The Elder Scrolls: On Classes

 “Don’t fix what is not broken.” – A common claim. A claim I don’t disagree with, in principle. But I do have to disagree with it being applied to the classes and levelling in Morrowind and Oblivion. Because “broken” is the only way I have of describing it.

All I really have to say about the change in character levelling system when it comes to Skyrim from the previous games is: “What change?”

A surprising statement, perhaps, until you consider how these systems worked and how little that actually changed with Skyrim. In Morrowind and Oblivion (and Daggerfall, but fuck Daggerfall and its shit interface, RNGenerated world and quests), you pick a selection of skills at the start of your journey that will decide what levels you up. Not that actually defines your character, since there is no difference between a class skill and non-class skill of the same level. They just decide what levels you up and get a bonus to experience gain to match this. In Skyrim you just go out in the world and level by using whatever skill you want. Well, okay, there was one major change: Attribute bonuses when levelling became perk points when levelling.

Attributes start out semi-unique and, through a combination of high starting values compared to max value and how frequent you increase them, very quickly become just the same as everyone else with a remotely similar character. A warrior in Morrowind or Oblivion, regardless of whether they focus on offense or defense or a mix, will have roughly the same numbers in Strength, Endurance, Agility and Speed at all levels. Hybrid characters that spread themselves thin eventually end up more powerful (usually anyway), because the low caps on attributes really do not reward specialization.

Perks, on the other hand, very directly forces you to choose between what you want to do that level and characters that outwardly focus on the same skills (say, a warrior in heavy armor with 1-handed) can vary quite a bit. One might focus on defense and use a shield, with high investment in armor and blocking skills, while the other might be dual wielding and focus much more on the efficiency of his weapons. One might have very high health while the other have a mix of stamina and health. Hybrid characters spread themselves thin in this system too, perhaps even more so, given the limited number of perk points compared to perks.

Putting it like this: Your attributes can have pretty high numbers across the board on a “high level” character in Oblivion and Morrowind, even without grinding. You can also easily max every single attribute by level 50 if you do grind. In Skyrim, you need to be level 250-something to get all the perks. Something that is possible with the Legendary thing added, but still takes a great deal more time and grinding than reaching level 50 (regular max level in Oblivion, and some 20 levels below regular max level in Morrowind). No matter how you twist and turn it, there is simply more specialization of your character going on in Skyrim, because of the more limited perkpoints.

Now that I have poked that hornet’s nest, let’s move on to the topic I want to cover more thoughtfully and that is the classes in Morrowind and Oblivion. And why I don’t think they are worth defending. And we’re not just talking implementation, but in principle.

On implementation, I will say this; it’s shit. The lack of differentiating things between class and non-class skills and the related attribute problem makes it a laughably bad and shallow system. The attributes also don’t really do anything interesting.

For example, if I want to create an agility based, rather than strength based, warrior, I am punished for that. It is not that I am just doing less damage per hit, but I am not receiving anything useful in return for this. Agility gives a minor boost in accuracy and dodge ability in Morrowind and reduced stagger in Oblivion. And both games give a little stamina bonus. In Oblivion, it also gives some bow damage, but that is irrelevant to a warrior character.

In Morrowind, the dodge is nice, I guess, if very inconsistent. But the accuracy is rather quite inconsequential compared. Your primary accuracy comes from the skill in use itself and is already generally reliable by skill-level 50 (70+ for high level enemies like Umbra). Given that starting values for Major Skills in Morrowind range from 30(no bonuses) to 50(Redguard, combat specialization, Long Blade as a Major Skill), this is generally not a problem.

In Oblivion, staggering is nice to avoid, but this too is not very much in return for the sacrifice of the only attribute that increases melee damage. And carry weight. On top of that, Strength also gives stamina. And then there is the biggest problem of them all: I don’t need to make a choice between them, in either of the games. An Agility based warrior is going to be weaker than a Strength, Endurance and Agility based warrior. Which in turn is weaker than a Strength, Endurance, Agility and Speed based warrior. Etc. All of which is easily achieved in the system with little grinding. Hell, unless you intentionally go for suboptimal stats, it is the inevitable result of levelling a warrior character.

But this is not about implementation. Not really, anyway. Most would agree, in my experience, that the levelling system is hardly something to boast about even if they do prefer it over the (mostly the same) system in Skyrim. Which is not so much a different room in the house as just shuffling some furniture around.

The thing I dislike most with the class system in Morrowind and Oblivion, which says a lot given how much I hate the implementation whose only saving grace is “not being that much of a hassle”, is the core ideas underlying it. The fact that it is essentially a class-less system with unnecessary restrictions and faffing attached.

“Unnecessary restrictions?” you ask, thinking about how most class systems do impose restrictions that are, ultimately, arbitrary. “Just look at how many games, like Dragon Age, has decided for the player that Rogues use one of these 2 types of weapons and only this sort of armor. A lot of RPGs does shit like that and I don’t hear you complaining about them.”

Which is true, a lot of RPGs do impose such restrictions, but they are not “unnecessary” in the same sense. Most games I know of that have a class-system for your character, regardless of how free or limited the player is in outfitting them with arms and armor, tend to use the classes to differentiate and specialize.

If we continue with the Dragon Age examples (a system I think has had the wrong evolution regarding equipment freedom since the first one), let’s focus a moment on Origins. Between Warriors and Rogues, there is a bit of overlap, specifically in the archery and dual wielding skills. Does that mean that a Warrior who pick up sword and dagger will be the same as a Rogue who picks up sword and dagger? Nope. Even assuming the two characters are equipped the same, there is still going to be some fundamental differences between them. And all of these changes come from the underlying differences the classes work with.

Warriors have higher health and higher base stats like damage , with talents like Taunt, Disengage and Death Blow. They have the Reaver, Champion, Templar and Berserker specializations to choose from. Rogues have a higher number of secondary skills like Stealth and Poison Making, the ability to Backstab when flanking an enemy and talents like Dirty Fighting, Coup de Grace and Lethality. They have access to the Ranger, Bard, Assassin and Duelist specializations. These are quite significant differences even when assuming the same equipment, let alone what sort of differences in equipment these differences encourages.

Heck, let’s even take a quick look at a class system that does not impose any more equipment restrictions than the Elder Scrolls: Pillars of Eternity. Each class can equip whatever they want and this may or may not be encouraged by how their skills work. The Paladin, if designed to deal damage, is not overly hindered by a 2-handed weapon and medium/heavy armor, since they focus on high damage auto attacks, high base defenses and the occasional Flames of Devotion nuke to take down priority targets. A Barbarian, on the other hand, has skills that rely on duration (like Frenzy) and this supports quicker attacks for maximum effect. Quicker attacks are easiest to achieve with little to no armor and fast weapons like Hatchets and Daggers. You can switch the equipment of the two and it probably won’t be that bad, but you’re going to have to change the playstyle a bit on both of them. And even in the same equipment, they will play differently due to the fundamentals of their classes.

Those bright bastards among you might realize where I am then going to go with the criticism of the Elder Scrolls class system as seen in Morrowind and Oblivion. It imposes restrictions regarding what allows you to level up, without rewarding those restrictions with anything unique to that class. And this is one of the things that makes me say that the system in Skyrim is leagues above Morrowind and Oblivion, even as poorly implemented as it is. Investing in a skill in Skyrim actually differentiates it from other fundamentally similar skills.

If I, for whatever reason, have the same skill level in Blade and Blunt in Oblivion, it does not matter which is my class skill. They will perform equally well. If we just put the Blade and Blunt skills into Skyrim’s system (ignoring for a moment that they made a better separation with 1-handed and 2-handed), the one I have invested perk points in (Skyrim’s equivalence of a “class skill”), will have significantly more to offer me in terms of efficiency. Even if the skill level is the same. Hell, even if the skill level of the one I haven’t invested perks in is higher the one with the investment will perform better.

In short, I think that if you are to have classes in a game, I want there to be tangible differences in the mechanics to differentiate them from one another. Oblivion and Morrowind does not do this, therefor I think having a class system at all is entirely superfluous and counterproductive. The Elder Scrolls had to either remove classes to keep the general approach in gameplay or give unique skills/talents/mechanics to each class to keep a class system if they wanted to move away from that awful mess. Me, I am glad they saw that it was a mess and made a choice.

I have to admit, I would also have liked to see a Skyrim with more traditionally restrictive classes. Though I doubt there would have been any less outcry about that than it has been about the removal of the old system. Well, in name anyway. In practice Skyrim lets you level your character the same exact way as previous titles: Pick a skill and get to work. It just does it with less shit attached to it.

The Dissapointments of Oblivion

Is that title grammatically correct? I have no idea.

I am someone who likes my game-series to evolve over time, because, sure, I did enjoy Morrowind for what it was, but I don’t want it to be like so many other series in that it is just the same over and over. Call of Duty and Assassins Creed are modern examples of what I am thinking about.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I would say, does improve on most gameplay elements, giving the player more interaction as opposed to just having it happen automatically. I know not all think this is an improvement, but I think it does. I prefer my RPGs to let me decide what to do and the character I control to decide how effective that action is.

Something I need to make clear before I go on with this rant-ish thing is that I don’t consider Oblivion to be a bad game. I’ve had a lot of fun running around Standard Fantasy World #62983756. And I do think that people are ascribing undue originality to Morrowind. After all, “dark elves” worshiping gods everyone else thinks are evil, with a society that allows and emphasize backstabbing and infighting with a general insect-theme on their arms and armor does smell a little of the Drow Elves. And if we look around for a bit, I’m sure we’ll find a Drizzt Do’Urden in their ranks too. Possible candidates would be Symmachus, Sir Ralvas or one of the billion Dunmer NPCs we see in the Elder Scrolls Online.

But if I prefer Oblivion’s gameplay (and I do by a large margin) and think Morrowind is far less original than some would have it be, why do I still think of Oblivion as only the 3^rd best main series Elder Scrolls game?

The problem Oblivion has, in my eyes and it seems I am far from alone in this, is that it did not learn the lesson Morrowind should have taught it: A well-presented world that lets you learn a whole lot about it can make up for stale gameplay. Even elevate it above said gameplay to the point where people are still bitching about how the later titles are not as good 15 years later. And the reverse of this truth: A poorly presented world with few interesting things to lean can make a game a lot shittier than the sum of its parts.

Another thing I have to clarify before moving forward, because I am sure some apologist for Oblivion have spotted a common argument against it implied so far, is that I don’t mind if the lore is changed. Indeed, with time, I’ve become quite fond of the “controversial” additions to the lore, like the Ebonheart Pact, religion in Skyrim having changed or even that Cyrodiil was not what was expected (in principle anyway). An example that more clearly shows what I am thinking about would be Bane from The Dark Knight Rises; changed quite a lot from his original starting point, but still interesting and works very well in the story. Well, a story with loads of plotholes, but you know.

Would I have liked to see Cyrodiil as the Pocket Guide to the Empire 1^st Edition paints it? Yes, I would. Would I mind if they replaced things in order to create a better Cyrodiil? Not at all. The problem is that Oblivion removed most elements of Cyrodiilic culture (even erasing the difference between Colovian and Nibenese culture) without replacing it with anything. Which is the key part. They took something out, without filling something new in in its place.

What this led to, which is what disappoints me so much about Oblivion, is a very bland world. To make matters worse, there are few unique dungeons you can just explore. Not that there were that many unique dungeons in Morrowind, but most had something, some detail to make it stand out just a bit. Everything worth doing in Oblivion is tied directly into a quest you get somewhere else.

With poor presentation of the world and less reason to explore, Oblivion sadly does not do enough to surpass Morrowind as a game, IMO. 

A Traveler's Journal - Colovia

[Much of the journal is faded or burnt, leaving only parts of one entry legible]

… and with that business behind me, my voyage would bring me to the western parts of the Imperial province: Colovia. Called the "breeding pen of Nibenese kings" in jest. Something I knew to keep to myself as I passed through the gates of Chorrol.

[Attached fragment] … while many kings came from the West, they are quickly assimilated by the Nibenese…

Were it not for the temperature and lack of snow, one could be mistaken that one was in a Nordic Hold, rather than a Cyrodilic County. Its people are tall and imposing and every statesman’s uniform consists of some of the finest leather armor Tamriel has to offer(or so they would say). Justice is brutal and swift, barely more civilized than the horrors described in the time of Rislav the Righteus. Duels to first blood, or worse, appear to be common, at least here in the mountain county. I hear them invoke rules for the duels from all the Colovian Counties though. I am glad my companion knows to watch his tongue; I’m not in strict need of another pair of leather boots…

… and at the castle. The heirs to the throne train with the local Legion troops, as if just another soldier in the mix. An officer, clearly annoyed that I dared question him during drills, said all Colovian Counts and Countesses were in the Legion…

[Margin]I don’t think I heard Akatosh’s name uttered once in my visit to Colovia. Shor and Kyne, on the other hand, I swore I could hear all the time.

… as I sat beneath the Great Oak. Y'ffre has surely blessed the city, for His voice can surely be heard by all the faithful who meditate beneath its branches. A local wise(insane?) man said it was nothing like the Gildergreen, once a sapling of…

[Fragmented attachment]… so, behold honorable Olaf One-Eye! For bringing peace to the Land of Man, I gift your city with a sapling! Go forth and tell that I, the Eldest, bless you in Kyne’s name…

The Colovians have a curious relationship to Skyrim, the Fatherland, it seems. There is no secret that they consider themselves the better people, more civilized and the superior soldiers. And perhaps they are right. The Ruby Ranks have long benefited from Colovian discipline and muscle.

But the ways of the Nords, their religion and martial nature, is held in high regard here. More than the Nibenese customs. They see themselves as Children of Skyrim, in a sense. Heirs to the Fatherland. It is only to be expected; Nordic bloods runs deep here, from commoner to the count and his nobles. I wonder if even they can tell the difference, were it not for the accent many Nords have. I’ve noticed they don’t like me much. I think it’s because I am Bosmer…

[Fragmented attachment]… as the Five Year War broke out on the Valenwood/Elseweyr border, the Colovians sealed their own. They did not want refugees flooding into their kingdoms…

… Skingrad is not what it once was. Much of the farmland has been restored since the Great War, but there is an air of unease. Most of the buildings out around the city are temporary, even now, and everyone who can returns in behind the walls of what was once the Jewel of Old Colovia. Only the poorest of the workers live in the provided housing by the fields. The fear of Aldmeri soldiers marching out from the forests of Valenwood to the south is still very real here. The vineyards aren’t what they used to either. Even with the Legion guarding the south…

[Fragmented attachment] To His Honor, Count Adrian Valga, Legate of the West Weald Legion, 4E94.

… the restoration of Kvatch goes well, all things considered, but I fear the city will never be the same…

… seems that there have been many Khajiit coming to this city lately. They are dissatisfied with the Empire. They say the Dominion is slowly pushing its borders into their lands. The cats are afraid they too may be subject to a coup soon and hoped the Empire would do more to protect them…

… hopefully you can spare some men, as we cannot…

… Anvil is strife with fear. Its citizens remember how easy it was for the Dominion to move through their lands and they fear that their city may receive more attention should hostilities break out again. The Count decided to remarry, surely out of a sense of desperation: the daughter of the Count and Countess of Kvatch is fleshy and rumors say she has more hair than a man. But Kvatch is the only city close and the alliance might save…

… and with that, I am glad to see Colovia left behind me. While not as unpleasant as I imagined it would be(as long as I kept to myself. I’ll carry the scar for being too curious for the rest of my life), Colovia is too close to the Dominion to settle down in. It will be on the front lines when the war resumes…

Let's Review: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

After a short post about safe spaces, what could possibly be more relevant than a review of a video game? And not just any video game, but one which the 15^th anniversary is next year! Well, okay, with the upcoming release of the Special Edition for Skyrim, I am sure those of us interested in the game will end up discussing the merits of it compared to Morrowind. It happened with Oblivion and it happened the first time Skyrim was released, and will likely happen with every Elder Scroll release until the end of times. So let’s look at this mysterious game from the early 2000s.

As with any Elder Scrolls game, I am at a loss where to even begin pulling strings when attempting to untangle the morbidly obese ball of yarn. Do I start with the story and see where it goes or do I look at the good and bad? I think I just answered my own question there, as the story and world-building is the good. And I rather end it on a low-note. So let’s begin with the story.

Story

Now, if you are one of those people who will be furious about getting a soon-to-be 15 year old game spoiled for you, you should probably skip this part of the review. Don’t worry, I will make a new heading when I begin to talk about the world-building. Consider yourself spoiler-warned.

The basic outline of the main story line in Morrowind is really quite simple. The Emperor has an obsession with a prophecy involving the “Nerevarine”, an ancient Dunmer hero reborn, and has scoured his prisons for someone sort-of matching the role. You are one of these people, so you are sent to Vvardenfell, an island in Morrowind, and you’re sort-of-but-not-really expected to try to fulfil this prophecy. I say “not really” because, despite having his Imperial Legion and a host of spies in most settlements, the Emperor never uses any of that to try to force you, should you (as I usually do) simply ignore this request from the most powerful man on the continent. Thinking back on it, I get this feeling that he never actually expected you to be the Nerevarine and that he might have been in a charitable mood and felt like pardoning someone.

In either case, you have to learn you are the Nerevarine, then are not, then are again before it is all over, all the while a mysterious man from the past of the Tribunal Gods spreads his Divine Disease and the Sixth House Cult to the corners of Vvardenfell. It is a long sightseeing tour of the island, where you will meet a lot of Dunmer with opinions on you and what degree of fraud they are dealing with. And it’s good.

The story is on a pretty slow boil where most of the stuff goes to gathering information for the Emperor’s local, elderly Spymaster and to pass the tests of the Nerevarine for the three Great Houses and the four Ashlander tribes. As a side-note here, they added a neat little detail for this (admittedly tedious on the 3^rd or 4^th play through) part of the main questline. If you are over level 20 and has 50 or higher Reputation, you get to skip the tests. Because being a celebrity apparently means I get to just declare myself the reincarnated Nerevar, no proof necessary.

After you are the Nerevarine (for realsies this time, no takebacks or anything), you have to gather some magical stuff so that you can sever the Main Baddie’s connection to some other magical stuff. You talk to a god who is kinda responsible for why the Main Baddie is so bad and go on to kill the guardians of the magical stuff you need.

Those of you following this will probably have had at least one voice in your head shouting “This is a traditional Hero’s Journey in a pretentious haircut! What can possibly be so good about that overused trope?” and the answer is pretty damn simple.

The Pretentious Haircut

As you will learn later in this review, I can’t stop myself from hating on most of the stuff that is in this game, so why do I hundreds of hours on this game in the last 5 years alone, not to even try to figure out how many hours between 2002 and now?

What Morrowind does best is creating a world with scale and identity and nuance and probably some other buzzwords that probably don’t mean what you think they mean. Most quests, be they in the main story line or otherwise, tell you something about how things are in Vvardenfell. You’ll learn who are friends and enemies, how modern Imperial culture is mixing with the orthodox Dunmer culture, what role the Temple and Great Houses play in the politics and any other thing you could want to know.

Morrowind is really where the Elder Scrolls series as most people know it began. Between Daggerfall and Morrowind, the adventure game Redguard began to add changes to the lore to make Tamriel more of its own thing, but it was first in Morrowind we saw those changes expanded upon.

I know I am going through this aspect of the game really quickly, but I think the world-building is something one has to experience for oneself. Also, I have stuff I want to complain about. But the main thing to take from this review is that, for a lot of us, the world-building will forever excuse the faults Morrowind has as a game. Yes, that was a TL;DR in the middle of the review. Livin’ on the edge, yo! Do people even say “yo” anymore? Fuck…

Gameplay

Holy Blessings of the Triune God of Man! By Hjalti, Zurin and Wulfharth, say it isn’t so!

Ten points if you know who I am talking about above. But, seriously, the gameplay of Morrowind has not exactly aged like fine wine. More like milk. And I wouldn’t confidently say that it wasn’t past its expiration date when it came out on the store shelves in the first place. Your movements are clunky, you get stuck on seemingly everything and combat is a fucking chore. At the beginning of the game you will probably think this is a difficult game, but it is just tricking you. While starting off on a nice uphill struggle, you will soon wonder why it was replaced with slave boys feeding you grapes. Magic, while offering a great deal of spell variety, is clunky as fuck with its cast times and it will take most of your magical energy if you want to kill anything larger than a rat. Stealth is a joke and all three main playstyles has a point of no return, when any challenge to be had has to be sought out in the DLC areas of Bloodmoon and Tribunal, which constitute maybe 15% of the total game content.

Character stuff

So who is the player? Whoever you want them to be. Within certain limits anyway. With 10 races, 2 genders (something for you SJWs to get your panties in a twist about, I’m sure), 13 birthsigns, 21 predefined classes and the option to create your own, there is a lot to choose from. Well, in theory anyway. Most classes with a shared main focus will play largely the same and the classes do not offer anything unique to your character. They just decide which skills start with higher values and determine your level. You can still master any non-class skill.

Between having to upgrade three of your eight attributes every level, bonus points to them depending on skills raised and the low max value compared to their starting point, the “unique” stat distribution you start with will disappear pretty damn quickly. There is also no variety for builds, unless you intentionally pick suboptimal stats.

Strength and endurance, with speed, agility, willpower or intelligence as a side depending on your particular build, will always be the best for a warrior. Willpower, intelligence etc. for a mage. Speed and agility for a rogue.

You might argue “but what if I make a swordsman using speed and agility, eh?” Well, that will probably work, if for no other reason than the general lack of difficulty in the game, but ultimately you’re just playing an inferior version of a strength and endurance swordsman. Attack speed is static and the dice-roll way the combat works in isn’t good with melee based hit’n’run. So you’ll do less damage and can take less of a beating. Nor does it actually change the way you play the character. You either whack people… or whack people doing slightly less damage.

Various weapons have different damage stats depending on how you move when attacking, but they are just damage stats. They are like more tedious, less interesting versions of the “power attacks” that were added in Oblivion. A function you can ignore by turning on the “always use best attack” feature in the options menu. But even if you don’t, it’s easy to use the best attack anyway, if a bit immersion breaking. I have to move forward to thrust? I am pretty sure the human body is capable of performing a thrust standing still or moving sideways, thank you very much.

The birthsigns have some fun ideas, but are about as balanced as a hot pancake to the face is subtle. Ranging from completely fucking you over (see the Lord) to fucking everyone else over (see anything with an attribute bonus) to seemingly balanced (warrior, mage and thief), they will probably have a decent effect on your character. Unless you pick one of the balanced ones, since they fade into obscurity pretty quickly.

The races are about as balanced as the birthigns in this game, with Nord, Redguard and Breton with their useful resistances and racial powers on top and High Elves with their inclusive set of weaknesses on the bottom. Everything else is somewhere else in between.

Exploration

This is something Morrowind is, in my opinion, a mixed bag on. There are numerous treasures and unique items to be found when exploring, be it caves or the insides of wealthy people’s properties, but at the same time most of the caves and such in the game are not unique. You are going to be very familiar with the layout of caves, velothi towers, Dwemer ruins and Dunmer strongholds, even the ones you never visited, before you are done with this game. It is not quite as bad as Oblivion in this aspect, because there is quests and interesting loot to find (at least in some of them), and there are some additional caves with something unique about them, but mostly they are very similar in their layouts and aesthetic.

The landscapes you are exposed to outside of dungeoneering are much better (dated graphics aside), and offer a nice variety of grasslands, ashlands, various settlements with their own styles suited for their environments.

Guilds

Morrowind has lots of Guilds and factions to join. Not quite as many as Daggerfall, but far more than Oblivion and Skyrim. Does that automatically make the Guilds better? Not really.

Something that is important to keep in mind for anyone going back to Morrowind from Oblivion and/or Skyrim, is that the factions do not focus on an overarching story the same way as later games did. They are mostly unrelated quests hoarded into a faction and given a coat of paint to belong there. And there is nothing inherently wrong with this, as it is a nice way to flesh out the world a bit and contextualize random quests. But they aren’t stories.

There is one special mention though, the Fighters Guild. Probably my favorite faction storyline in any TES game. Not my favorite storyline, but faction storyline. It marries proper “guild work” (as opposed to the Mages Guild in Oblivion) with an overarching plot that rewards those who pay attention to detail, while giving the player agency in the story, as opposed to being a “yesman” at the whims of the writers. What is the story about? Go play the damned questline and you’ll see.

Honorable mentions

What else is there to say? Spellcrafting? It works, but the spellsystem is so damn clunky to use regardless. Infinite training per level? I don’t care either way about this, to be honest, though it makes branching out of your “class” ridiculously easy. Since, you know, money is not something you will run short on in Morrowind after the first few levels.

Rating

Your TL;DR is in another paragraph.