A list of things I dislike about Skyrim...

[chongnog]

Non-toggleable kill cams

Having to sit through canned animations every few enemies is one of the dumbest design decisions Bethesda made.
Firstly, they happen way too often, and only serve to snatch control from the player.
Second, animations by their nature quickly grow stale, whearas the ragdoll physics of non-killcam deaths never grow old.
Thirdly, the fact that they very often glitch, such as archery cams making your arrow miss.
Fourth and worst of all, the animations occur on the player, forcing them into a death animation they could've easily avoided if the game hadn't got in the way.
Also, they tend to happen on the last enemy in a pack... which informs the player combat has ended, which is just one of those little hand-holdy niggles that plague the game. The uncertainty of not knowing if there's another enemy nearby is a good thing and makes for more engaging combat.
For something this intrusive, an option to disable them really should've been in the game without having to use mods.

Dungeons

You might find this one odd as Skyrim's dungeons are generally thought to be an improvement over its predecessors, which imo, is not entirely true.
Firstly, they're way too linear, which turns any open-ended exploration into a corridor walking simulator.
Skyrim's dungeons are more or less straight lines, which destroys any sense of intrigue. You don't so much explore Skyrim dungeons as much as follow them, wacking any moles along the way. Previous games were not so restricted, the moment you enter a dungeon in Oblivion for example, you're often presented with various direction in which you could go, which rewards exploration and makes any discoveries feel earned.
Secondly, they're far too bright, which destroys any atmosphere, again let's recall the gloomy dungeons of Oblivion. Dungeons work by playing on the primal fear we have of darkness, so lighting them up like christmas trees is not good.

Third, the tacked-on narratives hurt replayability. By that I mean, the fact that most dungeons come with mini-storylines diminishes the appeal of revisiting them. It's like, "oh here's that mine where the miners dug too deep and uncovered a vampire. Yeah I remember this one."
Replayability is diminished with this approach to dungeon design. Conversely, the lack of narratives of Oblivion dungeons allowed the players imagination to fill in the rest. Admittedly, this made them all a bit generic, but their lighting and non-linear design made up it.
Fourth, the fact that each dungeon loops around to the start feels far too contrived, and only serves to remind the player they're playing a videogame, rather than immersing them in a believable world, which Morrowind did in spades.
Take the Kwama mines for example... most egg-mines in Morrowind served no function whatsoever, but that's the point... the egg-mines weren't there for the players amusement, they weren't there to reward you with a big pile of loot once you'd wacked enough moles, they were there so the people of Vvardenfell had a food source. That was their purpose and it made Morrowind feel like a real place.

Gear maintenance

Gear maintenence in previous TES added a whole other dimension to combat. A broken weapon in battle might force the player to improvise new strategies, or use weapons they're not trained in. It forced them to think on their feet or apply game mechanics they don't normally use.
In Morrowind, characters soon end up with an inventory full of trinkets, scrolls, and all manor of random junk that might help them in some way. In Skyrim, as long as you have a half decent sword, you can pretty much handle anything the game throws at you.
Gear maintenence was one of the many interesting nuances that added depth. Do you buy a new set of armor at full price, or buy the broken one at discount? This, along with weightless arrows ensures you'll be overpowered the moment you start the game, which is generally something a good RPG makes you work for.

There's also the outright removal of things, for example—levitation, waterwalking, hand to hand, attributes, spellmaking... all gone
With an ever-dwindling variety for character archetypes due to these ommisions, every player ends up becoming a stealth archer.
Skooma has not escaped the dumbing down. In lore it's a unique narcotic, a backbone of the criminal underworld and cultural staple of the Khajiit. Finding skooma in Morrowind offered a boon that could help the player in a number of situations. In Oblivion you could run at super speeds around the land.
In Skyrim it's merely a stamina potion.
All the creative minds at Bethesda and this was the best they could do? Why the needless change from something unique and exotic, to something so mundane to the point of being useless. Skyrim skooma has no strategic or worldbuilding value. Even as a stamina potion, it's weaker than the weakest one the player can make themselves with the default alchemy skill.
Also, why remove the silver weapon requirement to kill ghosts? Why the needless dumbing-down of an interesting mechanic? It all comes back to the fear Bethesda has of penalising players. It's like, oh you didn't bring the right tool for the job? Nevermind, you can beat the game anyway. You literally can't lose at anything in Skyrim, which brings me to me next point...

No consequecnes for anything

For example, walking into Windhelm dressed as an Imperial will have no effect whatsoever, despite the civil war implying you should be executed on the spot. Let's walk into Ulfric's palace and start jumping on tables dressed as a legionairre, because who cares about conseqence in an RPG.
Even standing on campfires does nothing.
An RPG should not be afraid to penalise players for their choices. For example, in Morrowind if you wanted to join the Mages Guild as a Telvanni, you were basically told to get lost. The MG for the entirity of that character was locked off. This encouraged repeated playthroughs and again, made for a believable world.
Immortal NPCs are another symptom of Bethesda's fear of consequence, like the threat of a Dragon attack is not really a threat if half the townsfolk can survive dragonfire. Yes I get it, you wan't to avoid quest NPCs from dying, that's fine. But they went way too far with it.
For example, the Legion camp commanders are not quest givers, they're not relevant to any guild or quest. They're just unkillable NPCs for the sake of it. You get the feeling you're being babysat by the developers, who're more worried about little Timmy breaking his game and having a spergout.

Everything is too scripted

From the aforementioned killcams, to discovering quests; to NPC conversations you've heard time and time again, situations that try to appear organically are simply the result of scripted sequences, and it's painfully obvious.

The following are cutscenes every Skyrim player will have seen:

- we can't hurt uncle Rogvirr
- you look rather pale
- we must have more swords for the imperial legion
- well one of us has to do something
- you come when you're not wanted, you polute our city with your stink

For example, the Redguard warriors who're looking for the missing girl didn't appear along the road despite the player, but because of the player.
The random thief who hands you his stolen goods was never really running from anything, he appeared the moment you entered that particular cell.
The Orc warrior who wants a glorious death will never be seen duelling an NPC, because Skyrim is a world that revolves around the player. It's all a bit Truman Show.
In Oblivion, you could often stumble on random battles just happening in the world as a result of radiant AI. It resulted in spontaneous random fun, and unpredictability. You could have situations where you'd exit a dungeon only to have a creature follow you to a nearby village, and proceed to slaughter the ill-equipped townsfolk.
These kind of radiant, unscripted shenanigans were much rarer in Skyrim. And those that did appear to be the result of random AI, like the ice and frost mages fighting one another, was not random at all, but were triggered by the player and for the player.

Again, it's all a bit contrived. Some of the best examples of radiant AI can be seen in the predatory wildlife. A wolf hunting a rabbit as the result of its AI, made for a more believable world than some thief scripted to approach the player the moment they entered the cell.
This also applies to environmental storytelling. I mean, how many ransacked wagons are just laying about, convieniently stocked with free stuff for the player. Yes, I get that an RPG needs loot. But there's delving into a Daedric ruin in Morrowind and finding a rare artifact, then there's finding free weapons, gold, jewels and enchanted items, just lying about for the taking. Your fantasy RPG is merely a facade for a cleverly crafted slot-machine simulator.
Roadside shrines, ransacked wagons, dead bodies.... you're never more than 10ft away from a load of free stuff. The amount of amethyst you find on dead wolves is really quite astounding.
Let's use Ironbind Barrow as an example. The moment you leave this particular dungeon, you're railroaded to a bunch of Dwemer loot just sitting there on the mountaintop. Has not one villager ever taken the 10 minute walk it takes to find this stuff, in the supposed thousands of years it's lay there? Yes it's a videogame, yes it needs loot, the point is, the abundance of free stuff depreciates its value, which brings me to my next point...

Everything is handed to the player

... with minimal effort or investment. One of the absolute worst instances of this is the aforementioned thief asking the player to : "hold this valuable artifact while I escape." You could not get more contrived. What thief has ever asked you to hold his flat-screen TV while he runs from the cops? It's like, I don't want all this free stuff.
There's the inheritance rewards you recieve from dead companions. Even if you only knew them for 5 minutes you're somehow entitled to their life savings
Just consider what the player can accomplish barely an hour into a new game. They can become the Dragonborn, a werewolf, the thane of Whiterun, and a member of the mage's college without knowing any magic. The sense of character progression is given moreso than earned, and that's not good.
It's like, if I can't enter the college cos I don't know any magic, don't just offer me the spell I need there and then because that makes the whole thing pointless, make me go away and find it. Make me hunt down some arcane book or mage who can initate me into the magical arts.
Buying the spell from the very person testing you for your magical ability, makes it all a bit pointless. Either have a test with consequences for failure, or have no test at all.

Speechchecks are also victim to this mentality. In the sense that they're just pointless. I can't think of a single speechcheck in the game that can't be passed with the default speech skill. Clearly they were inspired by FNV but it's a pale imitation at best. For example, why's there a speechcheck for getting into Riften or Whiterun, when both are impossible to fail?
The pickpocket skill has also suffered, in the sense that detection is now reduced to the theft itself, rather than opening the NPC inventory to begin with. Skyrim basically let's you look in everyones trouser pockets like it's nothing. Previous games were not so forgiving, and the pickpocket in and of itself was the trigger for arrest, not whether you actually stole anything.
A characters losses are just as important as their victories. Delayed gratification is a good thing. Example... an hour into Morrowind, I'm still struggling to kill mudcrabs. After an hour in Skyrim, I'm killing dragons.
The Orc strongholds even tell you that you're not welcome, but then let you in anyway. It would actually be cool to be locked out of a city because I had the wrong stats, or was the wrong race and so on. Nuances like this make for a deeper RPG.
Using Dragons Dogma as an example... I really loved how going into water would soak your clothes and nerf your speed stat. Small consequences like that are the kind of thing Skyrim is starved of, hence the popularity of its survival mods.

Poor journal system

Most quests boil down to "follow the marker" rather than giving you the detailed instructions of previous games. We all remember Morrowind's journal entries, ie "go down the road, turn left at the rock, pass the river and around the tree." It added great worldbuilding and connection to the environment. Just getting to your destination was an achievment.
Journal bloat is another factor of it's poor design, as the abundance of forced journal entries turns the game into a to-do list. For example, in every game—without exception—you will at some point be told to:

- join the Stormcloakes
- investigate the dark brotherhood in Windhelm
- listen to Bryjolfi's scheme
- investigate the Forsworn

Dialogue with NPCs often leads players being roped into a quest with no option of refusing, with the only logical recourse being to quicksave before every interaction. Many players end up doing these quests just to remove them from the journal, which is the worst possible incentive. The game is full of these scripted sequences forcing their narrative onto the player, which quickly gets old, when all you wanted to do was sell some junk, now you're forced into an unwanted sidequest that will remain in your journal forever.
Undroppable quest items are another factor. In Markarth for example, there is no way to avoid Eltrys. He'll appear whether or not you stop the assassin, and because he's immortal, ends up forcing the quest onto you, and a letter item you can't drop.
Do you reload and simply avoid entering the city, or do the quest just to get it out of the way. It's one of many instances of the game just getting in the way of itself.

Animated book pages

Why the need to animate the turning pages? All this does in practise is slow down actually being able to read the book. If a player stops reading at page 20 say, and goes back later to read the rest, they'll have to skip through 20 tedious page turning animations, when in Morrowind, you could roll the mouse wheel and you'd get through the book immediately.
This of course would help if Skyrim books had page numbers, which for some reason they don't, again, not a major issue, but, you had page numbers in previous games so why remove it? It just reeks of AAA developer fluff that puts realism at the expense of a responsive UI.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I like the animated pages.

[chongnog]

I do not like

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd actually prefer they lean heavier on the simulationism, the pages should be part of the object itself and your character physically manipulates it to flip pages.

[Red7]

Non-toggleable kill cams

Having to sit through canned animations every few enemies is one of the dumbest design decisions Bethesda made.
Firstly, they happen way too often, and only serve to snatch control from the player.
Second, animations by their nature quickly grow stale, whearas the ragdoll physics of non-killcam deaths never grow old.
Thirdly, the fact that they very often glitch, such as archery cams making your arrow miss.
Fourth and worst of all, the animations occur on the player, forcing them into a death animation they could've easily avoided if the game hadn't got in the way.
Also, they tend to happen on the last enemy in a pack... which informs the player combat has ended, which is just one of those little hand-holdy niggles that plague the game. The uncertainty of not knowing if there's another enemy nearby is a good thing and makes for more engaging combat.
For something this intrusive, an option to disable them really should've been in the game without having to use mods.

Dungeons

You might find this one odd as Skyrim's dungeons are generally thought to be an improvement over its predecessors, which imo, is not entirely true.
Firstly, they're way too linear, which turns any open-ended exploration into a corridor walking simulator.
Skyrim's dungeons are more or less straight lines, which destroys any sense of intrigue. You don't so much explore Skyrim dungeons as much as follow them, wacking any moles along the way. Previous games were not so restricted, the moment you enter a dungeon in Oblivion for example, you're often presented with various direction in which you could go, which rewards exploration and makes any discoveries feel earned.
Secondly, they're far too bright, which destroys any atmosphere, again let's recall the gloomy dungeons of Oblivion. Dungeons work by playing on the primal fear we have of darkness, so lighting them up like christmas trees is not good.

Third, the tacked-on narratives hurt replayability. By that I mean, the fact that most dungeons come with mini-storylines diminishes the appeal of revisiting them. It's like, "oh here's that mine where the miners dug too deep and uncovered a vampire. Yeah I remember this one."
Replayability is diminished with this approach to dungeon design. Conversely, the lack of narratives of Oblivion dungeons allowed the players imagination to fill in the rest. Admittedly, this made them all a bit generic, but their lighting and non-linear design made up it.
Fourth, the fact that each dungeon loops around to the start feels far too contrived, and only serves to remind the player they're playing a videogame, rather than immersing them in a believable world, which Morrowind did in spades.
Take the Kwama mines for example... most egg-mines in Morrowind served no function whatsoever, but that's the point... the egg-mines weren't there for the players amusement, they weren't there to reward you with a big pile of loot once you'd wacked enough moles, they were there so the people of Vvardenfell had a food source. That was their purpose and it made Morrowind feel like a real place.

Gear maintenance

Gear maintenence in previous TES added a whole other dimension to combat. A broken weapon in battle might force the player to improvise new strategies, or use weapons they're not trained in. It forced them to think on their feet or apply game mechanics they don't normally use.
In Morrowind, characters soon end up with an inventory full of trinkets, scrolls, and all manor of random junk that might help them in some way. In Skyrim, as long as you have a half decent sword, you can pretty much handle anything the game throws at you.
Gear maintenence was one of the many interesting nuances that added depth. Do you buy a new set of armor at full price, or buy the broken one at discount? This, along with weightless arrows ensures you'll be overpowered the moment you start the game, which is generally something a good RPG makes you work for.

There's also the outright removal of things, for example—levitation, waterwalking, hand to hand, attributes, spellmaking... all gone
With an ever-dwindling variety for character archetypes due to these ommisions, every player ends up becoming a stealth archer.
Skooma has not escaped the dumbing down. In lore it's a unique narcotic, a backbone of the criminal underworld and cultural staple of the Khajiit. Finding skooma in Morrowind offered a boon that could help the player in a number of situations. In Oblivion you could run at super speeds around the land.
In Skyrim it's merely a stamina potion.
All the creative minds at Bethesda and this was the best they could do? Why the needless change from something unique and exotic, to something so mundane to the point of being useless. Skyrim skooma has no strategic or worldbuilding value. Even as a stamina potion, it's weaker than the weakest one the player can make themselves with the default alchemy skill.
Also, why remove the silver weapon requirement to kill ghosts? Why the needless dumbing-down of an interesting mechanic? It all comes back to the fear Bethesda has of penalising players. It's like, oh you didn't bring the right tool for the job? Nevermind, you can beat the game anyway. You literally can't lose at anything in Skyrim, which brings me to me next point...

No consequecnes for anything

For example, walking into Windhelm dressed as an Imperial will have no effect whatsoever, despite the civil war implying you should be executed on the spot. Let's walk into Ulfric's palace and start jumping on tables dressed as a legionairre, because who cares about conseqence in an RPG.
Even standing on campfires does nothing.
An RPG should not be afraid to penalise players for their choices. For example, in Morrowind if you wanted to join the Mages Guild as a Telvanni, you were basically told to get lost. The MG for the entirity of that character was locked off. This encouraged repeated playthroughs and again, made for a believable world.
Immortal NPCs are another symptom of Bethesda's fear of consequence, like the threat of a Dragon attack is not really a threat if half the townsfolk can survive dragonfire. Yes I get it, you wan't to avoid quest NPCs from dying, that's fine. But they went way too far with it.
For example, the Legion camp commanders are not quest givers, they're not relevant to any guild or quest. They're just unkillable NPCs for the sake of it. You get the feeling you're being babysat by the developers, who're more worried about little Timmy breaking his game and having a spergout.

Everything is too scripted

From the aforementioned killcams, to discovering quests; to NPC conversations you've heard time and time again, situations that try to appear organically are simply the result of scripted sequences, and it's painfully obvious.

The following are cutscenes every Skyrim player will have seen:

- we can't hurt uncle Rogvirr
- you look rather pale
- we must have more swords for the imperial legion
- well one of us has to do something
- you come when you're not wanted, you polute our city with your stink

For example, the Redguard warriors who're looking for the missing girl didn't appear along the road despite the player, but because of the player.
The random thief who hands you his stolen goods was never really running from anything, he appeared the moment you entered that particular cell.
The Orc warrior who wants a glorious death will never be seen duelling an NPC, because Skyrim is a world that revolves around the player. It's all a bit Truman Show.
In Oblivion, you could often stumble on random battles just happening in the world as a result of radiant AI. It resulted in spontaneous random fun, and unpredictability. You could have situations where you'd exit a dungeon only to have a creature follow you to a nearby village, and proceed to slaughter the ill-equipped townsfolk.
These kind of radiant, unscripted shenanigans were much rarer in Skyrim. And those that did appear to be the result of random AI, like the ice and frost mages fighting one another, was not random at all, but were triggered by the player and for the player.

Again, it's all a bit contrived. Some of the best examples of radiant AI can be seen in the predatory wildlife. A wolf hunting a rabbit as the result of its AI, made for a more believable world than some thief scripted to approach the player the moment they entered the cell.
This also applies to environmental storytelling. I mean, how many ransacked wagons are just laying about, convieniently stocked with free stuff for the player. Yes, I get that an RPG needs loot. But there's delving into a Daedric ruin in Morrowind and finding a rare artifact, then there's finding free weapons, gold, jewels and enchanted items, just lying about for the taking. Your fantasy RPG is merely a facade for a cleverly crafted slot-machine simulator.
Roadside shrines, ransacked wagons, dead bodies.... you're never more than 10ft away from a load of free stuff. The amount of amethyst you find on dead wolves is really quite astounding.
Let's use Ironbind Barrow as an example. The moment you leave this particular dungeon, you're railroaded to a bunch of Dwemer loot just sitting there on the mountaintop. Has not one villager ever taken the 10 minute walk it takes to find this stuff, in the supposed thousands of years it's lay there? Yes it's a videogame, yes it needs loot, the point is, the abundance of free stuff depreciates its value, which brings me to my next point...

Everything is handed to the player

... with minimal effort or investment. One of the absolute worst instances of this is the aforementioned thief asking the player to : "hold this valuable artifact while I escape." You could not get more contrived. What thief has ever asked you to hold his flat-screen TV while he runs from the cops? It's like, I don't want all this free stuff.
There's the inheritance rewards you recieve from dead companions. Even if you only knew them for 5 minutes you're somehow entitled to their life savings
Just consider what the player can accomplish barely an hour into a new game. They can become the Dragonborn, a werewolf, the thane of Whiterun, and a member of the mage's college without knowing any magic. The sense of character progression is given moreso than earned, and that's not good.
It's like, if I can't enter the college cos I don't know any magic, don't just offer me the spell I need there and then because that makes the whole thing pointless, make me go away and find it. Make me hunt down some arcane book or mage who can initate me into the magical arts.
Buying the spell from the very person testing you for your magical ability, makes it all a bit pointless. Either have a test with consequences for failure, or have no test at all.

Speechchecks are also victim to this mentality. In the sense that they're just pointless. I can't think of a single speechcheck in the game that can't be passed with the default speech skill. Clearly they were inspired by FNV but it's a pale imitation at best. For example, why's there a speechcheck for getting into Riften or Whiterun, when both are impossible to fail?
The pickpocket skill has also suffered, in the sense that detection is now reduced to the theft itself, rather than opening the NPC inventory to begin with. Skyrim basically let's you look in everyones trouser pockets like it's nothing. Previous games were not so forgiving, and the pickpocket in and of itself was the trigger for arrest, not whether you actually stole anything.
A characters losses are just as important as their victories. Delayed gratification is a good thing. Example... an hour into Morrowind, I'm still struggling to kill mudcrabs. After an hour in Skyrim, I'm killing dragons.
The Orc strongholds even tell you that you're not welcome, but then let you in anyway. It would actually be cool to be locked out of a city because I had the wrong stats, or was the wrong race and so on. Nuances like this make for a deeper RPG.
Using Dragons Dogma as an example... I really loved how going into water would soak your clothes and nerf your speed stat. Small consequences like that are the kind of thing Skyrim is starved of, hence the popularity of its survival mods.

Poor journal system

Most quests boil down to "follow the marker" rather than giving you the detailed instructions of previous games. We all remember Morrowind's journal entries, ie "go down the road, turn left at the rock, pass the river and around the tree." It added great worldbuilding and connection to the environment. Just getting to your destination was an achievment.
Journal bloat is another factor of it's poor design, as the abundance of forced journal entries turns the game into a to-do list. For example, in every game—without exception—you will at some point be told to:

- join the Stormcloakes
- investigate the dark brotherhood in Windhelm
- listen to Bryjolfi's scheme
- investigate the Forsworn

Dialogue with NPCs often leads players being roped into a quest with no option of refusing, with the only logical recourse being to quicksave before every interaction. Many players end up doing these quests just to remove them from the journal, which is the worst possible incentive. The game is full of these scripted sequences forcing their narrative onto the player, which quickly gets old, when all you wanted to do was sell some junk, now you're forced into an unwanted sidequest that will remain in your journal forever.
Undroppable quest items are another factor. In Markarth for example, there is no way to avoid Eltrys. He'll appear whether or not you stop the assassin, and because he's immortal, ends up forcing the quest onto you, and a letter item you can't drop.
Do you reload and simply avoid entering the city, or do the quest just to get it out of the way. It's one of many instances of the game just getting in the way of itself.

Animated book pages

Why the need to animate the turning pages? All this does in practise is slow down actually being able to read the book. If a player stops reading at page 20 say, and goes back later to read the rest, they'll have to skip through 20 tedious page turning animations, when in Morrowind, you could roll the mouse wheel and you'd get through the book immediately.
This of course would help if Skyrim books had page numbers, which for some reason they don't, again, not a major issue, but, you had page numbers in previous games so why remove it? It just reeks of AAA developer fluff that puts realism at the expense of a responsive UI.

all those faults are less visible if paint them with 100+ gigs of fuckmeats mods

[Manny V]

askers?

[DecadeRiptide]

I think you can turn the kill cam off in settings, at least in special edition.

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around with the arrows as well, in that the kill cam on an arrow doesn't cause it to miss, but rather the arrow that misses for some reason triggers the kill cam. I guess it can be a bit hard to predict whether you are definitely going to get a hit or not.

I found some dungeons were very linear, others were actually confusing and I'd get lost a couple of times. They are quite small though and you can learn them pretty quickly. I enjoyed them regardless.

Not all dungeons loop back to the start. Bleak Falls Barrow for example drops you off the edge of a cliff.

[mercerxiv]

Yeah, Skyrim is a massively watered down action flick inspired by TES (maybe).
There's little R in the RPG classification there.
And yeah, the classic bethesda suck up excuse of "it's better with 1TB of mods installed".
Class system was done away with. The entire world is player centric, things happen only around you, world levels up only when you do, legendary artifacts and weapons are quickly replaced with a "higher level stick I crafted", massive cuts to magic to the point of it just being boring, quest markers everywhere (although sadly it started in Oblivion). I don't really want to go on.

[ThulsaDoomer]

I am primarily a Morrowind enjoyer but I have inevitably played both Oblivion and Skyrim at some points in my life, perhaps naively believing they would mirror the foundations that made Morrowind great. Sadly, no, Morrowind was a major deviation within the rather generic fantasy elements the Elder Scrolls was originally, and if nothing else Oblivion and Skyrim went back to those roots, abandoning the historical depth and variety of playstyles Morrowind laid out for them.

I agree with a lot of your points here. I'll elaborate on a few that I feel more strongly towards to add to the perspective or scope of these problems.

1. Dungeons

The improvement in Skyrim's dungeon design is detail and ambience, which it does perform rather well over all previous titles. You made an interesting point about the replayability and the overly unique aspect of dungeons as well.

Some discussions we used to have in the Morrowind modding sphere, before these places had ******** and intellectually void subhumans take over and ruin everything, was the topic of mundane dungeons and locations to build up a game world. This arose because as modding went on, there was a trend of a ton of normally standard design cells being used as quest areas for mods, and suddenly the feeling of the game world changed. This wasn't reflected in just the quest objectives, usually these cells receive entire design overhauls, and visually stand out as something special even among their peers. Suddenly, there's less normal tombs, which in the lore were just that, family tombs of various clans and of differing wealth and notoriety. There's always some crazy twist.

The other issue here is that as more unique locations with equally unique quest situations increases, the more burned out the player becomes. The next cool and snazzy area feels much like the last one. Their mind is now primed to expect this as the new norm, whereas the mundane cells and even quests helped provide a sense of grounding in-between all these fanciful moments. It's what made the Sixth House locations feel that much more intense and foreboding. You went through a lot of similarly normal places and then suddenly you're in a dark cave lit by red candles with mutated elves lurking at any corner. Balance is important.

2. Gear maintenance

An idea Todd embraced as the Elder Scrolls continued is the ability to be everything with no real sacrifice required. Add to the fact you can't even customise anything. In Morrowind you could tweak your spells, even make your own more powerful or crazy versions once you learned the spell. You also could go the entire game relying on randomly enchanted crap and barely cast magic yourself. This is impossible in Skyrim.

For every interesting major development mechanically, it was two steps back in depth or complexity.

3. The Rest

Skyrim is indeed a contrived world, it all revolves around you, the Dragonborn, to get the ball moving with no subtly involved. You merely watch the Companions kill a giant and you're invited to join them, even if you admit you didn't do anything to help. Why? In any other CRPG you'd have to actually prove your worth to an elite band of warriors. This is the case for every single faction, you cannot possibly fail to join and once you're in, you're in. No real consequences thereafter.

One part of Morrowind that is incredible in this regard is that because you're an outsider from the get go, the entire rest of the game is ingraining yourself with the people and culture, there is a tangible level of progression in your place within that world. Respect isn't just handed out to any vagrant, Caius himself even explains that you need a reputation, and the only way to get that reputation is putting in work.

In Skyrim you survive the execution and eventually run over to Whiterun to tell them of a dragon attack without any proof or mentions of refugees or other survivors, not even a throwaway line of "We'll send scouts to verify". Nothing. No depth, no acknowledgement these characters are still operating mini-kingdoms and have ways of doing things before your mary sue character showed up. It's the little things that build a fantasy world, and Skyrim constantly fails in this department.

Contrast this to Morrowind where you're even declared an enemy of the state for a brief moment before you again, have to provide tangible proof of your claims of being the Chosen One. You aren't just handed Moon-And-Star because of your birthright, you aren't even the first one to try, you're just the last one to succeed.

I could rant forever on why I despise Skyrim's narrative and world changes, it's simply insane to me how shallow this series became despite having more developers, time, and budget to do the opposite.

[Tweed]

How bout dat thieves guild arc? Best writing.