Has there been a decline in quality of TES games since Morrowind or is it nostalgia?

Tihskael

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Personally, I believe that Bethesda made the best open world in Skyrim, even though it wasn't as alien and unique as Morrowind's. As far as quests are concerned, Oblivion comes out on top, they are clever and memorable even if the world sometimes feels bland. The main story in Skyrim is not bad, its just short; but I have to say the Civil war is done really well on paper, even though the battles were underwhelming in the game. I liked the political intrigue, Thalmor's involvement in it all and trying to benefit from the political strife between the two factions. Although the dungeons feel a bit same after 40-50 hours in Skyrim, they still are the best in the series in my opinion. All the games in the series do expansions well. Skyrim had underwhelming factions and magic system. And essential NPCs kill the experience for some. What's your take on it?
 
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I keep hearing they have some awesome mods for Morrowind now totally making the graphics modern or possibly as good as SKyrim. It is a super buggy game though and I always have to restart at one point due to the mods breaking my game or constantly crashing. now I hear there is some Morrowind runtime that alleviates this.
 
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@AppleIntimidation; I am sure you are talking about Skywind. I encountered 1 or 2 game breaking bugs, but for a 300 hour experience that is not bad. But I do encounter plenty of bugs, most of which are fun.
Skywind link:
https://tesrskywind.com/
 
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That whole kill the evil giant lizard thing. That's the story.
 
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The main reason I like TES games is for the faction system, and Skyrim completely botched that.
Also, no levitation.

Morrowind was better for me.
 
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Skyrim was my point of entry for TES games and I was blown away, I liked the environments and its gradual change and the fauna including Dragons. I distinctly remember not even minding Lydia all that much. And then there were mods that made the civil war more strategically and tactically coherent with battles and patrols, Lydia actually bearable, the Dragons thematic and a companion mod called Viljya that included partial writing by Terry Pratchett, and that sold it for me.

Years later I remember trying to recreate the sense of wonder in Elder Scrolls Online but the MMO experience seemed to break my immersion and perhaps I have changed now. I will probably buy Elder Scrolls six, hopefully its social systems are more sophisticated.
 
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I believe that in Morrowind, becoming a part of factions felt really nice, especially because factions (particularly houses) stood for different things and added flavor to the game world. For example Redonans were in with the Tribunal, Telvanni were these wizards living alone in Mushroom towers, Hlaalu people were involved in business and slave trade and many more. However, as far as quests are concerned, they were pretty mediocre. Certain faction quest lines in Oblivion were absolutely top notch though. Easily the best in the series and one of the most memorable in any RPG I have ever played, period. Faction quest lines in Skyrim, even though necessarily not bad, weren't as great as their predecessors, to put it politely.
 
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@mat9813004; My first TES game was Skyrim too and it blew my mind away also. Even though I really liked Oblivion, Morrowind, FO3, FO4 and FO:NV; no open world game can stand up to it except the Witcher 3 (which is my favorite game btw). I haven't played a ton of mods, but currently I am playing Falskaar and will play Forgotten City in the future whose writing has received acclaim. You should check it out.
 
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I love a patched Daggerfall and it's huge dungeons.
 
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@HiddenX; Weren't the dungeons difficult to navigate through? I remember playing the game for about a dozen hours and giving up in the end. A game of its time I guess, even though very ambitious.
 
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I played through Daggerfall in about 400 hours and solved the main storylines. The dungeons are huge and difficult. Morrowind's story is great, but the "dungeons" are little earth holes in comparison.
You could ignore the story in Daggerfall and play it as a sandbox game. Even more difficult is the game Battlespire, based on the same game engine.
 
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I started with (and was blown away by) Daggerfall, but Morrowind is my clear favourite. The world is intriguing and different, the main story (although a chosen one cliché as well) was good and the expansions were excellent. The world was also scary and dangerous, and the power curve from a nobody to some kind of god was satisfying.

Oblivion had awesome quests, but the main story was severely lacking. The worst part though was the atrocious scaling, actually making the game easier if you simply didn't level up. And more immersive too, since bandits in glass armour is silly. It completely messed up any sense of progression to me. The world didn't feel dangerous, it felt stupid.

Skyrim toned it down a notch, introducing areas that scaled to your current level when you first entered them. It sounded better on paper, but then you kill a dragon at level 2. And find artifacts scaled to your level. And kill more powerful dragons? Again, to me the sense if progression was completely lost in the end.

To me open world done right in regards to scaling is to have none. Elex is a good example, I died more times in my first hour than I did in my 90 hours in Skyrim. I loved it. I realise the counter argument is this actually makes the game more linear and as such only gives an illusion of an "open world" (if by OW we mean go where you like). I don't care, it still FEELS right to me. And you CAN still go anywhere you like. You'll just probably definitely die.
 
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Skyrim is my favorite by far, but my order is probably Skyrim, Daggerfall, Oblivion, Morrowind.

I thought the main quest in Skyrim was forgettable, but I loved the actual role-playing the game allowed.

Daggerfall was absolutely amazing for its time. I probably spent dozens of hours just trying to create the perfectly balanced character. The dis/advantages of the character creator made it the best such version I've ever seen. The winter theme will always be stuck in my memory due to my many, many hours in that game.

I really liked the main quest in Oblivion. It's big weakness was level scaling and I'm glad Skyrim tackled that somewhat. I hope for improvements to that in the next game. I loved the mage guild quests especially and I nearly always play a mage in that game.

I thought the sky and world art was pretty amazing in Morrowind, but I just couldn't get into the political themes nor religious tones of that game. I didn't want to be the Nectarine but that was my role. This is also why I didn't care for The Witcher 3. I didn't want to be Geriatric the White.
 
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@TomRon; I actually agree with you and I have heard how Piranha Bytes does open worlds right like with Gothic and Elex. I tried my hand at Gothic and its controls scared me away, even though the world seemed tempting. I will surely come back to it one day. New Vegas also accomplished this in a way. High level enemies blocking one way to the objective area, forcing you to go South and back up North, taking in the lore and understanding the game world better along the way; made up for a very organic experience.
 
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Skyrim blown me away the first hours which were really 'heroic' with the dragon attack, the environments, the exploration at low level.
After that it went down quite fast, the useless main quest, the dungeons, the scaled to your level places, the factions which changed nothing, the arrow in the knee etc ..

However if I never finished the main quest I still logged hundreds of hours in Skyrim because of the awesome mods.
 
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In most areas, no. I think Skyrim is their (so far) crowning acheivement in many ways. But in terms of world building, absolutely. Skyrim did the bare minimium to create a distinct sense of place, and Oblivion somehow did even less. Morrowind is one of the finest, most detailed, most atmopherric digital worlds ever created. There's no comparison.

I've more or less lost hope that they'lll ever put that emphasis on their settings again, but I do hope they head back in that direction.
 
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@AppleIntimidation; I am sure you are talking about Skywind. I encountered 1 or 2 game breaking bugs, but for a 300 hour experience that is not bad. But I do encounter plenty of bugs, most of which are fun.
Skywind link:
https://tesrskywind.com/

Much more likely that he's talking about something like OpenMW.
 
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How come no-one mentioned Arena. It had two great spells which allowed you to either pass through dungeon walls, or blast a hole in them. Heaps of fun!! :)
 
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Much more likely that he's talking about something like OpenMW.

My wife accuses me of playing this almost constantly along with the DLC, SIF!

OpenMouthWide..Stick in Foot
 
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