or maybe you're just deluded.
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Morrowind vs Skyrim objectively
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or maybe you're just deluded.
Genma:TheDestroyer
Arcane
Could be, lot of that going 'round.
Genma:TheDestroyer
Arcane
No problem, chum.
Edit: Y'know I've forgotten how many TES pictures I've saved over the years. This is starting to get fun.
Edit: Y'know I've forgotten how many TES pictures I've saved over the years. This is starting to get fun.
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Lemming42
Arcane
The elements you refer to as "immersion" in Morrowind and Daggerfall are part of what made them fun. By removing them, they actually sucked out the fun for many people.
What you're trying to say is that Skyrim is streamlined and simplified (or "dumbed down" to put a more negative spin on it) in the hopes of appealing to people who couldn't be bothered with the more complex systems of Morrowind and Daggerfall.
That's just gonna be a battle of semantics, but the underlying truth to it is that you and this new generation of hardc0re's would refuse to admit that there's a basic standard for satisfaction that affects healthy people the same way, includes things like hit feedback, fighting flying dragons with dual wielding flamethrowers, climbing mountain in HD textures and a very cool viking theme...
Immersion is because your intellect decided it needs to larp as you can see here :
Daggerfall is the better game on that matter.
He's not having ''fun''. That doesn't mean he's doing it unwillingly and doesn't feel good about doing this.
Immersion is because your intellect decided it needs to larp as you can see here :
Fair day to thee, traveler!
This will be a relatively short (ok, finished it – maybe not so short after all) story about my experience with TES 2: Daggerfall, mostly for people who missed it back in the day for some reason. Personally I was scared of legendary amount of game-breaking bugs and the whole “Buggerfall” rumors and didn’t even ATTEMPT to play this game when it was released. Oh, and I also never played Arena. And like most of teh internets, I only played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. I’ve spent a shitload of time in all three games just to find out that in the end it’s not my cup of tea. As sad as this may sound, no matter how long (AWFULLY LONG) time I played those games, both vanilla and modded-to-hell, the only thing they left for me is disappointment.
Morrowind was good but it had those nasty little flaws that broke me. First: ugly animations. I’m not a graphics whore, Stendarr be my witness, but I’m definitely into aesthetics. So either give me nice and nostalgic sprites (hello late Wizardry games!), some pixel art and other low-poly stuff and let my imagination do the rest or… How do I put it? If you leave NO CHANCE for my fantasy to make a picture by making the game look so detailed, then DO IT GOOD! I hate early 3D games. If I can't enjoy looking at my char, I can’t enjoy the rest of the game. Period. Morrowind was a nice experience at the start, with all that change of scenery and all. But soon I realized that I miss traditional medieval setting. The gameplay was somewhat repetitive. I got overpowered. Running like a wind and jumping over f-ng buildings. Then I finally quit. I never played any of the DLC.
Then came Oblivion. Medieval returned. Yay? NOT YAY. While they fixed the animations, a new issue occurred: those HORRIBLE FACES! And what's the thing about color palette? It was like I'm playing it under drugs or hallucinogen mushrooms. It was even harder to aesthetically enjoy the visuals of the game. First time I quit Oblivion is because of balance in vanilla. I guess they wanted to make a game harder than Morrowind but got “a bit” carried away. So there was no point in gaining experience: the mobs will always be ahead of you! Then came the mods. Frankly speaking, I attempted a new fresh start in Oblivion countless times. Some chars I played for long, others not so much. The main thing that drived me in this game was the possibility to actually live there. Just find yourself a cozy house or an inn to stay in a nice little hamlet and, well, settle up. Screw the main quest. The emperor gave me the amulet and I delivered it. GOODBYE.
It’s really cool how Oblivion throws you some random events as the time passes. It never gets boring to live in a single town. But eventually I got overpowered and gave up on the visuals. My eyes hurt so much. I never played any of the DLC. Even tho I got the collector’s edition.
And then came Skyrim. I gave it a shot, liked it, got overpowered and quit. After a month or so I gave it a shot again. Spoiled my char builds somehow and quit. Then the mods started to pop out. Have you ever spent a WHOLE WEEK just modding and fine-tuning a single game? Well, I have. I got all the immersive, game-hardening and visualistic stuff I could find. Frostfall, Hunterborn – no point in listing them all, but all in all I was over 60 mods. And I played this game again and again, starting one char after another. I quitted when it started to become too easy or buggy because of mods. In the end I honestly didn’t want anything grand. Just lived in a small shack, hunting and sometimes making town-trading trips. Because I couldn’t’ stand it anymore. The same freaking faces. The same freaking lines. Same quests. Same scripted scenes. Same towns with 3,5 houses. Same caves with same traps. Ok. I’VE HAD ENOUGH!! And so I quitted Skyrim for good without completing the game ONCE, just like I did with the others.
I don’t remember how I stumbled upon that review on Daggerfall somewhere. Probably that was youtube, probably it was here on the codex. The thing is, a certain statement caught my attention: ”Today Daggerfall is free to play and free of bugs. Now you don’t have an excuse not to try it”. And I remember me thinkin’:”That guy’s right. Why the hell not? It can’t be worse than other TES games after all”.
And so it began. I installed the game and spent some time figuring the settings. I’ll post my mini-guide later on for those who’s interested to save you some nerves. But at the time I finally managed to LAUNCH the game on my win8 laptop, frustration degree went up. Not skyhigh, but pretty high. I remembered my disappointment with Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, remembered all those rumors about how BAD and FRUSTRATING Daggerfall was. But I lauched it nevertheless. That was two weeks ago. I’m a different man now. Daggerfall showed and taught me so many things I can’t possibly describe here. It was a hard lesson though.
It began with the first dungeon. I didn’t get lost in it like many others – I played and enjoyed Eye of Beholder series after all – neither did I find the combat too hard. It was the F-KN CONTROLS! I made it to the exit – just for personal achievement – and ragequitted on the world map. Then I went to youtube to see if the others have the same control problems. Well. The vets can probably understand my embarrassment at the moment – the game had actually an option in mouse behavior to make it “like in Skyrim”. Don’t know how I missed it. After fine-tuning controls I traditionally made a new character and promised myself that I won’t read any wiki and just embark on my journey blindfolded.
Creation of the character. I went for “custom” and made my own “Lord” class, picking male Breton as my char. “This time I’m gonna roleplay it hard”, - I decided. So, my primary skills were Long Blade, Mercantile and Etiquette. The major ones were Critical Strike, Mysticism and Daedric. Just your average noble lord type: has some skill in swordplay, human resource management, somewhat interested in magic and daedra interaction. Main attributes were Personality, INT and WIS. Advantages: Long Sword expertise and higher mana capacity. Disadvantages: critical weakness to poison and disease, since these are the most common cases of nobles death. And restriction to use anything orcish-made. No nobleman would ever wear that! Vets may notice that that “build” is actually non-suited for powerplay with hard to train skills and nasty disadvantages. But I decided to restrict myself from powerleveling and meta-gaming and just embrace the atmosphere.
So I’ve cleaned the first dungeon. Again. And when I went outside, I told myself: ”Fuck the map. I survived the shipwreck, right? How am I supposed to have a map? Let’s say I’ll buy it in the town or something. I’m gonna walk forward blind until I find a settlement”. And so I walked. And walked. And walked. Let me tell something for those of you who never played this game: you have NO IDEA how giant and empty this world is. It’s definitely not empty when it comes to locations, of course, and there are much more of those locations (towns, dungeons, lonely shacks, holy sites, etc.) than you can ever visit, but the world map… I thought I was ready for this. That’s how I roll in Unreal World for example: I never zoom out to world map until stumbling upon first settlement. And that game has one big-ass world map. But as for Daggerfall… I’ve spent ONE REAL LIFE HOUR walking in one direction. I didn’t stumble upon anything. The “outside-of-locations” world scares me. What if there was no map or fast travel? It would be HELL. Empty. No interactable objects, no mobs, no recognizable land features. It’s such a pity actually. If there were roads with signs and a bit of mobs and random events, some kind of faster horse running ability while outside if towns, I would definitely play it without fast travel. Well, most of the time. Why? Because you can’t really appreciate the size of the world if you don’t have a slightest idea of how big it is. All those sandbox games are literally what they are: SANDBOXES. And this… This is a true-sized continent. With true freedom. And so many places you will never see.
I don’t want to spoil the experience for those who never played it, so I’ll be brief on some major things that I loved and hated about that game:
1. Keeping track of things. Modern games made me soft and lazy. They take my hand from the beginning and hold it to the end. But back in the era when there were no internet or in-game journals or maps, some of us used to play with notebook and pencil. My advice? If you receive ANY kind of quest-related letters from a courier (there are quiet a lot of them), take a damn pencil and copy them in your notebook. At least the important stuff, like:”Meet dat person in dat place before dat time”. You would also want to draw a dungeon map sometimes, coz the in-game one is absolutely useless and will usually confuse you even more. But that is when you’ll be in the mood of some old-fashioned slow dungeon crawling (which is the best mood for this game). And keep track of the current year too. I found it pretty inconvenient that there wasn’t such in-game. And sometimes when you fast-travel from High Rock to Hammerfell, whole months pass by. Overall, you barely need that notebook and most of the time the in-game one will suffice. Just keep it somewhere close to you in case you need it.
2. Visuals, interface, style and all the eye magic. This game is simply beautiful. It takes some time to configure the resolution and quality in configure files/side tools, but it’s worth it in the end. I believe this world. The cities don’t look like ridiculously small hamlets. Every new TES game has a damn habit of making the cities smaller and smaller. I hate it. But this game does everything right in that matter. I’ve chosen to live in city of Dwynnen and join the Order of the Raven – knights who protect the barony of Dwynnen. Soon the people of my town started to recognize and love me. Then I suddenly realized that I remember names of all the shopkeepers and guild members. And always stay in the same inn – not because it’s close to something or anything, no. I just love it. Love how big-ass it’s looking, featuring three floors – I actually never saw an inn so big in my travels. Hell, it’s bigger than the local palace. And I love how Edward Ashcroft, the bartender, has this ability to ask me for a favor in MOST INAPPROPRIATE times, e.g. when I’m on guild quest or something like that. I can’t refuse this man. After all, I live in his damn inn for free, And when I come to say “hail” and buy some mead, he sometimes takes an opportunity to ask me for a small favor. Well, screw it. That’s what friends do.
3. The shops, items, equipment, trading and all the commerce stuff. I love it so much, you will not believe, it’s beyond everything I saw before. At one point of the game I took on a quest from my Order: to kill a daedroth that somehow occupied a nobleman’s residence. Those amateur summoners. And so I went forth to give him a taste of my dwarven claymore. Well, it didn’t end well, coz all daedra are immune to common materials, like iron and steel and not-so-common like dwarven or elvish. I was forced to make a tactical retreat and made some shop runs to find something from mithril or better. And guess what, it wasn’t there. Even when you’ll be cladded in full ebony set and wear daedric weaponry, you’ll have a VERY HARD TIME finding even dwarven-made equipment. Coz dwemers are long dead. Their stuff is considered to be rare relics. HELLO! This is how’s it supposed to be lore-wise! Shopkeepers aren’t supposed to sell you daedric helmets! You want leather – there’s your f-kn leather. Iron – most of the places. Steel? Young man, good luck finding decent steel. What? “A SILVER KATANA”? Now that’s some high-tier demands you have. I remember how I stood in front of that residence with daedroth inside, considering my options. 99% of Daggerfall quests have a time limit. It’s usually 10-30 days – more than enough for taking it slow, but not nearly enough to leave it for later. I couldn’t just forget about it and go dungeon crawling for mithril weapons. The noble householder is in danger! So what do I do? Buy some magic weapon or a spell. Or mana potions to kill it with my initiate shock spell. And that’s when I found out that I cannot buy any of these. Alchemists sell ingredients, not potions. You want to make or buy a potion? You have to join and rank up in certain guilds. NOBODY sells enchanted stuff, except for mages guild. THAT HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE! Once again, I love it. And so I joined mages guild and made my own spell for a shitload of money. This spell delivered continuous magic damage over a long period of time and saved my arse more than once. And yes, money is an issue. And the GOLD HAS WEIGHT! You’d better get used to short working hours of banks. I did. And loved it more than you can imagine.
4. I was frustrated by quests and dungeons more than once in this game. Those who never played Daggerfall cannot imagine the sheer size of EVERY. SINGLE. DUNGEON. Ok, so there actually are smaller dungeons. How much smaller? Two modules, to be exact. “What is two modules”? It’s actually bigger than anything you saw in Skyrim. Or Oblivion. Or Morrowind. Two modules is STILL ENORMOUS! And it goes up to SIX. I think that a six-moduled dungeon is actually bigger than a whole f-ng GRIMROCK! And so I cheated sometimes. Small things. Like teleporting to the start in cases I forgot to put an “anchor” for recalling spell. Or finding a quest object when I thought that the game glitches. Like “I cleared the whole dungeon and afterwards spent two real-life hours looking for the quest object. The game must’ve glitched out. It just ain’t there, dammit”. Of course it was there. It is always out there somewhere. Some turn you missed. Some door you never opened. Daggerfall lets me cheat. I could just leave the dungeon and abandon the quest – it’s not a big deal and just a minor reputation strike. I wouldn’t even noticed it. Better yet, I could give it a rest. Nobody can crawl one dungeon after another and not get tired of this eventually. Daggerfall is supposed to be played slowly. It never rushes you. The time limits are there just for one reason: so the players won’t take 22384 quests they will never embark on. You know. LIKE IN ALL OTHER TES GAMES! Once again, I love it. It is so f-ng simple and logical, just to add something like “If you won’t return in 14 days, I will consider you dead” or “we have only 10 days to stop the necromancers before they gather enough force”. Tell me now, why it’s never implemented in all of RPGs in the world? That is so beautiful. The questgiver shouldn’t wait a f-ng eternity for you to remember about his quest. The villain shouldn’t just stand on one place doing nothing and waiting to be killed. So let me get it straight: while this game gives you a lot of stuff to do and experience, it is still a dungeon crawler. Not in the mood for dungeons? Just give it a break then. Don’t force yourself to play Daggerfall. Why do I stress it so much? Because this game features the most beautiful and astonishing dungeons you will ever see. And never, NEVER listen to those saying otherwise. I did. That’s why I play this game in 2014. I remember the time when I just started the game and went for some random dungeon “as is”. With no skill and only three starter spells. The entrance to the dungeon featured a locked door and a hole in the floor. I could not open the locked door, so I just jumped down yolo-style. I’ve spent my whole day in that dungeon. Smoked a pack of cigarettes. Drank smth like 10 or 12 cups of coffee. Drawn more maps of the place than you can imagine. I never found the quest object. And I couldn’t get out either. I’m writing this with a nostalgic smile (although it was only two weeks ago) but at the time I was as frustrated as it comes. Some areas were flooded and my char couldn’t swim well even without armor (YES, wearing armor and keeping a lot f stuff in your inventory makes you drown! YAY!). So those areas were prohibited for me. My climbing skill wasn’t sufficient enough to climb my way back to the entrance. And there were also some freaky levers that I never figured out what they did. In the end I finally made it up to the entrance, combining some climbing with “slowfalling” spell – don’t ask. I was HAPPY to abandon the quest and first thing I did when I came back to town is buying the “recall” and “waterbreathing” spells. And that is what the game teaches you: be f-ng PREPARED for anything! Did I tell you about that one time when vampire ancient trapped me in this tiny room? I will sometime. But back to the cheats: I can’t remember now where I heard it, but someone said that Daggerfall is much more enjoyable when you do small-cheating to compensate the “weak aspects” of the game. Fck this guy. And fck me for ever listening for that “sound advice”. Cheating my arse…
5. I suppose I should say a few words about bugs. There aren’t any. Yeah, you’d better save often and use different slots for backups – there was one single time when my game crashed on saving and corrupted the whole save slot with it. Good thing I made backups. And you’d better save before elevators or climbing, but trust the guy who played all other TES games with and without mods: latest Daggerfall version is the most stable TES game you ever played.
Here comes the final part of this story: how I betrayed and destroyed my char. That was the hardest lesson Daggerfall threw up on me. At some point I opened up wiki, read some articles and made the F-NG PRACTICE SPELLS! And before long, I was 12 level (leveling in this game is very different from other TES games, it took me two weeks to reach level 6), took the Enchanter rank in mages guild and made myself a set of super-munchkin-magic-items. Overwrited all my backups for some insane reason. I was like “YEAH, my char is awesome demigod! FCK you, Daggerfall, I AM UNSTOPABLE!!1”. I never expected the answer. The game said:”Ok”. Because that what the game does. It provides you absolute freedom to do whatever you want however you want. Want to cheat, dive into meta-gaming, do some powerleveling and munchkin your arse off? All right. Do it. “Here are your barbarians with daedric sabers – I’m sure you missed them since Oblivion. Oh, and here are some shitloads of money. You are high-level after all. What? Of course, you may enchant anything you want and make some Armageddon-type spells, you silly. If that’s how you roll, I will not stop you. You can even take off your beautiful ebony set of armor and put on utterly ugly daedric one. Because you know. Higher armor stats?”. And then I cried.
Maybe I will return to other TES games someday. They sure need a lot of modding and home rules. If I ever find the strength to do it, I will NEVER EVER do the power-leveling and meta-gaming. No munchkin stuff. Now I understand exactly why these game brought only disappointment – Daggerfall showed it to me. When I was creating a char in Daggerfall, I knew that I was gonna roleplay this guy. And I wanted to take more disadvantages, e.g. restriction to use axes – that is not a proper nobleman’s weapon! “But then I won’t be able to raise my axe skill. What if I want to max out all my skills? You know, SOMEDAY”. The second bell was when I received invitation letters from Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild. For those of you who don’t know this: you’ll only have one chance to join them – invitations with time limit. If you don’t accept them in time, you will NEVER EVER be able to join these guilds. You already know what I did, right? A noble paladin of the Order of the Raven, defender of the Dwynnen barony, a hero of the province and example of virtue… Accepted apprenticeship among thieves and assassins. Just in case he’ll want to rank ‘em up SOMEDAY.
I am deleting all my save files right now. I regret nothing. If I didn’t make all that mistakes, cheating, power-leveling, meta-gaming and stuff, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this or any other TES game. It is a truly magical experience when you roleplay to the end. And my char, lord Vincent Rayne, was enjoyable to play in the beginning. Before cheating-and-wiki period. Minor spoiler alert!I remember how he caught that lycanthropy disease (no wonder, being prone to literally ANY disease due to his background) and became a wereboar. At first I was in shock. “A wereBOAR?! Not even a wereWOLF! How th… WHY?! I am a knight, dammit! NOT A BOAR!”. But then… Vincent was physically slightly above average. Speaking numbers, his STR, AGI, END and SPD were all 50-60. And then they suddenly became 90-100. Suddenly he could take on vampires head on. Not vampire ancients, but still. He felt an urge to hunt once in a few weeks tho. Being a true knight of the Order of Raven, he NEVER EVER hunted in Dwynnen province. When the urge was unresistable, he travelled to small bordering towns of Crosswych and Grimtale – those of neighboring Urvaius province. There he could turn into a wereboar and slay people. Then he received that letter from lycanthrope hunter, stating an ultimatum:”Either you meet me in templename where we will figure out how to cure you, or I’m going to hunt you like the beast you are”. Vincent received the letter while embarking on a quest from his Order. An orc-infested dungeon. He had no problems DESTROING them in his wereboar form, being immune to iron and steel. And when he got out, he made his decision:”No cure needed for me. Hunting people of Grimtale and Crosswych… If that what it takes to protect good people of Dwynnen, so be it”. That what a man he was. Of course, then he read the f-ng wiki and got Hircine’s ring and whatnot… Damn.
This is my conclusion: Daggerfall ISN’T HARD combat-wise. It gives you just the challenge you need. Sometimes a cakewalk, sometime boss-types mobs and pretty balanced combat at most of the times. Trust me, there is absolutely no need for hardtrying and overpowering your char. That said, I am going to start the game over with a set of house rules. Feel free to post your own.
1. No cheating. In the history of EVER. If I forget to (re)cast an anchor in the dungeon entrance, so be it. My own damn fault. I’m gonna endure it and find my way out. And if I’m not able to find quest object, then I’ll just admit my fail and move on.
2. NO PRACTISE SPELLS! Damn. Magic is essential in this game. It is great and very helpful. It makes you feel a professional dungeon crawler. You cast “open” spell on a locked door, “waterbreathing” + “waterwalking” before swimming, “slowfalling” or “levitate” before jumping in some kind of abyss and “banish daedra” if you suddenly meet a daedroth or something. Magic in Daggerfall feels like in no other TES game, where you could play without it or be a pure magic user – whatever suits your fancy. Daggerfall makes you appreciate your spells. But powercasting-sleeping-powercasting-sleeping? No. Never again. That’s a vow.
3. Magic items and artifacts. That is a hard one. The original game gave you magic items, artifacts and ability to make your own, but not to repair them. When they wear out, they break. Even those gifts from daedric princes will eventually wear out and “reappear” somewhere else, coz they never break. “Reappear” means “You can forget about them”. And you are free to dwelve into config file, add a line and make it possible for magic stuff to be repaired. Your choice. And that’s a thing: if you are able to repair magic stuff, you’re are easily a demigod. To repair smth you must enchant any item with “repair”. Meaning you actually have access to enchanting in mages guild. Meaning you can enchant your own stuff. And by the mercy of Stendarr, you cannot imagine the possibilities. It could be really game-breaking. But I want to make myself a unique adamantine sword! Screw the magic, I have to put it on enchantment table just to rename it. From here on it is considered magical, EVEN WITH NO ENCHANTMENTS! And you tell me I cannot repair it? Another thing is that magic items take a durability hit every time they are removed/put on. I think the devs made it so the players won’t bother undressing every time before going to sleep of fast-travelling. The stuff will wear out more slowly if you wear it at all times. But sometimes my not-very-nimble-fingers just hit the wrong button and I ACCIDENTELY put on some random amulet instead of just throwing it in the backpack. It replaces my current one and gives it a durability hit. Damn. I have enough reasons to reload already, don’t give me another one! Solution? I don’t know, frankly speaking. But while my new char makes a fresh start, I will give it a good thought. It’s gonna take a long time for him to make it to enchantment table anyway.
4. No out-of-char guilds. I liked the “Lord” class and I think I’ll go for it again. Knightly order suits me just fine, as does the mages guild. A nobleman is always eager for knowledge. Maybe I’ll join a third fraction, something religious probably, but that’s it. Dark Brotherhood? Thieves Guild? Screw you both.
5. No level-up rerolls. I hate myself for this. Why do I always want those max hp and attribute points? COME ON, the game is not THAT HARD! Damn, the hardest part is actually orienting yourself in dungeons. MAXED OUT ATTS WILL NOT HELP YOU AT THAT! And saving the game every time before resting not because you fear mobs but because you fear sudden level-up with NOT MAX HP is just outright pathetic. I may take some rerolls with my starting atts – it rarely makes a difference anyway and I like ‘em rounded, but never again on a level-up.
6. I’m gonna go for the slowest experience scale at the start. When you need three times more practice to level up skills. I want that magic to last. When you play the game without thieving, like I usually do, money can be an issue. And in case of Daggerfall that is a HUGE issue. So much stuff you want, so little assets to afford them. A horse, a wagon, a house, a ship – and I didn’t even mention the shops. Donning full set of steel makes you happy like a child. Finding a dwemer claymore on level like 3 was the happiest moment of my life (I know, I have a sorry life).
7. If I ever become frustrated, I’ll just give it a break. I’ll come back to the game later, I just know that I will. Because I won’t find so grossly complicated dungeons anywhere. Or such a huge believable world that gives you absolute freedom. Or so many roleplaying options, without restricting your fantasy like other TES games do. And believe it or not, Daggerfall has the best visuals among all other TES games for me (well, ok, never played Arena – so I won’t speak for that one). I love the char doll and the entire interface. I love huge low-poly cities. I love every single monster sprite. I love all the blood, gore and nudity. Best combat among the TES games? Once again, it’s Daggerfall. I could forgive the game all it’s flaws just for the “feel” of sword in my hand. It’s unbelievable how responsible it is. While I enjoyed all that fancy Skyrim combat – it’s without doubt satisfying and enjoyable – it never gave me such a special feeling. And I love it. There are just SO MANY THINGS I love about that game, I cannot mention them all. And if you are just like me, a vet RPG gamer who missed that gem for any reason, grab it. It is free now. And free of bugs. You have no reason not to try
P.S.: I would appreciate if somebody helps me with a certain issue. I play this version which includes all the official and unofficial patches and “DLC” stuff: http://wiwiki.wiwiland.net/index.php/Daggerfall_:_DaggerfallSetup_EN
And there is level-cap problems. Original Daggerfall didn’t let you increase your atts or skills past 100 points or 100%. That kinda made players to level-cap at lvl 30 or smth and some genius overwrited those restrictions and included in one of those patches among the good things. Vincent’s running speed is 241% already. It pisses me off. Anybody knows how to change it? Or at least where is it hiding so I can turn it off?
=== === ===
In the memory of Lord Vincent Rayne, Paladin of the Order of Raven. R.I.P.
Daggerfall is the better game on that matter.
He's not having ''fun''. That doesn't mean he's doing it unwillingly and doesn't feel good about doing this.
Elder's scroll combat has always been child's play. That's some very unconvincing elitism to pretend these systems were ever the meat of the game to begin with.
Lemming42
Arcane
I wasn't talking about the combat specifically, which I agree is universally shit in every TES game. Do you think the only thing that was simplified between Morrowind and Skyrim was the combat?
I'm sure fighting flying dragons with dual-wielding flamethrowers is fun for
Since you're speaking about systems, yes.
You don't need to be a neurosurgeon to understand there's a difference between the kind of reward you perceive by punching a dragon in the dick and walking 2 hours between cities because that's how it would be if this universe was real.
Genma:TheDestroyer
Arcane
Having fun messing around with spell creation, full-fledged guilds instead of groups with little pacing and radiant quests, and the ability to explore without a bar at the bottom of the screen pointing out every place of importance < physical impact in combat. Apparently.
Genma:TheDestroyer
Arcane
Even if you were the type to do that, Morrowind still had in-lore ways to get around quickly. Mark/Recall, Almsivi and Divine Intervention, Silt Striders and boats, etc. You paid money for someone to transport you, or to learn the spells or buy scrolls containing them or have something enchanted for you. If you happened upon the Boots of Blinding speed maybe you worked out something to counter the side-effect and blitzed around the continent, or if you were a strong enough mage you could fly everywhere and ignore that pesky mountain in your way.
Choice is the name of the game with older titles.
Edit: Forgot two things. If you played Tribunal you could acquire the Mazed Band which brought you a crap load of places, and there were also Propylon Chambers in the Dunmer Strongholds. Keep the individual Indexes in your inventory or set out on the quest provided by a free piece of DLC (imagine that) to get the Master Index that allows you to access any of the strongholds' Propylon Chambers.
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Exactly. Todd understand what makes a game cool and what does not. Skyrim is a theme park, now imagine if he managed to link the attractions together in Skyrim 2.
Lemming42
Arcane
Actually, it's a good thing you mention the walking 2 hours between cities thing because it's useful in illustrating my point.
The primary source of fun in games, to many people on this forum and elsewhere, is in overcoming obstacles the game sets out. When you start Morrowind, you walk at the speed of a glacier, you're absolutely shit at combat, you barely have enough money to use the silt strider fast travel, etc.
By the end of Morrowind - or about an hour in if you're any good at the game - you'll never spend 2 hours walking anywhere again because you'll fly, teleport, run faster than Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. You'll never lose a fight again because of the enchantments you've worked out for your weapons and the spell combinations you've come up with. That - in addition to the lore-rich setting - is what made it compelling and fun for so many people. Daggerfall, of course, takes this to an even more extreme level by basically forcing you to know exactly what you're doing or otherwise you'll be completely ineffective.
In Skyrim, what challenges does the game present you and what tools does it give you to overcome them? The only challenge is combat, but as you say the game allows and encourages you to "fight flying dragons with dual-wielding flamethrowers" at level 1. As for tools it gives you to overcome challenges, I can't think of any part of Skyrim that requires you to think about how to approach a problem. The only real choice is combat or stealth, but Skyrim's stealth is built around combat with the only real purpose of it being to score sneak attack criticals. There's no guild progression to speak of - in Morrowind you necessarily started out in any guild doing shit entry level work whereas in Skyrim you're almost instantaneously the chosen one and propelled to the highest rank the guild has to offer.
I don't begrudge anyone who wants to just sit down and piss away a few hours punching dragons in the face while being the master of every guild two hours into the game, but many of us don't find it anywhere near as enjoyable. While Skyrim encourages you to become an unstoppable demigod, Morrowind forces you to keep up with it or be left behind and walk for two hours every time you need to go anywhere. While Skyrim points out cool stuff to you on the compass and beckons you towards it, Morrowind gives you a lump of land with no immediate clues where to go and leaves you to find it all out for yourself. When that's the kind of thing you want in a game, Skyrim ultimately leaves you cold.
When I read your first post earlier in the thread I agreed with what I thought you were trying to say - that Skyrim removed all the things from Morrowind that got in the way of the immediate gratification that people seek and that it isn't necessarily a bad thing - but if you think that Morrowind is "objectively" less fun than Skyrim then I don't know what to say.
Your post is an elaborate version of what I've been saying up until the semantic problem.
That's because gratification is the FUN. There's no need for the tedium if all you're looking for is gratification. Todd understands that and he cut the bullshit and so his games sell like cupcakes.
What you attribute to Morrowind are immersion enhancing factors or OCD triggering progress addiction. But they don't make the game fun, the kicks you get out of it can not be compared to simple amusement.
That's because gratification is the FUN. There's no need for the tedium if all you're looking for is gratification. Todd understands that and he cut the bullshit and so his games sell like cupcakes.
What you attribute to Morrowind are immersion enhancing factors or OCD triggering progress addiction. But they don't make the game fun, the kicks you get out of it can not be compared to simple amusement.
Lemming42
Arcane
A lot of people aren't looking for simple amusement though. Not everyone's being a cool hip elitist or whatever when they say they didn't enjoy Skyrim.
I understand that Todd knows that the majority of potential buyers are looking for the instant gratification that Skyrim aims to offer, and he successfully streamlines and simplifies each new installment in the TES and Fallout series to appeal to those people. I think, though, that you've made up your own definitions for "fun" and "immersion" and that's what's causing the bulk of the problems here.
If you want the game to let you figure out things on your own and everything else I said Morrowind does in the previous post, then you don't experience Skyrim's instant gratification because it's not what you were looking for in the game. If you want to dual wield flamethrowers against dragons, be instantly powerful and have the game hold your hand on a tour around all it's interesting locations then Morrowind holds no appeal to you and could be seen as "tedium", as you described it. That's as far as that statement goes, I'm really not sure how you manage to mutate that into "Skyrim is objectively more fun than Morrowind".
Douchebag
Joined: Oct 10, 2015
You Comrades seriously discuss with this newfag moron and Rougey? The former wants porn movie aka instant gratification not a game which rewards the effort you put into studing the rules and the latter seeks the mythical balance while half of fun is find a way to beat the game in a way creator hasn't even imagined.
Slow walk? Train running, join Temple/IC to get cheap Intervention scroll learn basic mark and recall spells... in Elder Scrolls universe magic talent of modest size is very common... You can hit thing with a sword? Git Gud Join Imperial Legion/Fighter Guild/Noble House do some city work and do hire guld trainers at discount; what a looser you must be to think killing Dragon at level 2 while aided by Immortal Dark Elf Captain and her unit is more fun?
Joined: Oct 10, 2015
You Comrades seriously discuss with this newfag moron and Rougey? The former wants porn movie aka instant gratification not a game which rewards the effort you put into studing the rules and the latter seeks the mythical balance while half of fun is find a way to beat the game in a way creator hasn't even imagined.
Slow walk? Train running, join Temple/IC to get cheap Intervention scroll learn basic mark and recall spells... in Elder Scrolls universe magic talent of modest size is very common... You can hit thing with a sword?
But that's what fun is. Those are textbook synonyms. The state you are in when you play slow games like the first two elders Scrolls is almost purely intellectual as opposed to the thrills you'll get playing the rollercoaster Todd crafted. You just have to hear all youtube let's plays of those hardc0re games, you will hear somewhat bored, soft nasal voices. Every single ones. Versus the casual games radbrad crowd who's about to orgasm at every turn.
Skyrim is objectively more fun than Morrowind. You gave Morrowind what belongs to Morrowind better than I would but that does not constitute fun, only other reasons to play if you're looking for this particular kind of leisure.
What does this mean even. You don't know which one of us has been enjoying games longer than the other.
Codexlurker
Savant
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2010
- Messages
- 366
Sadly I never got to experience that. I played Requiem with a lot of mods added on, so the dragon basically one shotted me.
DramaticPopcorn
Guest
Both are good games.
Not joking/trolling.
Skyrim is better at melee/ranged (non-magic) combat and has better graphics, but Morrowind is better at everything else.
*bends over*
167 hours
and I never got around to beat dragonwhatever so I might play it again in the future
Wake up America
You don't even know what you don't know newfag.
Skyrim's the only game I've played that has given me the feeling that instead of having fun I'm actually working: just repeating the same boring routines over and over again with no real sense of achievement or enjoyment, fruitlessly waiting for the moment when it actually turns into something genuinely interesting or exciting. There are no "thrills", it's like working at a conveyor belt that churns out linear draugr dungeons and tries to make you think that it's worth it by continuously handing out some measly rewards. If that is the definition of "fun", then I think I'm willing to support Josh Sawyer in his quest to destroy it once and for all.
A good part of the 20 000 000 buyers were quite happy with their purchase.
New shouts, spells and what not. Skyrim had a great deal of things to collect. You can end up with a multitude of shouts, legendary equipment, riding dragons and with your own hand built estates. I think the exploring/collecting is definitively made worth it. Not less than Morrowind. If you want to make a point about level scaling then address it clearly. As it stands I think it's a mechanism that's not yet perfected even if it did address the problem of steamrolling Morrowind was suffering from. Some people would argue steamrolling was a good thing, I found it dull especially when it kicked in already halfway.
Dreaad
Arcane
All of Skyrim was steamrolling you idiot. You steamrolled everything at level 1. In fact you steamrolled everything more at level 1 than at level 30.
You do your job and as a reward get slightly better tools for doing the same job. In Morrowind the whole nature of the game changes on the course of a playthrough, from walking and taking the bus to flying, jumping and teleporting all over the map like it was nothing.
You're not describing "fun" by any real definition of the word. I don't know where you even pulled that idea from. What you're describing is closer to an addiction, and that is pretty much what Skyrim has been designed to be like: it lures you into a certain behavior and keeps on throwing you these small rewards to keep you hooked, without ever forcing you to think or do anything that might snap you out of your "rollercoaster" of "thrills". I'd still recommend using heroin as it's a lot less harmful to your brain. It also has a fairly happy userbase of around ten million buyers at the moment.
Lemming42
Arcane
This is frustrating because I know exactly what you're trying to say and I think you know exactly what I'm trying to say, the whole thing just hinges around your use of the word fun. Yeah, Todd crafted a rollercoaster ride and if you want a rollercoaster ride then you'll enjoy it, but for a lot of us especially on this site we weren't interested in taking a trip around Todd's theme park and so the game didn't provide much or any fun.
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