Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[rusty_shackleford]

Of course Morrowind is a terrible RPG, just like all the Bethesda games. They were never good, just had some fun stuff in it to do and experience, occassionally with some creative and interesting quests.

Bethesda excel at literally one thing: world creation. They make great worlds for people to wander around in, that's their "special talent" that their mothers bragged about. Even Oblivion, as bland and fucking generic as you can get, was literally designed to be as bland and generic as you get on purpose. They excelled at being generic. Morrowind is one of my favorite games ever because it created a world I loved being in, and that's pretty much the end of it. They don't really excel at anything else, merely create passable (Morrowind, Skyrim) or barely tolerable (Oblivion, Fallout 4) RPG systems to fuck around with while exploring their worlds.

This is why... get ready for it... Fallout New Vegas is so amazing. It takes the Bethesda world creation algorithm and adds actual cool story and RPG systems to it.

Two things.
The second thing is excelling at providing a moddable game. Very few games come with modkits at all, The creationkit is essentially the devkit itself(IIRC, for a while new vegas was developed entirely using the GECK)
Bethesda games collectively have over 135k separate mods and 2.6 billion unique downloads on NexusMods.

 

[laclongquan]

Why do you say Morrowind is a bad RPG?
Because it stands at 7th place in Top 70 RPG of all times, man~ Aside from its bad qualities, its place show its standing

Why do you say Morrowind is a good RPG?
Because it stands at 7th place in Top 70 RPG of all times, man~ Aside from its good qualities, its place show its standing

 

[Higher Animal]

Morrowind is not "over-engineered" to the point of providing a simulation designed by a creative dungeon master who gives you multiple, complex solutions to a problem that lead to a predetermined outcome. Morrowind is a system of experimentation, creative exploration, and adventure/lore problem solving. There are multiple broken mechanics, silly quests, and obvious solutions but they came along with creating an open ended system of player input.

The sad thing is that all of the good ideas within Morrowind were not taken up in the sequels. Instead of trying to iterate on the player creativity aspect, Bethesda consolidated the gameplay systems around easy to use, uninteresting yet consistent mechanics. Think of "chance to hit" in Morrowind vs guaranteed strikes in Oblivion. The "chance to hit" mechanic could've been iterated in interesting ways, IE providing geographic positioning bonuses on the body of enemies or distance between combatants, but it was thrown away for the diet coke option of guaranteed hits.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

and overhauled the combat system

That depends, overhauled in what way?
To make it more action-y like Oblivion+? No, thanks, Morrowind combat is true RPG combat (well, as true as it can get for a first person RPG), and that's a fine thing. We need more first person combat using RPG mechanics instead of action combat, not less.

That oppurtonity has passed the moment the game controls like an action game. So yes the way to make the combat better is to make it action oriented. Not like Oblivion, but like actually good action games like Severance or NIOH. That way the skill when improved gives the player new attacks/combos (instead of that more damage and better rolls lazy shit), the combat is actually fun and engaging and the enemy design can be good (elaborate and diverse enemy design in Morrowind doesn't work because of the simple and restrictive nature of it's combat and movement). Hell with that combat system you can even make the magical/artifact weapons actually fell special, with unique properties and attacks of their own (instead of just being that jRPG tier shit of "better metal, better weapon").

 

[MWaser]

Morrowind definitely loses out close combat-wise to its contemporary PC action-RPG competitor, Gothic 2. The dice roll combat is annoying as ever in an action game, there's not much control you have over the result of the combat in the combat itself, but it mostly comes from preparation. It also feels slow and looks really janky. Albeit magnificently, Archery in Morrowind is superior to that of Gothic 2's, as both games use dice rolls to determine whether the attack hit or not, but Gothic lacks the ability to even aim, resulting in many frustrating possibilities.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Morrowind is not "over-engineered" to the point of providing a simulation designed by a creative dungeon master who gives you multiple, complex solutions to a problem that lead to a predetermined outcome. Morrowind is a system of experimentation, creative exploration, and adventure/lore problem solving. There are multiple broken mechanics, silly quests, and obvious solutions but they came along with creating an open ended system of player input.

The sad thing is that all of the good ideas within Morrowind were not taken up in the sequels. Instead of trying to iterate on the player creativity aspect, Bethesda consolidated the gameplay systems around easy to use, uninteresting yet consistent mechanics. Think of "chance to hit" in Morrowind vs guaranteed strikes in Oblivion. The "chance to hit" mechanic could've been iterated in interesting ways, IE providing geographic positioning bonuses on the body of enemies or distance between combatants, but it was thrown away for the diet coke option of guaranteed hits.

This is exactly why I say Morrowind is an endless playground of player creativity and that we haven't seen a true spiritual successor to Morrowind yet. Hoping some insanely ambitious indie devs try their hand at what made Morrowind special and try to capture it in a new game.

 

[luj1]

OP's wall of text reads like a 1:1 comparison with FNV (?). Unless you can summarize in 1-2 sentences and without saying "New Vegas" I doubt you know what you're talking about.

 

[thesheeep]

and overhauled the combat system

That depends, overhauled in what way?
To make it more action-y like Oblivion+? No, thanks, Morrowind combat is true RPG combat (well, as true as it can get for a first person RPG), and that's a fine thing. We need more first person combat using RPG mechanics instead of action combat, not less.

That oppurtonity has passed the moment the game controls like an action game. So yes the way to make the combat better is to make it action oriented.

Only if you want the game to be more of an action game, not more of an RPG. In an RPG, what you see is only a representation of what your character is doing. This is the fundamental difference between an action game and an RPG. As such, it simply doesn't matter too much if it doesn't feel very fluid. Hell, it could be text-only. It's essentially the same as it is i.e. in Fallout 1+2, just seen from another perspective.
A game being controlled from first person perspective does NOT make it an action game, the thought alone is absurd and disproven by blobbers alone and all kinds of other first person but non-action games.
I get that many people prefer action games over RPGs, but it's the dev's decision which kind of game they want to make. And neither is inherently better.

That said, I'm not opposed to having both modes in the same game. Have the game designed around proper RPG combat, but on starting a new game, the player can select between "RPG-" and "Action-Combat". With the biggest difference in action combat being that there are no to-hit rolls (except for ranged enemies). If you are close enough to (and looking at) an enemy, you hit. Of course, to not just make the game easier, the same counts for the enemies, making combat likely deadlier/faster with "Action-Combat".
This would be easy enough to implement (you just need to assume 100% hit chance in melee & player ranged), not screw balance too hard and give players a choice if they want combat to feel more RPG-like or more action-like.

 

[JarlFrank]

The best way to combine first person action combat and RPG stats is the Gothic way where higher skills actually have an influence on how well your character swings his weapon by making it more fluid and unlocking new attack types.

 

[sullynathan]

The best way to combine first person action combat and RPG stats is the Gothic way where higher skills actually have an influence on how well your character swings his weapon by making it more fluid and unlocking new attack types.

so.... the standard unlocking of movesets that action games do?

 

[Sigourn]

Open Path
I'm going to make this short because it's evident by your tone you and I won't agree on Morrowind.

Most of the things you think Morrowind does good, I disagree with. The only exception is the worldbuilding. Most of the things you say Morrowind is unparalleled at, I agree with. But being unparalleled at something doesn't mean you are good at it. It's just that not many games bothered to have the same mechanics as Morrowind: not even ones from the same series. The only thing that is brilliant at times is the main quest. Most of the time the writing is simply serviceable, it does what it is needed but never adds the spark of life to NPCs, which is why so many of them have no personality at all.

Morrowind is not a combat-centric game. It's also not a story-heavy game. What's left are the quest, the exploration and freedom, which is basically what Morrowind focuses on. I don't think any of these are actually good; I can definitely say Morrowind gives the player a huge degree of freedom to use its different mechanics, but that would be it. Unless you are that interested in experimenting with mechanics in a game you otherwise find boring, there's not much to praise here.

So in what branch of your absurd classification fits exactly the two religious faction

They are faction quests, just like all other guilds and great houses. Not much science behind this.

and what approach "should" have every quest of these factions?

To me, a faction's quests should be directly related to a faction. In that regard, Morrowind's quests are fine. If there are faction requirements, I expect those to tie in directly into the faction's quests. Else they become generic, and expose faction quests for what they really are: quests where the "faction" element is simply that you are doing these quests for a particular group.

Redoran faction quests, for example, shouldn't limit you to finish them by the use of melee combat... but simply make the skills favored by the guild useful in most quest. With faction checks, the player must improve the favored skills (by the faction, of course) to advance and have access to new quests and rewards, so makes sense that you use at least some of these skills regularly.

This would make sense if it wasn't so easy to level skills in Morrowind in different ways. Ideally you pick a build and stick with it, i.e. I decide to play a fighter and naturally the factions of choice will be Redoran, Fighter's Guild, or Imperial Legion. But no. I believe you can join any faction from the start.

As I said isn't a specially good combat, lacks balance and a bit of challenge, but fatigue influence, weapon deterioration, unique enemies, enemies extremely diverse use of magic, possibility to fail attacks or spells, attacks types and damage dependence of these types in different weapons, one of the most diverse and dynamic magic combats ever -even if overpowered-, attribute-skill heavy dependent combat, difference in weapons reach, underwater combat, very good looting after victory (good by diversity and uniqueness, even if sometimes overpowering) and some other features that I possibly forgot all makes Morrowind combat a decent experience for a rpg fan, specially comparing with the two simple combat games that you mention in your message. Most rpg ever made have far more simple, action based, less challenging, less rewarding or even less balanced combats, so how can be Morrowind's "one of the worst"?

Because it boils down to dicerolls in a game where the action-part allows you to completely break it. There are no rounds. There are no turns. You attack as fast as you please and then are able to spam potions in your inventory at will. Those are genuine problems with the combat. You asked about New Vegas: I don't think New Vegas has good combat, but at least it is proper action combat in an action-RPG.

Don't get me wrong: you make a lot of good points. Those are all genuine strong points with Morrowind's combat. But we cannot ignore the fact the combat is based on dicerolls, in a game with a first person perspective, and it is about as unengaging as it could hope to be.

An how can be quests that can be solved in several ways

I disagree, many Morrowind quests don't have multiple solutions. A lot of times it boils down to "do the quest or don't do it".

 

[Sigourn]

I have heard other people say this as well. I don't get it. You reach very close to the end after dozens of hours of play, and then you don't spend 20 mins to finish it? Put a power armor on and go.

Usually I'm burned out by that point of the game.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Better than me, I'm usually burned out by the time I finish installing mods

 

[Bricker]

Morrowind is a great game... but a lot like a book in old English or a complex board game it takes some determination to actually start to enjoy it.

As for characters..... Do not choose archer. A mage can do cool shit but in order to do the shit you have to earn it. A warrior still takes some getting used to but is your best bet for a first character.

Learn the uses of items and the basics as a warrior. It makes getting into it much easier. You will need to rely on items that you wont understand at first but get used to everything and a mage character will probably be the natural transition.

 

[Shadenuat]

Morrowind is really made for playing pure mage yes. Nothing beats the experience of glorious LARP or never taking a weapon in your hands and wearing anything but a robe and solving everything just with your own crafted spells.

It's interesting how people comment on static NPCs. They are static, but not any more than in any other RPG, like Fallout or BG or well, basically any RPG out there with exception of very odd little games like Space Rangers or Dwarf Fortress. Animated or not, they still lack what affects the world - they lack agency.

NPCs were always decorations in RPGs. Sometimes they are animated decorations, as in they don't just stand there, but can walk from point A to point B and play a few animations, but their purpose as objects with no agency to interact with to push player forward doesn't change much. Adding life routines to NPCs is like changing some cutouts to a theatre of shadows. It is still just an illusion made of shadows.

Not that it wouldn't be better to have more life in the game, of course, but I can't say I was more immersed in Oblivion or Skyrim because NPCs began to walk around a bit more. The fragility of AI and sleeping in their beds and shit breaks whole immersion thing developers tried to do as easy as glass. Even New Vegas, which had factions, did not impress me that much. If anything, I liked custom hand placed NPCs like a traveler with guitar more than NCR and Legion circus of AI invalids trying to kill each other with awkward animations and occasionally running from each other half of the Mojave like morons.

I also think it is not a stretch to believe that, simply due to size of Morrowind, they did not have enough powah yet at the time to make more dynamic NPCs. Most mods that add them, as far as I heard, are pretty performance intensive and that's with modern PCs.

 

[GrainWetski]

OP's wall of text reads like a 1:1 comparison with FNV (?). Unless you can summarize in 1-2 sentences and without saying "New Vegas" I doubt you know what you're talking about.

He's been playing RPGs for like 3 years now. He's an expert.

 

[Sigourn]

OP's wall of text reads like a 1:1 comparison with FNV (?). Unless you can summarize in 1-2 sentences and without saying "New Vegas" I doubt you know what you're talking about.

Here's your summary in two sentences:

• Allegedly "deep" mechanics where all its depth comes from the ways you can kill people.
• Allegedly "deep" quests & factions when pretty much any character can solve these quests bypassing any pretense of genuine roleplaying.

 

[Molina]

Morrowind is really made for playing pure mage yes. Nothing beats the experience of glorious LARP or never taking a weapon in your hands and wearing anything but a robe and solving everything just with your own crafted spells.

It's interesting how people comment on static NPCs. They are static, but not any more than in any other RPG, like Fallout or BG or well, basically any RPG out there with exception of very odd little games like Space Rangers or Dwarf Fortress. Animated or not, they still lack what affects the world - they lack agency.

NPCs were always decorations in RPGs. Sometimes they are animated decorations, as in they don't just stand there, but can walk from point A to point B and play a few animations, but their purpose as objects with no agency to interact with to push player forward doesn't change much. Adding life routines to NPCs is like changing some cutouts to a theatre of shadows. It is still just an illusion made of shadows.

Not that it wouldn't be better to have more life in the game, of course, but I can't say I was more immersed in Oblivion or Skyrim because NPCs began to walk around a bit more. The fragility of AI and sleeping in their beds and shit breaks whole immersion thing developers tried to do as easy as glass. Even New Vegas, which had factions, did not impress me that much. If anything, I liked custom hand placed NPCs like a traveler with guitar more than NCR and Legion circus of AI invalids trying to kill each other with awkward animations and occasionally running from each other half of the Mojave like morons.

I also think it is not a stretch to believe that, simply due to size of Morrowind, they did not have enough powah yet at the time to make more dynamic NPCs. Most mods that add them, as far as I heard, are pretty performance intensive and that's with modern PCs.

In fact, it's impossible, except if you downgrade graphism and details. But in this case, you no longer have morrowind/FPS in 3D. So, yeah, Morrowind Sucks, because it is not built by a future technology.

 

[Shadenuat]

I guess there's an equation for games which states that the prettier you want it, the shallower its mechanics would be.

 

[Molina]

I guess there's an equation for games which states that the prettier you want it, the shallower its mechanics would be.

To be honest, maybe is possible with a Star citizen budget. Anyway, this criticism misses the point. Morrowind is a handcrafted miniature model. It is inherently static.

 

[Crispy]

first person

the Gothic way

 

[DJOGamer PT]

In an RPG, what you see is only a representation of what your character is doing.

By this reasoning Deus Ex is not an RPG. Nor New Vegas, or Gothic...

A game being controlled from first person perspective does NOT make it an action game, the thought alone is absurd and disproven by blobbers alone and all kinds of other first person but non-action games.

Maybe my choice of words wasn't the best. I don't consider Morrowind and ARPG exactly because of the controls, but because the game plays like an Action game with a big emphasis on the RPG mechanics. The same applies to the games I mentioned above.

Besides it's still a game. Having fun and engaging mechanics should be of the upmost importance.
When the RPG has multiples PC's I am all for turn-based, dice rolls and all the other types of abstractions (as long as it's not RTwP). Now with 1 PC, I think an action oriented approach is the best way to have combat.

Besides what combat system do think is more challenging, allows for more complexity and diversity of design (and ways to be experienced) by both the player and the dev, and is overall more fun?
This:




Or this:

The best way to combine first person action combat and RPG stats is the Gothic way where higher skills actually have an influence on how well your character swings his weapon by making it more fluid and unlocking new attack types.

so.... the standard unlocking of movesets that action games do?

Pretty much. But I would say the way Severance and NIOH specifically implement them are perfect for an ARPG.

 

[DavidBVal]

I'd rather have one game that has some unforgettable things, than a dozen "better" games that I'll likely forget right after I uninstall. Morrowind's setting, scope and open design is enough to make one crazy the first time you play it, I remember being obsessed with soul-trapping, with making magic items and spellcrafting, I still have a memory of the first time I saw the ghostfence and began imagining what it would be containing, I remember feeling amazed at flying over the Tel'vanni lands, at the dwemmer ruins and the secret of how they disappeared, loved the Redoran emperor Crab houses, the Ministry of Truth... yeah, gameplay shortcomings everywhere but I couldn't care less, and when you don't read guides and walkthroughs you don't really break the game that easily. Never was a huge challenge the way Wizardries were, but still it had a few hard fights, enough to care about progression. In sum: It got me like few RPGs have in the last 15 years, if any has.

I wholeheartedly disagree that "you gotta play twice to see if it's good". Replayability is a factor, but not a big one in a long game, and modding make it very replayable IMHO.

 

[Molina]

In an RPG, what you see is only a representation of what your character is doing.

By this reasoning Deus Ex is not an RPG. Nor New Vegas, or Gothic...

A game being controlled from first person perspective does NOT make it an action game, the thought alone is absurd and disproven by blobbers alone and all kinds of other first person but non-action games.

Maybe my choice of words wasn't the best. I don't consider Morrowind and ARPG exactly because of the controls, but because the game plays like an Action game with a big emphasis on the RPG mechanics. The same applies to the games I mentioned above.

Besides it's still a game. Having fun and engaging mechanics should be of the upmost importance.
When the RPG has multiples PC's I am all for turn-based, dice rolls and all the other types of abstractions (as long as it's not RTwP). Now with 1 PC, I think an action oriented approach is the best way to have combat.

Besides what combat system do think is more challenging, allows for more complexity and diversity of design (and ways to be experienced) by both the player and the dev, and is overall more fun?
This:




Or this:

I prefer the first one. When I get to a level where I can touch every time, I feel like a real fencer.

 

[Beastro]

I get what the OP is saying, but I don't see it as enough to have MW be a bad RPG.

I think the worst that can be said of MW is that it paved the way for subsequent Bethesda games. They survived their gamble with Morrowind and then went full bore pushing the "safe" aspects of it while continually stripping out the legacy pieces still in MW from the older games while also disposing of most of the good weirdness that is the game's hallmark leaving most of it as just fluff.