I think most of us here can agree that Oblivion and Skyrim were more of action games with light RPG elements. The amount of content they stripped away from Morrowind in Oblivion was pretty devastating, and it only got worse with Skyrim, which doesn't even have a stat system... I probably won't be buying Elder Scrolls 6, which will probably have full on multiplayer and guns to appease the CoD demographic, but I think Bethesda can still save this once great series. There are many things they need to undo and redo, though.

1. Add spears, crossbows, and throwing weapons. It's not an RPG when there are only a few weapon types to choose from.
2. Remove dual wielding. It's a gimmick that breaks the game.
3. Add attributes back in and take out perks. Perks are gimmicks that make the game seem like CoD and don't allow for the same amount of customization as attributes.
4. Make level scaling exactly like Morrowind. It worked perfectly and any more level scaling than that is just a casualized mess
5. Stop focusing on graphics. The time they devote to graphics, which mean nothing compared to gameplay, is ridiculous. Leave graphics the same as Skyrim if you need to if it means adding spears and other weapons.
6. Bring back some form of dice roll combat. As it is, your skills have no bearing on combat. If I have a low short blade skill, then I shouldn't be able to hit the enemy. Period.
7. Add in all the skills they removed, particularly medium armor and spears.
8. Remove the compass and any form of casualized fast travel. Silt striders and mark/recall were enough.

I think that, if Bethesda does all of these things, we can ignore the casualized games of recent and move on with a proper RPG.

6. Bring back some form of dice roll combat. As it is, your skills have no bearing on combat. If I have a low short blade skill, then I shouldn't be able to hit the enemy. Period.

^ I love morrowind but even I would hate the return of dice roll combat... what would be better is a low blade skill should do minimal damage, a high blade skill do lots. This mimicks real life proficiency with a weapon, as you know how to strike with maximum efficiency.

You have some good points, but I think you're being a little bit too extreme overall. I'll try to explain why I think this on a point-by-point basis.


How does it break the game? I for one am glad that we can finally dual cast spells.


I agree that they should bring back attributes. But keeping perks around could add an interesting level of complexity too, if done properly. Oblivion kind of did this, but it's definitely possible to do a better job.


I'm not a fan of dice roll hit-or-miss combat; it comes off as illogical most of the time and can be very frustrating. What makes more sense is to have skill-dependent damage. Somebody who has never picked up a sword in their lives will still be able to use one in a bind; they just won't be able to use it effectively.


I think instead of outright removing them, Bethesda should give us the option of completely ignoring them. Skyrim is much better than Oblivion in this regard, but it still has a far way to go. Sure, there might be carriages now, but why aren't they at all the holds? This is especially baffling given that three of the holds in question are in some sense "associated" to two of the guilds. This made getting to the relevant "guildhalls" a total pain.

Similarly, we can turn off quest markers now, but the compass still magically knows where unvisited near-by locations are. And another problem is that some quests are virtually impossible to do without the compass. This latter point really needs to be addressed. It's even possible to set up a trivial fix of the form of NPCs saying, "here, let me mark the location on your map", but instead we sometimes find ourselves with no direction at all. This and the new crappy journal really make Skyrim feel more like an adventure game than an RPG - and a rather weak adventure game at that, one in which you go from one magically-pinpointed objective to the other.

Yes, it is. An RPG is a game that focuses on advancement of a character in skill rather than the player as a driving element... It has nothing to do with the number of weapon types.
No, it is not a "gimmick", it's a character option. Why the heck can't my assassin dual wield daggers? And how exactly do you break the game with dual wielding?

I disagree with this on preferential grounds. I like the perk system, it gives non-linear paths for progression, allowing more more varied character builds.

This is something that I DO enjoy in morrowind, but that people need to realize was removed for a reason: Go back and play morrowind as 40 different characters. Now, look at how often you had to do the same exact low-level quests first, and the high-level quests second?

Skyrim is not perfect in scaling, but a step in the right direction. A good western RPG needs freedom, and Morrowind's static structure limits that.

Ugh. They don't improve graphics for you, they improve graphics for people who like a game to be attractive as well as fun. Bad graphics can ruin gameplay in a game focused on immersion.

I disagree to some degree. It is completely immersion-ruining to have someone who is a master with a longsword pick up a shortsword and not hit a thing.

I propose a solution to this: have "dragging skills". By that I mean that leveling up your "long blade" skill would contribute some to your short blade skill, and your axe skill would contribute to your mace skill, etc.



...

This is starting to sound like you are wanting them to just "remove everything, insert morrowind".
Sorry, but that's not progress you goof. They are adjusting their formula to experiment, and I'm having loads of fun with it.

Ugh. It's not "casuallized", elitist drone, it's "redundancy saving". You have to travel once everywhere already, you can make the trip yourself every time if you want. This is a single-player RPG, you aren't competing against real people who you need to use the system to it's full potential to beat.

Ugh. Define RPG for me, please, because you appear to think it has to mean "slow and deliberate".

HEY OP! There were more TES games before Morrowind.

1. Yeah! It's not a true TES game unless I can use my Glaive-Glaive-Guisarm-Naganita! Cry some moar!

2.Your complaint about Dual-wielding is stupid, false, and contrary to real-life: Historically, once shields were rendered obsolete through superior armor, everyone went one of two ways: Two-handed weapons, or dual-wielding. Not using both hands in combat is a stupid idea, and a shield was usually less effective than a second weapon after the 14th century.

3.Perks allow for far more customization than yet another linearly-scaling "How Good your Character Is" meter. It also eliminates the MAD that plagues fighter characters. MAD is a very BAD thing.

4. Morrowind's level scaling was antithesis to the Elder Scrolls experience: It restricted exploration, and reduced options for re-playability. In Skyrim, it's possible for every playthrough to be completely different, instead of the same chain of Loot Imperial Warehouse, Rob Fargoth, Clear Out Cave, Go to Balmora, Do Quests in Order... Morrowind has a "Beginners Guide" to maximizing wealth and minimizing risk because of its level-scaling system. Oblivion and Skyrim don't

5. Sorry, but someone has to make the Good-Looking RPGs! And Bethesda's doing a fantastic job with it. I don't need another Nethack/DungeonCrawl/Dwarf Fortress clone.

6. What everyone else said: Dice rolls are used to simulate dozens of tiny factors that can't be simulated in a tabletop setting without bogging the GM and players down. Computers don't have to worry about being bogged down by maths.

7&8. Removing fast-travel was the worst game-play decision they ever made, and I'm glad they doubled-back on it in Oblivion, and kept it for Skyrim.

Sorry, I don't think you noticed that The Elder Scrolls are, and have always been, a "casual" RPG.

How to get back on track - Undoing what Skyrim, Oblivion AND MORROWIND have done to the series. IMO.

Yeah...threads like this one are just annoying :stare: MW isn't the second coming of Christ and some people actually prefer OB and Skyrim over it.

I for one think MW is a fantastic game but OB is on a different level and Skyrim is just miles ahead of either one. They're all very distinct games and I get why you may prefer one over the other but personally I do not want MW v2, cause if I feel like playing MW, I can just...go play MW

The series is constantly evolving and I think Beth is doing an amazing job. I wouldn't have it any other way.

1.Well RPG can have reduced number of weapon types (Witcher proved that only swords were enough- yeah it had other weapons, but really who ever used axe or torch?). But in general, opened world RPGs are about having more of everything, so more weapon types are needed.
2.Not at all. dual wielding isn't game breaking at all.
3.Yes and no. Increase amount of attributes (not to original 8, but at least 6), but keep the perks (but only to add unique abilities, not "get 5% more damage with longswords", but closer to "cannibalism" from FO3)
4.No, level scaling is good, but it should keep high difficulty areas where low level character can't deal even with one enemy
5.I, personally agree, TES5 looks good enough (especially on PC with higher quality textures). But there are those who notice 5% difference in graphics quality, so this could be complicated part for them. I think developers should concentrate more on animations and improving view of distance (for now it would be more than enough)
6.Only if it would be visually justified, for example if you miss, your target actually evading your weapon, not primitive "you swing and nothing happens" like it was in TES2&3
7.Medium armor could be back if developers could actually make worth wearing medium armor, because in TES3 stealth characters used light armor, while fighters used heavy armor, there was no actual role for medium one. Maybe if Heavy armor would have even more penalties for it (for example, insanely high Stamina consumption for Sprinting/Jumping/Swimming and even usual running consume Stamina (like in TES3)), then medium armor could be alternative to those fighters who can live with lower armor ratings, in exchange to more agile character.
8.No, ALL TES games had compass (even TES3, because minimap was positioned in classical N-E-S-W directions), but maybe make it less all-knowing (only places you have found are shown in compass, not all points of interest near by). Fasttravel needs to be come slightly more complex (basically TES2 and FO1/2 fasttravelling combined, that would be the best option I think). And for Gods sake before going somewhere game should let us know how long this travel will take.

1. variety of weapons doesn't negate it's state as an RPG, i'd like more, but in no way do we need more. it would still be an RPG if they just had "Bow" and "sword" as the only two weapons.
2. not a gimmick, it's a real fighting style. a damn tricky one too.
3. Perks aren't CoD-ish. The ultimate RPG in my opinion is Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. Every 3 levels you get a perk. only they're called feats.
4. Morrowind level scaling was bad.
5. Sometimes you can have good graphics, and good gameplay. there were different people working on the two things, they had the people trained in rgaphics stuff working on the graphics, putting them on gameplay would have been detrimental.
6. The game checks if you swing your sword, whether or not you hit the enemy. i have no training in sword combat, i can still hit most of the time, that physics based system is far better then dice based. Dice based was for when they couldn't get collision detection. (although i do think damage should be randomised a bit)
7. Why? in fact, why should armour be a skill at all? surely the ability to wear armour isn't affected by how much you've worn it before. DnD does that nicely.
8. I have a compass, i use it when orientering. my bufgie has a natural compass in its head, maybe the races of tamriel do too. as for fast travel? it's a convenience for the player, don't like it? don't use it.

I'd like to contend that all evidence points to Morrowind being the "Black Sheep" of the TES games.

The Elder Scrolls mantra is "Be who you want, do what you want". That's not the mantra of a hardcoe RPG. The first thing the Daggerfall manual does is mock the attitude of RPG fanatics.

To me, the Elder Scrolls games are meant to be casual-gamer friendly.

Some of the things you complain about I find to be essential to the TES experience:
Level scaling is important for the "Do what you want". You can't "Do what you want" if the game first requires you to be an arbitrary level before going out to do it. It adds replay value to the world as well as making the single-runthroughs more dynamic. I particularly like the way Skyrim handles level scaling: no dungeon is "inaccessable" to you, but some can be surprisingly difficult. You cannot know ahead of time which dungeons are stupidly hard or a cakewalk, unlike Morrowind. I am against arbitrary high-level areas in games - reminds me way too much of WoW. The Elder Scrolls proves they aren't needed. (And OOO proves exactly why they aren't needed, as it tries to shoehorn static level scale into a world meant for dynamic level scale).

I love the fast-travel, and I say again, removing it in Morrowind was the biggest mistake of the series.

If you like Morrowind so much, just use it to make "new" games.

Considering how different each TES game has been so far, I have trouble seeing any track at all.

It should be noted that fast travel was required in Arena and Daggerfall by design. Arena had infinitely-sized random environments, and you had to fast travel to get to another place. Daggerfall's size was insane, filled mostly with random junk, and it was impractical to walk anywhere. The reason they had fast travel was because they were trying to simulate the world to scale, where it was supposed to take several days to get between places of note. Morrowind and Oblivion, though, are a miniscule fraction of the size the previous games were going for, simulating the world to a much smaller scale. It is not impractical to walk (run) everywhere.

Fast travel in Arena and Daggerfall was a necessity. Fast travel in Oblivion was a convenience (that leads to lazy, unnecessarily obtuse, quest target placements and map design; why the f is there only one bridge leading to the City Isle? why do you keep sending me back and forth over more than half the map for one quest?).

Morrowind wasn't any better with the sending me back and forth over more than half the map on the same quest. Heck... the Main Questline (Become declared Hortator! Now, become Declared Nerevarine!) was far more scattered than Oblivion's. And, what makes Morrowind worse than Oblivion.... it had Cliff Racers!

The guilds were also irritating with sending me all over the place to get stuff, except the Balmora guilds and Ald Ruhn thieves' guild

Fast travel is a very nice feature.

And it is impractical to walk/run everywhere in Oblivion, Morrowind, and Skyrim. Not everyone has hours on end available to play.

What? Why not? Sure, more weapons would be great, but why is it not an RPG because you can't wield everything around you as a weapon?


How on earth is it a gimmick? And how on earth does it "break" the game? If you don't want to duel wield, don't do it. I don't see how you can be crying out for a greater variation in weaponry for your RPing purposes, but denounce that anyone would want to fight with a different combat style. If anything, the use of a weapon says more about your character than the type they use.


Perks have been around in one form or another for a long time, it isn't gimmicky (You keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means.) by any stretch of the imagination, and personally I think it is great. It allows the character to use more forms of attack in their chosen weapon. Why wouldn't someone who is a trained archer be able to do it better than someone who has just picked it up? For the record, there are still attributes.


"casualized mess"...you are really passionate about this, aren't you?


Good graphics are great. I don't see why you aren't in absolute awe at the graphics present in this game. You also have no idea how much time was spent on graphics when compared to gameplay. I know this for a fact, as your profile doesn't say anything about you being on the development team for Skyrim. Also, why do you think gameplay = more weapons?


It doesn't work like that in real life, champ. It is also is bloody tedious. How ridiculous was it to stand face to face with someone in Morrowind, each swinging a spear and no one taking any damage, the weapon just going straight through them? And the skill does have a bearing on your combat. Quite a big bearing - it determines the amount of damage you do, and what you can do with the weapon (remember those pesky perks?). If anything, all that this change has done is bring forward what you were filling out with your imagination in Morrowind.


I did like having a variety of skills, but it isn't that big a loss. Leveling is now more dependent on how you play the game, as opposed to mathematical equations. But hey, if math = Roleplaying to you, I guess that is where we differ.


Don't use fast travel, then. Also, stop saying "casualized". That along with "gimmick" seem to be your words of the day.

Really, it seems like you are more interested in understanding the maths of the game, the actual equations of it, as opposed to just being presented with the result. In Morrowind, Arena and Daggerfall, we were given representations of, say, swinging a blade. The only two results we were given were damage, or no damage. No damage was represented by no change on screen, whereas damage via the blood and "URRGH" of the slain mudcrab. However, for us to determine any more, such as to why this result occurred, we checked the stats, which were essentially a more styilised reading of what the computer was seeing. It was much like pen-and-paper, where the players needed to see these stats. However, both Oblivion and now Skyrim began to mask these stats, and instead revealing more about what was going on via the action on screen. This appears to be your major gripe. Personally? I prefer it this way. To me, playing a role isn't about stats. It is about being a character, and living as it in the virtual world. Skyrim has taken much of the statistics away from the player in order for them to do this, without seeing their character as an equation, as a piece of computer code. I like this a lot more.

And also, your quips about guns and about Skyrim being an action game with RPG elements are ridiculous and juvenile. I know you don't actually believe them, so stop saying them.

damn, poor cod fans can't get a break,

Oh kay, i agree with the weapon diversity, not major, but who doesn't like extra crap to play with?

Dual wielding adds a choice in the character department, if anything they should expand upon the idea.

Damn another cod reference, Whats wrong with perks? I wish they went farther with them, made them game altering things. Also attributes were lame in past tes games, in morrowind i just maxed out agility and strength (and speed jeez was the walking slow in that game) Attributes were really just a means to an end, what skyrim did feels way better

Level scaling isn't my favorite part of skyrim, or oblivion, but morrowind had it too. If anything they need to cut these super high powered enimies that spawn, they make getting higher levels feel like your actually getting weaker.

Whats with the graphics hate, for its time morrowind had amazing graphics, hell the water still looks amazing. Also i spend alot of time wandering tamrial, i want to enjoy the views.

Dice rolls in terms of hit miss are stupid, in a real time game they don't work, especially in first person when i can "see" the weapon hit the target. Now a range of damage to be determined by dice roll would be kinda cool, or bring in the chance to hit crits...huh actually skyrim already has crits lol

I don't see the point in worthless skills, its really a matter of opinion but the one handed and two handed make more sense than blunt and axe. Also with the perk system you can specialize in a particular weapon class

Fast travel is amazing...makes the game better cause i don't use my limited time to walk from town to town. Plus you write you want fast travel, just restricted to towns...and using mark and recall. Compass...you really don't want that, remember the dwemer puzzle cube in morrowind? I do, i quit the main quest because of that stupid cube. If you don't want the compass don't use it, the locations are put on your map, just turn off the quest marker

I agree with the graphics parts. Oblivion's graphics are good enough for me. I would be ok with Skyrim having that kind of graphics because it would mean they could add more content.

The problem with this is that that would keep the game at the same place: they advance the graphics to keep up with the industry standard. If they didn't, then they would eventually stop selling altogether.

There's nothing wrong with wanting your games to look good as well as play well.

Problem is, it does. Morrowind's combat is more realistic than Oblivion or Skyrim's. In melee combat, most blows don't land on the enemy - they're parried, blocked, sidestepped or deflected by armor. In OB and SR, the two sides exchange huge blows, every single of them draws blood - and every single of those blows would end the fight there and then. Which is more realistic: swinging your axe at the opponent's head and he ducks under it, or hitting him right in the head and he carries on?

Of course, Morrowind's problems are the lack of proper animations and the fact that a single good hit isn't an instant fatality either. It would help immensely if the only factors deciding hitting weren't just the player's weapon skill, agility and luck, but the opponent's stat's, too. Yes, an inexperienced combatant can lift a sword a kill someone without experience, but I doubt he could even touch someone who had a blade and the skill to wield it.

I agree about the perks, though. The player's skill in handling a weapon shouldn't determine damage, but the things he or she can do with it. Enter Oblivion: sidesteps, disarmings, knockdowns, that sort of thing.

You misunderstood - I didn't mean that in real life people don't miss in combat, I meant that blades don't go through people like that. Plenty of dodging and blocking takes place in Oblivion and Skyrim. If you aim your fist at someone's face, and punch, and they don't move, they get hit. As you said, it really comes down to animation in Morrowind. And you are correct, it isn't too common for people to take an arrow in the eye and keep swinging, but I chalk that up more to dynamic and fun combat.

The thing was, combat was a huge part of Morrowind, yet it had a pretty shoddy and simple system. I think the changes they have made is great.

In real life, people don't a have "hit-points". In RPGs, hit-points don't just represent the condition of your body: while that is part of it, they also represent your prowess and ability to block, parry, and otherwise negate lethal blows. A lot of blows just "bounce off" of the armor. They still reduce hit-points, though, because the only blow that really needs to land is the last one. If you think most blows are dodged, your sorely mistaken: it takes way too much effort to move a five-foot-tall, 200 lb object out of the way of the end of a 4' long object.

Finishers in Skyrim really emphasize that point: Sure, a lucky blow can unexpectedly kill someone, but the point of a "finisher" is for when you've fought someone long enough to find a weakness in their defense, and exploit it to lethal effect.

The only thing that bugs me about Blocking in Skyrim and Oblivion is that you can be killed by a "blocked" impact.

Sign back the guys who made Daggerfall, also sign the guys who made Thief.

I would have wished you to elaborate more on this curious satement of yours. I think you'er the first person cmplaining about it.
It's a step in the right direction. Great feature.

I'm positive Beth won't take a step back and pay you any attention on this issue.
Praise the lord.

You say dual wielding is a bad thing, yet want more weapons of different kinds for diversity. Dual wielding brings diversity. It's not the most optimal manner, but it shouldn't be removed. As for more gear in the games, I agree, can't really hurt, as long as it is possible to add such things without too much hassle.

I also preferred attributes too, but that's more or less because I could control strength and thus carry capacity, which is somewhat of a problem in Skyrim in the early stages of the game. But there's nothing really "wrong" with perks. And no dice roll. It's outdated, it svcks, it's bothersome.

And while the games have become a more and more action driven over the time, they are still far more complex than Call of Duty, so that point is a little moot.