LarryTyphoid
Scholar
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- Sep 16, 2021
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Been playing these two recently. Sometimes on the Codex it's treated as a given that Morrowind was dumbed-down decline from Daggerfall, even from fans of the game. From what I've seen so far, I disagree. Here are some observations of incline in Morrowind:
Morrowind made playing a pure warrior character actually fun. In Daggerfall, magic is a necessity. Without the Recall spell, your time spent in dungeons can be almost doubled depending on how deep you had to delve, and how well you can deal with the in-game automap. Without crucial effects like Resist Shock, monsters such as Vampire Ancients and Liches will instantly kill you with recourse. Levitate is extremely useful in randomly generated dungeons, and literally required in main story dungeons (you can be softlocked if you don't have it - some objects are present that can be activated to gain the effect, but some are nonfunctional due to glitches). If you're not a High Elf (or if you didn't select "immune to paralysis" in the in-game cheat menu that is custom class creation), Free Action is necessary to survive the many monsters that paralyze you, including early-game enemies like Giant Spiders.
Arena had a solution to these sorts of issues for non-magic characters - magic items and potions. Any character could go to the Mages' Guild and purchase magic items (which, when invoked, could cast any spell in the game a limited amount of times) or potions. Magic items were also the most common loot drop. But Daggerfall introduced joinable factions - in order to incentivize players to join these factions, they locked the ability to purchase potions and enchanted items behind guild ranks, and in their eagerness to do so, neglected giving non-magic characters any way to safely prepare in the early-game.
Enchanted items and custom enchantment is locked entirely behind the Mages' Guild, and the Mages' Guild requires the player to have a certain level in magic skills, so it's not like later games where you can join and get the benefits even as a no-magic shitter.
Potions are locked behind temple ranks. You have to reach at least rank 2 (depending on the temple) to be able to buy potions. In order to achieve such a rank, you will likely have to brave at least one dungeon without any sort of magical protection, and temple missions often have you fighting ghosts or other creatures that require higher weapon material types to even damage. Against such enemies, you might be able to use enchanted items to cast fireball spells, but alas, we already know that such is impossible for the warrior character without extremely good luck in loot drops.
If the player does survive long enough to reach the required rank for potion buying, they had better hope they joined a temple NOT dedicated to either Kynareth or Julianos - these temples do not offer potion selling, no matter how high your rank is. And you can only join one temple - you must get yourself expelled somehow if you want to join another one. And Kynareth is the most widely worshiped Divine in the starting province of Daggerfall.
How did Morrowind solve this gaping problem in Daggerfall's class balance? It's simple. They just went back to how it was in Arena. Even if you're not a member of the Mages' Guild, you can still just walk in and buy enchanted items and potions. Potions are also commonly sold in many stores outside of the Mages' Guild. So a warrior can gain access to most of the utility of magic that mages can access, except they need to prepare more in advance by spending money on scrolls and enchantments. This is how this should be handled, and Daggerfall messed it up completely. Because I was so conditioned by Daggerfall, I first tried to play Morrowind with a hybrid warrior-mage character, but I just couldn't craft a character that I really enjoyed. So I threw all those ideas away and made a pure Nord Barbarian, and I'm enjoying my run with him a lot so far. I'm packing potions of Cure Disease, Cure Paralysis, and lots of healing potions - I feel properly like a well-prepared and experienced adventurer straight from the works of Robert E. Howard, rather than a bumbling, impotent clown getting paralyzed by every spider he comes across.
I had more observations but this OP is too long already, so I'll make another post later. Feel free to add to the thread with your own thoughts on this subject.
Morrowind made playing a pure warrior character actually fun. In Daggerfall, magic is a necessity. Without the Recall spell, your time spent in dungeons can be almost doubled depending on how deep you had to delve, and how well you can deal with the in-game automap. Without crucial effects like Resist Shock, monsters such as Vampire Ancients and Liches will instantly kill you with recourse. Levitate is extremely useful in randomly generated dungeons, and literally required in main story dungeons (you can be softlocked if you don't have it - some objects are present that can be activated to gain the effect, but some are nonfunctional due to glitches). If you're not a High Elf (or if you didn't select "immune to paralysis" in the in-game cheat menu that is custom class creation), Free Action is necessary to survive the many monsters that paralyze you, including early-game enemies like Giant Spiders.
Arena had a solution to these sorts of issues for non-magic characters - magic items and potions. Any character could go to the Mages' Guild and purchase magic items (which, when invoked, could cast any spell in the game a limited amount of times) or potions. Magic items were also the most common loot drop. But Daggerfall introduced joinable factions - in order to incentivize players to join these factions, they locked the ability to purchase potions and enchanted items behind guild ranks, and in their eagerness to do so, neglected giving non-magic characters any way to safely prepare in the early-game.
Enchanted items and custom enchantment is locked entirely behind the Mages' Guild, and the Mages' Guild requires the player to have a certain level in magic skills, so it's not like later games where you can join and get the benefits even as a no-magic shitter.
Potions are locked behind temple ranks. You have to reach at least rank 2 (depending on the temple) to be able to buy potions. In order to achieve such a rank, you will likely have to brave at least one dungeon without any sort of magical protection, and temple missions often have you fighting ghosts or other creatures that require higher weapon material types to even damage. Against such enemies, you might be able to use enchanted items to cast fireball spells, but alas, we already know that such is impossible for the warrior character without extremely good luck in loot drops.
If the player does survive long enough to reach the required rank for potion buying, they had better hope they joined a temple NOT dedicated to either Kynareth or Julianos - these temples do not offer potion selling, no matter how high your rank is. And you can only join one temple - you must get yourself expelled somehow if you want to join another one. And Kynareth is the most widely worshiped Divine in the starting province of Daggerfall.
My level 2 Nord Knight at the Temple of Kynareth:
How did Morrowind solve this gaping problem in Daggerfall's class balance? It's simple. They just went back to how it was in Arena. Even if you're not a member of the Mages' Guild, you can still just walk in and buy enchanted items and potions. Potions are also commonly sold in many stores outside of the Mages' Guild. So a warrior can gain access to most of the utility of magic that mages can access, except they need to prepare more in advance by spending money on scrolls and enchantments. This is how this should be handled, and Daggerfall messed it up completely. Because I was so conditioned by Daggerfall, I first tried to play Morrowind with a hybrid warrior-mage character, but I just couldn't craft a character that I really enjoyed. So I threw all those ideas away and made a pure Nord Barbarian, and I'm enjoying my run with him a lot so far. I'm packing potions of Cure Disease, Cure Paralysis, and lots of healing potions - I feel properly like a well-prepared and experienced adventurer straight from the works of Robert E. Howard, rather than a bumbling, impotent clown getting paralyzed by every spider he comes across.
I had more observations but this OP is too long already, so I'll make another post later. Feel free to add to the thread with your own thoughts on this subject.