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Morrowind is a good story wrapped in terrible game mechanics. Skyrim is a moderate story wrapped in pretty good game mechanics. I do miss levitation though, even if it negated as many things as it helped.
Morrowind has excellent game mechanics. It's just that combat is not one of those excellent mechanics.
Y'know everyone really snarls at Morrowind's game mechanics, and I can see why they don't have mass appeal but...idk, I built a character that had a combat proficiency as a major skill, and didn't try to fight things when my fatigue was near zero, and I found myself enjoying it for what it was.
When you kinda see it as a sometimes jank simulation that abstracts all the crazy in-depth combat the devs WISH they could include at the time, like a tabletop game does, it feels more fun to accept (and eventually break lol).
Yeah, the combat in Skyrim is boring and uninspired, but that's still a step up from Morrowind's combat.
What are the excellent mechanics? It's not leveling, quest journal, inventory management, stealing from vendors, walking speed being a stat you level, etc.
It's absolutely leveling, walking speed being a stat, spell customization, NPC interaction, bartering, quest interconnectivity, and especially, exploring.
This sort of comes down to the classic debate of "Depth vs Quality of Life". To quote Steak Bently in his excellent video essay on Metal Gear Solid 4:
Depth of game play, to boil it down, is usually defined by the number of ways a player can approach any given scenario. More tools with more unique properties. More hardcore players tend to value depth more and consider additional depth to be generally how you measure improvement in game play.
But more casual players value ease of play and think additional depth and challenge at the cost of accessibility is more of a downgrade. Hence why the general public considers Bayonetta 2 a straight upgrade from Bayonetta 1, but the crazy combo junkies don't like it as much.
Morrowind's mechanics have a level of depth that vastly exceeds Skyrim's in almost every conceivable way, but is often referred to as "janky" and "clunky". Skyrim's mechanics are far more intuitive accessible, but is often referred to as "shallow as a puddle". Which of these you prefer will largely dictate which game you think has the "better" mechanics.
This is excellent. Thanks for the insight!
I liked a lot about Skyrim, minus the "hand to hand is a minigame now" thing, and basically how it's almost intended to make an omni-character who can just start dipping into any skills and be good at them, without much reward for a thought-out build.
That and magic...dual-magicking was cool, except it just turned into "Why wouldn't you always use two of the same spell!?" and combining elements wasn't a thing. . .
I wouldn't say Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim mechanically, but it is more complex. There's just more wrong answers in Morrowind, spears aren't a different play style, it's just an effective handicap for combat. Choosing major skills becomes a stat and level cap that's never really explained, you just get a worse character. Walking into a wall for a few hours so you move faster isn't interesting gameplay.
Lock picking and trap disarming in Skyrim is better than Morrowind.
The story and quest elements are generally better in Morrowind.
I wouldn't say Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim mechanically, but it is more complex
You're gonna have to back that claim up cuz it's pretty weak
Immediately spell crafting and the entire magic system come to mind. Skyrim's system is absolutely puddle shallow by comparison, and that's before we get into all the other skills and abilities that got watered down, merged, or removed
Morrowind has significantly more mechanic depth than Skyrim does in just about every mechanic the 2 share
Armorer (smithing), alchemy, athletics (gone), block, enchanting, unarmored (alteration perk), weapon, and armor skills are the same or better in their Skyrim versions.
Enchanting and magic were far more powerful in Morrowind, but also game breaking. They aren't game breaking in Skyrim, but magic is limited. Having actual mana regeneration is huge though. Again random chance to fail isn't a great mechanic, higher level magic requiring absurd mana when low skilled does a better job of creating a power curve. Leveling magic in Skyrim actually requires it to affect things, which is more interesting than making a 1 mana spell.
Combining speech craft and mercantile was also a good change. The disposition system was super basic, just bribe anyone that didn't like you and taunt anyone you want to kill. The random intimidate\admire system works better here as you can't just keep trying with bribes\taunts to get what you want. Taunting people to death isn't that deep.
Skyrim arguably offers better combat depth as it's far easier to utilize combinations of magic, powers, shouts, melee and ranged combat. Combat is hardly deep in either game, there's more options in Morrowind, but it's more about what color you want the magic than anything deeper than Skyrim.
Skyrim seemed worse when it came to grinding. It's too easy not to sit there and train on the invincible NPCs. Sneak walk into walls within earshot of hostiles, spam conjuration on rocks near hostiles, shoot arrows at NPCs that never die.
The person who grinds speed and athletics in Morrowind goes on to do cool things. In Skyrim they'd have like 8 more hours of playtime before they could play the game.
Weapon and sneak grinds existed in Morrowind too, you just couldn't do them all at once without hurting your leveling. If you wanted to switch weapon types in Morrowind, it usually involved summons and spamming attacks until you hit them reliably.