» Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:59 pm
When I keep seeing "skills help me diversify my character!" normally I just not my head and agree. Just not when it comes to the Elder Scrolls.
When I'm in Fallout or Baldur's Gate or a real D&D game, skills do help diversify my character because once I start, I'm not going to be able to use other skills without some sort of real sacrifice. Compare it to TES, where the only limitation is that your non-main skills started lower, and that can be fixed easily with cash because every game has trainers. It almost encourages you to branch out - try completing a game without some method of lock-picking. They might start out "more unique" in Morrowind than in OB or Skyrim, but characters all end up pretty much the same way. At least with perks
Customizing Slots: Clothing under armor is just silly. You might get away with it for something like Leather, but most of the other armors? Good luck. I never used the armor part swap system so many people seem to have loved because 1) It's fairly immersion breaking (shockingly, armor pieces are designed to fit one particular suit of armor, not a completely different one) and 2) It just looked pretty silly in a lot of ways. The only case it ever made sense to me were the few sets that had slightly different pieces, like Bonemold.
VA and 'lack' of unique dialogue: I think a lot of people forget just how much stock phrases MW had. Everyone had a lot to talk about, granted, but it's because most phrases were shared by pretty much everyone.
Choice and questing: I'd be pretty interested to see how many quests in Morrowind allowed for variable solutions. It's been ages since I've done a real playthrough, but I'm not remembering it to be a huge amount.
Maturity: Can we please get rid of the "herp derp people are stupid they're dumbing it down because people are stupid and we're so superior because people are stupid" that every complaint thread seems to draw like flies? The OP didn't do this, but it sure attracted it. Most changes are due to things people say on the forums, not the type of gamer so many people love to whine about given the slightest chance. Quest icons? "I can't find that cave for MW's main quest!", Fast travel? "It's hard to find my way to a particular place", Skills removed "X is so useless!".
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At any rate, would I like to see some of the variety back? Sure, but only with some proper design decisions. Morrowind had silly things like someone skilled in Long Blade because they like to use a longsword completely unable to use a short sword that wasn't all that different.
(You'll note I don't use "complexity". Having a ton of skills and numbers alone does not make a game complex, as a ton of badly designed P&P games will attest to)
The main so-called losses seem to have been primarily weapon skills, and I'd wager that it's because of animations than any sinister desire to "dumb the game down" to sell it to the dreaded Call of Duty crowd. Morrowind's animations were very simple at best, animation has never been Bethesda's strong suit, and making something like a spear or polearm interesting in first person and not just "stab stab stab stab" would take some doing.
I'd like to see expansions introduce new weapon types, but it's not something Bethesda has ever done.