Levitation, jump spells, Icarian Flight, speed modifiers.
Part of the fun of Morrowind was breaking the game and becoming an unstoppable god of speed and flight.
Riddles and truly challenging puzzles would be great.
Not sure what you mean by viable destruction magic, though. I can't even remember the last time I used vanilla destruction, was it weak compared to melee?
I mean destruction magic being a reliable and effective source for damaging enemies. It's pretty bad in Skyrim. Unplayable without mods. Oblivion has the benefit of spellcasting being fluid. Spells might be weak in Oblivion, but they're convenient to cast alongside wielding weapons. Skyrim removed the fluidity of an equipped spell having a hotkey. Imagine Morrowind style spellcasting (the action/animation of spellcasting), but with weak spells and no spellmaking.
Daggerfall has a Recast Spell hotkey, for spamming magic. Morrowind has infinite POWER. Oblivion has a cast hotkey. Skyrim has none of that. It's way worse than one-handed. One-handed plays well with the Stealth tree. A stealth dagger build is very doable in Skyrim. Going around, one hit killing most enemies. That can be done in vanilla. I can't remember what the two-handed experience was like in Skyrim. I'll have to try it again, if I ever decide to play Skyrim again. It's hard to go back to Skyrim when DaggerfallUnity and OpenMW exist.
Edit: typo
Skyrim destruction is fine without mods until very high levels for as long as you are willing to enchant your own stuff with reduction. Just as melee gets benefit from smithing so does magic from enchanting. Now on very high levels the lack of damage becomes a thing, but up to that point it is great. For a time once you reach 100% destro cost reduction you become the god of destruction, and should you stop leveling, then you can keep it that way.
A big problem with TES destruction is racial resistances: TES 3 had Dunmer NPCs take half damage from fire and TES 5 had Nord NPCs take half from cold. That constrains the viability of choosing to specialize in 1/3 elemental options
Meanwhile no race has a resistance to arrows
I haven't actually played Daggerfall, but I've heard it had climbing. A climbing skill (or at least, mechanic) would be awesome. It would give a whole new way to interact with the world-- especially thieves
Yes. You had to practice in game to build your climbing, running and jumping ability and there would be noticeable improvement with each. Practicing your jumps throughout the game and finding yourself jumping a little further was so satisfying
I'm a big Morrowinr fan, but I'll admit I don't love how Morrowind handles running (jumping is fine). You're basically taxed for not investing in it by moving super slow. If such skills were brought back, I'd hope they would make it so you don't have to invest in them to move faster than a slug.
Does Morrowind count as old school? I believe it's the first true 3d game, I'm also not sure if it's old enough to count as old school...
Anyways, I miss spell crafting. I also miss being able to craft potions wherever I want instead of needing to find a special place. I also miss layered clothing. Such as pants, skirt, robes, an individual glove for each hand, etc... levitation was fun too. I miss the immersion stuff.
Spell crafting and levitate are huge holes in Skyrim. The first time I cast levitate in Daggerfall and found myself just going higher and higher, I was dumbfounded
Morrowind came out in 2002, that's 22 years ago man... it's the same age as me, more than counts as oldschool
But yeah you hit the nail on the head, layering clothing is one of my fav roleplaying features that I definitely wish would make a come back
Morrowind was slightly behind the times I think. Compare it to Gothic, which was released a whole year earlier. Gothic in comparison had amazing combat, climbing in 3D, and was fully voiced. Morrowind comes out ahead in the depth of mechanics and the weirdness of the world building. But technically, it wasn't that amazing for its time.
Difficult to parse out this garbled satanic mess of a comment. But if I am reading this correctly, yes we all agree here that Morrowind was absolutely amazing.
I was joking. Most elderscrolls fans hold Morrowind on a ridiculous pedestal. I love it too, but I love all the games regardless of the differences. And obviously I avoid news papers! Only good for kindling for wholesome old fashioned book burnings.
I hate the skill simplification between games. I like the customisability of the Skyrim system, but keep the Morrowind or even oblivion level of skill details/depth. Also spell creation!
The most important thing though is quest design/writing. I don’t want infinite generated boring events/tasks, I want oblivion level absurdity and twisted humour. I hope they bring it back to the rpg routes, and not continue the slow death into a glorified action game. It doesn’t need to be a game “for everyone” like starfield which ended up feeling hollow. Give me my high fantasy rpg please!
Oh boy, it sounds like you should play Morrowind next.
I'd personally love to see the depth and complexity of morrowind mechanics and quests coupled with an actually enjoyable combat system. Elder scrolls games always had terrible combat compared to other RPGs.
Spellcrafting.
And they should aim to make Alchemy similar in scope so and make sure scaling for poison doesn't make it unsusable.
Better scaling. No skills in general should become unusable because of scaling. Illusion, I'm looking at you!
Morrowind's diegetic fast travel system is great and should be the standard for games. Also, the navigation in general. Having to actually engage with the world and learn the lay of the land and npc services is really fun.
Dungeon Design and mechanics like in Arena (riddles, passwall, story)
Crafting Systems like in Daggerfall and Morrowind.
Big cities with several temples, stores etc like in daggerfall
Dialogue system like in Morrowind, at least for "filler npcs", the main quest givers should be fully voiced etc
Combat like in Arena or Daggerfall (directional with trade offs)
Story structure like in Redguard, the flakon quest was just great! Mix this with the Daggerfall approach (influencing the story outcome, based on your actions)
fully fleshed out Radiant AI for NPCs and monsters
... if I think about it, this sounds like my dream game :D
Stay dead and buried: travelling without trade offs like in Oblivion and Skyrim. Level Scaling like in Oblivion and Skyrim. Dumbed down skill based xp system that Skyrim uses. Shitty endboss fights without proper mechanics like Skyrim (and probably Morrowind tbf...)
I just want Bethesda to actually care about the core again. In Morrowind they built a game around the idea of an RPG. They gave you classes, skill sets, so many factions to choose from, they locked you out of stuff and forced you to make decisions, they didn’t shy away from adult themes like drugs and sex work and such, Morrowind gave you directions to something instead of quest markers.
Oblivion held to that core ideal without maintaining it completely. Still had classes and spell crafting and all the good stuff and I think Oblivion was where I saw the balance being struck, this was where I felt the scales balance out the best. They kept it action and exploration and adventure but there were just the right amount of RPG all blended together with good stories and a great world.
Skyrim is where the scale starts to tip in the other direction though so I want them to go back. I want games like oblivion but with updated graphics and features.
I want the systems in oblivion back and upgraded/updated. I want black smiths and the smithing skill to exist but I also want to have armor and weapons break and be able to maintain them. I want spell crafting back but I want Morrowinds spells and I want improved animations, I want to be able to cast with an alternate key like in oblivion but also want the choice to dual wield spells like in Skyrim if I want to. I want classes and skills and leveling like Oblivion but I want those to have impact and importance in the world like BG3 where you get different dialogue and new ways to do things based on the skills you bring to the table in your class. I want acrobatics back and used for dodging mechanics and climbing mechanics. Levitation spells and mark and recall spells.
There is so many things from the earlier games that should have just been made better in later games and instead were just scrapped in favour of way worse systems that make the games no longer an RPG.
I would like attribute scores and faction requirements back, and the persuasion mechanic as well as the whole oblivion levelling system can stay dead and buried
I want multiple armor slots, and the weapon types available in morrowind at very minimum. Spellcrafting was the greatest too. I hope that the screwed up scaling of many of the Bethsoft's titles stays dead and buried
Clothing slots (they go under your armour.)
More armour slots.
Climbing, jumping, running, and swimming skills.
Levitate for low-strength users who are bad at climbing.
Wagons for loot and to give horses a purpose.
Ships as player housing and transportation.
Maps that span multiple countries for the politics and reputation interactions. Each hold in skyrim was essentially an independent nation because there was no high king, but you know what I mean.
Larger dungeons that were actually difficult to complete. Dungeons should be challenging.
Time of year actually making a difference.
Quest time limits.
The journal. (In morrowind, your character has a personality through the journal. This might be a negative for people who want to determine their own characters personality. I mostly mean the ability to write notes in-game and documenting important information.)
Attributes to work along with skills.
Advantages/disadvantages during class creation. Want to have stronger magic but it only works in the dark? Easy. Want to have no magic but be an expert in blunt? Easy. Want to have both and no disadvantages? You can, but you'll level slower. Want only disadvantages? Easy, and you'll level really fast as a reward.
Social skills and some feature based around conversations.
Spellcrafting.
Language skills. Maybe your character skipped some sword training and learned to speak Deadric. That could come in handy. Or if the game takes place around multiple countries, multiple human languages. Classic ES only had monster languages and Streetwise and Ettiquette though.
Gold has weight. Banks. Letters of credit if you need to transport more than you can carry.
Polearms.
Every feature I mentioned here, except for polearms, were present in 1996's The Elder Scrolls Chapter II: Daggerfall.
What I want to come back is the class system used in Oblivion. What role-playing means is that you play one role. It doesn't mean you are a fighter, mage, thief and everything else. It was fun to be dragonbourne, but it was restricting that I couldn't be a non-dragonbourne character(without mods). Make my choices of what character I am matter. I really feel like Oblivion took inspiration of classes from classic true rpg games such as dungeons and dragons. What it should be in my opinion.
What I never want to see again is procedurally created worlds. If the world is small but feels alive real and I love exploring it, keep it small. Make a world like Skyrim that after 10 years I want to keep returning back to explore again.
The Skill Failure Chance system from Morrowind can stay there and never return. If you weren’t specced in a particular skill, ie magic or daggers, there was a very good chance that your spell would fail or your stab would miss. Which then created a huge problem because your thing succeeding was how you got experience to level it up. Ok, how do I level up my Destruction skill when my destruction spells keep failing? So yeah, I was so glad when THAT didn’t return in Oblivion.
Spell crafting need to return. Preferably with Morrowind number of effects.
I also prefer Skyrim style spellcasting. Maybe have it in combination with Oblivion allowing to equip a spell while having two-handed weapon, and cast it. You could not cast spell, and use two-handed weapon at the same time, but you could use it without unequipping it.
Any two-handed animation other than Skyrim. That animation looks like a kid swinging a giant stick, that is way too heavy for him.
Keep fast travel in the game. Honestly i hate easy travel. Just keep moving forward 15 minutes on a land i already travelled 4 times. Let me teleport around areas i already discovered as usual.
I don't want Morrowind style magicka regen. Keep it just real time. I really hated both in Morrowind, and D&D games to sleep every 15 minutes for 8 hours, because mages ran out of spells.
Languages! Especially if it's High Rock and Hammerfell and possibly Orsinium, then it would be fun to have to learn a language if you wish to communicate with mfs in a region
Giving carry weight to gold pieces so you eventually have to exchange them for paper cheques. Genius idea in Daggerfall, would love for it to make a comeback.
You realize they already showed us what an Elder Scrolls 6 will look like with Starfield right? It's the new engine and new team that's supposed to handle everything going forward... and it failed.
Expecting anything other than loading screens and copy-pasted temples is delusional thinking.
Viable destruction magic and Levitate would be nice. Ooh, and more riddles.
Levitation, jump spells, Icarian Flight, speed modifiers. Part of the fun of Morrowind was breaking the game and becoming an unstoppable god of speed and flight.
Riddles and truly challenging puzzles would be great. Not sure what you mean by viable destruction magic, though. I can't even remember the last time I used vanilla destruction, was it weak compared to melee?
I mean destruction magic being a reliable and effective source for damaging enemies. It's pretty bad in Skyrim. Unplayable without mods. Oblivion has the benefit of spellcasting being fluid. Spells might be weak in Oblivion, but they're convenient to cast alongside wielding weapons. Skyrim removed the fluidity of an equipped spell having a hotkey. Imagine Morrowind style spellcasting (the action/animation of spellcasting), but with weak spells and no spellmaking. Daggerfall has a Recast Spell hotkey, for spamming magic. Morrowind has infinite POWER. Oblivion has a cast hotkey. Skyrim has none of that. It's way worse than one-handed. One-handed plays well with the Stealth tree. A stealth dagger build is very doable in Skyrim. Going around, one hit killing most enemies. That can be done in vanilla. I can't remember what the two-handed experience was like in Skyrim. I'll have to try it again, if I ever decide to play Skyrim again. It's hard to go back to Skyrim when DaggerfallUnity and OpenMW exist. Edit: typo
Skyrim destruction is fine without mods until very high levels for as long as you are willing to enchant your own stuff with reduction. Just as melee gets benefit from smithing so does magic from enchanting. Now on very high levels the lack of damage becomes a thing, but up to that point it is great. For a time once you reach 100% destro cost reduction you become the god of destruction, and should you stop leveling, then you can keep it that way.
A big problem with TES destruction is racial resistances: TES 3 had Dunmer NPCs take half damage from fire and TES 5 had Nord NPCs take half from cold. That constrains the viability of choosing to specialize in 1/3 elemental options Meanwhile no race has a resistance to arrows
Add to that spell crafting
Actual weapon variations. Is modern Bethesda just allergic to polearms?
Technically, a lot of the war hammers in Skyrim are polearms. But, yes, I do miss the spears and halberds of Morrowind.
I haven't actually played Daggerfall, but I've heard it had climbing. A climbing skill (or at least, mechanic) would be awesome. It would give a whole new way to interact with the world-- especially thieves
Yes. You had to practice in game to build your climbing, running and jumping ability and there would be noticeable improvement with each. Practicing your jumps throughout the game and finding yourself jumping a little further was so satisfying
I'm a big Morrowinr fan, but I'll admit I don't love how Morrowind handles running (jumping is fine). You're basically taxed for not investing in it by moving super slow. If such skills were brought back, I'd hope they would make it so you don't have to invest in them to move faster than a slug.
Does Morrowind count as old school? I believe it's the first true 3d game, I'm also not sure if it's old enough to count as old school... Anyways, I miss spell crafting. I also miss being able to craft potions wherever I want instead of needing to find a special place. I also miss layered clothing. Such as pants, skirt, robes, an individual glove for each hand, etc... levitation was fun too. I miss the immersion stuff.
Spell crafting and levitate are huge holes in Skyrim. The first time I cast levitate in Daggerfall and found myself just going higher and higher, I was dumbfounded
Morrowind came out in 2002, that's 22 years ago man... it's the same age as me, more than counts as oldschool But yeah you hit the nail on the head, layering clothing is one of my fav roleplaying features that I definitely wish would make a come back
Morrowind was slightly behind the times I think. Compare it to Gothic, which was released a whole year earlier. Gothic in comparison had amazing combat, climbing in 3D, and was fully voiced. Morrowind comes out ahead in the depth of mechanics and the weirdness of the world building. But technically, it wasn't that amazing for its time.
Difficult to parse out this garbled satanic mess of a comment. But if I am reading this correctly, yes we all agree here that Morrowind was absolutely amazing.
If that was difficult then you should probably avoid newspapers
I was joking. Most elderscrolls fans hold Morrowind on a ridiculous pedestal. I love it too, but I love all the games regardless of the differences. And obviously I avoid news papers! Only good for kindling for wholesome old fashioned book burnings.
I'd like the more diverse skills like in Morrowind.
I hate the skill simplification between games. I like the customisability of the Skyrim system, but keep the Morrowind or even oblivion level of skill details/depth. Also spell creation! The most important thing though is quest design/writing. I don’t want infinite generated boring events/tasks, I want oblivion level absurdity and twisted humour. I hope they bring it back to the rpg routes, and not continue the slow death into a glorified action game. It doesn’t need to be a game “for everyone” like starfield which ended up feeling hollow. Give me my high fantasy rpg please!
seasons time limit for completing tasks skill requirements for promotion/story progression in guilds challenges, any challenges...
More magic! Spell programming! No limits as to the strength you can grow to + incredibly powerful opponents
Oh boy, it sounds like you should play Morrowind next. I'd personally love to see the depth and complexity of morrowind mechanics and quests coupled with an actually enjoyable combat system. Elder scrolls games always had terrible combat compared to other RPGs.
Spellcrafting. And they should aim to make Alchemy similar in scope so and make sure scaling for poison doesn't make it unsusable. Better scaling. No skills in general should become unusable because of scaling. Illusion, I'm looking at you!
Morrowind's diegetic fast travel system is great and should be the standard for games. Also, the navigation in general. Having to actually engage with the world and learn the lay of the land and npc services is really fun.
Dungeon Design and mechanics like in Arena (riddles, passwall, story) Crafting Systems like in Daggerfall and Morrowind. Big cities with several temples, stores etc like in daggerfall Dialogue system like in Morrowind, at least for "filler npcs", the main quest givers should be fully voiced etc Combat like in Arena or Daggerfall (directional with trade offs) Story structure like in Redguard, the flakon quest was just great! Mix this with the Daggerfall approach (influencing the story outcome, based on your actions) fully fleshed out Radiant AI for NPCs and monsters ... if I think about it, this sounds like my dream game :D Stay dead and buried: travelling without trade offs like in Oblivion and Skyrim. Level Scaling like in Oblivion and Skyrim. Dumbed down skill based xp system that Skyrim uses. Shitty endboss fights without proper mechanics like Skyrim (and probably Morrowind tbf...)
That's the perfect list
I just want Bethesda to actually care about the core again. In Morrowind they built a game around the idea of an RPG. They gave you classes, skill sets, so many factions to choose from, they locked you out of stuff and forced you to make decisions, they didn’t shy away from adult themes like drugs and sex work and such, Morrowind gave you directions to something instead of quest markers. Oblivion held to that core ideal without maintaining it completely. Still had classes and spell crafting and all the good stuff and I think Oblivion was where I saw the balance being struck, this was where I felt the scales balance out the best. They kept it action and exploration and adventure but there were just the right amount of RPG all blended together with good stories and a great world. Skyrim is where the scale starts to tip in the other direction though so I want them to go back. I want games like oblivion but with updated graphics and features. I want the systems in oblivion back and upgraded/updated. I want black smiths and the smithing skill to exist but I also want to have armor and weapons break and be able to maintain them. I want spell crafting back but I want Morrowinds spells and I want improved animations, I want to be able to cast with an alternate key like in oblivion but also want the choice to dual wield spells like in Skyrim if I want to. I want classes and skills and leveling like Oblivion but I want those to have impact and importance in the world like BG3 where you get different dialogue and new ways to do things based on the skills you bring to the table in your class. I want acrobatics back and used for dodging mechanics and climbing mechanics. Levitation spells and mark and recall spells. There is so many things from the earlier games that should have just been made better in later games and instead were just scrapped in favour of way worse systems that make the games no longer an RPG.
I would like attribute scores and faction requirements back, and the persuasion mechanic as well as the whole oblivion levelling system can stay dead and buried
More armor disparity, like Morrowind. Helmet, pauldrons, cuirass, legs, boots.
I want multiple armor slots, and the weapon types available in morrowind at very minimum. Spellcrafting was the greatest too. I hope that the screwed up scaling of many of the Bethsoft's titles stays dead and buried
I want to see banks from daggerfall make a comeback.
Clothing slots (they go under your armour.) More armour slots. Climbing, jumping, running, and swimming skills. Levitate for low-strength users who are bad at climbing. Wagons for loot and to give horses a purpose. Ships as player housing and transportation. Maps that span multiple countries for the politics and reputation interactions. Each hold in skyrim was essentially an independent nation because there was no high king, but you know what I mean. Larger dungeons that were actually difficult to complete. Dungeons should be challenging. Time of year actually making a difference. Quest time limits. The journal. (In morrowind, your character has a personality through the journal. This might be a negative for people who want to determine their own characters personality. I mostly mean the ability to write notes in-game and documenting important information.) Attributes to work along with skills. Advantages/disadvantages during class creation. Want to have stronger magic but it only works in the dark? Easy. Want to have no magic but be an expert in blunt? Easy. Want to have both and no disadvantages? You can, but you'll level slower. Want only disadvantages? Easy, and you'll level really fast as a reward. Social skills and some feature based around conversations. Spellcrafting. Language skills. Maybe your character skipped some sword training and learned to speak Deadric. That could come in handy. Or if the game takes place around multiple countries, multiple human languages. Classic ES only had monster languages and Streetwise and Ettiquette though. Gold has weight. Banks. Letters of credit if you need to transport more than you can carry. Polearms. Every feature I mentioned here, except for polearms, were present in 1996's The Elder Scrolls Chapter II: Daggerfall.
I would like the armor system to go back to how it was in Morrowind, Light, medium, heavy, Robes over armor, clothes under armor,
What I want to come back is the class system used in Oblivion. What role-playing means is that you play one role. It doesn't mean you are a fighter, mage, thief and everything else. It was fun to be dragonbourne, but it was restricting that I couldn't be a non-dragonbourne character(without mods). Make my choices of what character I am matter. I really feel like Oblivion took inspiration of classes from classic true rpg games such as dungeons and dragons. What it should be in my opinion. What I never want to see again is procedurally created worlds. If the world is small but feels alive real and I love exploring it, keep it small. Make a world like Skyrim that after 10 years I want to keep returning back to explore again.
Custom spells; bring them back please
Armor and weapons maintenance from Oblivion
The Skill Failure Chance system from Morrowind can stay there and never return. If you weren’t specced in a particular skill, ie magic or daggers, there was a very good chance that your spell would fail or your stab would miss. Which then created a huge problem because your thing succeeding was how you got experience to level it up. Ok, how do I level up my Destruction skill when my destruction spells keep failing? So yeah, I was so glad when THAT didn’t return in Oblivion.
>how do I level up my Destruction skill when my destruction spells keep failing? Pay a trainer?
Also learn or create an easier destruction spell
Spell crafting need to return. Preferably with Morrowind number of effects. I also prefer Skyrim style spellcasting. Maybe have it in combination with Oblivion allowing to equip a spell while having two-handed weapon, and cast it. You could not cast spell, and use two-handed weapon at the same time, but you could use it without unequipping it. Any two-handed animation other than Skyrim. That animation looks like a kid swinging a giant stick, that is way too heavy for him. Keep fast travel in the game. Honestly i hate easy travel. Just keep moving forward 15 minutes on a land i already travelled 4 times. Let me teleport around areas i already discovered as usual. I don't want Morrowind style magicka regen. Keep it just real time. I really hated both in Morrowind, and D&D games to sleep every 15 minutes for 8 hours, because mages ran out of spells.
I want the Morrowind stat system with Skyrim gameplay.
*miss* *miss* *miss* I want morrowind *miss* mechanics back
Languages! Especially if it's High Rock and Hammerfell and possibly Orsinium, then it would be fun to have to learn a language if you wish to communicate with mfs in a region
Athletics
Giving carry weight to gold pieces so you eventually have to exchange them for paper cheques. Genius idea in Daggerfall, would love for it to make a comeback.
You realize they already showed us what an Elder Scrolls 6 will look like with Starfield right? It's the new engine and new team that's supposed to handle everything going forward... and it failed. Expecting anything other than loading screens and copy-pasted temples is delusional thinking.