Thinking of trying morrowind again.

[Rosebourne]

So I haven't touched morrowind since the original xbox and I played oblivion and enjoyed it fully and then I played skyrim and just couldn't get into that game at all.

well I'm thinking of diving into morrowind and wondering what are yalls beginner hints and tips?

i'm thinking of playing a mage/ a rogue with a side of magic/ or a battle warrior mage i'm wondering idea's for builds for a jack of all trades charecter

[V]

do it! and um hints and tips well i prefer rogue characters myself but i got no tips but yeah go play it!

[Hypnotoad]

I would reccomend it, but be warned it's much more confusing and more dialogue driven than skyrim, like for example i'm at vivee, doing the main stroyline quest and i'm supposed to find three certain characters and instead of looking for them, i spend 10 minutes looking at my journal, then my map, then talking to strangers to match the dialouge to whats written in my journal and if i still can't find them or i'm still not even slightly closer to finding them then i repeat the process until something becomes clear to me, this causes a little bit of frustration and i've gotten to the point where i'm listening very closly and reading my journal very slowly unlike oblivion or skyrim where the quest marker slaps you across the head and says "go here, idiot". mabye i've just been spoiled rotten by modern gaming and thats why Morrowind appears alien to me IDK. also the random chance to hit your enemies is so bad, i can not stress this enough, the game would be 10x better if this wasn't a feature, especially at the start of the game. saying all that though i can't help but play more and i'm pretty immersed in the game, so, yeah if you're a fan of TES go for it

[Hjelpmooglene]

The game uses Dungeons and dragon style mechanics when it comes to using skills. If you want to be able to cast a spell or hit someone, put that skill as a major skill or minor skill. That should increase your chances to hit an enemy. Spell casting has a chance to fail and lockpicking is a dice roll. This is the reason many people have trouble with this game. The dice rolling can piss people off who are not familiar with DnD styles of games. So I guess I can say that there is a slight learning curve to understanding the mechanics of the game.

[Zenith]

Originally posted by sad bear23:

mabye i've just been spoiled rotten by modern gaming and thats why Morrowind appears alien to me IDK. also the random chance to hit your enemies is so bad, i can not stress this enough, the game wp ould be 10x better if this wasn't a feature, especially at the start of the game.

If you keep your fatigue up and use a weapon your skilled with then it really isn't so bad at the beginning. Unless the animation (or lack of) is what you find so bad.

[Brandybuck]

I really hate the combat, so I always play as a mage.

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by Khyron:

If you keep your fatigue up and use a weapon your skilled with then it really isn't so bad at the beginning. Unless the animation (or lack of) is what you find so bad.

At lower levels it's miss miss miss miss hit miss miss miss. Then you when get it leveled up above 75, it's like jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock>. With the right weapon animation (yes, animation) you can literally stunlock the enemy into motionlessness. It's only in the middle where Morrowind combat works okay.

[Hjelpmooglene]

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

Originally posted by Khyron:

If you keep your fatigue up and use a weapon your skilled with then it really isn't so bad at the beginning. Unless the animation (or lack of) is what you find so bad.

At lower levels it's miss miss miss miss hit miss miss miss. Then you when get it leveled up above 75, it's like jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock> jab <stunlock>. With the right weapon animation (yes, animation) you can literally stunlock the enemy into motionlessness. It's only in the middle where Morrowind combat works okay.

That's how it is in other DnD games. Also, the game gives you ways to have a better chance to hit early on. The warrior sign and the orc/redguard racial power would help increase your chance to hit.

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by SaveTheKupo:

That's how it is in other DnD games.

But I'm not playing Dungeons and Dragons, I'm playing Morrowind! I don't want to roll a d20 to hit, I don't want to roll 2d6+1 for damage. It's a 3D realtime game, I should not be rolling dice, I should be able to hit the freaking netch right in front of me. Don't tell me a creature the size of a barn just dodged out of the way.

Dungeons and Dragons is not the end-all and be-all of combat simulations. There's hundreds of pen and paper RPGs that do it better. But regardless of which tabletop RPG you think Morrowind is trying to emulate, RNG based combat just doesn't work well with melee. It's okay when trying to hit a moving target with a bow, but not when trying to hit a mudcrab slowly creeping along the beach. I've never swung a sword in my life, but I guarantee you that I can hit a crab with one in real life my first try.

p.s. This is NOT to say that Oblivion and Skyrim combat is superior, but they sure as hell feel like they're better than a mudcrab just staring at you while you continually miss.

[Hjelpmooglene]

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

Originally posted by SaveTheKupo:

That's how it is in other DnD games.

But I'm not playing Dungeons and Dragons, I'm playing Morrowind! I don't want to roll a d20 to hit, I don't want to roll 2d6+1 for damage. It's a 3D realtime game, I should not be rolling dice, I should be able to hit the freaking netch right in front of me. Don't tell me a creature the size of a barn just dodged out of the way.

Dungeons and Dragons is not the end-all and be-all of combat simulations. There's hundreds of pen and paper RPGs that do it better. But regardless of which tabletop RPG you think Morrowind is trying to emulate, RNG based combat just doesn't work well with melee. It's okay when trying to hit a moving target with a bow, but not when trying to hit a mudcrab slowly creeping along the beach. I've never swung a sword in my life, but I guarantee you that I can hit a crab with one in real life my first try.

p.s. This is NOT to say that Oblivion and Skyrim combat is superior, but they sure as hell feel like they're better than a mudcrab just staring at you while you continually miss.

I forgot to include that this was the case for arena and daggerfall. Also, most rpg's at the time had some sort of dice rolling involved. The ones that always had a 100% chance to hit were more action adventure or were just not very good. I'm not saying the combat system is the best, but it makes more sense with the magic/skill system that was in place.

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by SaveTheKupo:

I forgot to include that this was the case for arena and daggerfall. Also, most rpg's at the time had some sort of dice rolling involved. The ones that always had a 100% chance to hit were more action adventure or were just not very good. I'm not saying the combat system is the best, but it makes more sense with the magic/skill system that was in place.

For most of the nineties and well into the naughts, games were deliberately trying to emulate Dungeons and Dragons. Nearly every game had a TSR or WotC logo stamped on it. Sometimes the ONLY feature listed on the box was Dungeons and Dragons.

The point is that you don't need dice rolls when you have a COMPUTER to simulate the world for you. Tabletop gamers used dice because... that's all you had. Plus the tactile experience of rolling the dice was cool. But it's pointless on the computer. In my opinion, trying to emulate dice games held the whole industry back for more than a decade.

Morrowind was one of the few games that broke that mold, and it wasn't just the graphics. The combat sucks primarily because there are still remnants of dice rolling in it. It's a real time game, I can actually dodge and evade! I can grab a long weapon like a spear and keep the enemies at bay! No longer are combatants just motionless sprites on the screen waiting for their turn to roll the dice and activate a sprite animation.

Granted, real time games that require a bit of mouse dexterity on the part of the player aren't for everyone, but to my mind it's the biggest advance in computer RPGs in decades. Turn based games still have their place, but there has never been a turn based TES game.

[Nadlug]

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

Originally posted by SaveTheKupo:

That's how it is in other DnD games.

But I'm not playing Dungeons and Dragons, I'm playing Morrowind! I don't want to roll a d20 to hit, I don't want to roll 2d6+1 for damage. It's a 3D realtime game, I should not be rolling dice,

Then you should not be playing morrowind.

Arena Daggerfall were designed around a DND campaign at Bethesda, Morrowind was just the next logical step forward in terms of mechanics and design that they were allready accustomed to. That being focus on lore story and a RNG based combat system.

In truth its a whole hell of a lot more complex than simple RNG. It starts with a dice roll which is then modified by the PC's skills buffs fatigue, weapon type, swing type, weapon durability. Then further modified by the NPC's skills, buffs, fatigue.

Morrowind IS a classical style RPG, Morrowind is Based on DnD concepts.

Morrowind is an Role Playing Game, you the player may have perfect aim but the caracter who represents you is not a perfect expert in all forms of combat. Untill of course he/she has had enough expierence or assistance from magical items to become said expert.

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

The point is that you don't need dice rolls when you have a COMPUTER to simulate the world for you. Tabletop gamers used dice because... that's all you had. Plus the tactile experience of rolling the dice was cool. But it's pointless on the computer.

Actually No, its not pointless, in fact your completely wrong. Everything run on a computer is based on numbers that are either directly inputted manually or randomly generated within paramaters.

For a flight simulator your pretty much just using formulas and starting at 0, good example for the direct input method.

You start at 0 Throttle IE not moving and eventually speed up untill the formula says "ok its flying now"
But say you add events into it, Weather. Equipment failure, How does the game decide when to do what.

Again it boils down to numbers except now thers a bit of randomness in here because you cant just start out with 0, if you did you would alwayse have the exact same series of events happening at the same time on every simulation. You add a degree of random so that each time you play its going to be different.

Moving over to RPG's

Any tame an AI comes to a decision, it rolls the dice, and applies modifiers if nessisary to the result. For Skyrim and Oblivion there is a slight dice roll for damage.

In morrowind there is the huge list of factors far more complex than any tabletop rpg that go into registering a hit that I mentioned previously. It adds challenge but in a fair way. Combat can be hard but thats because you probably arnt exploiting every option given to you. Magic buffs, Alchemy and enchantments are there to assist you and the best bet is, if you cant find what you need the game has allready given you every tool to make what you want.

Skyrim and oblivion are Action RPG which measn in all reality there more like an FPS than an RPG. You run along from place to place swinging/shooting your sword/gun and all the game does is calculate damage. Weather or not this is good or bad is a matter of personal preference.

For me its a pretty damn huge problem. I play RPG's to baiscly be someone else, and if that means spending hours of effort training and training to get better at something that just means for me the game will have that much more logevity.

If you want something to just pickup and play. Skyrims a great choise. If you want something to sink your teeth into and really kill a lot of time go with Morrowind.

TL:DR Watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0jiOpD-AQ
If you really want to play an RPG, not an action RPG, just an RPG heavy on the plot lore writing and RPG elements, play Morrowind.

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by Nadlug:

Morrowind IS a classical style RPG, Morrowind is Based on DnD concepts.

Okay, I'm not really sure you understand exactly what Dungeons and Dragons(tm) is. It's merely one game out of hundreds of commercial roleplaying games. Just because something has a random number generator does not mean it's D&D like. You sound like my neighbor when she says "Oh, you're playing D&D!" when in fact I'm playing Call of Cthulhu. The TES series may have started as a Dungeons and Dragons(tm) campaign, but there are no Dungeons and Dragons(tm) rules in any of the TES games.

Arena and Daggerfall mechanics may have resembled tabletop RPG mechanics if you squinted, but that does not make them D&D like.

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by Nadlug:

If you really want to play an RPG, not an action RPG, just an RPG heavy on the plot lore writing and RPG elements, play Morrowind.

Dude, I've done three complete playthroughs of the game in the last three years. I've been playing RPGs since before many people ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about filthy casuals were even born. I've written an RPG. I have published modules for RPGs. I've moderated sessions at the oldest west coast RPG convention. I know what an RPG is. Sheesh.

[Nadlug]

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

Originally posted by Nadlug:

Morrowind IS a classical style RPG, Morrowind is Based on DnD concepts.

Okay, I'm not really sure you understand exactly what Dungeons and Dragons(tm) is. It's merely one game out of hundreds of commercial roleplaying games. Just because something has a random number generator does not mean it's D&D like. You sound like my neighbor when she says "Oh, you're playing D&D!" when in fact I'm playing Call of Cthulhu. The TES series may have started as a Dungeons and Dragons(tm) campaign, but there are no Dungeons and Dragons(tm) rules in any of the TES games.

Arena and Daggerfall mechanics may have resembled tabletop RPG mechanics if you squinted, but that does not make them D&D like.

Your missreading. For one I said Based on DnD Concepts. For two "DnD Like" does not mean "Exactly like they are in DnD"

DnD itself pretty much set the standard for Traditional RPG's and to this day remains the #1 name people associate the genre with. All classical RPG's borrow from its system of chance = diceroll modified by skills thats precisely what makes them a "classical" RPG.

I specifcly name DnD because it is "the big one" that everyone knows and understands. Woudl you rather i say "The random chance mechancis in Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind are based upon the the same systems from every traditional tabletop Rpg ever made"?

Given that you havent corrected me and pointed out that the system in question is offically branded "The D20 system" I have doubts that you know what your talking about.

So anyway, Arena, and to a lesser extent, Daggerfall were directly inspired by a DnD campaign. Or rather Tamriel itself was the setting of a DnD campaign which later became the games. The game mechanis in question follow the same general idea used in the d20 system in DnD as well. Look it up if you doubt me. Or just watch the video, the guy makes mention of it.

Morrowind followed the same general concept of having stats and luck govern your chance of fail/sucess, though it was signifigantly more complex.

Originally posted by Nadlug:

If you really want to play an RPG, not an action RPG, just an RPG heavy on the plot lore writing and RPG elements, play Morrowind.

That wasent directed at you.

This is however.

Since you know so much about RPG's why are you comparing Titles from one subgenere to titles of another. If you dont like classical RPG's because of their luck based systems fine, just dont say it sucks because its not like action RPG's. They are two seperate entity's with differnet game mechanics that cant be compared to one another.

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by Nadlug:

DnD itself pretty much set the standard for Traditional RPG's and to this day remains the #1 name people associate the genre with. All classical RPG's borrow from its system of chance = diceroll modified by skills thats precisely what makes them a "classical" RPG.

This is the part I disagree with. It's like saying all beer is Budweiser like.

Originally posted by Nadlug:

That wasent directed at you.

Okay. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I don't mind random chance systems. Lockpicking does not bother me, for instance. I just mind a random chance system that tells me I can't hit a netch the size of a barn right in front of me. For Morrowind it feels like the base chance to with a melee weapon is zero, when it really should be more like 50% to 75% before factoring in skill. It's a frigging netch, of course I can hit it! The other half of the equation though, is damage. Greater skill should mean more precise hits and greater damage, but it's fixed damage in Morrowind. Counter-intuitive to my mind.