Skyrim - Why It Might Not Be Worth Your Time

Dwagginz said:

Oblivion worked, and despite its issues it was playable. It was also more accessible, especially for people new to RPGs, and I think it had that in its favour. Morrowind didn't have that accessibility or that ease of use. Combat was beyond terrible, you were kicked out into that first village with no real sense of direction, and that was it. It didn't guide you through a small area (Like many, many RPGs do) to get your bearings, and it was just a very cumbersome game.

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I'm pretty sure a significant amount of fans that would agree that Morrowind worked just fine for them.

Being less "accessible", and not holding your hand, were actually some of the reasons many people preferred Morrowind.

Yeah, not a fan of the combat as I already said but there was no problem with the lack of hand-holding. You knew you had to find Caius Cosades in Balmora...what else do you need for direction?

Dwagginz said:

I never got far in Morrowind for this reason. When a giant rat is nibbling my knees with an almost religious fervour, and I'm aiming down at it and holding a longsword, I expect to hit it. It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense that my blade goes through it with no ill effect. How can I play the game if the combat doesn't even work properly?

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You must have hated real roleplaying games where you actually had to roll a dice to see if you hit. Even Fallout 3 and NV had your gun skills reflect your ability to hit and damage. I think Beth always had it this way. I don't recall Daggerfall at all other than horrible horrible nightmares that wake me up late at night, but I believe your skills reflected your ability to hit.

Bethesda had done a lot of things wrong, but having your skills reflect your ability to hit is not one of them.

BTW, I know this is a first person game and don't care. I love the fact that my skills reflect my ability to hit. If I want to play an action game where all of my hits count then I'll play that. If it's a RPG then my skills better reflect the characters ability to hit and not my freaking twitch factor or how fast I move the mouse.

skavenhorde said:

BTW, I know this is a first person game and don't care. I love the fact that my skills reflect my ability to hit. If I want to play an action game where all of my hits count then I'll play that. If it's a RPG then my skills better reflect the characters ability to hit and not my freaking twitch factor or how fast I move the mouse.

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I agree in principle with this but it just didn't work for me. You need some sort of tactical basis for it - TB, pause-play, an isometric view, interesting active abilities to support the action combat...something.

Dhruin said:

I agree in principle with this but it just didn't work for me. You need some sort of tactical basis for it - TB, pause-play, an isometric view, interesting active abilities to support the action combat…something.

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I can understand that, but just really didn't have a problem with missing all the time at first. Of course my characters going to suck and miss at first. It's satisfying to see how my character starts to progressively get better and better.

But I can see your point with having some kind of skill or ability to support this like in Fallout 3 with the VATS system.

Still prefer rolling to hitting all the dang time

skavenhorde said:

You must have hated real roleplaying games where you actually had to roll a dice to see if you hit.

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No, because that's a different kettle of fish. With a "real" roleplaying game like D&D, I'm not looking through my character's eyes and seeing a goblin in front of me, and it's wildly open to interpretation.

In Morrowind, though, when played in 1st person, being unable to hit a giant rat that's attached to my knee caps with a longsword isn't 'roleplaying', it's ridiculous combat mechanics.

Dwagginz said:

No, because that's a different kettle of fish. With a "real" roleplaying game like D&D, I'm not looking through my character's eyes and seeing a goblin in front of me, and it's wildly open to interpretation.

In Morrowind, though, when played in 1st person, being unable to hit a giant rat that's attached to my knee caps with a longsword isn't 'roleplaying', it's ridiculous combat mechanics.

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You think you could hit a rat with a longsword in real life without proper skill?
But Gothic had it better, you would still score some small damage even if the hit didn't pass the check.

Personally, no. But even if you tag Longsword on your character (Wasn't it Blade?) then you should have some ability to hit it. The hit should be a certainty, but the damage should reflect your skill.

Dwagginz said:

No, because that's a different kettle of fish. With a "real" roleplaying game like D&D, I'm not looking through my character's eyes and seeing a goblin in front of me, and it's wildly open to interpretation.

In Morrowind, though, when played in 1st person, being unable to hit a giant rat that's attached to my knee caps with a longsword isn't 'roleplaying', it's ridiculous combat mechanics.

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You and Dhruin seem to think it's different when it's not. You are not really using your real skills as swordsman. You are not really holding that sword. You are using skills that your character knows. I do not see the difference between a game like morrowind which you can miss even if you are right next to the monster or a game like TOEE where you can miss even if you are right next to the monster. Who cares what viewpoint you are using? You are still right next to the creature in both games and can have a chance to miss depending on your skills.

Nothing wrong with your opinion, I guess, except that it's the complete opposite of my own.

Seriously, though we do not need these freaking games any more accessible to everyone. They are dumbed down enough as it is.

Let's be honest, who plays Bethesda RPGs for the combat anyways?

The combat has never really been good in their games. We play them mostly for the exploration, lore, and atmosphere.

JDR13 said:

Let's be honest, who plays Bethesda RPGs for the combat anyways?

The combat has never really been good in their games. We play them mostly for the exploration, lore, and atmosphere.

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Agreed.

However, I would like to add that I don't like chance to hit mechanics in real-time combat systems. It's a very necessary and efficient mechanic in turn-based combat systems, where your main focus is on pure tactics and you don't have any direct or literal control of your character's attacks after selecting a move; you just select an appropriate attack and hope that you have developed your character well enough to have that attack be successful.

In turn-based rpgs such as Temple of Elemental Evil, it makes perfect sense to have a chance to hit mechanic because the only control over your character's combat prowess is through the development of their statistics, abilities, and attributes. I love the chance to hit mechanic and the reliance on wise character progression and tactics to determine combat effectiveness in turn-based rpgs. But in real-time rpgs such as Morrowind, it lessens the immersion when I can literally see that my weapon or attack has "hit" an opponent, only to have the game tell me that I "missed." This just isn't logical to me. In a real-time combat system, I would much rather have statistics and attributes affect the damage that I inflict and how effective my attacks are as opposed to whether or not I actually hit the target.

Too many complaints over some missing dodge animations .
I ll go with skavenhorde , it's your character fighting not you .

I am in a dilemma here , MW had tones of lore so all mods that added something never fit 100% in game world , OB had no lore and all mods fit right in ; not sure what is better .

But it's not. Nere above was right about the difference. In Turn Based it's my character fighting via, say, dice rolls, but in real time I'm making each swing, I'm aiming with the bow, I'm blocking with the shield. It doesn't make sense for my sword to go through an enemy and do no damage, unless it has a resistance to certain weapon types/materials (I think the ghosts did in crypts, could be wrong).

Given the engines are so similar, one wonders why someone hasn't tried making a "Morrowind" mod for Oblivion - using the assets. Maybe it's a legal issue? Maybe too much work… Hmm, but would be interesting.

DArtagnan said:

Given the engines are so similar, one wonders why someone hasn't tried making a "Morrowind" mod for Oblivion - using the assets. Maybe it's a legal issue? Maybe too much work… Hmm, but would be interesting.

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Too much work for very little or no gain.. with MGE Morrowind looks better than Oblivion in many ways (MGE has more modern shaders than Oblivion) and Morrowind has far more mods than Oblivion too. MW is missing the physics engine and NPC schedules (though, there are mods that adds this in). Yeah the combat in MW isnt the best, but im sure there are mods for that too (from what i remember they hired a MW modder to do the combat in Oblivion).

About the whole "neither MW or Oblivion are perfect games" discussion i agree, and neither is Fallout 1-2, Ultima's, Baldur's Gate etc etc etc - imo there isnt a 100% perfect game and probably never will be.. i do prefer the shortcomings of a Bethesda game over a Bioware game though

bemushroomed said:

Too much work for very little or no gain.. with MGE Morrowind looks better than Oblivion in many ways (MGE has more modern shaders than Oblivion) and Morrowind has far more mods than Oblivion too. MW is missing the physics engine and NPC schedules (though, there are mods that adds this in). Yeah the combat in MW isnt the best, but im sure there are mods for that too (from what i remember they hired a MW modder to do the combat in Oblivion).

About the whole "neither MW or Oblivion are perfect games" discussion i agree, and neither is Fallout 1-2, Ultima's, Baldur's Gate etc etc etc - imo there isnt a 100% perfect game and probably never will be.. i prefer the shortcomings of a Bethesda game over a Bioware game any day

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Well, I wouldn't want to pour much effort into such a project myself - but I know that it would definitely help me get interested in playing Morrowind. That's because I can't get past how awful combat is in that game, and how lousy the general "feel" of movement is. It's like sleepwalking through a painting.

The movement? I've never felt that its any different from Oblivion, and i doubt it is. You do start off with quite low in "speed" though, i often choose "The Steed" for that reason, and it gets much better once you invested a little in it.

Did you put any effort into trying to mod the combat? I think it was the "Combat Enhanced" modder they hired for Oblivion.. not sure though, been a long time since i installed any combat mods for MW.

Yeah, the movement and animations were equally crappy in both games.

DArtagnan said:

Given the engines are so similar, one wonders why someone hasn't tried making a "Morrowind" mod for Oblivion - using the assets. Maybe it's a legal issue? Maybe too much work… Hmm, but would be interesting.

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Someone was a few years ago. Dunno what happened to it, though.

The animations for combat and movement (for NPCs/3rd person) were far superior in Oblivion - though still rather stiff and mediocre overall, but the physics system helped tremendously when actually jumping/fighting/shooting - because of the feedback and "realistic" death animations. Take a look at both games, and notice how NPCs move around in Morrowind like they were made out of wood - especially the arms. When you fight, you can see the weapons lack "weight" and feel like they're made out of cardboard.

That's just my opinion, though, and if people really think Morrowind had on-par animations - there's really nothing I can do except speculate about a delusional disposition

Bethesda made a big point about the visceral feel and extra "moves" during combat, and I definitely think they make a big difference - though naturally, the marketing speak was overdone.

But I haven't experimented with Morrowind mods in a long time. I think it's too much work getting everything to work together, given the vital new visual mods and what not. It's pretty much a few days of downloading/testing before I get comfortable with the setup - and that's a pain.