Fallout 3 vs New Vegas vs Oblivion vs Skyrim

@Jmanghan: Oh, I definitely agree with pretty much everything you said there. And yeah, you're right that you don't really have to use magic to save the college from the evil mage & eye of magnus but you do need to at least use the staff of magnus to do it. I know any type of character can use a staff but it's more aligned with a mage-type character than any other type, imo.

I also wouldn't say that no one in Skyrim is grateful for all the helpful stuff you do. After defeating Alduin, for example, I've had several guards in different towns around the map give me the respect I deserved for doing it by basically telling me I've saved the world or whatever. It's pretty rare but it does happen from time to time.

I haven't played Oblivion yet but it would indeed be nice to get your own statue.

Originally posted by eThneoLgrRnae
@Jmanghan: Oh, I definitely agree with pretty much everything you said there. And yeah, you're right that you don't really have to use magic to save the college from the evil mage & eye of magnus but you do need to at least use the staff of magnus to do it. I know any type of character can use a staff but it's more aligned with a mage-type character than any other type, imo.

I also wouldn't say that no one in Skyrim is grateful for all the helpful stuff you do. After defeating Alduin, for example, I've had several guards in different towns around the map give me the respect I deserved for doing it by basically telling me I've saved the world or whatever. It's pretty rare but it does happen from time to time.

I haven't played Oblivion yet but it would indeed be nice to get your own statue.

Originally posted by eThneoLgrRnae
Oh, I agree with that totally that he/she should always be a powerful mage. But considering that you single-handedly defeat that evil mage who had the eye of magnus I think that qualifies. You don't think so?

I know your character uses the staff of magnus to do it but it was also your character who went thru the trouble of retrieving the staff, iirc.

Yeah, but you can be an uber powerful warrior with no magical skill above 25 and still beat all the quests. Why should such a person be made arch mage?

Originally posted by Surtur
Yeah, but you can be an uber powerful warrior with no magical skill above 25 and still beat all the quests. Why should such a person be made arch mage?

I see your point.

Originally posted by Jmanghan
Thats if you don't wanna worry about min/maxing.

Assassin isn't as stat-heavy as the original 360 and PS3 versions in dark arisen on PC.

You don't technically have to min/max, I mean if you wanna play the whole game as 1 class you can totally do that, but it restricts your base stats a lot.

Thankfully armor and weapons make all the difference, but base stats can be somewhat important.

Haven't found much cause to switch from Assassin. Strength + Stamina is all you really need.

With Gale Harness and Fivefold Flurry/100 kisses, you're too busy killing anything that moves to ever worry about defense. Ninja Gaiden class, I call Assassin.

I can hire pawns for other vocations, or level Mule (My main pawn Mule, who carries all my stuff.)

Originally posted by Surtur
Yeah, but you can be an uber powerful warrior with no magical skill above 25 and still beat all the quests. Why should such a person be made arch mage?

Originally posted by Jmanghan
Thats if you don't wanna worry about min/maxing.

Assassin isn't as stat-heavy as the original 360 and PS3 versions in dark arisen on PC.

You don't technically have to min/max, I mean if you wanna play the whole game as 1 class you can totally do that, but it restricts your base stats a lot.

Thankfully armor and weapons make all the difference, but base stats can be somewhat important.

Phuck forcing you to switch classes to min/max your stats, that's phucking gay in every game that does it. It was gay in Final Fantasy Tactics and it's gay in Dragon's Dogma.

Originally posted by NemeBro
I just used a mod to give me good stats generally.

Phuck forcing you to switch classes to min/max your stats, that's phucking gay in every game that does it. It was gay in Final Fantasy Tactics and it's gay in Dragon's Dogma.

Yeah, but stats are just a means to an end. I mean, if you don't care about magic (Which I don't), why level it?

Of course, if you were dabbling and weren't too sure on what you like, that's another story. That's what happened to me in Skyrim, where I ended up going through the Companians guild, after getting healing and destruction magic leveled, after grinding my sneak, after grinding my archery.

So I ended up constantly switching gear to conjure a flame minion, then to the crossbow, then to the sword and board, rinse repeat.

Originally posted by NemeBro
I just used a mod to give me good stats generally.

Phuck forcing you to switch classes to min/max your stats, that's phucking gay in every game that does it. It was gay in Final Fantasy Tactics and it's gay in Dragon's Dogma.

Usually classes give you different stats.

I think it makes sense, why should I be great at magick if I've been using a 2-Handed greatsword for the entire game?

Why should I be a powerhouse in strength when I've been destroying my enemies with casting?

Wouldn't make much sense.

It would eliminate the point of having classes if there weren't benefits and consequences to each class, it'd remove a crucial part of the whole "role-playing" element.

Originally posted by Surtur
Yeah, but you can be an uber powerful warrior with no magical skill above 25 and still beat all the quests. Why should such a person be made arch mage?

Though I see your point don't forget that you don't have to do any quests related to the college if you don't want to. Iirc, none of those quests are related to the main quest so they're not required unless you really want the trophies associated w/them which you could always get in a different playthru of game if they're that important to you. If you are focused primarily on warrior skills and you think doing the college quests would break the immersion for you then simply don't do them.

One thing is certain.

Skyrim > Dragons Dogma.

Originally posted by cdtm
One thing is certain.

Skyrim > Dragons Dogma.

You're someone who has sung the praises of Dogma over and over and who even liked exploration in the game more then in Skyrim.

Originally posted by eThneoLgrRnae
Comes down to New Vegas vs Skyrim for me. Too close to call.

Fallout 3 is a great game for sure but after a couple of playthroughs it started getting boring to me. There are really only two or three different possible endings for the game, unlike NV, and I greatly prefer the faction system in NV over the karma system in Fallout 3. Not that NV doesn't use karma but it has very little actual effect on the game. New Vegas improved on F3 in so many ways. Hardcore mode, for example, is one of my favorite things about NV and it would've made Fallout 3 so much better had it been an option for the game.

One thing, perhaps the only thing, I liked better about F3 is the fact it ran much better on my XBOX than NV ran on my PS3. NV would run ok up until my character made it to the actual city of NV then the crashes and massive frame rate drops/lag would start happening very frequently.

I've never played Oblivion but after practically falling in love with Skyrim after I started playing it last year (and still playing same playthru lol) I'm strongly considering going back and playing Oblivion eventually.

So it comes down for me between Skrim and NV and it's just too close to call. There are some things I like better about Skyrim and some things I like better about NV.

I actually prefer the fantasy setting and the rich lore of Elder Scrolls over that of the Fallout series. Use up so much of my game time reading thru all kinds of books I find throughout Skyrim and storing them in certain order on the many bookshelves I have among the 6 or 7 different houses I have in the game. Fallout lore is ok but it's not nearly as deep and rich.

Prefer the levelling-up system in NV though over Skyrim for sure.I hate how in the latter , for example, that you can stand in fire, keep taking damage, and constantly heal yourself up to speed-up your skill advancement in the restoration skill. And overall, I just like the skill points system based on your intelligence in NV over the skill system in Skyrim in which you only level-up skills after using them a lot. Not that I think the Skyrim way of doing it is bad. It's a refreshing change but I still prefer the one NV uses.

Dragons... what else can you say? Skyrim has them, NV doesn't. I love fighting dragons in Skyrim far more than I like fighting any enemy (even deathclaws) in NV. I know they aren't really a challenge once you start getting pretty high in level but even at level 82 as my character is now I still love fighting them even though they go down pretty easily.

I'll go into more detail at a later time regarding which things I like better in NV vs which things I like better in Skyrim. Just don't have that much time at the moment.

Just wanted to update my thoughts on which game I like better of these two after I finally finished my first playthru of Skyrim last year. I can now say, without a shadow of a doubt, I like New Vegas MUCH more.

I like Skyrim, for sure, but it doesn't hold a candle to New Vegas, imo, other than much prettier scenery. NV is not exactly a game with breathtaking visuals lol. To be fair though, seeing how it is a post-apocalyptic game set in a desert it's not really supposed to be all that great looking.

It more than makes up for the boring landscape with superb RPG elements though and it blows Skyrim out of the water in that respect (I can't help but laugh at people who suggest that Skyrim is more of an RPG than FNV lol). That is where the game shines and why I love it so very much.

I plan on doing yet another playthru sometime this year probably before PS5 comes out. Oh yeah, that's another thing, I play on PS3 and yet I still love the game. No mods, constant freezing/lag after save file gets too big, and inferior graphics compared to PC but I'm willing to look past all that because the role-playing is so damn good.

One thing that I've completely flipped-on is the comments I made about the lore of the two games. Yes, as I said above, Elder Scrolls lore is much deeper than Fallout but I now think that's what makes Fallout lore better overall: it's simplicity. I can delve much deeper into Fallout lore and learn all the details much more thoroughly because there isn't nearly as much to learn.

Been watching a lot of You Tube videos over the past year on Fallout lore and reading a lot about it on the internet as well because I've been so interested in it. Skyrim lore just doesn't pull me in and get me addicted to it like Fallout lore does. I know many people will feel the opposite way but I really do personally enjoy Fallout lore much more than ES lore now. Maybe I felt the way I did about the respective lore of the two games when I posted above becaue Skyrim was my first intro into the ES series; it was all new to me and it piqued my interest for a while while I was playing but it's magic has all but worn-off on me now, mostly.

I also now think Fallout 3 beats Skyrim as well although it's not as good as FNV, imo. I probably rank NV as one of my top 3 videogames of all-time... and definitely my favorite RPG.