Wow,just wow...

Skyrim is NOT balanced.

For gently caress sake

You can still play Morrowind ya know.

Sigh older games are not always better, and a games content does not reflect its overall balance. Morrowind was just as unbalanced as skyrim is when it released, and so was oblivion. morrowind had massive issues with spellmaking , and enchanting, as well as others. While some of its underground was better, Most was boring. Plus morrowind had the cliffracer, one of the most annoying mobs in the history of gaming.

Id like to make one thing clear,Skyrim has better combat system,better graphics,its got better and "smarter" npcs which are not static,its got dragons,horses,physics etc..BUT it also LACKS some things,dont idealize this game,as im not idealising Morrowind,im aware of its flaws,some people arent aware of Skyrims flaws it seems..

I did play it many, many, many hours, and it is one of the best TES games, but IMO, I don't want another Morrowind, just like I don't want another Daggerfall. You don't do a different area with different characters, only to keep the same aspects as one already experienced. From an RPG standpoint, this is better than Morrowind as choices have effects on plot states, meaning, "player agency". It still (so far) falls short of even being close close to Daggerfall, which by role playing and player agency aspects, still is the best of the series. The world in Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind, but Oblivion was terrible in the main quest and player agency. Skyrim does well in role playing crafting and decent in player agency. One thing Skyrim does very very well is the voice acting and the dialogue being expository to the history of the character talking about their race, their personal history, or the story behind the quest at hand. That is something in that Morrowind lacked a bit and Oblivion nearly lacked altogether. I feel like I am in an old school RPG again, it's great!.

To be honest, Morrowind was the beginning of Beth moving away from traditional RP'ing to action adventure questing, since it was the first to be developed for console. Oblivion confirmed taht move to near completion and Skyrim reverted TES back, keeping action, lore and neat graphics while adding back PA..

While I find Skyrim to be fun, there are some things the OP says that makes me miss Morrowinds definate complexity.

1.Homes: In Skyrim, after you do a couple menial tasks for a Jarl the house becomes available. If you have the money you can buy it, if you have even more money you simply buy up all the furnishings and everything becomes available.

In Morrowind you had to do the menial tasks to prove you could be trusted to own property, then after that they didn't ask you to buy it, they made you do further work to earn each new part of it. Your house was build from the ground up in all instances and you could be part of the progress, both time and effort were involved not just a pocket full of loot. I miss that.

2. Spells: No spell making exists in Skyrim (and I have the dreaded feeling it will be DLC) and the spell making was dumbed down in Oblivion. One of the charms of Morrowind is that you could make a spell that did essentially anything you wanted within the limits of your skill + stats+ cash, you could make a fireball spell with a poison explosion and call it "Nuke" that could cover an entire city. As long as you had the money to cast it, and the skill to use it.

3. Loot: While I appreciate that there is a reward for entering every dungeon in Skyrim, the "boss" chest makes the game feel rather arcadey, at least in Morrowind the valuable loot within was always scattered in a way that it appeared that the people/creatures within used it, that it was functional like an object of worship on a shrine, or a bandit blacksmiths prized piece, not just some "stuff" thrown in a fancy chest.

4. Equipment: Skyrim has helm, torso, feet, gloves, one amulet and one ring. (not including things in hand) Morrowind had Helm, chest, left glove, right glove, left pauldron, right pauldron, greaves, boots.

While I think that Morrowind was a little over the top in the number of slots, Skyrim (as they did with Fallout) is very underwhelming. They could have gone with Helm, Chest, Gloves, Shoulders, greaves, boots, 2 rings and an amulet. Which I am sure both the hardcoe and soft would of been happy with, but they didn't. It would of allowed the freedom that the hardcoe players want to be able to enchant and Min Max, it allows the Roleplayers to dress up their characters, and It is basic enough for the softcoe to not give a damn.

Not to mention that Female characters for some weird reason can only wear skirts (this is one of the inherent issues with the joined torso + legs that they went with) That and the amount of clothes vs armor available is really quite limited. Radiant Rainment for example. the Well to do clothing store in Skyrim, is so strapped for stuff to sell that they bring them selves down to selling rags. Morrwind on the other hand had many many options for clothing, and they ranged in /visible/ quality, both in look and in name. Why are clothes important? onto my next point.

5. NPC interaction: In Skyrim, there is little to no social standing, your either liked, or they are neutral. Even Oblivion had deeper social interaction than that, and thats saying something considering the size of the voice cast for Oblivion. In Morrowind on the other hand Characters would treat you differently because of anything from which group you were affiliated with, to the clothes you were wearing (see the clothes thing makes sense now)

Prices in shops would change, available information would change and the characters disposition toward you would change. Take Balathor in Whiterun for example, no matter how much of a loyal customer you are, he will always be a giant butt. In Morrowind however, cosey up to someone and all sorts of new stuff would become available. Weither it was something flavorful like lore. Or something useful like an item.



So all in all, Skyrim is a good game, I do not dispute that at all. But there are some parts that have undeniably been dumbed down. And for someone like me, and I would hazard a guess that many many elder scrolls fans would agree, that the above issues do hamper the immersion that we loved about the series pre Oblivion.

The Dumbing down started with Oblivion, it is by no means all on the shoulders of Skyrim, but it is there and thats sad.

people are aware of skyrims problems, not to be insulting but if your trying to create a discussion regarding pros and cons of the various ES games, your not doing a very good job. To be honest, much of what you appear to be saying, really isnt a skyrim /morrowind issue, its simply a cultural issue with how games are developed these days, as opposed to 8-15 years ago. Skyrim is simplified, but thats what the unwashed masses seem to want these days, just look at most of the games released in the last year or so.

the reality is, that all the ES games are buggy messes on release, but generally the PC version is vastly improved by the mod community which tends to take over the game and fix/address the problems, and provides numerous options for gameplay enhancement. Until we get mods, the game really wont be complete in my mind. In the end bethseda relies on this, since it basically saves them millions of dollars in expenses, and makes there games look even better, as well as gives them the benefit of free PR.

Rosethorns, i agree with most of what you stated, but the dumbing down started with morrowind, daggerfall was a far more complex game for its day then anything since.

But how more dumbing down are we ready to take,how much is too much? If dumbing down started from Daggerfall,and continued to Morrowind,to Oblivion,to Skyrim,where is the end of it?? Shouldnt there be a point where Beth should say "stop",we are not gonna simplify things even more.Thats the reason why i started this thread at all,there should be a point where Beth should stop doing that.Morrowind was GOLDEN MIDDLE between too complex and too simple,TES shouldnt be neither more complex neither more simplified than Morrowind!

That's your opinion. Morrowind was full of redundant features in mine. Neither is more correct then the other, you and others like you need to stop forcing your opinion apon the rest of us.

Its not my opinion only but opinion of many TES players,as it can be seen on forums,many people are disatisfied with how some things with TES are going.

Can someone tell me how this is about RPG's?
it seems like you guys are arguing over who has a bigger **** then whats more balanced
and really. who gives a **** about balace in a SINGLE player game? its to easy? raise difficulty, its to hard?
lower difficulty.
its already on the lowest difficulty? go play hello kitty, its already on the hardest difficulty? get mods to make it harder/make a new character and staart on master then
honestly

and the whole pact of "what has more" doesnt make an RPG, yoou can have 100.000 times more things then Morrowind,daggerfall,Oblivion,skyrim AND arena, and it will still not be an RPG

an RPG is "ROLE-PLAYING game" meaning you ROLE PLAY meaning you have CHOICES
choices to kill this person, to marry this person, to not do this quest and do that one instead, and face the consequences
no TES game is an "RPG" their all action adventure, why? because your stuck on a selected path and HAVE to do it, or else. whts the point of playuing the game?
"herpa derp i can explore the massive land" OMG REALLY? walking around for hours looking at landscape "Hey look, a mudcrap YAY, oh look another mudcrab YAY, oh look a dead mudcrap, SO MUCH DIFFERENCE OMG NERD RAGE" NO

a small group of whiners has no influence, dont play, that simple

I'm starting to wish Morrowind was never made. We can't seem to escape these damn threads.

@xDIGITALxDEATH

My point exactly!

The opinion of a very vocal minority. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you do, deal with it.
I'm not a massive fan of certain aspects of these games but I see that allot do like them. Who am I to tell them they're wrong and I'm right?

Which is basically what you're doing.

u guys are talking about 2 completely different game styles. morrowind and oblivion were meant to be PC games. they were specifically designed with a pc in mind and had the complexities as such. skyrim is a console game. its arcadey and simple.

not both ways are perfectly valdi and perfectly fun, but u need to realize that they exist and stop judging the 2 as if they were done with the same mentality in mind because they werent. skyrim is essentially a console port

While I agree that opinions shouldn't be forced down throats. I think equally saying that redundant features is a bad thing is not truthful.

"redundant" features can be ignored by the people who don't give a damn (hell personal houses in morrowind are redundant by all means of the word)

Those redundant features are equally flavor for the immersed players.

People who clock up 1000+ hour games, are the people who squeeze everything they can out of the flavor, they get lost in their world.

If you want to speed through the main quest, be my guest, but don't call "redundant" content a bad thing just because you don't care about it.

Play mage on master difficulty without using enchanting and smiting. Game gone be balanced around 25-40lvls

What are you talking about?Am i telling someone that they are wrong when they like Skyrim,man i like Skyrim too,just not all things about it.Im trying to compare some things from MW and Skyrim,and doing that by being aware that neither of them is perfect.

He was stating the difference in his opinion......

But that's exactly my point.
OP is complaining about something he doesn't like, I personally have no issue with what he's complaining about. The same can be said for many players.
So who is he to say that its wrong?

Which is exactly the kind of negative connotation "dumbing down" has.

Its a huge difference between rich and balanced. I agree that both Morrowind and Oblivion was more rich on content than Skyrim when it comes to cool details.

You clearly said Morrowind was the golden middle. Basically saying it was perfect.

Ergo my "rose tinted spectacles" comment...