I think quest markers are one area in which The Elder Scrolls could take a few notes from The Witcher. Often times, you are not pointed in a specific area, but are rather directed to a general, broad area in which you must discover a person or cave entrance or whathaveyou yourself.
Your excuse for the unkillable npcs is absolutely wrong. Firstly, Fallout New Vegas already proves you can have the entire world population killed off without breaking the game, but even ignoring that, anyone with minimal experience with the Creation Kit would know that Skyrim already has a solution to npcs needlessly dying. This is called the "protected" flag, which functions similar to the "essential" flag in that it makes it so npcs cannot be killed by any enemies or environmental hazards, but anyone marked as protected can always be killed by the player, but for some reason, Bethesda made minimal use of this mechanic, only giving it to some companions.
You simply cannot claim that TES has not dumbed down, as it factually has. There is objectively less text on average, less character building, less choices, less difficulty, and less complexity. You can argue that the dumbing down is for the better, but arguing that it has not dumbed down is lying. As other people have pointed out, they could incredibly easily make the NPC killable by the player but nothing else. Saying "it doesn't matter because you can mod it!" is fucking ridiculous because we are talking about the games themselves. Even if you can mod to fix it, it's still dumbed down at it's core.
Mkay, was not planning on commenting on this video or replying to anyone but I REALLY have to point this out because this is a REALLLLYYYY stupid argument.... As someone who has recently plaied both Skyrim and Morrowind to completion I gota say... Skyrim has less characterization, and less interesting characters... People keep saying that Morrowind's NPS all have the same responses... and.. well yeah so does Skyrim's... have you, I dunno, tried talking to all the random NPCs in Skyrim? Not the characterized ones, the random ones, because that's what your comparing the dialog to... Random NPCs (basic villagers, wondering NPC, guards, people just living their lives with no quests attached) all have the exact same 2-3 lines depending on their race that boils down to "fuck off I'm busy". the VAST majority of NPS have that reaction. Yeah walk into a town you get 3-4 MAYBE 5 NPCs who have custom dialog dedicated just for them, but again you got the SAME THING in Morrowind, the difference was those NPCs ALSO had the generic options that you could chose to read or not. If anything there were more Characterized NPCs in Morrowind because more characters were attached to quests and gave little snippets of their back story. and those who didn't give any back story usually had some environmental story telling behind them. Best example being the guild quests, specificly as an example the first fighter's guild quest. Tasks you with talking to a random NPC lady, with all the generic dialog, she has nothing special to say other then "kill these rats" and "thank you" but they went out of there way to tell a story with her to people who were interested enough to pay attention. She has an unhealthy obsession with pillows and pillow collecting, the has HUNDREDS of them. There are little things like that all over Morrowind, and yeah even Skyrim, but to a lesser extent, as you walk into generic house #65 and find the same exact interior, same furniture positions, same food on the table, and random generic loot. Anywho tangent aside, Morrowind did a lot more character building through the environment then dialog, and point for point the characters characterized in dialog were about the same as Skyrim if not slightly more (there were more NPCs overall in any given city, though most generic). The argument that Skyrim did NPC characterization "better" is completely subjective because the two games match each other beat by beat in the number of interesting unique dialog options and the number of boring pointless NPCs.
I'd argue that Skyrim's generic NPCs are just as bad as Morrowind's. Instead of a long list of generic responses it's just an endless loop of 2-3 of them any time you walk by. Yeah SOMETIMES you get a few custom lines to introduce them, or they yell out something important, but that's not characterization that's scripting and monologing. I dunno I love both games. I prefer the writing and world building in Morrowind but I can't say Skyrim is bad. I'd say the two games are pretty equal in their shitty generic NPCs. Morrowind just has.. more of them, because Morrowind just has more NPCs in total (named/generic not spawned solders or lackeys).
Less text - is better since there is actually voice acting compared to Morrowind Less character building - There are a lot more perks and skills you can level, factions are more detailed and more believable Less choices - yeah sure, but what what major choices did you had in Morrowind? Besides having an option to kill any quest related NPC Less difficulty - Put it on legendary, see how far you get Less complexity - it can be bad and good, quests telling you where to go and what to do is better, you can also turn quest marker off, not having to bother with missing enemies even tho you are hitting them in the face is not complexity, it's outdated combat system, that also includes spell making, and not to mention how many "complex" things Skyrim had that previous games didn't
John Fered Factions more complex and believable? No, not in the slightest. In Morrowind factions had complex relationships to each other, like the fighter's guild and thieves guild, they had more then one leading member each with a different story behind them and likes and dislikes, a ton of different ways to impress or upset them. Skyrim has, a series of quests unrelated to each other with each faction having one absolute leader with one absolute right way to handle the story line with no way to fail or change the outcome. Character's pop in and out on a whim, and whole subplots get abandoned. Not that it isn't fun or interesting, but it's shallow and LESS realistic then any of the other factions in other TES games, not just Morrowind. Difficulty is subjective. Skyrim on legendary, because of the combat system, can be rather easy. If you're a bow user for example it's literally a cake walk. Try playing Skyrim, start to finish, without the quest marker. No mods to tell you where to go, and not using your own memory of the quest. ONLY using the info you get in game. It's literally impossible, not unless you sit there and explore the whole map bit by bit so you have every map marker you might need ever so you know all the names of all the locations... and that still wont give you unmarked locations quest send you to all the time. No one is arguing for the D20 to hit system, 90% of people, even those who defend it mod that out first chance they get. As for things Skyrim does that are more "complex" Maps, skill trees, crafting. The rest aren't more complex or deeper in any way. just a different way of doing it.
Factions are more believable because Skyrim is a newer game, voice acting, graphics.. they are all better so it's more realistic. For the shallowness and no connection to other factions i completely agree, but as all Elder Scrolls games they hardly improved on any connection to NPC's and hardly made anything you do relevant with choices you don't actually make. For difficulty i disagree, on higher levels while playing on Legendary enemies have A LOT of tankines, therefor you standing in some spot where they can't reach you and trying to hit them with arrows will just take huge amounts of time, not to mention that you won't hit every single arrow. That being said, legendary does make it harder, but it doesn't make it more fun, reducing player damage and adding damage to NPC's isn't fun, but just stupid, that's why i play on adept. Markers can be disabled once you finished the game, and started a new one. Since in first playthrough everything is new and exciting there is no need to turn it off, just following the marker and exploring alongside the way is fun. But on second playthrough (if you are type of a person who pays attention to what he does) you can navigate to where you need to go. D20 system is outdated and it's anything but immersive, i just mentioned it there since the OP didn't really give info on what he adds under those categories, and he is obviously wearing Nostalgia Glasses. Complexity is again one of those things which he didn't specify, if he means general things such as spell crafting, which Skyrim is missing, i've just added there that Skyrim has a lot of crafting options, which you need some time to collect in order to make something specific, and if you want the best for your character, you need to know what set of skills you need to combine in order to get the best. Skill tree's are in fact more "complex" than Morrowind or Oblivion had, since they are much wider than any previous game.
Skyrim isn't hard. If you turn up the difficulty, it just becomes a matter of Block, Shield bash, hit, dodge back, repeat untill after 50 hits your basic draugr enemy is finally dead. That's not hard, that's tedious.
+SjorsTea This video is not about how hard the game is. Dumbing down is something else then getting easier. And have you seen the combat in Morrowind? That's even more tedious...
+Raymond “Dnomyar96” Benjamins Depends. I rank it with Low Skills "Literally can't even hit a rat that I'm swinging my sword at" morrowind < "Turn up the difficulty to make everything a meatsponge" Skyrim < Morrowind at decent levels < Skyrim standard combat < Morrowind stupid level magic (and by this I mean screw it walk on water and fly for all we care have fun I guess). I'll never forget the first time I played it. I was naive, a fool. I'd played isometric rpgs before, played Oblivion but Morrowind? Never had I touched it. Heck, I'd even played Skyrim before touching Morrowind. I remember it fondly, a beginning that gripped me more than Skyrim's where I looted everything I could by abusing the AI and then I followed the main story. Go around, join some guilds. And so I joined the Fighter's guild and got a quest to slay some rats. "Ha ha, is this some joke that they are pulling? That'll be easy." I had built a rather general character that had a leaning on swords but not dramatically but I spread my stats too thin between sneaking, magic, and using blades. What did I experience? MISS MISS MISS MISS. I didn't realize that it was first person but still rolling the dice! Eventually got a hang of it and had a blast once I got past the clunky system and saw a few of its charms but my god was it a horrific experience. I then realized that I preferred shooting rats with bullets to swinging swords at it with suboptimal builds.
MaQuGo119 Dark souls is probably my favourite game of all time, but it isn't that hard. It's just different because so little games are like it. When you get what the game is about, it actually will go pretty smoothly.
***** I've only expoerienced the PC horrendous port, I've got a decent test on the soulslike games from Bloodborne, and you are totally right, but the combat system is a lot more enjoyable from what I experienced from Oblivion or Skyrim.
After about 6 quests in Skyrim you are the archmage. Just to 'join' the magic University in Oblivion you had to do 7 quests. Magic is one area they really torpedoed going from Oblivion to Skyrim, maybe they thought Nords are not magical creatures they tend to be warriors so we will dumb down every kind of magic.
+Parasmunt Yeah well at least it's not something ridiculous like... I don't know? Joining a major faction, getting historically endgame gear, and mowing down an enemy known for being one of the most vicious in the series all within the first two quests. Rest assured that Bethesda would never be capable of anything *that* stupid.
+Parasmunt I agree on that. I liked playing as a mage character in Oblivion, especially after getting a particular spell (can't remember which, but you get it in the mage's guild questline somewhere) that made me able to finally fight without any weapons. But in Skyrim even killing one enemy (at least in the early game) with a spell is really hard. Especially if you haven't leveled your magicka yet.
That's because Oblivion's Mage Guild is THE CENTER OF ALL MAGIC LEARNING IN TAMRIEL while the Mages' College in Winterhold are a bunch of yahoo mages huddling around a magic castle. No shit, it's the difference between getting into Community College and getting into fucking Harvard.
A huge problem for me in Skyrim was the removal of any sort of fame/infamy system. You can be a demigod slaying scores of dragons but nobody will treat you any different then the day you stepped off the wagon. There are no political or social quests in the game everything is kill and collect. It's a good game but no where near where it should have been.
***** You literally have a song made for you. 2 if you count Tale of the Tongues. Also, my achievements aren't useless. As the thane, I have a get out of jail free card (quite literally), when I gain reputation with a person, I get rewards from them, and get more items and such, and tons more.
No fame or infamy? So did you forget that Thanes are important guys who can walk away with committing murder in broad daylight? Did you forget that players with a high-enough bounty on their heads will have the guards attacking them on sight? Yeah, nothing about fame or infamy at all...........
As for Factions, that is my biggest gripe. You SHOULDN'T be allowed to enter all factions on a single character....you SHOULDN'T. Some can make sense, like Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild but joining the Mages Guild(College of Winterhold) when you have no skill in magic, save for the one level 1 spell to get in is stupid. I hated that in both Oblivion and Skyrim. Like becoming too famous would make it so TG and DB won't allow you in. Being too imfamous with MG and Fighter's Guild(Companions) Moreso the Civil War in Skyrim. Ohh you joined the Stormcloaks? Your free to walk in front of the general of the Imperials even though you killed 100s of Imperials and taken over several Keeps.... It will never happen since casual blah blah, but I felt there should have been restrictions to certain things. Fighter's/Companions anyone is a warrior, even mages are warriors before they are strong enough to go pure mage. I liked how in Oblivion, you had to do a quest for each city before being allowed in the Mages Guild. This would make it so you should have learned about each branch of magic and even learn a new spell or two per place so your fairly familiar with magic by that point(Often bought all spells of Conjuration and Destruction). Instead of Skyrim's "Cast Fear spell that cost 2 magicka and you can go the rest of the questline without another spell" Neither could be joined if you were really hated or had a criminal record, I even remember NPC in both games saying how they were kicked out for getting arrested a few times, when your only way to get kicked out is to harm the guilds themselves, and you get 2 save mes. This in turn would make it so being in the DB or TG removed your chances at FG or MG. And vice versa. You murdered countless people, or stolen many thousands and tens of thousands worth of items from people, and have massive infamy, you think the FG will want such an evil character in their guild? Fuck no. You just about took out one of the two sides of the war and your still free to walk up to each commander and talk to them? You should be attacked on bloody sight with a massive bounty on your head. This is often what kills my mood in both games. I will become the TG master, Listener of the DB(which is bullshit in Skyrim since you pretty much start as the top dog... and the story sucked vs Oblivions) The Harbringer of the most respected guild, the Companion, and the Arch Mage of the mages. As well as be the right hand man of one of the sides in the war. Its like cmon, being a known assassin would be enough to cut mostly everything else off, as well as being constantly hunted down.
I stopped watching when you discounted Samyoul online's points on the basis of nostalgia. He made his arguments very clear in his video providing numerous examples and frankly, I found it laughable how you trivialised all of that by chalking it up to "gaming nostalgia". You kinda lost your credibility with me because of this. For the record, I started with Oblivion, then Skyrim and finally played Morrowind last. I can confirm all of the casualisation that was pointed out in Samyoul's video and you're lying to yourself if you think TES isn't being dumbed down in certain areas. This is coming from an objective view free of nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, I love all the games immensely and have poured countless hours into each but TES isn't really an in-depth RPG anymore. It's become more of an open world fantasy action/adventure game under the guise of an RPG rather than a true RPG.
Kevin well watch the entire video and you might find he actually backs up this statement with evidence and, like it or not while samyoul did make good points he is falling victim to the infamous "everything new is bad" disease not every deviation from morrowinds design is an attempt to pander to the whims of "casual gamers" some of these changes are actually attempts to IMPROVE the overall gameplay experience
I said dumbed down in "certain areas". I'm well aware that there have been massive improvements in other areas. I probably wouldn't like Skyrim so much if that wasn't the case.
I could spend some time here to really give you an in-depth comment but it's really much easier to direct you to Samyoul online's video. He can clearly outline to you (better than a comment would) in which areas the game has been dumbed down. It's good in that it's straight to the point and gives you clear examples.
Nostalgia isn't about enjoying a game, it's about the fond memories you had of a game, but if you still enjoy a game and more so than any of it's sequels then there's nothing nostalgia related about that at all.
@@TheNerevahkiin Yeah but nostalgia doesnt change provable facts. Like the 100% provable fact, that the magic system in Skyrim is dumbed down in comparision to Morrowind. Clamining the reason for recognizing this is because of nostalgia is nuts! Come on!
***** Thanks, but I must admit: I get bored with morrowind sometimes, then I start playing Oblivion, until I'm bored with it, then I play Skyrim until I'm bored with Skyrim and then I start playing Morrowind again. In betwween I play the Elder Scrolls tune on guitar or flute. Apart from that: I've also got a life.
I prefer to think of it in a glass half full kind of way. It's not so much "dumbing down" as making it "idiot proof". For every thing I miss from Morrowind, there are things that I definitely don't.
@@finnishraider9871 Really? I thought the combat in Skyrim was the WORST culprit of dumbing down compared to Morrowind. I enjoyed Skyrim but there are some regards in which it was absolutely dumbed down. Combat strategy is almost nonexistent since fatigue doesnt factor into much of anything anymore, also spellcasting cant fail and as long as you swing your weapon in the direction of the enemy you literally can't miss (both of these flaws correlate with the irrelevant fatigue issue, among others). In morrowind you HAVE to manage fatigue or you cant get a spell off or land a hit. Same if you ignore your Agl stat. Not to mention H2H feels worthless at first...until you experience a powerful enemy striggling to blast you with fireballs or bash your skull in the way he wants once you knock 100 or so points of fatigue off, then you get tempted to start playing more woth damage fatigue spells and enchantments, etc. In Oblivion and Skyrim you can straight up forget that fatigue and stamina exist and be perfectly fine the whole game save maybe leveling it once in a blue moon. Skyrim removed entire dimensions from combat and dumbed it all the way down to "Im gonna hit you harder than you're gonna hit me" and almost nothing else. I get that the combat (at least early on) in Morrowind could try your patience but thats what made it fun. And if you wanted to just smash everything into oblivion without having to think about anything you had that option too once you figured out how to *ahem* break the game a bit.
I have Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and I can safely conclude that Morrowind is just a dumbed-down version of Daggerfall. Anyone who argues is a casual.
While that may be so Morrowind is still far from being the most casual game out of all of them, and while Morrowind did lower the world size it was less generic and randomized giant mazes, it added for more variety of content such as weapon types, armor types, and armor slots to name a few, it didn't just have a majority of skills being merely communication with many seperate animals/monsters. It was more complex gameplay-wise but less complex world-wise than Daggerfall, the lack of fast travel is far from a casual feature.
Avoozl The lack of a feature does not make a game 'hardcore'. For example, Daggerfall's fast travel put you at risk of being attacked by enemies en route, time would go by very quickly (this is important in Daggerfall), and you would become fatigued if you traveled too far. Fast travel would cost coin, depending on the distance traveled. Now, quests in Daggerfall all have deadlines (Unlike Morrowind, where people will just wait a hundred years for you to do things) so you have to plan out how you're going to do a quest. Daggerfall also had a ton of armor types, such as Adamantium and Mythril, along with many of the usual armor types found in the newer Elder Scrolls games. Although the game was mostly randomly generated, does it matter? Do graphics play into a game being more and more dumbed down? Take a look at Skyrim, it's the dumbest game of all time. Anyone who likes it is a complete casual, we can all agree on that. But Morrowind isn't much different. In fact, many of the skills that were in Daggerfall were removed in Morrowind. For example, you were able to learn the languages of the Daedra and many of the other beasts in order to subdue them quickly. An ENTIRE school of magic was removed from Morrowind! Daggerfall didn't hold your hand as much as Morrowind either, as you actually have to make an effort to progress the main story. Oh, and the main story is also time based, so you can actually lose the game, unlike in Morrowind. What kind of hardcore game allows you to never lose it?
Also, Morrowind basically turns your character into a superhero. You are sent to Daggerfall because your best friend (The motherfucking emperor) asks you to undertake a quest there and do him a favor along the way. In Morrowind, you're just the reincarnated heroic Nerevarine who can talk to anyone and is immune to all disease.
I've played them all except for Arena and finished Daggerfall'/s main quest three times plus became the leaders of all the guilds available, I'm far from casual thank you very much I just prefer more variety and things to do, I don't give a shit about about graphics as they don't make a game. :) Both Oblivion and Skyrim were the most casual games out of the series but Skyrim was of course the worst in this regard.
Skyrim was probably the worst game of all time. And why bring up the 'Smaller world, but less random generation' if you don't care about the graphics? You just contradicted yourself.
***** If they made it, it'd be their lists, so they'd be entitled to their potentially nostalgia-influenced opinions. As for the comenters, let them wage flame wars if they want to. All you need is some popcorn. That's no reason to not make a video, I don't understand why some people are so afraid of seeing other people disagree or argue.
***** If someone is so afraid of flame wars that they wouldn't even make videos, if the risk of having them in the comment section is high, then that person shouldn't be making videos. Also, I don't think they would really mind it, but neither me, nor you can really know that. Let's not speak for them.
***** A few may. But it's more likely they'd like or even favorite the video because they enjoy the content, than dislike and unsibscribe because of the comment section. Nobody's forcing them to read the comments. Besides, people often enjoy laughing and flame wars.
***** Oh, that's what you meant. Sure, a few people might unsub and dislike because they disagree with the list, but they'd probbably make up for it by getting a bunch of countdown fanst to subscribe.
Also, as an avid and active Skyrim modder, I can say that what you're describing at 4:40 in terms of "random NPC death" is a nut they cracked for Skyrim. They just rarely used it. There are two different kinds of immortal toggles for NPC's in Skyrim - "essential" and "protected". Essential means the NPC cannot die, period. Protected means that the NPC can only die by the player's direct actions (weapons, spells, etc.). This "protected" feature works very well, and while there are quite a few mods that change essential NPC's to protected, the developers only used it in a very few niche cases, where it could have easily been used everything (maybe excluding the children, since they feel *so* strongly about that. Cmon guys, every day thousands of kids in the world die. It's a fact - accept it).
Maven black Briar is the NPC I wish I could kill she's a horrible person yet you can't kill her but still it's fun beating her up when she becomes Jarl of course do a quick save before I attack her
Not only kids, infants as well fetus. I don’t like killing fictional children, but the logic of making children invincible doesn’t make sense to any level of degree (and not in a good way). Actually it goes against the whole point of children being inexperienced and defenseless. The only time when Fallout 3 had an option to kill Mayer Macreedy, is a particular patch on the Xbox 360, where he didn’t have the essential tag assigned to him. Of course Fallout 4 did made killing him as a child being non cannon.
+Drew Manz Spell making was op af It was the funnest part of the game but it added no immersion bieng able to through fucking nukes at people, and enchanting is still in skyrim,, but again, less op, theres a skill for it, so you cant just find loaded grand soul gems, and make shit max power at low level, so theat way is actually more old fashioned. That should honestly appeal more to morrowind fans
Joe Bob crappy spells don't appeal to me, I think anyone who's played mages in skyrim will agree. I miss having that one hitter quitter spell. Sure it used all my magic, but it makes your character feel powerful......not pinging them with fireballs just stun locking enemies...that's skyrim magic for ya.....and
I disagree with you about the quest markers, and it's unfair to say that having no quest markers is a bad idea, when you only have one example out of all the quests in the entire game. You're saying you'd rather the game tell you exactly where you have to go, and exactly what you have to do. You'd rather the game do everything for you. Morrowind encourages, and, asks the player to actually use their brain to figure the game's quests and puzzles out. Other than that, good video.
while I agree that being encouraged to use your brain is a good idea I'd rather know where I'm going than spend an hour running around like a chicken with it's head cut off the less time I spend being lost is more time I can spend doing what I need to do think about it like a rescue mission, would you really want to arrive there after aimlessly wandering about or going there as soon as you're able?
I see your point also, about the game not being clear enough about what it is your supposed to do. It's the reason a lot of people couldn't get in to Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, the game isn't really all that clear about what you're meant to do or where you're meant to go. But it does give more of a sense of exploration and adventure I feel personally.
Breadbin Massacre if it were just a normal game without goals I'd agree, but we done away with just stumbling over goal points since we moved away from the old final fantasy series and even though you have clear markers you still have your exploration given there's always new things to trip over while going from area to area for instance if you forego the carriage rides on skyrim and walk everywhere you can stumble onto certain faction npc's or find places where you get new spellbooks/equip items. all non indicators do is stop the quests from becoming as clear as they should
There is indeed still exploration in the game, but I enjoyed having to work the quests out alone rather than having markers everywhere. It sort of feels like developers are scared players won't be able to figure the game out, so they insist on hand-holding to ensure they go where they want them to go. I'm not against games telling you where to go and having markers by any means, but in a game like this, I feel as though everything is discovery, even the quests, because with Morrowind they tried to make you feel like an adventurer, you don't instinctively know what you have to do and where everything is. You learn everything by playing. You have only the information you are given by characters as your guide, which I think is really cool. The NPCs having no personality whatsoever does ruin that a bit though xP
maybe but you're forgetting something, not everyone likes that. are you saying what you want in a game should be law? the path of one is selfish but a path of many is considerate, you point out what you don't like and call it a flaw where others would call it an addition. I liked not having to worry about where I needed to go since it freed up a lot of my concentration so it could go towards keeping an eye on my surroundings so I'd survive long enough to get there
One of the most unaddressed complications when developing a game is compromise. For everything removed, something new is added. Morrowind has less freedom of choice and scale than Daggerfall, but it also has a hand-crafted, fully 3D world. Oblivion has less freedom in playstyle than Morrowind, but it also has the radiant AI system and better combat. Skyrim has less variety in dungeons and quests than Oblivion, but it also has dual wielding, blacksmithing, and more unique NPCs. Fallout 4 is missing the skill system and dialogue found in Fallout 3, but also adds base building and weapon crafting. Developers never dumb a game down on purpose. If you have to remove old features to add new features, it's not dumbing down. It's just making another game.
People prefer New Vegas because it's more of a RPG. You can create your character to be however you like, and it's even possible to complete the main quest as a pacifist. 3 was more on rails. The best that I've heard is that 3 created a better world, but New Vegas had better writing. That is largely what determines which one is better for most people.
I think that an important point that you overlooked is context. Context and genre are what make people buy Elder Scrolls games. People who played Oblivion will likely try Skyrim, and newcomers to the series might try it out because they like other RPGs. While compromises are made in every game, some aspects should remain the same. If Fallout 5 were released and turned out to be an FPS, people would be outraged. It could be the best FPS ever, and that wouldn't matter at all because people want an RPG. If I wanted to play an FPS, I'd pick up COD, and when I want to play an RPG, I'll play Fallout. The context of TES means that people will expect a game that follows the path of the originals, but surpass them in some way. And what many people dislike about Skyrim is that it shifts to a game that is more "casual-friendly" and has fewer of the complexities that made Oblivion fun for RPG lovers. The reason people say that Skyrim is designed for casual gamers is that it loses so many features (abilities, classes, birthsigns, degrading weapons, etc.) that bring challenge and complexity for ones that just don't fit the genre as well. You can add dual wielding to any elder scrolls game without simplifying or removing such important features to the core of the elder scrolls experience.
Morrowind's execution of ideas and concepts was not as good as people remember. However, I think people wanted these to be built upon instead of discarded.
You're right. Morrowind is full of great concepts and ideas, but also weak realisation of said ideas and concepts. And I played the game several hundred hours and still play it sometimes. If you're not a big fan of Vvardenfell exotic landscape, culture, people and lore, you probably won't enjoy it. It's the best hiking simulator for that matter, but it's not really a great RPG. Too many missed opportunities, too linear quests and story with little choices, way too little reactivity from the game world, weak characters, boring and banal combat, the list goes on and on. Basically the same weaknesses as later ES games.
I never said it was bad. It's a product of its time. Nothing wrong with this of course. That's why I said people would rather have Morrowind's ideas be built on because at the time of Morrowind's release, some of it's ideas were held back by the limitations of the engine. These could be executed now due to technological advancements but instead Bethesda replaced or stripped these concepts instead of building on them. If they were right or wrong in doing this, I'll let you decide.
I'm playing Morrowind for the first time at the moment, and there are many things I think it did way better (enchanting, spellmaking, writing, depth, story, choice and consequence, RPG elements). Of course, the combat is annoying and Bethesda have improved that each game to their credit (still needs work though).
Finally, what I've been saying for years. The problem wasn't that skyrim tried to improve upon the older games, it's that they did it by outright removing features that weren't quite good, but had a solid idea behind them. Instead of evolving them to make them actually work well, they just said fuck it, and didn't replace it with anything else, which is even more sinful. It just feels like there's this nagging gap in the Skyrim while playing.
The thing about this franchise is that we're complaining about something so stupid... We should be glad the games are different, they all bring in a different audience, it's not like COD where every game is a carbon copy of each other. Each game had their share of superiorities or things they lacked on...
SwingDancer61 well this comment was written before the reveal, but this new COD is similar to the previous game anyhow, my point isn't about COD, my point is that Elder Scrolls games are vastly different every time
To be fair, the CoD fanbase has been complaining about the last couple of installments because they *were* different. I don't play CoD, but anyone who uses it as an example for over saturation nowadays usually don't even know what they're talking about.
Wow, all this sudden hate for Skyrim is pretty shocking to me. Whatever happened to all those amazing scores? I think Skyrim is an amazing game and is now my all time favorite game.
Yh I agree it's just because of how long it's been out and all the die hard fans have lost all the sense of wonder and exploration because they've done it all. Now people are only seeing the problems and comparisons instead of remember what a good game it was before they did everything. I personally leave a Bethesda game for like 2 years and come back to it so I've forgotten the little details and get little hits of nostalgia which I forgot.
+Pieface Studios For me, it's more like after that honeymoon period wears off, you actually begin to see the flaws your infatuation blinded you to. I just don't believe Skyrim, for all its pretty graphics, well tuned gameplay and excellent level design, really felt like an Elder Scrolls game. It just lacked a certain depth for me ... no true faction system, little repercussion, limited dialogue options, unengaging characters and drab locales, awkward crafting, poor writing/questlines ... plus, it didn't feel finished (probably because it wasn't). It just felt like it was on rails. All that content in the world and it just felt empty.
+Caboose Pootis I don't get the hate for Skyrim either. It either comes from Morrowind/Oblivion fanboys or try-hard haters who play Dark Souls. I played the hell out of Oblivion before I played Skyrim and I absolutely love Dark Souls, and I just do not understand the hatred for Skyrim.
Highmaster Otto, Prussian Stallion I hate to sound arrogant, but as I said: this isn't even up for debate. It fits the definition, so in my opinion that was not an opinion.
Certain aspects of the game have certainly been conglomerated, streamlined, and simplified, but to call it "dumbing down" is untrue, because intelligence is not measured by how complex and convoluted you can make something. It's rather insulting to people who simply like action games and don't want to spend time min-maxing every abstract number running the math behind the game's engine.
"hey you know that place where you can eat fine steak?" "yes, but they only sell burgers now" "what? but i want my steak at the steakplace!" "DONT YOU INSULT THE GUYS THAT WANT JUST TO EAT BURGERS"
After Fallout 4, it's pretty much confirmed that Bethesda will dumb down all the games they make Watch TES VI having the same voiced protagonist for all the races, including beast ones. There will be no classes or attributes, only skills will be fighting, sneaking and magic. The story line will be like 5 quests. It will win Game of the Year and rave reviews despite having several game breaking glitches.
+scapelife If somebody suddenly make a "Why Fallout games isn't dumbing down" video, I'm pretty sure that we're in a good ride of reading fantastic comments lol They may call every forms of Morrowind fans and any person of who criticize Skyrim as nostalgiafags or no lifes, but currently Bethdrones are known worse than these nostalgiafags Also PAPA NITO
+scapelife Ive always been a huge fan of Bethesda, and even still enjoyed Skyrim, although I noticed it being more simple. But I agree. Played Fallout 4 for probably 2 weeks or so, and just havent gone back. I dont even know that I would even really consider it an RPG anymore.
+scapelife That's simply not true. Remember Arena and Daggerfall? How many quests did they have compared to newer Elder Scrolls games? Yeah that's what I thought. Also, do you forget the first three Elder Scrolls games had little (if ANY) voice acting? You can't really expect Skyrim to be as true to TES series as the others as time was cut SHORT. Many fully voiced quests had to be deleted because of time restraints, and many other things like killable and diverse children, more weapons and armor, etc.. It's true the puzzles in Skyrim were easy, but you have to remember that they were designed to keep the Draugr in and out at bay (you can literally read something like that in one of the loading screens). Also, this is SKYRIM. Home to the FIERCE and HARDY NORDS. They aren't know for their smarts, just resistance to the cold and their combat prowess. Besides, if anything there would be MORE actors in TES VI because the more money Bethesda gets the more actors they can afford. TES is getting more and more realistic rather then the "roll of the dice" mechanics used in the first two Elder Scrolls games to emulate D&D, which you can obviously see improved in newer Elder Scrolls games. And what did you say about "game breaking glitches"? I found NONE in Oblivion and Skyrim, trying anything and even looking up glitches all over the place online. I didn't specifically look up glitches for Morrowind, but through playing it I found a way to glitch through the wall and building to skip "your orders", but I didn't quite find anything like that in Skyrim. Besides, 99.9% of game breaking glitches require to do this and this that you normally would never think of doing in a normal playthrough (Missingno anyone?). There are less glitches as TES series progresses, which is wonderful for Skyrim as they had to rush in development. Besides, I don't think of Morrowind and Skyrim (Arena was the best but doesn't follow what I'm about to say) as medieval Europe as most fantasy RPG games follow, but more like our society if we were not as technologically advanced. That made them unique and different, which is why they are the most popular games in the series. I didn't play Fallout 4, but this video is about TES. Not Fallout. TES is not Fallout, so I honestly do not give a crap how easy it is. Bethesda is popular because of TES, so they are going to prioritize it over the rest of their games. Besides, you can really immerse yourself in the newer Elder Scrolls games, especially with mods. Vanilla Skyrim AND modded Skyrim is better then it's predecessors in terms of immersion, fun, realism, and difficulty. You're probably asking "what the hell do you mean 'difficulty'? I'll tell you. In vanilla Skyrim if you feel it's too easy, TURN UP THE FREAKING DIFFICULTY IDIOT!! If that's still too easy, don't use potions or other stuff for further immersion and realism. If that still isn't enough (even though it's still more immersive than the other Elder Scrolls games), DOWNLOAD FREAKING MODS!! That's the WHOLE POINT OF SKYRIM!!! If you want to be Sheogorath SUMMON CHEESE!! If you want to play how Skyrim should be, download things that would make your game more immersive. If you want to go out of your way to make Skyrim more realistic but slightly more or less immersive (depending on your tastes), download survival mods like Frostfall and Realistic Needs And Diseases. There are WAY more mods for Skyrim than the other Elder Scrolls games, if you don't like vanilla Skyrim, USE THEM. Oblivion also has more mods than Morrowind, but modded Oblivion is obviously more immersive than the vanilla game. There WILL be more mods for TES VI, and it WILL be a longer and more immersive experience.
+scapelife I think you should have an open mind and consider my points further instead of simply dismissing them. Can you try to make a counter point? But yeah I should've broke it down into paragraphs. I guess we'll have to wait to see how TES VI is.
>began with Morrowind That's your problem. Every single thing that people complained Skyrim did (smaller worldmap, content sacrificed for graphics, content thrown out by the bucketload, etc), Morrowind did about six thousand times more. Play Daggerfall or Arena some day, and you'll see that Morrowind dumbed down the Elder Scrolls to the nth degree.
That still doesn't change the fact that Oblivion and Skyrim kept bringing it down further, the difference between Daggerfall and Morrowind is not nearly as less as say Daggerfall compared to Skyrim, Morrowind did bring a whole lot of other things in turn for what was removed in an almost equal fashion unlike Skyrim which removed thrice as many things than what was added.
They removed pants, spellcreation, fucked up enchanting, and limited the amount of magic items you could equip at the same time. Morrowind got rid of carts, pirate ships, court, wereboars, greatly reduced the amount of factions, completely fucked the reputation system that actually had a place in Daggerfall, etc.
Doesn't change the fact they removed more than they needed to, they would've taken advantage of that factor and still be able to convince people they did what was needed to be done. Usually using a completely new engine is the reason why features are cut since they take time to reimpliment but honestly I think they didn't use a new engine at all and just made it out that way, the engine seem too similar to New Vegas's engine.
Morrowind fanboy says: I played Skyrim but it's so boring: obviously it's a bad game. Skyrim fanboy says: I played Morrowind but it's so boring: obviously you're a filthy peasant casual gamer. Morrowind fanboys can't have changes, period. Also i laugh at the "No-nostalgia-goggles-i-just-prefer-it-i-cant-handle-the-truth-leave-me-alone" people in the comments, this guy provides with good, well thought out arguments. Morrowind fanboys can't debate, they can only ignore. "Just LOOK at the games, and you'll understand" Well please enlighten me instead of saying "It is because i think it is"
Thanks for proving my point. "Hurr durr we simply like morrowind more for REASONS WE CANT EXPLAIN" I'm starting to believe in stereotypes again. You're not a fucking casual if you prefer skyrim over morrowind, Deal with it.
Skyrim was my first elder scrolls game and I could not disagree with you more I've played motto wind multiple times through and it's plain and dull compared to Skyrim. Honestly one of the only things I liked more in Morrowind than I did in Skyrim was the journal that made you feel like you were actually writing in it after every event rather than it feeling like a step by step tutorial.
thanks for actually providing arguments :) I guess reading dialogue isn't much worse than voice acting. Especially because of the horrible repeated: "Huh?; Huh?; Arrow to the knee" etc. Imo, Dialogue is pretty bad in both games. Morrowind's world is indeed more fun to explore because it's setting is more interesting than Skyrim, and because everything you find in Skyrim is a draugr-fest. I agree with you that the quest markers are pretty stupid, Morrowind has a pretty stupid questing system too, but it's somewhat less irritating. For it's time, the combat was good in Morrowind, i hate it, but then again mods, as you use mods for graphics. I'll give you the fast travel, the carriages (skyrim) are there, and would have provided a very lore friendly way of travelling, but fast travel kinda ruins the game for me. I actually think Morrowind is the best TES game, which might be somewhat contradicting to my previous comments, was playing devil's advocate :/
Morrowind had the best character progression, Oblivion had the best quests, and Skyrim had the best gameplay. Each game is good for their own reasons. However, let's be frank, Morrowind is textbook definition outdated. Anyone who believes that RNG based combat is a good idea is a complete fucking moron. Also, as someone who plays a generalist in these games (use stealth, melee and ranged combat, and spell and weapon crafting), being hard locked into a system is not enjoyable for me. However, I do agree that the story of Morrowind is probably the most enthralling out of all of them, despite the complete disconnect between story and gameplay. Oblivion was a disaster balance wise. It had, hands down, the WORST progression system in the series. Tying leveling to specific skills was probably the biggest turn off for me, as someone who likes to do absolutely everything. Having bandits wearing Daedric armor by the time you hit level twenty is absolutely ridiculous. Since everything was hard locked to leveling, you'd often have spells that could not be cast because the magicka costs were too high (fingers of the mountain). The combat was ok (if a little finicky) but really the quests were what sold me on Oblivion. The puzzles were awesome, and the dungeons were cool, although backtracking was kind of a pain in the ass. Skyrim by far was the best of the series gameplay wise. Outside of the boss cheese that could sometimes happen, combat was fluid and smooth and the stealth system was very responsive. Yeah the game kind of dipped in difficulty once you hit 50, but at least I had a feeling of actually progressing (cough Oblivion cough). Dragon battles were fun, despite how horribly balanced they could be (ridiculously easy or instant death). I particularly enjoyed the werewolf and vampire mechanics in this game, instead of simply being a hindrance because you went to sleep after you read about a vampire den (cough Oblivion cough), you actually had some interesting new abilities and tradeoffs (made exponentially better in Dawnguard). I do miss the character progression however, and honestly, the barebones (not casual, barebones for gameplay purposes) approach left the actual quests lacking. The dungeon crawling made it worth it though, because of the cool secret passages and treasure you can find.
Remlap1223 I really wouldn't say Skyrim has the best gameplay since so many features were removed and that it has far less gameplay variety than like say Morrowind, only really the melee combat part of Skyrim was better but that's not enough to make it the best TES game at all.
Avoozl Like I said, I do like to do everything in this game, but I wasn't primarily a magic user. Morrowind's spells were probably what you're thinking of. They tacked on the RNG for bows too, I literally had RBF for about 10 seconds after I clearly hit an enemy with an arrow, but the damage didn't register because I technically "missed". Yeah, in terms of spells, you could do a ton of interesting shit like levitate that you couldn't do in later games (specifically Oblivion, despite it keeping the spellcraft system). Skyrim's spells were significantly streamlined, but it also had more variance than it did in Oblivion. In Oblivion, you shot fireballs, or you touched people with fire. In Morrowind and Skyrim, each spell was varied. You had a spammy flame spell to start, and eventually you could get to the point where you could use an upgraded version of that spell to stick flames on the ground and walls. Morrowind may have very well had better magic gameplay than Skyrim, but I don't play as a dedicated mage, so I don't know. The most I dived into magic use was when I was a Vampire Lord briefly in the Dawnguard storyline before I had to cure myself to continue with the quest. I can say for a fact, however, that in terms of the mechanical combat, RNG based combat is about as welcome as the keyword based dialogue system that was in Morrowind, which is not at all. Morrowind's combat was inferior to Oblivion, and it certainly doesn't even come close to how proper Skyrim's was, and Skyrim's combat, while fluid and mechanically sound, didn't do anything to make me go "YES! THIS! ALL OF THIS! ALL OVER MY FACE! BHLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLR!"
Not every part of Morrowinds combat was inferior to Oblivion, there was different damage types based on attack type. Also Skyrim's magic wasn't just streamlined nor did it have more varience than Oblivion, quite a few spells Oblivion had were left out such as the unlock spell for one example, and no magic making was the worst thing they could do. Yes I said Skyrim's combat was better but I didn't say it was better in an awesome kind of way, however I strongly dislike kill cams as they take the control away from you and make you die for bullshit reasons. Kill cams should've just stayed in Fallout 3/NV where they belong.
Avoozl I completely agree that that they took out spells that had some really cool effects in Skyrim, the unlock spell was one of them that I was really disappointed about. I also hated the fact that they removed spellcrafting, although I think the reasoning behind this is that spells were much more complicated to code for in Skyirm unlike the whole self cast, ranged cast, touch cast thing they had going on in Oblivion. Like I also said, Skyrim's combat isn't great, it's fun sometimes, but most of the time it's tedious. The kill cams are definitely welcome in my opinion because it gave the game some flash to it. Now when you're playing a mage, you're blowing people up with fireballs and throwing them across rooms, so you don't need a flashy kill cam, but sniping someone with a bow or cutting someone's head off is definitely worthy of being cinematic. Makes you feel like you did something other than mash buttons until someone died. Basically I only want 3 things in the next TES game that Skyrim lacked: spellcrafting, character stats, and a real "hardcore" mode. I do want armor to damage (although if they shift the character progression back to Oblivion's clusterfuck, that can stay out), I want mysticism back, I want alchemy and enchanting to have the same oomph it did in Oblivion and Morrowind, and I also want quests like they had in Oblivion that weren't just "fetch item in X cave off of Y person's body and give it to Z person." There were some cool exceptions in Skyrim, like Blood on the Ice, but for the most part they lacked. I think Oblivion was a happy medium between "follow these possibly incorrect directions to a T" and "here's exactly where you need to go."
Sure, I am nostalgic, because I wanted Skyrim to have spellmaking, nonessential NPCs, Diversity upon the enemies/weapons/armors, quests, that wouldn't turn out to be marked with a GPS, a dialogue tree that covers up most of the stuff you can ask from Morrowind, have a colorful landscape like Oblivion, have a fucking bank like in Daggerfall. I had to upload over 100 mods just to make the game more interactive and filled like Oblivion was.
I hate when people say skyrim looked better than oblivion. skyrim had 50 shades of gray shit smeared all over the textures, maybe a little dark green when you hit some forest. oblivion while the graphics aren't as crisp, was much more colorful. anvil was a beautiful sunset ocean town. bruma looks pretty much like skyrim in oblivion form. leyawiin was a swamp, and for my last point you had the realm of oblivion which literally was walking through hell. red skies, lava rivers, even complete with ingredients only found in oblivion
+Drew Manz Oblivion was basically more balanced when it came to colour, it was only grey-ish when it needed to be during weather such as storms and fog. Medieval fantasies are supposed to have colour and not be completely monochrome.
The radiant AI is still very flawed, regardless of how much you defend this. When you see a hobo attempt to fight a dragon, you know something is wrong. Also, the guards acknowledge you if you're part of the dark brotherhood, meaning that others should too.
Especially when the hobo wins. Well in my case, I saw a giant singlehandedly kill three dragons. The first dragon, it was a 1on1 and it was a named dragon so, I thought, whatever, just one dragon. Then a named dragon and another random came down, the named with ice breath. I thought the fight would be interesting and I'd swoop in and clean up after the giant lost. Giant killed all 3 with a few swings each and had more than half health left. I remember in any oldschool RPG like Baldurs Gate or something, you needed to be near demigod status to kill a dragon, with a party of similarly strong people (unless you used some ridiculously cheesy exploits)
i agree the AI was poorly implemented however many modders have made correction to this by making them want to run away in the presence of a dragon. there are mods out there to correct those AI flaws. thank God Bethesda give use the tools to add and correct them.
THEE SACRILEGE SHOW ! Bethesda has for a long time been really cool about that sort of thing. As much as I love Morrowind and Oblivion vanilla, I still gotta tweak and add to it to enjoy it as much as I can, and it's genius by them to do it like that. If they really wanted to they could release a half finished game and just let people mod it and it'd still be fun.
CrucialxF0E I wasn't saying that the shitty AI is dumbing down. I was agreeing with you. Also, to the people saying that mods make the game beter(it does, but still), what about the console players? Not all of them will have the money for a PC that can run the game+mods, so they're stuck with the meh version of skyrim.
CrucialxF0E If I was a hobo nord, I would fight a dragon. I might be the dragonborn and not know it. Might be drunk.. or might be tired of the hobo life and want to go out in a blaze of glory.
People who prefer either one of TES games and go on a crusade against others, shouldn't call them selves gamers or fans of the series. All TES games are amazing, stop bitching like some little kids. I can't wait to see what Bethesda will bring to the table with Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls VI! :) Great video, with great points by the way.
A great series for a gamer has at least one title a gamer has grownup with, sequels that are amazing in their own right, plus unique, and a kind of hype so when you finally get the latest game and play the shit out of it, all you can think of is when is the next game coming out.
You can say whatever you want but oldschool RPGs that didn't hold your hand with quest markers, or telling you exactly how to do everything was the most fun. Sometimes I would get lost for hours trying to find an especially tricky location to find in Morrowind because even with the detailed directions I got lost, and it was frustrating, but on the way I had fun finding so much more that I wouldn't have found had I not been in those very specific places searching for everything. I'd say, "Hey, here's a door inside this rock I barely noticed. I was looking for a cave... is this it?" and nope, it would be a high level dungeon area with monsters that would completely fuck me in the ass and I would have to actually figure out a strategy if I wanted the contents of the cave. I didn't even know what would be in it, but I had to know for sure if it was so well guarded. I'd use all my charged items, kite around, use potions or scrolls on certain enemies they worked better on, I'd flee and rest if I had to, and at the end of the day my curiosity would be sated and I'd probably have found nothing at all in the cave except for some slaves that won't let me unshackle them. That, and I'd also find enemies that permanently lower your attributes (Because YES, Morrowind and Oblivion had attributes and other legitimate RPG elements!) and I would be completely fucked as a warrior with no magic prowess trying to find a spell that would reverse the effects (even though I knew I wouldn't have one because they weren't found at every magic hawker in a guild or temple) and then I'd have to use a scroll of divine intervention just to get out and get myself sorted at a temple. That's the kind of run where you are sidetracked from your main mission because you couldn't even figure out where to go, got lost exploring the world, got fucked up for your curiosity, exhausted all your supplies trying to figure out what a dungeon had in store for loot against overwhelming enemies, got your items broken disintegrated, got all your stats lowered to the point where you could barely kill a forager worm, and had nothing at all to show for it. It's frustrating, unfortunate, and incredibly fun to be able to have that happen. To exist and attempt to thrive in a world that doesn't revolve around you. You may be an important player or become one in the over all scheme of the story, but the world isn't tailored to fit you, enemies don't scale with you so they're always beatable, there can be permanent or near permanent consequences for you acting foolishly and it's an amazing thing. Elder Scrolls, and RPGs in general are getting more simplistic in many ways (not that they don't improve in others) and are being dumbed down. That doesn't mean you can't appreciate a Skyrim, or something like that, I enjoyed it for what it was, for the hours I played (Though a fraction of my time spent on Morrowind and Oblivion). It's okay to like things that are simplistic, or worse, I like plenty of stupid pop songs that don't mean anything but I wouldn't claim they're as deep and insightful as some others, because they aren't. Morrowind and Oblivion simply had more to offer in the ways of complexity with build variation, weapon, armor, clothes categories and pieces, I mean, Morrowind had Pauldrons! You could mix and match. It looked stupid, but it was amazing to have that stupid freedom.
Hey, it's not like you can't stumble upon random locations or caves in Skyrim while doing some other quest, and wander about doing wathever you want. Hell, that's practically half of the game. There's a lot more random events and encounters happening here than in previous games. The map is also much more exciting to explore than Oblivion's monochromatic plains and dull forests. It isn't by any means more 'simplistic' -only the interface seems more casualized and console friendly, but that's it. You just need to take your nostalgia goggles off.
J Jo It's practically abolished all RPG elements, (Much less varied class, skill, choice, removed attributes, hell, you can only raise fatigue, mana, or hp on level up lol) I actually had to explain in depth to my friend how to play Morrowind and the features and what you did, how to create your character, not gimp it, how to level up properly etc. Skyrim's landscape is also pretty boring, and I personally prefer rolling hills and plains/forest instead of the mostly icy tundra (with a few different non snow/ice) looking areas. That part is purely personal preference though, I just don't like snow/ice areas that much in any game. If we're talking about landscape, Morrowind had a much more alien and interesting landscape than other Elder Scrolls games have since. Every region is different and unique looking which both Oblivion and Skyrim decided didn't matter much. On that note the setting in terms of culture and fantasy was dumbed down as well, Oblivion slowly started to incorporate real animals (chickens, horses etc) everywhere. They aren't variants, or anything, they're just the exact animal, and this was alright in small doses, but Skyrim decided to go full blown with it, and make me feel like instead of a cool and unique fantasy setting like previous Elder Scrolls (Morrowind specifically, where Guars were pack animals, you didn't travel using Horses, you took a Silt Strider, there weren't Ants or ant colonies there were Kwama workers, foragers, fighters and queens instead), that we were instead in a generic medieval fantasy setting with dragons and magic mixed in. (This is a smaller gripe, and more of a nitpick but it still made the world feel less vibrant or enjoyable.) But back to the main point, the simple fact that you don't have to think about anything you're doing (travel markers, fast travel), and ridiculously easy combat/laughable dragon fights (which were supposed to be the big draw to the game and was marketed as being epic) makes the game less complex and varied. Everything scaling to your level so you can practically win any battle at any time? again, it's for casual and simplicity's sake. You can use the nostalgia argument on me or talk down to my intelligence if you want, there's nothing wrong with preferring or liking Skyrim's approach. But it is more simplistic, and it is more dumbed down, even if it does add newer or interesting layers to other things. It's completely opinion if the simplistic approach is better for you or you like it more, but it being more simplistic is rooted in fact
it's a damn game, its simplified but it isnt dumbed down or overly simplified, first and foremost i havent encountered an RPG with shows directions like an actual human would, and if there are, they were most likely irrelevant because the story is very linear, i do enjoy questing and solving puzzles, but even i, a hardcore-ish gamer thank God that it isnt too complicated, i like to find locations, and solve difficult puzzles which i wish skyrim had more, but if i wanted to play a puzzles the whole time, id buy a puzzle game,for me, it takes away the experience of being a warrior because its still an action game damn it, you cant reason with dragons but bear in mind, i still wish it was a bit more complicated but i dont want improvements in saving countless hours to go away, id rather immerse myself in the story and other gameplay mechanics rather than waste several days, following broken or unclear directions or frustrate myself with items which are a pain in the ass to find under normal or even "adventure" situations
Kazuhira Miller No, if I had my nostalgia goggles on instead of looking at what the series did with Morrowind, what the series decided to do with Oblivion, and what the series started to go back to with Skyrim, I wouldn't be hating on Oblivion. I'd be hating on Skyrim. Now would you like to blindly insult me some more, would you like to have an intelligent discussion, or would you like me to fuck off?
this whole 'oh it's just nostalgia' thing is fucking stupid. Its not just nostalgia, its complex classic rpg rules that have quite clearly been dumbed down
plus, it's dumbed down in a sense that it is way too easy and quick nowadays. In morrowind, you actually had to travel and use instinct and directions to get to your destination. In skyrim, you look at your compass and press W.
and what you said about the impact of factions in morrowind v skyrim is completely hypocritical. You said that in morrowind, they just have lower disposition, when in skyrim they say mean things to you. If someone says mean things to you, that means they don't like you. if they don't like you, your disposition with them is low
and nobody cares that the most broad topics that aren't really worthy of discussion have copy paste answers. Starts asking about their personal stuff, or walking around them for their audible response to what your wearing, what's your status,etc. Basically, the npc chatting system hasn't evolved. And you say you have a problem with copy paste responses? have you actually started smithing? the amount of times you hear 'i dont claim to be the best blacksmith in whiterun blah blah blah' from adrianne avenicci is so disgustingly annoying, and is not even related to what is going on. it's like if someone asked 'can i have a coffee?' and the other person responds with 'you know, my dad taught me how to peel the husk off corn'
you are just the dumbest youtuber arent you? oh you like an old game because it's more complex and true to real rpgs and you think the the successors of the game are more simple? oh shame on you! take your nostalgia goggles off!
Minigun101 ..Why?? She's one of the last of the blades, and when i found that out I kinda flipped, I was all like "WOAH I GET TO JOIN DEH BLADES AGAIN AWWW YEAH" Because like ESM was my fav game and now that you can join the blades in Skyrim it was like *YEAH!*
Its relative because its the same company and fallout and TES are similar games. Look at Morrowind. Some people don't like Morrowind because all the numbers behind it, but those complex series of numbers allowed you do do waay more than Skyrim. Sure Skyrim is streamlined, but its gimped
***** Its not bad, new players just don't understand how it works so they think its broken, and the interface is fine, one click and you have all your information laid out how you want.
***** No. There is no way to really be good or bad at it. It is just random chance. Yes, it is deep, but that doesn't make it good. It sucks, and, as Zer0dog said, it does not have a place in a real time game. And what the fuck do animations have to do with the mechanics?
I disagree with your point about nostalgia. For whatever reason, be it my age or masochistic gameplay preferences, I feel insulted by the newer TES games. Morrowind is my favorite. I went back to it after Skyrim. I will admit I heavily mod Morrowind, but in the end, it's a better game than Skyrim. And Skyrim is not a bad game; it's just not an RPG.
Next Elder scrolls should make it mandatory that you need two followers spending an hour putting on and taking off Armour every time you want to switch clothes.
+UberDroid How mature, a little butthurt are we? Can't accept other people's opinions without calling them "stupid"? He brought up many good points. You can disagree with him but there's no need to be a jerk about it.
+Jimmy De'Souza Okay now compare 3e to 4e and 5e. Removing game mechanics is by definition "dumbing down." But is that really important, and does it negatively impact gameplay? You can simplify, but you can also streamline. I believe the debate related to this video shouldn't be "is the Elder Scrolls dumbing down?" it should be "does it matter that the Elder Scrolls is dumbing down?"
+Jimmy De'Souza Um, isn't that exactly what the creator of this video did? You need to read what I wrote a little more carefully, because I'm pretty sure that we both hold essentially the same opinion in the end.
I don't think "Dumbing Down" is a very objective word. First of all, it isn't even a commonly used phrase outside of gaming circles. Secondly, because it isn't a real word, it has problems because one group of people would say any removal of game mechnaics, necessary or otherwise, is dumbing down. Others might think Dumbing Down is removing game mechanics that add a feeling of immersion necessary to the experience. Still others might think that dumbing down is not adhering to real life physics (like putting on armour for a few hours like SorcererDave mentioned).
It seems that these comments are designed to make it appear that there are members of the dark brotherhood infiltrated into the community, that's why they know who you are. It does not make sense that a member of the companions, who are engaged in mercenary jobs, know what person is a member of a secret religious sect of killers.
@@void9399 But the dark brotherhood at this point is in complete shambles, they have to resort to petty contracts because they were nearly wiped out. But every single guard in the game can say that line, I get there not trying to say every guard is an infiltrated member of the dark brotherhood but it does mean the dark brotherhood has managed to infiltrate every single hold in skyrim. Pretty well done for a faction thats supposed to be on its last leg
@@harrymanocha4533 Yea maybe high level officials but I highly doubt a lowly guard is going to know that im a member of the dark brotherhood. I understand the companions not knowing but what about the thieves guild? The Dark brotherhood in past games has had a tumultuous relationship with the Thieves Guild, but lets say for whatever reason they dont know the player is the leader of the now rebuilt Dark Brotherhood who just killed the emperor. Why doesnt Maven Black Briar know who you are, or at least give you the dialogue option to tell them you're the leader of the organization she has super close relations with.
@@bigyoshi2893 The fact that the Dark Brotherhood is not at its best during the game does not imply that they do not have the ability to infiltrate some of its members in the different territories of Skyrim. Astrid tells you that they still find out about the sacraments that some people do, which implies that they must have a large network of members to be able to do it. You should not fall into the error of thinking that the guilds are only made up of the members that you see in the game, because that is only a limitation of the games. In Oblivion the Brotherhood is at its best, but you only get to be in a sanctuary and meet only a few of its members, that does not mean that they were the only ones in Cyrodiil. The same in Skyrim.
What do you mean by that? I found the commentary in this video extremely well-put together and necessarily critical of a video in which, quite frankly, there was a lot of misguided and incoherent complaints. I don't understand what you mean by "cold numbers" and "affiliated context", please elaborate.
Gavin Coon If you mean that this video didn't represent and capture the original video correctly, I disagree almost entirely. The original video was built up of these individual points that culminated into this final "death to the casuals"-esque argument. By refuting the specific points contained within the video, Jingles was able to respond to the video as a whole. So I'm still unsure as to what you mean, as the "affiliated context" literally manifested itself within the points that the original guy made.
I’ve been replaying Skyrim after 8 years. I am now finding it a very surface level game, which I didn’t when I first played. The lack of consequence to your choices is jarring. Picking a side in the civil basically only changes the color of the soldiers in the cities, as it affects nearly ZERO quests that are not directly tied to that plotline. It is still addictive and entertaining, but it is not something you get invested in anything other than lore, as whatever you do changes nothing for you as a player. I can mow down a town, pay a fine and people will act like it never happened. In absurds 6 quests I go from no one to archmage in the College of Winterhold, without even having to use magic besides the entrance “exam” and breaking the wall in Saarthal. It is like they were afraid I would get bored if I had to earn my ranks in any guild and so they threw ranks at me. This whole “chosen one” thing is also very annoying. I am a Gary Stu in this game. Everything comes way too easy. I mean, fuck, not even being dragonborn affects that much of the plot. As it stands, plotwise, being a dragonborn only serves as an excuse for the ES to not turn you mad or blind when you use it. In the gameplay it only makes everyone admire you for it, despite you not even earning that power. You are born with it. Literally everything else that is tied to the plot could be done by anyone, as the Thu’um is not even an exclusive power. So why go the “chosen one” route? I didn’t earn the admiration of the npcs, I know shit about magic and somehow I am already a national hero and the head of a magic school. So I can say that yes, it was dumbed down considerably. Had Bethesda not been scared of making new players bored, this game could have been way better than it is.
I've played the Elder Scrolls titles from Daggerfall to Skyrim, and while there was a lot in Skyrim that I did not do (Bard's College, the "Fighters Guild" (Companions?), and even the Thieve's Guild I never finished, but I can't bring myself back to playing it. Morrowind on the otherhand, keeps drawing me back periodically, even though I know every nook and cranny in that game. So I don't think it is just nostalgia goggles, that explains this. It is a genuinely a good game, and the outdated game mechanics, can partially be dealt with modding. The toggle option for sneak, for example, is a welcome addition from the Code Patch, mods for "Oblivion style" ingredient picking (without opening a plant container) is another. One mod which balances the Speechcraft skill, making it easier to use (succeed), but less impacful per success, is also one of my favorites. As a matter of fact, even now I have a Morrowind character I'm playing. He is a Nord Knight by the name of Eric Stormcloak, and yes, he is a "distant relative" to the guy in Skyrim. He shares the hatred for the Empire and wishes for independence for Skyrim. He was inprisoned for being a revolutionary, which is the explanation I gave for him being a prisoner at the beginning. He avoids the Imperial factions, but works for the Blades, to save Morrowind, his new home. His true allegiance is to the House Redoran.
Yeah there are no consequence in skyrim like .. I don't know a guard whom I run by and saying "Some are saying the Psijic Monks have been seen in Skyrim. They're an ancient order. I had 'em figured for dead" after I finished the college or "You hear the news? The Emperor has been murdered! Right here, in Skyrim. By the gods, if the Dark Brotherhood can do that, nobody's safe..." after beating the dark brotherhood. I mean yeah the other games have so much more consequence like.. like... but you are right with the mage guild. They should have many quest and exams. Like in Morrowind where I spend a day in real life bringing thinks to other npc and talking to npc and then being the boss. That's for sure a much better reason to become the archmage of an unimportant college that is as significant as the mage guild hall in Bruma. But yeah Skyrim could have been so much better then one of the successful and best selling games ever.
I will point out one very damning thing for Daggerfall: There are quests (from the Knightly Orders of all things) where you can find an artifact. In order to do that, you have to kidnap a child for a witch (the witch wants an heir, not kill her, but still), and the child does NOT want to go with you. And this is from a palace, not a slum or some rando's home. While your reputation can go down if you are caught and refuse to give it back, if you evade them entirely, your reputation IMPROVES. It also improves if you give the kid back to the guards, but does that make sense? I'd personally still arrest the jerk who kidnapped her in the first place. Not only that, but in the main quest you have to steal from the castles of each of the three major powers. And you can do that with no stealth training or deliberation on your part. You walk in, and while guards may chase you to the front door, it is completely forgiven after you step outside. I was part of the Knights of Daggerfall, and I wasn't even demoted. You can even still take quests from the castle you stole from! Yes, you can technically fail the main quest in Morrowind, but there are not that many consequences to your actions beyond that. Joining factions that hate each other, murdering the shit out of slave traders (and frankly anyone else if your stealth is high enough).... Not much happens. Killing the Dark Brotherhood is nice, but you can't join them anyway, and they've been reduced to a squad of goons. In Skyrim, Let's see... The Emperor's murder, a complete change in leadership for half the province, goons being sent after you for stealing (or just knocking someone over), assassins can be sent after you, the entire Dark Brotherhood destroyed ENDING the assassins coming after you, the tree being either restored or replaced in Whiterun, a daily festival in Solitude, the better part of a noble family killed in Markarth, one quest in the DB which might lead to a grieving mother's suicide. Even just joining one of the sides in the civil war can put you on half the province's shit list. I guess, what are we looking for as far as consequences? Because I'm seeing more tangible things in Skyrim than I ever did in the other games.
@@thecteam4395 The main problem is that they don't have guts. Joining a side puts me in half the province's shit list? Then block all the fucking quests from that side and open new ones on the side you chose. Have me be banned from the other side's cities, have me be killed on sight there until the war is over, and preferably lasting longer than a couple quests to decide the fate of the province. That is called consequence. A noble family killed on Markarth? How does that affect me? Does the city enter a crisis or is there any internal conflict? Is there a fight for their possessions? Do the city's wares lose value, making it something I could exploit or suffer for? Do we see any aftermath at all other than their death in itself? A couple npcs using scripted lines as a vague reference to what you did is nothing. It is all very surface level, and yes, It is mostly a problem with all games, though I do think in Skyrim It is worse because of all the reasons I pointed out related to the story. You can't earn anything, it is all thrown to you.
Why every time some one says that they liked the older TES games, people like you have to yell '' OH IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE BLINDED BY NOSTALGIA!! TAKE THAT'' For me personally Skyrim was shallow. It looked nice, but it didn't really immerse me into the world. I first played Morrowind when I was 8 years old, I couldn't read in English very well back then so I fucked around mostly. Fast forward 8 years later I finally played the game seriously, the combat pissed me off, but when I finally realized that I was using the wrong weapons it became much easier. I loved it how I was just dropped off on a strange land and every one treated me like I'm an outsider. I loved how at the very beginning you weren't told that you're this prophet that has to save Vvardenfell. In my opinion Oblivion and Skyrim rushed it. In Oblivion you're not some prophet hero, you're just some random schmuck that got arrested. You escape the prison, go to that priest guy then go to kvatch and the impending doom in near and you have to stop it. In Skyrim it's pretty much the same only happens a bit sooner. Impending doom is near, go do 2 quests then it's revealed that you're the dragonborn go stop the big bad dragon. While in Morrowind it's, go do some quests, go there, do that, talk to the ashlanders then way into the game you discover that you're the nerevarine. I'm not saying that Skyrim is bad, the more I play it the more I get into to it, but that's the thing. I shouldn't be in my 4th playthrough to finally get into it. 3 times I won the war for the legion and the queen acted like the war was still happening. The whole story and side stories just felt shallow.
I love how you try to dispute the fact that it's not nostalgia and then begin your counter argument with "I first played morrowind when I was 8 years old..."
meatboys And you didn't read further than that. In a nutshell, I never understood the game back then. Later on about 10years later I finally played it and beat it. I liked how it made you into a hero and not just ''oh you're born a hero god'' that's just lame and uninspired.
+Fatty8Claws The fact that there are right and wrong weapons is a problem with the game, surely a game where everything is a viable option is better? You know, like Oblivion? My big issue with Morrowind was the bland NPC's, most of them just spouted the same information and had no character whatsoever. I liked Oblivion's story personally, I liked the idea that you were just some guy who got mixed up in this, I didn't think it was rushed, it kind of kept to the same formula of guy who gets caught up in a story bigger than him thing, they let you know you were just some average Joe, Morrowind and Skyrim both had you be the prophecised hero, that's not a negative at all, I just prefer what Oblivion gave. Also, there's a reason why in Vvardenfell you're treated as an outsider and in the other games you are not and that is simply the lore, the Dunmer are rather xenophobic people, Morrowind was also not completely following Imperial regime at the time and so were allowed to be discontent with outsiders, Cyrodil and Skyrim however, are more open to outsiders, Cyrodil in particular.
Umbra Magister Most of these points I've made to other people. :D For morrowind, I like the buildup. Skyrim felt shallow for me and there was no buildup for you to be the dovakin. They said that in the trailers for fucks sake :D. A little mystery in games is a good thing.
Fatty8Claws True, but in the opening cutscene of Morrowind they suggest that you are a prophecised hero. I quite like mystery, which is why Dark Souls is one of my all time favourite games.
About the immortal NPC thing: I think when you create a game as big and open as TES, you should also go all the way and cope with important characters dieing. Okay, so Ulfrik Stormcloak dies prematurely, war is over quickly, shit happens. I mean, only that way the world actually feels alive and the game gives every player a different experience.
But I think thats the thing. Bethesta seems to believe that the player wants to make everything in the world with just one playthrough. And in the end, you're the greatest Mage/Warrior/Thief in the entire Province, own every Deadric Item and lead every guild there (without having any duties whatsoever as a leader) and your immersion is zero. Why not closing one door when another one opens? Why not making the Thiefes guild unreachable for you once you joined the dark brotherhood? Why don't you have to leave one guild before joining another? Why can't you just say "No, thanks" when the companions offer you to become a Werewolf and end the quest right there? Man, someone should make a mod that aims to create that kind of system...
TheSorrel While I agree with your second statement (about guilds and quests) I heavily disagree with the one prior (about consequences caused by quest character deaths) The main reason I disagree is that the developer would have to plan out, write, and then code consequences to a near endless stream of possible deaths. hypothetical example - One of the grand mages dies, so the resistance can't summon cthulhu to help fight the empire, so instead they summon conjured weapons and armor for their troops. Before then the conjuror dies, so they get the general to lead with basic weapons, then the general dies, and the war is immediately over which causes the entire world to turn something different. (end example) You'd have to come up with a compromise for every single character death, every single combination of character deaths, and code it for every different time in the game, depending on which quests were finished, which other characters were dead, and the order in which they died, not to mention what quests had been done prior to their death. The game would be impossible to fully plan out, bigger then any game ever made, in file size if nothing else, and would probably take over a decade or two to create. Even then certain quests and character deaths done in order could probably cause your computer to explode. Not to mention that Bethesda can't even make their newly scaled down TES games without bugging it up the ass, so who knows what would happen with all these unknowns and unpredictables. Someone would die and any ridiculous number of things could happen. While it might be perfect (yes perfect) in theory, applying this kind of flexibility to a world as big as any of the TES games would be impossible to execute.
+James Smith How does one define "RPG elements"? It sounds like an awfully subjective term, but from what I heard from various comments, it sounds like "this game won't let me hinder myself!".
Morrowind is much harder, less convienent and more like a true rpg when compared to oblivion and skyrim... But skyrim and oblivion are just a lot more enjoyable and immersive to me, and that is what I want from TES games... I find it hard to return to morrowind after oblivion and skyrim tbh. That does not mean oblivion and skyrim are perfect in my eyes, but they are becoming more fun to me. I play hard games, I play many games on multiple systems... I am definately a hardcore gamer as they call it. Maybe they are dumbing things down a little, or as I have seen in the comments "going in a different direction"(I prefer this one)... But for me TES games have never been about the difficulty... I have other games for that. they are about immersion, freedom and fun for me. And imo they are succeeding in that... not everything works perfectly... for example, I think they could improve in the quest markers... make it more lore friendly, dont make it look like the character is walking around with a GPS. But I do prefer it over following directions personally.
+HushedTerror God forbid you are tasked to think a little in an RPG... I had to find a town in Morrowind that I had never heard about before. So I went to the local in-game book store and bought a book called "Guide to Morrowind", and it told me the location in detail. In Skyrim they would have just placed a marker on the map so you can go without thinking at all. "I find it hard to return to morrowind after oblivion and skyrim tbh" I like how you use the word "return" as if you expect us to believe you've ever played Morrowind past Seyda Neen. Which is the first town which most people reading this won't know. As for you saying that Morrowind is difficult, another rookie misconception. Morrowind is not difficult at all, it just takes longer to get used to. You don't start as a demi god who can kill legions of bandits without resting in that game, but you become completely OP much quicker.
+TheKanonHara yes I did play morrowind, there are more things that make a game difficult than combat, just the fact that the beginning of the game is harder than oblivion and skyrim makes morrowind as an overall game harder, the fact that you have to follow directions instead of following a waypoint, that makes morrowind harder. but I guess, complex is a better word. a little complexity is never bad. the only reason I would read in elder scrolls games is for lore and story, not directions... besides I am bad at following directions in real life, I never go anywhere I have never been to before, unless I have a map/navigation system, i dont like following directions, and i dont want to do it in a game i am supposed to enjoy. i do think they should have middle ground, like, take the waypoint away and have the questgiver just mark it on your map. or use the morrowind way, and let me use clairvoyance. I prefer the waypoints over the way morrowind did it, but a middle ground would be perfect, although I would not mind it to much if they just kept waypoints for the next game. that said, I enjoyed morrowind, just not as much as the later games. +ClickedTaiser yes, oblivion is also my favorite. I agree, they made skyrim a little to easy... I still prefer skyrim over morrowind, i just thought skyrim had many amazing things going for it, but also many bad things, difficulty being one of them(as much convience as I want from elder scrolls games, skyrim was to much) . i would indeed prefer if they found that middle ground again for the next game. also, I hope the next province is more enjoyable than skyrim. I enjoyed the views of cyrodill and even vardenfell a lot more than skyrim, the only thing skyrim had going for it were the graphics that made everything look pretty, but a prettier province with good graphics, I am all for it.
"i am bad at following directions" except that doesn't make sense. How exactly are you bad at following directions? If the directions say "Go north from town x until you reach the ocean. Then go east along the beach until you arrive at a large boulder. Then go south until you arrive at the tomb" There is no way you can be bad at following that. If the directions are bad then yes, they should improve that, but the directions in morrowind I've found are fine.
***** I didn't visit the first cave in Seyda Neen. Took me about that time to die in Morrowind, since I took the main road to Balmora, ran around there.
about the dialogue, a big difference between Skyrim and Morrowind is that Skyrim dialogue is VOICED. Imagine how much time and money it would take to voice every line of dialogue in morrowind in just a single voice, let alone a bunch of different voices. Thats definitely a big reason why there are less lines of dialogue. One thing I would've liked to see, which was half-heartedly implemented, was Innkeppers and Steward information banks. While innkeepers did tell you "rumors" that would point you towards quests, they didnt act as information banks, which was what I kind of wanted. I mean, a Falkreath innkeeper didnt have to know what was going on across the province in Windhelm, but at least some touristy information about the area surrounding falkreath and some important figures would be nice.
I generally agree with your response here, but the quest marker really is bad. Just because there is an example of a bad implementation of directions in Morrowind doesn't mean that we need a floating arrow to bring us DIRECTLY to the objective. Not to mention how it interacts with quick travel, meaning that adventuring has been reduced to teleporting around and chasing an arrow......... Perhaps the best option is in the middle ground, you can be indicated the general area to look in on your map. The dumbing down is real though. Perhaps the points the other video brought up were moot, but the elimination or simplification of classes, skills and attributes is a significant case of dumbing down. There is also the simplification of mechanics (armor pieces, repair, alchemy variety, spell variety, etc) and the effective elimination of failure (it feels like nothing is off-limits). Another point is the immersion breaking level-scaling, particularly its implementation in Oblivion. It feels like you never make progress. Adventuring is more fun when you see something awesome but can't get to it yet. You quest to become more capable and then you can finally explore some once inaccessible area or defeat a once seemingly invincible enemy.
I would say in the case of level scaling that its meant to provide a constant challenge so that things never become to easy and dull though most creatures do reach a level cap where they cease to get stronger and I would say its fairly simple to reach god like status in any elder scrolls game after a good period of time even with level scaling eventually you can make any creature your bitch.
I never played Morrowind, but between IV and V, I definitely prefer Oblivion. I was so disappointed when I realized that Skyrim had no classes, and especially attributes. The attributes were one of my favorite parts, their removal made the game much less fun for me. Enchantments became so straightforward and boring; no more boots of fortify acrobatics to increase jump height, and Skooma becomes a potion of stamina. Skooma permanently reduced Intelligence when used in Oblivion, like a real drug. While I do prefer the skill trees in Skyrim, I think that it was poorly executed at times (lockpicking) and should have included more interesting and less passive perks. Most of them seem to be "+10% damage" or "-50% magika consumption." But I have to admit, it is super fun decapitating bandits in Skyrim. For quest markers, I defiantly agree that hovering arrows are just ridiculous, especially in "find X" tasks. In the Pilgrimage quest in Oblivion, you need to find the Nine Divines' shines with a map. If there were arrows, it would have been nothing more than a fetch quest. But when you only know the general area from a simple map, it actually is an adventure to search the wilderness for the shrines. The leveling of enemies is one of my biggest complaints about Oblivion. It seems like the same game no matter what level you are. The only difference between the bandit you kill at level 10 and level 20 is that the latter has more gold and takes longer to kill. I think that one of my least favorite parts of Skyrim is the way that instead of fixing and improving on Oblivion, the developers just completely changed everything. Alchemy was substantially improved, in my opinion, because while it was based on the Oblivion skill, the experimentation and leveling was much more realistic. But Enchantment was completely changed. Instead of enchanted items being rare, they became something so easy to make that everyone can get one. And smithing becomes fluff. You don't need to repair items to keep them in good shape, you just choose to make them permanently better. And NPCs (even legendary smiths like Eorland Greymane) sell you the same generic armor and weapons, and won't even upgrade it for money. If Eorland's steel is legendary, why isn't it better than Adrienne's?
Problem: Skyrim has radiant quests where the location is randomly chosen. You can't program NPC's to give directions to every possible location. That's not feasible. So unless you have a better idea, quest marker it is.
TL;DR bellow You are wrong. I am not looking it trough nostalgia goggles - Morrowind had greater possibilities to create true role play than later sequels. There was a lot of penalties and choices. And you are wrong - NPCs had their day/night cycles even back in Morrowind, but they have been extremely local because of this trap you addressed as immortal NPCs! Regarding immortal NPCs there is far better solutionS. One of them is to succeeding NPC inherit whatever is needed for player to complete the quest and that would be more immersive than having them immortal. Another possibility is to make them immortal to other NPCs but player himself could be able to kill them. There is third option that is design driven that make story so perfect where important NPCs never get into dangerous situation which is by far the hardest to achieve. So yes they did it to make gameplay easier as well as coding on the total joy of casuals. I spoke to many who tried Morrowind and Oblivion and they said "I don't know what to do or where to go" since open world is too much for them but streamlined narrow passages are better option. If open world is too much for them, chance to kill important NPC is even bigger problem. You are now totally biased regarding factions. It was an exploit that was discovered by players. My main issue was Mages Guild vs Telvani guild where game has such quest system to do big harm to other faction and close doors for that faction forever. Yet I have found guide online how this particular quest can be exploited and membership in both factions is available. Do not mix exploits with ment design decisions. You said yourself Bethesda is not one of the best developers. Having such a big complex system of factions in Morrowind requires way too much planning to avoid this - producers have their limits. No, it is not true that Skyrim citizens do not recognize your faction status - if you are thief guards will respond "Wait! I know you!" and do nothing about it, if you are College of Winterhold they will say "I heard of you, you are that mage from college!" and so on. So if they know about it then they should react to it yet they don't. They made faction membership irrelevant for interfaction membership. At least Morrowind tries to make factions important and make player carve his path carefully. In Skyrim players becomes sort of noble by helping certain Jarl and then he can do for every other which is highly unrealistic. Yes I played Morrowind many times and now await Skywind to play it again. Markers are by far THE item to dumb down the game. I played many games before Morrowind that didn't even put a point on map where player is! My very first RPG Ishar it was. And I had to draw map myself or have good visualization in my head where I am. It is highly immersive to figure it out yourself where you need to go. The particular quest you mentioned with mudcrabs is telling you: "This is different type of the game" as in this game NPCs can be treacherous and liars. It is not broken - it s meant to be as such. M'aiq the Liar is another example where he is very different from his siblings in Oblivion and Skyrim. Errr... conversations are same over in every game so far once you have played them. Morrowind is an older game of even back then not so popular studio who were still learning how to pull the ropes. Characters didn't had that depth in majority of the games. They removed this "rumor" option but hey every guard in Skyrim had arrow in the knee! No that is not repetition of all. You are comparing more modern games with old relic??? Mass effect was released in 2007 and Morrowind in 2002! Same with other games! Why do I even try to bring sense to cynical Brit? A cynical Brit will always be blindly cynical - making same generalization as you do. TL;DR: I love Skyrim, yet it is made in such way that makes it's content trivial. Many features in RPGs such as Morrowind and alike were filled by imagination of the player and it was "standard" mechanics due to technical limitations. Now when we have technology to implement it all - we won't. That is biggest disappointment of Skyrim over Morrowind. Skyrim can, but he won't and bluntly cut your imagination with "we intended it to be this way".
Thats a fair opinion. I enjoy when my RPGs that have a particular story and immersion that the developers choose. If I want a RPG that truly captures my imagination I'll play some table tops with a few friends. but thats just what I like, I can understand that you like your RPGs to have a particular feel to them for you.
Aquahero Finn Strange, on my gmail it says you replied with this : looking at your TL;DR. So you think new elder scrolls games would work better as a basic text adventure? and I come here and see you have different reply.Not sure if google messed up something or you edited/deleted that comment and made new one. But now I haven't said that TES games would be better as basic text adventures. I precisely wrote this: Now when we have technology to implement it all - we won't. That is biggest disappointment of Skyrim over Morrowind. Do you know that they originally developed Sims like AI for NPCs and decided to drop it in the final months of development? They can - but they won't spend money and time into doing this but just the right amount they need to make game that will make more money in return. I understand Morrowind had many technical limitations and drag huge legacy of RPG games of the time prior to it but Skyrim could have been greater by far.
InkOnTube I understand. I agree that a lot of companies drop critical game play mechanics in order to preserve money and it does stink. But I also understand that those companies need to make money, even if it doesn't work for us players all we can do is give our honest feedback in order for them to learn how to make us more happy so that they can make more money, so that they don't feel like their wasting money on a key game play mechanic. Not sure why you would bring up the comment I deleted, since it has no relevance to my end of this conversation. I obviously dint feel like that's what I truly wanted to say when I typed it out. I didn't agree with it, it was simply a thought that I had, that I no longer felt the desire to say. because I didn't truly agree with it. All I know is that an RPG to me is a well executed emersion into another story. Giving me plenty of information that I need in order to understand as much as I can as I control the persons story that I'm playing. It doesnt have to feel as close to real life as possible, in fact the more off it is compared to real life the better in my own opinion, if the mechanics of the characters act completely different, even worse, compared to the real world, the more interesting it is to me. Still agree with you though, skyrim should have been better but I think it's level of immersion worked just right for me.
I am sick of morrowind fanboys acting like that is the be all end all of what a tes game should be. Hate to break it to you fanboys but Morrowind is not some flawless gem. Even when you don't factor in it's dated aspects and frustrating gameplay. Please tell me how a land filled with giant mushrooms, volcanos, and knife eared daedra worshipping slavers is somehow cooler than a land filled with a badass nordic inspired race, with snowcapped mountains, pine forests, mighty rivers, mammoths, dragons, giants, sabre cats, ice wraiths, warewolves, vampire lords (not just stock run of the mill vampires), a civil war (all hail Ulfric the true High King).
There's much better providence's which haven't even been explored yet and Skyrim wasn't even one of them, Skyrim is the most dull and unoriginal land of the lot. There's nothing badass about a drunken idiotic barbarian based race.
I gotta agree with the other guy. They did it all wrong. NPCs should be killable. Sure, make them impossible to kill when the Dragonborn is far away, but not make them completely immortal. With quest markers, just write a better dialogue giving better directions, but not cut the directions out completely and replace them with the stupid quest arrow. TES IS dumbing down.
What makes more sense: Morrowind- You got to go west of the road going north of here when you get the cross-roads. keep going west until you find the plantation and you're there. Skyrim- Let me mark it on your map.
When it comes to immersion, I'd prefer the Morrowind style. Unless an NPC actually grabs my map and marks something on it, I prefer the description of my rout for immersion.
I have. But no animations were played as NPC did it. So to me that's just lousy. Gothic 1/2 had awesome maps. Also, no markers, but good old descriptions of places one needs to find.
This is less of an argument against elder scrolls actively streamlining actually complex systems and mechanics (enchanting, brewing, spell crafting, quest completion branches, build viability and variation, etc), more of an argument for select features having always been "dumbed down" throughout the series. Grade A red herring with selective responses across the series, instead of an overall look at individual installments.
I played Skyrim for about 90 hours, then went back to Morrowind and played through that entire game. Immediately after playing through Morrowind I went back to Skyrim and simply couldn't play it anymore. Doubt nostalgia got much to do with it, unless nostalgia grows in 3 hours.
Not dumbing down? Are you kidding me? For the past 3 games, you pick a character, make & find armor, make & weapons, and save the world after being released from prison. My 9 year old brother beat Oblivion and Skyrim without any help or guides. The combat system feels like hittig children with whiffleball bats. Maybe dumbing down isn't the right term, but the Elder Scrolls is definitely becoming more and more bland. And speaking of bethesda not caring as much about money than player satisfaction, than why does the fuckin elder scrolls online have a monthly fee? Also, it would be nice if Bulgruf could fall and die or Ulfric could be killed by a dragon, because that can add so much to the game! It would be unexpected and could completely change role playing! One last thing sorry for the spelling.
There is a point to be made in that the dialogue in Morrowind, when it's good, is very good and fun to read. Also, holy crap, Jeff Baker's dunmer voice. Other than that, yeah, trying to argue characters in Morrowind have more personality is just ridiculous. I don't really mind the problems with dialogue in Morrowind, but it's ridiculous to want to see more of that in the present.
Avoozl A bit of a semantical thing. They may have more personality, but the majority have little to no individuality, which is more the problem he's addressing.
Whats ridiculous is the very idea that somehow voice acting can even somewhat compete with text based dialogue in the economy department. Morrowind has WAY more depth when it comes to dialogue than oblivion and skyrim just as how Morrowind had far more lore quests and factions for the simple reason that text based dialogue is so much easier to create. The mages guild in skyrim only has like 5 quests. A single mages guild in any of the cities of caldera, vivec, balmora, or ald rhun has twice as many quests as the entirety of skyrim. This is not even mentioning the fact that Morrowind has at least twice as many faction if not more and a much much longer main questline. The simple fact that text based dialogue gives more quantity and variety is undeniable. Voice acting is subject to significant constraints.
It's impressive what fanboys of Skyrim will say to defend it. Skyrim WAS dumbed down, for more money. That's fine, game companies exist for money. Just don't try and say that this game wasn't made for casuals.
And why do you think that was the case? It's because Morrowind may have been great for your average nerd, but as the gaming audience expanded, more and more gamers would consider Morrowind a horrible game when their immersion gets killed by the poor dice roll combat system. KOTOR did a dice roll combat system around the same time, and it actually showed characters dodging attacks instead of having a blade go through their chest not register as a hit.
Oblivion is undoubtedly my favorite Elder Scrolls game, but I love pretty much all of them. I don't understand this blind, irrational hate so many people seem to have for any Elder Scrolls game that's not their own personal favorite.
Quest markers! Quest markers are horrible and I must disagree with you there. Sure following directions can suck at times. However there is one quest in Skyrim where you are looking for the guys sister. You get literally no chance to even search as the quest market immediately ruins the surprise. Playing the game with "Even Better Quest Objectives" and no markers is infinitely preferable.
Play morrowind and you will understand what he means. If you think finding stuff in skyrim was hard. Morrowind will make you to wanna commit suicide :D
GeorgeofGondor2 Finding stuff in Morrowind isn't that hard if you actually pay attention to what the characters say and use your journal (although I know that the journal was improved with Tribunal; I don't remember what the pre-Tribunal journal was like). There are a handful of quests where finding the objective is difficult, but in those few cases it's usually intentional and makes sense in the context of the quest. Finding stuff in Skyrim is almost never hard, because you have quest markers Though sometimes you may have to spend some time circumnavigating a mountain to find the path up it, whereas in Morrowind you could usually levitate or jump to places whose location you've already pinpointed. However, if you turn off quest markers, many quests become virtually impossible because the NPCs almost never give you directions, and with radiant quests, there isn't even any explicit dialog indicating where you're supposed to go. Your quest log tells you "Kill the dragon at Shearpoint," or "Kill the master vampire at Hrodulf's house," without telling you where either of those places are. So you are entirely dependent on the quest markers, unless you coincidentally know where those places are. In other words, getting from point A to point B in Morrowind is a modest challenge and an exercise in immersing yourself in the world. You need to listen to NPCs, sometimes get additional directions (from someone like Elone the Scout, or by reading the Guide to Vvardenfell that the merchant in Seyda Neen sells), then get your bearings by locating a landmark given in your directions, then actually follow the directions. Sometimes you'll take a wrong turn or get sidetracked, but that's all part of the experience. In Skyrim and especially Oblivion, getting from Point A to Point B is a largely just a function of the user interface.
Sorry but i have plenty of things to read and video game journals and dialogues are not among them. There is nothing hardcore in the quantitative usage of time, aka just spending time wandering around , doesnt make you more hardcore game or smth
Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are different games. Shocking, I know. What I really mean, though, is that each of the three games are different from their very cores. There are fundamental aspects of each game that are unique to that game, and every game succeeds at having its own style, its own feel, its own goals, and its own successes. That is quite admirable in my opinion. Todd Howard has stated that, when Bethesda goes to create a new TES game, they start from scratch and build the game to be its own unique game, so it seems they've succeeded. This is important to remember when people are shouting at each other about which game is better. Nostalgia does have an affect in many places, but as some other commenters have stated, sometimes there are people completely who are new to the series that prefer Morrowind, or Oblivion, or Skyrim, or w/e. Because each game is a fundamentally different game, each game plays differently, and each game has its own strengths and weaknesses, different people are likely to enjoy the games at different levels, because everyone has their own unique preferences. The fact that someone enjoys something you don't enjoy does not mean they are dumb, or that they're a casual, or that they're bitter and nostalgic. People simply like different things. If that's too complicated of a concept, if that makes you angry, or if you get angry and insult people for liking something you don't, you should probably check yourself, you're taking it far too seriously.
Underrated comment, i have to agree with most of what you said except when it came to skyrim, Skyrim is massively overrated and overhyped compared to it's predecessors, i feel like it was quite lack luster compared to them aswell, keep in mind skyrim did have a better menus/better frame rate compared to the last two games, i feel alot of the casual bashing for Skyrim is for the people who blow it way out of proportion and massively overrate it to the point nostalgia doesn't come into play-Its simply a fanboy being a fanboy.
Thats not the case All of them have lackluster main quests and are more focused on side activity and exploration rather than investment at plot progression or urgency They are also partially dungeon crawlers at heart The only differences is mechanics and at heart how less of an rpg each entry is
I played Morrowind in 2012 or 2013 for the first time. After about a week into the game I had decided that it was the best Elder Scrolls game. It felt so much more immersive and epic. The culture was more visible and different and you actually had impact on the world around you. I loved that game, and still do. Skyrim had the best fighting system, graphics and gameplay when it comes to stuff such as crafting. That nobody can deny. However, in my opinion Morrowind had the best dungeon system, cultures, music, surprises and difficulty which lifts it up as my favourite Elder Scrolls game. I'd say that Morrowind 95/100, Oblivion 77/100 (still a good game guys) and Skyrim, 88/100
Guilds are more realistic? hmm... "So your Brynjolf's new protege eh? Don't look like much to me", "I don't care if you're friends with the guild master i'll still bash your face in" - WTF are you two talking about? I am the guild master, I brought this shit show of a guild back to the top. Also how dark brotherhood assassin's still try to kill you even though you're apart of the guild. Don't forget the "Citizen" comment by Imperial soldiers when I ended the war and i'm fully dressed in imperial officer armor.
If you're going to address a point, then actually address the real point. Dave was making a very narrow and specific argument about how factions relate *to each other* and how they view the player's membership *in other factions*. And he offered plenty of support for his claim that Skyrim and Oblivion deal with that more realistically than Morrowind.
@@MrMathGames I'm skyrim you can be a known member of the dark brotherhood, kill the emperor and then join the imperial legion and swear an oath to the man you killed.
@@sirdetmist3204 1) "Known member"? Known to whom? Every now and then, a wandering NPC will give you a randomized bit of flavor-dialogue where they say something like, "Hey, I know you. Hail Sithis!" That doesn't mean it's widely known. For example, there's never any sign General Tullius or Legate Rikke know. 2) Have you ever done a real comparison of joining the Legion when the Emperor still lives to joining after you've assassinated him? Because the dialogue actually changes based on that. If the Emperor is alive, the oath General Tullius has you recite includes the Emperor's name, Titus Meade II. If you've killed him, the oath does not include his name, and you just swear allegiance to "the emperor".
@@MrMathGames They catch you in the act of trying to kill the emperor when you try to poison him but its a double Some dialogue sure but none of the gameplay does, dialogue is easy to record real consequences are a little more advanced and better, Astrid also snitches on you but they just magically forget and then when you kill the real emperor they aren't even the slightest bit suspicious of the man they caught trying to kill the emperor.
@@sirdetmist3204 I'm starting to wonder if you actually believe that all of Tamriel saw the assassination attempt. Because for some reason, you seem to think that every single person in Skyrim somehow knows the identity of the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood. They don't. They very clearly don't. No matter how you try to rationalize this, it simply isn't well known.
***** But that means that casuals are normal and hardcores are just a bunch of idiots fighting because they think By spamming this it will make it much better
Sorry but it cannot be argued that they have been dumbing down the game systems. Every time they are faced with a design problem with a particular system, their solution has been to remove the source of the problem entirely rather than fix it. Players feeling overwhelmed by complex systems isn't a problem with complexity itself, it's a problem with presentation. If you take complex information/systems and package/present them properly people won't feel overwhelmed. A good example is Hearts of Iron III and Hearts of Iron IV: both are great games, both are very complex. HoI3 is slightly more complicated than HoI4, but it feels MASSIVELY more complicated. The primary reason for this is because HoI3's UI is clunky and cumbersome, whereas HoI4's is cleaner and intuitive. All the complexity is still there, but it has been repackaged to be more accessible. On the other hand, rather than repackage a system to be more accessible while retaining the complexity behind it, Bethesda will simply remove the system outright. So in Morrowind and Oblivion we had attributes, and they undeniably interacted poorly with the levelling of skills and the player character. So, in classic Bethesda style, rather than fix the system or its presentation they removed attributes entirely and slimmed them down to just Health, Stamina, and Magicka. Losing all of the complexity and nuance that attributes brought to the game, but also "fixing" the problem they posed as above. I'm fine with quest markers, but I'd like an option to turn them off (and the quest journals and writing should be written such that this is viable). Essential NPCs are fine to prevent them dying to other NPCs/creatures, but if the player wants to kill an NPC then they should be able to, even if it destroys their ability to play the Main Quest (they should be warned about this like in Morrowind). Graphics help immersion, but Morrowind is more immersive than Skyrim because the world as written is more detailed, realistic, and interesting. The political situation is conveyed far more effectively to the player from the day they step out into Seyda Neen and interact with the NPCs there (the Imperial presence, the religious conflicts, the conflicts between the various Great Houses and Guilds - all of this the player can pick up on from the first 10 or so hours of gameplay, and begin to unravel over the course of the game as they complete quests). There's also the puzzles in Skyrim... oh God they were so shit. Not only did they not make sense within the universe: what's the point of having a door that requires a code and a key, when you write the code on the damn key? :/ But all the other puzzles were so easy to solve anyway: look at 3 animals on wall, match 3 animal pedestals up correctly with the ones on the wall. Sometimes you might have to go to another room to find the animals on the wall - SO PUZZLING! I almost forgot to mention, the cities are so small in Skyrim they don't feel like cities (and they don't match descriptions in earlier games), and the "factions" in Skyrim don't have headquarters in each city like they did in Morrowind/Oblivion (out of laziness more than anything, there was no good reason not to). There's also the stripping out of RPG elements that has occurred since Morrowind. No longer do your choices have much consequence, you can join and lead every guild no problem, and they all get along fine and are quite okay with you being the leader of everything. Not to mention in Skyrim you play as the damn Dragonborn but outside of the Main Quest only very rarely is any reference made to that about your character, e.g. when joining the College of Winterhold you still have to do the test, you can't just be like "yeah, I killed Alduin, let me in". Skyrim is a great game, and I enjoyed it immensely. But I enjoyed it for what it is: an action-adventure exploration game with light RPG elements on top. It's not an RPG, at least in the same way Morrowind (and even Oblivion) was.
Hell, your comment is full of mistakes. For example, puzzles are not designed to be a challenge for the player, but to increase the draugr's narrative. In the same game they tell you that the puzzles were designed to keep the draugr in, not to prevent people from entering.
SHHHH THEY WILL DUMB IT DOWN TO FALLOUT 4 LEVELS OF STUPID! For fucks sake they turned DOOM into Call of Duty infinity warfare how can you claim they cant dumb it down further?
I'd personally have to say that Skyrim is the weakest RPG in the Elder Scrolls series, and I DO think that the games are getting progressively "casualized", or as some would say "dumbed down". And before anyone goes calling me a hater, I have about 400 hours in Skyrim, and I got 100% in it, even though it is my least played TES-game by a few hundred hours. There is no arguing against choice becoming much more limited for every new release in the series, in Morrowind characters could have upwards of 20-30 dialogue options depending on how much you explored the world, and the dialogue of NPC's. in Morrowind you had to rely on nothing but your wits to do quests, explore the world and just do basic navigation, there were no quest markers with big arrows holding your hand. If we are talking about any of the traits that mark a great roleplaying game, a large immersive world, a complete freedom of choice in who you are and what your role in that world is, then Morrowind beats Skyrim in every single regard. Skyrim, like it or not, is the type of RPG that you can play without really paying attention, there is a big arrow pointing your way at all times, the perk system is extremely simplified, and you could easily beat it with just mashing through dialogue and hitting anything that's hitting you, if you tried the same in Morrowind, you wouldn't get past the first quest! And I just feel like saying, there is nothing wrong with liking Skyrim, it's a nice experience for what it is, but to say that there is not a steady decline in quality, and a severe transgression from it's RPG roots is prov I firmly believed that the people in charge of the series these days are more concerned about getting interest from the mainstream gamer instead of keeping up the tradition of marvellous roleplaying games, and it saddens me. But hey, we'll always have Daggerfall and Morrowind...
***** Not really getting your point here.. I've got 100% in Skyrim, which someone said was impossible, and I said my Steam profile clearly shows 100% Why are you directing that post at me?
I'd also point out that adding the quest marker doesnt take away the incentive to explore, examine the area, talk to people, etc. Theres still pleanty of rewards that can be gained for such. It just means that once you are tired of exploring and want to get on with a quest, you dont have to wander around aimlessly around or try find directions from a place you havent been for hours. Yea it does kill immersion and can be a little silly, but its worth it to take away the frustration of aimless wandering
The problem people have with quest markers in Skyrim is that you cannot complete quests without them. There are no directions given by NPCs or any information put in the quest journal. If there were some basic directions put in the journal you wouldn't have to walk around for 10 hours and hope to stumble upon a quest location by accident. Bethesda has no good excuse for removing directions from the game - they built the game around the fact that they "knew" players would always have quest markers turned on.
***** I'd rather have them say nothing, and have a wall of text in front of me then a quest marker. But I am positive that is just me and the other shut-ins :P Text is not immersion breaking to me, it's like reading a book, but with pictures and hookers and blackja... never mind.
***** Yeap, pretty much. There is a reason games change. General appeal is vital for a series to survive, I'd rather have a Skyrim as is then no Skyrim at all. But I still reserve my right to old man ramble. The difference between me and some more vocal people on the internett is I know that we are a huge minority.
Let me reiterate this - I never said quest markers shouldn't be in the game. I don't think anyone is trying to make that argument. The point was that if the devs were going to give players the option to turn them off(which they did), then they should have made it so it was possible to play with them off. Because there are no directions given, or any information put in the quest journal, you cannot play the game with them off. To say that it would have been too much extra work for the devs to type some info in the journal is ridiculous.
I've been replayng morrowind and i like the journal system. Sure a few times I missed the directions because I didn't pay attention. As far as that mudcrab woman....sometimes people give wrong directions. :)
I never really liked Morrowind, it was just too tedious for me. That chance of missing when attacking depending on your skill level drove me insane. I've only been able to play Skyrim a few times (thanks to my shitty computer) and loved every second of it! I can't wait to play it again.
My biggest problem with Skyrim is a problem I have with loads of modern RPGs, which is the quest design. You get a quest. Maybe you have to solve a murder, or investigate mysterious phenomenon, or assassinate a person, or do whatever. How do you do it? You follow the arrow. There's a big dumb arrow on your map that tells you exactly how to progress. It turns progress in the game into "follow the arrow, fight enemies along the way." There's no investigation, no thought, no choice, just follow the quest marker. Skyrim has nothing to it other than combat, as a result. Skyrim has awful combat. The other games had awful combat, but there were other things that made them compelling. More involved quest design with more complicated tasks involved in their completion made the crappy combat something you slogged through to get to the good stuff. In Skyrim the good stuff never came. I'm glad that a lot of the design philosophy involved in isometric RPGs are making a comeback in the indie scene, so we're getting some really great RPGs that aren't as dumb as Skyrim.
brainwarts I agree. If you brought the house in Windhelm, you would end up starting a quest to find out a murder that had taken place in it, it is basically "go to arrow a, talk to this npc, go back to arrow a, now go to arrow b etc."
I tried playing Skyrim until a dragon crashed my game for good. What I didn't like about its quests was that they seemed so pointless. What's in it for me? That wasn't very clear.
Id contrast that to what I hated about Morrowind, where NPCs would tell you "Go west to Ianfhsxuudduhdsh'jjjr, its across a wooden bridge" and I have to tell if the shit texture on the bridge im currently looking at is supposed to be wood or not. Its a problem that I think morrowind vets don't notice because they already know where everything is. And don't get me started on the quests that give you the wrong dirrections.
@@SuperLeetroy Yeah I agree and is it really that unrealistic for someone to just point at a location on the players map or are we just memorizing all of the locations with no in world map?
Agree with everything you say. Those who think Morrowind is the best is only blinded by nostalgia factors. Each of the elder scrolls game has it own pros & cons.
You lost me at Bioware creating interesting characters. That shit ain't been true for quite a few games now. Meaning, maybe it's not the hardcore audience wearing the rose tinted goggles, but rather, people being far more apologist over design flaws, which in turn, allows design teams to continue to make lazy choices. You talked about Whiterun's NPCs, but cherrypicked them. Alfina Battleborn sends thugs after you, but you can literally NEVER bring it up as a topic of conversation with her after it happens. Wow. Such mature design. Guards treat you like a random, regardless of whether you're a Thane or not, and any method of dealing with them ends in one of two ways: you have to tell them you're a Thane, or you bribe them as a Thieves Guild member. Or, in a LOT of cases, they'll recognize you as a Companion or a fan, then turn around and deride you with choice bits of dialogue like "let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll?" Trumping all this, if you're a famed entity like the god damned Dragonborn, savior of the entire pathetic town, people could show a little gratitude and have it allow a more favorable outlook to you period. I could go on, but I don't disagree with parts of this video, but Skyrim is rife with lazy design choices in regards to character interactions, as well as cut content that could have made the game far more interesting overall. (Such as the ability to eventually marry the high queen, making yourself the high king and so on.)
+LiquidDIO whoa just read the first sentence, youre wrong, they just made inquisition. It really brought them back awesome characters, awesome story and the best action in the series with bieng able to the pausing thing in the middle of combat on console now. They were going through a rough patch for a while with DA2, and swtor was boring af, But inquisition is the best dragon age yet, and theyre about to make mass effect 4 which I have 100 percent faith in.
Do you work for Bioware? After they lied to my face, turned Mass Effect into a shitty Gears of War clone, with lazily written and damn near plagiarized endings, complete with total lack of regard for the customers that made ME into a success in the first place, you seriously have 100% faith in Bioware? Also, I'm not sure what game you played, but DA:I was a mess of dumbed down MMO style combat, big open but ultimately empty MMO hub areas, terrible animations, terrible character designs, and I'm sorry, if you honestly think Sera was an "awesome" character, your standards must be EXTREMELY low.
Was it diablo, starcraft, wow, hearthstone, or overwatch, the new one. If you could explain to me what games those games were copying, AND how they were dumbed down, Id much appreciate it. (For your sake dont say starcraft was dumbed down C&C, or you lose all credibility)
Hearthstone is Magic for Dummies. Overwatch is TF2 for Dummies. HotS is Dota/LoL for Dummies. If I were to say Warcraft or Starcraft were a clone of anything, I'd have to say Dune 2, since it set the mold for any RTS behind it, but I'm not referring to old Blizzard, I'm referring to right NOW Blizzard. Diablo 3 was extremely dumbed down and it's also extremely fresh in my mind from playing both it and PoE side by side. As for WoW, It's my opinion that WoW is the thing that destroyed Blizzard's ability to do anything other than retreads or sequels. When you make that kind of money from a single avenue, why would you be motivated to make anything fresh or new?
I haven't even played Arena but you have to admit it's the game that started it all, if it weren't for Arena Bethesda would then only focus on movie based games like it used to like with that crappy Terminator game they once made.
Avoozl true, but after Daggerfall, Bethesda almost gone into ashes. They tried to survive by releasing sub par ES games, like the ones that tells a story of a khajiit (or is it redguard?) rescuing her sister, I forgot it's name. Bethesda not even sure how people will recieve Morrowind at first because it was pretty radical for it's time.
Hey, I like Arena, if only for the feel, and going outside the cites and wandering around aimlessly looking at the little random towns and dungeons. Daggerfall just mostly had random bumpy hills with nothing in them between important areas and all games past that tried to craft everything manually. Arena was the worst gameplay wise for sure though.
I feel like this guy only played a bit of Morrowind to come up with argument for a bias he already had. Your wrong. The games are dumbed down. They are not even RPGs anymore. It's not nostalgia.
Spot on, I actually had to pause the video just to stop hearing his voice, and this is the first ever video in my Youtubing history that I have had to pause the video because I couldn't take the creators smug voice.
You made a baseless assumption that is demolished by just listening to the whole video. Not only does he mention playing the game while becoming the chief of multiple factions and doing the main quest line, but his channel has multiple playthroughs of Morrowind.
While some mechanics may be improved for the better, the series is dumbing down. It's pretty much impossible to deny it. Especially when you look at the audiences for each of the games. A large part of the Skyrim community are casual gamers; ones that don't really care about challenging gameplay or world building. Thusly, Bethesda made a game to accommodate that audience. While on the other hand, those who play Morrowind are generally drawn to the RPG aspects of the game, leveling skills to increase ones hit chance, or when what they do effects the world around them. A good example is when one kills someone important to the main quest. There is no handholding. The player can choose to do or not, they are not dictated by Bethesda's ever guiding hand. Casual's don't like to deal with the consequences of their actions, so when the Emperor of Tamriel is murdered, no one cares. The player only killed him because there is no consequence. If there was any sort of bad effect, such as complete chaos and a Stormcloak victory, which would quickly be annexed by the Aldmeri dominion, the action would not have been taken. If you murder Vivec, you will be kicked out of any and all guilds or factions and DESTROY Tamriel, as Vivec is important and in killing him, so to has the player doomed the world. That is THEIR choice, and the HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES. If you disagree, you might be right. You might be wrong. It all depends on your reasoning, really.
I'll give you a +1 for being a good person and not just bashing my comment with arguments that make so sense. On that note, I agree with a few of the points you made, Morrowind's combat IS hard to get into, as it's very dated and based heavily on skills which are pretty lacking at the start of the game. (AT THIS POINT THERE IS JUST WISHFUL THINKING THAT COULD PROBABLY BE MADE INTO A MOD) As for the worldbuilding of Skyrim, I felt it could've done more to make the civil war feel more important other than the occasional guard comment or blue armors. Embargo's and riots in cities would be a nice addition. the best example I could find in Skyrim of this was the Grey-Mane and Battle-born feud. It was passable, but could've been taken to the next level such as murder and arson with a while side quest attached to it. The result could be genocide of either family, and this could have a large impact on the companions questline. I don't really like that the Dragons are set up to be these powerful monsters that only those with abnormal amounts of power could have a chance at killing, but then the player sees one killed by the local town guard or a group of bandits... Other than stuff like I mentioned above, you're comment is very sound, and I see where yu're coming from with your points. The lore IS deep and interesting for those who bother to read and explore it. Oh, the 20,00 septims you get? You have to use them all up in the next guild quest to repair the sanctuary. Pretty pointless...
But everyone is mean to you because it's morrowind, i think people often forget the place they're in. you could say that there were stormcloaks, but most people were part of the empire. people calling you outlander and you having to earn respect before people like you is just a morrowind thing.
Great video, but IMHO missing the point about Guild immersion in Morrowind. My first play through, on the 2nd or 3rd Fighters Guild quest I inadvertently killed some Theives Guild members, after which (and without realizing what had happened) the guy who can clear bounties had such a low disposition towards me that *he literally wouldn't even talk to me* thus I couldn't even use Persuasion. Its experiences like that I believe Morrowind fans are remembering. At that moment I was convinced that I was participating in a living, breathing, interconnected world.
What I find rather funny is how many Elder Scrolls fans act like they're highbrow intellectuals, and yet they act about as mature as an eleven year old. WEll. PC gamers in general - Look at how smart we are, yet we are so snooty you wonder if we have so many STEAM friends because this many people wouldn't want to hang around me in real life before wanting to break my stuck-up back over their knee.
All that said, I believe that Skyrim fell short of Oblivion and it's predecessors because it started the player out as a hero. I felt like I'd made my own way to success in Oblivion, by exploring and really fleshing out my character until I had enough confidence to finally rally the townships etc. Skyrim was spectacular and vast, but knowing that my character was destined to be the most powerful person in Tamriel right from the get-go dumbed it down and made it far less enjoyable for me personally. Just my thoughts.
You sir cannot take a story different than the one in your head ... I imagine you hate all the books and all the movies :( Why shouldn't tha story begin with the hero being a hero ? What about Ender's Game ?
Alex Handzhiev Skyrim was a good game. It just didn't captivate me like Oblivion did, for the reason I explained above. Opinions differ, it's the way of the world.
Abigail F I don't think it's quite the same. In Skyrim, YOU are the Dragonborn, YOU alone have the powers required to speak to / kill dragons. The Emperor certainly might've given you the inspiration to become the best, but he didn't bestow that power upon you from the get-go. It was always up to the player to work to become the best in Oblivion, rather than having it handed to them.
Well first of all, it really isnt that dumbing down because rarely do I go into a game and think that I'm not the hero. I mean honestly, what do you expect, of course you turn out to be the "main hero person" in relation to the ending of the world. While in Oblivion even though you are praised as a hero you are just the bystander to martin defeating that daedra dude. I'm not trying to bash on oblivion here by the way, because that's also a good thing for itself. Also, second of all, remember, Skyrim is a game full of badassery in its own. I mean just looking at the trailers, the dude that fights against dragons alone. Yeah. Just think about Skyrim itself, "Nords" "Sovngarde" if that doesnt make you feel like some sort of badass viking I dont know anymore The game feels like that from the beginning on already, from the soundtrack to the fact that you can punch bears to death.
1: How about important NPCs can only die by YOUR hand, and have npcs react logically to dragons by HIDING 3: then how about a map that isn't a radar, map marker approximately at the right place, go figure 4: you made ahlam a widow tbf, she was married to nazeem
True, also he says that the marker system is better than a realistic one because one mudcrab sidequest was bugged, its like saying all american cars are trash because this one had to be recalled, not logic.
The sad thing is, Skyrim is already using this. It comes up a lot in modding, but there are 2 types of immortality in Skyrim's creation kit. NPCs flagged as "Essential" cannot die at all by any means. NPCs flagged as "Protected" will take a knee but won't die unless the player deals the final blow. This is why some companions will keep getting back up but can still be accidentally killed by player spells. So Skyrim has already fixed the issue of NPCs wandering around outside without dying but chose to make tons of NPCs "Essential" anyway.
I was just thinking that with the vital npcs, It's like seeing if a baby will walk for five minutes and then giving it a wheelchair because "letting them walk around just wasn't feasible". On top of having important npcs not try to kill dragons, why not make it so they can get wounded enough where they can't fight but are very unlikely to die? Sure It's best to keep them as unkillable unless the player is trying, but why does confrontation with npcs have to lead to the losing party 100% dying? Sorry for replying to suck an old comment.
Mainly good points but I would still easily pick the in game directions over the quest markers any day. If the directions were too poor to make the quest easy that can and should be fixed, it doesn't necessitate a waypoint. Idea: Why not have both? Why not have the npcs actually tell you directions, which causes a quest marker to appear, but you can toggle the quest marker feature on or off at will.
This was something I wondered about and would love to have. I think the main issue is that Bethesda is too cheap to do all the voice acting for the directions in every single quest, which is admittedly a lot.
I think it would be cool if they put a quest marker on your map but not on your compass. So you would have to look at your map to tell where you had to go.
I agree. Besides, this is civilization. Assuming you had a map, you would ask them to show you on the map. If not you would ask for directions, or even ask them to draw you a crude map. Now that would be cool.
They tried that with Oblivion. But that failed with directions too. Remember that quest where you had to find that cottage for those guys in Chorrol you reunited? I got the directions on that for where to go and the person said "South of Chorrol, North of Fort Carmala" when it was indeed southwest of fort carmala.
I like your points here but a few things I have to comment about. 1. The essential npcs I get, NPCs will go through their day as if it were any other. They may be killed and you can't do a quest. I get that, but taking that out of the game would not hurt Bethesda that much. I barely even noticed npcs going through their daily routine. If it's also to make sure players don't screw up, then that is pointless. Players should just be more careful about who they kill, so that does not take away from players wanting to go on killing sprees and players who don't want to reload can keep playing. 2. I agree with what you have to say about faction membership and how there are no consequences, but I think the real problem is that the world is barely affected by your actions that should have a significant impact. For example, you can kill the Emperor, then join the imperial legion. In fact during the oath, General Tullius tells you to swear allegiance to Titus Meade II(the emperor you killed in the dark brotherhood quest). Nothing would change if you didn't do the main quest in Skyrim. So what's the point in trying to kill Alduin. 3. The quest markers can easily be changed by having in option in the dialogue menu where the npc can mark the location on your map. 4. I get what your saying about how Morrowind's dialogue was copied and pasted, but its better than the simple dialogue that NPCs had in Skyirm. In Oblivion, if you talked to a guard, you can ask directions and rumors and things like that. In Skyrim, they are just loaded with a bunch of sayings when you talk to them. That's barely close to how a human conversation, and that is what is immersion breaking. Final verdict: I think the Elder Scrolls needs to turn around slightly back to being a little bit hardcore. The best way to do this is by making a better tutorial, that way it would be better for casual gamers to adapt to playing in a hard core style game. Also Bethesda should try to get casual gamers to playing a game that is more immersive and that requires much exploration reading texts and stuff like that. That way it is possible for everyone to enjoy the game. It would be hard, but it would be worth it in the end. Morrowind was hard for me because I was not used to the style of play that was required to play it. Skyrim felt like it forced players to play casually. That is not something they should do.
***** +Franklin Grey Listen to me here, I am not a gamer based off of nostalgia, I don't hate Skyrim because it is the newest one and it is not like Morrowind. Second of all, what the hell do you mean by there is no player dialogue. If you wanted the player to talk, that would break the immersion even further and it would stop being an RPG. An RPG is supposed to make you feel as if you were in the game, and that you are playing yourself. It is not supposed to make you feel like you are playing a different person. You wanna know why NPCs say things like "hi there" and "Have you heard any word from the other provinces?" Because they are living in Tamriel, so they talk about things related to their world. If you think Skyrim is just as bad and not any worse, go up to someone start a conversation and see how many people don't say things like, "I was in the Marines, then I took a bullet to the knee" or "Have to come chat with me to do your deed for the day?" or even "Go fiddling with any doors around here and we are going to have a problem." See how many people say that when you just go up to someone and say hi. After that, compare the dialogues of NPCs in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, see how different they are. IF you still say they are similar, make an appointment with your doctor and get your ears checked, if he says they are alright, then stop trolling me. Oh, but I know what you are going to say next "I never said they were similar, I must said they were all shit" well in that case what is your standard for dialogue in video games? What do you want to see as the next Elder Scrolls? What improvements do you want to see to the series? If it's nothing besides wishing nostalgia gamers would just go away, that is fine, I understand. It seems as if you are trying to say that the entire elder scrolls series is shit. I know that is not the case and I know you are just irritated about Nostalgia gamers. If you still think I am a nostalgia gamer, well this is my proof against it. I played Skyrim for about 5 hours, and it was really fun. I had hopes for the rest of the game. However, after playing those 5 hours, it just got boring and repetitive. Compare that to a game like the Witcher 2, where it has an interesting story line with great sub plots and gameplay where you have to be careful about what you do. You will want to constantly keep playing the game over and over again because there are so many things you can do and many choices you can make to affect the entire world. They also have memorable characters with Dialogue that defines them and makes them memorable as a stand alone character. Even though in the Witcher, you play a character that you make, you still feel as if it was you making the choices and calling the shots, you felt like the character. This is what the Elder Scrolls should try to do.
***** Ok fair enough. But it seems that you have very high expectations as a whole for the Elder Scrolls. That is not to say I don't have high expectations for the Elder scrolls, yes the elder scrolls definitely needs a living world, if someone's life is only worth 1000 gold compared to some weapons that are worth much more than a thousand gold doesn't make sense. Also I do agree that the dialogue options seemed as if it didn't matter what you chose, nothing is effected and it pretty much is not dialogue that the player would say, but dialogue the game is telling you to say. But really my biggest problem with Skyrim is that it was so overrated, I don't think it deserves the title greatest RPG of all time
***** Ok definitely agree with you here on the fact that the Elder Scrolls are overrated. What I should of done is consider how much the gaming culture has changed in the past decade. Back then, I wouldn't be surprised if Morrowind was below the standard of a good RPG. I wouldn't know because I did not really play the elder scrolls until the late 2000's when Oblivion came around. I guess we have to accept the fact Bethesda spends most of their time of Marketing
I'm so disappointed. I kept hearing about how Morrowind NPCs were soooooo interesting, but I've talked to over a dozen and it was just as SorcererDave said. They all give generic responses so it's super tedious. And many of the unique responses weren't interesting at all except maybe the Khajiit vendor in Balmora.
SuperLotus Well I'm sure Skyrim's NPCs were better since the majority of them only repeat a single line of dialog instead of going into conversation mode.
Avoozl "a single line of dialog""We're watching you...scum" "Mournhold, city of Light. City of Magic." "Sweet moon-sugar." "You N'wah!" And a LOT more... (I made this in not playing Morrowind in a week...)
Will Johnson I was talking of activation dialog not automatic responses when you are in an npcs line of sight, there's a difference and why else did I mention conversation mode? *rolls eyes*
SuperLotus I don't know why, but the variation of the NPC dialogues (especially certain civillians and guards after certain events like finishing DB quests) feel like some jokes that internet users easily turned it into silly memes. my short rant: Also you're the hyped dragonborn, but still being a pathetic slaves to daedric princes (especially on Molag Bal, Herma mora or other selfish immortal assholes), can't be a crime fighter to finnish thieves guild, cannot undo shit that happened to Miraak, can't kill maven after what she done to riften and doing nasty business with DB and thieves guild and the rude shits she throws (although you can kill her by downloading a certain mods), and still being caught and got stupid insulting comments by guards even if they know that you already do big good things or became a companion harbinger being thane to the particular respective hold. The vanilla game already breaks the immersions and freedoms already when it comes to NPC interaction and certain questlines, which ended me to mod it heavily.
On the directions thing... 99.999% of them worked fine, and were more or less "nw of whatever town" which was fine and didn't necessitate following a damn arrow around
if i am not able to know, my character should not be able to know. the game should get rid of the quest markers and add a better explanation of where you are suposed to go instead and make less confuse scenarios that have 70% of their content useless. look at dark souls for exemple, it lacks any kind of directions, explanations, maps, helpful npcs or tutorials. the only thing that you have are a couple badly explained dialogues (who are ridles) that summed up give a total of 50 seconds and a complex scenario that expands up and down aswell as to the sides, and no matter how hard you try, you cant get lost in that game. thats how ES dungeons should work. instead of having 750 dungeons that are undistinctive and unmemorable, we should have a few that are much much bigger and memorable. if someone tells you about darkness in dark souls, you will link it to the place where there is darkness. and you will go to that place and find what you are looking for. in skyrim, if someone tells you about a nordic burial ruin, next to the town or markarth, which is close to a lake on the botton of a mountain in which a dragon resides, and, with a trail of blood leading to it from the outside, where you will find a man who is there waiting for you, on top of a caravan, dancing tango with a frost troll. your chance of thinking of the place where you actualy have to go is still 1/60. they make so many dungeons for you to explore that they make them all the same. it is imersion breaking because it looks like your character is a machine who can understand which cave you are looking for when given the information is 'somewhere to the south of winterhold'. the first quest of skyrim after the tutorial on the other hand is explained perfectly. 'you have to go to bleak falls barrow. you can see it from here through, the mountain just on top of the buildings...' 'to get there, you have to folow the road north and turn left when you get to a rocky formation. if you see the watchtower, you know that you are going on the right way'. see. easy and simple. but skyrim fails to explain anything past that. the marker is something that is suposed to be used as an aid. not something that when turned off makes the game unplayable.
I definitely agree with the quest marker/directions thing. Oblivion and Skyrim both showed examples of this working perfectly. Oblivion has a quest where you are supposed to use an ancient journal to find an old ruin. You use this journal to find landmarks and after finding enough THEN the quest marker activates to get you to the specific location you're looking for. In this way you avoid wasting time mindlessly trapsing about, yet also have to use your brain to figure out where to go. Skyrim's Bleak Falls example you used is another fine example. Though I will disagree on the number of dungeons. While Skyrim failed considerably in this department, Oblivion did a very good job here in my opinion. Ayleid ruins while looking similar are pretty much all uniquely built. Some have gas/wall traps, others spike/ceiling traps others don't really have any traps and are just huge sprawling labyrinths. Each one is different; likewise with caves and ruins. This adds to the appeal of TES over, say Dark Souls, as with Dark Souls you aren't given a lot of direction because it's a linear game at heart. Certain areas are just inaccessible until you have particular items or are a particular level, so in this way the game funnels you into the directions you are "supposed" to be following. For me, the appeal of TES is it is a living breathing, virtual world. If I don't feel like doing a quest I can just run along the country side finding random caves and ruins to explore and loot. I don't need the game to hold my hand and lead me from one dungeon to the next, instead I'm given a playground, a sandbox if you will, to do whatever I want with and when I get ready to play the game proper there's quests waiting for me. If these massive amounts of dungeons were removed then the game would lose a great deal of that open-world sandbox appeal and effectively become a linear RPG with really really long travelling distances from one objective to the next.
Malleus Deus lets put foward two quests: 1: an old lady aproaches you and asks you to venture into a dangerous ruin full of spiders and draughr in order to pick up a necklace that she recently lost.(the whole dungeon is made around this one quest and feels like the only purpose of its existence was the old lady's necklace, which will be placed at the very end of the dungeon of course). 2: an old lady aproaches you and tells you a story about the inhabited city underground (huge dungeon) and tells you the position of her abandoned house where she used to live before (insert any kind of disaster or trauma). knowing that you are an adventurer geting ready (or mounting an expedition) to go down to the abandoned town, she asks of you to please look for her necklace, since it is the only memory she has of (insert husband or son or random feel) while you go on about your dragonborn main quest business (which are located inside this same ruin but further in). which one sounds more believable? which one is more realistic? which one makes the dungeon look like it has been something at all before this "disaster"? which one gives you room to show the player how bad this "disaster" was, and how bad people got hurt by it, and therefore make him feel something at all while playing your game? dungeons in skyrim are way too overly superficial and conpletely unmemorable. i can tell you that, because i have more memories from dark souls dungeons (that i played for 15 hours) than i have of skyrim's in which i spent 200 hours. i know the names of almost all characters in dark souls and of some that dont even show up in the game, and i cant even write paarthunax correctly if i dont look it up. in fact, the only names i remenber from skyrim are talos, ulfric, galmar stone fist, delphine, farengar and lydia... and i literaly just stoped playing it. i havent played dark souls in months and i can name more characters from the 20 or so characters in dark souls than i can name in skyrim of its 750 or so. skyrim, lacks, depth. chasing markers around the maps completing useless missions that start with almost unbelievable stories only makes it worse.
Right, I agree with you there, which is why I used Oblivion as an example. I clearly said that Skyrim got lazy on their dungeons. Though one game in the entire franchise getting lazy doesn't justify removing this facet from every future game. Oblivion clearly did it right. These areas were often totally uninvolved in any quest whatsoever, they were totally optional and any reward was simply the random loot you found inside. No one asked you to go to most of these ruins, and if you didn't stumble upon them in your travels you wouldn't have anyone in game ever point them out to you either. That is the appeal of TES, you get to enjoy a full RP experience where you explore this land and find new things and interact with them as you see fit. I agree with your general criticisms, and again, you're only using Skyrim here, which every TES fan will agree is a weak entry in comparison to either Oblivion or Morrowind in terms of sheer content. Even in Morrowind exploration was something you could do completely of your own volition for unexpected, non quest-related rewards...or bypass if you so chose. So, again, I get your point, but you're choosing a poor example in Skyrim, Skyrim in many ways represents the worse of the TES series as a whole, a lot of the frustrations of previous installments are amplified and emphasized in Skyrim. If you haven't played Oblivion or Morrowind, play them and you'll see how poorly Skyrim handled exploration and random dungeons. All that being said, Dark Souls is still a very poor comparative example; they are entirely different games with entirely different goals. TES is about a true RP experience where you make an alternate identity that behaves however you dictate it should within this virtual reality. In Dark Souls your choices are pretty much: Go here, die a lot; wrong way. Go here, don't die as much so keep going. Kill this, or don't kill this. So the RP experience isn't so much about how you interact with the world, but rather how you build your character. Will you use heavy armor and a giant club to defeat your enemies? Or wear robes and use magic to win? Also, referring to "dungeons" in Dark Souls is probably a misleading choice of terminology. In Dark Souls you have one large world with many different environments therein. In the confines of the point you're attempting to make you can't call that a "dungeon" as it IS the world itself, not just an instance of it. In TES the world itself has many different areas, again Morrowind, or Oblivion exemplify this far better than Skyrim where some areas are snowy mountains, others dank swamps each with their own challenges and enemies to deal with. In addition to this are the random dungeons that are separate instances existing independently from the actual game world itself. To reiterate a final time; I get your point and agree that Skyrim failed to make "optional" content memorable and often felt the need to add incentives to urge the player into this "optional" content; but that is a poor example for the TES series where previous installments didn't have to offer any incentives at all, the raw joy of exploration and random loot was more than enough to make these "optional" segments worth while. Also, saying TES should become more like Dark Souls is the same as saying Dark Souls should become more like Dragon Age...they're all Western Fantasy RPG true, but they each have totally different goals for what type of experience they want to immerse the player into, and trying to make any of them more like the others would only be detrimental.
Malleus Deus actualy, dark souls has dungeons... dungeons that connect the worlds safe zones. there is no distinction but you just know when you are going inside a dungeon. anor londo and blight town were big dungeons that housed small dungeons. it worked like a conection to make the world feel believable. they are made to feel like they are not dungeons but part of the world itself, and that is why you cant destinct what is and what is not a dungeon. which in my opinion is what is suposed to be done. you can clearly understand what blightown was, and what paper it served before it became blightown. now, the abyss was a dungeon. the lost izalith was a dungeon and the tomb of giants, dukes archives, sen's fortress were dungeons and the cities of that world were the bonfires in general and firelink shrine in special. when you talk about oblivion, i still think its not even close... althrough they were more variated, they do not belong in that world. truth be told. what is it with tamriels ancient ppl and caves? most dungeons in tes feel like they were made to be nothing but dungeons where you go to find loot(which is very badly placed btw. i once found ebony gear in the chest located at the end of bleak falls barrow. at lvl 1). i believe this apeal that you speak of, would be better, if instead of going around the land finding another cave to look for loot in it. you entered a bigger dungeon and went around its many areas instead. it would not take away the apeal of the game and it would give place for adding a lot of hidden content into the game while making every area have a greater meaning to the players. there are a lot of houses and squares to loots in an abandoned town for exemple. there are very few dungeons that can be classified as "acceptable" in tes games and most of them are dlcs. those are the blackreach, soul cairn and the forgotten vale. those are the only ones i can remenber that actualy made me want to explore them instead of making me feel like i had to explore them.
I get what you're saying, and while I could continue to argue the symantics of the term "dungeons" I'll just let that be for the sake of this conversation. What I don't get though, is TES is already doing quite a bit of what you're saying; I'm really wondering how much time you've actually put into going "off the beaten path" with TES games. For example, you mention "Oblivion" yet every example made was from Skyrim. Also were you playing PC with mods? Because I have made numerous characters and went through Bleak Falls in Skyrim and never found Ebony gear; it should be impossible as every piece of gear or reward you get in game is leveled to you. You could only possibly get such high level gear at level 1 if it were the result of a mod, or if you managed to get it from a particularly important NPC that is scripted to wear it. For example Umbra in Oblivion...I use that example as I don't know of any such examples in Skyrim off the top of my head. Also, you were talking about abandoned towns and squares...well Oblivion had that. Hackdirt is a half burnt down town of cultist murderers complete with underground caverns. There's all sorts of little villages and settlements in both Oblivion and Skyrim that you can freely steal from if you wanted to. Though, the primary issue with what you're suggesting is; it's just not possible for a TES game, and probably won't be for a very long time. Dark Souls is allowed to connect every dungeon seamlessly because everything follows a very strict script. Enemies never wonder around, they are always spawned in the exact same area and stay in that exact same area until you draw their aggo. There's a few examples of NPCs moving from one place to another; but again they do so on a very strict script that only initiates once the player has progressed to a certain point. In TES games, particularly Oblivion and Skyrim; this just isn't the case. The "Radiant AI" function means that scripts are absolutely insane in the amount of detail and allowance for variation. Every NPC follows a strict schedule that includes travelling to other cities, eating, sleeping, visiting other NPC's houses, etc. This is even true for monsters, they will wonder around particular areas as opposed to remaining static; and in the case of the goblins they will even wage war on each other over their staffs. If you've never tried that, play Oblivion and steal a goblin staff (there's a particular quest that leads you to two of them if you need help locating them) and just drop them in the middle of a city. The goblin tribe will track down the staff and kill everything until they get it back and can return to their cave. My point being, with such a massive amount of stuff happening constantly regardless of where the player is or what the player is doing then there has to be some sort of buffer for the game to separate all of this. This is why dungeons, and even cities are separate instances; they effectively exist outside of the world map and are their own unique place; houses and stores likewise. This is to make it easier for the game to process all the scripts as it can partition them to particular areas; whereas the Dark Souls method would have every script running simultaneously in the same area making it much more difficult for the game to organize. Considering that, in all honesty, Bethesda has a habit of releasing buggy games, and certainly TES games are an example of this; if they didn't do something to give the processing a break then the game would probably crash constantly and be unplayable. So, while I think I see what you're aiming at; I don't personally think it's necessary, and would indeed enjoy the game less if it had the aspects you are suggesting. Though beyond any personal qualms, technologically it just isn't a feasible thing for a TES game to have.
As far as the quest markers go I prefer how Oblivion handled the situation. They had both a quest marker that you can turn off and an detailed journal unlike Skyrim where the journal is literally one sentence.
Indeed, very good point. And not hating on Skyrim, but the total lack of dialogue options is dissapointing, as well as the poorly made cities the sizes or villages, with 10 uninteresting NPCs in them. I enjoy the game, but compared to other titles out there, Skyrim really falls low.
The entire gaming industry is dumbing down if you did not know... Not only gaming but the movie industry, politics and every fucking thing else. Watching this video probably dumbed me down a bit as well.
+asparwhite86 Ah yes, the world is so dumb now! It was so much better when people didn't have access to public education in most countries.We didn't have to worry about intelligent people like Mark Zuckerberg creating Facebook in his dorm room or Steve Jobs making computers in his fucking garage. Honestly, you're an idiot. People are more educated now than they have ever been. EVER. Ordinary people go on to university more than ever before, and so what if they only go to get a job? They still learn more than they would if they didn't go. What your problem is that you don't recognize that people don't care about the things you think they should care about. You have this childish ideal that only "deep" movies will be made and only "deep" books will be written, and that politicians should all be a modern Socrates. Get over it, kid. And I do hope you're a kid. The world has never been a perfect place - it's always been "dumbed down." Nobody has ever cared about what people like you think they "should" care about. People care about themselves, and not much else to be honest. And sure, I know that politics could do with some tightening up, and that some movies and books seem to utter shit, but people like them so who are you and I to say what should be? Don't be so fucking absolutist. Don't be so sure that you have all the right answers and that you would make a great president or prime minister or world dictator. What you have to do is stop expecting everybody to follow your ideals, because nobody but you gives a shit about them. Don't be so confident in yourself to think you have the keys to the goddamned universe, laddybuck.
There are not that many Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerbergs. Fuck them as well for making industries off of making shit for stupid people... making it even easier for them to reproduce and spread their rot. I have no ideal that only "deep" movies, books or whatever should be made. Things are dumbing down, I do not understand why you are trying to deny it. Your only argument was the existence of Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg... They never did anything great, just made technology accessible for jack asses. Wanna talk about great minds? Kepler, Newton, Einstein, Lorenz, Chomsky... There will be some today thanks to the ridiculous population but the vast majority have porridge for brains. I have no say or opinion on what "should be", i just know for non retarded people, retards fucking are annoying and it is fucking even more annoying having the whole world dumbed down to suit their needs.
+asparwhite86 My only argument was not "steve jobs mark zuckerberg." That was my first point. My main argument is that the world is actually kore ductaed than ever before, due to the incredible access to education. The internet as well has done a great job at facilitating ideas. Honestly i think you're ignoring the simple fact that because of modern educational standards it's quite a bold statement to say the world is dumbing down. Youre essentially saying that education is all going to waste and none of it is sinking in. Also, fuck steve jobs? Youre genuinely so ignorant as to embody the quality of ignorance in its purest form. Steve jobs did not make money off an industry for stupid people...when steve jobs set about with apple computers were by no means the realm of stupid people, rather they were the sole domain of incredibly intelligent academics. Its because of steve jobs and apple that information technology can even be available to the common man, like yourself.
+asparwhite86 My only argument was not "steve jobs mark zuckerberg." That was my first point. My main argument is that the world is actually kore ductaed than ever before, due to the incredible access to education. The internet as well has done a great job at facilitating ideas. Honestly i think you're ignoring the simple fact that because of modern educational standards it's quite a bold statement to say the world is dumbing down. Youre essentially saying that education is all going to waste and none of it is sinking in. Also, fuck steve jobs? Youre genuinely so ignorant as to embody the quality of ignorance in its purest form. Steve jobs did not make money off an industry for stupid people...when steve jobs set about with apple computers were by no means the realm of stupid people, rather they were the sole domain of incredibly intelligent academics. Its because of steve jobs and apple that information technology can even be available to the common man, like yourself.
The games are dumbed-down. Saying "I do actually enjoy having a quest marker" and glossing over the fact that the journal entries in Skyrim don't contain enough information to complete the quests without the quest markers isn't an argument that the games aren't dumbed-down. It's simply rationalizing the fact that they aren't dumbed-down in that way. Nobody said the games should return to keyword-based dialog and that there shouldn't be unique dialog between characters. But the fact is that Oblivion is overall very dumbed-down in design from Morrowind, and Skyrim is dumbed-down from Oblivion.
Regarding quest markers and journal: There are more immersive ways to get the same functionality that Skyrim has. I would ask for detailed directions and then write them down, so I would have those directions in the journal. Then, trying to find the location could make me find other interesting stuff during the journey. Also, there should be more interactive options for each quest - more care for detail. I'd like to be able to cancel a quest for various reasons, for example if I just can't find a place. Or I could ask the NPC for more detailed directions if I was satisfied with crude ones the first time. ... Ideally, for more immersion, different NPCs would use different means of pointing your towards the target. Some would point it out on your map, maybe even inaccurately. Things like quest markers are definitely done to reduce the time you spend looking for quest objectives and thus speed up progression, which triggers the reward mechanism. There will always be a strong influence in game development from marketing. People are getting more impatient, and trying to design a game so that it would actually make people improve their skills (like navigation) is often regarded too much of a risk to the success of a game, especially considering how the 'competitive market game' is heating up all the time. Convenience often IS dumbing down, because in a computer game, convenience usually means not making an intellectual effort to perform better in challenging situations. Thus, a sentence like "Gaming made be become better at understanding directions." might become a thing of the past, since the business (at least where big money is involved) becomes less and less about improving yourself and more about replacing feelings missing in real life with simulated ones and about killing boredom.
Honestly, wandering aimlessly around an area looking for an objective that may or may not be there is tedious, boring, and a waste of time. A game mechanic that puts you through more doesn't make it more intelligent or "less casual." It's not like your going to go on a fantastical journey by wandering in the same area wondering were that bandit hideout is. I understand you may have to use your wits to find an area when you only get written out directions from another NPC, but it usually tends to be more annoying/monotonous than not. You don't need quests with dysfunctional directions to get you to explore, you can wander off into the world on your very own looking for things to do (which there are plenty) instead of having to monotonous backtracking to find the entrance to a little cave so you can retrieve someone's family heirloom. There are different ways NPC's can give out quests, like having you ask for the areas location instead, or sending you on a quest of clues like "This was the last place I saw those falmer" or "I believe the Arrin brothers were camping out here...", and when you get to those locations you find where the objective(s) went next. There's more clever ways to go about assigning quests than just completely removing markers to make it more interesting.
hellraiser5671 Of course, as SorcererDave said in another video, (an option for) removing quest markers is pointless, since there needs to be an actual replacement for them. But an RPG loses depth with simplifying things like that. I notice it myself. I go into move-there-do-this mode, making every quest feel more similar. Sadly, in today's gaming development, the smallest deviant ideas can seem revolutionary. Quests that are meant to fail as part of the story development are rare. But quests that CAN but don't HAVE TO fail as part of a dynamic story development, that's even rarer. Skyrim isn't there yet. You usually can only fail a quest that removes it from the story altogether - instantly terminated. In true RPGs, a lifelike experience (for immersion) is very important. The trend is to simplify character attributes, but you know what no one seems to do? Making character atrributes extremely complex but not bothering the player with it. Realistic, almost simulation-like character development. The more you fiddle with numbers and assign points, the more immersion suffers and 'the magic' fades
I agree that I think they should have many failable quests. It adds more immersion to the game, for example; I remember when I was playing fallout and I left a location for a quest then a scorpion came when I was gone and killed the key characters thus failing the quest. Tamriel is a dangerous place, so I agree we need more quests we can fail, it's simply more immersive. We should still keep characters tied to faction/main quests invulnerable until the quest involving them is over.
All I heard throughout this entire video was "why make things a *lot* better with a little extra work, when they could dumb shit down horribly and make it better for casual CoD players?"
Having completely independent NPCs walking around is actually a huge problem, since the AI might glitch out or some monster might kill them. In open world games like Gothic, important NPCs would be teleported to their set destination once the player wasn't looking, since the pathfinding AI was so poor that they'd often fall off a ledge or get stuck in a ditch. You could follow them around, but it was boring and pointless. I grudgingly recall reloading a dozen times or so in Gothic 2 because one of the key companions for the main quest just kept getting killed be me or monsters. And since you needed him, all you could do was reload again and again. There was no "game over" screen or "quest failed", the game just wouldn't continue.
I agree, having every NPC be vulnerable to random death or getting stuck is a huge problem that we shouldn't ask games to be opened up to. However, I do think having any NPC be killable by the player character, so long as they are formidable enough, is a good choice that has the best of both options. After all, in that way, if you kill an important character and are unable to continue the main quest, you have no one to blame but yourself.
It's funny to me really, I've played Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall, (albeit, have played Daggerfall in very small amounts, it's very vague to me) but I have loved every Elder Scrolls game since. Every game just seemed like it got better, had more to do, or a certain number of things that have changed. The point I am trying to make, is that each game individually got more in-depth and more creative, with more stuff to do, etc. I am really looking forward to Elder Scrolls Online.
I don’t really think there’s any argument against whether the games have been simplified - it very clearly has. However, it is up to your personal preference if that’s a good thing or a bad thing
Is there a problem sir? He was stating he likes all three games and was sharing his feelings. People need to think twice or three times before they say something.
+David Boggs Bethesda just NEEDS every one of their games to have an optional hardcore mode(required eating/sleeping, no quest markers, no fast travel, faction rivalries, bleed damage/broken limbs, no weightless items, sleeping at inns to save the game with one save to use anytime every 3 hours of gameplay etc.) then when you beat it on hardcore, maybe a special armor set or access to some cool features on a new play through. and of course! an achievement!
***** no,quest markers are not optional in skyrim. You need them or you won't know where the fuck you are going. Not once did I read anywhere I skyrim "Look for shrine of boethiah east of windhelm" just says "find shrine of boethiah" with a nice fat quest marker pointing to it. And my suggestions were for a "hardcore mode" not some filthy casual mode you would love walking through
