How is the Elder Scrolls series views by Codexers?

[markec]

Arena - didnt play much of it so I cant comment.
Daggerfall - love this game, although it does have its share of faults.
Battlespire - one of the most underrated games of all time, but it is very buggy.
Redguard - never played it.
Morrowind - one of my favorite games.
Oblivion - complete garbage and worst Bethesda game ever made (havent played Starfield)
Skyrim - a bad game but a decent platform for modding.

 

[Ryan muller]

i never understood Daggerfall fans

The game has level scalled enemies that will change depending on player's level, level scalled equipment that will show up on shoppings and dungeons as loot depending on PC's level, quests that are randomly generated, pretty much glorified fetch quests that are almost entirely about dungeon crawling or going to generic location to murder generic characters without any characterization

the story isnt great (althought not retarded metaphysics level like morrowind) and its very tedious past the first 3-4 hours, since well, its very, very, very repetitive by nature. Never understood how so many people hail it as this great rpg, best part of the entire game is character creation by far, everything else feels really experimental

 

[Lemming42]

quests that are randomly generated, pretty much glorified fetch quests that are almost entirely about dungeon crawling or going to generic location to murder generic characters without any characterization

This is the case in the later TES games too, it describes many MW/Skyrim quests especially (except you'll get one or two lines of dialogue, eg "that draugr stole our lyre" or "those people are egg poachers")

The reasons people like Daggerfall are, in brief:
- World sim aspects that are completely lost in later games, such as regional reputations, banks, a crime system with actual consequences, social class reputations, etc
- Best character creation in the whole franchise, obviously
- Travelling on the world map is a mechanic in itself with resources to spend (money/time) and consequences for wasting time, totally absent in later games
- The game accomodates a range of builds. It doesn't do all of them with a great amount of depth, but it tends to do it better than later TES games do, and the range of mechanics at play mean you can come up with interesting builds - eg, you could be a parkour master who's also a wandering doctor, or some weird shit
- The only dungeons in the whole TES franchise that require you to think rather than walk forward and hit shit
- Combat isn't great but it's better than MW's disaster combat, Oblivion's health bloat nightmares and, depending on your preference, Skyrim's arcadey combat
- Procedural generation means that playthroughs are unpredictable and you often get emergent stories you don't expect, especially if you take commoner quests
- Atmosphere is superb, feels really grittily unpleasant and weird in a way that none of the other games do. Daggerfall and MW are the only TES games where the setting's actually interesting, and for fans of the series, it's always going to be a choice between MW's metaphysical stuff and Daggerfall's political intrigue and post-war gloom

the story isnt great

It's my favourite story in the TES series, though it's quite awkwardly told in a way that makes it easy to miss details and wind up confused. It's great when it all clicks and you figure out what's going on.

 

[Froila]

One mention of Battlespire so far in the thread and none for Redguard

Also Stormhold, TESO and Oblivion Mobile. And this is good.

 

[Ryan muller]

World sim aspects that are completely lost in later games, such as regional reputations, banks, a crime system with actual consequences, social class reputations, etc

yes, this makes sense, however every consequence feels very gamey when nothing is hand crafted and reduced to generic prompts.

Travelling on the world map is a mechanic in itself with resources to spend (money/time) and consequences for wasting time, totally absent in later games

It doesnt make much of a difference in the long time, specially since the only con you can get doing it is getting a disease (which is rather rare), ends up feeling very automatic, the timer for quests is incline tho, i agree.

The game accomodates a range of builds. It doesn't do all of them with a great amount of depth, but it tends to do it better than later TES games do, and the range of mechanics at play mean you can come up with interesting builds - eg, you could be a parkour master who's also a wandering doctor, or some weird shit

Its infuriating to play without a spell caster hybrid due to how dungeons are generated, you always will want to be able to cast recall, which means you always have to pick certain advantages and will be gimping yourself without them, you can also save scum alot to try and avoid that, but its just time wasting.

The only dungeons in the whole TES franchise that require you to think rather than walk forward and hit shit

they arent handcrafted, its not saying a lot, they arent handcrafted and by nature items and quest objectives can spawn out of borders. there was a lot of times in which i had to glitch the game to acess things that i normally wouldnt get because a pendant or a werewolf i should kill was hidden in a room floating on the void. its really bad.

Procedural generation means that playthroughs are unpredictable and you often get emergent stories you don't expect, especially if you take commoner quests

It also means its very repetitive and as such, tend to be quite tedious, the game is very bloated with content and it takes 80 hours+ to go throught it at times, which is far beyond the acceptable for games with generated content, it would be far better if main quest wasnt level gated, so you could progress with it at your own pacing, thats not the case, so in replays i tend to ignore the main quest completely.

- Atmosphere is superb, feels really grittily unpleasant and weird in a way that none of the other games do

why unpleasant? it feels charming as far as i can tell, specially due to the cool shopping music and the snow theme.

It's my favourite story in the TES series, though it's quite awkwardly told in a way that makes it easy to miss details and wind up confused. It's great when it all clicks and you figure out what's going on.

i wouldnt say confusing, theres some cool elements such as the whole thing with orcs, but the actual storytelling is rather generic and theres not characters in the game as much as placeholders with a bunch of exposition. i got more character out of Sei's character in the books that are in-game than the actual npcs we talk with

 

[jakkis]

Oh how the mighty codex has fallen, people singing oblivions praises here ITT. Were you not alive when this POS came out? It's the harbringer of decline, the antichrist of RPGs, the reason we didn't get van buren but oblivion with guns as the sequel to fallout.Yes I know it's not actually the reason. But still if anything embodies the great rpg drought of the aughts and just decline in itselft it's oblivion.

 

[Lemming42]

Its infuriating to play without a spell caster hybrid due to how dungeons are generated, you always will want to be able to cast recall, which means you always have to pick certain advantages and will be gimping yourself without them, you can also save scum alot to try and avoid that, but its just time wasting.

My favourite build is unarmed only (because the damage scales in a really satisfying way as you level up, plus you can ignore material resistances for enemies) and I never had too much trouble getting out of dungeons. I like to drop items so there's a trail of loot piles to follow back to the entrance.

It's true that the original DF is buggy as fuck though. DF Unity is the way to go because it fixes so much of those core issues like shit weirdly spawning inside walls.

why unpleasant? it feels charming as far as i can tell, specially due to the cool shopping music and the snow theme.

There's always something horrible happening just under the surface. You walk into these idyllic countryside towns, but when you go into the bar someone's trying to arrange a kidnapping, or someone's in trouble with Daedra, or any other number of things. The procgen really helps with this because it means it's constantly taking you by surprise and you never know if a random person you walk up to is about to involve you in something horrific. Then you go into the dungeons and you see corpses dangling from the ceilings and such; if you ask about rumours and do commoner quests then you find that people just tend to go missing and never return pretty commonly. Plus, the books all make it even worse - the basis of the legal system is "all are guilty until proven innocent", the book "Rude Song" implies that pedophilia is normalised, stuff like that. There's also some surreal stuff - the Alikir Desert seems to have some kind of psychedelic properties, people who research Nymphs end up going missing, etc.

You get a sense of gloominess if you look around, too - the War of Betony just ended and nobody seems particularly happy about anything. There's beggars and homeless people strewn about everywhere, people struggling with alcoholism and such. People from Hammerfell are pissed off about the situation of Aubk-i, who they consider a prisoner of war.

In the main quest, pretty much everyone turns out to be out to get you too - Morgiah's up to something very strange, Elysana is doing some power play that involves you and might cost you your life, Gothryd and Aubk-i are hiding what they know about Woodborne and will have you killed if they realise you're onto them, Cyndassa is telling you a massive lie of omission to get you to commit quasi-murder, Lysandus himself was just a total piece of shit, and so on.

 

[Froila]

Oh how the mighty codex has fallen, people singing oblivions praises here ITT. Were you not alive when this POS came out? It's the harbringer of decline, the antichrist of RPGs, the reason we didn't get van buren but oblivion with guns as the sequel to fallout.Yes I know it's not actually the reason. But still if anything embodies the great rpg drought of the aughts and just decline in itselft it's oblivion.

Codex is the place where people praise ye olde games and curse the new ones.

 

[Ryan muller]

There's always something horrible happening just under the surface. You walk into these idyllic countryside towns, but when you go into the bar someone's trying to arrange a kidnapping, or someone's in trouble with Daedra, or any other number of things. The procgen really helps with this because it means it's constantly taking you by surprise and you never know if a random person you walk up to is about to involve you in something horrific. Then you go into the dungeons and you see corpses dangling from the ceilings and such; if you ask about rumours and do commoner quests then you find that people just tend to go missing and never return pretty commonly. Plus, the books all make it even worse - the basis of the legal system is "all are guilty until proven innocent", the book "Rude Song" implies that pedophilia is normalised, stuff like that. There's also some surreal stuff - the Alikir Desert seems to have some kind of psychedelic properties, people who research Nymphs end up going missing, etc.

You get a sense of gloominess if you look around, too - the War of Betony just ended and nobody seems particularly happy about anything. There's beggars and homeless people strewn about everywhere, people struggling with alcoholism and such. People from Hammerfell are pissed off about the situation of Aubk-i, who they consider a prisoner of war.

In the main quest, pretty much everyone turns out to be out to get you too - Morgiah's up to something very strange, Elysana is doing some power play that involves you and might cost you your life, Gothryd and Aubk-i are hiding what they know about Woodborne and will have you killed if they realise you're onto them, Cyndassa is telling you a massive lie of omission to get you to commit quasi-murder, Lysandus himself was just a total piece of shit, and so on.

You know what, i will give you that, you have a really good imagination. I particularly couldnt get any feeling out of it since npcs felt so static and out of place, i recall wanting to question Branziah about "the real barenziah" book and couldnt since my only ways of answering her demands were "yes/no" and my only input in npc dialogue were "gentle, neutral, angst" so i never really felt anything in particular out of the atmosphere or idea of the supposedly fucked up world, all i got out of it were the books themselves but always felt they contrated way too much from the rest of the gameplay.

In particular again, Sei's story on King edward's saga was quite cool

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The main appeal of Morrowind was always the sheer number of quests and different factions and just the weird atypical fantasy setting. Especially the latter I miss in Daggerfall and Skyrim. In base Oblivion too but the Shivering Isles were awesome - but I didn't play it in years. I need to revisit Oblivion and Skyrim certainly - especially Skyrim since I never played the DLCs.
All the games have something deeply going for them in concept - Daggerfall with the vast generated world and quests, Morrowind with the, to repeat myself, sheer number of quests and different factions. Oblivion had the daily schedule of the NPCs even though I honestly barely noticed it when playing it - but I like the concept (I doubt it's so interesting to pursue it to be frank). Skyrim was not so great in concept terms but simple fun.

 

[Tyranicon]

For some reason Bethesda continuously strips away the best part of their games with every new installment. Seeing what happened in Starfield, the next TES game will be peak normie slop.

It used to be that "mods will save the game." Now we don't even have that.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I once visited a friend and he had Oblivion box on the shelf. I had no idea what that was, so I simply asked "Is it good?"

His response was "Yeah, it's good", so I got it too. BIG MISTAKE.

Friends don't let friends play Oblivion.

 

[Beans00]

Oblivion and skyrim are complete garbage. Most people who like those games are bozos.

Morrowind is also garbage, it's relatively popular here. Most of the posters who like morrowind are retards. There's a few exceptions of decent posters who like MW like jarlfrank or luj1. For the most part it's enjoyed by bozos. Basically it's the ultimate game for people who just want to walk around and read lore books.

Morrowind, oblivion and skyrim are all easy mode games.

Daggerfall is apparently harder, I've never played it. Old people usually like it, some people dislike the procgen.

I don't see arena mentioned much at all.

 

[Humanophage]

ESO PvP is quite nice, as is the mod for CK2. The mod has an idiotic decision for buildings that undermines the economic component of the game, so other mods like Geheimnisnacht are better. Still, it made me interested in TES lore.

In terms of the main line of games, it's amazing how bad they are in terms of characters. Also the level-scaling in Oblivion is the most monumentally insane design decision I have seen. I do think they're great for hiking, although worse than first-person Witcher 3, and I appreciate the contribution Skyrim made to promoting northern European culture. Morrowind is also beautiful, but also rather boring gameplay-wise, although it is good that is more freeform.

 

[Sweeper]

The loss of quality and depth between Morrowind and Oblivion is far smaller than the loss between Oblivion and Skyrim. Oblivion is, despite all its faults, an RPG. Skyrim is a glorified action game.
I myself have huge nostalgia goggles when it comes to Oblivion, and I can recognize that fact. But if you think Skyrim is the better RPG you're off your rocker.

 

[Skinwalker]

Arena and Daggerfall are unplayable old.

Moronwind has some good parts, but is very flawed. It's also too old by now.

Oblivion destroyed CRPGs forever. I hate everything about it.

Skyrim was a merger of Oblivion and Moronwind, basically. Probably the best of the series, but still too quest compassy.

*unplayably

And I don't mean because of technical difficulties. They're just absurdly outdated. Even Moronwind is basically ancient trash by now, let alone Daggerfall with its spinning flat NPCs and endless random-generated towns that are all the same.

 

[Nikanuur]

Excuse moi, but unclaw Jhar Khajiit at TES Legends?

Also, don't forget that if not for Skyrim, we wouldn't have had this:

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

i never understood Daggerfall fans

The game has level scalled enemies that will change depending on player's level, level scalled equipment that will show up on shoppings and dungeons as loot depending on PC's level, quests that are randomly generated, pretty much glorified fetch quests that are almost entirely about dungeon crawling or going to generic location to murder generic characters without any characterization

the story isnt great (althought not retarded metaphysics level like morrowind) and its very tedious past the first 3-4 hours, since well, its very, very, very repetitive by nature. Never understood how so many people hail it as this great rpg, best part of the entire game is character creation by far, everything else feels really experimental

Daggerfall has the best character-building for a single-character game: 8 races, 2 genders, 8 attributes, 35 skills (divided between primary, major, minor, and other), max hit points per level, 11 types of special advantages (8 of which have subtypes), 11 types of special disadvantages (10 of which have subtypes), and even factional reputation modifiers.

Daggerfall also employed procedural generation to create vast, sprawling, 3D dungeons as well as a variety of settlements, from hamlets to large cities:

Underworld-style 3D dungeon-crawling with much more complex character customization and an effectively limitless amount of vast dungeons to be explored, combines for compelling gameplay, even with the level-scaling, bugginess, and other drawbacks.

 

[Old Hans]

Even Moronwind is basically ancient trash by now

I wouldn't go this far, but having played it recently I will say they definitely over relied on stacks of wooden crate props to fill out many areas.

 

[Ryan muller]

Daggerfall also employed procedural generation to create vast, sprawling, 3D dungeons as well as a variety of settlements, from hamlets to large cities:

Bigger != Better would be the best way to describe my impressions about it. But again, i ve never seen an example of well done procedurally generated dungeons, it tends to get exhausting and buggy quite fast.

i would much rather just play the more handcrafted and carefully designed underworld if i would go for dungeon exploration.

Daggerfall has the best character-building for a single-character game: 8 races, 2 genders, 8 attributes, 35 skills (divided between primary, major, minor, and other), max hit points per level, 11 types of special advantages (8 of which have subtypes), 11 types of special disadvantages (10 of which have subtypes), and even factional reputation modifiers.

This i agree, its the high point of the game as far as i can tell

 

[Outlander]

Everything after Morrowind is pure shite.

 

[destinae vomitus]

It's not an RPG and arguably not a good game either, but Redguard does not get enough credit for its story/worldbuilding. Besides being an entertaining swashbuckling adventure with more cinematic flair than most wannabe movie games, it more or less laid the groundwork for Morrowind's portrayal of the setting and has the same kind of "magic" going on.

 

[Cryomancer]

Arena : Laid the foundations and is good
Daggerfall : Great but could be a bit less repetitive
Morrowind : The best of the series
Oblivion : Ruined by dumbing down + worst level scaling ever
Skyrim : Good modding platform awful game.

 

[Lemming42]

Redguard is fantastic, it's a really nice middle-ground between DF and MW. A little more fantastical and surreal then DF but without slipping all the way into Kirkbride's metaphysical "check me out i do drugs and can read religious texts" bullshit, which gets a little tedious in large amounts. I like the Empire as the villains too, Redguard was the only game that really leaned into the idea of them as glorified thugs and it works so much better than the Roman LARPers in MW or whatever the fuck they're meant to be in Oblivion.

They really should have kept making those games, I guess they were scared off by Redguard being dogshit to play (which is odd because all it had to do was copy Tomb Raider and it somehow failed) but the idea of shorter, more linear games in the TES setting where you play as interesting characters who go on exciting adventures is really cool, and a way to really enhance the setting by letting you see the world from all kinds of different perspectives - might be fun to play as a Thalmor Justiciar, or an Ashlander, or a scheming minor noble in Wayrest, or some Argonian off her nonexistent tits on tree sap.

 

[mondblut]

I'm not quite sure why they decided that you could attack a monster, have the sword swing which visually hit the monster, and it consider it a miss because of a dice roll.

That's how proper RPGs roll, dummy.