quest's main goal. There's far too much from-above direction, and every bit of it leeches the game of its best feature, a sense of immersion. It's difficult to remain truly involved in a world when dialog boxes pop up to tell you what you should do next.
