Constructive criticism of course... As goes without saying. Trying to start something new here. So start out offering constructive criticism of your favorite TES game, then afterwards list some compliments stating what the other TES games which aren't your favorites did right.
So my favorite game Morrowind... Here's my least favorite things about it.
1. The ridiculous fact you must level up endurance/strength ASAP or have stunted health forever.
2. It being very very buggy and freeze/crash prone.
3. The AI seemingly getting confused a lot easier than in TES games after it.
4. The game itself was rushed, resulting in some potentially incredible content being cut, rather spoilerific what that is, but anyways that's almost universal in video games... So I overlook it.
5. Seven words... Nothing like the Racemenu mod Skyrim has. At least as far as I know- thus making your character feel truly unique looking is highly reliant on armor/clothing combinations.
6. The fact there's at least one place you can get trapped in FOREVER if you have no lockpick or teleportation abilities, I lost my level 13'ish Argonians save to that. Just one place afaik but seriously massive problem. Having my lowbie get one shot is one thing, getting trapped somewhere forever where I can totally ruin my save forever, by not knowing I'm permanently stuck... Yeah enough said.
7. Being able to get more money from traders by selling 600 super cheap items separately.
8. Traders equipping whatever you give them.
9. Damage strength spells... I love RNG determining who I can hit, and normal weapons not working for many things, and being a low level character being incredibly difficult but... Seriously, those damage strength spells? I should've at least been able to summon a bag marked on a map I could safely put my loot in, so I could find it after my strength was drained to zero. But also because look I hate sounding like the realism police in a fantasy game, but technically if you're strength was reduced to zero in real life, you would be totally crippled unable to move your own body... So that doesn't make sense either.
I hate to criticize my favorite game in favor of Skyrim and Oblivion, but I think that was ONE key area where Morrowind went wrong, if drain/damage strength just made you move way way slower when fully drained, then I would've been fine with it.
10. In nearly every single way, about 99% of things, I liked Morrowind vampires more than the vampires in more recent games (not shocking at all I know). I loved the sun damage, the fire weakness, and obvious things like, being shunned from holy guilds and being attacked by guards. In fact I would've loved being hunted by vampire hunters too. However the fact I can't put a helmet on to disguise myself, and still interact with NPCs to talk, and do most quests I found very very frustrating. Heck it's even mentioned in the lore! Vampires who wear concealing helmets to... Socialize with non vampires.
11. I think it makes sense that beast races can't wear most closed faced helmets made for less beastly races but... You know, I wish there was at least one helmet, a helmet shaped similar to a cat head or lizard head, I could've worn strictly for aesthetic and roleplaying reasons, it's by no means close to impossible to make such helmets either. And if it's much weaker than the closed face helmets for humanoids in enchantment/weight/armor rating? Well I'd be fine with such a massive downside. Also that way, a khajiit or argonian vampire, could wear a helmet to hide being a vampire without being too lore breaky, and get most of the content vampires missed out on.
12. Another vampirism criticism: I wish just like in Daggerfall that holy places, and holy items damaged vampires, and that there were lots of these.
13. You can enter all these dungeons with necromancers who have their permanent servants and yet you can't even have your own big dungeons with undead servants and the like, even though lorewise you should be able to by all means. No I don't want an overpowered army of 40 zombies following me in the outside world, and either lagging or breaking the game, I just wish I could've had my own necromancers dungeon, or daedric dungeon or whatever, like so many NPCs in Morrowind had... It would've made me feel like a powerful conjurerer without making my character much more powerful, since I'd just go there to store supplies/rest, and not really do much of any battling.
14. I loved the sleep attacks in Morrowind, absolutely adored them, but I wish there were EVEN MORE OF THEM, and even more situations involving being attacked in your sleep.
15. I also wish Morrowind gave the option to be a dwemer mechanic, AI program dwemer machines, and repair them if they are damaged or die, though to be fair no vanilla TES game I've seen has had that.
16. House Telvanni in my opinion was by far the most interesting house... Hlaalu was filled with amusing humor in it's quests, and Redoran was more fascinating than Hlaalu but it still stands, I feel like compared to Telvanni the other joinable Great Houses were more boring. Maybe that's just Telvanni being awesomely fascinating, and the variety made Telvanni more interesting in comparison... Anyways.
Alright now time to compliment Oblivion and Skyrim...
Skyrim.
1. There were summons in it very close to being permanent and a reanimate spell... FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Could be better of course, but great job Bethesda on improving Conjuration.
2. The art style was much closer to more unique Elderscrolls type art, than just generic fantasy like Oblivions.
3. The giants and mammoths and sabrecats... Also the spiders in their dungeons were quite frightening, Bethesda did a great job here.
4. I do and still do love how the dungeons in Skyrim have those notes in them, much better than Oblivions dungeons, wish Morrowinds dungeons had more notes in them with hidden stories tbh even as a Morrowind zealot.
5. Daggers FINALLY do massive sneak attack damage... As they should've a long long long time ago.
6. The stealth mechanics, other than pickpocketing, were top notch for a TES game, dare I say even compared to many games in general.
7. The devs finally made archery a lot more useful and interesting.
8. You can customize your appearance a lot compared to prior tes games, even though I wish it didn't come at the price of less customized armor.
9. For 99% of all purposes and intents I like Morrowinds stat system the most but... I do like how Skyrim handled health when leveling up, even though I wish Nords/Redguards/Orcs had slightly higher potential hit points than other races.
10. I like the changes to the serpent stone, feels like it can finally compete in usefulness with signs that boost maximum health.
11. I feel like invisibility and chameleon are less overpowered than in prior TES games.
12. Flawed as I think Skyrim is... Imperials vs Stormcloaks was nice, and I think it might be a good sign for the future, if Bethesda perhaps does something similar with more factions, or less similar factions.
13. Blackreach, everything to do with it.
14. The expansions especially Dragonborn, though... I admit I wish Skyrim handled vampirism quite differently.
Oblivion.
1. Though Oblivion guards were way too overpowered in my opinion, the guards in Morrowind felt too easy to deal with, due to lack of ability to go through doors, and generally worse AI.
2. It became harder to steal things in Oblivion and Skyrim than in Morrowind starting with Oblivion- with stuff like owners following you, and I quite liked that.
3. The Dark Brotherhood quests.
4. Dark Brotherhood armors appearance.
5. The smithing/repairing trees improvements, IE sharpening weapons and the like.
6. Those magic wells and Welyknd stones may very well be misspelling.
7. Though I wish beast races kept their distinctive legs, Argonians started looking top notch from Oblivion onwards. They went from looking... How do I put this, more like mundane lizardy to I think slightly more dragon like in Oblivion or something and I liked that, idk their heads/faces looked more fierce which I approve of.
8. In spite of it's generic fantasy artstyle in general, there was this one grey robe and round shield I was quite fond of wearing on my battlemagey character, and these neat black clothes it had I quite liked lacking in prior TES games.
9. The shivering Isles expansion.
10. I quite liked the sewers, and some of the underwater content in it.
11. Though I usually prefer older styled TES designs, I did like the daedroth which looked like a cross between a t-rex and crocodile.
12. The Xivilai, I think they were like interesting relatives of the dremora adding variety, and think they deserve more presence in TES games in general. They are similar to dremora, but they are more self reliant/larger/more like loners, and while they aren't covered in as much armor, compensate for this by being physically stronger than the dremora from what I can tell.
13. I don't think the Oblivion daedric planes were badly designed, just extremely overused and repeated too many times, robbing the game of variety.
14. I find most of Oblivion's quest boring, but right towards the very very very end of it things got interesting, just wish things got interesting earlier.