I've said it plenty of times. I'll take Morrowind over Oblivion. I prefer it. The reason being, it offers more choices for the player in terms of skills, Oblivion removed one of my favorite skills (Enchant), I like how a lot if skills work better in Morrowind (for instance, Conjuration being able to summon multiple creatures), I like the environment and world better, and I like the way guilds work better.

That's my preference in direction, and Oblivion did remove some things that I liked about Morrowind.

I refuse to call Oblivion "dumbed down", for a couple reasons:

1.) It improved in many other areas from Morrowind, and while certain things work so much better for me in Morrowind, there are others that work so much better for me in Oblivion.

2.) Outside of comparing it to Morrowind, I don't believe there is any other game out there that compares in terms of content, choice, and open endedness than Oblivion. Bethesda games are the masters of this, and that is my favorite gamestyle.

No, I don't see Skyrim "dumbing down" the franchise. Yes, there are things it's doing that won't be as good as Morrowind or Oblivion. There are also many other things that it is going to do better. Thus, it can't be dumbed down.

No classes, no attributes, equipment never degrades, no spellmaking, health regen, merged armors, fewer weapon types, merged skills, and Steam is required for PC owners even when they buy the game in disc format. Yeah people are just nitpicking. :rolleyes:

Que the never critical fans: Perks are better, I never used this skill/feature anyways so I'm glad it is gone, and last but not least the game will be good because there is MARRIAGE AND DRAGONS!

When I look at what ES has become it makes me very depressed. My favorite series is now shallower than a shot glass.

One of my favorite magic styles was removed from Morrowind in Oblivion (Enchant). It svcked. That doesn't mean the game was bad or "dumbed down". I adapted and created a new build.

the key word that people need to keep in mind is the word: "Adapt."

Well in the months since I joined this forum I have seen a trend in comparring what we know about Skyrim to the previous game(mostly Morrowind) and statements that these games will be better than Skyrim no matter what(I'm not saying they are necessarily wrong since each game stand on it's own). I also think that when people say they are not going to buy SKyrim becuse of reason X is also based on nostalgia(since that feature was/wasn't in their favorite ES game).
So, yes, I think the negative reactions towards Skyrim is based first and foremost on nostalgia and secondly on other reasons(which I have rarely have seen).
Since you brought in Fallout fans and what ES game you have I can say that I hated DA2, but the reason I hate it rather than dislike it is because it's predecessor was so much better.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes Oblivion more than Morrowind.

I haven't played Daggerfall, so I can't compare it to Morrowind. I have played Morrowind, and I think the quests are better than Oblivion's quests, due to length and content. However the graphics are inferior to Oblivion's graphics. Oblivion was still a good game, though.

Skyrim is obviously graphically superior to Oblivion. I hope that the quests are also superior, however I'll have to reserve judgement until I play it for myself.

That's funny, because my favorite series continues to be the deepest, most complex RPG on the market, and only continues to improve itself everytime out.

Whether a game is good or not, the impact it has etc is a fairly complex thing to measure and isn't decided by the inclusion/exclusion of individual features. If I was putting money on it, I would say that in twenty years time people will be remembering FNV rather than FO3 and Nerhim rather Oblivion as the open world RPG's of this era (but that's another matter, I suppose).

Dumbing down, likewise, is something that I think can only really be judged when the game has been viewed as a whole, and as a result when I hear about a feature that's been cut that I'm not pleased about loosing, I don't say that the games been dumbed down, I say something more like 'thats a stupid design decision that will take away from the game'. Skyrim's biggest stumbling block will almost certainly be its story in this regard, and while we don't have heaps of information about it yet, if we're forced onto one particular side in the civil war, well, that's Skyrim done for.

What we don't need though, is a more technically advanced Oblivion.



You do grasp that you are playing straight into the description of the type of fan the the person who you are responding to is lamenting about.

Shout that from the rooftops. You can't do your niche roleplay style from another game, but guess what, you can probably find new ones.
Here's a question for those who think 'Their' build not being possible means Skyrim is inferior. In previous titles, what is the difference betweeen an Orc with 100 blade and strength, and a Donmer with 100 blade and strength? Now with the perks, you can play a brutal orc who is all extra damage and knockbacks, or a skilled Dunmer swordmaster with standard damage, high chance of criticals and all the fancy moves, disarm or what have you. More roleplay possibilities.

i think people should wait until theyve seen the game befor accusin bethsda of dumbing down

If it helps, its not just the Elder Scrolls, it's sadly a general trend in gaming to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Look at "RPG"s like Dragon Age 2.

Im very confident Skyrim will be better than that, despite all its "streamlining" away of things.

Going back to the OP, my opinion is Morrowind is the better game. Especially on the PC with the 2011 graphical overhaul mods installed.
For me some of the elements that made it great: fantastic depth to the storyline, interesting array of joinable factions, the world looked so different and was a mystery to explore.. only semi fast trravel between certain locations, add to this no compass of all knowing lead to much of the world feeling "unknown" once you went off the beaten track. No levelling of NPCs to match the player level, meant you never truely knew if you were bighting off more than you could chew going down into that tomb or dungeon.. a sense of danger. Stealing and non-psychic guards. Wizards that levitated round their towers I could go on, great game.

Well, provided they get the perks right anyway, though if worse comes to worse it wouldn't be hard to mod in a solution.

People are over-reacting
Its primarily a matter of personal preference with people claiming the style of RPG they prefer is the one true RPG
My personal preference from past TES games is for MW and if you want I can give you a long list of reasons why but thats been done a thousand times before

That will be the same as everything else, some people will say the perks are wonderfully thought out, some will say the system is the final nail in the coffin. Can't please everybody.
But the simple fact is, even with a choice of more base damage or higher critical chance, and let's face it perks couldn't be more simple than those two, that's two distinct styles with the same weapon. I just get the feeling, whether it's the associations with the word 'perks' or whatever, that the system gets dismissed out of hand, while it could possibly bear a lot of fruit when properly explored for character build making.

If you look at what they have done with Skyrim, I'm in awe that people can complain about some stuff that just didn't make sense this time around. Just look at the combat overhaul alone. How much time do we spend in combat? A lot. Just look at a quick list here of all the improvements:

Dual wielding of ANYTHING. Torches, swords, maces, spells, fist, you can smack with your bow, shield or weapon bash that sends enemies reeling back (can knock off cliffs to send them to their doom). How FN cool is all this? I want to light bastards on fire and then stick em with my sword, or use chain lightning to bounce down tight cave hallways and hit my victims when they chase me. I don't have to train some stupid skill like blunt to use the cool axe I just found. I'm a sword kind of guy, but for some reason this kickass axe only does 4 points of damage in Oblivion. Now it's a one hand skill, which just seems better.

Shouts you can upgrade. Each shout has 3 levels, and it seems to be unique stuff, not just some other variant of a spell.

Magic combat you can combine two of the same spells to make a buffed version. Awesomeness.

You can lay down trap type spells which hurt enemies when they walk into your trap.

You can light the ground on fire then people walking through it catch on fire.

Finishing moves for added immersion and satisfying kills. Especially for stealth lovers to stick someone in the neck like a pig from behind instead of the same old generic slash every time is going to be epic.

PERKS which improve our combat. Bleeding damage, extra damage, skull crusher to name a few...

Bows do loads of damage now instead of a mudcrab being a pincushion with 50 arrows in him before he dies. Combat looks more lethal in general too.

Enemies flank the player, and even throw rocks on your head from above if you go under a hostile bridge.

Look at all that stuff. Thats just ONE area they improved. How is that dumbing down? You couldn't do any of that in Oblivion, which had the best combat of any elder scrolls game to date. SO we gained ALL that, and endless combinations and variants of it, and much more we don't know yet.... and all they took out of combat as far as I know is weapon/armor degradation, and the associated skill. H2H is still there, just not a skill any more. Woopee, you can't kill ghosts anyway without magic weaponry so H2H is useless in some scenarios... correct me if I'm wrong, I never advanced my H2H skill past 50 or 60 in Oblivion because it was pretty useless. A fun gimmick to punch people out, but you can still do that in skyrim, so what are we missing out on? Not much IMO, and look at what we gained? A hell of a lot of fun. And thats just combat.

Lmao. This is one of the funniest things I've ever heard somebody say about Skyrim. Seriously thanks for brightening my day with some well needed humor.

You know, I'm actually grateful you posted all of that here. I guess I didn't have such a massive list compiled in my head from all the separate threads I've been reading. To see everything all at once - especially for something like combat, which has needed a serious overhaul in the Elder Scrolls - makes a really big difference in how I perceive some of these changes.

Yeah that post basically explained that Skyrim has done away with soooo much in favor of better combat.

This must be what the mods lived by during production:

Features and options < Good combat with dual wielding and third person kill moves

Well don't get me wrong. I do feel that some of that is still a little superfluous, but still... combat has probably been the one thing that never really got a good revamp in the TES series, at least as far I can recall. Even though I'm not crazy about all of those items, I think it will make another aspect of the game much more interesting.

Thank You!

Your welcome

My main point is that is just combat. I'm seeing major improvements in EVERY AREA. Crafting and smithing... not possible before either. Food is now valuable! Before it was junk to make fatigue potions which were useless in game play, only good for selling. Now you can make stews and various meals out of spices and stuff. Pete said you can make a stew that gives you like 700 seconds of health regen. Living off the land if we want. Alchemy is supposed to be way more in depth and combinations of stuff make new stuff... so I take that as instead of 2 ingredient potions... there might be 4 ingredient potions.

I look at the animals... foxes chasing bunnies, chickens in town walking about... everything just seems so alive in the environments. clouds swirling in the mountains... snow that changes the ground texture on the fly as it accumulates? THat is cool. That would mean possibly that there are seasons and they could maybe make the ground greener in summer? Winter might have a feeling to it? I never noticed any difference any time of year in Oblivion. I look at SKyrim and it just seems so alive, like riverwood. Imagine a CITY. THey haven't shown any of those yet. Then you go to the dungeons... wow, they all have character now instead of cut and paste same dungeons over and over again. I'm so pumped about this. THey said they wrote little back stories about each place. I could go on and on... but I think people need to just actually listen to the devs and interviews, instead of focusing on a couple things from previous tes games. I'm sure whatever mechanic they provided something as good or better replaced it just by looking at a few of these things its obvious its way better.

There's little point in trying to argue what features constitute evidence for or against dumbing down, it varies wildly from person to person. I certainly don't see dual wielding or finishing moves as adding anything meaningful to the game but I know they're pretty popular and lots of people are looking forward to them.

cant play daggerfall

morrowind was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than oblivion. i still play morrowind but i uninstalled oblivion over a year ago now.

fallout 3 and especially fallout NV are better than oblivion

no peoples concerns are well founded.

for me specifically i am very please with how skyrim turned out. watching the "demos" from PAX i was pleased to see that enemies will not stand in line but will attack you all at once and also that they took some nice sized chunks of health away when they hit you.

shadows are in and they use real time lighting and those were my big graphics concerns

for the downsides.........while i personally wont miss attributes and im downright glad spellmaking was removed i can empathize with people who did want that stuff left in. they have legitimate concerns and i dont blame them for being upset about it. im upset about spears and armor degredation and especially about third person finishing moves (i WILL mod those out first day) even though other people welcome those changes........especially armor degradation.

my response to people that accuse other people of nitpicking everything is to go shove it. seriously this is a forum for feedback. when deus ex HR was being developed there was alot of "nitpicking" and "whining" going on but the developer listened to them and as a result with the exception of takedowns deus ex HR actually surpasses the original game in some respects......and not just graphics obviously. from what ive, seen skyrim will easily beat oblivion and stands a good chance of even surpassing morrowind for me. the more i see of the game the more i like it with the aformentioned exceptions.

Every time somebody complains about Skyrim being "dumbed-down", I think; they obviously have never played Daggerfall!

Daggerfall had more quests, more guilds, more skills, more weapons, horses, carts.etc.etc. yet Morrowind is, without a doubt, the better game. Perhaps if Skyrim was going from 3D to 4D, (that would make a mind-boggling game, although, you'd only need one playthrough ), then people would react the same way about Skyrim from Oblivion as they did about Morrowind from Daggerfall.

I've played all the TES games, and while they might be set in the same universe, each game is definitely its own. From Daggerfall to Morrowind, things were cut, but other things made up for it. I believe Oblivion to Skyrim will follow the same path.