- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Controversial gaming opinion: video games are good.
What are controversial gaming opinions you have?
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
TES using the Fire, Electricity, and Ice trinity is literally the least original possible set of energy types for video game attacks. Its the actual factual OG video game energy type trinity and dates at least as far back as 2nd generation Pokemon. Even the first metroid prime game does it and Metroid Prime 2 was one of the very rare nintendo games to fully break from it by going for Darkness, Light, and Sound instead.
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- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
It's an aged game. So you don't have much in the way of NPC AI, no such thing as daily routines etc, really, not much NPC individuality at all, and most quests are just undecorated fetch or escort quests with no intent to even dress that fact up. But once again - a big part of that is the game showing its age, simply.
In stuff that is engine independent, like plot and world building and aesthetics (as far as technically executable), it beats Skyrim hands down, though, and just blows Oblivion out of the water.
...still, I agree that actually playing Skyrim is more fun, though. But then, it's also nine years younger. And all the continued "streamlining" is kinda annoying. You could have a modern game like Skyrim, but with Morrowind's attention to detail and losing all the "streamlining"...
Eh well. That's one of those things, like... Mages shouldn't be able to do everything. There should be an advantage to playing a thief. Like, you know, making use of the lockpick skill
Remember that pretty much any and every elemental effect would be under Destruction Magic. Destruction magic is all about throwing globs of polygons with different damage values and area of effects attached. The secondary effects are largely nonexistent. The only aspect of the elemental magic that counts is the resistance of different enemies. Ultimately, adding more wouldn't make much of a difference, or add anything in terms combat options.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
Ice is one of the most flexible magic types ever. You can make ice structures, freeze water to walk over it, make water, create an improvised spike as a weapon, cool down exhausted people, make surfaces slippery, immobilize enemies, and so on.
In Elder Scrolls? Uhhhhhhhh STAMINA GO DOWN.
Either make magic more grounded, i.e current Elder Scrolls keeping the status quo, or put just as much time and effort into making non-mages viable.
In Elder Scrolls? Uhhhhhhhh STAMINA GO DOWN.
Either make magic more grounded, i.e current Elder Scrolls keeping the status quo, or put just as much time and effort into making non-mages viable.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
Eh well. That's one of those things, like... Mages shouldn't be able to do everything. There should be an advantage to playing a thief. Like, you know, making use of the lockpick skill
I agree! If lockpicking in Bethesda games was like, FIVE minigames maybe I'd care more about playing a thief instead of installing a mod that allows me to bypass or just break it open.
We have an entire GENRE of video games that's about stealth. The fact that Bethesda refuses to even innovate instead of installing a half assed stealth system irks me to no end.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Okay now make the programmers bring all that to life in the game without turning ice into a major resource hog. Even something as simple as ice being able to freeze enemies solid Metroid style requires not insubstantial work from the modelers; as is doing things like freezing platforms out of liquids to walk on.
Vindictus
XENO
- Location
- Texas
I mean there also used to be non-elemental damage, which was nice for when you didn't want to have to deal with elemental resistances or shields.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
But that's already in the game! It's in the form of a Dragon Shout! You can literally freeze enemies in blocks of ice!
Use a different engine.
The lot of Morrowind is, in essence "you're the chosen one. Maybe. We'll see. Also here is a bunch of vaguely hindu mysticism and some stuff about reincarnation. Have fun!"
I realize I'm being reductionist, but I'm tired of people sucking the dick of a game thats long past its prime. Most of the plot and worldbilding in Morrowind doesn't matter because it has very little impact on the player, if the player is even aware of it because of how optional most of it is.
Say what you will about the simplicity of Oblivion or Skyrims plot, but at least they don't jerk over about how cool and mystical they are.
The Englanderish
Schrödinger's Kuudere Kitty Caliph(a)
- Location
- Califat de Chats
This kinda compounds a lot of the problems with skyrim's entire magic system, yeah. But that's a whole other kettle of fish that can be mined until we break through to the molten layers.
But if you're gonna limit what I can acutally do with destruction to just reskins with minor side effects, you better give me a whole bunch of side effect types and skins for it to be worth it.
...you must have played very different games from me.
Or maybe that`s just me projecting superfan idiocy on the game itself.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Wait, what?
You're lauding Oblivion and Skyrim for not having flourish? What silliness is this? It's like you're demanding all games keep it simple, with no flourish or complexity added.
And if you think world aesthetics and background don't matter in a roleplaying game, beyond just driving the main plot forwards, then you might be kinda missing the point... Indeed, that you could go "screw you" to the main plot and instead delve into faction politics and the like, or even use the main quest "backdoor", was one of Morrowind's strength. I mean, you still have that to a degree in Skyrim, but there is a reason why "Uneducated barbarian becomes the head of the magic college" has basically achieved meme status.
I don't play such games just to have my character mow through hordes of enemies. Immersion is a big part of it all. And Morrowind did very well there, with a great sense of wonder. I mean, these days, with its graphics aged and the NPC like dolls... but back then, stepping off the ship and seeing the alien landscape, that was quite something. And then waiting years for the sequel... and it was Oblivion.
Hykal94
Orange Estus Kitteh
- Location
- Firelink Shrine
OUR HERO OUR HERO CLAIMS A WARRIOR'S HEART
I TELL I TELL YOU THE DRAGONBORN COMES
WITH A VOICE WIELDING POWER OF THE ANCIENT NORD ART
Like, the entire music of Skyrim is basically "look how badass you are! You're a fucking Dragon Slayer, you bet you are!"
I don't have a problem with this. The problem if anything, Skyrim doesn't acknowledge you enough.
Oh hey, I'm the head of the Warrior's Guild. What can I do with my position in regards to the Civil War? What not even training soldiers? Mages Guild with awesome magic? No? Can I use my position in the Dark Brotherhood to assassinate generals? Again no?
Bethesda does this all the time. I hate it. Even in Fallout 4 it was bad but the least worst because it was only 2 factions you could be head of.
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Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Kitchen Sink settings exist for the sake of "your dudes". They're commonly used in games because they're meant to allow the player to be able to insert themselves and the characters they want to play as without being told that "no that character concept is wrong and we will not accommodate it in any way." This, more than anything else is why D&D has such a massive roster of playable races and classes, especially the races that can be summed up as "letting the player be a certain kind of monster or have their character look a certain way without the imbalance of playing as an actual high level monster." And why it has so many different kinds of monsters so people working with the IP can put together just about any kind of encounter they want without having to try and think up rules for a certain concept from complete scratch.
The Elder Scrolls follows a somewhat similar if not quite as prominent design philosophy to its world building; as do all varieties of Warhammer. The setting and its stories are ultimately meant to be backdrops for your dudes doing cool things with cool setpieces and Bethesda and other companies that follow its general mould of setting design aren't really in the business of saying that you can't be X character concept or that Y army or Z story cannot possibly be canon. Trying to examine these big video/tabletop gaming settings from the view of a novelist is in my opinion; entirely wrong headed and misses the point of why they make the decisions to be so kitchen sinky and permissive of fans being allowed to play what they want to play without being definitively told that they're wrong.
The settings exist mostly as a guideline for fans to tell their own stories in with what the IP itself does being more in the backdrop, occasionally shifting said guidelines but being careful to avoid breaking the principle of "your dudes, your story". This also is why TES' approach to canon is so utterly...wonky as it is so that it doesn't outright invalidate any of the possible player choices made in any of the games so that when the sequel comes out you can still imagine that things happened the way you made them happen and not invalidate the player's own personal narrative. Hence why Sheogorath is so evasive about whether or not he's the TES IV protagonist or why any post-morrowind details on the Nerevarine are so hard to come by and mostly a pile of vague rumour beyond that they probably definitely did the things needed to resolve the plots of Morrowind, Tribunal, and Blood Moon.
Is it a bad thing to do with a non-interactive narrative like a book or a movie? Sure. But it's the ideal thing to do with the narrative of a game whose intended goal is to be a vessel for the player to do as they will if they're willing to put in the time for it. The same can also be said of most other intentionally kitchen sinky but massive and open ended settings like any of the three Warhammers or any major D&D setting you care to name. Is the setting not ideal for a tightly plotted and self contained literary novel or film series? Sure, but they were never intended to be that. They're there so people can tell stories about plastic soldiers or pictures attached to character sheets within them and be free to engage in their own creativity within certain guidelines but still being free to find some way to work in nearly any imaginable concept for an army or monster or character or campaign.
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Skyrims magic system is the best the series has ever had, and TES generally has the best magic system in video games period. I don't disagree they could expand upon it more, but earth / air / water is not the way to go.
@hghwolf @Susano
I've played morrowind 3-4 times. The first time I was like, 12 when it came out. Didn't really understand the plot at all and mostly just went from point A to point B killing everything that got in my way and getting the doodad for whoever sent me there. I completed the game having read maybe a tenth of the games plot related lore. Most of it was optional and my 12 year old brain didn't care.
I replayed it again later when I was older and had more patience, and realized that I kinda... didn't care? While there were certainly pages and pages of dialog and worldbuilding, most of it was largely irrelevant to what I was doing right now. All of it could have been cut and it wouldn't have made much of a difference, since most of it was just backstory backstory backstory.
If you want me to care about your plot, you need to make it about what is happening now, or what might happen in the future that the player can interact with. Backstory backstory backstory is kinda dull and doesn't really feed in to player choice as much.
@Hykal94
To each their own. I'm perfectly fine with the game talking about how cool *I* am. Its a game, and games are largely power fantasies. Especially fantasy games. I take issue with games going on and on about how vast and expansive their world is.
New Vegas is the only game I can think of that both talks about how cool you are, and presents its world in fun and interesting way, mostly by having all of its lore and world building be relevant to the players immediate focus, tie in to a companions personal quest, or be involved in the side quests.
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Whoopse, sorry Hykal, I misunderstood your post. Yes, I agree that its a little dumb for the game not to follow through on most of its "you are the leader now" plots. Really wish that they would cut that out.
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- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Tbf, you also had that in Morrowind. And people already complained about that back then. As you say, Bethesda always does this. If at all it was worse as 95% of NPCs were un-customized default dialogue robots.
And I get what JT means. It isn't about the game sucking your protag off, metaphorically speaking, but about the game going "Look how clever this game is! How mythical!"
It's just... what exactly is wrong with a game being clever and mythical?
Yeah, as I've said, quest design in Morrowind was kinda terrible. I'm not holding it up as being the definitely best game; as I've said for that it has aged too ungracefully. I'm just saying that you could have a game like Skyrim, but with the exotic landscape of Morrowind, with the historical and religious lore, with the political factions and their jockeying, and with the "streamlining" all undone again.
And going out and doing more than just the main quest is kinda the point. Settings shouldn't feel like they are just there for the story. They should have unimportant details, nice side stories, just, you know, immersive stuff. Creating the illusion that the world is there, and doesn't just exist for the sake of the story. And Morrowind did that very well, I think. Yes, okay, all the Kirkbride metaphysics are just walls of text you encounter during the main quest. But the aesthetics? The different factions, the Houses? Hell, such things as all the Dunmer names for people and locations? Details like that.
Hell, you mention player choice and even there... three mutually exclusive houses. Telvanni vs Mage guild. Fighters Guild vs Thieves guild. Meanwhile in Skyrim, you pretty much only have that replicated in Stormcloaks vs Legion, and otherwise, all quest lines are just linear progression with not much in the way of player input. Though at least you do get Stormcloaks vs Legion, and that is pretty nicely done.
In general, I think Skyrim recovered much of what I said, by creating a pretty unique landscape with its own aesthetics again, but Oblivion was designed to be cookie cutter fantasy - as the comment went, fantasy is "a guy with a sword on a horse". They wanted bland generic fantasy, and they created it. And that right after Morrowind. I think that is why Morrowind is idealized so much. Simply because Oblivion did so much wrong.
- Location
- Canada
I played Skyrim a couple of years ago and enjoyed it a lot, running through dungeons killing dragons gathering loot. I did not really pay any attention to the story or the world though. I basically just treated it like any other mindless D&D esq dungeon crawler. Recently after getting an interest from the edges of friends conversations I watched a bunch of lore videos on TES and booted up Skyrim again this Saturday and man... I have to say I am enjoying it a lot more now that I know more about the lore and the plot. My actions feel like something within the context of a really interesting world and its neat seeing all the little touches and flourishes they do. Its not super deep and complicated but it is interesting to me and I got of want more of that.
Pardon the spaghetti posting, but there are a few points I want to address specifically.
I agree completely that a world should be more than just a thing used as a vehicle to tell a story, and a world that looks lived in is more immersive, though. However as I said, these things should be secondary to the players interactions with the NPCs, which is what, in my opinion, can make or break your world.
Stormcloaks vs Legion on the other hand, at least had some impact on the overall world, even if it was kinda flaccid.
Skyrim still bettah, fite me bruh!
I am of the opinion that the exotic landscapes, historical and religious lore and political factions are largely secondary to the NPCs and their motivations and personalities. When it comes to the plot and the setting, the player interacts most frequently with the NPCs, who need the most work and writing put in to them. Exotic locals and deep lore are fine and all, but they don't matter much if the people who are apart of them are dull and unimaginative.
I agree completely that a world should be more than just a thing used as a vehicle to tell a story, and a world that looks lived in is more immersive, though. However as I said, these things should be secondary to the players interactions with the NPCs, which is what, in my opinion, can make or break your world.
I don't remembering which house or organization you picked actually mattering much, to be honest. Other than a few side quests you did here or there. They didn't have much of an impact on the setting or the ending, and since their impact was minimal, what was even the point of having them?
Stormcloaks vs Legion on the other hand, at least had some impact on the overall world, even if it was kinda flaccid.
Huh, never considered this angle of thought, but now that you mention it I can definitely see why Oblivions disappointment might have caused Morrowind to be lionized like it is.
Skyrim still bettah, fite me bruh!
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
I mean, sure, there's value there. But there's also value in having a setting be focused.
Hello, ogre/cyclops/troll/ettin/minotaur/giant/othergiant/moregiant/giantfouranewhope/demonthatlookssuspiciouslylikeanogre/yet more indistinct large muscled humanoid who brings nothing distinct to the table! How diverse and interesting
Like. Even aside from the fact that I was also explicitly speaking of novels and so on as such. So often, I see games with five thousand flavors of the same damn thing. Setting aside tabletop games as I have very limited experience with them...
When an orc/lizardman/skeleton warrior is a mechanically identical threat, plus or minus a trivial amount of hp or some few percentage points of an elemental resistance, what you have given me is a bunch of visual chaff. When an ogre/troll/minotaur/cyclops/ettin is all a bunch of variations on 'big slow tough hit point sack that hits hard but has no interesting distinctions', then I don't fucking care.
So many games have a bunch of scattershot chaff that excites for two second only for me to realize that half or more could be cut with no actual loss because they completely lack distinctions from each other, or at least meaningful ones, I just get bored and frustrated and wish the game had half or a quarter the Stuff but that stuff was worth caring about.
Same deal when I'm looking at a selection of human/orc/dwarf/elf/other elf/ogre/other elf/other dwarf/gnome/halfling/lizardman/bugman/troll/kobold/etc and there's maybe three actual playstyles with varying degrees of competence and not even some half and half species.
This applies to playable species. This applies to classes. This applies to troops I can command. This applies to monsters I can fight. This applies to spells, and equipment, and potions. It applies to strategy games, and RPGs, and roguelikes, and first person shooters, and fighting games, and so on.
When a story chooses to be a generic, boring, overdone fantasy kitchen sink whenever I pay attention to the plot, with the gameplay connotations being so non-existent as to have my eyes glaze over as I see what may as well be the fifth orc reskin and eighth ogre reskin, I get pissed off that they poured so much effort into being generic, and nothing into being distinct and interesting.
You don't need all these cardboard cutout repeats. There's no reason you can't make a game where everything you fight is undead, say, and then focus on developing complex and interesting and appropriate gameplay mechanics for the undead horde.
So often, the plot is spending all it's time shoehorning in excuses as to how you can in a single adventure fight the greenskins, and the evil elves, and the undead, and the demons, and the mad golem maker, and on and on so you can see their dizzying array of models.
And so often, the gameplay has me going 'so are you gonna be, like, different? No? I guess I'll keep doing what I've been doing. Since the first level of the game. Forever.'
That's not good game design. It's also not good story design, but I wouldn't care if the game end was good.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Ehhh, yeah, I can see that. Actual interaction with NPCs is probably the most helpful in immersion. But, once again, that's also a matter of technology: Radiant AI was only introduced with Oblivion, and a mostly unvoiced game was still pretty normal for the time. I suppose they could have customized the text boxes more, that's true, but overall, I really do think it's just another facet of Morrowind having aged ungracefully.
OTOH, with the Houses, the point is that you had three distinct and mutually exclusive storylines, and that mattered. Being in a House thus had actually meaning. It was also nice to have guys who were just... well, if you're a Hlaalu you beat down Redorans simply because they are Redorans. Not because one side is good and the other evil. It was nice to have mundane political conflicts in which you could take side.
Nonetheless... I did agree that playing Skyrim does end up being more fun. But I still think that of the series, Morrowind was the best game relative to the time it was released.
On this, I can agree. I'll rag on morrowind pretty aggressively, but mostly because I'm tired of it being held up as this perfect, idealized game when its really janky and overwritten. That said, I still enjoy Morrowind quite a lot, and when it came out it was probably the best RPG I've ever played. Still past its heyday, but then what game isn't when it gets that old?
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
This seems to be more of an issue with settings that don't benefit from being kitchen sinks being kitchen sinks. Settings that end up becoming Kitchen sinks are usually done so because they were designed with the idea that any officially published story ultimately serves the setting which in turn mostly exists for the player to be free to make what they want of the setting after they absorb the basic details about why this setting in particular is worth their originality being poured into it. As opposed to settings made for contained narratives which serve the story and are definitely not designed with fan content in mind and one can argue that a traditional narrative that gives a lot of space for fans to imagine their own content and characters within its framework and rules is probably too open and not tight and focused enough.
This is rather different from Bethesda games which are literally playpens for the fandom to muck around in as they please. There's story and lore if you want to engage with it but you basically don't have to at all if you don't want to and would find more fun doing something else. And that's alright. The way the character is integrated into the world is also meant to be very "your dudeish." Do you want to be a lizardman who is also a werewolf and a wizard and likes to use battle axes? Sure go ahead, chargen up an Argonian, catch Lycanthropy and level up magic and two handed weapons. Would you rather be a nordic vampire who purges criminals and keeps the streets safe from bandits with sword and shield? Sure that's easy to do. Do you want to be a cat who sneaks around and shoots people in the back with arrows that can instantly kill anything from dragons to trolls to crab monsters to werebears to the lord of all vampires to demons? You're a terribly boring person but yes you can do that too.
The setting is also however, big enough that you can cut away a lot of it for more focused narratives like Redguard or Battlespire to focus on a singular narrative rather than a wide open sandbox while still recognisably being that setting. Much like how most Warhammer games do not feature all of the factions but you'd be hard pressed to mistake them for anything but being Warhammer games. The setting is so big that you can tell basically any kind of story you want even with only bits and pieces of it and that's part of the appeal to a lot of people even if it's not really tightly focused from a bird's eye view. Skyrim itself is just a piece of the world of Nirn after all. It's so big and so full of stuff that you can get a satisfying experience with just slices of it seasoned to your taste. If TES were a hyperfocused setting with only one big threat or enemy of civilisation you'd not be able to get the very different feels in everything from aesthetic to enemy design you got from say; Morrowind to Skyrim as you go from a rather South Asian inspired province to Viking fantasy.
It also lets Bethesda go "okay for this game diseased elven gods will be the big overarching threat" for Morrowind, then go "alright let's focus on Demons instead" for Oblivion, then "I really like Dragons" for Skyrim, and within the context of Skyrim, go from dragons to Vampires in Dawnguard and then to Lovecraftian Cultists in Dragonborn all without skipping a beat. Or having the omnicidal Nazi Elves be there throughout the game as a looming teaser of the threat to come in the future or little side stories about blind morlocks beneath the Earth or vengeful Ghosts and even a relatively simple civil war story. Being focused would be good for a mostly linear game and probably would make the Alduin storyline better, but it'd come at the cost of basically why people even play The Elder Scrolls in the first place.
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
The game system that has spells like Mending (repairs an item), Create Water (guess), Amanuensis (copy a text from a page to another), Mage Hand (very weak telekinesis), Know Direction (points you the North) among others? Less "D&D roots" and more "why bother putting spells not directly useful in combat?", I'd say.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
All of the spells listed sound absolutely worthless for a video game, I am sympathetic to the argument that Skyrim didn't have enough utility spells but this is an absolutely horrendous way to support it.
If these are the type of utility spells that Skyrim is missing then frankly I think Bethesda made the right decision, this just sounds like a pointless bloat that wouldn't add anything to the game.
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
The point is that saying "Skyrim lacks utility spells because it comes from D&D" is missing the point that D&D has actually a ton of utility spells. Most of these, of course, have a reason to exist in a pen&paper RPG but don't in a videogame.
Even then, some utlity spells that D&D has I would be interested to see in Skyrim: even something stupid as arcane mark (place a personal mark that only you can see) or detect magic (that IIRc doesn't exist in Skyrim, there are spells working on similar ideas tough) could provide at least some interesting uses for roleplay. But the base game sadly lacks even those, and it can all be blamed on the developers.