I think it is a game with flaws like every other Elder Scrolls game.

In previous TES games i felt like (at least when it came to creating a PC) that the game was just allowing me to choose a blueprint for my character. I felt like a child being guided along whenever I tried to do somthing that dident fit that character blueprint. A game that forces you to pick one class in the begining and stay on it, not cool. The removal of the class system and the new way of building your character is the biggest strength of Skyrim. And yes, giving you the classes beforehand, having you choose your class then guiding you along the set way to play that class is hand-holding, and the system in Skyrim is less Dumbed down.

I have that issue in D&D. When i'm DMing and there is a new member in the group, they go through about 3 different characters before they find one they can enjoy playing as. While that is a frustration for both the other players and me as the DM, I understand how somthing could happen like that. How many of us have, started playing a TES game and after 5 minutes in finding out that you had cleary made the wrong choice beacuse the game was not fun to play. Oh wait! I suppose that is a CONSEQUENCE we must suffer. After all we made a DECISION after playing the game for only a short time, and if I happen to not enjoy the choice I made then it's apperantly somthing i'm going to have to deal with for the rest of the game.

actus me invito factus non est meus actus

That used to depend on race, birthsign and attributes.
Now that distinction is gone.

I think I am in a small minority, but I didn't feel all that much difference between the three. What I would say about Morrowind is that it really feels like the lore is integrated into the gameworld and story. I am a fan of almost all the character system changes in Skyrim as I felt like the game got out of my way, while various fun stuff was added. I have never thought of TES as a deep-character-system series.

Yes, making the wrong choice before hand IS the consquence you must suffer. If you wish to start over, feel free. Nothing was stoping you. As a matter of face I myself probablly spent 3 or 4 days playing difference races and characters and classes before I finally decide on what I really wanted to do. That to me was just as enjoyable as the game itself.

RPG's are supposed to have some difficulty, this isn't an FPS or RTS that you just pick up and play and put down. It's a genre in which you have to sit down and immerse yourself into. it's supposed to be complicated with decisions and consequences, if it's not you might as well just play an FPS or RTS as you will get just as much enjoyment out of those as you would playing an RPG that doesn't force you to make decisions on how you want to play.

Trying to say that Skyrims system is more complex than previous TES games won't hold water. Unless you have consequences for the decisions you make, and Skyrim has none, than you don't have comlexity and it's more dumbed down. You can't say it's not true, but there are no facts to back that up. There is ONE fact that does backup classes being more complex, CONSEQUENCES.

The frequent remaking of characters was for me both frustrating and a waste of time, i'm glad you were able to enjoy this.

I dont beleive the difficulty of a RPG ever came into question from me, neither did the ability to Immerse myself into a game world. Frustrating Mechanics does not a hard game make.


Skyrim's system allows a player to adapt to the world around them, although less was done with it then there could have been. I was not forced to restrict myself to one character class and was given absolute freedom to devolp a character. And looking back, i don't remember there being any consequences for the decisions i made in OB, and few in MW. And which class i chose had no consequences other then to unnecessarily restrict me from doing certian things. And those could be easily fixed with some training.

I dont really remember there being a TES game with anything other then shallow attempts at consequences.

In general I don't like the simplification of the game play much. I would like to be able to chose hardcoe / casual mode at the start and then being forced to stick with it for that character. I know Bethesda is trying to make the game accessible but I don't get the mindset that accessible equals simple . A great accessible software is easy at the surface but then gets deeper as the user experiences it. As in the advanced features are hidden until you are looking for them or want them. That's why I think there should be a hardcoe mode that you can try once you gained confidence and experience as a new player.. don't see the harm in it. A good hardcoe mode for me would mean:

-No fast travel unless paid for and only to a select few places: What is the point of having a horse in this game? It only adds the hassle of getting of it to fight.
-Attributes as in previous games: How much damage you can do with an axe should be about how strong you are and how skilled you are with an axe I think.
-More skill categories: Being a good sword fighter shouldn't mean you can handle a knife fight if you never done that before.
-Sneaking made more realistic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHbF9ynGZV0
-No quest markers: So you have to actually pay attention to what people say and use you sense of direction.
-No difficulty slider: I disliked this in since Morrowind. I want to make one decision on difficulty that I need to stick with. It lessens the sence of danger since you can slide it down if you are in over your head.
-Less/no level scaling: There is no real sense accomplishment or growth if the game doesn't beat you once in a while or denies you access until you gained a certain amount of strength. See the Zelda games for instance where you constantly see obstacles that you can't get passed at you current state but are able to later when you have that item you need.

And maybe even a harder mode with:

-Eating/Sleeping/Drinking required: Gives immersion more of a reason to cook and sleep.
-Limiting Saves: What is the point of adding to your pickpocket skill as it is now? Or to lock picking? Just make a quick save right before and get instant attempts.

That said I really like Skyrim in other aspects. Beautiful to look at, Best combat in a tes game so far IMO and alot of other things . It is fun and I will play it for a long time. It is better than Oblivion and in some ways better than Morrowind too. I just wish they included an advanced mode for less casual players or players who finished the game and like a new challenge.

Just my 2 cents.

Well, to be fair:
There was never any longlasting effects with the attributes in Morrowind or Oblivion with the exception of Endurance since you could almost without effort max out the six that actually mattered. Race, class and sign bonus didn't have much effect after maybe ten levels.
In Morrowind there was only a few instances where guilds interracted and the only major choice in Morrowind was which Great House you would join. Other than that you could join all factions.
The class skills didn't become more effective than the non-class skills making the choice pointless, and guiding all characters towards the same King-of-all-Trades thingy.
There were minimal concequences for anything but the MQ(which didn't produce much either), other than that some people began to like you more.

Skyrim have more meaningful choices when leveling up because you must chose wheter you want increased Magica, Health or Stamina and where to put your level perk. The best perks are usually at the end of the perk-trees and favors specialization, while still making versitality good.
There are two exclusive factions which only one less than Morrowind, but their quest-line now determines who will rule the cities and who will become High King/Queen instead of having one single side-effect(Horator).
The sidequests still isn't the most influencial, but I can't see them as any less influencial than OB or MW.

In Daggerfall you have not only Major Skills but Minor Skills as well. If you didn't use those skills you didn't level up. Consequences. In Oblivion they removed minor skills and had just major skills and all other skills dropped to Minor, a step down and the starting of the dumbing down process of TES. However, you still had to use your Major Skills or you didn't level up as fast as you could by just using Minor Skills. Consequences, although they weren't as much as in Daggerfall and Morrowind. In Skyrim all you have are skills, you can use them all and every single one of them counts to you leveling up. You can change your skills at any time during the game and there is no affect on the game since perk points are so damn easy to accumulate by constantly using every skill you have to count to you leveling up and getting another perk point. NO consequences whatsoever for changing skills during the game.

I don't know how much simplier I can make it. With Classes there are consqeuences to picking major and minor skills. Without Classes there is NO consequences whatsoever because Perk Points are so easy to get and Perks in general really don't make that much difference. I can use a sword or axe or double handed weapon just as well with no Perks as I can with Perks. The magic system in Skyrim is so screwed that being a pure mage is just about damn impossible with our without perks.

My brief summery:

Skyrim feels like an action game with some RPG elements.

Oblivion feels like an action RPG.

Morrowind feels like an RPG.

Sounds about right.

As someone who has been going back and playing Morrowind I can say that it feels artificial. From the leveling, to the combat nothing feels rewarding as very little has to do with your input, combat is decided by a rolling of the dice, your leveling is dictated by certain skills that make up your class. My character has effectively leveled 4-5 times by jumping everywhere because one of his majors is acrobatics. The guilds have little to no story which really shocked me as I heard how deep the game was. As of now it really isn't pulling me in like Skyrim does. It's an old game and it hasn't aged very well. Even games like Shadow of the Colossus (which I absolutely love) have aged poorly with poor combat and even worse controls. However it's the intangible qualities of that I love (such as the atmosphere, soundtrack, and landscapes).

Is Morrowind terrible? No, I'm just giving a very unbiased opinion as I have nothing connecting me to Morrowind in anyway. A lot of the changes that TES has gone through have been good and made the game feel more like a game than a D&D emulator. Either way I don't believe any TES has ever had a "good" story, I can give them credit for not being overly cliche (Dragon Age) but I'm very partial to game that don't tell you every flipping detail and allow you to fill in the blanks.

I will agree that combat in Morrowind wasn't very well done, nor in Daggerfall. I do happen to like interactive combat like in Oblivion and in Skyrim. However, the combat in Oblivion and Skyrim should rely more on your skills than they do.

As far as you leveling up 5 times due to acrobatics and jumping around, that was your decision to add acrobatics to your major skills. No one forced it upon you, you could have made it a minor and it wouldn't have leveled up as fast. You could have not used it at all as a skill. You made my point, your decision to use acrobatics as a major has the consequence of you leveling up faster that you might want to. No one told you to jump from town to town when you could have walked and not used you acrobatics until you really need to use them.

Morrowind and Daggerfall, even with their bad combat, are head over heels better than Oblivion or Skyrim as far as RPG's go.

The fact that you had to use certian skills was not a consequence, it was a mechanic that (in a way) still persists in Skyrim.The more you use a skill the less other skills contribuite to your level gain, yet it still allows you to improve those skills easily with little or in some cases allmost no gain.

Also the perk system adds a level of consequence, as you only get a limited number of perk points and it is impossible to obtain all perks.

Didn't play Morrowind, but I played Oblivion with two characters, for a fair amount of total time. Skyrim's clearly superior in about every way except the quest log (at least the miscellaneous quests) can be a little vague, requiring you to go by the quest marker too much. Other than that Skyrim's far better than Oblivion in every way, and I certainly enjoyed Oblivion quite a bit.

Are you asying that you havent played skyrim...yet it's superior? Were are you getting your expirence from?

The combat in Oblivion and Skyrim is much more based upon your skills as a player than the numbers that represent your character. That's why I prefer it, it feels much more rewarding to know that you are the reason to succeeded rather than that 10% chance to dodge.

As for the acrobatics I'm not harping on the system because you can get to level 10 by just doing smithing in Skyrim, however it's much harder to not level. I'm merely pointing out that athletics, and acrobatics were stupid skills that I'm glad are gone. Same goes for medium armor, and spears. Morrowind has more choices however they're shallow in their actual advantages.

Lastly for me I can RP in Skyrim more than I can in Morrowind, or Oblivion because my character is always shackled by my early decisions. Skyrim doesn't have that, you're never shackled by what you chose in the beginning and that feels so much better. I remember listening to some interviews with some of the developers of Kingdoms of Amalur and they made a point about picking everything in the beginning and you not always knowing how your character would actually play. Allowing for your character to grow and develop over time is a much better proposition than being chained down by the silly classification of your character.

I recognize myself in a lot of that, Daggerfall and Morrowind feel very dated, certainly well-written and designed for their time, but it would feel like taking several steps backwards in game development to try and re-invent the mechanics and concepts of those games today. The original Dungeons and Dragons were innovative, revolutionary, when released, and some players will enjoy playing with the classic rules, but if a publisher tried to launch a similar game today, roleplaying gamers in general would scoff at them.

For me, this is the best Bethesda game I have ever played and I've been playing them since Daggerfall.


Hell, all I did yesterday was walk down roads and I was entertained with sightseeing and random encounters.

I started with Daggerfall (and later dabbled with Arena but couldn't get past the graphics). IMO, each TES game has been a huge improvement over the previous. Obviously other people agree or they wouldn't keep making them.

If you look at all the responses to this question, there are of course differing opinions because there are different gamer types who play these games. The range that I've seen is from male tweens to retired grandmas and everything in between. So it makes sense that opinions will vary.

For me, I love the improved graphics (even though my 5-year-old once near top of the line computer has to be on low settings and still melts down after 90 minutes of play). I love how the NPCs have what appears more of a natural flow when you talk to them, often move about and continue talking once you've ended the conversation. I love the AI in the NPCs and feel guilty when I drop something on the ground now. I love it that you can make better armor then most of what you find in the world. I like the addition of having a mate. The armor and weapon racks in the houses is wonderful. We've all got stuff we are very proud of, won't use and don't want to sell. The companions are an interesting addition. I've become attached to mine and consider him a friend. I do wish we had the ability to discuss the current quest like companions would.

As with previous TES games, you occasionally get a super cool quest that blows you away with the story. No spoilers here but I've had that happen a couple of times in Skyrim and found myself in awe, frightened and uncertain as to what would happen to me and my companion, and felt like apologizing for getting us into this particular insane situation. Those surprises are part of why I love TES.

On the negative side, they've gone backwards on the journal. With Daggerfall, I had to keep a physical notebook of my quests so I could remember where I was going, what I was there for, and whom and where I needed to return. They seemed to have fixed that mostly with Oblivion although I had wished I had a place to make in-game notes for myself. With Skyrim, the journal is sketchy at best and it's really necessary to keep a physical notebook once again if you want to remember the details of any radient quest for the purpose of immersion. The horses are really bad in Skyrim compared to Oblivion. I FELT like I was riding a horse in Oblivion. In Skyrim, I'm watching a character ride one. Plus they die easily so there's no way to get an attachment to one, name it and make it a companion.

Overall, I haven't been disappointed in Skyrim. I look forward to a $700 video card upgrade so I can play it on Ultra High settings. I got Oblivion on a lower end computer and when I upgraded to my current computer and could play it on ultra high settings, I was blown away. It was an entirely new game. So in a few years, that will happen once again.

And that, OP, is my humble opinion.
Safe travels.

Maybe but that still does not make them more fun, some people try so hard to make RPG`s sound legitimate that they forget about the fun of the game.

You could have as close to a DnD simulator as possible but it could still be boring.

in skyrim: the guilds are horrible, less and less stats (i like stats, stats are important), magic effects removed, making spells removed, quests are mostly uninspired and forgettable (there is some good ones but not as many as in past TES game), every NPC is lifeless and boring (although past games had this to a somewhat lesser extent), undropable quest items , and it feels like the game is missing a large variety of creatures.

it is a good game but could be better

The whole dislike of less stats reminds me of the outrage people had when they found out inventory management was reduced/removed from Mass Effect 2. It's such a trivial thing yet it seems like people get annoyed when they cannot artificially manipulate their character in every way possible.

I agree with most of what everyone dislikes about the game compared to the others. To touch on one thing, the content (quests, storyline) is sheer laziness on the creators part. It pains me but all Skyrim is is eyecandy. A fluffy game world built for the instant gratification gamer. Sure theres a gazillion quests, but its all copy paste garbage. You can be a thane in every town, be every deadras champion, be the leader of every guild and save the world. The only real choice you have to shape the world you live in is which side of the war you fight on, and that in and of itself as far as I know, matters very little to the actual game world.

There is so much potential in the foundation they laid for this game, but they blew it. Big Time. Its an empthy shell of the former glory of past TES games. Even Oblivion outshines this pile of lazy crap. Moding can only do so much, make changes to systems and new and better looking items, but unless someone actually rewrites the game from the ground up. Its just not going to ever be as good as it could have been. For those who played daggerfall, you know it was never about graphics and a combat system. It was the content, and that was truly and open game world, and huge one at that. There will never be another daggerfall because of the platform games are being built for now. And thats a shame.

I'm not a big fan of the voice acting, think its a waste of space and resources but I suppose its easier for them to jot down a few lines in a script and stick a microphone in someones face than actually come up with a decent storyline. Having hundreds of npcs using the same 3 or 4 voices impresses me not. Most people can read, we did it in Morrowind and other games in the past.


Im being as harsh as I am only because I have been a huge fan of the series. It took a big nose dive with oblivion but skyrim is much much worse to me, and the beauty of the game world just doesn't make up for the lazy effort in what matters most to me. Its not an elder scrolls game. Its a cheap thrill till the next game comes out. The incredible modding community this game has, has its work cut out for them.

Pros= Graphics

Music

Combat is improved

Magic is improved by using two hands

Cons= They removed so many features like Acrobatics, Wearing two rings.........etc

Vampires are utterly useless