Look, I enjoyed Skyrim, but I miss the days when Bethesda made RPGs
Morrowind has excellent game mechanics. It’s just that combat is not one of those excellent mechanics.
Y’know everyone really snarls at Morrowind’s game mechanics, and I can see why they don’t have mass appeal but…idk, I built a character that had a combat proficiency as a major skill, and didn’t try to fight things when my fatigue was near zero, and I found myself enjoying it for what it was even early game.
When you kinda see it as a sometimes jank simulation that abstracts all the crazy in-depth combat the devs WISH they could include at the time, like a tabletop game does, it feels more fun to accept (and eventually break lol).
What are the excellent mechanics? It’s not leveling, quest journal, inventory management, stealing from vendors, walking speed being a stat you level, etc.
This sort of comes down to the classic debate of “Depth vs Quality of Life”. To quote Steak Bently in his excellent video essay on Metal Gear Solid 4:
Depth of game play, to boil it down, is usually defined by the number of ways a player can approach any given scenario. More tools with more unique properties. More hardcore players tend to value depth more and consider additional depth to be generally how you measure improvement in game play.
But more casual players value ease of play and think additional depth and challenge at the cost of accessibility is more of a downgrade. Hence why the general public considers Bayonetta 2 a straight upgrade from Bayonetta 1, but the crazy combo junkies don’t like it as much.
Morrowind’s mechanics have a level of depth that vastly exceeds Skyrim’s in almost every conceivable way, but is often referred to as “janky” and “clunky”. Skyrim’s mechanics are far more intuitive accessible, but is often referred to as “shallow as a puddle”. Which of these you prefer will largely dictate which game you think has the “better” mechanics.
This is excellent. Thanks for the insight!
I liked a lot about Skyrim, minus the “hand to hand is a minigame now” thing, and basically how it’s almost intended to make an omni-character who can just start dipping into any skills and be good at them, without much reward for a thought-out build.
That and magic…dual-magicking was cool, except it just turned into “Why wouldn’t you always use two of the same spell!?” and combining elements wasn’t a thing. . .
I wouldn’t say Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim mechanically, but it is more complex. There’s just more wrong answers in Morrowind, spears aren’t a different play style, it’s just an effective handicap for combat. Choosing major skills becomes a stat and level cap that’s never really explained, you just get a worse character. Walking into a wall for a few hours so you move faster isn’t interesting gameplay.
Lock picking and trap disarming in Skyrim is better than Morrowind.
The story and quest elements are generally better in Morrowind.
