Hey everyone,

started playing Morrowind again after roughly 10 years and after having played Oblivion and Skyrim. I have read a few topics on these forums and I absolutely do not understand what's so horrible about the combat. It really doesn't bother me at all, it just gives me a bigger a challenge and a higher incentive to actually level my skills instead of just crafting an uber-weapon in Skyrim and pawning everything regardless of my skill.
So what exactly is your problem with the combat? I just want to understand

It's only that the people who don't like it are louder about it than everybody else.

As with TES games prior to and including Morrowind (not sure about Redguard as I never really got far with it), it was a die-roll system, and the chance of miss is not all that warmly received by many that view it as an archaic pen and paper element unsuited to what is for the most part an interactive visual medium. Pushing buttons and clicking a mouse does not easily translate from an unseen mechanic of equations to the real-time visceral action; a "shooter" mentality born from many arcade games developed from the late '70's through the early '90's (if I point the weapon, and if I hit the right button, I should hit the traget... Right?).

Personally I loved the system. It was very intuitive to me how not only skill level, but fatigue, and how various attacks would result in differing damage. Abilities played a key roll as well; Higher strength = more damage. Higher agility = less damage.

Of course as I said this does not translate too well for a visual/action medium, and the greatest detraction of this system is the lack of animations to visually feed it back to the player (and that "wiffle bat" sfx didn't help much either).

The only major annoyance I had with the combat system was the "casting mode", which was changed by the Code Patch. Only thing left is the lack of dodging animations, but it doesn't bother me much.

The system was absolutely fine for a roleplaying game.

I fail to see why if I as a player have poor reflexes or something, my character should be gimped in combat. He's the big warrior hero, not me. Twitch-based games are action games, not roleplaying games.

And don't label me a rabid dedicated Morrowind fan (take that, censor!). I enjoy Oblivion as well, it's just that I don't consider it a proper roleplaying game. It does everything else quite well, it's just the combat that fails and makes it an action game, with the combat being such a big part of the game.

For all that its been hyped, the combat in the last two games really isnt all that much of an overhaul anyway. Im really not seeing much of a difference other than the whole not missing when you clearly connected thing-which I personally thought was a bad idea for a first person rpg.

I love the combat system. Have to be more careful when preparing for a fight.

I don't doubt you for a moment, but I'm not seeing anything in the MCP changing casting in combat. Which option are you referring to?

EDIT: Missed the 2.0 release. Swift Casting: nice!

I agree with Yogi; I don't like having to have fast reflexes in order to survive fights in games. I play to relax and have fun. I thought the combat was fine too. If you miss a lot at first, the satisfaction you get when your skill is better is that much higher.

In Oblivion, no matter what your skill, every fight was an adrenaline rush to survive - that gets old after a while. Only adrenaline junkies could love that. I just found it tiresome. With Morrowind, if I don't take a weapon skill as a major; I know I have to not rush anything.

Skyrim is a little better combat-wise than Oblivion, but I still miss the simplicity that was combat in Morrowind. It was skill-based. Most people are now too impatient to appreciate having to work at skills in order to get good.

I think the loudest complainers are those who simply don't know how the combat works, and keep missing a 100 times over with their empty fatigue bar.

Apart from the skill based miss system, which never shows anyone parrying or dodging, but you just to accept that the're doing it, I think the main problem is its simplicity. One can move back and forth, side to side and one can slash, chop or thrust. Personally, I think that's boring, so I tend to use magic and stealth to mix it up.
Combat is going to more boring for people used to other game genres too. It's nothing compared to a beat 'em up game (are they still called that these days?). Whereas outside of RPG's, there aren't mage 'em up or bribe 'em up games and stealth based games are a fairly recent phenomenon in the mainstream at least.
I think this makes the monk class one of most disappointing, because they can punch with their left hands or their right hands. Acrobatics has the same problem; it only determines how high and far one can jump, how much damage is taken from falling and how well a fall may be guided. One can't do any fancy somersaults or even the acrobatics in Redguard.

I don′t mind the combat that much but you really shouldn′t miss a mudcrab with anything at point blank range, no matter how untrained you are.
But it′s a different set of rules that have been applied here which are unlike Oblivion′s system and frankly I can cope with both.

I respectfully disagree...anything fighting for its life is going to try to dodge and parry to fend off attackers. Missing is entirely within the realm of reality. May not like it, but you would be doing the same thing if you were fighting to survive against an opponent stronger than you. I just chalked it up to that the animations were just not sophisticated enough to show it and let my imagination fill in the blanks.

I agree with you there, but I′m talking about a mudcrab which is not fighting for its life because I haven′t attacked it yet. Same with arrows, standing just a few ft away undetected and seeing the arrow pass right through without causing damage is just wrong. Especially when you think about Deus Ex which came out two years before Morrowind. There you always hit if you′re close enough with a melee weapon or aim good with a rifle.
Of course that game is more of a shooter than RPG, but still. If I don′t pay attention, a baby could kill me quite easily with a kitchen knife without any practise at all.

+1
If I'm point blank range, I expect to hit them, the damage of course will be dependent on my skill with the certain weapon that I'm using. I mean if the freaking greatsword goes right through them, and my fatigue bar is not empty, yet I still miss, well that's just weird. At least add a dodging animation.
*clickclickclickclicklick* Yay I hit! *clickclickclicklcickclick* xD

I liked it in Daggerfall though, but once the games transition to a full 3d, the system had to go.

+2
That dice roll system might suit certain games, but not 3D games imho. Too immersion breaking

YES!! +999999999999

I personally loved having to read the journal and pay attention to people to find out where the quest was, it felt as if I was there, since I was so concentrated on the directions that were given to me while walking and slowly looking around.
Them you start the combat and all that immersion was shattered :/

It's not necessarily a miss, it could be a hit that does no damage. Someone unskilled with a blade could hit their opponent with the flat of the sword rather than the edge, rendering the strike an annoyance. Or the blow could be deflected by the opponents armour/shell/scales/whatever. Contact with enemy does not guarantee damage. And of course at low fatigue, the situation would get worse, so it could happen.

Yes, the last time I looked at a Morrowind mudcrab, it appeared be mostly armor. It's a wonder that anything will penetrate that shell.

They're tasty, though.

As a whole, Morrowind is one of the best games ever made, and I actually liked the combat when I first got it.

It hasn't aged well though, that's for sure. The combat was just fine for it's time, and the die roll made leveling a skill much more important. It's hard for me to go play Morrowind now though, as I'm just used to more modern action RPG combat.

i don't like not hitting things when i'm clearly hitting them, its mostly visual really. They should have put in a dodge animation or screwed up attack animation. Any time i replay i just power level agility anyways so i never miss...so it doesn't bother me that much

No, the damage should NOT be dependent on your skill. I've never fought with an axe before, but if I were to actually hit someone with it, I'm reasonably certain that I could do massive injury with it, regardless of whether I'm skilled or not. If the person or creature is actively trying to block, dodge, parry, and counter-attack with a weapon of their own, odds are I'm NOT going to hit them because I'd be too concerned about protecting myself instead.

"Real" combat involves a lot of "feints" and cautious moves, because one mistake can get you badly injured or killed. The in-game character has no fear, and the player can always reload a save or start over, so that psychological aspect is entirely missing in OB and SR combat (and in just about any other video game I can think of other than the "Close Combat" series, which wasn't a FPS type game). Morrowind's "miss" simulates the character's uncertainty with lack of experience and confidence quite nicely, although the game doesn't visually present it well at all. That Mudcrab which seems so easy to hit has a nasty set of mandibles, and a hard armored shell. If I "miss', it's probably because I'm either too concerned with avoiding those giant pincers or else smacked that tough shell and did no actual harm to the creature.

Compare that to Oblivion, where even if you block with a shield, some of the damage still passes through the shield, depending on how "skilled" you are at blocking. Is the shield so flimsy that it can't fully stop a sword strike, or does it magically transfer a portion of the damage to you? Morrowind's system was less "exciting", but made a lot more sense; the lack of a decent dodge, miss, or glancing hit animation made it look ridiculous, though.

I did like the concept in DF, where you could choose between a less difficult attack for less damage, or a more difficult attack for higher damage. MW kept 3 of the 4 attacks, but sadly had them all use the same difficulty, with damage entirely dependent on the weapon type. A system which used the best of both (or incorporated some of OB's combat elements as well) could have been phenomenal. Instead, we got something which threw away any dependence on the character's skill, except for nerfing damage: a better FPS game, but a sad excuse for a RP element.

My point.

I despised it in 2004, and I despise it now. My character's ability should involve my skill as a player, and also my characters skills. Not some magic dice roll system that calculates if I actually hit something, despite the fact I clearly just saw my sword slash through his chest.

I don't hate it.....but it is certainly the most lacking part of the game.

Swing - Hit - Swing - Hit - Swing - Miss (repeat until someone falls over dead)