Morrowind is a game that, as opposed to what its RPG label and its "open world freedom!" would lead me to believe, is a game that gets more and more boring the more I play through it. There are many reasons as to why I find Morrowind boring, but there is one in particular that outright breaks the game for me. And that is
quest design. Morrowind's quests can be divided in two:
- Non-faction quests, which rarely demand something out of your build.
- Faction quests, which are usually oriented towards your build.
We can see an immediate difference with New Vegas: whereas Morrowind's quests are separated between "incloosive" and "gatekeeping", New Vegas quests, most of the time, have specific skill checks to unlock different paths or rewards. But even Morrowind's faction quests are a
lie:
- Thieves Guild/Hlaalu: you can easily spam the Persuade or Taunt button to pass most of the quests oriented towards "smoothtalkers".
- Mages Guild/Telvanni: very few quests actually demand your magic-oriented character to use their magic, if any.
- Fighters Guild/Redoran: very few quests actually demand you to engage in opponents in physical combat, if any.
Whatever is your intention with this thread, you are wrong in your title premise, you are wrong in your quest design diatribe and probably you never understood (even try?) the true motivations why many codexers and many other players value Morrowind as some type of experience as no other.
Starting by the last, Morrowind best components are worldbuilding, exploration and game content/diversity/uniqueness which are excellent: There are no other games that offer so many layers of societal life or subtle details directly linked with some quest or lore, the rich and complex exploration mechanics and content aren't even challenged yet by any other videogame, few games can't even compare to Morrowind magic system, or its 18 body slots, or the huge amount of interactive items probably the largest ever, or so many uniqueness -unique items, npcs, creatures- in which probably Morrowind is the best also, or the diversity of services, or so many factions, etc.
Other contexts in Morrowind experience as combat, main story or writting are decent mostly, with little exceptions not brilliant, but still better than many games in the codex top 70, and most rpgs out the list. So how to have "Bad quest design" if that was the case, makes a game so brilliant in other contexts "a bad rpg"?
I already knew the combat-crew opinion for whom combat, specially tactical, is the main (or only) reason to value a rpg, in which case neither Morrowind or New Vegas are in the Top 10 for sure. But this quest-design-centric perspective is new for me... In fact, most of the best combat-heavy rpgs are no better (when have at all) in these "quest checks" or "faction's quests design" than Morrowind.
Anyways your classification of Morrowind factions is grotesquely inaccurate. Firstly you intentionally omited near half vanilla Morrowind major factions: Imperial Cult, Imperial Legion, Morag Tong and Tribunal Temple. So in what branch of your absurd classification fits exactly the two religious faction, and what approach "should" have every quest of these factions? Why exactly do you classify Redoran with the Fighter's Guild, but not the Imperial Legion? And specially why do you assume that every faction should have monolithic thematic and approaches to complete their quests?? Even worst, why the fuck the factions should adequate to your character skills? What a shitty and simplistic worldbuilding is that? Morrowind factions favor specific
skills and have a non linear limiting design for advance not a cliche general stealth-melee-magic approach and I think this is fairly superior perspective even if untapped in Morrowind.
Monolithic thematic closed skill checks in faction quests is a terribly simplistic design, far worst, than open approach but with limited design and support to alternative solutions in Morrowind. In a ideal improved Morrowind quests design, I would love to see just the opposite: More approaches to solve the quests, not less...
Redoran faction quests, for example, shouldn't limit you to finish them by the use of melee combat... but simply make the skills favored by the guild useful in most quest. With faction checks, the player must improve the favored skills (by the faction, of course) to advance and have access to new quests and rewards, so makes sense that you use at least some of these skills regularly.
The character specialization limits, should be governed by the character progression/skill system always. Limit the possible approaches in quest solving is a bad design.
When your game's RPG elements ultimately boil down to your prowess in combat, and when said combat is arguably one of the worst combats RPGs have ever seen (and this is ultimately what will get users to agree with me or not), then you have a bad RPG in your hands. Morrowind's quests are a mostly linear affair, require no particular skills, and the ones which do require skills are either "fake" (e.g. faction questlines) or require cheesing (i.e. stealth quests).
How? In what sense is Morrowind combat "one of the worst combats" in rpgs?
Are plenty of good games with worst combats, not even counting the bad rpgs, but only the games in codex top 70 crpgs. In fact in what sense is New Vegas shitty-shooter combat any better than Morrowind's? In 17 years since Morrowind release the only complaints about combat as essentially
horrible,
among the worst, not simply worse than a good combat, but "the worst! I can't hit a mudcrab", that I ever seen are the casual retards later-TES, Kingdom's of Amalur, etc lovers that never played Fallout, Wyzardrys or Ultimas. So I'm genuinely interested to know how you justify Morrowind's combat as "one of the worst ever"...
As I said isn't a specially good combat, lacks balance and a bit of challenge, but fatigue influence, weapon deterioration, unique enemies, enemies extremely diverse use of magic, possibility to fail attacks or spells, attacks types and damage dependence of these types in different weapons, one of the most diverse and dynamic magic combats ever -even if overpowered-, attribute-skill heavy dependent combat, difference in weapons reach, underwater combat, very good looting after victory (good by diversity and uniqueness, even if sometimes overpowering) and some other features that I possibly forgot all makes Morrowind combat a decent experience for a rpg fan, specially comparing with the two simple combat games that you mention in your message. Most rpg ever made have far more simple, action based, less challenging, less rewarding or even less balanced combats, so how can be Morrowind's "one of the worst"?
An how can be quests that can be solved in several ways, without a specific skill limitation and with factions that permit finish the quest in different orders and allow to not finish at all some of them in order to reach higher ranks "linear" quests?
as opposed to Morrowind's factions demanding requirements that are never asked to be put into use explicitly
Again, Why is the limitation in quest solving by only using some skills something positive? Character skill use "limits" must be imposed by skill-character progression systems not by simpleton, monolithic and worldbuilding breaking, quest solving limitations design.
play through the Mages Guild as a fighter, or play through the Redoran quests as a mage
Wut? And faction-favoured skill checks? But anyway why must a political, interest or economic faction in a gameworld limit the fucking way to solve quests by a character? How these limits outside the skill-character system are a good design?
why wouldn't you put some magicks into primary skills if you want to use magicks anyway?
