Morrowind vs Skyrim objectively

[Clockwork Knight]

It is a funny insight into how computers think human conversation works.

HUMAN BEGINS USELESS INTERACTION - "I saw a mudcrab the other day."

HUMAN RELATES TO IDIOTIC FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS - "Horrible creatures, I avoid them whenever I can"

HUMAN MAKES STUPID GESTURE - "Goodbye"

HUMAN DECIDES IT IS TIME TO CEASE THE IDLE CHATTERING AND LEAVE - "Stop talking!"

Best thing about it tho is how they made different voice actors say the same lines. Every race has an input on the fucking mudcrabs. Can't they be arsed to write new dialogue if they're gonna go through the trouble of recording multiple people? It doesn't even need to be something intelligent, it's just to keep us from walking through the market district without hearing two groups of NPCs having the same conversation right next to each other.

 

[Lemming42]

I UNDERSTAND HE'LL TEACH OTHERS TO PICK LOCKS
IF EVERYONE KNEW HOW, WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO CARRY AROUND SO MANY KEYS

And of course all the stuff like merchants discussing the Great Prices at their own stores and the leader of the Fighter's Guild being genuinely amazed to hear that the Fighter's Guild is recruiting

 

[AW8]

Argonian 1: "Many Argonians say they have been 'called back' to Black Marsh. They disappear into the swamps and are never seen again."
Argonian 2: "The land of the Argonians is a strange place indeed."

 

[Xenich]

Well, that's the thing - it is an action based system, only with some limitations (skill, stamina) to prevent you from going where you aren't supposed to yet. Many, me among them, feel those limitations don't fit with the combat as it is presented.

Not really, it was a skill based system primarily. The only control the player had was movement and contact (ie you had to physically hit the sprite in proximity or with ranged, which to be honest was easy to do). After that, the character development engine took over in combat. That was the system all the way up to when they started to disregard it in Oblivion and later completely tossed it in Skyrim. That was the game. Console generations mistook it as being a poorly designed action game rather than the RPG focused character skill limitation game it was.

My point:

In Morrowind or earlier: You can swing all you like, dance around, etc... but it won't make you dodge or hit any better than what the skill engine allows you to. This infuriated action gamers because they believe that their "actions" should define success in the game. In Morrowind/earlier it is your skill development that decides things, not player physical actions.

 

[granit]

Morrowind is objectively one of the best CRPGs ever made and better than Skyrim. Vanilla Morrowind is awesome. Vanilla Skyrim is unplayable. With mods it can be fun but no where near Morrowind.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Argonian 1: "Many Argonians say they have been 'called back' to Black Marsh. They disappear into the swamps and are never seen again."
Argonian 2: "The land of the Argonians is a strange place indeed."

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Now take Morrowind.

There are 6 visually distinct enviroments on Vvardenfell. They are Bitter Coast, West Gash, Ascadian Isles, Grazelands and collected regions Ashlands+Red Mountain＋Molag Amur and Azura's Coast+Sheogorad. Sure, the ash-covered hills cover most of the map, but that is alleviated by the fact that
1. Volcanic landscape is a hell lot more interesting than green fields, and gives the other regions an element of beauty in comparison
2. The other 5 enviroments are visually different from each other.

This map shows nine distinct regions.

 

[Daemongar]

I much prefer Morrowind because of it's setting and much larger amount of weapon/armour/magic skills and options. I liked the perk system but doing away with attributes and spell crafting where a let down to me. Skyrim obviously looks better but that's not something that's of a large importance to me so Morrowind>Skyrim by miles in my opinion.

That was the deal-breaker for me too: the loss of attributes/spellcrafting. My first foray into spell-crafting in Morrowind was just farting around and enchanting my characters pants so he could levitate. Just something dumb, but later in the game while wandering around town, it allowed me to enter that floating prison in Vivec. Getting there before the programmers intended didn't break the game, but I was there too soon so I didn't even know what to do there. They left the door open for me to mess around, trusting me as a resourceful gamer to do what I want. I could have also died from losing that spell while in the air, or have been killed by guards, or any number of options, but I didn't ruin the experience. For me, Skyrim was too much loss of a creative approach to gameplay.

Eh, then again gameplayers have changed since Morrowind. I mean, I played a Khajit with hand-to-hand without knowing how ungodly strong hand to hand was near the end. Folks nowadays would want every skill just as viable as any other skill, hence the Speechcraft minigame in Oblivion and other bad decisions. Now it's graphics and simplicity. In some ways, Oblivion did improve on Morrowind- it retained the same skills and abilities, but kept it behind the scenes. I honestly believe it's better than the Skyrim approach of abandoning skills altogether.

 

[dryan]

I much prefer Morrowind because of it's setting and much larger amount of weapon/armour/magic skills and options. I liked the perk system but doing away with attributes and spell crafting where a let down to me. Skyrim obviously looks better but that's not something that's of a large importance to me so Morrowind>Skyrim by miles in my opinion.

That was the deal-breaker for me too: the loss of attributes/spellcrafting. My first foray into spell-crafting in Morrowind was just farting around and enchanting my characters pants so he could levitate. Just something dumb, but later in the game while wandering around town, it allowed me to enter that floating prison in Vivec. Getting there before the programmers intended didn't break the game, but I was there too soon so I didn't even know what to do there. They left the door open for me to mess around, trusting me as a resourceful gamer to do what I want. I could have also died from losing that spell while in the air, or have been killed by guards, or any number of options, but I didn't ruin the experience. For me, Skyrim was too much loss of a creative approach to gameplay.

Eh, then again gameplayers have changed since Morrowind. I mean, I played a Khajit with hand-to-hand without knowing how ungodly strong hand to hand was near the end. Folks nowadays would want every skill just as viable as any other skill, hence the Speechcraft minigame in Oblivion and other bad decisions. Now it's graphics and simplicity. In some ways, Oblivion did improve on Morrowind- it retained the same skills and abilities, but kept it behind the scenes. I honestly believe it's better than the Skyrim approach of abandoning skills altogether.

Can't you do the same more easily and at any moment by just donating to the shrine/altar To Stop the Moon?

 

[Daemongar]

Yes, sure. However, I didn't even notice the floating prison until I was almost on top of it, and I wasn't at a stage in the game when I was told to go to the floating prison. Just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right magical pants.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Yeah, the shrine already has a levitation potion laying near it for you to donate (or you can buy it from someone nearby, don't remember), but you can just use it on yourself.

Dragon shouts were a great opportunity for some "lite" spellcrafting. They are already divided into syllabes, each one having an effect of its own. Aside from the regular "learn more words from a certain shout to make it stronger" mechanic, you could allow the player to mix and match words to create shouts with different effects - a fire breath that pushes enemies flying away in flames, an ethereal walk that also slows time, freezing breath that weakens enemy armor so you can go to town on them while they are stuck, etc. Maybe it would be kinda broken but it's not like Beth ever cared about



anyway.

(edit: on second thought, it would be balanced by the fact "mixed" shouts wouldn't use their individual effects at full power)

edit2: turns out this is supported by the lore!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dragon_Shouts

Alduin has another shout called "ResurrectionShout" that resurrects dead dragons. Its words of power are "Slen Tiid Vo", which translate to "Flesh Time (Opposite of)". It should be noted that you can learn the words Tiid (Time) and Slen (Flesh), showing that words can be part of different shouts.

 

[Emily]

I totally forgot that Skyrim didnt even have spell crafting. That alone would be enough to discredit it from further discussion.

 

[dryan]

That dragon language shit was one of the most cringey parts of Skyrim for me.

 

[laclongquan]

Beth games always break on mechanic. if you care about it you would not be able to play their games.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Took a carriage and decided to go for a tour (Realistic Carriages - you can choose to ride it until your destiny, like in the intro). The wagon does a backflip after touching a bunny crossing the road (driver: "Easy, girl" ), but we manage. The we go through a mod added small settlement between Whiterun and Falkreath, immediately running over a guard. As I look back at the body laying by the gate, we run over a peasant, then a guard climbs onto the wagon, walks over us, and is flung onto the pavement behind (he survived). The horse tramples over objects on the road or near it, flinging them at supersonic speeds in all directions. At this point I'm desperately trying to talk to the coach and ask him to "wake me up when we arrive at Falkreath" (teleporting us there and ending this mad joyride), but I can't target him with the reticle as the carriage is rocking harder than a fat baby's cradle. I manage to, but not before we run over a dog on the way out of town.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

This map shows nine distinct regions.

Actually, they're eight regions. Red mountain and the ashlands usually be considered as one.

Spoiler

Source

And I think he's talking about environments, not about regions.

 

[Crevice tab]

This map shows nine distinct regions.

Actually, they're eight regions. Red mountain and the ashlands usually be considered as one.

Spoiler

Source

And I think he's talking about environments, not about regions.

Each region has a different environment- even Red Mountain is somewhat different from the ashlands.

Took a carriage and decided to go for a tour (Realistic Carriages - you can choose to ride it until your destiny, like in the intro). The wagon does a backflip after touching a bunny crossing the road (driver: "Easy, girl" ), but we manage. The we go through a mod added small settlement between Whiterun and Falkreath, immediately running over a guard. As I look back at the body laying by the gate, we run over a peasant, then a guard climbs onto the wagon, walks over us, and is flung onto the pavement behind (he survived). The horse tramples over objects on the road or near it, flinging them at supersonic speeds in all directions. At this point I'm desperately trying to talk to the coach and ask him to "wake me up when we arrive at Falkreath" (teleporting us there and ending this mad joyride), but I can't target him with the reticle as the carriage is rocking harder than a fat baby's cradle. I manage to, but not before we run over a dog on the way out of town.

At least there weren't any traffic jams.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Ah. Levitation. Best Spell Ever.

I was really stumped and spend A LOT of time trying to mod levitation into Oblivion, which never actually worked all that well due to many parts of the landscape being indoor maps.

Nothing makes you feel more like God than flying around at your leisure. Although crafting the Ring of Kill Winged Twilight comes close.

But the jump scrolls you find at the start of Morrowind were the best creative use of magic in any game I ever played.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Although crafting the Ring of Kill Winged Twilight comes close.

What's this?

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Although crafting the Ring of Kill Winged Twilight comes close.

What's this?

Damage health 100 points for 3 seconds, the most you could put on any item at max skill level. Just enough to kill a Winged Twilight in one hit, but not enough for Golden Saints or Ascendant Sleepers.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

100 strength and 100 sword could give the same results really.

 

[Turrul]

So, kind of a derailing question but: I'm thinking of trying Morrowind again, Is it actually possible for a full-mage build being successful?

Edit: no armor and no weapons ofc. I remember there were unarmored and fists skills, are they useful?

 

[Daemongar]

So, kind of a derailing question but: I'm thinking of trying Morrowind again, Is it actually possible for a full-mage build being successful?

Edit: no armor and no weapons ofc. I remember there were unarmored and fists skills, are they useful?

The only way I could enjoy a full mage build without hobbling my character too much was by downloading a mod to allow (and customize) mana regen. It drove me crazy resting all the time, especially with the high incidence of spell failure. On the other hand, I never finished that char. Part of the charm may be the difficulty in creating that godlike mage. Never considered playing a mage in vanilla Morrowind, though.

 

[Castozor]

So, kind of a derailing question but: I'm thinking of trying Morrowind again, Is it actually possible for a full-mage build being successful?

Edit: no armor and no weapons ofc. I remember there were unarmored and fists skills, are they useful?

I think it's possible although I never stayed long with a pure mage myself. But you'll want one of the birthsign that gives an extra mana multiplier on your int (the apprentice or Atronach I think). Unarmored is better than no armour at all obviously but if I remember correctly the skill was bugged and wouldn't give you any armour unless you had at least one piece of non-unarmoured armour on you. So just equip say the fur hat and you should be good to go. Hand to hand I never found usefull since you need to deplete the enemies stamina before you can damage them with it.
Overall pure mages can be a lot of fun but for some reason I could never stick with them myself. Also try not to abuse Alchemy too much if you want a remotely balanced game.

 

[Emily]

Or maybe i dunno use potions?
Pure mages are viable and are the most interesting way to play the game. Just dont be scared to drink a potion or two.
Enchant your rings with support spells etc.
And most important dont abuse the game as it makes it boring.