Today's game is Morrowind. I wanted to try mixing things up a little and had gotten this last december so i decided to dick around for a bit in it. I ended up being a little surprised by how much i enjoyed all the reading it needs. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's incredibly tedious and annoying sometimes, but it comes with satisfaction upon finding your way around with the journal and having to navigate in an almost realistic manner.
I ended up reusing my Daggerfall character Nazita for it, even though with the timeline it doesn't really work timeline wise. I made her a Rogue, though i'm not a fan of daggers so i've been training the longsword skill so i can use those instead in combat.
Speaking of the combat, I can't say i'm a fan. Maybe there's something i'm missing but it's definitely a lacking point of it. I just find myself jabbing at the enemies until either one of us drop dead.
Graphically though? I find it to be really pretty. I really like the water especially. I'm not sure what comes from OpenMW and what comes from base Morrowind, bur at a core level i think it's pretty.
I ended up just walking all the way to Gnisis to join the Empire and got the quest where you have too get the land deed. I ended up just stopping there though after heading into the mine and then turning back. I thought i had to go there to handle the Land deed morally, but apparently not.
Overall i think if i have to pick an Elderscrolls game that's got overwhelming depth to it while still controlling a little weirdly, i'd have to pick Daggerfall. I still think Morrowind has a lot going on for it that i love but i think i prefer how Daggerfall looks, plays, and sounds.
One thing that's perhaps not obvious from today's viewpoint, is that stamina affects your hit chance quite a bit.
It is also a good idea to be rather skilled in your weapon of choice.
And of course, the real pro tip is to install a mod which changes the hit feedback. 😅
Stamina is the green bar, right? I had actually read about that after doing a surface level reading into the combat, I’m just not really sure how to incorporate that into the combat if it makes sense, as I believe it drops with attacks.
I’ll try getting my weapon skills up to help though, and maybe the mod too lmao.
You could always make stamina recovery potions for combat with basic food items and greatly increase your effectiveness. If you sprint everywhere and have zero stamina before a fight you won't hit shit but potions or scrolls like argent glow can really change that.
Yeah, it is the green bar. And yes, it drops from attacking.
As has already been said, stamina potions are often quite worth it. But it also helps, if you switch to walking for approaching an enemy, for example (instead of running). If you're sprinting across the landscape and get ambushed unexpectedly, then yeah, the game punishes you for being exhausted.
In general, Morrowind is much more roleplay than the later parts. You can optimize the fun out, by waiting around until your stamina recovers, every so often. But the game gives you enough opportunities to become filthy rich and overpowered, so that you shouldn't need it.
I just didn’t like hit chance being a thing in a first person melee game. At all. If my sword connects with the enemy then it should be a hit. When the game decides to roll a miss it makes the game feel broken. It’s like clicking an icon on your computer and it not opening up. Then you click again and it opens. If it’s just randomly not opening it feels broken and unreliable!
Yeah, then you should get a mod for that. I can absolutely understand your qualm. Morrowind came out in an era when RPGs were still computerized DnD, and that's a design decision which aged particularly poorly.
Admittedly, it was also perhaps just a bad design decision in general. In DnD, you don't either roll a dice for each sword hit. Nor are you able to miss an enemy from just not being near enough. At the very least, they could've played a different sound, if your sword connects, but does no damage.
It’s really critical for me, to have it feel good.
Daggerfall also had this issue with missing but you could get your accuracy up a lot more easily and then you’d hit pretty much every time. The graphics of Daggerfall are of course much less advanced than Morrowind but the “thwack” sounds in DF feel chunkier and heavier, and the simple animations have an abruptness to them that really works for the game. It’s quite strange but combat just feels better to me in Daggerfall than Morrowind.
Of course Morrowind has the far better atmosphere, music, worldbuilding, exploration and all that. DF has the truly gargantuan dungeons though!