Hello everyone! I am new to these forums but certainly not new to Elder Scrolls series. I have played Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and now recently got into Online.

As I started my journey again, now in the online world, and being super annoyed by mudcrabs, I started thinking about some amazing and great stuff this game series has offered past these years - and also the annoying parts. I hope you guys join in this discussion and let me know your opinions

GOOD STUFF:

1. LEVITATION. I cannot hype this feature introduced in Morrowind enough. Seriously. You could fly! So super awesome!!

2. Incredible music. Beautiful beyond everything.

3. SHADOWMERE. One kick ass horse. Omg. So beautiful.

4. Dark Brotherhood. No need to explain.

5. Gods and Goddesses. I loved my first accounter with Vivec so much that I actually named my cat (rest his soul) after him!

6. Oh yes, dragons.

7. Some skills that are no longer there. Acrobat skill. You could actually jump all over the place, higher and higher and your acrobacy improved to a point where you could jump down from very high cliffs and not getting killed lol.

BAD STUFF:

1. Annoying enemies. Mudcrabs. Sure, easy to kill but super annoying. Slaughterfish. Cliff racers.

2. Having a quest where you should get something from the enemy after you've killed them. You kill the enemy, and the enemy is hanging from the roof or is placed under a bed etc.. And you cannot loot them.

3. Morrowind's super annoying under water caves. Literally all you could see is grey and you lose your sense of direction. And there were more than plenty of those quests.

4. Mountains. (A moment of silence). You have a quest at the other side of that big ass mountain. No you cannot cross it. No, you cannot
Go through. The mountains are always too steep. Oh, but you can always levitate. Wait, you can't. I might as well get around it and it takes 15 mins. No problemo.

Here are a few highlights on my list guys. Any thoughts?

On the good stuff:

1. Agreed. Although I don't really miss it in later games.

2. Agreed. So peaceful and atmospheric. And it gets better with each iteration of TES.

3. Can't really say, haven't heard about it before.

4. Meh. DB assassins from Tribunal with their pseudo-Ninja armor never really impressed me. I haven't tried the DB questline in Oblivion, only in Skyrim. Seems cool in a angsty teenager way, i.e. very conspicuous assassins.

5. Vivec is a bro. Almalexia is annoying.

6. Dragons are one thing that made me skip Skyrim's MQ

On the bad stuff:

1. And spriggans (Bloodmoon), boars (Bloodmoon), draugr (Bloodmoon), goblins (TR).

2. Agreed. Can be annoying, especially when it happens no matter how many times you reload.

3. That's why we have Night-Eye spell/potions ^^

4. Disagree quite strongly. I love mountains.

Shadowmere is an immortal horse on Skyrim (and Oblivion) that you receive after a specific quest in DB questline. Black horse with red eyes. DB is not about ninja outfits, I think it's about the atmosphere. And Oblivion DB quests are way better than in Skyrim especially how it all starts..

Spriggans, yes, super annoying. And what about hagravens?

I agree, mountains look very nice so in that way they are awesome but I meant the fact that they are usually always on your way. At least for me lol. If anything, I would like to walk on the top of all the mountains but that is not possible.

You missed the most imaginative, intriguing, well written storyline a Bethesda game has to offer.

1. On Levitation: I think one of the good thing about Levitation is that it allows to make more interesting dungeons. In Morrowind, it allowed devs to hide good loot, or enemies, in hidden places. It also allowed to create pits where you could fall in and had to absolutely use Levitation to get out of it.

2. Unlootable enemy corpse: It happened to me repeatedly during the Telvanni quest where you have to retrieve the Black Jinx Ring.

No?Like no thee were no real quest apart form one or two want you to go inside one.....and you can see fine underwater and will over the water with a light spell or Nightvision.And you know losing sense of direction is not only not bad it adds soem challenge for a cave,you also have compass on you HUD making that impossible in the first place.

How ?Enemies don't even have phisics in Morrowind ,the only new game I had that happen was Oblvion and where enemies could fall into instant dead rifts in caves.

Well, precisely because of the lack of physics in Morrowind, this particular enemy when dying would fall half across a wall; the collision box of the wall static would thus overleap his corpse, making it impossible to loot.

I disagree entirely. I thought that Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion was the low point in Bethesda's writing. It's characters were bland, it's acting was probably the worst in the game, it was full of really had internal logic (Lechance can find you, anywhere, to get you to join, but not after you've killed 3 of the Black Hand? And what about the Wraith of So this that can just appear when you brelll any other rule beyond 'Killing all your bosses'? Or the fact that no one in the Sancuary is remotely informed about a potential rogue family member? Even the early assassination missions barely make sense')... And that's not including the absurd religious overtones that were crammed in there for the 'edgy' factor.

Which is a symptom of an ongoing problem, really... Bethesda is not very old at writing. They make poor use of literary divices, really had use of archetypes, and have difficulty with pacing. All of their stories have really great CONCEPTS, but so did Twilight. While their execution isn't nearly that bad, it does show a desperate need for improvement. Fallout 4 is better... But with some unnecessary Sacrifices and some obvious cut corners.

Another recurring problem for the franchise as a whole is the Combat. It's shallow, boring and held back by numerous problems. It's ability to be RPG friendly as well as tactically involved and energetic is impaired by outdated mechanics, pointless and counter productive RPG tropes, and an unwillingness to expand upon its own ideas.

One of the best things in TES games, however, are the little, hand-placed elements. A dead saber cat wedged in between to rocks with 2 arrows in it, and slain Hunter with a bow huddled in a nook a few feet away. A little camp in the mountains north of Bruma with a frozen adventurer and a wolf (presumably the guys dog, still standing watch over his dead master... I've never been able to kill the little guy).

Little things like this, more than the questlines, or the NPCs and their personalities and identities... Little things like this add life and character to the world. And, IMO, they are the absolute best element of Bethesda's games, and why I hope they never go back to full on procedural generation.

I'll add a good aspect that has not been mentioned -

The soundtrack composer. I am glad that BGS has kept Jeremy Soule with Morrowind through Skyrim. Too often does a soundtrack go under appreciated but a soundtrack can easily make or break a game.

Jeremy Soule has added so much life and immersion into the game through his work. I hope he makes a return in the next Elder Scrolls title.

Also, for any Jeremy Soule fans who want to listen to more of his work - Go to YouTube and look up Total Annihilation: Kingdoms soundtrack. Absolutely incredible. Especially the Taros (Dark and depressing) and Aramon. Alternatively, go to GoG.com and purchase the game for $5.99. Its a great game with an incredible soundtrack by Jeremy Soule.

Good Stuff

- The Lore. Every Elder Scrolls game since Morrowind has really written and expanded on the setting of the games. Tamriel is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting and well designed fantasy settings out there, and easily the best one of the past few decades. They stumbled a bit with Oblivion, which was a move towards a generic fantasy setting, and then there's ESO. However, Skyrim, particularly the Dragonborn DLC, was a move back towards a more original and unique fantasy setting. I hope this trend continues.

- World design. Bethesda easily makes the best open worlds in the industry. Hands down. The amount of detail, creativity in them combined by their almost unrivaled scale (There are larger open worlds out there, but they're comparitively quite shallow) really makes them a treat. They feel like real worlds that people live in, while most open worlds feel like theme parks or simply vehicles to tell a story.

- A sense of living in the world. This is really hard to pin down, but in Bethesda games, especially the Elder Scrolls, the player feels like they're actually living in the world, rather than just playing through it. I would use the word "immersion" but everyone defines that word differently. In no other game can I get up, eat breakfast, go to work as a mercenary for the day, return home, and get dinner and a drink in the tavern with a hard singing in the background before retiring to read a book before going to bed. It just doesn't happen.

- Atmosphere. Building off the above example with the bard, Bethesda can create atmosphere really well, and this a product of the hard work of their art team, music team ( nod to Jeremy Soule), and design team.

The Not-So-Good-Stuff

- Writing. Bethesda has always had trouble in this department. People say Morrowind had good writing but I'd argue that's rose colored glasses at best. Morrowind had a great setting (in the literary sense of the word) but the story and characters were pretty mediocre. With the exception of the Tribunal, I can't remember anyone's name. Oblivion and Skyrim weren't any better and were even worse in some aspects (Oblivion in particular lost good setting writing, though some of that good setting writing returned in Skyrim). It worked when Bethesda's biggest competition was Fable, Two Worlds, and Risen (all of which had writing that make Bethesda's seem positively amazing), but now we've got stuff like The Witcher and Dragon Age.

Bethesda seems to be improving in this respect, as Fallout 4 was a pretty big leap ahead. The pacing and structure is better, with clear first, second, and third acts rather than just bumbling from plot point to plot point until the final boss. The character writing is also a huge improvement, and I actually cared about most of my companions and found myself traveling with one more often than not. However, Bethesda NEEDS to keep improving and keep moving forward, and not stagnate.

- Choice and consequence. Because Bethseda's worlds are so expansive and intricate, allowing the player to have a real impact is much more difficult. It's easier for games like The Witcher and Mass Effect to give you a sense of choice and consequence because their worlds are more contained and linear. But I wouldn't want Bethesda to sacrifice the intracacy and expansiveness of their world for this. I think a way to have your cake and eat it too would be ending slides that show the long term consequences of your major actions, but I'm not a dev.

- Combat. Bethesda is stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Right now, Elder Scrolls combat is pretty shallow and unsatisfying. But if they switch to a more deep system of combat, the old guard of CRPG fans will throw a fit over the removal of RPG elements for "skill based combat". I've already seen people say the random missing of Morrowind was a good feature. Is there a sweet spot? I don't know. But no matter what hypothetical changes are made, somebody will be angry.

That's the problem, though. You can't rely on a character having levitation any more than you can rely on them having a short sword. Not everyone's a mage, and potions/scrolls/enchantments are just a cheap workaround to make non-magic-based characters use magic.

I know a lot of players from Morrowind like to keep ten sets of clothing on them at all times to swap between on a whim to get the situational enchantment/spell they need, but I find that very unimmersive and breaks role-play for me.

Ironically, I feel TES is some of Soule's weakest work. Not to say there aren't some good tunes in them, but outside of the few stand-out ones, they all tend to blend together into generic fantasy background music with little diversity (even in Skyrim, where they finally (re)made a good music system allowing for detailed playlist triggers, you still don't get the diversity in the music that you could have). I really prefer Eric Heberling's work with Arena and Daggerfall -- a very distinct and diverse set of tunes, which were played at situationally appropriate times to push the general atmosphere and ambience on display. It helps too that in Arena and Daggerfall you don't have battle music, so you don't have enemies constantly interrupting the normal music to disturb the ambience with some "epic" fight tune.