Apologies in advance for the WORDS WORDS WORDS posting
I don't agree - you can spend a vast amount of time on the overworld in DF, depending on how you choose to play, and there are a huge number of quests that do not require dungeon crawling. Many of the tavern, merchant and noble quests take place within the city you're currently in, which can equate to a lot of gameplay spent simply roaming city streets looking for specific people or buildings and quizzing the locals. A number of guild quests are also overworld-only, especially for temples who'll ask you to go to people's houses to heal them or whatever.
Sure, but I'd be quick to draw a distinction between the procedurally generated overworld of Daggerfall (barring what, the actual cities of Daggerfall, Wayrest and Sentinel?) and the overworld of Morrowind. I'm also making a distinction here between the overworld (as in the wilderness) and towns. Morrowind's wilderness is where a huge portion of its gameplay takes place, which is a massive point of difference with Daggerfall. Morrowind is very much about the physical journey between quest giver and quest objective.
I think the only good thing MW does for thieves is add probes in addition to lockpicks, but they're both governed by the same skill so it's functionally a waste of time. The crime system, which we both agree is lost in MW, is another obvious blow to thief gameplay. Fun thief gameplay surely requires an element of risk and tangible consequences for failure, which MW completely lacks, beyond paying a fine to a guard.
We're in agreement about stores, so fine. I have no problem with Probes being under the Security skill, because it helps to balance it against Alteration. If Security only covered lockpicking, then it would be entirely inferior to Alteration, instead of just mostly. The consequence of "paying a fine to a guard" is a problem across all TES games, tbh. Crime as a whole has little actual consequence. At least in Morrowind you can receive a death warrant if you steal something valuable enough, or murder enough people.
Might as well throw in the mention here that Morrowind removed lock bashing, which has always annoyed me because there's no reason for it. Maybe for balance reasons or something, but again, thieves are completely fucked in Morrowind, so they could at least have thrown us a fucking bone.
Yeah, I always thought that this was kind of weird. My guess is engine/time limitations. As it is, Open scrolls are somewhat plentiful and this functions the same way insofar as it means money = open locks. You're just spending that money on scrolls instead of repairing weapons. Maybe they thought it would be unbalanced since you can repair your own gear now? idk
This isn't true; there's an enemy pacification chance with each language skill, including Etiquette and Streetwise (which is based on enemy class - Knights and such go for Etiquette, Rogues and such go for Streetwise). Etiquette and Streetwise also play a big part in NPC dialogue, meaning you'll get more use out of the Polite/Blunt options when applied to the correct social class.
I should clarify that I'm aware that the Language skills pacify enemies, I just don't think it's all that useful. Maybe you could make an argument for Daedric and Orcish since that potentially covers entire
dungeons in certain cases, but the pacification of Knights in a dungeon that includes seven other kinds of human enemies is...not even situational, but just a nice little bonus.
Remember that pacified enemies may also fight on your behalf and protect you from enemies who you failed to talk down, another useful mechanic for a thief whose skills do not lie primarily in combat.
I will openly admit that I wasn't aware of this aspect of the skills. This is, however, an option with the 'Command' spell effect in Morrowind. So it's simply moved from one skill to another.
I think the issue - which again, is replicated in Oblivion and Skyrim - is that dungeons in MW almost never actually allow you to use your non-combat skills in any meaningful way, nor do they offer any other form of gameplay. In Daggerfall, your language sklills automatically roll when you're in range of an enemy, as does your stealth skill. Navigating vertically means you'll have to use either your climbing skill or some form of magic (and if you don't have these, you might simply fail the dungeon). Underwater passages mean that not only will you require a solid Swimming skill, but you also might have to reduce your carry weight to avoid sinking - which means, for heavy armour characters, that you might have to go in naked, with all the risks that entails (and if you wind up getting teleported away, you'll now be naked in the middle of a new location with no idea where your armour went). Your core attributes play a part in all of this, of course - Strength (or Speed? I forget, it's STR in Arena) plays a role in how far you can jump, Agility plays a role in most of the athletic skills, and I'm sure one of them determines how long you can hold your breath underwater, though don't ask me which.
I think the design is different, because most of these things are present in Morrowind (except for armour/equip weight messing with underwater navigation), but are most commonly used to hide the best treasure from the player. Multiple dungeons have hand-placed, endgame loot hidden behind locked doors, areas that you need levitation or a massive acrobatics skill to reach, or in flooded areas that a character without a high Athletics or Swift Swim/Water Breathing won't make it through without taking damage. An Imperial Cult questline also has an NPC hidden in an area that requires Levitation. Telvanni towers require it, too. I think that you're also overstating the impact of armour+water in Daggerfall dungeons when just about everyone knows to create a low level Waterwalking spell that is super easy to cast and functionally removes these sections as an issue. Good in theory, busted in practice (like a lot of stuff in MW tbf)
This means that preparation also plays a key role - a mark/recall spell or enchantment is ideal, but you may also need levitation gear or potions and other things to help you navigate hazards which your character's skills may not be suitable against.
tbf this is also true of Morrowind and is a piece of advice that NPCs constantly give to you. Never travel into the backcountry without levitation, recall/intervention and cure disease potions/scrolls.
I'm aware of the internal system which determines advancement. I didn't know that it ever affected disposition of other NPCs outside the guild in question, especially because MW seems to very rarely have real consequences for low disposition (whereas in DF, people from guilds/social classes you'd alienated would outright refuse to interact with you at times, and you could be refused service). Are there any examples other than the one of the Mages' Guild and Telvanni?
It affects all factions. Mages Guild and Telvanni are the most hostile (apart from everyone and Vampires), but the effect can be compounded by joining multiple factions that are all disliked by the same ones. It also affects NPC-only factions, like the Camonna Tong. A Thieves Guild character playing through the MQ (so they've joined The Blades) will have a -5 modifier when speaking to Camonna Tong NPCs. I'll post a few images as examples:
They broadly tend to split along native/Imperial lines, but the Great Houses all dislike each other too. An interesting interaction, also reflected in dialogue, is that the Imperial Legion, Fighter's Guild and House Redoran all respect each other, making it very easy for fighter characters to join or pleasantly interact with all three factions. It's a contrast to the hatred between the Mages Guild and Telvanni, and the slightly less over-the-top disdain between the two religious factions and the Thieves Guild and House Hlaalu. Combinations like Imperial Cult+Imperial Legion and Tribunal Temple+House Redoran occur quite naturally, too.
Like with many things in MW, it's twice as annoying because it's a squandered opportunity. The tradeoff with MW is meant to be "yes, it's smaller and has less systems, but it's handcrafted!!!". In that case, you'd hope NPCs, given that there's comparatively so few of them, would be relatively unique, and have unique dialogue and personalities (even Oblivion set out to attempt this by giving everyone one or two dumb unique lines when you asked about the city you're currently in - "I'm Cockius Suckius, and I run the local store here").
I think the problem here is that Morrowind has like 3,000 NPCs and was primarily developed by six people.
The Camonna Tong supposedly revile me, yet they'll politely tell me about the history of Balmora with the exact same boring wiki dialogue that the nice old lady outside had.
It's about how it all ties back to the Disposition stat, but also certain topics aren't ever really hidden from you. Ask the Camonna Tong about "latest rumours" and they'll usually tell you to fuck off.
or there was a day/night cycle that actually affected anything
werewolves~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
