I read this page in the Elder Scroll wiki Differences between Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim and I found it quite interesting.
Since OpenMW is open source eventually it will be possible to change any mechanics, so I was wondering what approach you like more in the various topics.
For example I like the Oblivion Stamina, but Morrowind Enemy Scaling and Item Scaling.
Oblivion NPC Schedules are quite nice, but I might be annoying to find someone compared to Morrowind since you cannot ask around "Sorry, do you know where Burz gro-Khash is?" as you could in Daggerfall (at least places).
The physics is improving in each game, I never played Skyrim but Oblivion is already quite a step.
Vampirism is at its best in Oblivion, people will tolerate you and you can actually play. In Morrowind it was possible only with a quite planned game.
Three armor weights are probably too much, but I find annoying the Oblivion limit in the number of items, from 9 pieces of armor in Oblivion we got only 6 and without clothes. Besides in Oblivion there is no Unarmored skill!
The "Prices/Haggling" was at its best in Morrowind. I find the Oblivion approach quite confusing and I miss the lack of real "barter"...
Ect, ect... What about you? Is there something you find better in the successive (or previous) Elder Scrolls?
Morrowind, Oblivion, or others ways what do you like more?
Morrowind, Oblivion, or others ways what do you like more?
Last edited by ezze on 10 Apr 2014, 09:43, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
Attributes were never great in any Elder Scrolls. But rather than fixing them, Bethesda just tossed them right out the window. That's even worse. I'd like to see something like Galsiah's implementation: instead of leveling every 10 skills (with bonuses depending under which school they fall), I'd much rather see a smooth progression where leveling a low-level skill contributes slightly to both your attributes and your overall level.
Birtsigns were best in Oblivion. I like the concept of being born on a certain date, under certain stars making a difference in your fate, in who you are. Something like the stones in Oblivion could be a good extension of that, but perhaps packaged in a slightly different way. Your natural sign and the stone's sign would be interacting in a certain way, which would yield a special result.
Containers should have a storage limit, but perhaps not in lbs. Perhaps in room. I can't imagine being able shoving a whole bunch of great battle axes in a small coffer and then being unable to toss in a soul gem in there because the soul gem weighed too much. Skyrim added a few much-needed extra ways to store your stuff, such as bookshelves.
Discussion topics stand or fall with voice acting, I feel. Oblivion and Skyrim could not nearly have as much dialogue because it needed to be spoken by a whole bunch of people. On the other hand, Morrowind's NPCs could quickly become information posts rather than characters. I'd like dialogue like Morrowind, but overhauled to give each NPC some unique information depending on class/caste/job/a combination thereof. Lots of work perhaps, but a lot cheaper than having it voice acted, too!
Enemy scaling should be dependent on area. Enemies around Seyda Neen, for example, should be mostly low-level (1-5), with a few stronger enemies around to keep players on their toes. Red Mountain would then have more high level enemies (40-50) with a bunch of lower level enemies to lure the players into the clutches of death. All of this because of reasons. (Dagoth Ur's cronies, etc.)
I like how fatigue influences combat in Morrowind, but combat itself was kinda difficult to like overall. I feel that this could be made better by tweaking combat rather than fatigue. PCs need to be able to travel a bit faster and strikes would always need to connect, just do less (or no) damage. Running/Jumping would still need to drain stamina, however, otherwise it'd just be cheap to level Athletics and Acrobatics. No stamiina, no XP.
There should be no obvious NPC protection. If the problem is that important travelling NPCs may die when they travel from town to town, when the PC is not there, just protect them if they are elsewhere. Or just make sure the AI doesn't attack them. Or keep their locations abstract, as x-y coordinates. When the PC then moves into a certain range, all bets are off and the PC will have to fight to defend the NPC.
The UI has gotten a bit out of hand. Oblivion's UI was very full featured, which was great, but Skyrim just had too much wasted space and was unwieldy. I like Morrowind's right-click menu, though. No pixel was wasted.
Birtsigns were best in Oblivion. I like the concept of being born on a certain date, under certain stars making a difference in your fate, in who you are. Something like the stones in Oblivion could be a good extension of that, but perhaps packaged in a slightly different way. Your natural sign and the stone's sign would be interacting in a certain way, which would yield a special result.
Containers should have a storage limit, but perhaps not in lbs. Perhaps in room. I can't imagine being able shoving a whole bunch of great battle axes in a small coffer and then being unable to toss in a soul gem in there because the soul gem weighed too much. Skyrim added a few much-needed extra ways to store your stuff, such as bookshelves.
Discussion topics stand or fall with voice acting, I feel. Oblivion and Skyrim could not nearly have as much dialogue because it needed to be spoken by a whole bunch of people. On the other hand, Morrowind's NPCs could quickly become information posts rather than characters. I'd like dialogue like Morrowind, but overhauled to give each NPC some unique information depending on class/caste/job/a combination thereof. Lots of work perhaps, but a lot cheaper than having it voice acted, too!
Enemy scaling should be dependent on area. Enemies around Seyda Neen, for example, should be mostly low-level (1-5), with a few stronger enemies around to keep players on their toes. Red Mountain would then have more high level enemies (40-50) with a bunch of lower level enemies to lure the players into the clutches of death. All of this because of reasons. (Dagoth Ur's cronies, etc.)
I like how fatigue influences combat in Morrowind, but combat itself was kinda difficult to like overall. I feel that this could be made better by tweaking combat rather than fatigue. PCs need to be able to travel a bit faster and strikes would always need to connect, just do less (or no) damage. Running/Jumping would still need to drain stamina, however, otherwise it'd just be cheap to level Athletics and Acrobatics. No stamiina, no XP.
There should be no obvious NPC protection. If the problem is that important travelling NPCs may die when they travel from town to town, when the PC is not there, just protect them if they are elsewhere. Or just make sure the AI doesn't attack them. Or keep their locations abstract, as x-y coordinates. When the PC then moves into a certain range, all bets are off and the PC will have to fight to defend the NPC.
The UI has gotten a bit out of hand. Oblivion's UI was very full featured, which was great, but Skyrim just had too much wasted space and was unwieldy. I like Morrowind's right-click menu, though. No pixel was wasted.
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psi29a
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Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
I liked UO's approach... you could only max out a few without hurting other skills. They also atrophied over time. This nullified leveling and kept game-play... well fun.
Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
What is UO?
The leveling system is something we already discussed to death and is the reason I started following OpenMW. The basic problem is that you improve your abilities on success pushing the player to do easy challenges and continuously grinding. The level-up Ability increase is also completely broken and force players to micromanage all the skills. A quick read of the Oblivion guide to level up (in the same wiki of the OP) shows the problem. Once again, here is what I said about this topic. If everything fails however, I found the old style XP based approach like Baldurs Gate still works fine. OblivionXP is one implementation of this idea. Gain enough XP and you increase skills and attributes.
About the Stamina, I found Morrowind annoying because speed is very slowly so you are pretty much forced to run and when you run you go out of Stamina making fighting harder... Oblivion (improved even more by Realistic Fatigue) solves the problem making the Stamina regenerate even when you run, but still you must be careful inside fights. Realistic Fatigue has the nice bonus that it applies to all actors so also enemies will fall down and must be careful.
Combat is a problem: in Morrowind was too simple, Oblivion feels better but still I think it can improved. More way to attack, defends and special moves based on skill is probably the way. I always found funny how much attention is on the magic and so little in the fighting.
I thought Birthsigns were the same in Oblivion and Morrowind... it is not the case?
About containers I think it is a matter of compromises, if you have limited capacity then the player must be able to add new containers with ease (e.g., buy new treasure chests) otherwise no limit is the way to go. I also think an Elder Scroll-like game should allow to make your own item musem with ease, in both Oblivion and Morrowind placing items is a mess.
In Oblivion I find annoying you might lose you items if you put them inside the "wrong" container, I know it can be thieves and creatures but it should be clear where it is safe or why not.
About voice acting, I think that having EVERY line dubbed is overrated. It is enough that most of them are... to be completely honest I miss that in Daggerfall you could even decide the _tone_ how to answer: Polite, Neutral, Blunt.
The leveling system is something we already discussed to death and is the reason I started following OpenMW. The basic problem is that you improve your abilities on success pushing the player to do easy challenges and continuously grinding. The level-up Ability increase is also completely broken and force players to micromanage all the skills. A quick read of the Oblivion guide to level up (in the same wiki of the OP) shows the problem. Once again, here is what I said about this topic. If everything fails however, I found the old style XP based approach like Baldurs Gate still works fine. OblivionXP is one implementation of this idea. Gain enough XP and you increase skills and attributes.
About the Stamina, I found Morrowind annoying because speed is very slowly so you are pretty much forced to run and when you run you go out of Stamina making fighting harder... Oblivion (improved even more by Realistic Fatigue) solves the problem making the Stamina regenerate even when you run, but still you must be careful inside fights. Realistic Fatigue has the nice bonus that it applies to all actors so also enemies will fall down and must be careful.
Combat is a problem: in Morrowind was too simple, Oblivion feels better but still I think it can improved. More way to attack, defends and special moves based on skill is probably the way. I always found funny how much attention is on the magic and so little in the fighting.
I thought Birthsigns were the same in Oblivion and Morrowind... it is not the case?
About containers I think it is a matter of compromises, if you have limited capacity then the player must be able to add new containers with ease (e.g., buy new treasure chests) otherwise no limit is the way to go. I also think an Elder Scroll-like game should allow to make your own item musem with ease, in both Oblivion and Morrowind placing items is a mess.
In Oblivion I find annoying you might lose you items if you put them inside the "wrong" container, I know it can be thieves and creatures but it should be clear where it is safe or why not.
About voice acting, I think that having EVERY line dubbed is overrated. It is enough that most of them are... to be completely honest I miss that in Daggerfall you could even decide the _tone_ how to answer: Polite, Neutral, Blunt.
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
UO = Ultima Online
I like morrowind. And even with it boring gameplay game lacks most interaction with the enviorment. Why?
Go to solstheim.
Swim in water.
Go into the snow blizzard right after that.
I know that realism is not the main point of the TES games but c'mon, after trying that any human would be dead. And there are countless things like this. Also, i really wish you would not be forced to kill everything that comes into your way… Somehow i miss morality in TES games.
I like morrowind. And even with it boring gameplay game lacks most interaction with the enviorment. Why?
Go to solstheim.
Swim in water.
Go into the snow blizzard right after that.
I know that realism is not the main point of the TES games but c'mon, after trying that any human would be dead. And there are countless things like this. Also, i really wish you would not be forced to kill everything that comes into your way… Somehow i miss morality in TES games.
Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
For cities I like Morrowind way, the fact that Oblivion cities are in closed cells is "what the hell?" material for me.
About fast and magic travel I like the Morrowind way, it feels more "real" that you need to talk with Silt Striders owners or Mysticism experts to go around instead of just clicking on a map.
To be perfect vanilla Morrowind just lacks a nice in-game map with all the connections (like this) and a multiple Mark/Recall spell (possibly marked in the map too).
I never tried it, but the Skyrim idea of changing Armorer to Smithing and so allowing to make your own armors and weapons sounds really nice. On the other hand removing completely that Armor and Weapons degrade does not sound so great (I agree to make degrading slower than in Oblivion though).
Enemy pursuit... none of the games are fine for me... It is ridiculous that enemies won't cross doors in Morrowind, but it also annoying that they never give up in the pursuit in Oblivion. After a while they should just give up (perhaps with some insult about your cowardly); otherwise if you meet a too powerful enemy you can only reload.
About fast and magic travel I like the Morrowind way, it feels more "real" that you need to talk with Silt Striders owners or Mysticism experts to go around instead of just clicking on a map.
To be perfect vanilla Morrowind just lacks a nice in-game map with all the connections (like this) and a multiple Mark/Recall spell (possibly marked in the map too).
I never tried it, but the Skyrim idea of changing Armorer to Smithing and so allowing to make your own armors and weapons sounds really nice. On the other hand removing completely that Armor and Weapons degrade does not sound so great (I agree to make degrading slower than in Oblivion though).
Enemy pursuit... none of the games are fine for me... It is ridiculous that enemies won't cross doors in Morrowind, but it also annoying that they never give up in the pursuit in Oblivion. After a while they should just give up (perhaps with some insult about your cowardly); otherwise if you meet a too powerful enemy you can only reload.
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
It has, actually. There is any option in the ini file to display it.To be perfect vanilla Morrowind just lacks a nice in-game map with all the connections (like this)
Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
The only things that I really like about Skyrim/Oblivion are controversial. I actually like slow regeneration of health/magicka, because I tend to take little scratches all over the place and am OCD enough that a trip through the countryside in vanilla Morrowind consists of a lot of little walks punctuated by an argument with wildlife leading to a brief rest to recover. Likewise, fast travel through the wilderness doesn't bother me, though I'd like to see it punctuated by random encounters (load times, of course, make this tricky, so I'd rather just not have the encounters by the end of the cost/benefit analysis). I'm rather overt about liking games for what they provide, and even though I'm an Arma player I'm not traditionally a huge fan of walking for hours in a game or pausing all the time to take care of menial things.
Actually, Daggerfall might be one of my favorite Elder Scrolls theme wise, if it weren't so buggy on my DOSBox, and had some modern interface polishes, because it's simply so massive and because you can do random crap like climb things. Of course, Skyrim's graphics are nice (when they don't lag out my laptop), but I've always preferred Morrowind's environment and music. Oblivion sort of gets the short end of the stick, since it's where the things that I absolutely hate about Skyrim started going wrong and doesn't really have any new good features that didn't make it into Skyrim.
Actually, Daggerfall might be one of my favorite Elder Scrolls theme wise, if it weren't so buggy on my DOSBox, and had some modern interface polishes, because it's simply so massive and because you can do random crap like climb things. Of course, Skyrim's graphics are nice (when they don't lag out my laptop), but I've always preferred Morrowind's environment and music. Oblivion sort of gets the short end of the stick, since it's where the things that I absolutely hate about Skyrim started going wrong and doesn't really have any new good features that didn't make it into Skyrim.
Re: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim ways what do you like mo
I actually like Daggerfall's stamina best. It wasn't a bar that continually drained and refilled all the time -- instead, it was more of a daily allotment of energy. More strenuous activities, like running and fighting, would make it drain a bit faster, and the way to replenish it was to sleep for a number of hours. What this did is make you role-play your character more believably (you have to sleep a few hours every day, making Inns and Taverns actually useful for something), and it also avoids the 'run until your stamina is out, then walk to it comes back, then run, then walk' nonsense as well as the problems resulting from running into an enemy before it regenerated.ezze wrote:For example I like the Oblivion Stamina, but Morrowind Enemy Scaling and Item Scaling.
Can't say I really like Morrowind's style of scaling that much. It's certainly better than Oblivion, but I don't like that certain types of creatures will just disappear and be replaced by diseased, or later blighted, variants for no real reason (it's not tied to the main story since it happens regardless of the MQ progress). I also don't like the 'zoning' that's created by the lack of randomization and that certain creatures and NPCs aren't scaled -- feels a bit too MMO-ish and linearizes gameplay.
This isn't really that big of a problem, I don't think. Just say "He can be found around there during the day, then hangs around someplace else in the evening before going home. You can find his house over that way."Oblivion NPC Schedules are quite nice, but I might be annoying to find someone compared to Morrowind since you cannot ask around "Sorry, do you know where Burz gro-Khash is?" as you could in Daggerfall (at least places).
While I agree that Oblivion probably handled it best, I still don't think it's that good. Particularly, it feels like it did it backwards. For someone who wants to be a vampire, it basically punished you for feeding like a vampire should. Feeding strips you of your unique buffs, and the buffs you get from not feeding are mainly to help you feed. I think it would've been better if feeding made you more powerful (giving you more abilities, and also increasing your weaknesses to silver and sunlight) and more grotesque (as an outward manifestation of your behavior) which causes people to be uneased or hostile to you. Not feeding, then, helps allow you to interact in society, but you become weaker for it (removes said abilities, and also penalizes certain stats) since you're starving yourself and denying your nature.Vampirism is at its best in Oblivion, people will tolerate you and you can actually play. In Morrowind it was possible only with a quite planned game.
Lycanthropy I feel was done best in Daggerfall. If you got it, you'd get some really good stat buffs, but you were forced to change every 14 days (for a full 24 hours) and feed on an innocent NPC, otherwise your max health drops to 1 until you do. You'd also occasionally get werewolf hunters sent after you, and the cure quest is actually pretty good with a befitting moral dilemma and consequences.
I have to go with Daggerfall on this one. Though the UI and interaction can definitely be improved, I like the general economy handling. The prices of items and houses, the number and style of houses you can buy, the way gold had weight, how the quality of shops affects prices, and a rather in-depth banking system... it all just feels better. I also like that your inventory doesn't say how much something would be, because A) you wouldn't know, and B) different shops will give different prices, and C) such prices will change with your skills. You can, of course, guesstimate (an ebony longsword will be more than leather armor, obviously), but it doesn't have a price tag on it. I also like that the list of items to sell a given vendor will only show the items they'll buy, unlike Morrowind where it shows all items regardless and says "I don't buy that item." when you try to select it. There also seems to be a greater variety of shop types in Daggerfall.The "Prices/Haggling" was at its best in Morrowind. I find the Oblivion approach quite confusing and I miss the lack of real "barter"...
Music goes to Daggerfall (again) for me. Though to really appreciate it you need a good soundfont, not an FM synth or whatever cruddy soundfont Windows has by default. Aside from just sounding good, there were a greater number of 'playlists' (rather than the 2 of Morrowind, or 4 of Oblivion) that even responded to weather and time of day. It was also nice that the music isn't constantly interrupted by EPIC BATTLE MUSIC (which is a little less epic when you hear it for the hundredth time while fighting a rat).SquireNed wrote:but I've always preferred Morrowind's environment and music.
For environment, I actually have to go with Oblivion and Daggerfall. I like lush forests, mountains, and plains. In Morrowind, Vvardenfell is dominated by the ashlands and molag amur regions, which are just so monochromatic and dull looking (the constant ash storms and limited visibility don't help, either). Skyrim isn't too bad, although there's a bit too much snow and the desaturation filter they felt the need to throw on everything takes it down a few notches.