Just curious about your thoughts on this.

Personally, I've never played Arena and have only an extremely limited experience with Daggerfall. I guess I'm most interested in this question with regard to the 3 most recent titles - Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim - because I've played those pretty thoroughly.

Is Skyrim the biggest departure of all, thanks to loss of attributes and classes and permanent character-creation decisions (apart from race)? Or is Oblivion the biggest departure in its shift from character-skill-based resolution of actions such as combat, lockpicking and speech to a player-skill-based resolution?

I suppose with the most recent game, there's always a temptation to see it as the outlier, or the herald for the future, or the point at which it all changed. Is that the case with Skyrim? Or is Skyrim more of a continuation of the process we've seen throughout the series - a process of streamlining/reduction of skills, attributes, effects, etc?

What do I mean by 'greatest shift' or 'biggest departure'? I guess I'm talking about the experience of gameplay. E.g. for me, while I wish Attributes hadn't been removed for TESV, I don't think I really notice their loss. On the other hand, the combat in MW vs the combat in OB is strikingly different. But anyway, I'm happy to be proven wrong.

There has definitely been a "streamlining/accessibility" trend that started with the transition between daggerfall and morrowind, where the games have gotten progressively easier to just pick up and play. It's hard to say which one was the biggest departure since its been a trend for the past three games.

Daggerfall to Morrowind definitely, as far as I'm aware. Ultimately, it would probably come down to individual perception, but I think that the size gap between the two when it comes to many features, along with the sort of more generic setting Daggerfall (from what I've seen and heard of it) seemed to have compared to Morrowind's alien setting, makes an objectively larger difference than any of the others.

If I were to take a shot from what I know and rank them, I'd say:

1. Daggerfall to Morrowind

2. Morrowind to Oblivion

3. Oblivion to Skyrim

4. Arena to Daggerfall?

Even then, I'd say that as someone who started the series with Oblivion, Skyrim felt much different to me.

That being said, I've only spent a great deal of time playing Oblivion and Skyrim. I do, however, know a great deal about Morrowind, and a significant amount about Daggerfall.

I agree with Jackal09's ranking.

The change from DF to MW was enormous, from a semi-3D world of blocky cartoon graphics with realistic distances (hundreds of miles across) and dozens of factions, down to around 5-10 square miles of detailed (and rather unique) fully 3D landmass with a dozen factions. Character creation was simplified, with positive and negative traits being replaced by a canned set of "birthsigns". A few skills were removed, sadly including climbing. Game mechanics were still basically similar, but the world was totally overhauled. I consider MW to be a better world, but DF is the better RPG.

Oblivion removed the chance to fail at tasks, which made a complete turnover of game mechanics. The world was marginally bigger and even more detailed, but the culture living in it was essentially pared down to bare basics. The effects of Attributes were sharply reduced, and several more skills were cut or merged. Minor world changes, but major gameplay redesign.

Never played Arena, but have heard that it's just DF only simpler, and never played Skyrim, but hear that it's a more player-skill based game than OB. I had really hoped that OB would end up returning to something half-way between DF and MW, but it continued the trend toward a player-skill based game, rather than the more heavily character-skill based system in DF and MW.

Tying into what Todd has said about the different games they make, almost all of the games are significantly different from one another for a variety of reasons. With Arena and Daggerfall, we went from "Collect the McGuffins and save the world" to a murder mystery in a political climate that feels much more concrete in of itself then Arena ever has, along with factions that actually matter. The trend continues where in Morrowind, the world and unique cultures are truly fleshed out, the leap in technology utilized, and actually becoming attached to some characters. Oblivion shifted the Gameplay around quite a bit while at the same time going back to a verse that felt more Daggerfall/Arena esque, with a much larger world to explore. Skyrim promptly went back to the Morrowind feel a bit while at the same time going for something radically different with its character system.

Frankly, there's no game that's consistent with itself outside of "being whoever you want" and living in another world. Finding a baseline that they all have in common is a more difficult feat then trying to pick what's different.

I agree with the others here. Morrowind was the most drastically reduced and simplified game in the series, relative to its predecessor.

I agree with that, if one is considering things in the direction of "reduction."

I'd make a case that the jump from Arena to Daggerfall was equally big, in the other direction. Daggerfall is a massively more complex game than its predecessor, and it's the game that largely established the lore.

Daggefall has one of the best character creation systems ever. The game was drastically dumbed down simplified for Morrowind. Notable changes include:

Combining Streetwise and Etiquette into Speechcraft

Removing Repeatable (dare I say "Radiant" quests)

Much smaller world

Simpler attribute grouping: four groups down to three

Simpler and fewer factions

Climbing removed

"Mouse drag" combat simplified to mouse click (and even option to 'always select best attack')

Where Morrowind shines is the unique and detailed world. To me the graphics still hold up today thanks to the art direction, and there are mods that beef it up if you like shiny.

In short: Daggerfall plays a lot like a tabletop RPG. Morrowind plays like a video game.

Oblivion and Skyrim simply continued down that trail, but the sea change (pun intended) had already begun.

You're absolutely right. I focused on "streamlining" in my post because it seemed to me that JaberKatysHusband was focusing on "streamlining" in his opening post.

But I guess if I were to take everything into account: additions, subtractions, atmosphere, and all the other little details that make a game what it is, I'd be tempted to say Arena to Daggerfall represented the most significant change overall. But I'm going to stick with "Daggerfall to Morrowind."

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what I was intending to focus on in the OP, so feel free to have at it

I probably chose the 'streamlining' metric because it's one of the most frequently-encountered observations I can think of regarding the series as a sequence of games. I'm sure there are others, though, which I think is what I was trying to get at with the discussion of player skill vs character skill.

When I got MW for my wife as a Christmas present in 2002, I had no real understanding of 'character skill' in videogames. I had played a bit of tabletop RPGs, so I should have been able to figure it out. But I had also been playing a lot of Thief - totally a player-skill game - so when I tried to make a stealthy MW character and found that sneaking was just a matter of holding down a button, I was scandalized. Took me until Oblivion before I got that these games were, y'know, RPGs. But of course, by OB's time, a lot of the character-skill stuff was turning into player-skill stuff (no to-hit roll for combat; etc). I wasn't really on the forums back then; did people think that shift was a big deal? Or was the simplification of skills in from Daggerfall to MW a bigger deal?

Or is there some other, yet-unmentioned factor in how the titles have changed that is a genuine bigger issue?

I really think that there are still plenty of ways where both player-skill and character-skill can be combined where they both work well. I definitely don't think the two are mutually exclusive but I do worry that the future games might entirely abandon any semblance of player skill.

Even with a lockpicking minigame, one can still only have the minigame display if you have the appropriate lockpicking/security/fingersmithing skill level.

The same thing works with marksmanship and accuracy adjusting perks, etc.

I definitely would like for them to find creative solutions for consolidating player skill with character skill instead of abandoning the latter in favor of the former, though.

I don't know how it was in other forums but in these forums Morrowind came in for a massive amount of criticism. It was so relentless and so vicious I had to stop coming to these forums for awhile. It was poisoning my love for the game. I returned about the time Tribunal was announced. The climate around here was a bit more civilized by then.

The same thing happened immediately after Oblivion was released. Which was worse? I'm not sure. If I had to guess I'd say the reaction to Morrowind was louder, more constant and more negative.

I ended up leaving the forum around the time Skyrim was released because of how toxic things got as well. I feel like it somewhat affected my initial expectations towards the same. There was also awhile where I felt like I wasn't able to mention that I loved Oblivion because of the rampant hate towards it that I'd still see around that time.

I do feel like things are generally more... emotionally regulated than they were pre-Skyrim release but that might merely be due to the fact that there's no word on anything new currently.

I give you MJass Effect 1. They have a security (and similar skills). If your character doesn't have sufficient skill, you can't open the lock. If you do, a mini-game pops up, whose difficulty is based on the lock difficulty. If you fail the minigame, you have the option of using disposable 'gel packs' to open the lock. I'm not sure, but I think the number of packs you need is tied to your skill - higher skill, fewer packs. Substitute lockpicks or some other item for gel packs (or something new and inventive) and it can translate to just about any game or 'skill' situation.

Before I read many of the posts I voted Daggerfall to Morrowind but it wasn't for the content reduction arguments that many have given. To me what instantly stood out like a lighthouse on a foggy night was the change of planet flora and fauna.

With Arena and Daggerfall, Nirn could have been mistaken for any place on earth with bears, boars, cougars and earth generic creatures centaurs, giants minotaur and nymphs. Pretty basic stuff there. Then with Morrowind and suddenly we're 2,000 light-years from earth exploring what could be a real living Nirn. Alit, kagouti and nix-hounds were a constant danger while cliff racers and netch threatened from above. Guar were raised as both cattle and beast of burden.

Nords were Nords, not some Viking wanna be. It was a place where elves tried to throw off Tolkien and D&D influences. High Elves became Altmer, wood elves transformed into Bosmer and dark elves no longer would be mistaken for D&D Drow. If there was a mote in god's eye it was the handling of the Bretons, just can' get rid of them half-elves.

Unfortunately that supernova of creativity didn't last past the one installment. Tribunal brought us back to fighting goblins. Bloodmoon, Oblivion, Skyrim not much different. One bright shining moment and it's once again become an earth based fantasy filled with bears, cougars, horses, wolves, giants and of course the required biggest baddy of them all, dragons. Not bad by any means but still I wonder what Nirn could have been.

So, you mean ice-brained morons who couldn't even keep their pants on? I mean, i agree with pretty much every thing else, but there was nothing particularly interesting or creative about Nords in Morrowind.

Actually, Morrowind helped expand the vast majority of what we know about the Nord's. The Nordic Empire, some of their historical figures, a look at their burial rites, the Witch-Warriors, so on and so forth. This was thanks in part to the Nords historical influence on Morrowind and even the rise of the Tribunal. Hell, I'd go as far to say the Nord's had more exposition on their culture then the Empire did there. So yeah, while the characters themselves may not have made a impression (And I can name everyone in Morrowind who had on one hand), the lore certainly helped the Nord's out a ton.

To be fair, that sub-plot was not bad. You're forgetting that those Goblins were explicitly gigantic and raised in fact to be cannon fodder by the Altmer, who we also deal with. That's also ignoring the Fabricants and the Clockwork City, which were both quite interesting. Point on Oblivion, though I'd dare to say Skyrim was closer to Morrowind in spirit then Oblivion ever was.

Oh, no doubt. But as far as characters depicting that new fleshed out lore, Skyrim (despite the lack of ice-tribes, the weirdly homogenised Holds and the total lack of a defined religion) was much better than the Neanderthals that actually appeared IN Morrowind.

Eh, the neanderthals thing is exasperated by the naked Nord meme. Really, most of them really didn't act significantly less intelligent then anyone else, you had the Skyrim missions (which I can't for the life of me remember what they were about), we had to put down a Nordic Necromancer plaguing a village, so on and so forth. Sure, no NPC's left a strong impression in Morrowind, but very few characters in Morrowind did so in the first place. Same goes for any race in Morrowind sans the Dunmer, which the game is primarily about.

Yes, but that Necromancer's dialogue can be roughly summarised by "It's legal! You can't do anything! Go away!". Frankly, i think he's something of an example of how Intelligence isn't that crucial a trait for mages.

Oh Daggerfall to Morrowind without a doubt.

Given the huge changes in lore (making Orcs a playable and "civilized" race, introducing the Imperial race, huge changes to the racial naming conventions/styles), it'd have to be Morrowind compared to Daggerfall.

Look at the Arch-mage for Vvardenfell for that, dude couldn't even get Ocato's name right.

As for biggest departure that would be Daggerfall to Morrowind but I actually like a lot of the "simplification" they did for Morrowind. Plus Morrowind was kinda the major start for the new lore of the series that expanded beyond the boring lore of the first two games, though Redguard was the real start of that. As for mechanics, it's better to just get rid of useless, cluttered skills that could be merged together and yea it svcks we didn't get radiant quests and a more in depth character customization but it's still great.