Morrowind vs Skyrim objectively

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I admit I haven't read the whole thread so I apologize if this was already mentioned, but one thing I really liked in Morrowind over Skyrim were the travel mechanics.

I think the addition of fast travel mechanics in TES 4 and 5 were detrimental because they made travel such a bland affair. In a system dominated by fast travel, it boils down to either clicking your way from waypoint to waypoint on the world map or putting on your "Ima gonna go explorrrrrin!" hat and trekking about on foot. One is expedient but quite boring and unrealistic, and the other is time-consuming yet also pretty boring because it entails traversing a lot of generic and mostly empty landscapes.

Travel in Morrowind was far better because you had so many tools available. Mark/Recall, Divine and Almsivi Intervention, silt striders, guild guides, boats, Propylon chambers... getting from A to B was like a mini-game unto itself. You could almost always plan a route to get within a short walk of your destination, and then you'd get to see a little bit of the countryside and perhaps even stumble across something interesting on the way. On the whole I think it made exploration and finding your way through the world a much more organic and immersive experience.

I think you forgot to mention some of the more exotic options the player can devise by themselves. My chosen method of travel is an imitation of the Scroll of Icarian Flight, a short duration high-strength Jump effect spell with a long duration low-strength Slowfall effect. Covers a surprisingly large distance each hop. I should probably have named the spell "Fast Travel".

The flexibility of the magic system was one of the good parts of Morrowind (though some of the magicka math was bonkers, so you mostly ended up exploiting the fuck out of the system to get spells that were actually good).

 

[CyberP]

[
I think you forgot to mention some of the more exotic options the player can devise by themselves. My chosen method of travel is an imitation of the Scroll of Icarian Flight, a short duration high-strength Jump effect spell with a long duration low-strength Slowfall effect. Covers a surprisingly large distance each hop. I should probably have named the spell "Fast Travel".
.

I did this too. Spell Magnitude slider right up, duration right down. Use then jump. I was creative use of spell making, though ultimately something that needed to be toned down in a future, potentially better Elder Scrolls game. Overwhelmed by enemies? Super jump out of there. And of course, it eliminated the purpose of all the more legitimate fast travel options. Same as those boots of blinding speed with the blinding effect dispelled. Game-breaking.
Yes you as a player can refuse to exploit the game, but a good designer doesn't offer exploits at every turn regardless. All considered I still think Morrowind is more good than bad, but Skyrim/Oblividerp weren't the sequals they had the potential to be by fixing the bad and expanding upon the good of Morrowind.

 

[DraQ]

Skyrim presents a more detailed world that Cyrodiil or Vvardenfell

Except that's false.
TES detail peaked at Morrowind.
Arena wasn't actually TES, Daggerfall was vast but un-detailed, Oblivion didn't even try. Skyrim is much better than those, but it's still highly tokenized - things in it generally don't carry significance beyond the surface. You don't get moments of fridge brilliance when some seemingly irrelevant and arbitrary detail you've half forgotten suddenly makes sense in the light of something you have just experienced. Morrowind is pretty much the only TES that has layers upon layers of non-overt information for players to piece together rather than easily parsed tokens. In every other TES it's always easy to tell where the information presented to you ends, in Morrowind you can never be sure - even particular detail of style of particular bit of clothing worn by particular NPC may be important.
If you didn't want to miss anything you couldn't afford to parse anything out in Morrowind.

Spoiler

Maybe that's why it ultimately resonated so well with me - because it would make it the ultimate autism simulator.

Skyrim did add a lot of liveliness, mainly in the form of low-level reactivity, but the only bit of added detail it had was secluded areas with sanitary buckets.

 

[the_shadow]

I admit I haven't read the whole thread so I apologize if this was already mentioned, but one thing I really liked in Morrowind over Skyrim were the travel mechanics.

I think the addition of fast travel mechanics in TES 4 and 5 were detrimental because they made travel such a bland affair. In a system dominated by fast travel, it boils down to either clicking your way from waypoint to waypoint on the world map or putting on your "Ima gonna go explorrrrrin!" hat and trekking about on foot. One is expedient but quite boring and unrealistic, and the other is time-consuming yet also pretty boring because it entails traversing a lot of generic and mostly empty landscapes.

Travel in Morrowind was far better because you had so many tools available. Mark/Recall, Divine and Almsivi Intervention, silt striders, guild guides, boats, Propylon chambers... getting from A to B was like a mini-game unto itself. You could almost always plan a route to get within a short walk of your destination, and then you'd get to see a little bit of the countryside and perhaps even stumble across something interesting on the way. On the whole I think it made exploration and finding your way through the world a much more organic and immersive experience.

One day you and I and all the other explorefags will hold our hands in solidarity as our pro-fast travel enemies are burned alive in a gigantic bonfire.

People are forgetting that the fast travel option in Skyrim only works once you have discovered a location. In otherwords, you are still required to explore, but you no longer have to retread the same path twice. It's essentially a Mark and Recall feature that you don't have to cast, although more limited since you can't fast travel from within a dungeon.

 

[CyberP]

People are forgetting that the fast travel option in Skyrim only works once you have discovered a location. In otherwords, you are still required to explore, but you no longer have to retread the same path twice. It's essentially a Mark and Recall feature that you don't have to cast, although more limited since you can't fast travel from within a dungeon.

It is a combination of fast travel + objective markers & no directions/clues given that hurts explore fags. Locations are marked on your compass before you discover them also. The game in general is lackluster anyway, exploration isn't exciting. Locations are bland or copy/paste, and there's no threat to survival. There are no miniature accomplishments, such as a challenging puzzle or a cave that requires levitation to access and so on and on.
I am not an "explore fag", I am a gameplay fag if anything, and explore fag comes under that. Skyrim fails in all aspects of gameplay. There's nothing that makes it stand out over it's predecessors or any other highly-regarded game.
It is trash designed for the wider-market. It is a business product first and foremost, and Bethesda lost their artistic integrity as a result as far as I am concerned.

 

[Zanzoken]

People are forgetting that the fast travel option in Skyrim only works once you have discovered a location. In otherwords, you are still required to explore, but you no longer have to retread the same path twice. It's essentially a Mark and Recall feature that you don't have to cast, although more limited since you can't fast travel from within a dungeon.

That's true, but I think we have to be careful not to underestimate the effects fast travel has on other design decisions and the broader experience as a whole.

For starters, map-based fast travel in Skyrim was implemented at the expense of in-world systems. As has been discussed over the past few posts, there are myriad ways to get around in Morrowind, by using vendors, magic, etc. What does Skyrim have? Admittedly it's been a while since I played but all I can remember are the wagons that will take you to the major cities. So when you think about it, something is already lost right there in terms of player choice, immersion, lore, etc.

Fast travel also seems to necessitate the rampant population of in-game landmarks, because you need a lot of clearly defined waypoints for the system to be effective. So then you get this nice clean icon on your map for seemingly every cave, rock, and tree you encounter. I mean, there's nothing explicitly wrong with this I guess, but to me it just kind of sucks the mystery and marvel out of this epic fantasy world we're supposed to be discovering. How about a game mechanic where I have to mark up the map myself in order to remember where shit is? Wouldn't that have a lot more "adventure-y" feel to it than a bunch of waypoints?

And unfortunately when you put these two structures together, it creates a great deal of unevenness in the exploration mechanic over the life of the game. Since the in-world fast travel in Skyrim is mostly stripped out, you are required to do a lot of walking in the early game because you haven't been anywhere yet. I found that to be grindy and just not very fun in such big doses. Then by the time the late game rolls around, your map is covered in icons and you're just a click away from almost anywhere. And to me it's like why even try to explore at that point? You might be able to find some cool stuff if you go looking, but exploration is cheapened when you have to make a conscious decision to go out and do it. It's much more satisfying when you just happen to run across something interesting during the course of your quests and whatnot.

So you know, on the surface I think fast travel may seem like a simple quality of life improvement for players, but it can actually cause some pretty significant changes in the way players approach content and interact with adjoining gameplay systems. I consider those changes to be mostly detrimental to the experience overall, but then again this is an objective discussion thread so I will refrain from injecting personal opinion into my analysis.

 

[Crevice tab]

I can't believe there are actually people trying to claim that Morrowind had interesting dungeons.

Compared to 99% of RPG? Yes it had. They weren't the highlight of the game but they were logical, not repetitive, built in 3d with areas that require high acrobatics or levitation to reach and the design is ok overall. In short they're pretty good.

 

[Luzur]

I admit I haven't read the whole thread so I apologize if this was already mentioned, but one thing I really liked in Morrowind over Skyrim were the travel mechanics.

I think the addition of fast travel mechanics in TES 4 and 5 were detrimental because they made travel such a bland affair. In a system dominated by fast travel, it boils down to either clicking your way from waypoint to waypoint on the world map or putting on your "Ima gonna go explorrrrrin!" hat and trekking about on foot. One is expedient but quite boring and unrealistic, and the other is time-consuming yet also pretty boring because it entails traversing a lot of generic and mostly empty landscapes.

Travel in Morrowind was far better because you had so many tools available. Mark/Recall, Divine and Almsivi Intervention, silt striders, guild guides, boats, Propylon chambers... getting from A to B was like a mini-game unto itself. You could almost always plan a route to get within a short walk of your destination, and then you'd get to see a little bit of the countryside and perhaps even stumble across something interesting on the way. On the whole I think it made exploration and finding your way through the world a much more organic and immersive experience.

One day you and I and all the other explorefags will hold our hands in solidarity as our pro-fast travel enemies are burned alive in a gigantic bonfire.

i will be out scouting the surrounding area while you do that.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I can't believe there are actually people trying to claim that Morrowind had interesting dungeons.

Compared to 99% of RPG? Yes it had. They weren't the highlight of the game but they were logical, not repetitive, built in 3d with areas that require high acrobatics or levitation to reach and the design is ok overall. In short they're pretty good.

Look, no. Just NO.
They weren't just "not the highlight of the game". They were complete shit.
A bunch of completely cloned, virtually undistinguishable, unbelievably dull corridors that all looked the same and played the same (= poorly), with maybe.. what? Two or three variations?.
Not that I think oblivion or Skyrim were any better, as they were every bit as dull and uninspired, but they at least they made some effort in offering some alternate skin to texture those corridors.

And yes, i would still rate them as SHIT even (and in fact especially) when"compared to 99% of RPGs".

 

[Crevice tab]

Look, no. Just NO.
They weren't just "not the highlight of the game". They were complete shit.
A bunch of completely clone, virtually undistinguishable, unbelievably dull corridors that all looked the same and played the same (= poorly), with maybe.. what? Two or three variations?.
Not that I think oblivion or Skyrim were any better, as they were every bit as dull and uninspired, but they at least they made some effort in offering some alternate skin to texture those corridors.

And yes, i would still rate them as SHIT even (and in fact especially) when"compared to 99% of RPGs".

Erm what? Daedric ruin's, dwemer ruins, dunmer tombs, strongholds and the various types of caves. That's considerably more than two or three variations and the very models are different so there's not way they're repetitive.

As for Oblivion and Skyim actually making an effort: lol. There's plenty of dungeons in Oblivion that are straight up copy pasted (especially the Oblivion gates). So yeah.

 

[resilient sphere]

Gotta agree that Morrowind dungeons are disappointing. The very first cavern you ever find might be interesting because you'll play carefully, but when your character gets powerful enough that you can just plow through them you notice how sparse the architecture is - most of the Daedric ruins are just a few large rooms connected by steps, most of the cavern dungeons are simple granite tunnels fulla chairs and barrels and the former Dwemer locations, which SHOULD feel like dungeons, aren't long enough in most cases to really be satisfying.

I think of Morrowind and Daggerfall as the two best RPG down-time simulators of all time, but the adventuring bits are dire, buggy and full of flailing.

 

[Luzur]

Look, no. Just NO.
They weren't just "not the highlight of the game". They were complete shit.
A bunch of completely clone, virtually undistinguishable, unbelievably dull corridors that all looked the same and played the same (= poorly), with maybe.. what? Two or three variations?.
Not that I think oblivion or Skyrim were any better, as they were every bit as dull and uninspired, but they at least they made some effort in offering some alternate skin to texture those corridors.

And yes, i would still rate them as SHIT even (and in fact especially) when"compared to 99% of RPGs".

Erm what? Daedric ruin's, dwemer ruins, dunmer tombs, strongholds and the various types of caves. That's considerably more than two or three variations and the very models are different so there's not way they're repetitive.

As for Oblivion and Skyim actually making an effort: lol. There's plenty of dungeons in Oblivion that are straight up copy pasted (especially the Oblivion gates). So yeah.

Not to mention those Ayeliid/Ayeelid/ayasomething ruins, after your third one you start to notice the seams.

 

[Sykar]

Gotta agree that Morrowind dungeons are disappointing. The very first cavern you ever find might be interesting because you'll play carefully, but when your character gets powerful enough that you can just plow through them you notice how sparse the architecture is - most of the Daedric ruins are just a few large rooms connected by steps, most of the cavern dungeons are simple granite tunnels fulla chairs and barrels and the former Dwemer locations, which SHOULD feel like dungeons, aren't long enough in most cases to really be satisfying.

I think of Morrowind and Daggerfall as the two best RPG down-time simulators of all time, but the adventuring bits are dire, buggy and full of flailing.

Sparse? How so? Name me one 3D game in 2001 which had better crafted dungeons and was more lively.

 

[resilient sphere]

Sparse? How so? Name me one 3D game in 2001 which had better crafted dungeons and was more lively.

must I?

I didn't mean that they weren't populated... I know the Morrowind dungeons make some effort to look lived-in and so forth but they still become boring to explore in short order.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Look, no. Just NO.
They weren't just "not the highlight of the game". They were complete shit.
A bunch of completely clone, virtually undistinguishable, unbelievably dull corridors that all looked the same and played the same (= poorly), with maybe.. what? Two or three variations?.
Not that I think oblivion or Skyrim were any better, as they were every bit as dull and uninspired, but they at least they made some effort in offering some alternate skin to texture those corridors.

And yes, i would still rate them as SHIT even (and in fact especially) when"compared to 99% of RPGs".

Erm what? Daedric ruin's, dwemer ruins, dunmer tombs, strongholds and the various types of caves. That's considerably more than two or three variations and the very models are different so there's not way they're repetitive.

As for Oblivion and Skyim actually making an effort: lol. There's plenty of dungeons in Oblivion that are straight up copy pasted (especially the Oblivion gates). So yeah.

I think you are genuinely romanticizing some baffling pile of shit.

 

[Crevice tab]

I think you are genuinely romanticizing some baffling pile of shit.

Maybe if you'd take Morrowind's dungeons at their own merits I might partly concede but when you praise Oblivion's straight up copy pasted dungeons even by comparison then you're clearly going way overboard.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I think you are genuinely romanticizing some baffling pile of shit.

Maybe if you'd take Morrowind's dungeons at their own merits I might partly concede but when you praise Oblivion's straight up copy pasted dungeons even by comparison then you're clearly going way overboard.

I didn't praise anything. i think the TES saga as a whole has some of the shittiest dungeon design around, even compared to a lot of less ambitious games.
I just think you are delusional if you think that Morrowind was actually any better.

 

[Carrion]

One of the strenghts of Morrowind's dungeons is that they are treated like actual locations with some kind of a purpose. A Daedric shrine might be just a step of stairs, a short corridor and a large statue at the end of it, which does work very well as a part of the game world even if it's not much of a dungeon per se. A bandit cave is usually a few rooms equipped with some kind of crude living quarters like you'd expect, a mage might have his little own personal study and library built somewhere, each part of a Dwemer ruin usually serves a purpose whether it's a workshop, a training area or a laboratory, and so on. That's one of the reasons exploring them is so interesting in the first place. Like all the TES games, MW does suffer a bit from the fact that the dungeons feel more like variations of similar themes rather than completely unique locations, but I disagree about all dungeons being the same ― even the smallest dungeons usually have some little elements that distinguish them from the others (like an underwater area, a hidden passage, a unique book or a piece of equipment, or a particularly interesting room), and the game did also have its fair share of longer, more complex dungeons.

On the other hand Oblivion's dungeons are just illogical and repetitive combinations of same-looking rooms and corridors with no clear purpose behind them. You might enter a goblin cave, a bandit cave or the home of a particularly nasty sorcerer, and in every case it would almost always be the same wet and dark mess of corridors that no intelligent creature would actually want to live in. They are a little like Daggerfall's random dungeons, just without all the good things like the atmosphere and the feeling of being lost in some hellish maze that goes on forever in all directions. In terms of dungeon design it's a huge failure due to a complete lack of variety and unique locations (worthless level-scaled loot was just the icing on the cake), and in terms of world design it's an even bigger failure because nothing about the dungeons makes any kind of sense whatsoever (where the fuck did all those tunnels come from and why on earth would anyone have built them that way?)

Skyrim was much better in the sense that it managed to add a lot more personality and purpose to its dungeons so that they once again felt like they might have some actual role in the game world. Although the linearity made them feel too gamey for most of the time, there was still enough unique stuff in them to make them feel different from each other, save for maybe all those draugr barrows and their recycled ideas.

 

[Raghar]

Skyrim killed all that by level scaled shit.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I think just the fact you can jump high and levitate in Morrowind makes the dungeons immediatlye more interesting because you're looking for places where you can use those abilities. You can't use those in Skyrim. And designers who made the dungeons for Morrowind would have accounted for jumping/levitation, so you'd expect places where you could use them to skip or travel in a more non-linear way. This adds another thing to consider when you're delving into dungeons.

This connects with what one poster said earlier. Travel in Morrowind involves many options: Recall/Mark/Levitation/Silt Strider/Jumping/Boats/Guild Teleporters. If I recall right, there's even a way to be blinded and run real fast? For that matter, high running might be an option. It's like a mini-game trying to figure out how to travle well. I know not everybody likes this because they don't want mini-games of this sort. In the case of dungeons, being able to skip things by travelling vetical is adding another option. It's these options which make the travel mini-game possible. Whereas Daggerfall has a more streamlined fast travel, it does still have Guild Teleporters, and its dungeons are more twisting/turning as well. In Daggerfall's case, there's not much to see on the map. Most of the traveling takes place in the cities and in the dungeons. So it's difficult to compare.

Frankly though I really like the Daggerfall dungeons. It's hard to pin it down. I know they're hard to navigate. They can be REALLY hard. I'm not lying, lol. Beyond the obviousness of the 3d viewer being hard to use, there're other things. A wall you have to click which teleports you somewhere and there's no visible distinction? Or how about a random torch you have to click?

Just having a 3d dungeon is what I want. 3d, as in being able to climb or levitate. To me that's so important and I think it naturally leads to more complex dungeons - which I like. I know not everybody would agree. I also think ti's hard to make a complex dungeon by itself and evne harder to also make it playable. If every dungeon has complex twists and turns, it'll require too much developemnt time. And not every player wants a convoluted twisting and turning sort of thing. So I think most games shoot for a common or middleground. And yet I think there's room for some games to be more extreme than others.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Dumbfuck tag deserving post.

Behold, and despair.

Spoiler

I just wanted an excuse to post that first pic. By the way, here's a funny post from the reddit thread linking to it.

Ah yes because swinging at an enemy 50 times doing 1 damage each time is so much better than swinging at an enemy 50 times and missing 40 times.

Having no or extremely limited ability to make spells, enchanted items, and potions is so much better than complete freedom to make any with any effect.

Having "famous" people doing a few lines of voice work is so much better than every NPC having so much to say about everything.

Having to play some minigame that completely negates the point of the lockpick skill even existing if you aren't braindead is so much better than the skill actually having some use.

It makes so much more sense to just randomly decide if you gain health, magic, or stamina at level up, regardless of how you've been playing, than by gaining them through your actions.

And thank god you only have to choose from 3 stats. Such great character building options there.

It's so great to just be able to know exactly where everything is even if you've never been there because reading and following directions is hard.

I love seeing the same dungeon layout, enemies, and traps hundreds of times.

I love only having to worry about a couple pieces of equipment.

I love that random bandits are wearing some of the strongest equipment in the game, otherwise I might actually have to look for it.

But hey those random bandits are still a challenge because they level up with me! God forbid I actually become stronger than trash enemies.

Sorry but kindly fuck off.

 

[DalekFlay]

I think you are genuinely romanticizing some baffling pile of shit.

Maybe if you'd take Morrowind's dungeons at their own merits I might partly concede but when you praise Oblivion's straight up copy pasted dungeons even by comparison then you're clearly going way overboard.

Most of Morriwnd's dungeons WERE small and simple. Most of Oblivion's were longer and more involved. I would still say I prefer Morrowind's though. For one thing when Morrowind did long dungeons they were excellent. Also Morrowind had hand-placed loot and more interesting things to discover, Oblivion dungeon diving is mostly boring and repetitive combat in boring and repetitive dungeon design.

 

[Crevice tab]

Most of Morriwnd's dungeons WERE small and simple. Most of Oblivion's were longer and more involved. I would still say I prefer Morrowind's though. For one thing when Morrowind did long dungeons they were excellent. Also Morrowind had hand-placed loot and more interesting things to discover, Oblivion dungeon diving is mostly boring and repetitive combat in boring and repetitive dungeon design.

Oblivion had actual copy pasted/randomly chosen dungeons. I don't deny that most of Morrowind's dungeons were small and simple but when someone tells you that he finds one dungeon copy pasted 10 times with exactly the same loot and enemies better than 10 small but unique dungeons then I'm going to say that he's full of shit. Praising Oblivion for dungeon design is just one small step up from praising the inane level scaling.

 

[Carrion]

Most of Morriwnd's dungeons WERE small and simple. Most of Oblivion's were longer and more involved.

Did the length add anything to Oblivion's dungeons, though? Pretty much none of the dungeons gave you any kind of a feeling of progress because they were the same all the way through, loot, enemies and assets included. I guess you could say that entering a lengthy dungeon and finally emerging from it with all your potions gone and your weapons half-broken has a certain charm to it, but the fast travel system still makes it pretty bland compared to an Ashlands trip in Morrowind.

Oblivion's dungeons were also incredibly "flat" compared to MW in the sense that they gave you very few alternative ways to navigate them or approach combat, so the ostensible "complexity" was pretty much for nothing (it's not like you could actually get lost in them either). Usually the dungeons consisted of a bunch of low rooms with two or three different exits and a ton of boring corridors connecting them to each other, which did not give you much room for different approaches. Even Skyrim with its super-linear dungeons managed to do a lot more by often giving you interesting tactical options (such as high ledges, choke points or short tunnels that quickly took you from one part of the dungeon to another, allowing you to go John Rambo on your enemies by filling them with arrows while constantly changing your position), Broken Oar Grotto being one good example. Oblivion barely made any use of the third dimension.

 

[JarlFrank]

If you want atmospheric and memorable dungeons in Oblivion, play Nehrim.