That's not really the point. There are very tall things in Skyrim, and I'm fine with that. What I'm saying is that the level design doesn't take up or down into account at all. There are no secret chambers or shortcuts above your head. When you get to a large room, there's no dungeon anywhere where the way forward is above you, or below, unless that's the only way out of the room (the spiral stairs in draugr tombs).

Skyrim has lots of verticality. My point is that never used any of it.

The people that have bent my point into a criticism of the complete linearity of the dungeons are actually more on my own topic than I am. I suppose this is actually more what my gripe is about. When you get into a room, there are only ever 2 ways out. The way you came in, and the way forward. That's all we ever are challenged with. You never have to look above you or below you, but you never have to make any decisions whatsoever, which is even worse!

try red eagle redounbt
try hidden valley
try wolfskull cave (wolfqueen)
try dwemer ruins under markath (start in understone keep)

if the dwemer ruins dont amaze you, you are hard to please

and no, morrowind is nothing compared to thoses
even arn khtand will seem tiny once you compare

the telvani towers are something else, but the forsworn redoubt are close (or bigger) in scale
but verry different in style

some of that stuff is verry far from main quest and cities
hiddden valey is south of central skyrim, more or less

(Try it, go into any random dungeon and start looking around above you. Anything interesting?)

ok they may have gotten lazy in the stalagtite & stalagmite department
but red eagle ascent was pretty cool for a cave

(Daggerfall had a lot of multi leveled dungeons, very difficult to navigate around in using the 3d map. Morrowind maybe had a few big dungeons but most were really small and bland. Regarless of the dimensions no TES games dungeons even come close to Skyrims design and variety. )

agreed
and I played daggerfall and morrowind to death, not as much oblivion, got bored

I know only one daggerfall dungeon I played is larger than the dwemer ruins under markath,
and it was probably a random oddity
big fort, followed by verry tall elevavator, big dreugh cave, go under the water, another layer of fort-like tunnels inhabited by daedra !
that was my best daggerfall experience

still the ruins under markath come close

(Vikings weren't known for constructing skyskraqers. )
forsworn redoubts !
I love the whole red eagle complex (sundered towers & red eagle ascent)


(People saying I'm on crack, or I haven't played much)
moonsugarrrr ... warm sandddddss .....

try markath dwemer ruins, past the big spider
granted they didnt flood the 3D area with falmers
but this isnt a shooter game
its an exploration game
if you play on master its a little better

the water pool and ceiling could have been better

(no climb, no varied jump height )
actually you can do rock climbing of a sort. I did a lot, only way to reach the top of some mountains
same with jumping, I reached that pilar in the dwemer ruins under markath

(I think Skyrim could easily have gone upwards with some of their dungeons )
one concern may be performance
2D is easier to optimize (for graphic loads) than 3D where you can look anywhere
its the reason doom and quake had only 2D levels
they used siimple bsp tree to optimize things

still there are ways to optimize things in 3D (for CG and for AI and other things like physics)
its just more complicated