"Hatejerk" is a bit of strong term. On a forum where almost literally everyone plays TES, there's plenty of criticism to go around but most people say that they like the games in the end. Saying flat out that Skyrim isn't good or that the series as a whole (even le hardcore based Morrowind) is worse than Bioware immediately following a circlejerk about why Bioware sucks seems just a bit too contrarian.
I'll respond, since I'm the one who made that specific comment:
I thought Morrowind was pretty great, it's just with Oblivion and
especially with Skyrim that it feels like Bethesda phoned in the plot, and when they put in an event and make it impossible to prevent*, make NPCs (Like Ulfric) invulnerable until you've advanced through the plot and done all of the war quests and the plot finally says OK KILL HIM NOW, and so on. Like I wanted to assassinate him a month earlier but he refused to die. Or the invulnerable minor quest NPC in the capital of Skyrim, who if you recall is a criminal, but if you start killing guards he'll beat you and since you can't kill him so your only choice is to flee (or repeatedly put him down over and over, if you're tough enough that he can't hurt you seriously). Or mod the game, of course.
* For instance, the execution of the guy who let Ulfric out of jail. I tried to stop it with shouts, but they kept killing the executionee because apparently he's allergic to continued life. After a few tries I managed to take out the executioner without hitting the executionee too (he promptly fled out of sight, but not out the city exit), which aggro'd every guard in the city in the process. After I killed them for their stupidity (... and for the skill gain), I went looking and found the guy I had "saved" dead on a staircase.
I made a couple more attempts but in every one he ended up dead. I expect he had next to no HP and everyone wanted him dead.
It seems like Bethesda's first thought nowadays is "OOH WE'D BETTER STOP THE PLAYER FROM GOING OFF OUR SCRIPTED RAILS" rather than "We're already anticipating the player doing this, so why don't we acknowledge their effort and congratulate them" (you know, like when you freed slaves in Morrowind).
They make it look like you have choice, until you try to use it, and then you realize that you're really on rails as far as the built-in plots and characters go.
(I'll refrain from talking about Oblivion to save space and time.)
The thing with Bioware's games is that it felt to me like there was more agency - not necessarily that there was more choice, but that there were less possible situations where you'd try to do something that would advance the plot, but the game would shut you down. If you can't find a plot-critical enemy early there's no need to make them invulnerable, for instance.
The only similar feeling I had that I remember right now was in ME3 with Kai Leng: When he showed up the first time, and walked in and started talking at me, I would literally have drawn my gun and shot him in the face repeatedly if the game had given me the opportunity (but there was, alas, no renegade interrupt to do so).
That all said, I haven't played Bioware's games, and it's been years for some of them.
Author
Topic: Gaming Pet Peeves (Read 523442 times)