Improving combat, but differently

[bigpotato5]

So I was introduced to TES with Oblivion. I constantly hear people say Morrowind is the better "RPG experience" and I guess that means something different to everyone who says it. But I am having trouble getting engaged in the experience. Basically, my problem is that I find the combat to be horrendous, as you can probably tell from the topic title. I know what you're thinking, you've probably seen this topic many times before. But hear me out.

 

Most mods I see to correct this issue try to make combat more like Oblivion's. The most common argument I hear against this from purists is that Morrowind's combat shouldn't be based on player skill but character skill, while oblivion reduces the depth of the combat by streamlining it. But perhaps more importantly, Morrowind's engine was not built to be like oblivion, so the mods won't really ever be able to emulate oblivion's more visceral style.

 

But this doesn't get to the root of the problem that the illusion of real time combat mixed with the quirks of RPG's is a clunky and overall unsatisfying exercise in "rolling dice", as they say. But plenty of older RPG's use a dice roll system and their combat systems don't get nearly as much hate as Morrowind does for it's combat. This leads me to believe that there is a potential fix to the problem which takes morrowind's combat further from oblivion's rather than closer.

 

Would it therefore be possible to create a mod which turns Morrowind into a TURN-BASED rpg, where trading blows, casting spells and movement in general are all done in turns rather than in real time? I'd imagine it would be something like the VATS system in Fallout 3 except in first person all the time, and everything including movement is done through menus. The system would activate any time combat begins (like when combat music would start playing) and the usual animations would play after actions are selected from a menu rather than a direct press of a button. I feel like a system like this would lend itself much better to the way morrowind is set up and wouldn't "betray" it's RPG roots. It would also give the player a more intuitive way of completely utilizing the tools at his disposal rather than clunkily sifting though both menus in the middle of a real time fight. It would rid morrowind of any pretenses to the action game genre which it's real time combat certainly suggests.

 

Perhaps I am just an ignorant fool with no understanding of how mods actually work (this is true) and a bad understanding about what makes a game mechanic engaging, or maybe my dreams have come true and there is already a mod which does this. Regardless, I'd like to hear your opinions, so please share.

[Tchos]

While I'm one of those who considers Morrowind to be a superior experience than Oblivion, the combat is not a part of that superiority. I agree with you that for character skill + dice rolls to effectively be used in combat, the combat should be turn-based.

 

Whether it has been done for Morrowind as a mod, I can't say, though I haven't heard of such a mod, myself. But, judging from having seen such a mod done for another RPG (a never-finished demo for Neverwinter Nights 2 called "True Turn Based Combat"), I think it could be possible in Morrowind.

 

Aside from the combat differences, Morrowind has more content and more kinds of gameplay mechanics -- more joinable factions, more skills, more armour slots, more types of spells (such as levitation, teleportation, etc.), more of everything in general that matters in an RPG. I did a more in-depth outline of how the last three games compared to each other in terms of quantity and types of content in this thread, if it helps. Though in none of them was combat the driving force for me playing the game.

[bigpotato5]

While I'm one of those who considers Morrowind to be a superior experience than Oblivion, the combat is not a part of that superiority. I agree with you that for character skill + dice rolls to effectively be used in combat, the combat should be turn-based.

 

Whether it has been done for Morrowind as a mod, I can't say, though I haven't heard of such a mod, myself. But, judging from having seen such a mod done for another RPG (a never-finished demo for Neverwinter Nights 2 called "True Turn Based Combat"), I think it could be possible in Morrowind.

 

Aside from the combat differences, Morrowind has more content and more kinds of gameplay mechanics -- more joinable factions, more skills, more armour slots, more types of spells (such as levitation, teleportation, etc.), more of everything in general that matters in an RPG. I did a more in-depth outline of how the last three games compared to each other in terms of quantity and types of content in this thread, if it helps. Though in none of them was combat the driving force for me playing the game.

 

On the one hand, I agree with you and I can (theoretically at least) see the reason why that's all important. It would certainly suggest that the game is a more robust experience as a result of these elements. But in practice, having more spells, more armor slots, more skills... notice how almost all of that is fundamentally tied to combat.

 

In fact, combat isn't just fundamental, it's one of the few elements of the game that is (almost) completely unavoidable. You could feasibly go through the game without utilizing any given skill, even completely ignoring the story and the lore and what have you. But at some point you're going to enter a dungeon and something in that dungeon will inevitably want to "showcase the combat system" at you. (Before you tell me you could feasibly also go through morrowind without fighting either, you're right, but lets be real, that will very rarely if ever be the case).

 

I may be generalizing your argument here so I apologize if that's so, but I get the feeling that fans of morrowind are trying to tell me that the complexity and depth of the combat makes up for it's flaw of being clunky/unwieldy and a general pain to play.

 

But think about it this way: Say you are making an apple pie but you don't necessarily have the freshest apples. You could potentially use the right combination of spices and sweetener to draw attention away from the apple flavor. Even though the apples are bland, everything else kinda fills in what the apples lacks. But if you are using rotten apples, I'd say you'd be hard-pressed to compensate for the resulting flavor, especially since the apple is such a key ingredient. Similarly, I feel like Morrowind's combat system isn't just "bland", it's "rotten". It doesn't matter that there are this many varieties of spear or that many spells. If it isn't fun to use spears nor spells, adding variety and complexity doesn't help.

 

This doesn't make Morrowind a bad game, because there is obviously so much more to the world than combat. But I think that Morrowind fans downplay the importance of combat in the game. What's the point of collecting the best armor if not for combat? What is the point of acquiring wealth in the game if not to purchase items which effect combat?

 

I'm not trying to hate on your favorite game if you happen to share a different opinion than I do, I'm just giving my 2 cents.

[Tchos]

I disagree that the skills I mention are fundamentally tied to combat. It's not just a case of "more spells", which in most games amounts to "more ways of inflicting damage". I said "more types of spells". Especially non-combat ones. In fact, some of the skills from Daggerfall (in some ways even more superior than Morrowind) are specifically designed to allow you to not engage in combat (causing entire factions to become neutral or friendly to you). Look over the list I posted in the other thread, and understand that what I listed is only a portion of the content.

 

I said nothing about the complexity or depth of the combat. I said "I don't play the game for its combat." Combat makes up a very minor fraction of my play time in these games. I prefer to avoid it when I can. Let me reiterate: I don't like the combat. I say it's worth playing despite its combat. But not if combat is the reason you play games.

 

You ask what purpose to collecting more pieces of armour? Okay, it's clear that we play these games for very different reasons, so the fact that this didn't occur to you is understandable, but I wear clothes in these games for their look, not their stats. The stat differences are negligible. Having more armour pieces allows me to customise my look in more appealing ways. When I played, I enjoyed posting screenshots of particularly nice outfits in threads dedicated to posting screenshots of your character.

 

It's also not, as you speculated, my favourite game. It is, however, superior to Oblivion, except in graphics. It sounds like you've argued with other Morrowind players before, who expressed different motivations or opinions than mine. I don't know them, and I don't know their motivations, so please stick to what I myself have said, if you want to argue a point.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Tchos

[bigpotato5]

I disagree that the skills I mention are fundamentally tied to combat. It's not just a case of "more spells", which in most games amounts to "more ways of inflicting damage". I said "more types of spells". Especially non-combat ones. In fact, some of the skills from Daggerfall (in some ways even more superior than Morrowind) are specifically designed to allow you to not engage in combat (causing entire factions to become neutral or friendly to you). Look over the list I posted in the other thread, and understand that what I listed is only a portion of the content.

 

I said nothing about the complexity or depth of the combat. I said "I don't play the game for its combat." Combat makes up a very minor fraction of my play time in these games. I prefer to avoid it when I can. Let me reiterate: I don't like the combat. I say it's worth playing despite its combat. But not if combat is the reason you play games.

 

You ask what purpose to collecting more pieces of armour? Okay, it's clear that we play these games for very different reasons, so the fact that this didn't occur to you is understandable, but I wear clothes in these games for their look, not their stats. The stat differences are negligible. Having more armour pieces allows me to customise my look in more appealing ways. When I played, I enjoyed posting screenshots of particularly nice outfits in threads dedicated to posting screenshots of your character.

 

It's also not, as you speculated, my favourite game. It is, however, superior to Oblivion, except in graphics. It sounds like you've argued with other Morrowind players before, who expressed different motivations or opinions than mine. I don't know them, and I don't know their motivations, so please stick to what I myself have said, if you want to argue a point.

 

No I get you. I recognized I may have been generalizing your comments and it seems like I did, so I apologize. I was kinda trying to express my own thoughts rather than a direct response to your comments so you could kinda get a sense of where I was coming from. But now I understand what you're saying much better as well. I can see how if you're more into role-playing it would make sense that Morrowind is much better.

 

Oblivion is certainly a much more combat focused game than Morrowind. That style is what brought me into the TES series and its something I really enjoyed, so the shift in gameplay focus going back in time for me was probably just as discomposing as it was going forward in time for you. Perhaps I am assuming too much again, but I'm guessing you played Morrowind (or Daggerfall) before Oblivion. Your experience in that game colored your expectations of what a TES game should be, as my experience with oblivion did to me.

 

You know, now that I think about it, I've never actually seriously gotten into a "role" in a role=playing game, since the "rpg's" i play usually have more of a focus on combat (probably reflects my roots as a console gamer). Maybe I'll start again in morrowind and try to approach it in that way instead of the way i'd approach oblivion and see if my experience improves.

[Tchos]

Oblivion is certainly a much more combat focused game than Morrowind. That style is what brought me into the TES series and its something I really enjoyed, so the shift in gameplay focus going back in time for me was probably just as discomposing as it was going forward in time for you. Perhaps I am assuming too much again, but I'm guessing you played Morrowind (or Daggerfall) before Oblivion. Your experience in that game colored your expectations of what a TES game should be, as my experience with oblivion did to me.

This is actually kind of funny. In fact, that's not how it happened with me. My first TES game was Oblivion, and at the time I played it, I had no interest in trying the older games. I had never played any RPGs in general, and especially avoided the isometric ones like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, and turn-based games were simply out of the question, because I came from a FPS background. I was resistant to the idea of trying Morrowind due to its look, and it took some time for a friend to convince me to try it. I liked the character generation, but couldn't believe how ugly the default heads were. I had a hard a time fighting my first mudcrab on the shores of Seyda Neen, and cursed the horrible combat. I stuck with it, though, and started seeing all those interesting things that were removed from the gameplay in Oblivion.

 

From there I played other, older games, and found they were even better. Eventually, even though it seemed impossible at the time that I could play a game with Daggerfall's Doom-era graphics, I tried that, and found out how much Morrowind had been stripped down from its predecessor.

 

So you see, it was my later experiences that defined my expectations of what a TES game should be.

Edited August 10, 2012 by Tchos