Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[rusty_shackleford]

complaining that you can join every guild is stupid, did you guys actually read the lore or do you just wander around randomly then get angry?
morrowind main character is not some random shmuck, he's a reincarnated godkiller on par with almalexia/vivec/sotha sil you dips

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

It isn't this like one of the major flaws of Skyrim?

Oblivion condensed the number of playable guilds/factions offering many quests from 10 in Morrowind to a mere 4, and it kept only the more conventional guilds; Skyrim is simply identical to Oblivion in this respect. Moreover, of the remaining guilds, there's one explicitly geared to each of three basic character archetypes (fighter, mage, thief), and the last (Dark Brotherhood) is more suited for thieves, so it doesn't make in-game sense for any particular player-character to rise in more than one guild (with an exception for evil stealthy characters and the Dark Brotherhood). Nonetheless, in both games, it's relatively easy for any character to become the leader of every single one of the guilds, without even the minimum skill requirements present in Morrowind. It's the reduction in the number of these factions that has always been among my major criticisms of Oblivion since its release in 2006.

 

[madhouse]

complaining that you can join every guild is stupid, did you guys actually read the lore or do you just wander around randomly then get angry?
morrowind main character is not some random shmuck, he's a reincarnated godkiller on par with almalexia/vivec/sotha sil you dips

God killer is that interested in being a massive paper pusher and organisator for five different guilds and institutions, handling and being responsible for everything from killing rats in old ladies storerooms and handling out cure disease potions to shit stained villagers? Game has no gameplay mechanics or any sort of a response to being a leader of the guild. It just means you're done questing there and need to do five more guilds in an autistic rush to complete everything.

 

[Jackpot]

I will say that I think you reach the cap of certain skills way too quick.
I decided to be a pure spear warrior, but I reached 100 spear by like level 10, when I still had 80% of the game to play through.
From then on it became either "kill things with the spear you're good at using but don't gain any levels" or "kill things with a different type of weapon but it takes forever because your skill in other weapons is low compared to these now high level monsters".

Morrowind seems like an RPG that has a challenging early-game, incredibly easy late-game, and a non-existent mid-game.

 

[Rincewind]

What are you doing at Caius' house at level 34 hmm?

As I said, I just finished the first Urshilaku camp quest, so went to him to report back.

 

[Rincewind]

I will say that I think you reach the cap of certain skills way too quick.
I decided to be a pure spear warrior, but I reached 100 spear by like level 10, when I still had 80% of the game to play through.
From then on it became either "kill things with the spear you're good at using but don't gain any levels" or "kill things with a different type of weapon but it takes forever because your skill in other weapons is low compared to these now high level monsters".

Morrowind seems like an RPG that has a challenging early-game, incredibly easy late-game, and a non-existent mid-game.

Exactly my experience, but others in this thread don't want to acknowledge that. Looks like it's a game that encourages exploring, but if you actually do that, then you "break" the game because your skills just cap too quickly. Btw, I'm using all sorts of mods from Sigourn's list that make the gameplay harder (yes, I'm using harder barter, but I'm still swimming in 30k gold after exploring a few daedric ruins and selling the dropped daedric weapons at 5% of the price).

So my summary so far, game world and lore is interesting, but the quest design is quite uninspired and the gameplay mechanics are just broken beyond repair, even with "hard difficulty" mods.

What I'll try now is to set the difficulty to the max, I haven't touched the default setting (middle) so far.

 

[Rincewind]

Last time I replayed the game I used mods that purposely gimped many OP mechanics and also others that made the game much harder. Still, by the time you are level 20 (and that was even with a mod that reduced my leveling speed by half) you can tackle almost anything, and by level 30 the game is a total joke.

Truth is what kills Morrowind is that there's no hard level cap. The game should cap out at level 15 or something, with no chance to keep increasing your skills. This would also make it impossible to join that many factions, instead of the ones your character is naturally good at. Gold is very easy to come by in Morrowind, so whatever "gimp" there is regarding Minor and Misc skills doesn't matter when you can spam training.

You are speaking the truth, we need this to be printed out and framed!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

complaining that you can join every guild is stupid, did you guys actually read the lore or do you just wander around randomly then get angry?
morrowind main character is not some random shmuck, he's a reincarnated godkiller on par with almalexia/vivec/sotha sil you dips

God killer is that interested in being a massive paper pusher and organisator for five different guilds and institutions, handling and being responsible for everything from killing rats in old ladies storerooms and handling out cure disease potions to shit stained villagers? Game has no gameplay mechanics or any sort of a response to being a leader of the guild. It just means you're done questing there and need to do five more guilds in an autistic rush to complete everything.

how about god killer that isn't aware of what he is and is only aware that he's naturally talented at everything he does?

 

[Sigourn]

Gold is very easy to come by in Morrowind, so whatever "gimp" there is regarding Minor and Misc skills doesn't matter when you can spam training.

you're playing modded, so just use MWSE Harder Barter. Pretty much entirely fixes the economy.

I do use it, but even without training it's easy to rack up skills. Not to the point you can become the master of every faction. But joining nearly all of the non-exclusive factions is very doable.

I will say that I think you reach the cap of certain skills way too quick.
I decided to be a pure spear warrior, but I reached 100 spear by like level 10, when I still had 80% of the game to play through.
From then on it became either "kill things with the spear you're good at using but don't gain any levels" or "kill things with a different type of weapon but it takes forever because your skill in other weapons is low compared to these now high level monsters".

Very true. I actually switched from my Long Blades (90) to Axes (45) just because the game was pretty easy otherwise, and also because I was leveling up my weapon skills far too quickly. Truth is combat is the thing you do the most in Morrowind, so combat skills should have been balanced to grow slower than other skills. On the same line, I found myself spamming Mysticism spells because in reality you won't really use them that often, and that makes the skill raise very slowly.

Overall I admit I haven't ever played the game vanilla in its entirety, but I do know the mods I install and how do they work, and even with all measures in place, the game still gets too easy.

I will say that I think you reach the cap of certain skills way too quick.
I decided to be a pure spear warrior, but I reached 100 spear by like level 10, when I still had 80% of the game to play through.
From then on it became either "kill things with the spear you're good at using but don't gain any levels" or "kill things with a different type of weapon but it takes forever because your skill in other weapons is low compared to these now high level monsters".

Morrowind seems like an RPG that has a challenging early-game, incredibly easy late-game, and a non-existent mid-game.

Exactly my experience, but others in this thread don't want to acknowledge that. Looks like it's a game that encourages exploring, but if you actually do that, then you "break" the game because your skills just cap too quickly. Btw, I'm using all sorts of mods from Sigourn's list that make the gameplay harder (yes, I'm using harder barter, but I'm still swimming in 30k gold after exploring a few daedric ruins and selling the dropped daedric weapons at 5% of the price).

If you still haven't, I recommend you install Realistic Repair. It will make loot you get in combat have low condition, meaning less money when you barter for it. And because Daedric weapons have an absurdly high durability, making a massive profit from selling them will be difficult.

 

[Raskens]

I will say that I think you reach the cap of certain skills way too quick.
I decided to be a pure spear warrior, but I reached 100 spear by like level 10, when I still had 80% of the game to play through.
From then on it became either "kill things with the spear you're good at using but don't gain any levels" or "kill things with a different type of weapon but it takes forever because your skill in other weapons is low compared to these now high level monsters".

Morrowind seems like an RPG that has a challenging early-game, incredibly easy late-game, and a non-existent mid-game.

Exactly my experience, but others in this thread don't want to acknowledge that. Looks like it's a game that encourages exploring, but if you actually do that, then you "break" the game because your skills just cap too quickly. Btw, I'm using all sorts of mods from Sigourn's list that make the gameplay harder (yes, I'm using harder barter, but I'm still swimming in 30k gold after exploring a few daedric ruins and selling the dropped daedric weapons at 5% of the price).

So my summary so far, game world and lore is interesting, but the quest design is quite uninspired and the gameplay mechanics are just broken beyond repair, even with "hard difficulty" mods.

What I'll try now is to set the difficulty to the max, I haven't touched the default setting (middle) so far.

This never happend to me in my three playthroughs

 

[Mud']

how about god killer that isn't aware of what he is and is only aware that he's naturally talented at everything he does?

True, however the Dovahkiin is also not aware, at least at the start that he is not random schmuck and therefor he can join whatever he wants because he can master every skill easily (But also taking note that Skyrim is retarded when it comes down to skills requirements to join guilds since there are none).

Lore-wise Morrowind and Skyrim main characters are on par with how they can join any guild and do whatever they want, the only random schmuck is from Daggerfall.

 

[madhouse]

complaining that you can join every guild is stupid, did you guys actually read the lore or do you just wander around randomly then get angry?
morrowind main character is not some random shmuck, he's a reincarnated godkiller on par with almalexia/vivec/sotha sil you dips

God killer is that interested in being a massive paper pusher and organisator for five different guilds and institutions, handling and being responsible for everything from killing rats in old ladies storerooms and handling out cure disease potions to shit stained villagers? Game has no gameplay mechanics or any sort of a response to being a leader of the guild. It just means you're done questing there and need to do five more guilds in an autistic rush to complete everything.

how about god killer that isn't aware of what he is and is only aware that he's naturally talented at everything he does?

Mary Sue is sure amazing to play and roleplay as.

 

[Rincewind]

If you still haven't, I recommend you install Realistic Repair. It will make loot you get in combat have low condition, meaning less money when you barter for it. And because Daedric weapons have an absurdly high durability, making a massive profit from selling them will be difficult.

Good tip thanks, I think I will try it.

 

[thesheeep]

Truth is what kills Morrowind is that there's no hard level cap. The game should cap out at level 15 or something, with no chance to keep increasing your skills. This would also make it impossible to join that many factions, instead of the ones your character is naturally good at.

That would probably the the worst thing you can do to tackle the problem.

Reminds me of Dragon's Dogma. I had unlocked all abilities, best gear and nothing more interesting to achieve character-wise when I wasn't even 50% done with the game. And I'm not even a completionist tackling all side-quests, etc.
So I just stopped playing, because what point is there to keep playing if your character won't get new abilities & strengths anymore - the rest of the game would just be repetition. The story really wasn't THAT interesting and the world mostly just vast without too many interesting things to see.
If character advancement stops, you have removed most of what makes RPGs interesting to begin with - especially for RPGs that are based on exploration and more sandbox-y (like all Elder Scrolls games).

Generally, the increase-by-doing approach in ES games is just one big exploitation fest. It will never be possible to fully contain powergaming within such a system.
There really is no reliable way.
Slow skill advancement down as some suggested here, and you will have most players complaining that advancement is way too slow.
Put in hard caps and you will have players complaining that there is nothing more to increase way before you "run out of game".
With an ES-like advancement system, you just have to live with the players breaking it in the end.

The classic level-up approach is just plain superior here, especially if not based on repeatable or grindable content. It is much easier to control when a level increase happens and how progression is paced.
Underrail would be a very good example here, especially with the oddity system (but even with normal combat XP it still kinda works, just not as well). You can do absolutely everything and still only squeeze a bit more XP and power out of it.
Or Vampyr, which ties its advancement to actual advancement of time in the world (you only level up when you sleep, which advances time, which affects the world, quests, etc.).

 

[Rincewind]

The classic level-up approach is just plain superior here, especially if not based on repeatable, grindable content. It is much easier to control when a level increase happens and how progression is paced.

I think you're right there. Becoming overpowered wasn't a problem at all in ELEX (or just very minimally, and only in the last 20% or so of the game), and that was an exploration heavy game for sure with a huge game world. And being a completionist, I made sure to mow down pretty much the whole map. The classic "collect XPs then level-up" approach is definitely the reason for that.

 

[Rincewind]

Underrail would be a very good example here, especially with the oddity system (but even with normal combat XP it still kinda works, just not as well). You can do absolutely everything and still only squeeze a bit more XP and power out of it.
Or Vampyr, which ties its advancement to actual advancement of time in the world (you only level up when you sleep, which advances time, which affects the world, quests, etc.).

I'm very interested in both of these games, so that's very good news!

 

[Funposter]

Very true. I actually switched from my Long Blades (90) to Axes (45) just because the game was pretty easy otherwise, and also because I was leveling up my weapon skills far too quickly. Truth is combat is the thing you do the most in Morrowind, so combat skills should have been balanced to grow slower than other skills. On the same line, I found myself spamming Mysticism spells because in reality you won't really use them that often, and that makes the skill raise very slowly.

I think this is another one of those things where Bethesda's design is out of step with the way that not only power/metagamers play the game, but the vast majority of people. Let's assume that a "weapon skill" is basically any skill whose primary purpose is causing damage. This leaves us with: Destruction, Marksman, Hand-to-Hand, Short Blade, Axe, Blunt Weapon, Spear, Long Blade. That's eight weapon skills, and just under 1/3 of the skills in the game. This means that, looking at Bethesda's pre-made classes:

One class has 5 weapon skills
Three classes have 4 weapon skills
Ten classes have 3 weapon skills
Five classes have 2 weapon skills, and
Only two classes have just one weapon skill

Major skills are a little bit better, since thirteen classes have just one Major weapon skill, six have two Major weapon skills and only two classes have three. Still, in a game where 90% of players will pick a single melee weapon skill as a Major skill and an extra 9% of players will select a ranged option (Marksman, Destruction) to go along with it, the design of these classes and arguably the game is totally at odds with how people play it. I genuinely think that Bethesda wanted the player to pick a few weapon skills, and then cycle through them as they got better loot. i.e maybe your Blunt skill is better than Long Blade, but you find a Glass Longsword that totally outclasses your Dwarven Mace and switch over to it until such a time that you find a new, shinier weapon which may or may not even be a Blunt or Long Blade weapon. Maybe you find a Daedric Spear, and decide to start training up Spear, which you picked as a Minor skill.

The pre-made classes are notoriously shitty but I recommend that people play the game as one at least once, since it sort of changes the way you look at things. I played as a Knight and didn't touch Axe until about Level 8/9 or so, when I found an Orcish Battle Axe. Once I found a good Long Blade to replace it with, I would have been around Level 13/14 and by then I had two Major weapon skills at around 65, instead of a single skill at 80-90 as most people would.

 

[Rincewind]

Good analysis, Funposter. Yeah this might be true from a fighter character's perspective, but things are still quite broken when playing a pure mage where pretty much all offensive spells are governed by Destruction. If anything, all this just shows the lack of forethought on the developers' part (and lack of playtesting, I can't imagine not running into these quite major issues with proper playtesting with a variety of different players & playstyles).

 

[Funposter]

it's 2020 and we're all well aware that bethesda and playtesting don't belong in the same sentence

 

[Sykar]

Frankly I don't really understand why "90% of NPCs are generic" is even a complaint. Most humans just don't have much of a role in anything other than basic society upkeeping, it's just natural that most NPCs exist just as space filler to make cityscapes not appear completely empty and to give you opportunities to ask random people for directions and quest rumours. As such, they fulfill this role of filler in spite of being generic, and it's an intentional choice. Is the complaint about them being walking wikipedias? Well most people know a decent amount about local politics, surroundings and recent events, but if you were to mimic reality more the NPCs should probably just refuse to talk to you outright since you're a bothersome stranger with too many questions.

I guess them having names and actually answering questions about the local area makes people expect more from them than just being generic signpost NPCs.

Other games would call them "Peasant" or "Citizen", while Morrowind gives them actual names and usually homes, too. And the names fit to their racial background, and their clothes reflect their social/financial status.
Which is a lot cooler from a worldbuilding and flavor standpoint than generic no-name NPCs, but I guess it makes people expect more than there is.

The fun thing is due to the disposition system there ARE minor NPCs who will refuse to talk to you about certain topics saying something along the line of "I do not trust you enough to talk about this". No such thing exist in 99% of the other games. Trying to improve their disposition via bribing or flattering can backfire, easily happening with low skill levels, and make them permanently not talking to you at all.
Sigourn just colossally hand waves all the interesting good parts away and pretend a lot of problems in the game are not present in games like Las Vegas where a lot of quests are of the same type as in MW.
As to the muppet complaining about Morrowind vs Daggerfall, with that kind of graphics the amount of hand crafting duneons and cities would have taken development probably more than a decade. Utterly insane to expect that. Of course they could have gone with lesser graphics. Then again how good was Daggerfall really? It too had a lot of problems like making it REALLY easy to make outright OP characters from the get go, the extremely buggy randomized and at times nonsensical dungeons where people used trash loot as bread crumbs to be able to oriented that hot mess. A lot of cities looked so samey that after a while I lost complete interest in exploring them further outside of guild quests.
Etc.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Being "overpowered" was entirely intentional, the game has a steep power curve for a reason. Again, stop detaching the gameplay from the lore.

 

[laclongquan]

Based on B games for awhile now, Iagree with that judgement. B games like players being OP.

 

[Sykar]

complaining that you can join every guild is stupid, did you guys actually read the lore or do you just wander around randomly then get angry?
morrowind main character is not some random shmuck, he's a reincarnated godkiller on par with almalexia/vivec/sotha sil you dips

Actually you are that random shmuck. You are not the reincarnated godkiller. Nerevar is a title. Accepting to become one does not make you his reincarnation. That was in fact one of the more interesting parts of the writing how Azura lured someone into that role.

Being "overpowered" was entirely intentional, the game has a steep power curve for a reason. Again, stop detaching the gameplay from the lore.

If you play normally that takes a long time. Only retards with no self control abuse the system. Stop putting all the blame on the developers. You have a much bigger responsibility to make sure you do not resort to easily avoidable exploits.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

complaining that you can join every guild is stupid, did you guys actually read the lore or do you just wander around randomly then get angry?
morrowind main character is not some random shmuck, he's a reincarnated godkiller on par with almalexia/vivec/sotha sil you dips

Actually you are that random shmuck. You are not the reincarnated godkiller. Nerevar is a title. Accepting to become one does not make you his reincarnation. That was in fact one of the more interesting parts of the writing how Azura lured someone into that role.

Except for that little detail where the Moon-and-Star would kill you if you weren't Nerevar, sure why not.

 

[Sykar]

Being "overpowered" was entirely intentional, the game has a steep power curve for a reason. Again, stop detaching the gameplay from the lore.

No, you go through the trials to become him. If you were literally reincarnated you would not even need to do so.

Last time I replayed the game I used mods that purposely gimped many OP mechanics and also others that made the game much harder. Still, by the time you are level 20 (and that was even with a mod that reduced my leveling speed by half) you can tackle almost anything, and by level 30 the game is a total joke.

Truth is what kills Morrowind is that there's no hard level cap. The game should cap out at level 15 or something, with no chance to keep increasing your skills. This would also make it impossible to join that many factions, instead of the ones your character is naturally good at. Gold is very easy to come by in Morrowind, so whatever "gimp" there is regarding Minor and Misc skills doesn't matter when you can spam training.

You are speaking the truth, we need this to be printed out and framed!

There is a far easier fix. Only major skills can reach 100, minor 75 and the rest is capped at 50. Same with attributes, only your two chosen can reach 100 the rest is capped at lets say 50 or maybe 75 or slight expansion and chose two secondary attributes that can reach 75 and rest 50.

Then go through NPCs and give all merchants minimum barter of 60 with top merchants having 100 and make it really hard to improve disposition.