People do forget that Morrowind had a leveled world too, its just not everything was leveled. Some of the loot in chests and some NPCs you would fight were leveled but others were static. I remember the first time I played morrowind I found the first smugglers cave in Seyda Neen and got wrecked. I came back only a few hours later with some gear and a little bit of weapon level and managed to clean house. That little challenge was great. I then found another cave north of it near the swamp and got eaten by a vampire.
The spellcaster in that cave is nasty. As an Imperial, I hit him with Star of the West and drained his Fatigue. That made him fumble his spells If I remember right he uses Fire spells so a Dunmer could tank it no problem There are ways and means in Morrowind
Very few things in Morrowind are leveled. AFAIK only random enemies are leveled, not named NPCs, and some loot is leveled but not unique items Your anecdote about how you went and leveled up to make a hard fight easier highlights the flaws in Oblivion's leveling system. If you don't know what you're doing and imagine that leveling up makes you more powerful (like in any other game) you will get screwed because the hard enemy you wanted to level up for is now even harder, and probably by a larger margin than how much power you gained
I genuinely think the levelling system in both games has been flanderized in the public perception beyond repair. Oblivion's levelling system is just Morrowind's, but without infinite trainer uses and with skills rebalanced. The actual issues in both games have to do with levelled enemies and content gating. Morrowind has very few levelled enemies and no level based content gating so you can become a demigod by accident due to how ubiquitously powerful many artifacts and player enchanted items can be. Oblivion has too many levelled enemies and an excess of level based content gating (and levelled artifacts that are nerfed if you don't acquire them at higher levels) so you end up having to employ a magic based dominant strategy to feel like a demigod.
That's pretty much how I feel. Oblivion's system is more balaced compared to Morrowind. But also the game gets harder way faster, than in Morrowind due to level scaling. Morrowind pretty much just gets easier the more powerful you get, and you can go to more dangerous places. In Oblivion, the same enemies feel like they are outrunning you in gaining power. You can obviously still kill them if you play right, but you kind of have to pay more attention to improving your character before doing missions. While in Morrowind you can just play and not pay attention, and always be powerful. Morrowind is generally easy once you understand mechanics, which back in the day, you would do right after reading game manual (I still use PDF manual from my copy of Morrowind)
You don't stand still and summon skeletons for an hour in morrowind you just sell some shit to creeper and go to a trainer lol. Trainers not having a limit per level makes it possible to power thru like 12 skill ups to make a new spell possible to use, but the attribute requirement nudges you towards getting off your butt and playing normally after that instead of fully metagaming. Plus the fact that every single enemy isn't constantly scaling with you makes a weird/dirty level from doing this a lot less of a scary prospect. I think it's a lot more freeform and fun
I’ve heard this point before, but with 10 major/minor skills you have a much higher level cap, so you doubly aren’t worried about a “dirty level.” I will say in oblivion I don’t worry about those either, I average +3s when I play. The ability to train your misc skills means there is no reason to ever go naturally play in Morrowind, other than to have fun or more gold. You can get high attributes increases and increase your majors with just gold. I do not think this is a better system. Honestly this is probably the largest reason I like oblivion more than Morrowind, I love both games.
That’s fair, everyone loves the Morrowind setting. I’m a sucker for the high fantasy of lord of the rings and Warcraft. I geeked out reading the Warcraft 1 Manual for hours as a kid, wondering how to pronounce Daemon
It's not but it's close. Morrowind actually benefits from the leveling system that it sharess with Oblivion since only certain enemies scale with the player. So the difficulty scales with the area and that allows players to avoid those areas and come back when they feel ready.
One thing in oblivion I didn't like was how the scaling also unlocked better tiers of gear. Some of the medium level stuff can be missed pretty easily and it can be confusing knowing when stores and stuff will have better gear to upgrade with. Morrowind having a limited level scaling system meant that vendors would have some really good stuff for salve fo very expensive prices, but only the best stuff could be found in the more dangerous parts of the world. The tip top stuff had to be found. Often in Oblivion I would either be dissapointed by what was for sale or just confused as to why that trash was so fucking high.
Counterpoint: just raise your minor skills to 100 and never level up. 100 Blade at level 1 seems pretty strong. "Class skills" are a trap. They don't do anything for you long term except give you the opportunity to level up and make the game less fun.
@@AvengerAtIlipabut not leveling up makes the game like the least fun possible. Getting new and stronger equipment and fighting new and stronger enemies is like the best part of the progressing through the game
In Morrowind most NPCs are rooted in place. It has its upsides like a small bonus to world persistence, and you can pop into Ra'virs shop at any time and he will be there to trade(unless you killed him yourself or moved him with a command spell). Its a compromise design choice that comes from hardware limitations of Pentium 3 cpu, 256MB of ram and gpus of the time. In Oblivion that problem is remedied by introduction of radiant ai. NPCs will have their schedule and spend time in their shop, in the tavern, in bed sleeping, etc. Much more advanced and immersive solution, but it has its downsides. Of course you will sometimes wait in front of stores for the shopkeeper to open, but the biggest one is the introduction of the quest marker. The GPRS arrow leading you directly towards the quest related NPC. You dont have to listen to dialog, you dont have to read the journal you can just follow the quest marker and you will end up in the right place, exactly where the NPC of interest is. So if that place is extremely dangerous like a deadric ruin or a vampire stronghold is to new players in Morrowind, the player would be lead directly into his death. Thus comes in the level scaling. To save the day. I don't know where I was going with this, but I hope it helps righten your course. 👍😄😅
To be fair, the optimized leveling strategy in Morrowind is not required and actually makes the game less fun. The game is easy enough without maximizing your stats, and idling while spamming spells is a lot less fun than leveling naturally while exploring or doing quests. If you're minmaxing in Morrowind you might as well open the console and cheat in your stats since you're clearly not interested in playing the game.
I find "legitimately" breaking Morrowind to be hilarious though. Fortify Enchant into the stratosphere and wreck everything by spamming a ridiculous cast on use Absorb Health 100pts in 50ft on Target ring
I'm not freaking out, but you are wrong. I love Oblivion, but the leveling system is the worst thing about it or any Bethesda game I have ever played. If you spend some time doing non-combat stuff, you can make the world level to the point that your character is unplayable. You shouldn't need to play a game "right" to be able to have fun.
Ok i call bullshit on the power-leveling doesn't benefit you thing. 100 Conjuration will play the game for you with any decent summon, same for Restoration, same for Illusion, same for Destruction, same for Alchemy etc, ESPECIALLY because casting and creating spells is level-gated, so higher skill through grinding just means you can access the strongest shit earlier so that's a bust. More importantly Morrowind, Skyrim and Daggerfall are all WAAAY smoother when playing the game normally. Morrowind and Daggerfall are smoother because the early game is quite easy for a well-built character, with a decent mid game transition and decently challenging but rewarding late-games for someone not abusing mechanics or looking up guides for gear. Skyrim's by far and away is the smoothest though. But yeah ALL the games can be broken in half by just power-leveling a Skill, saying it doesn't have that issue is just blatantly biased. Morrowind and Daggerfall also have the best Max Difficulty, where enemies are more dangerous but you aren't hitting like wet paper.
I agree that power leveling is an equivalent, if not even bigger bonus to have in oblivion compared to the others. However, I do think oblivion and Skyrim are definitely the smoothest whatever you might do. Even in a worst case character in oblivion, I don’t think you’re really suffering in any way for at least 20 hours, probably a lot more for newer players though.
I’d like to see you review Partician’s review of the leveling system I like oblivion, but you even admit that the warrior playstyle is glitched/underpowered, and you need a spreadsheet almost every video to explain this fugazi 😕
Physical weapon damage is low, that is for sure. I don’t blame the leveling system for that though, 100 strength certainly doesn’t fix that problem. That would be 1 reason Morrowind is better, don’t worry I still have over 500 more reasons to go. Wait… that video is 12 hours long?!?! How do I review that lol
Critiquing some aspects of Patrician's retrospectives would be great, particularly because a lot of people tend to take his opinions as gospel. I doubt he has really taken the time to crunch the numbers like you have done.
People do forget that Morrowind had a leveled world too, its just not everything was leveled. Some of the loot in chests and some NPCs you would fight were leveled but others were static. I remember the first time I played morrowind I found the first smugglers cave in Seyda Neen and got wrecked. I came back only a few hours later with some gear and a little bit of weapon level and managed to clean house. That little challenge was great. I then found another cave north of it near the swamp and got eaten by a vampire.
The spellcaster in that cave is nasty. As an Imperial, I hit him with Star of the West and drained his Fatigue. That made him fumble his spells
If I remember right he uses Fire spells so a Dunmer could tank it no problem
There are ways and means in Morrowind
Very few things in Morrowind are leveled. AFAIK only random enemies are leveled, not named NPCs, and some loot is leveled but not unique items
Your anecdote about how you went and leveled up to make a hard fight easier highlights the flaws in Oblivion's leveling system. If you don't know what you're doing and imagine that leveling up makes you more powerful (like in any other game) you will get screwed because the hard enemy you wanted to level up for is now even harder, and probably by a larger margin than how much power you gained
I genuinely think the levelling system in both games has been flanderized in the public perception beyond repair. Oblivion's levelling system is just Morrowind's, but without infinite trainer uses and with skills rebalanced. The actual issues in both games have to do with levelled enemies and content gating.
Morrowind has very few levelled enemies and no level based content gating so you can become a demigod by accident due to how ubiquitously powerful many artifacts and player enchanted items can be.
Oblivion has too many levelled enemies and an excess of level based content gating (and levelled artifacts that are nerfed if you don't acquire them at higher levels) so you end up having to employ a magic based dominant strategy to feel like a demigod.
That's pretty much how I feel. Oblivion's system is more balaced compared to Morrowind. But also the game gets harder way faster, than in Morrowind due to level scaling. Morrowind pretty much just gets easier the more powerful you get, and you can go to more dangerous places. In Oblivion, the same enemies feel like they are outrunning you in gaining power. You can obviously still kill them if you play right, but you kind of have to pay more attention to improving your character before doing missions. While in Morrowind you can just play and not pay attention, and always be powerful. Morrowind is generally easy once you understand mechanics, which back in the day, you would do right after reading game manual (I still use PDF manual from my copy of Morrowind)
You don't stand still and summon skeletons for an hour in morrowind you just sell some shit to creeper and go to a trainer lol. Trainers not having a limit per level makes it possible to power thru like 12 skill ups to make a new spell possible to use, but the attribute requirement nudges you towards getting off your butt and playing normally after that instead of fully metagaming.
Plus the fact that every single enemy isn't constantly scaling with you makes a weird/dirty level from doing this a lot less of a scary prospect. I think it's a lot more freeform and fun
Traveling to Creeper or Mudcrab merchant constantly for an hour = Good
Summoning skeletons for an hour = Bad
@Elohim100 wh... Creeper is a 20 second mage's guild teleport away at any given moment.
I’ve heard this point before, but with 10 major/minor skills you have a much higher level cap, so you doubly aren’t worried about a “dirty level.” I will say in oblivion I don’t worry about those either, I average +3s when I play.
The ability to train your misc skills means there is no reason to ever go naturally play in Morrowind, other than to have fun or more gold.
You can get high attributes increases and increase your majors with just gold.
I do not think this is a better system. Honestly this is probably the largest reason I like oblivion more than Morrowind, I love both games.
I appreciate morrowinds setting more tbh, it's a very alien type of fantasy for the time. But I do love oblivion more at a technical level
That’s fair, everyone loves the Morrowind setting.
I’m a sucker for the high fantasy of lord of the rings and Warcraft. I geeked out reading the Warcraft 1 Manual for hours as a kid, wondering how to pronounce Daemon
Morrowind would've been cooler if it was set in High Rock lol
It's not but it's close.
Morrowind actually benefits from the leveling system that it sharess with Oblivion since only certain enemies scale with the player.
So the difficulty scales with the area and that allows players to avoid those areas and come back when they feel ready.
One thing in oblivion I didn't like was how the scaling also unlocked better tiers of gear. Some of the medium level stuff can be missed pretty easily and it can be confusing knowing when stores and stuff will have better gear to upgrade with. Morrowind having a limited level scaling system meant that vendors would have some really good stuff for salve fo very expensive prices, but only the best stuff could be found in the more dangerous parts of the world. The tip top stuff had to be found. Often in Oblivion I would either be dissapointed by what was for sale or just confused as to why that trash was so fucking high.
Optimize to death. Why is the game hard at level 10 when I only use skills I never took any initial bonuses in?
I agree oblivion is not perfect not for someone who just wants to use their preferred skills.
@@xl-dt6qj If the skills themselves are good you should start with them. The additional skill levels are crucial.
Counterpoint: just raise your minor skills to 100 and never level up. 100 Blade at level 1 seems pretty strong. "Class skills" are a trap. They don't do anything for you long term except give you the opportunity to level up and make the game less fun.
@@AvengerAtIlipabut not leveling up makes the game like the least fun possible. Getting new and stronger equipment and fighting new and stronger enemies is like the best part of the progressing through the game
@@AvengerAtIlipait would take FOREVER to get blade to 100 as a minor skill, the game will be slow and you will be miserable. Never play that way.
In Morrowind most NPCs are rooted in place. It has its upsides like a small bonus to world persistence, and you can pop into Ra'virs shop at any time and he will be there to trade(unless you killed him yourself or moved him with a command spell). Its a compromise design choice that comes from hardware limitations of Pentium 3 cpu, 256MB of ram and gpus of the time.
In Oblivion that problem is remedied by introduction of radiant ai. NPCs will have their schedule and spend time in their shop, in the tavern, in bed sleeping, etc. Much more advanced and immersive solution, but it has its downsides. Of course you will sometimes wait in front of stores for the shopkeeper to open, but the biggest one is the introduction of the quest marker.
The GPRS arrow leading you directly towards the quest related NPC.
You dont have to listen to dialog, you dont have to read the journal you can just follow the quest marker and you will end up in the right place, exactly where the NPC of interest is.
So if that place is extremely dangerous like a deadric ruin or a vampire stronghold is to new players in Morrowind, the player would be lead directly into his death.
Thus comes in the level scaling. To save the day.
I don't know where I was going with this, but I hope it helps righten your course.
👍😄😅
To be fair, the optimized leveling strategy in Morrowind is not required and actually makes the game less fun.
The game is easy enough without maximizing your stats, and idling while spamming spells is a lot less fun than leveling naturally while exploring or doing quests. If you're minmaxing in Morrowind you might as well open the console and cheat in your stats since you're clearly not interested in playing the game.
I find "legitimately" breaking Morrowind to be hilarious though. Fortify Enchant into the stratosphere and wreck everything by spamming a ridiculous cast on use Absorb Health 100pts in 50ft on Target ring
I don't think Oblivion is better but I still like your vids
I'm not freaking out, but you are wrong. I love Oblivion, but the leveling system is the worst thing about it or any Bethesda game I have ever played. If you spend some time doing non-combat stuff, you can make the world level to the point that your character is unplayable. You shouldn't need to play a game "right" to be able to have fun.
I just modded around the leveling system's weaknesses
Ok i call bullshit on the power-leveling doesn't benefit you thing. 100 Conjuration will play the game for you with any decent summon, same for Restoration, same for Illusion, same for Destruction, same for Alchemy etc, ESPECIALLY because casting and creating spells is level-gated, so higher skill through grinding just means you can access the strongest shit earlier so that's a bust.
More importantly Morrowind, Skyrim and Daggerfall are all WAAAY smoother when playing the game normally. Morrowind and Daggerfall are smoother because the early game is quite easy for a well-built character, with a decent mid game transition and decently challenging but rewarding late-games for someone not abusing mechanics or looking up guides for gear. Skyrim's by far and away is the smoothest though.
But yeah ALL the games can be broken in half by just power-leveling a Skill, saying it doesn't have that issue is just blatantly biased.
Morrowind and Daggerfall also have the best Max Difficulty, where enemies are more dangerous but you aren't hitting like wet paper.
I agree that power leveling is an equivalent, if not even bigger bonus to have in oblivion compared to the others. However, I do think oblivion and Skyrim are definitely the smoothest whatever you might do. Even in a worst case character in oblivion, I don’t think you’re really suffering in any way for at least 20 hours, probably a lot more for newer players though.
I will see you in Part 267 in 2066. Where I will vehemently disagree with you and claim The Elder Scrolls VIII Black Marsh is superior.
by then we will most likely just have a teaser for Elder Scrolls VII
I’d like to see you review Partician’s review of the leveling system
I like oblivion, but you even admit that the warrior playstyle is glitched/underpowered, and you need a spreadsheet almost every video to explain this fugazi 😕
Physical weapon damage is low, that is for sure. I don’t blame the leveling system for that though, 100 strength certainly doesn’t fix that problem. That would be 1 reason Morrowind is better, don’t worry I still have over 500 more reasons to go.
Wait… that video is 12 hours long?!?! How do I review that lol
Critiquing some aspects of Patrician's retrospectives would be great, particularly because a lot of people tend to take his opinions as gospel. I doubt he has really taken the time to crunch the numbers like you have done.
I agree
another banger