It is my opinion that Skyrim's dungeons are the worst out of the last 3 Elder Scrolls games. There are a few reasons I believe this.
The first reason is Draugr. I hate draugr dungeons. It seems like 80% of Skyrim dungeons is going through yet another draugr dungeon that looks the same as all the previous ones and has the same looking enemies with different names. I understand that draugr are to be expected in Skyrim but there are just way too many draugr dungeons. Also the dungeons are so linear. Fight through a bunch of weak draugr while following the only obvious path until you find a hard draugr. Kill it and look for your loot chest and then leave by way of the secret exit.

Another reason I feel Skyrim has weak dungeons is the lack of hand placed amazing loot like the artifact rings in Morrowind that you could stumble upon in burial urns. In Skyrim you can find, if I recall correctly, around 13 gold and maybe a gem in urns. Hand placed artifacts gave the dungeons a sense of uniqueness and adventure. You never knew if this dungeon you just found might have an artifact lying around. All the artifacts in Skyrim are recieved through quests afaik. Also in Morrowind there were hidden daedric items and other valuable things lying around and not just randomly generated in the boss chest.

When I play Skyrim I get the urge to just sprint through dungeons until I reach the end because I know the only good stuff will be in the boss chest. Also because I hate draugr and don't want to waste time swatting them. Anyways I feel like this game is a step backwards in the dungeon department. Feel free to post that you disagree and why but don't make any attacks at me because of my opinion. I am not a Skyrim hater. I am just a bit disappointed with parts of this game that could have been better. Btw Morrowind is my favorite game out of the three.

Better than the last 3? You only mentioned Morrowind. Anyhow, I like Skyrim's dungeons, nice and diverse unlike Oblivion's.

Hah funny joke...One word, BlackReach.

You simply dont know what youre talking about

One cool dungeon does not make up for 75 generic, linear, boring draugr dungeons.

Yes, having all these different dungeons is a step back to having the same dungeon copy and pasted across the whole map.

I like that they are fairly unique, however I wish there was still more variety. They really could have had at least maybe 3 additional tiles/themes. I also wish the various styles could be mixed up more.....instead of knowing the exact overall layout the moment you see the entrance.

I wish some of them were actually dark or had dark parts in them. There really isn't much use for a torch in this game unless I turn down the brightness.

So turn down the brightness then, lol
That's how I play

Sadly, they've never had dungeons that dark. I had to get mods for that in Oblivion(imagine running around in an ayleid ruin in the dark praying you don't run into zombies. scary times man, scary times)

I guess I feel the different dungeon layouts are wasted for the most part when they still feel copy pasted because the entire place looks the same as the last one. I'm referencing the draugr architecture. When the walls, floor, and enemies are identical to the last dungeon I was in, I don't really appreciate the different layout. It may be in part due to the better graphics available now. In Morrowind every cave felt different to me based on the layout. I could find that further in the cave was a semi flooded room with a wooden platform for smugglers to sleep on. I could find lava pools and sixth house abominations. I didn't notice the reused cave wall texture. In Skyrim it is very noticeable when the dungeon has the same lighting atmosphere and wall textures and enemies.

I find on average they improve on Oblivion's dungeons. The spaces are more interesting and usually more fun, even if they are still repetitive. Morrowind had some nice dungeons, but most of them were far too small.

I just wish the performance of the engine was better so the dungeons didn't have to be lit so badly on average.

Did you even play Oblivion? Do you remember any of the million goblin dungeons that were exactly the same?

Whats that about Blackreach? Oh you mean that unnecessarily large cavern thats filled with a whole bunch of nothing?

I did play Oblivion. And I don't remember fighting that many goblins actually. I remember more vampires and bandits. But anyways my point is that Skyrim should have fixed it, not made it more noticeable with tons of draugr dungeons.

I think you need to take a break from Skyrim,go play something else or even Oblivion ,walk a bit through samey dungeons to realize that you were wrong . After playing a few months I notice when people got tired a bit from this game they started cry about everything . Hard to find something interesting on these forums .

or Morrowind's numerous Daedric shrines, most of which are pretty much the same

The presence of generic and essentially copy-pasted dungeons in X game doesn't excuse the presence of even more dungeons like that in game Y.

Typical Stormcloak Propaganda

Yeh...I had the thought of ploughing through to reach the booty, too. Then I tried it and found out that 'those' draugr handed my butt to me on a plate, and then chased me back to the front door of the dungeon...They were the ones hunting me.

Would be nice to get a bit more variation in the baddies in the deeps, but then again, I've done 600 hours so I would expect that at that game time things would get a bit jaded. I'm ready for DLC...

You know, Daedric shrines never bothered me. I definitely don't think they were on the same level as these draugr dungeons. Also I generally avoided going in Daedric shrines anyway because of the loot to hardness ratio. You can't really do that in Skyrim because of all the quests that go in the draugr ruins. Main quest, mages guild, civil war... you get my point.

Too tired to argue with you. I completely disagree though.

Skyrim dungions IMO are much better than Oblivion's, which not only had LESS tilesets, but less unqiue tiles per tileset. Skyrim's gameplay in dungions is also much more fun as well.

However, they do suffer from it's own problems, that Morrowind didn't have. The thing is, your average Skyrim dungion on a case-by-case basis is more fun to play through than a Morrowind one on a case-by-case basis. But, the problem is that there are just too MANY dungions in skyrim, and that every single one has the exact same style/layout of design.

Every cave, drager den, dwemer ruin, fort, etc will ALWAYS play in a linear sequence of halls filled with the same exact traps, followed by a "boss" baddie, followed by obviously predictably randomly generated loot everywhere, with a convienent exit right at the start of the dungion.

This is a nice design. The problem is, it's used everywhere. There's no variation in anything except the layouts or the circumstances. There's also the problem of loot not being rewarding because you never get anything "good" for your level, and you never have anything worth spending you gold on anyways.

Artistically there are also repetition issues. All Dragur Dens will look EXACTLY the same, along with caves, etc. Places don't feel unique past the first hour of gameplay as such.

Now there are VERY rare exceptions. Black Reach for example. Other examples would be Passes, which don't loop around to the entrance. Certain caves are a lot more open too, like the Broken Oar Grotto. But these are very rare exceptions.

It's ironic that they made dungion design less repetitive and more fun from a moment-to-moment gameplay point of view compaired to the copy+paste dungions from Oblivion by expanding tilesets and types, but they failed to make them less repetitive in their overall gameplay design. So, in effect, they are just as repetetive as Oblivion, except now for different reasons.