I've noticed a trend in the Elder Scrolls games that I find sad. It's the loss of a sense of adventure. I was extremely excited about the game prior to launch - watching the boards, replaying the trailer, etc. I don't think there's ever been a game production I watched more than this one. And yet, I've still not finished it despite buying the game on 11/11/11. I have little interest in game and nothing ever pulls me back and I think a big part of that is the loss of adventure.

Now, it's possible I've simply played too many Bethesda games recently, because outside of the CoD and Mass Effect series I've primarily stuck to FO and Elder Scrolls ,and maybe I've become so familiar with their game structure it's negatively effecting my perception but I don't think that's all of it.

The loss of adventure I believe stems from a change in game philosophy. Our compass shows us exactly where things are (a cave here, a ruin here, a shrine here, etc), dungeons are straight arrows (forks in the road are extremely rare and the wrong fork is usually apparent quickly), scaling means every dungeon you enter will be in-line with your level so there's no fear that you're wandering into somewhere you shouldn't be yet, each dungeon just happens to circle back on itself with a convenient little hidden door that brings you back to the entrance. Fights aren't even interesting any more: dragon fights are essentially the same each time, mage fighting is reduced to stun-locking or conjuration, you can't experiment through spell making. After about level 6 I had zero fear wandering around Skyrim.


I'm not a Morrowind fanatic (although I do like the game a great deal) but it was the first Elder Scrolls I played so it's the logical place to start. I've never been as lost in a game as I was in Morrowind at the start. It was overwhelming at times like when I first walked off the boat: where do I go?, why can't I kill a crappy little mud crab?, god my guy is slow..., what's this door in the wilderness?, cool a shipwreck, let's look in this tomb... (bad idea).

When I visited Vivek for the first time: god this city is big..., how many sections are there?, why is there an enormous rock floating in the sky?

When I went in the Dwemer ruin by Balmora for the first time: god this place is huge..., are these people friendly? how deep does this go? is this a temple built into the rock wall? how do I get up it?

Telvanni Strongholds...

I loved every minute of the adventure and although it certainly wasn't a perfect game (there were many very frustrating aspects) but the adventure made it more than worthwhile.

From my perspective a lot of this adventure was absent in Oblivion by the introduction of the compass with locations displaying everything near-by and level scaling was also an unwelcome development. Dungeon layouts looked similar but there were differences and they were not linear - there was still a sense of adventure - especially in the Aeylid runes. I can say I played it nearly as much as Morrowind.

I'm not here to rant but I really just want to feel like I've least tried to express tol Bethesda my feelings about the games and series I've loved and followed. I don't think gamers need to have their hand-held as half the experience comes from learning the ropes. Danger, fear, and the unknown aren't things to be avoided but cherished and makes the experience more rewarding in the end!

I agree about the dungeon linear path and the excessive handholding, but I think the sense of adventure is still present, there are many locations that are unique in design and many dungeons have a story from the past (or still going on). A lot of the discovery is ruined by the scaled loot though, I wish there were more rare loot like Morrowind's.

I thinks it basically the extreme hand holding in placing map markers on your map, the arrow above the person or irem u need and basically the GPS that senses all life forms. Dont get me wrong, it should stay in the game BC some people either like the hand holding or tbey dont have the time yo put into video games anymore. Its the fact that of u turn all that off, it is impossible finish most quests BC there is no directions the game gives you.
And maybe the fact alot of people want something ancient and for some reason knows the exact location and that exact location is a forbidden dungeon literally a quater of a mile away from a major city....

Keep the map markers and quest arrows and enemy GPS, but give us the info u gave us in games like morrowind for a quest and lets us have the option to turn the handholding items off.

Skyrim seems to be a happier medium between oblivion and morrowind. A number of the locations have their own back story that far exceed anything that was present in morrowinds locations. There is still a quest arrow but nothing is stopping you from exploring caves without a quest. I do it all the time and if your on PC i HIGHLY suggest using the dungeon quest awareness mod. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=11503 This makes it so you can explore to your hearts content without worrying that your going to go into a quest cave before your supposed to (this was a actual worry of mine in morrwoind even). The game lets you be pretty free form if you want it to be and you can just stroll around and explore different locations.

Now I personally do miss getting quest directions from quest givers and consulting my journal to finish quests. I also miss the chance of finding some legendary unique item in random caves which skyrim does have but they are leveled. Hopefully TES V brings some of that back but i feel skyrim was a step away from obivion back towards morrowind location wise in many respects and a step in the right direction.

I agree with most of your points, seeing all the dungeon icons on your compass adds less mystery to the adventure. Though adventuring in TES games always had the sense of adventure, I seen a lot of dungeons in Skyrim with very large areas and I said in my head many times, "Damn this place is huge", when it came to Falmar habitats such as Blackreach, Dwemer Ruins, and Caves. There will always be a sense of adventure in TES.

How does that change ANYTHING?

Yeah, you see the quest marker, you know where you are supposed to go, but does that make you instantly go there, does that make the journey disappear? There's no "adventure" or whatever either way in these cases because in both way you are already told where you need to go. On the icon thing... how is that any different than seeing some giant towers in the distance, a valley, smoke behind the trees, people walking around drawing weapons in your presence. Not to mention the numerous unmarked areas, yes, they exist.

And my favorite is still the scaling. Here's a surprise: Morrowind was just as scaled as Skyrim. No, really. And how does scaling mean that there's no challenge at all, that's the point of scaling that there always will be challenge. I couldn't finish several dwemer ruins because I hate Falmer, they are extremely tough. Not to mention the Steam Centurions, they just instantly kill you on low levels.

And of course fights are going to be uninteresting after level 60 or whatever especially if you go with every abuse mechanic ever existed... This is hardly ever different from any other TES game, especially Morrowind where the complaint was that there was no challenge after level 20...

I'm finding traveling Skyrim to be a lot more fun to travel in Morrowind.

I've had three characters that I have played about 100+ hours each on. I don't fast travel. There are still some places I've yet to revisit from my very first playthrough. The world is absoultely huge. The adventure is still there. That is, the POTENTIAL for it. The lack of actually dangerous/risky environs/situations and interesting things to do/see is what I think you might be feeling. But in a sandbox game it's up to you to keep yourself entertained...

Luckily for those who PC, mods can change that.

I'd much rather have dungeons with a detailed backstory than dungeons with a fork in the road. I absolutely detest getting lost in dungeons, personally.

As for the 'fear' aspect ... I explore far less in Skyrim than in Oblivion because I'm more afraid. Those leveled enemies are tough - my character has a lot of trouble getting through Nordic ruins, and fighting Falmer. He still shudders every time a Dragon flies over him. I guess I'd rather have a fight that I have a chance of winning, rather than a fight that's either way too easy or way too hard.

I'm not fussed about quest markers, the real killer for me is the lack of interesting boss encounters, deadly traps, unique enemy models/varieties, few "tilesets", and the lackluster treasure.

I just wich more loot in the dlc pls RARE LOOT

I'd have to disagree with the cave exploring. Everytime I delve into a random cave I seem to break one questline or another. example: I was going to High Hrothgar one playthrough, and decided to stop and investigate this cave. It had a single troll in it so I killed it and ransacked the place. After High Hrothgar I went back to whiterun and picked up a quest from aela the huntress, The radiant quest in question was go to (random cave) and kill (random enemy), it was the cave I had just cleared and it was empty, so I couldnt finish it. People say "Oh if you wait 30-60 days it'll respawn the enemies," but thats stupid. I have a couple other instances of the same thing happening for different quests and guild which after a few playthoughs pretty much convinced me to NOT explore anything unless told to.

I dont understand why the game even came with a map in the case. In morrowind I used the map to figure out where the hell I was because you had to explore to find places. You had to follow road signs to get to places. You go into a cave with a "what is this" attitude at level 2, and run into a bone lord. you're dead, or you run. There's nothing to worry about in skyrim or oblivion since everything levels with you, and you're not gonna encounter anything that isnt at least equally matched to you, level wise anyways. Still, I love TES and will play it again and again until the next one comes out.

Well the draugr ruins should be linear since they're tombs and I don't think they were designed to be confusing. Back when people still visited the ruins to give respect to the dead or bury a fallen warrior there wouldn't be a reason to make a confusing layout.

This same reasoning can be applied to other places as they weren't built to be confusing.

Although I think that dungeons should be dark. Unless inhabited by bandits/witches/vampires/etc who actually would need the light, the places should be pitch black. The torch and the lighting spells are nearly useless in this game.

And I don't understand when people in the game say no one knows where ____ is as it's location has been lost for 100s of years yet it is located off a main road in plain sight.

I agree with many of your points. Danger in Skyrim was minimal after a couple of levels. I enjoyed exploring dungeons for their back stories, but otherwise was little rewarded for my efforts, though the dungeons themselves were varied and well designed.

There's still adventure in Skyrim. The compass pointing everything out is a constant disappointment, but I'm getting used to it after Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, and now Skyrim. I'd still prefer directions to map markers. Looking for landmarks that NPC's suggest to guide you to a location is literally 100x more interesting to me than following a little marker on my compass.

The sad thing is, Skyrim is the perfect world to have directions given to the player. All of the rivers, valleys, ruins, mountains.... it's probably more conducive to such a system than Morrowind was.

Agreed, 100%.

Which is why I keep saying hand-holding features such as markers really are one of the most detrimental and undermining things you can include in an open-world game.

Have a cry, then accept and embrace it...because gaming won't ever go back to the way it used to be. Too much money being made in the "accessable" range.

Now let's have a moment of silence to honor the golden age of gaming.

When I first started Skyrim, I had a big issue with the quest markers. I thought that they were stupid, and that I didn't need some dumb marker to show me where to go. I would have rather listened to detailed instructions of how to get to the destination.

After about 60 hours of gameplay, I realized that it didn't really make any difference (for me anyway). It's just a way for your character to have the knowledge of direction without the player having to take the time to decipher everything. For me, it would get pretty old to have to take fifteen minutes just to figure out where I'm going for every single quest. And besides, TES games have always been geared toward the player's imagination filling in the gaps. It's not a far stretch for me, as the player, to imagine that my character was given directions to his destination without requiring actual in-game directions.

What would have been a good substutution to the "quest marker" would be is that if NPC gave you a detailed direction on how to get there. Afterwards you can choose to put your directions in a journal, at the cost of a journal page. If you got lost you could ask wandering NPC's for directions to get somewhere or you could hire a guide to guide you to your location.


Example :

Journal Page 1

"I've been told to find the grey beards in the mountains at high hograthar, i should go up to helgen and take
the mountain paths from helgen towards a little town call ivarstead. There i shall ask for more direct directions."


However you could give more offical drections like "head west from helgen until you reach a small forest, past the forest the town of ivarstead shall be located."

The directions in Morrowind were epic

'Go over this named bridge, up the fill, take a right at the signpost, then a direct left at the night one pointing to 'This town'. Up the hill and you're there.'

"here, let me mark it on your map". With the knowledge of how to use a map and compass, the quest arrow makes a bit more sense. Want an option to turn it off? Unmark the quest. BOOM you then have to use the map and compass to find your own way there as you would IRL.

As for enemy GPS, one annoyance I had with oblivion was encountering an enemy but not knowing where they were. To counter this I started using my AKG headphones (which turned out to be such a good move I now play with headphones on almost exclusively) so I could get a bead on the direction of incoming danger. The red ticks idea which they imported from FO saves on a lot of cruddy TV speaker based woe for some, I can quite happily ignore it as I'm used to using my ears now, but the option to remove it entirely would be good...