This I can agree with.

....which is why Morrowind's system is only half an answer, and why this thread exists. Training a skill to 100 means that you at least UNDERSTAND the concepts (book smart), but that doesn't mean you can apply them (practical). I can easily picture the MG being sticklers about the "book smart" aspect, but the FG would be more pragmatic, and the TG probably couldn't care less whether you used pure Sneak, supplemented it with an Invisibility or Chameleon spell, or boosted your speed high enough with potions to outrun any pursuit.

Morrowind's half-an-answer was replaced with a ridiculous "game doesn't even care", but that's not an improvement, merely ignoring the issue. I really believe that a "one size fits all" approach shouldn't be used, and each faction should have its own way of determining who is or is not suitable for advancement.

I don't have a opinion about what Elder Scroll should be designed as. Plus I don't understand what it means to be dumed down as I played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. They were all comprehindable to me and they were easy to play. I wouldn't call this game dumed down, but I would state that they are just designed diffrent. But I would complain that there are less options such as equipeded armor slots to choose from or magika to use... I would like to see more options such as these and maybe a Hard Core mode like in Fallout: New Vegas where if you don't get enough sleep you get the opposet of sleeping....



Edit: How ever I do think that allowing maximum output of power is unexseptible. Skyrim should have been designed like the others some what more as to make it to where you still only can choose seven major skills and the rest miner skills... So i do have a opinion...

Again, I'm all for a faction requirements system, as long as it's presented in a manner that truly makes you feel as though your character has earned the advancement. My ideal system would simply be quests that in some way require you to utilize faction specific skills in order to complete, but I feel like this would be difficult to implement without feeling "gamey" or gimmicky.

Why do we need another thread? This is essentially a loooooong pointless debate where no one is going to give on anything and both sides will off veiled insults instead of defense, calling each other hipsters, casuals, morrowind [censored], skyrim apologists, and so on. It is benefitting nothing, promoting nothing, and accomplishing nothing.

So, do you figure that we ought to just stop talking to one another when we disagree?

Because at the moment you are all acting as flamers and arguing examples. The purpose of an argument is to seek truth.When we can pull up the big-boy pants and step away from the examples of our "near perfect" game and attempt to find the essence of what made it so, we will finally be having a progressive argument.

I offered what I believe are some relevant issues the PC faces in TES today, vs yesteryears.

1) Hard choices have been eliminated in Todd's "take nothing from the player" approach. (a few covered by Samyoul)

2) Information flows linearly limiting exploration. Example to demonstrate my meaning. (Sorry for the hypocrisy) If you need to find something, someplace or someone it used to matter who you asked, who you knew and where you had been before. In skyrim, everyone knows exactly where everything is, where people are "hiding", and you know where every location is. Map markers, journal info and quest dialogue are developed to speed up the experience. (some of this covered by Samyoul)

Areas needing development to find why these areas are problems for certain players:
Customization/ item variation (including armor/ weapon types/ spells/ crafting systems/ player skins and colors)
Equipment slots (I find this interesting, 1/2 of people want realism [carry much less loot], 1/2 want to be able to wear more [semi unrealistic, really they want more enchantment slots IMO]
Difficulty of engagements, bosses in particular. (Again, I find it interesting, people want more enchantments to be more godlike, yet they need bigger bosses to stroke their ego [what I think people are wanting])
Intelligence required: Brain melting puzzles vs "its on the claw idiot", seems to be the general response.

Okay so I finally watched this video and will offer (brief thoughts). [highlights used for ease of reading]

First some background. Been playing video games for 31 years starting with Atari 2600, N64, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, and some console games. Fave life time games (non-TES) include Legend of Zelda (Ocarina), Baldur's Gate (DA I&II), Thief: Deadly Shadows, Sim City 2000, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Deus Ex (esp. Human Revolution) and legions of games from more recent systems. I have been a DM/GM for 18 years (D&D, AD&D, Top Secret, Star Wars (d6), Star Wars(d20), various other games created by me and my players using the SWd20 as a base [e.g. Underworld, Aliens etc]). So I've been around the gaming block several times.

Morrowind was a superior game. I'm not going to deny it; MW was my first game in TES and I still love it. He makes good arguments about killable NPCs etc but fails to remember that most people in MW stood still. In a dynamic game like Skyrim dragon and vampire attacks could (and do) kill important NPCs. I like knowing I can still complete questlines. But Morrowind had problems. Those of us who played on consoles endured more freezes, falling through floors, and (occasionally) sudden inexplicable deaths of NPCs that you could shake a stick at. And while many of us MW fans get weary of the stupid floaty arrows we have to follow I for one am willing to endure them instead of wandering around for three freaking hours trying to find Nerer Beneran's cave. And sometimes MWs non-hand holding left you missing important content or losing important quest-related items that effectively broke questlines. Only after defeating Dagoth Ur did I realize you could hunt down his Ash Vampires first (it was actually a good idea) but of course by that point it was too late. And some of you may remember the infuriation of the St. Llothis quest (in Dagoth Ur) which rendered the Temple quests un-finishable.

I would like to see Factions have relational effects; also the return of requirements of some kind. He has a point here. I'm fine with the removal of attributes. Requirements could be about number of radiant quests completed or whatever.

You talk too much kid. Yes there is significantly less conversation and info about the world via NPCs. However, one does consider the thought that maybe Ulfric gets sick of you asking him "Have you heard any rumors?!?!" or "OMAGERD what can you tell me about Eastmarch?!?!" Less conversations because you are annoying, you [VEHK]ing tourist. And uhm, ahem, how many of you click through dialog anyway?

Value of items. Ahem. You may have noticed that thing called the Oblivion crisis. It is entirely possible Hircine's connection with the world isn't as strong, ergo, the power of his armor is not either. Wah-wah. Forge your own bub. But I do understand his point.

Most of this strikes me as wanting MW 2...which he actually says several times. The hard truth is Morrowind was hard to understand unless you immersed yourself in it. On some level the game's story needed to be a little more accessible if BGS was ever going to expand beyond MW fans. Maybe they sacrificed more than they needed too. But try to see TES games from the viewpoint of someone outside the TES community. Conan O'Brien's review of Skyrim is good starting point. Most of -us- spend hours making our characters look how we want them but he immediately saw the endless customization was a fun-killer. None of us would have seen that. If you want the TES series to continue the games have to allow TES fanatics (like us) to live the game as we want to, but also allow new people the ability to enter into the gaming world. One of my biggest problems with Dark Souls is that it never really helps you to find the world - just to move through it. Part of that process may mean making quests easier to find with floaty arrows. And really, of all Skyrim's problems...you're most upset about quest-markers?!?!

Skyrim represents a move back towards MW-style gaming. See especially DLC like Dragonborn. But we're not going to get MW 2. And you know what? You would whine like a baby if you did. "Whaddaya mean I can't become head of -x- guild?!?!?!" "I CAN'T FIND THE [VEHK]ING DUNGEON I HATE YOU BETHESDA!!!" "Why are conversations so looooooong?!?!? Just tell me what to do!!!!!" "This puzzle is so haaaaaaaarddddd!!!!! [VEHK] you Todd Howard!!!!!"

Oh. And he's a pretentious [Ayem]-hole. Just because someone doesn't like the same play-style as you doesn't mean you can call them children. Casual gamers are the problem? No. obnoxious [SEHT]-heads like him are the problem.

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

I pretty much agree in full.

I enjoy Morrowind.
I enjoy Oblivion.
I enjoy Skyrim.

I enjoy them all for different reasons. Morrowind for the immersive world and bottomless well of lore to sink my teeth into. Oblivion for the high octane, fast paced Fantasy Adventure of Apocalyptic Proportions (To date, it is also the only game I have ever played to get a 100% Completion rating in. So yeah...I put in some time there). Skyrim for the beautiful world, new status quo, and the mature storytelling (Seriously, the Daedric Quests are all by and large masterpieces of Gothic Fantasy are finally do the Daedra justice in terms of what the Lore has always said they were).

I might wish some things from old games weren't removed and things from new games brought into the old (Seriously, I can't play Morrowind without some kind of magicka regeneration mod. I can't do it "vanilla" any longer). But at the end of the day, I just love The Elder Scrolls, warts and all.

Me too.

Right! TES games are each built well, but certain things about them are truly defining. They are different games half a generation apart, and often the changes are so drastic that we get uncomfortable with the unfamiliarity of the games. The FPS kingdoms and the Nintendo heros always have some comforts as either characters are the same, or gameplay is only slightly modified. I think that comparing any TES game to another outside of lore is a poor point. They are a different game appealing to a different generation.

In all honesty, I think that if we took our favorite base game, and added "parts" that we liked from other games we would end up with an ugly gatekeeper. What needs to be captured are the "essentials" and the essence that each carried in their game situation. If we took what these meaningful things translated over to and made that essence reemerge in a different game (though not necessarily by the same means) we can have a product that captures the spirit of all of the games.

For example: why exactly is wearing clothes under your armor important? What did it do for you as a player? Then narrow it down... further... and further, until its essence is evaluated. These gameplay elements are more important than the features they create in my opinion.

Don't look at me, I agree with you. I was making outside observation of the way these threads based on this vid go. Heck the title gives it away.



No but is it really so much to ask for a mature discussion rather than bickering and thinly veiled flaming?

I click through it if it's poorly written. That's part of the problem.

Your argument that we should have less because some of us click through it and have no interest in it is parallel to Bethesda's philosophy of "the attribute system could be exploited in Morrowind and Oblivion. Let's cut it out entirely instead of improving on it." Don't blame dialog as a mechanic for boring dialog, blame the writers. Improve the writing, keep the dialog. I for one desperately want to see more dialog, and of course better dialog goes without saying.

That one is easy: Moar enchantments! (Cue Dragon Age: "Enchantment?")

Seriously, I don't think I ever took off those Pants of Levitation you get from Azura's Shrine. To say nothing of Amulets of Light/etc. Though truthfully, I think the bit I enjoyed most was Skirts/Robes showing up over armor. I'm a bit of a fashion hound in RPGs. One of my favorite mods in New Vegas is one that gives you all the armors as individual pieces allowing you to mix and match. I just honestly love variety. The fact in Morrowind said variety could all be enchanted with individual effects...

Well, from a gameplay standpoint it breaks the game like a fiend. Similar to the Levitation Pants, I never removed Wraithguard after I received it. By the end of my initial Morrowind experience, all my armor was like that. Just stacking constant effects and going crazy like some living god...

I think I see why Bethesda started to streamline the armors a bit. I remember post Tribunal...absolutely nothing could touch me. Which was part of the reason I never finished Bloodmoon...there was zero challenge any longer and none of the gear outshone the "God Pieces" I had received earlier. I had an Axe of Paralysis to go along with all my resist and shield gear....I had the Masque of Clavicus Vile...the shoulders and left gauntlet off Almalexia's Guards...can't remember the leg armor or boots (The boots, if I remember right, had a Waterwalking constant effect), and I can't recall my chestpiece but it was visually distinct. A Pearl colored briastplate...ornate but not gaudy like the Imperial Legion stuff. Had two little doodads like the hold a cape by the shoulders.

Huh. It's funny thinking back on it how much the overabundance of gear in Morrowind kinda killed the enjoyment right at the climix. Then again, that was back during my "Get the epic lewtz" phase. Now-a-days, I'm less concerned about that sort of thing but the lack of any kind of upgrades did start to wear a bit.

Maybe the scaling back on the number of gear slots wasn't such a bad thing in the long run.

I see your point. At the same time half the Oblivion disc was filled with dialog (not sure with Skyrim). I like(d) the dialog in MW but that much voice acting would eat up the game disc. Of course I've been saying for some time that TES games should be multi-disc (props to Mass Effect for this). That -would- drive up the cost I suspect but hey! I'm a TES fan - I'll pay $100 for a 2-disc game!

I didn't think the dialog was bad in Skyrim (some of it sure) but by and large it wasn't too shabby. Dialog in the DLCs has been good.

Please excuse me for cutting out what I believe are key points in your post that we can further refine. Red= then, Cyan=Now, Yellow= EXACTLY


The key is that it isnt the slots that mattered. It was what ones you used. Now lets refine this more, not into categories per-say but what made for a better "feeling" in the experience.

Only if those quests actually require use of abilities for someone of your station. With the way it is in Skyrim, just doing more radiant quests for the College doesn't at all indicate your ability to use magic.

I only clicked through dialog in Morrowind because it was so poorly presented and wasn't fun to read. I never had a problem listening to whatever dialog was available in Oblivion or Skyrim. I just wished Skyrim allowed you to ask different people about things. Why can I only ask the cart driver and steward about the cities? Can't the friends I've made also talk about their home city/town, or the things going on in it, or provide me with information I may need relating to it?

The lack of dialog choices also creates another problem: NPCs who dump their life story on you just for walking within 10 feet of them. Since you can't engage in proper conversation with them and actually ask about them, the typical "Hello!" or "What is it?" is replaced by "I work for Belethor..."

Nope. All the Ob crisis did was restore the barriers to the same state they were in before Uriel's death, and not require a Dragonborn on the throne to maintain them. Barbus, Sam, and Nocturnal show they don't really have a problem interacting with Mundus still.

Although I agree that there are a number of people who want Morrowind 2 because of nostalgia, the video still has a number of valid points that have more to do with things that take away from the game being as fulfilling as it could be. The complaints don't really have much to do with Morrowind, other than the fact that Morrowind did them (though not always; see the point about the Journal System, where he says Oblivion improved over Morrowind in making sure you have the relevant and necessary information).

That's not a problem about options, but about presentation. It's very possible to have something presented in a quick intuitive manner, but which allows hours of customization possibilities if you want to take the time to. The problem isn't that its more accessible, it's that accessibility has become paramount.

Think of it like a pool. Ideally you have the shallow ("accessible") end, and on the other you have the deep ("complex") end. People that can't handle the deep end stick to the shallow end, while people that like the deep end can go deep. But with Skyrim, it's like they were afraid of having a deep end at all, that someone could stumble over there and drown, despite the immense fun other people could have with it, and despite how much sense it would be from a design perspective.

The problem isn't that the quest markers exist, it's that they're required. I'd have no problem with the game having quest markers, if you could still play with them off. And as explained in the video, you can't do that. This fits in with my comment above about having a shallow/accessible end and a deep/complex end... they could easily have the quest markers for those that want them, and have the option to disable them for people who don't. But since they care more about making sure everything's easy and accessible, they didn't bother to make sure you could play with them off.

I could honestly care less about more enchantment slots, I rarely ever enchanted my gear in Morrowind. I want more armor slots because it gives players more options to customize the look of their character. In Skyrim there is almost zero point in mix and matching armors, considering 85% of your visible apparel has been consolidated into a single piece of "armor". In Morrowind I had a lot of fun creating a unique looking character using a multitude of different armors. Oblivion and Skyrim severely cut down on armor variety and equipment slots, which is very disappointing.

If it wasnt the enchantments... and it was the customization. When did this matter to you? Did you play 3rd person or 1st person? How often were you looking at your armor? What was the point of cloths if you couldnt see them under the armor? The armor if you couldnt see it under a robe? What if that robe provided equal resistance and effects as the armor and clothes under it? Sure Morrowind had many clipping effects (like pauldrons showing over armor), but was that something that benefited you? How did this make you feel?

Why bother even giving players 10 races to choose from? Might as well just lock everybody to one race since you aren't going to be seeing your character that much anyways. Armor variety? Nah, let's just have one set of armor, don't want to confuse anybody with choice or customization.

You could in fact see your clothes under the armor in Morrowind. Obviously pauldrons showed over armor, not quite sure what you meant by that, and one of my favorite looks in Morrowind was wearing pauldrons with a robe. Oblivion and Skyrim have clipping just as bad as Morrowind, so clearly less armor slots didn't help with that. Bethesda claimed that less armor slots would allow for "more NPCs on screen"... well where the hell are all of these NPCs? The towns and cities have just as few NPCs in them as ever, and the idea that removing an armor slot would somehow create a significant improvement in performance is laughable (either that or Bethesda's engine is even less optimized than I thought).

Hm, I only remember seeing sleeved shirts under shoulderless gear. I did mean pauldrons over robes, my apologies, and the clipping I referred to was the fact you could see them at all. Dont get me wrong. I wore all ebony under my blue extravagant robes. And I wore a nice shirt under that too.
I am not discussing the capabilities of BGS or their processes or their excuses for certain things being the way they are. But what I am asking and wondering is... if you could have the look and have it be as effective as the combination of what was under it, but only have 1 slot, would you care about the slots? And if you could have any of the looks, ignoring the capabilities of what was under them, would the slots matter? I see no reason why BGS cannot make thin/light/medium/heavy/Giant variations of any type of clothing or armor. The only thing that matters is what it accomplishes. And I believe it serves few purposes. A base for power, and a base for customization. If we were to idealistically make both limitless, and have the "armor" occupy 1 slot, would slots really matter?

There's the Barbarian ABC book in Skyrim!

That book is in Skyrim, too?!
Must. Find. It.

Yepyep. Me too. My character has one "steel arm" with steel pauldron & gauntlet, and on the other arm he has a Netch leather pauldron and a Dark Brotherhood glove. And the shirt he wears under the armor is visible. And if for some reason he wants to wear "normal" clothes, it's nice that there's such a large variety to choose from and that he can wear different pants to different shirts (which is true for Oblivion too btw). In Skyrim, I somewhat make up for this by downloading tons of armor mods.

I don't deny that this is playing dress-up, but a lot of people think playing dress up is fun. It's part of the creative aspects of the game. I'm a creative person, so I like when a game allows me to be creative, in all aspects. Visual, character development, choices and story. And it's also about giving your character a unique look that reflects his/her personality. For me, roleplay is about being creative, and that's why pure action games or less "free" RPGs than TES don't interest me. But on the other hand, the Sims doesn't interest me that much either, because there's no action, which makes it fun to create the characters and their environment, but boring to play.

As others have pointed out in rebuttal, and as I said in a post in the first thread, enchantment slots have very little to do with it, at least for many or most players. Even my "Enchanter" character only enchanted about half of the things he wore. Since MW also had limits on how many enchantment points you could fit on any particular item (some of them extremely limited), it wasn't as exploitable as some people with an "agenda" are leading you to believe. Thank you for telling me my reasons and opinions, and I'm sure you won't mind me assigning some sort of dark alterior motives for yours in return.

As also pointed out by the posters above, and in my posts in the first thread, the clothing was often visible, sometimes as plainly as the armor on top of it, and was an integral part of the "look" of several characters (for my own character and some of the NPCs). A few of the lower-profile pauldrons sat beneath a robe, others clipped through almost completely, appearing to be "on top" of the robe. Granted, if you're just playing "tanks" all the time, then you didn't see the clothing beneath the all-concealing armor, the bulky pauldrons clipped through any robes, and there wasn't much point in all of that "layering", at least for you.

Unfortunately. it's just one more of the many things that were taken out under the guise of "streamlining". Obviously, it's so difficult to understand. How could any recent convert to gaming ever expect to cope with such an abstract concept: wearing clothing under your armor? I don't think "dumbing down" does it justice; "Insulting our intelligence" might be more descriptive.