Studlock, on 15 December 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:
Yes, and I've seen those and responded to them in-depth in the past. The thing is, Morrowind isn't nostalgia goggles for me. I still play it. It's still better. The ONLY thing that could make Morrowind better, would be improving the animations. If the animations reflected what the numbers behind the game were doing, the game would be almost flawless. And indeed, the animations in modern Elder Scrolls games are STILL their biggest flaw. The textures may be better, but the animations are still incredibly simplistic, often awkward, and do little to make the melee combat engaging.
Indeed, Skyrim actually made huge leaps in the area of spell FX. However, in exchange, it truncated the variety of spells and their power down to a laughably small range. The potential that was introduced with things like the basic spray of fire spell, wards, and so forth, was huge. The game as presented at release however never capitalised on that potential, instead underselling it and making wards impractical in a combat context and making the one destruction spell you're likely to use woefully underpowered beyond the early-mid game stage. If they had managed to keep the spell variety while matching the spell FX to the spell name/description, it would have been a true leap forward. Instead it's another massive compromise, that I'm not sure was worth it.
In any case, to address the main thrust of points RE: the dumbing down of the Elder Scrolls games, they fall into one simple category: hand-holding.
1. You now have a quest marker which removes any semblance of navigation or investigation from the game. You do not need to remember where to go, consult the journal, or remember where something is. Ever.
2. While you can toggle that marker in Skyrim, iirc, the writing is now so under-developed as the expectation is for players to blindly follow said marker, that you can no longer actually infer the correct location and task from the quest log or the dialogue. Voice acting is partially to blame. Lazy writing (in both terms of dialogue and supporting text) is the main cause.
3. Character skill is now all but irrelevant to the game. While this is not inherently a "dumber" form of gameplay, and rather a deviation from the series' roots, it is in fact a more simplistic game system - you aim at the enemy, and you are all but guaranteed to land a hit. Many would argue this is an improvement over the DND-style chance-based combat system of Morrowind. I agree, except for the little fact that it renders the game basically not an RPG any more, when it is still billed as such, and that
if the animations had matched the mechanics, the older style of game would have been phenomenal. If you could *see* your enemy slide past your thrust, if you could *see* them parry your blade to one side, the combat which is taking place in the numbersphere in Morrowind would have been the most visceral, exhilarating FPS melee combat on the planet. Obviously that was not really achievable for BGS at the time the game was made. However, instead of pursuing the (probably harder) path of bringing those animations to the fore, they chose instead to make the game as a whole easier (nay, almost impossible to lose) and therefore made more mass-market appeal to the "casual" gamer. Great business sense. But definitely "dumbing down" and "taking the easy way out". Nobody complains when the enemy blocks your attack. Nobody would complain when they dodge your blade either. But they DO complain when they can't *see* that in the animations. That's all that Morrowind's combat system lacked. Because it actually included shit like "unarmored" skills - the ability to dodge strikes. Luck. It played a part. The only thing that was good about the change was active blocking. Though skills and attributes should have dictated success, rather than just "hold block to block" (small concession that blocks could be broken, but still a cop-out).
4. Character skills have been removed. You can call it streamlining if you like, but what I call it is simplifying to the point of dumbing down. Axes are the same as Maces? And now SWORDS?! Meanwhile daggers also are apparently no different from swords - rendering stealth characters moot (kudos to Skyrim for the perks...still doesn't make up for the loss of the original and sensible distinction). These things all require different approaches to battle. They make your gameplay distinct. They make your character different. It may make no difference to most people, but to me, it makes sense that just because your character is good with an axe, doesn't mean he's good with a sword. By all means, increase inter-related attributes, or put a percentage of gained skill points into related skills, but don't just throw them together for the sake of laziness/ease of "immersion". Indeed, entire types of weapons and spells (as mentioned) have disappeared from the game. Where are my spears? Halberds. Crossbows got (poorly) added back in via DLC two games later. Meanwhile bows still continue to exist in one generic form. Swords no longer have variety. What happened to Wakizashi, Tanto, Dai-katana? Throwing stars? Darts? These have all been removed for the purpose of reducing choice, for the purpose of making the development time shorter, also, but still - the end result is less complex a game. Less detailed a world. Less investment to be made.
5. Reduction in the number and detail of the factions. There were SO many more guilds and much better quest lines to follow. Even *finding* the assassins' guild in Morrowind was a challenge. And then joining it took more effort. The fact that in order to join the three *opposing* Houses, you had to play three different games, was GOOD. It meant you had to CHOOSE. It meant you had to THINK. While the decision was mostly superficial, it gave MEANING and DEPTH to your character. A wizard might strive to join House Telvanni. While a Warrior might desire to join the ranks of the Redoran. Indeed, you used to have to BE A MAGE to join the FUCKING MAGES GUILD. Now I can become the Hood-damned Archmage while knowing NO MAGIC. This is illogical. This is immersion breaking. This...this is making the game easier so that "casual" players can play the game in five minutes, instead of one hundred hours. THAT, that is dumbing down. By all means, make the GAME more accessible to more players. That's great. I want more people to experience this awesome world. But for the love of God, don't destroy that world, that experience, to cater to the lowest common denominator!
6. Hundreds of unkillable NCPs. No, you cannot kill him. Why not? Because doing so might end your quest! HELLO HANDHOLDING. HELLO OVERSIMPLIFICATION. Hello treating me like a simpleton who can't make his own choices and live with them. Hello, "dumbing down". Meanwhile, the world is overpopulated with bandits relative to the number of regular folk. Heck, Oblivion had far more GUARDS than it had regular folk, never mind the endless bandit hordes. Bandits who can possess DAEDRIC weaponry. Items once so distinct, there was but one full set on the entire Island of Vvardenfell. Or rare items so rare, so powerful, you had to kill or reverse pickpocket one of the most powerful Telvanni Wizard Lords (no easy task!), only to THEN fight a Dremora Lord (unlevelled - he would wipe the floor with your wussy rogue character, or underskilled anything character) to gain it? Never mind, there are limitless supplies of Daedric weapons and armour in Oblivion and Skyrim...but ONLY once you become level 50. Before that they basically don't exist. For no discernible, in-game reason.
Which ties into the fact that the game is made further hard to lose, by scaling enemies so that they aren't too much of a challenge for you. Why? To make the game EASIER. To make it impossible to fail. To make it SIMPLER. No fight too hard, no odds too long. Alduin? HAH. Vivec could have taken him one hand tied behind his back.
Which reminds me. The population levels of Vvardenfell's scattered cities made sense. It was an ISLAND. To have practically LESS people in the IMPERIAL HEARTLAND makes NO SENSE. And they can claim they made the map bigger all they want to - that doesn't reduce the fact that walking from one side of Cyrodiil to the other is both easier (as in; no threat, even, or ESPECIALLY, at level fucking one) and takes less time! And that's without making fast-travel (an unquestionable "dumbed down" system) a thing. People who complained that Morrowind took too long to walk across - they had fast travel. It just COST MONEY. And you had to find a Mages Guild or Silt Strider or Boat to get to use it. It was REALISTIC. It was INVOLVING. And it MADE SENSE. You could skip out part of your journey - but not all of it, if you weren't getting to a major location. This meant you had to PLAN. Take RISKS.
Spend time and effort.
Now, I shall not deny that Oblivion is prettier than Morrowind. Or that voice acting makes some things so, SO much cooler. (Lucien Lachance, anyone?) Nor shall I deny that Skyrim is in almost every way a superior game to Oblivion. Or indeed, that by volume of sales, they are both "more popular" than Morrowind. And I'll admit that Dragons were cool (though underpowered, and they are slightly too frequent for logic to accept). Both Skyrim and Oblivion had their moments. And yes, the games were easier to get into than their predecessor. The games were, in fact, easier in every single way, than their predecessor. They were so easy, levelling up was the only way to make the games HARDER (wait, that's not how that should work, right?). They removed more features than they added. They removed guilds, and skills, and attributes, and spells, and entire schools of magick, and classes and types of weapons, and...well, you get the point.
This is good business design. It makes the games more accessible, and it makes them sell better. That is not necessarily the same thing as making them "better games". Popularity, after all, would suggest that Twilight is a good movie. Indeed, if I start leaving structural walls out of my buildings, because the aesthetics it creates or allows makes the building sell better, one would not call that "good architectural design", or "good engineering". Any more than I'd call the decisions made for TES games post-Morrowind "good game design".
And, indeed, it is true. Every argument I've used against Skyrim and Oblivion can almost be applied to Morrowind compared to Daggerfall and Arena. Indeed, I am a Morrowind fanboy. However, the thing is...Morrowind brought the series to 3D. It brought the series into the realm where you didn't have to use your mind to imagine *all* the world, any more. It changed the game in such a fundamental way, that what was lost, was *worth it*. What has Oblivion or Skyrim done in exchange for their dumbing down sacrifices? Voice acting? Pretty textures? Are those...really worth it? Are they really worth losing the magic that made Morrowind so detailed? So mystical, and yet somehow so real? Voice acting, we can all agree, was not great in Oblivion. It was better in Skyrim, but not stellar. And the budget which goes towards it is disproportionate to its rewards. The pretty textures are hardly the difference between 2D and 3D. Indeed, on consoles, the market for which a considerable number of these concessions have been made (though with the caveat; only because of the graphics upgrades as well), there is not that large of a change between Oblivion and Skyrim. Sure, it's there, and when you plop them side-by-side, it shows. Or when you first fire it up, it stuns, even. But after a week, or a month...ten new games have released, the graphics are now outdated, or you're used to them, or you're noticing that hey, they don't hold up to scrutiny on a 50" LED when you're less than five meters away.
Is it really worth it? Could we not sacrifice at least *some* of those shiny, feelgood, overpriced, overfocused, "features", so that the games can have their DEPTH back? Their meaning? Choices, and consequences? Would you not all prefer a game with stellar animations, but slightly outdated graphics? A game where crafting your own character took a bit of care? Required decisions - REAL decisions, like what skills to train, or guilds to join - rather than just being able to click click click and thus slash your way through what should be dramatic, difficult encounters? Does not rising to the top of the Mages Guild while never casting more than a single spell feel WRONG, to all of you?
That, my friends, is the dumbing down of the Elder Scrolls series. And lo, those of you who started on Oblivion probably cannot stomach Morrowind's combat, or its graphics, or the endless walking. And that's fine. I don't judge you the worse for it. I feel like you've missed out on something great - something I wish you could have shared in. But I say to you: rose-tinted glasses only do so much. If Bethesda ever truly pulls out all the stops once more, if they take a gamble, and make a game which fixes Morrowind's greatest and only flaw, and presents you with a fully realized, detailed, next-gen-prettified, properly animated RPG which is otherwise like Morrowind...then, perhaps, you will realize how low a point in the series Oblivion was. Perhaps you will even realize why I maintain to this day, that Morrowind is in every way bar graphics and smoothness of animations, a superior game to both Oblivion and Skyrim. Because you'll get lost in that world. You'll sink into it, not for days, or even months, but for YEARS. And more than a DECADE after you've sunk hundreds of hours into the game, you will still think of it fondly, as the peak of a great series.
Yes, a GREAT SERIES. For I say this most every time I have this little rant. I do not dislike Oblivion. I don't even think it's a bad game. Skyrim, indeed, is a great game. But neither are what they could have been...SHOULD have been. Neither can rightfully claim to have improved on Morrowind in more than a couple of areas. And that...that is the tragedy. That is what I rail against. That is why I rant and rave and carry on. Because I want the series to be all that it should be. All that it could be. I wanted them, more than you can know, to be THAT GAME. The one which stole the crown. Blew me away. Fixed what was wrong, made better what was right. Because I want everyone to be able to have that experience. That experience of a game which is almost perfect, for what it is meant to be. Morrowind is still the closest, in terms of number of parts which are RIGHT, to being that game.
/end rant.
King Lear 
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