The Elder Scrolls

[maidenhaver]

The skyrim rerereleases were funny but they were the end for Todd.

[Vergil]

Hard to blame Bethesda when people keep buying it up and considering the quality of everything to come after it's probably better to just keep releasing a decent game than making hot garbage. The real issue are the fucking creation club updates that break mods.

[Wretch]

Has bethesda ever made a big city that wasn't "eh" at best? Vivec is fucking horrible in Morrowind and Mournhold is extremely barren and empty.

Daggerfall is full of good cities and hilariously enough they’re procedurally generated. Also Morrowind wasn’t a step down from daggerfall, it’s a better game in many ways. The only place morrowind really messed up was on the orcs and breton lore.

I think good is a bit of a stretch. They're passable cozy little towns but their layout can be retarded due to generation and rarely are they particularly interesting in terms of appearance and what you can do in them.

I mean the small cities are passable cozy little towns sure but the capitals and large cities are huge. Not sure any rpg has bigger cities with more buildings, shops, guilds, knightly orders, castles, etc. I also haven’t experienced any serious weirdness in towns from the proc gen, though that may have just been fixed in unity.

The capitals and towns rarely have the modern “every city needs a gimmick” themepark design mentality that modern rpgs have but frankly I much prefer it that way. I went into daggerfall expecting not to like it at all but was actually blown away. A few more handcrafted quests and locations and it would be entirely unmatched.

Some people mention spending tons of time being lost or in town. I think someone said 95% of their time. They clearly got filtered. Information gathering, accepting quests, and hunting people or shops down in town shouldn’t take more than 5 maybe 10% of your time tops if you have a poorly made character. Also there’s no need for compasses because you can just talk to people and have them tell you where things are. Morrowind does similar but I think daggerfall implemented it significantly better.

[Vergil]

The capitals and towns rarely have the modern “every city needs a gimmick” themepark design mentality that modern rpgs have but frankly I much prefer it that way.

I can get that but personally I would prefer some of them to have a little more character. Over the course of a playthrough they sort of blend together.

[Wretch]

The capitals and towns rarely have the modern “every city needs a gimmick” themepark design mentality that modern rpgs have but frankly I much prefer it that way.

I can get that but personally I would prefer some of them to have a little more character. Over the course of a playthrough they sort of blend together.

I like how it is personally but obviously towns like balmora or telvanni settlements are going to be a lot more soulful. There’s no Ghostgate or giant oblivion gate to get you hyped in daggerfall either. A combination of the two styles would really be ideal for me but if I had to choose I would choose daggerfall world design over oblivion for sure.

Being able to join temples and knightly orders in daggerfall and go help people, sometimes in mundane ways like debt disputes, or other times smiting undead or daedra that pop up is also tonally unmatched. Orcs being evil and having it tied to their nature while the bretons mercilessly erase them off the face of the planet is similarly so much better than later titles.

Are there even enjoyable temple quests or factions in later games? There’s definitely no knightly orders or chivalric questing.

[maidenhaver]

Hard to blame Bethesda when people keep buying it up and considering the quality of everything to come after it's probably better to just keep releasing a decent game than making hot garbage. The real issue are the fucking creation club updates that break mods.

They were eager for more. A real leader would have capitalized and come out with two or three games in that time, but he was a faggot and turtled up. It was always Todd's fault.

[Vergil]

The temple and political themed quests are sorely missed in my current Oblivion playthrough. I really wish we could have got the originally planned Duke of Colovia questline in the game. A mod I have re-adds Divine Intervention spells but those only highlight how barren religion in Oblivion. You'll maybe have one NPC who sells spells and that's it. Almost no trainers (which could be said about Oblivion in general), no vendors for potions, and no quests.

They were eager for more. A real leader would have capitalized and come out with two or three games in that time, but he was a faggot and turtled up. It was always Todd's fault.

I feel like people greatly overestimate Todd's power when it comes to certain decisions. He doesn't own Bethesda/Zenimax

[maidenhaver]

Todd is more powerful than you know.

[Wretch]

The nice part of daggerfall too is the nobles give different quests (and thematic ones) than commoners and others do. They pay better too. It makes the capital cities even more relevant, also makes it worthwhile to level etiquette on commoners who will snub you for talkin’ fancy like only for it to ultimately pay off as the important lords and scholars like you more.

Even morrowind’s temples and religious factions feel somewhat barren. It’s really surprising how having religious temples, functional nobility/government, and knights really make a game world feel more authentic and real.

[Vergil]

These rose tinted glasses usually collapse for me when I remember my 8th dungeon where I had to restructure my brain's thought patterns on how physical locations could logically be arranged or the one skeleton I needed to kill was past 3 flooded corridors.

[Wretch]

These rose tinted glasses usually collapse for me when I remember my 8th dungeon where I had to restructure my brain's thought patterns on how physical locations could logically be arranged or the one skeleton I needed to kill was past 3 flooded corridors.

It’s not nostalgia talking, I’m currently playing daggerfall and on my second character. If the dungeons are too labyrinthine for you, you can tweak your settings.ini to smaller dungeons=true and it will fix that. Personally I like the maze likedungeons but I will probably try the toned down version on a future playthrough.

[Vergil]

It’s not nostalgia talking, I’m currently playing daggerfall and on my second character.

I was referring to myself when I think of replaying lmao

[Tweed]

How many games let you buy property in every city and default on loans?

[Vergil]

I miss being able to buy a boat. My dream TES VI revolves around High Rock and the Illiac bay with a central boat mechanic and lots of stuff in the sea to explore.

[Tweed]

I miss guards trying to arrest me for sleeping on my boat.

I have to admit I was hoping for more mods in unity that would add to the depth of the game. There's some decent mods out, but nothing that really takes all the surface happening and gives them substance.

[KnightoftheWind]

How many games let you buy property in every city and default on loans?

But what makes that 'good gameplay'?. Sure it sounds heckin' cool on paper, but when you're designing a game to be played by human beings you tend to prioritise a lot of other things. People hype up the scale of Soygerfall, and not much else. There are hundreds of other games I would rather play than it. Because what benefit does owning a home or a carriage or a ship give you?, other than storing excess crap not much else. It's an illusion.

[Vergil]

I haven't really seen any mods that interest me enough to want to download. The nexus is lousy with God awful AI slop "retextures" and coomer mods as if Daggerfall needed more tits.
Speaking of which, I fucking hate AI upscaling 9/10 times it looks like total shit and Daggerfall is the absolute worst example of this
Oh yea these totally look better than the original pixel art faces definitely don't have an weird clay uncanny valley look at all. The bodies are worse but I'm not gonna post them since they decided to give everyone big nasty veiny blurry cocks and cunts for some reason

► Show Spoiler

Now regular humans are all clayface from Batman!

► Show Spoiler

Yup this definitely doesn't make me feel like I'm having a stroke trying to discern any recognizable features

► Show Spoiler

Legit just looks like someone splattered watercolors and then scanned them into the game

► Show Spoiler

[Wretch]

I miss guards trying to arrest me for sleeping on my boat.

I have to admit I was hoping for more mods in unity that would add to the depth of the game. There's some decent mods out, but nothing that really takes all the surface happening and gives them substance.

Unity mods are all pretty uninspired and most of the popular ones are outright worse than vanilla.

Travel options is great and I think magic regen mods are good too. Archaeologists guild is solid as well.

I’m surprised there are no mods to fix the bugged thaumaturgy and mysticism spells and that the unity devs didn’t handle it themselves. The only mod I know of that fixes it is keb’s unleveled spells but that changes a bunch of other things as well.

How many games let you buy property in every city and default on loans?

But what makes that 'good gameplay'?. Sure it sounds heckin' cool on paper, but when you're designing a game to be played by human beings you tend to prioritise a lot of other things. People hype up the scale of Soygerfall, and not much else. There are hundreds of other games I would rather play than it. Because what benefit does owning a home or a carriage or a ship give you?, other than storing excess crap not much else. It's an illusion.

You got filtered hard by the game, no need to puff up your ego to hide your failure. If a game makes you start typing like a discord tranny or redditor it’s a bad sign.

[KnightoftheWind]

The game is the definition of bloat. Yes the scale is big, but it adds nothing to the enjoyment factor. It just means more empty space to traverse, and you can even fast travel all over the place which defeats the purpose anyway. These are the same people that throw shade at Oblivion for 'bringing back' a feature that was in their precious Reddit RPG. Walking around a boring map with boring towns talking to boring NPCs is not my idea of a good time.

[Vergil]

Because what benefit does owning a home or a carriage or a ship give you?

Home gives you a place to store shit which I don't see how that's not a valid point to bring up as what else would the purpose be? That's the same purpose they have in all the TES games really. Carriages let you store more loot so you don't have to make multiple trips to the same dungeon to clear loot out. Ships let you use the fastest means of travel for free which matters in a game with timed quests. Could there be more to the systems? Sure, but for a first go it's done well enough and it's disingenuous to say they have no practical uses.

[Wretch]

The game is the definition of bloat. Yes the scale is big, but it adds nothing to the enjoyment factor. It just means more empty space to traverse, and you can even fast travel all over the place which defeats the purpose anyway. These are the same people that throw shade at Oblivion for 'bringing back' a feature that was in their precious Reddit RPG. Walking around a boring map with boring towns talking to boring NPCs is not my idea of a good time.

You couldn’t even make it to the dungeons to complain about getting filtered by them like most losers do.

[KnightoftheWind]

Because what benefit does owning a home or a carriage or a ship give you?

Home gives you a place to store shit which I don't see how that's not a valid point to bring up as what else would the purpose be? That's the same purpose they have in all the TES games really. Carriages let you store more loot so you don't have to make multiple trips to the same dungeon to clear loot out. Ships let you use the fastest means of travel for free which matters in a game with timed quests. Could there be more to the systems? Sure, but for a first go it's done well enough and it's disingenuous to say they have no practical uses.

But then they might as well have just been a backpack or some other equippable item you'd find along the way. This isn't the Sims, buying a home is not some revolutionary mechanic or something that adds tangible improvements to the game. All the time I read Soygerfall fans hyping these things up, as if it makes their "game" better.

[Vergil]

But then they might as well have just been a backpack or some other equippable item you'd find along the way.

You can reduce literally everything down if you be reductive like this. The only item that even somewhat fits this argument is the carriage and okay it could be renamed backpack or bag of holding or secret asshole suitcase does it matter what it's called? It does serve an objective practical purpose and it's something missing from later TES games unless you want to drag around a retarded follower to carry your crap.

This isn't the Sims, buying a home is not some revolutionary mechanic or something that adds tangible improvements to the game.

I just listed a tangible improvement to the game. It gives you a place to store excess loot or gear that you want to keep but don't want to take the penalty of carrying everywhere with you.

You didn't address the ship part at all btw.

[KnightoftheWind]

But then they might as well have just been a backpack or some other equippable item you'd find along the way.

You can reduce literally everything down if you be reductive like this. The only item that even somewhat fits this argument is the carriage and okay it could be renamed backpack or bag of holding or secret asshole suitcase does it matter what it's called? It does serve an objective practical purpose and it's something missing from later TES games unless you want to drag around a retarded follower to carry your crap.

This isn't the Sims, buying a home is not some revolutionary mechanic or something that adds tangible improvements to the game.

I just listed a tangible improvement to the game. It gives you a place to store excess loot or gear that you want to keep but don't want to take the penalty of carrying everywhere with you.

You didn't address the ship part at all btw.

What I'm saying is that these "features" would be great if they actually contributed to the gameplay experience. If you could captain a sea-faring vessel the way you could in Ass Creed IV, or do merchant quests with your carriage. Those are ideas that would impact the game and add to the roleplaying experience. Instead they're just glorified storage units. Yes the ship has a little more to it, but not much. I'm saying fans of this game tend to overhype the crap out of these things, but they aren't impressive in the least.

[Nammu Archag]

Do you have a real reason for this opinion or is it just because it's not an ugly isometric crpg?

Because if you stripped it of its setting it would have near zero appeal to anyone. None of its mechanics are particularly interesting, nor are any of the quests particularly well designed.

That is the entire genre. Who cares if it reinvents the wheel or not, isn't one of the main appeals of a role-playing game to play the role of a character within a cool setting? If one really cared about mechanics and "quest design" there are probably better genres.

[rusty_shackleford]

Do you have a real reason for this opinion or is it just because it's not an ugly isometric crpg?

Because if you stripped it of its setting it would have near zero appeal to anyone. None of its mechanics are particularly interesting, nor are any of the quests particularly well designed.

That is the entire genre. Who cares if it reinvents the wheel or not, isn't one of the main appeals of a role-playing game to play the role of a character within a cool setting? If one really cared about mechanics and "quest design" there are probably better genres.

You could strip Fallout of its setting and people would still love it. We know that because Arcanum is just a streamlined Fallout in a fantasy Victorian setting.

[Vergil]

Because if you stripped it of its setting it would have near zero appeal to anyone. None of its mechanics are particularly interesting, nor are any of the quests particularly well designed.

That is the entire genre. Who cares if it reinvents the wheel or not, isn't one of the main appeals of a role-playing game to play the role of a character within a cool setting? If one really cared about mechanics and "quest design" there are probably better genres.

You could strip Fallout of its setting and people would still love it. We know that because Arcanum is just a streamlined Fallout in a fantasy Victorian setting.

If you stripped Arcanum of it's setting and put it in standard D&D no one would even mention it's name in the last 20 years. You're giving an example of a strong setting people like and pitting it against an example with another strong setting people like. Setting is extremely important for an RPG (and most games really).

[rusty_shackleford]

If you stripped Arcanum of it's setting and put it in standard D&D no one would even mention it's name in the last 20 years.

If ToEE had the same attention to detail in its quests/environmental interactions/reactions then it would be just as well remembered as Arcanum, and yet ToEE still has a dedicated fanbase working on it for decades — something Arcanum never had.
It's physically impossible to create a more bland setting than ToEE btw.

[KnightoftheWind]

The in-game setting of Daggerfall is one of the least interesting fantasy realms in gaming. Not because it's "heckin' generic" but because it isn't portrayed well at all, due to technical limitations. Oblivion depicts the kind of world Daggerfall was trying to get across FAR better, despite only featuring a fraction of the player space. But it stuck with people far more, because it wasn't just a bunch of empty acreages and generic box homes. It was punching well above it's weight at the time, but it's aged like crap.

[Acrux]

If you stripped Arcanum of it's setting and put it in standard D&D no one would even mention it's name in the last 20 years.

If ToEE had the same attention to detail in its quests/environmental interactions/reactions then it would be just as well remembered as Arcanum, and yet ToEE still has a dedicated fanbase working on it for decades — something Arcanum never had.
It's physically impossible to create a more bland setting than ToEE btw.

Let the record show that rusty says Greyhawk is the most bland setting possible.