The decline of the Elder Scrolls series

[Glyphwright]

It wasn't their intention to make useless/inferior skills, though.

Really? Ability to communicate with Daedra? Orcish? Centaurian?

 

[Broseph]

It wasn't their intention to make useless/inferior skills, though.

Really? Ability to communicate with Daedra? Orcish? Centaurian?

IIRC the developers originally intended for you to be able to have conversations with those creatures, but it got cut. Like a lot of other things in the game, such as the Prostitute's Guild.

 

[Glyphwright]

IIRC the developers originally intended for you to be able to have conversations with those creatures, but it got cut. Like a lot of other things in the game, such as the Prostitute's Guild.

That's what I had in mind. No less than half a dozen skills with no other purpose, than to "communicate" with monsters you kill? That's the definition of useless/inferior. Obviously, any sane player would rather fill the precious skill slots with something that actually makes the game playable, like archery, magical schools, lockpicking/etc. I'm really glad they cut down the number of skills in Morrowind, leaving only the bare minimum which should suffice for detailed character building, without fake options that serve no other purpose than to make a newcomer slap his forehead in frustration and click "New Game". Of course, then they went full retard with Oblivion and made Axes a Blunt Weapon.

 

[Dragula]

The biggest decline is the lack of were-pigs/boars.

 

[Wyrmlord]

IIRC the developers originally intended for you to be able to have conversations with those creatures, but it got cut. Like a lot of other things in the game, such as the Prostitute's Guild.

That's what I had in mind. No less than half a dozen skills with no other purpose, than to "communicate" with monsters you kill? That's the definition of useless/inferior. Obviously, any sane player would rather fill the precious skill slots with something that actually makes the game playable, like archery, magical schools, lockpicking/etc. I'm really glad they cut down the number of skills in Morrowind, leaving only the bare minimum which should suffice for detailed character building, without fake options that serve no other purpose than to make a newcomer slap his forehead in frustration and click "New Game". Of course, then they went full retard with Oblivion and made Axes a Blunt Weapon.

Those monsters cease to be hostile, when you have a high enough skill.

That's pretty useful against Daedra, who seem to have strong spell resistance and can sometimes silence you, while still being strong in direct combat.

But even otherwise, different guilds have different skill requirements for advancement. Linguistic skills are the only ones that tend to be common across various guilds. So if want to join as many guilds as possible, it helps to have linguistic skills.

 

[General Maxson]

IIRC the developers originally intended for you to be able to have conversations with those creatures, but it got cut. Like a lot of other things in the game, such as the Prostitute's Guild.

That's what I had in mind. No less than half a dozen skills with no other purpose, than to "communicate" with monsters you kill? That's the definition of useless/inferior. Obviously, any sane player would rather fill the precious skill slots with something that actually makes the game playable, like archery, magical schools, lockpicking/etc. I'm really glad they cut down the number of skills in Morrowind, leaving only the bare minimum which should suffice for detailed character building, without fake options that serve no other purpose than to make a newcomer slap his forehead in frustration and click "New Game". Of course, then they went full retard with Oblivion and made Axes a Blunt Weapon.

Yeah, but if communication with monsters was implemented in a cool, meaningful and useful way, it think it would be great and interesting.

 

[Turjan]

IIRC the developers originally intended for you to be able to have conversations with those creatures, but it got cut. Like a lot of other things in the game, such as the Prostitute's Guild.

That's what I had in mind. No less than half a dozen skills with no other purpose, than to "communicate" with monsters you kill? That's the definition of useless/inferior. Obviously, any sane player would rather fill the precious skill slots with something that actually makes the game playable, like archery, magical schools, lockpicking/etc. I'm really glad they cut down the number of skills in Morrowind, leaving only the bare minimum which should suffice for detailed character building, without fake options that serve no other purpose than to make a newcomer slap his forehead in frustration and click "New Game". Of course, then they went full retard with Oblivion and made Axes a Blunt Weapon.

Yeah, but if communication with monsters was implemented in a cool, meaningful and useful way, it think it would be great and interesting.

In Battlespire, it sometimes made sense. Often enough, you had to fight, anyway, but there were exceptions.

 

[Raapys]

IIRC the developers originally intended for you to be able to have conversations with those creatures, but it got cut. Like a lot of other things in the game, such as the Prostitute's Guild.

That's what I had in mind. No less than half a dozen skills with no other purpose, than to "communicate" with monsters you kill? That's the definition of useless/inferior. Obviously, any sane player would rather fill the precious skill slots with something that actually makes the game playable, like archery, magical schools, lockpicking/etc. I'm really glad they cut down the number of skills in Morrowind, leaving only the bare minimum which should suffice for detailed character building, without fake options that serve no other purpose than to make a newcomer slap his forehead in frustration and click "New Game".

Eh, it's kinda pointless to object to the existence of a feature that was never finished. The entire game's filled with them, and there was still plenty that never made it in at all. For all we know, maybe you could gain great advantage from conversing with said creatures; access to quests, shops, world locations, etc.

Sad thing is, instead of improving said skills and other game features that were unfinished/cut or never made it in, and eventually adding even more features, they instead decided that ambition was evil and should be purged with fire. Ever since Daggerfall, Bethesda has taken the approach of "if it doesn't work well, scrap it". And since they've always sucked at game features/mechanics implementation in general, we get less and less stuff in every sequel.

 

[SCO]

Bethesda fails at life and i haven't given them money since the original morrowind.

 

[Broseph]

Morrowind is still a damn near masterpiece in my book. Strange how they managed to do that with the influence of both Todd Howard and Ken Rolston.

 

[Sceptic]

In Battlespire, it sometimes made sense. Often enough, you had to fight, anyway, but there were exceptions.

The language skills didn't exist in Battlespire, you just talked to whoever you were trying to talk to. Sometimes they attacked you anyway, other times they didn't, depending on their own agenda.

Anyway as has already been said, the language skills in DF aren't there so you can talk to the creatures, it's so they don't attack you. Considering they cover almost every type of enemy except undead, NPCs and animals, they're actually extremely useful for avoiding trash mobs in dungeons. With high enough Orcish the multiple trips you need to take through Orsinium are a piece of cake.

 

[Raapys]

I liked MW myself( though less than DF), but I can't really say it did anything particularly well. Most of the features are really just average, even poor. And if you remove the mods, then it's definitely beaten by the somewhat-different-but-still-similar Gothic 2 I'd say.

 

[Kukulkan]

I liked MW myself( though less than DF), but I can't really say it did anything particularly well. Most of the features are really just average, even poor. And if you remove the mods, then it's definitely beaten by the somewhat-different-but-still-similar Gothic 2 I'd say.

It all has to do with the atmosphere-lore-gameworld combination.

 

[Broseph]

I liked MW myself( though less than DF), but I can't really say it did anything particularly well. Most of the features are really just average, even poor. And if you remove the mods, then it's definitely beaten by the somewhat-different-but-still-similar Gothic 2 I'd say.

It all has to do with the atmosphere-lore-gameworld combination.

For atmospherefags like me, Morrowind is pretty much second to none.

 

[7h30n]

If someone asks me what game is overrated my response would be: The whole Elder Scrolls series! Every game from that series simply could not pull me into its world. I played Dagerfall and Morrowind the most, but they never clicked with me. Not to mention Oblivion which I uninstalled after 5 mins of play time. Almost the same thing with Fallout 3. It seems I cannot play games made by Bethesda. I couldn't even force myself to finish New Vegas because of Bethesda's game mechanics in it.

Well, that's my opinion!

 

[Kem0sabe]

I couldn't even force myself to finish New Vegas because of Bethesda's game mechanics in it.

Well, that's my opinion!

Please reconsider playing New Vegas, it´s one of the best and more engrossing rpg´s you can play, it´s Obsidian´s best work so far in my opinion.

 

[7h30n]

I couldn't even force myself to finish New Vegas because of Bethesda's game mechanics in it.

Well, that's my opinion!

Please reconsider playing New Vegas, it´s one of the best and more engrossing rpg´s you can play, it´s Obsidian´s best work so far in my opinion.

Yeah, I am reconsidering for quite some time now... coz I heard and saw many good Obsidian touches in there.

 

[hakuroshi]

Bethesda is capable to create a relatively cool static settings (Morrowind and Skyrim) but completely fails to make them dynamically interactive.
Gameplay it provides just can't stand to the quality of the setting, and the fact that gameplay often plain shitty doesn't help either.

 

[AgentBJ09]

Since I started on the Elder Scrolls series with Morrowind in 2002, I didn't see a decline of any sort until I played Daggerfall for the first time. A few months after I played Skyrim for the first time. (Wasn't as well versed in PC operations until then.) There's something about the presentation of Skyrim that rubs me the wrong way because of that. The dumbing down for sure, but then I saw the Skyrim Nexus.

Bethesda says they love mods, and yet some of their fans, whom they gave those modding tools to, do a better job patching/optimizing their games than they do. The LAA mods and the SkyUI chief among those. Maybe it's me, but coupled with how much buggier Bethesda's games are these days, that screams laziness and riding the goodwill of your fanbase more than much I've seen this last year. Hopefully that changes, but it's a trend I can't see being bucked with how much money Skyrim is making them. Though I do hope Obsidian's pedigree for making believable characters and dialogue starts rubbing off on them at some point.

Actually, from an RPG standpoint, I would love to have Elder Scrolls games with more involved dialogue trees and less voice acting. VAing is nice, but it sucks up DVD space and, speaking from experience, gamers are more than capable of applying voices to an NPC if they find them interesting enough. Just look at Zelda.

That aside, I've heard the setting and flavor of Skyrim was more Anglo-Saxon than Norse before Oblivion came around, which sounds like a far more interesting kind of culture for the Nords. (Being a bit of a Deutsch-o-phile myself.) That and the Imperials had more of a Roman/Chinese touch to their culture and lands, not just medieval English. Makes me wish one of the races had Polish or New Zealand hints in their culture.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

"but coupled with how much buggier Bethesda's games are these days,"

i'm all for bethesda bashing, but wtf are you smoking?

 

[Turjan]

"but coupled with how much buggier Bethesda's games are these days,"

i'm all for bethesda bashing, but wtf are you smoking?

Well they can't all be as bug-free and perfect as Daggerfall

 

[Kukulkan]

"but coupled with how much buggier Bethesda's games are these days,"

i'm all for bethesda bashing, but wtf are you smoking?

Well they can't all be as bug-free and perfect as Daggerfall

To be fair, Daggerfall had a way shorter development time than Skyrim.

 

[Turjan]

"but coupled with how much buggier Bethesda's games are these days,"

i'm all for bethesda bashing, but wtf are you smoking?

Well they can't all be as bug-free and perfect as Daggerfall

To be fair, Daggerfall had a way shorter development time than Skyrim.

Sure, but it still doesn't make me reminisce about the bug-free past of Bethesda.

 

[Saxon1974]

I had hardly any bugs with Skyrim on launch at all. It's nearly impossible to make a bug-free game of this size on release. I remember WAY more bugs with Daggerfall when it came out. Dumming down with quest markers and horrible UI I definitely agree with.

Also regarding New Vegas, I liked it alot one of the best AAA RPG in a long time. I liked it WAY better than Fallout 3.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I had hardly any bugs with Skyrim on launch at all. It's nearly impossible to make a bug-free game of this size on release. I remember WAY more bugs with Daggerfall when it came out. Dumming down with quest markers and horrible UI I definitely agree with.

Also regarding New Vegas, I liked it alot one of the best AAA RPG in a long time. I liked it WAY better than Fallout 3.

I agree game was worth seven Six runs despite horrible engine and being mediocre shooter. Kwan SW setting, C&C and dialogues were worth it, even if NCR has 70% of quests.