How is the Elder Scrolls series views by Codexers?

[mondblut]

This is the best TES Scrolls game for me.

But how does it hold as a roleplaying RPG game?

 

[mondblut]

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.

There's every other game to do just that.

It's refreshing to have, for once, a 1:1 scale gameworld full of nobodies who don't give a damn about you.

 

[NecroLord]

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.

It definitely is one of the most fun games in the series.
The way you can totally break the magic system and create all kinds of unique spells, my favorite being custom Jump spells (or you can just enchant an item with Jump 100 pts or higher) to FLY over Morrowind and stick it to the Cliffracers.
It allows you near total freedom from the moment you get out of Seyda Neen.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

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).

I never could get in to Oblivion. I beat Morrowind, and played a little bit with the expansions, but never beat them. If Bethesda hadn't bragged about the NPC schedules so much, I wouldn't have known it was a feature either.

It's still really odd to me that they went from Morrowind, which is so unique and saved the company, to utterly generic settings for their next two games. I thought that the genericness of Oblivion might have been why I couldn't get in to it after Morrowind, but I've tried playing it snce then and there's still nothing that grabs me with that game.

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.

Then don't show me visually that I hit the enemy. The only feedback the player has that he hit is a noise. Visually, it looks like a hit. If you want to have RNG play a part after that, that's fine, but there's better ways of doing it, dummy.

Oh how the mighty codex has fallen, people singing oblivions praises here ITT. Were you not alive when this POS came out?

Supposedly Bethesda retconned Cyrodill to be the way it is when it was, up to that point, supposed to be a jungle-like area. That might have actually helped it, since Oblivion is a very cookie-cutter setting. Maybe the engine and technology wasn't there at the time to do a lush jungle, but having Roman-esque Imperials etching out their place in a capitol that's in the middle of a jungle would have presented some unique things which Oblivion just didn't have. And it's such a stark contrast from Vvardenfell that it doesn't even seem like it's from the same developers at all.

 

[TheKing01]

The incline has increased in each entry, with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim managing to edge out all it's predecessors

 

[NecroLord]

Supposedly Bethesda retconned Cyrodill to be the way it is when it was, up to that point, supposed to be a jungle-like area.

Yeah, it was a huge jungle, but apparently Tiber Septim shouted the jungle away with his Thuum and turned Cyrodiil into a forest...

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I only played Skyrim. I thought it was cool at the time but I quickly grew tired of the formula with Fallout 3 & 4. I have zero interest in playing another one, old or new.

Edit

I lied. I also played ESO for a couple hours. It was dreadfully boring but that sums up my feelings about any MMO.

 

[mondblut]

Then don't show me visually that I hit the enemy. The only feedback the player has that he hit is a noise. Visually, it looks like a hit.

Swinging a weapon in a general direction of an enemy prancing in indeterminate but relatively close distance does not make it a hit.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, it was a huge jungle, but apparently Tiber Septim shouted the jungle away with his Thuum and turned Cyrodiil into a forest...

There's also the thing that the White-Gold Tower somehow changed the entire biome of Cyrodill to accommodate the Imperials. That's one of the funnier things I've heard.

 

[goregasm]

1. Morrowind
2. Daggerfall
3. Arena
4. Skyrim
5. Oblivion

 

[Fargus]

Arena: Mammoth shit. Never played it. No desire to.
Faggerdall: Nice game and playable with daggerxl, gets too repetitive unfortunately after you loot a handful of randomgen dungeons.
Morrowind: Quality shit, excellent lore and very memorable world, but needs anticheese mods because it's too easy to abuse. Good thing the modding community is stronger than ever.
Oblivion: Has it's moments, but generally a turd. Hard to redeem even with mods.
Skyrim: Popamole with shit questlines, but you can have tons of fun with mods. Really flexible in that regard.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Faggerdall: Nice game and playable with daggerxl, gets too repetitive unfortunately after you loot a handful of randomgen dungeons.

Pretty sure DaggerXL is dead, but there's still Daggerfall Unity which supports mods, and there's quite a few of them out there now.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

It's still really odd to me that they went from Morrowind, which is so unique and saved the company, to utterly generic settings for their next two games.
...
Supposedly Bethesda retconned Cyrodill to be the way it is when it was, up to that point, supposed to be a jungle-like area. That might have actually helped it, since Oblivion is a very cookie-cutter setting. Maybe the engine and technology wasn't there at the time to do a lush jungle, but having Roman-esque Imperials etching out their place in a capitol that's in the middle of a jungle would have presented some unique things which Oblivion just didn't have. And it's such a stark contrast from Vvardenfell that it doesn't even seem like it's from the same developers at all.

The Elder Scrolls setting always relied on a pulp fantasy approach for the human provinces, whereas the elven provinces were much stranger and the beastfolk provinces even more bizarre. TES II: Daggerfall covers portions of High Rock and Hammerfell, the former of which is based on late-medieval Britain and France, while the latter is based on Islamic North Africa (the Maghreb). Similarly, Skyrim might as well be called Vikingland, taking inspiration from a particular era of Scandinavian history. Cyrodiil, the Imperial Province, should have taken inspiration from the Roman Empire (following the depiction of the Imperials in TES III: Morrowind) or medieval Italy, but instead TES IV: Oblivion presented it as pseudo-medieval mishmash of influences, with no two cities even sharing the same architectural style. There's a complete lack of cohesion to Oblivion's setting, as well as a lack of any depth. Although TES V: Skyrim overall is about the same lower quality as its immediate predecessor, one thing it did better was having a coherent pulp setting, lending the game a consistent character.

 

[Fargus]

Faggerdall: Nice game and playable with daggerxl, gets too repetitive unfortunately after you loot a handful of randomgen dungeons.

Pretty sure DaggerXL is dead, but there's still Daggerfall Unity which supports mods, and there's quite a few of them out there now.

Yea, i meant dagger unity, i mixed them up.

 

[Machocruz]

One of the worst things I ever experienced in gaming is Oblivion's dumbed down itemization coming off of Morrowind. Maybe not so bad if you played a warrior or mage, but try playing a thief or treasure hunter type and you realize there is nothing good to steal and no treasure to find because of lack of unique, non leveled items, and because higher level merchant goods don't exist in interactable game space, and because container loot levels are not reflective of security level combined with the fact that you can unlock the hardest locks at any level by paying attention to sound cues, something I think Bethesda included intentionally because Oblivion was the start of the non-content gating, everyone should be able to do everything at any time ideology. All that compounded by the lower variety of armor, weapons, potions, scrolls, etc. And what proves that this was the biggest downgrade is when I used a single mod that restored itemization to near MW levels and Oblivion instantly becomes a much more fun, interesting, and rewarding game.

Mages had it bad too. Less spells, especially interesting ones. Can only access spellmaking at Imperial City or through a DLC location, and even then you can't craft as interesting combinations as in MW. Again, mods that brought the spell system closer to previous games show that Beth made a big mistake

Also I want to say Oblivion had less enemy types, but not sure. But again, a mod that upped that factor instantly made it a better, more satisfying game.

And then the other usual things like non-gated faction advancement, scaled enemies, potato head NPCs, lower amount of dungeon types, etc.

And then apply most of these things to Skyrim and subtract even base attributes. An RPG without base attributes! The stats that define your character's naked capability, before gear, items, or skillsets, are less important than "perks" to the average gamer now. Perks are supposed to be extras, that's what the word means, not the foundation. Also subtract interesting questlines, dungeons that are anything more than a fancy hallway, anywhere alchemy, spellmaking. To be fair I like it's type of setting and atmosphere more than OB's, and I believe there were more dungeon/structure types, and characters looked a little bit better, combat was more satisfying in some respects, immersive travel options were brought back.

Daggerfall and MW are better just by having moar, which is generally what you want in big, open world games like these. Taking shit out instead of adding or fixing has never been the right call, and as long as that is Bethesda's mentality, it's not going to get better after Starfield. I played some Fallout 76 recently and it felt like the plastic version of something that was once made out of die-cast metal, like Transformers. Cheap, synthetic, empty, even compared to 3 if you can believe that. That's Bethesda now and for the foreseeable future.

 

[Desiderius]

Arena: bought it at release, found it unplayable 10-15 hrs in

Oblivion: first 30 hrs or so among most memorable experiences in gaming, ultimate in murderhoboing with the bow. Kill or be killed. By the second Oblivion gate was like WTF this suuux

Morrowind: sad memories of blowing endless hours OCDing but overall probably decent game

Skyrim: Idk simply had fun for 500 hrs or so hanging out with Brynhold and shit. I like the Dragonborn monk guys too. Weird world was weird but fun. Get it confused with Witcher now.

TES CCG: good gameplay but shortlived

TES Online: unbelievably shit at release. Heard they improved it but by then I had a life and better games to play. Got my MMO fix with LotRO and a stint back in abandoned GuildWars.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Also I want to say Oblivion had less enemy types, but not sure.

I'm pretty sure it did as well, but at the same time, the monsters were all incredibly generic. Imps, trolls, goblins, various undead, and so on. Meanwhile, Morrowind had some of the most interesting creatures in any CRPG to that date, such as all the variants from the effects of the corpus disease, cliff racers(even though I hate them), the Ash species of monsters, Guars, Kwamas, Netch, and so on. In Oblivion, it was like, "Oh, a goblin. I'll kill it!" With Morrowind on the first playthrough, it was more like, "What the Hell is THAT?!"

 

[NecroLord]

Also I want to say Oblivion had less enemy types, but not sure.

I'm pretty sure it did as well, but at the same time, the monsters were all incredibly generic. Imps, trolls, goblins, various undead, and so on. Meanwhile, Morrowind had some of the most interesting creatures in any CRPG to that date, such as all the variants from the effects of the corpus disease, cliff racers(even though I hate them), the Ash species of monsters, Guars, Kwamas, Netch, and so on. In Oblivion, it was like, "Oh, a goblin. I'll kill it!" With Morrowind on the first playthrough, it was more like, "What the Hell is THAT?!"

Look at this fella.

 

[Harthwain]

Cyrodiil, the Imperial Province, should have taken inspiration from the Roman Empire (following the depiction of the Imperials in TES III: Morrowind) or medieval Italy, but instead TES IV: Oblivion presented it as pseudo-medieval mishmash of influences, with no two cities even sharing the same architectural style. There's a complete lack of cohesion to Oblivion's setting, as well as a lack of any depth.

Daggerfall depicted Cyrodiil as lush jungle with tropical climate. Morrowind showed Imperials as Romans. Oblivion? You couldn't be able to tell that at all, which shows terrible art direction. Even in The Elder Scrolls Online and Skyrim the basic Imperial soldiers at least resemble [medieval] Romans somewhat (in fact, The Elder Scrolls Online pulls the whole idea the best, out of all The Elder Scrolls games).

 

[Artyoan]

Severely broken with terrible combat but nevertheless highly immersive and still emblematic of what I want an open world to be.

 

[Mortmal]

Severely broken with terrible combat but nevertheless highly immersive and still emblematic of what I want an open world to be.

Indeed, no modding is going to change that. We have super graphics mods and combat revamp systems, but the game AI simply can't cope with those revised controls.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Skyrim is my fave oldschool game

 

[NecroLord]

Severely broken with terrible combat but nevertheless highly immersive and still emblematic of what I want an open world to be.

This applies to all the games in the series?

 

[Artyoan]

Severely broken with terrible combat but nevertheless highly immersive and still emblematic of what I want an open world to be.

This applies to all the games in the series?

Pretty much.

 

[Elttharion]

I think the music is fantastic, dont really care about any game in the series after Morrowind.