Oblivion is way better than Morrowind

[ureaditwrong]

For some reason recently, people have been gassing up Morrowind again. While I wouldn't call Morrowind bad, it is definitely way overhyped and worse than both Oblivion and Skyrim.

Idk how anyone can call this peak Bethesda. Bethesda is known for its world design and Morrowind's is the ugliest. It's 75% ash and then there's a small ugly swamp filled with hundreds of filler enemies, some low poly grasslands and a few islands. Dungeons are exactly the same as in Oblivion, just with non-leveled enemies. I will say the towns are pretty cool but offer limited functionality compared to Oblivion and Skyrim, especially considering mods.

Combat in Morrowind is literally just mashing l-mouse. There is no strategy involved whatsoever and no reward for leveling like there is in Oblivion and Skyrim, just an increase in accuracy. All magic except for restoration is trash. No this game is not more complex than its successors, quite the opposite actually.

The characters offer a lot of dialogue but it's mostly just filler, no different from Oblivion and Skyrim. Quantity does not equal quality.

So yeah, just needed to give that reality check to the boomers, ty.

[Boutus]

Postat inițial de theo:

Gay

I was thinking the same thing.

[Freeman]

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

How can that be true? If it's dungeons you're looking for, Oblivion probably has about three times the dungeons as Morrowind in any given area. The forests in Oblivion are not copy-pasted. The situation is actually quite similar to Morrowind: some grasslands and a swamp with 75% of the map being different kinds of forests, which are much easier on the eyes than dirt/ash. Plus, there's far less filler enemies like cliff racers bugging you. I think Oblivion is clearly superior in this regard.

More dungeons, yes. But still no reason to go into any of them because of said level scaled loot and the overall copy and pasted nature of them. Once you've explored one Ayleid ruin, you've explored all of them, once you've explored one ruined Imperial tower, you've explored all of them.

Can you tell me the difference between the Great Forests and the Imperial Reserve? They're copy and pasted with no differences between them. But you can't complain about Morrowind having the same overall color when Oblivion does the exact same, only with a different color.

I'd say there's more filler enemies than Morrowind. Every single road in Oblivion has bandits, wolves, trolls, minotaurs, ogres, etc. on them, you can barely walk for 2 minutes without stumbling into another enemy.

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

This is just the boomer goggles talking. A vast majority of Morrowind dungeons have nothing in them as well. The reason finding things in Morrowind might feel more organic is because they didn't have time to make a dedicated quest for some items you find.

But a large amount of them did. And that's better than the 0 locations in Oblivion with unique items. Also, I have 0 nostalgia for Morrowind. Stop using nostalgia as an argument, it doesn't work.

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

The exact same thing can be said of Morrowind. However, at least in Oblivion, different dungeons are tied to specific loot items ie ruins with Welkynd stones, forts with wine, etc.

Not really a compelling reason to explore them.

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

Because you can manually block in Oblivion like you said, but you can also use the skill attacks that you unlock as you level. You can also dodge roll with acrobatics and magic gets its very own key so you can seamlessly use magic and weapons together.

The perks do get nerfed once the enemies become tankier but unlike Morrowind, you don't HAVE to level up in Oblivion. Oblivion also places a heavy emphasis on enchanting and that is mainly how you're supposed to deal with late game enemies, seeing as how enchanting actually functions in Oblivion unlike in Morrowind.

And again, blocking and the perks are useless, the only good one being the one where repair hammers can no longer break, mostly because of how quickly weapons and armor degrade in Oblivion. And not every character is going to use magic or enchanting.

Yes, you don't have to level up in Oblivion, which is one of the many things that makes it dumbed down as an RPG. A good RPG actually encourages and rewards the player for leveling up. Oblivion does both very poorly.

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

I have. Half of Morrowind's spells are either useless or straight up don't work. That's why so much got cut from Oblivion. On top of that, vanilla Morrowind spells are always worse than top tier weapons especially with enchantments factored in. The same could be said of Oblivion but at least Oblivion has some cool gimmick spells like all of the daedra summons or long range telekinesis.

Which spells didn't work? Did Levitation not work? Did Jump spells not work? Did teleportation spells not work?

Yes, gimmick spells which are actually useless. Most of the Daedra summoning spells are useless due to Oblivion's level scaling. Morrowind doesn't have that problem, a Scamp is always going to be useful against certain enemies.

Also hey, at least you can remove spells in Morrowind so they don't clutter up your spellbook if the spell actually becomes worthless. Can't do that in Oblivion for some strange reason.

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

It's not but the voice acting is certainly better, leading to some great meme characters like Glarthir and the adoring fan.

No, the voice acting is objectively worse. 90% of it is flat, toneless, and boring, Morrowind's isn't, because they focused on quality.

[TheCr33pur]

he doesnt like to play a dunmer, it is the home of the dunmer! play it at your own pace and chill out!

[Boutus]

There is no better voice acting than "You N'Wah!"

[Pinkspring]

They're both really good games.
No need to hate on one for the sake of the other.

[theo]

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

The forests in Oblivion are not copy-pasted.

They're literally procedurally generated.
Clearly you just don't know what you are talking about.

Yeah you reminded me how there are fresh imperial gold coins in all loot tables in Oblivion, including in ancient supposedly abandoned ayleid ruins and Mehrunes Dagon's realm. Hilarious

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

It's not but the voice acting is certainly better, leading to some great meme characters like Glarthir and the adoring fan.

Adoring fan memes are for 5 year olds. And I don't even remember who Glarthir is and I played Oblivion a lot.
Crassius Curio, Caius Cosades, Fargoth, Jiub, Dagoth Ur memes on the other hand are high end satire for the sophisticated elite.
See how useless voice acting is for character writing.

[Boutus]

Postat inițial de theo:

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

The forests in Oblivion are not copy-pasted.

They're literally procedurally generated.
Clearly you just don't know what you are talking about.

Yeah you reminded me how there are fresh imperial gold coins in all loot tables in Oblivion, including in ancient supposedly abandoned ayleid ruins and Mehrunes Dagon's realm. Hilarious

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

It's not but the voice acting is certainly better, leading to some great meme characters like Glarthir and the adoring fan.

Adoring fan memes are for 5 year olds. And I don't even remember who Glarthir is and I played Oblivion a lot.
Crassius Curio, Caius Cosades, Fargoth, Jiub, Dagoth Ur memes on the other hand are high end satire for the sophisticated elite.
See how useless voice acting is for character writing.

Good point on the Morrowind name value with characters, I also cannot remember Glarthir off by heart and I also think Oblivion is a good game. It's not as good as Morrowind though.

[Ghost]

Postat inițial de theo:

And I don't even remember who Glarthir is and I played Oblivion a lot.

Postat inițial de Boutus:

I also cannot remember Glarthir off by heart ...

Glarthir was the annoying wood elf that would chase you in Skingrad until you talked to him. He'll ask you to investigate and later kill some people or attack you. If you ignore him after meeting with him, he'll attack them himself.

[Drizzt]

Postat inițial de Pinkspring:

They're both really good games.
No need to hate on one for the sake of the other.

i don't think it's unreasonable to make substantive, constructive comparisons

the problem comes when someone decides to trash talk one of the games on the forum for that game

because that is the behaviour of someone simply looking to create negative vibes, and stir up a fight

if someone thinks Oblivion is so much better than Morrowind, the place to express that opinion is the Oblivion forum, where they will find that everyone will be onside with liking Oblivion, and then there may be some constructive discussion about Morrowind from the perspective of also liking Oblivion

here the opposite will be true - everyone here likes Morrowind - so the extreme negativity for Morrowind expressed by the OP will be guaranteed to be mostly met with disagreement and a negative response - and it should be noted that initially there was very little actual positive commentary from the OP about Oblivion - it was all trashing Morrowind - and even when the OP "clarified" in their next post, it was still mostly trashing Morrowind, and doing so with incorrect information, and nebulous comments about Oblivion being better, with little or no evidence to support those claims

but again, why even make this thread here? clearly the OP just wants to stir up negativity among people who at the very least will all have positive opinions about Morrowind that the OP either does not share, or is pretending not to share in order to satisfy their trolling expedition

the fact that they are expressing so much incorrect and/or ill informed information in such a negative way makes their intent even more suspicious - beyond the initial suspicion that comes from making a negative post such as this on the "wrong" forum

a good faith poster would make this thread on the Oblivion forum so that they could discuss the topic with people who like Oblivion, and may or may not like Morrowind

a bad faith poster makes the thread here because they want to fight with people who like Morrowind, and who may or may not like Oblivion

anyway - the OP clearly managed to discover surprisingly little about Morrowind if they have played it for 300+ hours and think the dungeons do not contain interesting (or levelled) loot and enemies

like i said earlier - i played hundreds of hours of Oblivion in the past - and even then it was disappointing to me when compared with Morrowind - an opinion that has only become stronger as time has passed and i keep returning to Morrowind and continuing to have lots of fun with it - and yet Oblivion has managed to bore me in less than a dozen cumulative hours the last few times i have tried it

even just simple things like going dungeon diving - even at level 1 in Morrowind i know i will find interesting and valuable loot in every dungeon - especially cave hideouts - which will usually have hostile NPCs who may have enchanted weapons, armor or other items of clothing, jewellery or equipment that may be of use - and then there will usually be crates and other containers with ingredients and scrolls and soul gems and enchanted items - as well as usually a whole bunch of scrolls and potions and chests in the leader's room

and these dungeons are levelled - both the enemies and the loot will have some aspects of them that will increase based on the player's level - and so the fights will be tougher, since the enemies will be tougher and have better equipment - but we will still be better able to deal with them than in the later, much more levelled games, since Morrowind's levelling will have given us better hit chance, and block chance, and avoidance chance, and magic resistance, and magic powers, and potions etc

and these cave hideouts are everywhere

and then there are burial crypts, and velothi towers, and dunmer strongholds, and daedric ruins (some really high tier loot guaranteed here if we can handle fighting high level daedra and tough humanoid enemies that may be well above our player level), and dwemer ruins

all the above have all different kinds of loot - some levelled - some not - but there is so much valuable loot in Morrowind that is simply not present in Oblivion - or just not as useful - because Morrowind has far more variety to its mechanics and scope for play styles, so that all kinds of loot can be valuable - be it ingredients, or soul gems, or clothing/jewellery, or potions, or scrolls (of which the variety is immense), or enchanted items (also immense variety), or thieving equipment, or skill books - as well as the more established rewards of weapons and armor - again with more variety in Morrowind, and more pieces, and more attributes to them (enchantment capacity) - as well as all kinds of pre applied enchantments that they may have

plus there are almost a dozen factions that each have dozens of missions that will send us to dungeons all over the map - as well as having all kinds of different rewards that the quest givers will give us - or that can vary depending on how a quest progresses - e.g. we may be asked to get a promised donation for the imperial cult from a member of an organization - and that person may attack us if they don't like our tone - which means we have to kill them in self defence - and may find valuable exquisite clothing and jewellery on them that we would not have gotten had we talked to them differently and maybe decided to pay their donation to the quest giver our self

plus some factions will teach us spells - or will give us many enchanted items - or will teach us a lot about alchemy, as well as giving us equipment (if say we want to roleplay learning alchemy from scratch, when we cannot see any ingredient effects due to being less than level 15 at that skill) - or will give us lots of armor, as well as making it so we can no longer talk to many characters unless we are in uniform (yes the legion has that amusing and irritating side effect that forces us to always have some imperial armor to wear if we want to talk to anyone in that faction once we are a member)

ok - i will stop there (kind of lol)

my point is that i find the rewards for everything in Morrowind to be so much more satisfying than in Oblivion, or Skyrim - but at least Skyrim is such a different kind of game, with lots of different systems, that it does not qualify for a comparison - whereas Oblivion and Morrowind share many systems, but Morrowind's rewards and inputs to those systems are so much more varied and interesting and abundant than in Oblivion - and there are so many more ways to achieve power and to approach challenges - as well as more challenges since there are some areas that are levelled, but always start levelled at a lower limit that may be much higher than the player for much of the early, and even mid game

i think the nostalgia topic that was mentioned is relevant here - i do feel nostalgic for Oblivion - since i enjoyed it back in the day, despite its frustrations - but it bores me now

whereas while i do have some nostalgia for Morrowind due to fond memories of long ago playthroughs and discoveries - i still play and enjoy it now, a scenario for which nostalgia does not apply

nostalgia is about things we remember fondly but from which we will often not get similar satisfaction or enjoyment these days

i am currently playing Morrowind every day, and have been for weeks - and was doing so for months at a time last year - and have clocked up almost 400 hours since i picked it up again in recent times

so this is not nostalgia - this is just current enjoyment

Oblivion is the one for which i feel nostalgia - since i remember enjoying it - but once i had seen most of what there was to see in it, what ended up remaining with me the most was a sense of the lessening of interesting aspects to the game when compared with Morrowind

and ironically Oblivion feels far more dated to me than Morrowind does - since with the graphics extender and some upscaled textures Morrowind looks great today, as well as having the same detailed gameplay and quest and loot variety that it has always had - whereas Oblivion looks dated by default, and even with improved graphics, it would need a massive number of mods to make the gameplay as compelling to me as Morrowind, and to make it as interesting and fun to replay over and over - if that would even be possible - especially if i don't want to need to use the script extender for the more significant engine changing mods

i am sure that with enough mods, Oblivion is a significantly better game than i remember, and than the game i tried playing again recently

but Morrowind is still as great as i remember - even better since i keep finding new things to do and try - and with not a single gameplay related mod - not even the code patch

i have tried to get back in to Oblivion - and i am sure i will try again - since i even picked it up on GOG recently just to have an offline digital copy - but i do wonder if it will ever pull me in the way Morrowind always does - especially if i am not prepared to go to extremes with modding it - since Morrowind gives me such satisfaction with merely the application of a metaphorical lick of paint

but - i have no plans to go to the Oblivion forum and tell them all the reasons why i think Morrowind is better than Oblivion

the only reason i would go to that forum would be if i had positive things to say about Oblivion

and other than nostalgia, i don't

[Mesker]

Postat inițial de ureaditwrong:

All magic except for restoration is trash.

The game is entirely breakable with magic; fast travel across the map is one cast via 3 different magic types, all enemies can be absolutely smited with it (Beware reflection effects; that can be painful)... I'm just not sure where you're coming from here. If you count enchanting under "magic", it is possible to have a pair of pants which can solo the game, a shirt that gives unending fatigue, full-time healing, fortifiy acrobatics to the point you can jump and land across the map safely (Or use alteration's Jump + Slowfall for even safer jumps), paralysis breaks the combat entirely against anything without immunity, and the list goes on.

Morrowind has the most game-breaking magic out of all the games. I think you didn't experiment very much.

[psychotron666]

Yeah his comment about magic except restoration being trash shows he either hasn't actually played morrowind or he's just a troll.

Magic has never been stronger in any elder scrolls game than morrowind.

[Nebgama]

yeah lol Morrowind has the most robust magic ever. if any game was to represent well what a magician would look like in some alien world then Morrowind is that game.

You literally transcend reality in this game. Magic is meant to be "broken" imo we know so because some of the items you can find are alluding to the nature of that "brokenness" like the devs are dropping little hints all over with many items.

Therefore magic is not even broken because its intended to be powerful. I just used the term "Broken" here rhetorically because some of the lesser attuned don't understand how magic works.

[OldFatGuy]

LOL, I said this in another thread, but every time I start a game of Skyrim, I get into it for awhile, but it always eventually ends up making me want to play Morrowind. That's why I started this current game. I got up to about level 30 or so in Skyrim, and as I kept ticking each one off, the urge to play Morrowind grew stronger. So here I am.

I'm not knocking folks who prefer Skyrim just as I wouldn't knock folks who prefer strawberry ice cream (I HATE strawberry ice cream lol). It's just different tastes. IMO Morrowind is just so much deeper (again, my OPINION) and the whole political intrigue just feels so much more fleshed out than in Skyrim, which is odd because being set in the middle of an actual hot rebellion war seems it should have been easier to dive much deeper.

Again, just my opinion. I won't fault anyone for preferring Skyrim. It is a pretty good game, and if I hadn't ever played Morrowind, I might've been able to stick with it. But as I said, every time I decide to play Skyrim, it ends up making me want to play Morrowind again. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the effect Bethesda was going for lol.

[OldFatGuy]

Postat inițial de Ghost:

You know the 'boomers' are from the late 1940's yeah? Specifically, they're the people born during the boom just after World War 2. If anything it's Gen Y (the Millennials) and Gen Z. Also, rude.

I'm pretty sure that "boomers" are defined as being born between 1945 and 1960. I'm a boomer. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was President of the USA the day I was born. lol

EDIT: I just checked, and according to wikipedia, it is defined as 1946 to 1964.

[Drizzt]

Postat inițial de OldFatGuy:

LOL, I said this in another thread, but every time I start a game of Skyrim, I get into it for awhile, but it always eventually ends up making me want to play Morrowind. That's why I started this current game. I got up to about level 30 or so in Skyrim, and as I kept ticking each one off, the urge to play Morrowind grew stronger. So here I am.

I'm not knocking folks who prefer Skyrim just as I wouldn't knock folks who prefer strawberry ice cream (I HATE strawberry ice cream lol). It's just different tastes. IMO Morrowind is just so much deeper (again, my OPINION) and the whole political intrigue just feels so much more fleshed out than in Skyrim, which is odd because being set in the middle of an actual hot rebellion war seems it should have been easier to dive much deeper.

Again, just my opinion. I won't fault anyone for preferring Skyrim. It is a pretty good game, and if I hadn't ever played Morrowind, I might've been able to stick with it. But as I said, every time I decide to play Skyrim, it ends up making me want to play Morrowind again. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the effect Bethesda was going for lol.

lol - yeah - i do like Skyrim - but it does always get me pining for Morrowind

there was a time when i was playing lots of Skyrim and hadn't played Morrowind for a while, since i was worried that nostalgia and/or having played it so much might mean it no longer kept me enthralled

but it has now made its way back up to the top of my playlist, and due to me having spent considerable time investigating all sorts of playstyles and aspects of the game that i had not fully explored before, i suspect it may never fully outlive its ability to entertain me

there is just so much interesting stuff to do in Morrowind, and orders in which those things can be done, and ways that they can be achieved, that the combinations of events that make up a single playthrough are so much more varied than the later games - or pretty much any other game

interestingly, what got me back into Morrowind this time was deciding that i wanted to reenable the Restoration loop in Skyrim and have a play with that - and it was fun for a short while - particularly because you do have to play for a while to set it up

but once you do it, it kind of loses its appeal - since it is very game breaking and cheaty - as well as actually having limited applications and variety to what fun exploity super items, potions and super powers can be made and used - as well as still being inside Skyrim when using them - which doesn't have much fun stuff for a super powered character to actually do

which then drew me back to Morrowind, since i had not played around with Fortify Intelligence much, if at all

and when it comes to fun exploits, that's the one to rule them all

and even when you make yourself god like, it still feels far more immersive than when you do so in Skyrim - and there are so many more things to play around with - and it is so much more flexible in how it can be fine tuned to achieve the exact power level desired - and the exact amount of time that the god like powers will last etc

and then after playing around with that i then investigated all the ways that non exploited alchemy could be leveraged in min maxxing - and it really is the one skill to rule them all in just how much stuff can be done with it - with insane exploits, medium tier exploits, and then more regular roleplay activities

and then i have been playing around with different classes and play styles, and making sure i have seen as much as possible of every faction

plus i think for the first time i got a proper "clean" min max - getting the Rogue (Dunmer with The Lady) up to all attributes (except Luck of course) at 99 or 100 (due to the bug with the left side skills) by level 25 - which has got to be about as quick as it can be done in terms of levels - maybe with some combinations of race, class and sign being able to shave off a level or two (i was also levelling specific skills to move up the ranks in the various guilds) - plus i assume the Bitter Cup may be able to shave off a few levels at the expense of terrible Luck lol

anyway - Morrowind is just so interesting - continually - even after 20 years - maybe even more so due to the passage of time and the games that have come since across all genres failing to usurp its unique combination of qualities that hit a certain kind of player in a way that just seems to never gets old

i still am sure i will continue to enjoy Skyrim for its open world - especially with Convenient Horses and a variety of self imposed gameplay rules

but i doubt i will ever get back into Oblivion, since it always just feels mostly less than Morrowind to me, as well as overly bright, and irritating in various ways

i will still try with it at least one more time - but with Morrowind every time i have picked it back up i have been sucked back into it - with no effort of will required

Morrowind just seems to be one of those few games that hit so many targets just right, and due to MGE-XE removing the one visual limitation that really could have held it back as time went on - is now pretty much immune to the ravages of time - since it was developed just as polygons were numerous enough to make interesting, natural looking landscapes and buildings, that look superb once that fog gets rolled back somewhat, and distant land is rendered, with ruins being visible in the distance - allowing navigation and providing hits of exploration dopamine lol

such a great game - i am very glad i found it all those years ago - and it was pretty much a random purchase - i don't even remember the reason - since i do not think i had heard of it - i think i was just browsing in my local game shop (back when that was thing lol) - who could have known what a life changing purchase it would turn out to be :-)