Elder Scrolls peaked at Daggerfall and has been going downhill since

[MadImmortalMan]

Design-wise.

Daggerfall > Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim.



Once Todd Howard was allowed to move from the tech support department to game design, it all started going downhill.

A couple years ago, a youtube channel called Indigo Gaming made a documentary called The Elder Scrolls: A Promise Unfulfilled. 1.8 million views so far.

Then, he interviewed Julian LeFay (Julianos) about the process behind Arena and Daggerfall for like three hours. Ted Peterson (Sheogorath) saw it, then did a similar interview himself. Fast forward---



https://www.oncelostgames.com/

https://twitter.com/oncelostgames?lang=en


They're back together with Vijay Lakshman making a spiritual successor to Daggerfall with modern technology.

[celedhring]

I disagree, Morrowind was the peak of the series. Daggerfall was extremely ambitious, but the randomly generated dungeons/cities are bleh. I prefer the smaller and more focused Morrowind, it had the best balance of the series.

[Monoriu]

I actually played Arena, the game before Daggerfall.  There were eight provinces to go through, and I needed to clear two dungeons per province before I could confront the final boss. 

Huge world, lots of quests, shops, dungeons, etc.  But aside from the 16 dungeons, everything felt lifeless and randomly generated.  The cities felt the same, there was no difference walking into an armour shop in province A or province F. 

I gave up after clearing like two or three of the main quest dungeons.

I played Daggerfall after I became a civil servant.  The timing was bad because I was busy.  I didn't have a lot of expectations for the game.  I thought it was too buggy and the controls too difficult to learn.  So I didn't really play much.

After the bad experiences I didn't buy Morrowind.  But the raving reviews convinced me to buy it like four years after release.  I thought it was a completely different game.  Gone were the randomly generated dungeons, quests and towns.  It was half a province but I didn't mind at all.  This is what a game should feel like.

Oblivion was an incremental improvement, with one glaring exception.  I hated the oblivion gates.  They were all the same, lifeless and meaningless.  They reminded me of the randomly generated dungeons in Arena. 

Skyrim to me was an incremental improvement over Oblivion but without the oblivion gates.  So I was happy.  I just don't understand why they decide to wait 15 years to release a sequel to a best seller. 

[Oexmelin]

I disagree, Morrowind was the peak of the series. Daggerfall was extremely ambitious, but the randomly generated dungeons/cities are bleh. I prefer the smaller and more focused Morrowind, it had the best balance of the series.

I agree.

The one problem I always have in the Elder Scroll is the need to preserve the sort of late 80s silly fantasy lore that I concocted as a teenage DM, stealing "cool stuff" from the past - Roman Empire! Vikings! Dark Elves! Zulus! Lizardmen! Barbarians! Arthurian Legend! Any larger scale version of the Elder Scroll needs to reckon with this patchwork of inspirations together. Focusing on a single province diminishes this jarring juxtaposition.

Morrowind had a a really interesting lore and environment. It was original. And while the quests were unequal, they revealed the world only gradually, a world that was quite different from standard fantasy fare. Skyrim's story was utterly forgettable, and most of the quest lines were banal. What sold it was the exploration, the vistas, the visual depiction of the place.   

[Monoriu]

Another thing I hated in Oblivion was the major and minor skills designation.  There was a very specific way to level efficiently.  I have to distribute the points across the attributes evenly, and I actually need to keep track of the movements in all skills with pen and paper when I play.  It is actually a lot of work 

I am so glad that got rid of that in Skyrim. 

My dream in Skyrim is always to create the strongest sword, shield and armour set possible.  In each playthrough I spend a lot of time leveling the blacksmith, alchemy and enchanting skills.  They reinforce each other.  Once I get sufficiently good at those skills and create good enough enchanted weapons and armour, I can kill a common dragon in three hits or so. 

The problem with Skyrim is that out of the three attributes, health is overwhelmingly useful.  Magika is obviously useful for casters but here lies the problem: I think the game is much easier to play as a fighter than a mage.  The balance is not right.  I have no idea why I don't put every point in health over stamina. 

[Valmy]

Each game is just a bit less ambitious and interesting, I agree. Though Daggerfall was a buggy mess, even by Bethesda standards.

Morrowind is by far the best one, IMO, and it is the only one I actually bothered to complete (along with tribunal, bloodmoon burned me out with its ridiculously huge amounts of mobs).

[Valmy]

Another thing I hated in Oblivion was the major and minor skills designation.

Morrowind was exactly the same way, though right? Both games required me to keep paper records to level up optimally though in Morrowind you could use trainers more and thus made it easier.

Changing that part was alright but I hate and loath Skyrim's system, it is about as minimalistic and boring an RPG system I have ever seen which is kind of amazing when you reflect how ambitious their games used to be.

[Monoriu]

Another thing I hated in Oblivion was the major and minor skills designation.

Morrowind was exactly the same way, though right? Both games required me to keep paper records to level up optimally though in Morrowind you could use trainers more and thus made it easier.

Changing that part was alright but I hate and loath Skyrim's system, it is about as minimalistic and boring an RPG system I have ever seen which is kind of amazing when you reflect how ambitious their games used to be.

Yeah Morrowind was similar. 

I thought Skyrim's skill and perk system was quite good.  It forces me to think really hard about which perk to pick, and interesting choice is what makes games good.  My biggest problem is that out of the three attributes of health, magika and stamina, I can't think of a reason why I just don't put everything in health.  That's not a feature of good design, because the choice is easy and thus not interesting. 

I think Fallout 4's SPECIAL and perk system is also quite good.

[Valmy]

Well maybe. I didn't find the perks very interesting at all. The ones in Fallout 1 and 2 (I never had any interest in the Bethesday ones) were great but these were pretty boring. Even with the clankier level up system I still think Oblivion was a better game.

In any case Skyrim was great in a few areas and laughably terrible in others, but you still got the feeling Bethesda really put their heart, soul, sweat, and blood into it. And that made the good parts really good. I have my doubts they still have much of that mojo left for the next game.

[Syt]

Funny that this cropped up while I'm in the middle of modding Skyrim along the lines of this guide. https://www.sinitargaming.com/skyrim_se.html

I've played (to a greater or smaller extent) Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, and some ESO.

Morrowind was the first of the series I played and it blew me away. I dabbled with it, but I also quickly moved on, because I didn't know what to do, where to go, and random exploring didn't hold my interest enough. But I was captivated by the alien lands and freedom. "I can pick up everything I see on this shelf? Whoa!"

Oblivion was graphically better, and the combat was improved, but I was disappointed by how mundane it was. Generic medieval European setting that contrasted sharply with Morrowind (if only they'd gone with the tropical setting described in earlier in game books ...). The quests were better, but the game felt less literate because of fully voiced dialogues as opposed to Morrrowind's reams of text (don't play Morrowind if you don't like to read!).

Skyrim fixed the atmosphere, and while it was fun, it didn't reach the heights of Morrowind for me.

Daggerfall, what I played, was interesting, but eventually didn't hold my interest. I think it's not aged too well. I gave it another try recently with the Unity Engine mod, and while it's better, it still feels clunky, and while the land is huge, the generic procedurally generated cities and villages don't add to immersion. Seen one, seen them all.

I played through Morrowind a few years ago when I was still streaming. I was using Morrowind Rebirth, a rebalance/overhaul mod that tries to be lore friendly and offer a "vanilla enhanced" experience. It adds a few items, rebalances some skills/weapons, adds a few cool dungeons, some shops, etc. In areas I was familiar with I could tell the differences (like the little "outskirt" in front of Vivec), but in others I had no idea what was original and what was mod. I also added most recommended additional mods from his list. With some toying around with the lighting/weather settings I got rather enamoured with the world, as you can tell from the 100+ screenshots I took during my playthrough: https://imgur.com/gallery/7j0VEOI

The mod's Nexus page: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/37795

My main regret is that I didn't quite manage to get ground coverage/grass to work in a way I liked (not too much that it overcrowds paths and cities, but also not too little).

The general quests system in Morrowind is relatively simplistic compared to more modern games, I'd say, but it still manages to hold your interest (if you read ...). The real beauty IMHO, though, is the main quest. Normally ins sandbox games there's a conflict between letting the player do whatever, and the main quest urging you to follow along because otherwise WE'RE DOOMED! Morrowind solves that quite simply and elegantly. At many steps throughout the main questline you're told to take a break and go adventuring.

It starts with Caius Cossades who tells you to go get a job, get familiar with the world, and to return to him when you're ready. And it continues from there. Like the shaman of the Urshilaku who says she needs time to study a document, so you should go out and do something else. Or, before the final quest, you're told you might want to armor up and search for more equipment in certain areas. You can ignore all that and rush through the story, but the deliberate pacing is built in, so it doesn't feel odd to go tomb raiding or doing great house quests while there's a DOOM CLOCK ticking.

Additionally, the main quest and your role in it is very open to interpretation. Firstly, the story is based on ancient events of which no one true record seems to exist. There's multiple different accounts - some oral traditions of the Ashlander clans, some official religious doctrine, and even Vivec's own account, but which one is true, if any of them? Similarly, your own role is open to interpretation. Are you really Nerevar reborn? Or is it just mundane tasks you're going through that's romanticized through tradition and legend? Again, open to interpretation. It's rare that I get so involved in a game's lore, but it was fascinating to try and disentangle all those story strands and trying to find the core of it. I actually went and read most lore books I found.

The DLCs were rather "meh" in my opinion. Tribunal had a good story, but after spending your time roaming the island of Vvardenfell it felt really constricting to be limited to one city and its dungeons.

Bloodmoon was better, but the island was tiny, and the final task (the labyrinth) was rather painful for my character (I had decided to run an orc without magic, enchanting, or alchemy ... so the Werewolf gauntlet was really frustrating ).

Actually, this makes me want to play Morrowind again.

I tried Oblivion again afterwards, and it was just meh. It has some memorable moments, but the main story is far less interesting IMHO, and drew me in far less. Not to mention that it immediately puts you under pressure how urgent everything is and how quickly you should act. I suppose you could do the main quest first and then just go exploring.

[Monoriu]

Bethesda games may have their problems, but I struggle to find something similar out there.  The Witcher series is close but not quite the same.  Fallout 4 works, but I dislike the post-apocalyptic setting.  If I have a choice, I'd always pick fantasy. 

So I am left with looking forward to Starfield, which I guess may become available in 2021.  I am not holding my breath.  That means Elder Scrolls 6 is like a 2025 release at the earliest. 

[Syt]

Come to think of it, I spent over 150 hours on my Morrowind playthrough. Till the end I rarely used quick travel, didn't get particularly bored, and - more importantly - the music never got tiring. Morrowind may be one of the best soundtracks ever made.

[Monoriu]

Skyrim Theme is wonderful too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnXD6FRZtn0

[Syt]

I prefer this cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW6A0iqPWMs



I need to get back to ESO. As MMOs go, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's model is weird, though. You can buy the expansions and get forever access to them. Or you sub and have them always unlocked (plus XP boost, I think).

What was annoying was that when you create a new char they're always dropped into the tutorial of the latest expansion which caused me to bounce of originally (started in Sumerset Isles). However, after the mandatoriy tutorial you're free to go to each factions' "normal" starting point (which for my ork was Daggerfall). The quests are quite fun, the skill system a bit weird, and it's one of the few MMOs where I actually got interested in crafting.

[Monoriu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgScrn-wrCI

This version is actually for sale on itunes store, and is the version that I keep in my playlist.