Such a good video! Most people start playing the game while narrating, but you gave an incredibly comprehensive analysis of these games while not feeling like a drag to listen to. Great job!!!
dude this video is a dream, ive been listening to your king of the hill retrospective and at one point i heard u using the morrowind theme as background music for that video, which was surprising cus usuallg Morrowind and king of the hill dont mix.. well, it made me check out the rest of your channel to see if you made Morrowind content, and boom. i fucking found this. thank you, you somehow connected 2 of my favorite medias in my head and made amazing videos about each
That statement about Bethesda-likes came out real sappy sounding, but I assume you were talking about how TES is moving away from Pen&Paper inspired RPG systems to more pure real time gameplay ones. 3:37:25 The Real L-Word Getting rid of level is a somewhat radical stance to have and would cause a shitstorm, but in regards to the expansion of the perk system, and the expected mentioned potential reduction of skills once again, I think it would be for the best if each skill is allowed to have a unique spin on how the perks are distributed in order to better reflect the theme and function of said skill. Some skills might stay linear in their progression with occasional branches and convergences, others might start in the center and spread out like a star, some might be a straight up pick and choose grid of all perks available from first point invested. That way I feel the developers would not need to rack their heads in how to balance each tree within the context of some arbitrary guidelines, rather having tools to create different dynamics and in turn it would give players more choice in their builds, in theory. 3:12:31 Armor Armor and clothing in general is almost always lackluster and not just in Bethesda games, armor layering not being standard practice especially for AAA is disheartening. The system that was in morrowind should be the baseline and system like in Kingdom Come the expected standard. You made a good point about more horizontal options when it comes to both armor and weapons, that would always be welcome. In the same vein, I don't agree that medium being removed was inconsequential. I believe that it limited both Oblivion and Skyrim in how heavy heavy armor can actually be. The system you proposed could theoretically cover niches from fur belt wearing berzerkers to a lumbering steel clad paladin, but even if there is no skill on the player side, the developers would still have to divide armors in soft classification, and having this concept of medium armor would allow Heavy armor and Light armor to be more niche. It really comes down to how many archetypes the developers consider. The class systems of Morrowind and Oblivion while not the best did at the very least give reassurance that more niche play styles than Armored Knight, Pointy hat Wizard and Leatherclad Thief are considered, such as armor wearing battle mages, unarmored, battleaxe wielding barbarians and robed, magic using assassins. As for graphics, completely agree that art style trumps graphical fidelity. Games are an interactive medium first and foremost and I would much rather prefer Morrowind levels of graphics if it meant that the variety of NPC animations and object diversity with the world would be improved. Lower definition of individual parts in return for more density of objects. Its also easier to forgive bugs and unrealistic physics the further from uncanny valley we are.
"Morrowind has the worst combat". I don't feel it that way. I like that it's based on dice rolls. If my character sucks, then they should lose the fight, even though as a player I can dodge block roll and juggle stances. Everything else is based on dice rolls: persuasion, sneak, alchemy, casting... I don't understand why combat should be different. What would be nice in Morrowind: more feedback. If the roll decides that I miss my target, there should be a dodge or block animation from the enemy. Instead of my sword just going through with no damage.
I'm about an hour in, please let me know if I am misrepresenting, misunderstanding, or selectively emphasizing your points. I have some issues with your critiques as well as your suggestions. I recommend checking out Patrician's and Private Sessions' reviews (Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, but I think Private Sessions hasn't covered Skyrim and I don't recall his Oblivion video). You're right in pointing out flaws in Morrowind, and it is considerably more similar to a CRPG only in first-person, rather than an ARPG like for instance Witcher 3. Morrowind's AI leaves much to be desired, but like you said, the planning that goes into building your character in Morrowind and the various exploits you try out, and then seeing your character shred through enemies afterwards, is where Morrowind's satisfaction comes from. People generally don't say that a top down CRPG should have more dynamic moment-to-moment combat - it just makes no sense for turn-based games. Perhaps more dynamic AI would improve Morrowind's gameplay, but the fact is that the loop of Morrowind is in how well you prepare for a challenge. But it's not like the execution aspect is missing entirely either - the form the execution phase takes on in Morrowind come in the form of simple making use of the spells, gear, lockpicks, probes, or potions that you brought, or failing to use them because you failed to bring them, or perhaps your spells are too inefficient for continuous use. It also has to do with which routes you take down a dungeon and how much time you choose to spend going down alternative routes. Of course, it also has to do with which factions and which members of factions (sub-factions) you choose to help, to the potential detriment of others. The game that successfully incidentally iterates over Morrowind's quest philosophy is actually Fallout: New Vegas, improving the formula. I won't go into too much detail here as to why. The introduction of a great deal of skillchecks is part of it, but also just the vast amount of long-lasting choices that you have the opportunity to make. As to level scaling, your proposed model that only Alduin and his lieutenants, or some sub-group of enemies, remain non-levelled, while all other trivial enemies are levelled, utterly disregards the problem of level scaling, which is agency. This is very similar to Alexander Macris's criticisms of narrativist RPG philosophy vs simulationist, and the idea of "fudging dice" in TTRPGs - the players choose to fight a monster that is clearly too dangerous for them? Very well, they will probably lose a couple characters unless they book it. In other words, you have no option to fail and to try to pursue a greater challenge than you are capable of because no such challenge exists. You have no option to make such mistakes. It is also entirely false that level scaling presents a consistently higher and higher challenge - on the contrary, the level of challenge remains stagnant, and your progression is illusory, because the game only allows challenges to appear when you are ready for them. It's like your daedric quest example, except, well, 'scaled' up to every discrete moment of progression (i.e. every level increase, I guess). The answer to the level scaling problem is simple - do not implement level-scaling, and put a greater deal of effort designing your world and dungeons.
As much as it's easy to demand more detail in world and dungeon design, the fact of the matter is that in a game with the ambition of 'infinite replayability' there will have to be some affordances in the realm of hand-crafting the world to expedite the process. For example, in Skyrim, dungeons will repopulate themselves after a certain amount of in-game time has passed. If they were repopulated with the same enemies and same loot rewards then there would be no internal reward for clearing the dungeon or revisiting past areas unless the player missed something the first time around. Thus, the only reward for revisiting older areas (which is practically a given in an open-world, open-ended RPG) would be the re-experience the combat encounters, and this is something that necessitates enemies being at parity with the player's level. And while I've spoken a bit about why levels are an out-dated concept, there's still a bit of precedent set for non-leveled level scaling that can be done in a natural way in a title like Breath of the Wild. There, enemy variety (as well as weapon and resource rarity) scales upward with the accomplishments of the player as there are no 'levels' to obtain. And while the system itself needed a bit of tweaking (enemies were notoriously damage sponge-y in later areas) the execution was still seamless enough that players rarely discussed the scaling of the world as many didn't realize it was even there. (Morrowind has level scaling as well, and this is also something that most players don't realize) Level scaling in open-world titles is somewhat of a necessary evil to facilitate player freedom - that a player can truly go 'anywhere' without feeling like they're fighting against the developers. Because at the end of the day, video games are meant to be crafted experiences instead of infinite skinner-boxes - and this is something that clashes with open world design philosophies due to the developers not being able to hold the player's hand the whole way through. A 'perfect' system would likely be one that requires a large leap in AI technology that can base the challenge off of the player's performance, not dissimilar to the 'Director' in Left 4 Dead that spawns enemies based on the performance of the party. Basically, Level Scaling is a half-assed implementation of a great idea that does as much harm as it does good, but that doesn't mean it's worth dropping from consideration altogether.
Currently 39 min in - CRPGs are not character RPGs... the term means "computer RPGs" and they are typically attached to the Baldur's Gate style top-down party strategy-focused RPGs.
To be fair to bgs ( yeah I know ) ppl have the shortest attention spans and bgs has mid writing so they have to pump the player up right away or ppl will lose interest
Tbh bro, it would help you get more subscribers if you put reminders telling people to subscribe in your videos or something. I’ve heard from video creators that it actually works 🤷🏽♂️
@@trop7736 good commentary by viedo gaems on the elder scrolls series, which is made by Bethesda, whose fans keep purchasing their games use your brain, my son
1.5x speed vodchads where we at
0.75 gigachad
1.25
Really comfy video to have on in the background 10/10
I keep coming back, on days I need some comfy-cozy.
EDIT: Can't believe the numbers are still low, deserves views.
Such a good video! Most people start playing the game while narrating, but you gave an incredibly comprehensive analysis of these games while not feeling like a drag to listen to. Great job!!!
>A quick look
only 4 hours long
dude this video is a dream, ive been listening to your king of the hill retrospective and at one point i heard u using the morrowind theme as background music for that video, which was surprising cus usuallg Morrowind and king of the hill dont mix.. well, it made me check out the rest of your channel to see if you made Morrowind content, and boom. i fucking found this. thank you, you somehow connected 2 of my favorite medias in my head and made amazing videos about each
That statement about Bethesda-likes came out real sappy sounding, but I assume you were talking about how TES is moving away from Pen&Paper inspired RPG systems to more pure real time gameplay ones.
3:37:25 The Real L-Word
Getting rid of level is a somewhat radical stance to have and would cause a shitstorm, but in regards to the expansion of the perk system, and the expected mentioned potential reduction of skills once again, I think it would be for the best if each skill is allowed to have a unique spin on how the perks are distributed in order to better reflect the theme and function of said skill. Some skills might stay linear in their progression with occasional branches and convergences, others might start in the center and spread out like a star, some might be a straight up pick and choose grid of all perks available from first point invested. That way I feel the developers would not need to rack their heads in how to balance each tree within the context of some arbitrary guidelines, rather having tools to create different dynamics and in turn it would give players more choice in their builds, in theory.
3:12:31 Armor
Armor and clothing in general is almost always lackluster and not just in Bethesda games, armor layering not being standard practice especially for AAA is disheartening.
The system that was in morrowind should be the baseline and system like in Kingdom Come the expected standard.
You made a good point about more horizontal options when it comes to both armor and weapons, that would always be welcome.
In the same vein, I don't agree that medium being removed was inconsequential. I believe that it limited both Oblivion and Skyrim in how heavy heavy armor can actually be.
The system you proposed could theoretically cover niches from fur belt wearing berzerkers to a lumbering steel clad paladin, but even if there is no skill on the player side, the developers would still have to divide armors in soft classification, and having this concept of medium armor would allow Heavy armor and Light armor to be more niche.
It really comes down to how many archetypes the developers consider.
The class systems of Morrowind and Oblivion while not the best did at the very least give reassurance that more niche play styles than Armored Knight, Pointy hat Wizard and Leatherclad Thief are considered, such as armor wearing battle mages, unarmored, battleaxe wielding barbarians and robed, magic using assassins.
As for graphics, completely agree that art style trumps graphical fidelity. Games are an interactive medium first and foremost and I would much rather prefer Morrowind levels of graphics if it meant that the variety of NPC animations and object diversity with the world would be improved. Lower definition of individual parts in return for more density of objects.
Its also easier to forgive bugs and unrealistic physics the further from uncanny valley we are.
did not expect a 4 hour elder scrolls analysis by an /hlgg/ schizoposter. good shit though
I haven’t even watched it and I already know it’s going to be kino
I like to think of mysticism as the transfer of energy and souls
"Morrowind has the worst combat". I don't feel it that way. I like that it's based on dice rolls. If my character sucks, then they should lose the fight, even though as a player I can dodge block roll and juggle stances.
Everything else is based on dice rolls: persuasion, sneak, alchemy, casting... I don't understand why combat should be different.
What would be nice in Morrowind: more feedback. If the roll decides that I miss my target, there should be a dodge or block animation from the enemy. Instead of my sword just going through with no damage.
really a great video
this is what we will leave for the far future generations
10/10 deep dive.
tbh Skyrim on Xmas day with Soule blasting sounds like the perfect way to spend that holiday.
Something about cold weather always brings me back to the Elder Scrolls
I'm about an hour in, please let me know if I am misrepresenting, misunderstanding, or selectively emphasizing your points. I have some issues with your critiques as well as your suggestions. I recommend checking out Patrician's and Private Sessions' reviews (Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, but I think Private Sessions hasn't covered Skyrim and I don't recall his Oblivion video). You're right in pointing out flaws in Morrowind, and it is considerably more similar to a CRPG only in first-person, rather than an ARPG like for instance Witcher 3. Morrowind's AI leaves much to be desired, but like you said, the planning that goes into building your character in Morrowind and the various exploits you try out, and then seeing your character shred through enemies afterwards, is where Morrowind's satisfaction comes from. People generally don't say that a top down CRPG should have more dynamic moment-to-moment combat - it just makes no sense for turn-based games. Perhaps more dynamic AI would improve Morrowind's gameplay, but the fact is that the loop of Morrowind is in how well you prepare for a challenge.
But it's not like the execution aspect is missing entirely either - the form the execution phase takes on in Morrowind come in the form of simple making use of the spells, gear, lockpicks, probes, or potions that you brought, or failing to use them because you failed to bring them, or perhaps your spells are too inefficient for continuous use. It also has to do with which routes you take down a dungeon and how much time you choose to spend going down alternative routes. Of course, it also has to do with which factions and which members of factions (sub-factions) you choose to help, to the potential detriment of others.
The game that successfully incidentally iterates over Morrowind's quest philosophy is actually Fallout: New Vegas, improving the formula. I won't go into too much detail here as to why. The introduction of a great deal of skillchecks is part of it, but also just the vast amount of long-lasting choices that you have the opportunity to make.
As to level scaling, your proposed model that only Alduin and his lieutenants, or some sub-group of enemies, remain non-levelled, while all other trivial enemies are levelled, utterly disregards the problem of level scaling, which is agency. This is very similar to Alexander Macris's criticisms of narrativist RPG philosophy vs simulationist, and the idea of "fudging dice" in TTRPGs - the players choose to fight a monster that is clearly too dangerous for them? Very well, they will probably lose a couple characters unless they book it. In other words, you have no option to fail and to try to pursue a greater challenge than you are capable of because no such challenge exists. You have no option to make such mistakes. It is also entirely false that level scaling presents a consistently higher and higher challenge - on the contrary, the level of challenge remains stagnant, and your progression is illusory, because the game only allows challenges to appear when you are ready for them. It's like your daedric quest example, except, well, 'scaled' up to every discrete moment of progression (i.e. every level increase, I guess).
The answer to the level scaling problem is simple - do not implement level-scaling, and put a greater deal of effort designing your world and dungeons.
@viedogaems any thoughts?
As much as it's easy to demand more detail in world and dungeon design, the fact of the matter is that in a game with the ambition of 'infinite replayability' there will have to be some affordances in the realm of hand-crafting the world to expedite the process. For example, in Skyrim, dungeons will repopulate themselves after a certain amount of in-game time has passed. If they were repopulated with the same enemies and same loot rewards then there would be no internal reward for clearing the dungeon or revisiting past areas unless the player missed something the first time around. Thus, the only reward for revisiting older areas (which is practically a given in an open-world, open-ended RPG) would be the re-experience the combat encounters, and this is something that necessitates enemies being at parity with the player's level.
And while I've spoken a bit about why levels are an out-dated concept, there's still a bit of precedent set for non-leveled level scaling that can be done in a natural way in a title like Breath of the Wild. There, enemy variety (as well as weapon and resource rarity) scales upward with the accomplishments of the player as there are no 'levels' to obtain. And while the system itself needed a bit of tweaking (enemies were notoriously damage sponge-y in later areas) the execution was still seamless enough that players rarely discussed the scaling of the world as many didn't realize it was even there. (Morrowind has level scaling as well, and this is also something that most players don't realize)
Level scaling in open-world titles is somewhat of a necessary evil to facilitate player freedom - that a player can truly go 'anywhere' without feeling like they're fighting against the developers. Because at the end of the day, video games are meant to be crafted experiences instead of infinite skinner-boxes - and this is something that clashes with open world design philosophies due to the developers not being able to hold the player's hand the whole way through.
A 'perfect' system would likely be one that requires a large leap in AI technology that can base the challenge off of the player's performance, not dissimilar to the 'Director' in Left 4 Dead that spawns enemies based on the performance of the party.
Basically, Level Scaling is a half-assed implementation of a great idea that does as much harm as it does good, but that doesn't mean it's worth dropping from consideration altogether.
Great video, one of the few long ass analysis videos that aren't bloated and come off as condescending or unecessary. Interested on the Fallout one.
He told me to fight a stranger in the comments so I will be fighting you
Goro no Punch
This getting 500 views had to be soul crushing
it's honestly more than i was expecting to get
@@viedogaems The algorithm picked you up to recirculate so you'll pick up more eyeballs.
great video
What is the mod you’re using for Skyrim? It makes inventories look so much cleaner
SkyUI with iHUD
Thanks!@@viedogaems
Currently 39 min in - CRPGs are not character RPGs... the term means "computer RPGs" and they are typically attached to the Baldur's Gate style top-down party strategy-focused RPGs.
Why your voice so soothing tho
To be fair to bgs ( yeah I know ) ppl have the shortest attention spans and bgs has mid writing so they have to pump the player up right away or ppl will lose interest
first
Tbh bro, it would help you get more subscribers if you put reminders telling people to subscribe in your videos or something. I’ve heard from video creators that it actually works 🤷🏽♂️
1:21:41 what’s that noise? Haha
a lack of WD-40
brilliant commentary on a mediocre game series made by... incompetent, money-grubbing developers... who we keep... purchasing... from... :X
what the fuck are you even talking about
@@trop7736 good commentary by viedo gaems on the elder scrolls series, which is made by Bethesda, whose fans keep purchasing their games
use your brain, my son
@@woahsephwoapherson1630 you edited ur comment because u originally came out as gay LOL
@@trop7736 You responded over a week later because you're g*y LOL.