Is The Elder Scrolls setting actually regressing?

[AntiChri5]

I have to disagree, technology is improving.

Look at Dwarven armour. It's ancient technology, salvaged from a dead civilization. Therefore, we can assume that it hasn't been changing. It's a reliable constant.

In Morrowind, Dwarven armour was one of the best kinds of heavy armour around. But in Skyrim, it's fairly early stuff that gets outpaced quickly. Clearly, there have been advances in armour and weapon smithing.

I'd argue that this stems from the different pacing and balancing of the two games, where in Morrowind, levelling up takes time and effort, and in Skyrim, you're a god half an hour out of the tutorial.

It's not about relative power levels. It's about how many modern armours are better then Dwarven.

In Morrowind, only two heavy armours are better then Dwarven. Ebony, which is the pinnacle of modern heavy gear, and Deadric which is ebony forged with the soul of a daedra by other daedra, so i would say it isn't reflective of Tamrielic technological progress.

Then, in Skyrim, rather then being the second best Dwarven gear is the fourth worst. It's beaten by Steel Plate, Orcish, Ebony and Dragonbone all forged by Tamrielic civilizations, and of course Deadric.

Hell, they have even figured out how to forge Dwarven and Deadric gear.

It seems pretty clear to me that armour and weapon forging techniques have improved. Unless the dwemer of Skyrim were less capable then their Vvardenfall cousins, since my theory is built around Dwemer gear being the constant.

 

[AntiChri5]

-Only if your bad at Morrowind.
-Only if you are grinding in Skyrim.

This is quite simply not true, unless your definition of grinding is "doing anything but standing around." Skyrim is designed so that any action you take WILL give you progress toward levelling, especially if it's something you've already done a lot, where in Morrowind, you actually have to intentionally try to level. I'm not saying it's hard to level in Morrowind, just that it's an actual intentional action, while in Skyrim it's pretty much automatic. This means that if you play both games for the same amount of time, a Skyrim character will generally be more powerful.

Thats not true. In Morrowind, everything you did levelled you up. Walking, running, fighting, casting, swimming, everything.

In Skyrim, you can't level by walking/jumping/swimming/travelling and it is possible to engage in combat without raising skills which level you up.

In Morrowind, you pick ten skills at the start that level you up. Nothing else you do levels you up, no matter how much you do it. And walking doesn't level you up, no matter how much you do it. Running, jumping, and swimming increase some of the skills that you can choose, but they drain your stamina, which means that if you've been doing them, you'll suck at everything else in the event that you're attacked.

Furthermore, your stat increases when you level up are based on how many skills relative to that stat you've increased since your last level, so if you level up mostly through travel in Morrowind, your high-level character will move relatively fast and be absolutely shit at everything else. Admittedly, in a game with such a large map and slow movement, walking fast is a big deal.

In Skyrim, meanwhile, every skill affects your overall level, and while it's true you can't level up by travelling, combat is EVERYWHERE, and to engage in combat without leveling, you pretty much have to be going out of your way to play a character for that specific purpose.

On the other hand, Morrowind admittedly DOES lack the issue in Oblivion and Skyrim where levelling up from non-combat skills actively makes you weaker relative to everything else in the world, so there's that.

So you make the distinction between levelling skills and gaining a level? Because while in Morrowind only your major and minor skills increase your character level, everything you do increases your major minor and miscellaneous skills. For the purposes of a discussion like this, i don't distinguish between gaining a character level and gaining skill levels since they both have the same outcome (making the character stronger).

In Skyrim, all skills level you but you can do things without levelling. There is no skill attached to using shouts, wearing no armour, running/swimming/jumping so doing those will not level you.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

In Morrowind, only two heavy armours are better then Dwarven. Ebony, which is the pinnacle of modern heavy gear, and Deadric which is ebony forged with the soul of a daedra by other daedra, so i would say it isn't reflective of Tamrielic technological progress.

Then, in Skyrim, rather then being the second best Dwarven gear is the fourth worst. It's beaten by Steel Plate, Orcish, Ebony and Dragonbone all forged by Tamrielic civilizations, and of course Deadric.

Hell, they have even figured out how to forge Dwarven and Deadric gear.

It seems pretty clear to me that armour and weapon forging techniques have improved. Unless the dwemer of Skyrim were less capable then their Vvardenfall cousins, since my theory is built around Dwemer gear being the constant.

Yeah, I kind of got sidetracked, sorry.

Fair point on the Ebony. That said, Daedric is just Ebony+magic, so it's not more technologically advanced. And they're forging Dwarven armor by just melting down Dwarven metal and hammering it into an armor shape. As far as I know, they still don't know what the metal actually IS. Dragonbone, meanwhile, wasn't made because dragons didn't exist in that time period. Orcish...may be a new advancement, but I think it's more that it's an orc tradition not commonly practiced outside the Orc strongholds, which is why it isn't in Morrowind or Cyrodiil.

Though honestly, looking back over this post, I think you're probably right overall and I'm just nitpicking.

 

[Vern5]

Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say ?oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.? So we got rid of them.

I think that Todd Howard is an idiot despite how much I love the Elder Scrolls. I fail to see how levitating out of combat is an illegitimate way to play the game. This small seemingly meaningless design choice is indicative of a trend of failure on part of Bethesda to not let the player play the game however they prefer. The Bethesda devs are thinking more about the spectacle they can achieve with their work by ensuring that all players are forced into certain scenarios in a specific way. Sure, too much freedom and you can break the game, but I remember having the most fun playing Elder Scrolls games when I knew I was using my skills and ingenuity to forcefully break the game. I would liken it to snatching victory from the jaws of obvious defeat.

I can guarantee you that the time that could have been used to create the proper statistics, artwork, and animations for Spears was used to create more bloody dungeons because, for some reason, every quest in Skyrim had to have a dungeon crawl or two.

 

[AntiChri5]

In Morrowind, only two heavy armours are better then Dwarven. Ebony, which is the pinnacle of modern heavy gear, and Deadric which is ebony forged with the soul of a daedra by other daedra, so i would say it isn't reflective of Tamrielic technological progress.

Then, in Skyrim, rather then being the second best Dwarven gear is the fourth worst. It's beaten by Steel Plate, Orcish, Ebony and Dragonbone all forged by Tamrielic civilizations, and of course Deadric.

Hell, they have even figured out how to forge Dwarven and Deadric gear.

It seems pretty clear to me that armour and weapon forging techniques have improved. Unless the dwemer of Skyrim were less capable then their Vvardenfall cousins, since my theory is built around Dwemer gear being the constant.

Yeah, I kind of got sidetracked, sorry.

Fair point on the Ebony. That said, Daedric is just Ebony+magic, so it's not more technologically advanced. And they're forging Dwarven armor by just melting down Dwarven metal and hammering it into an armor shape. As far as I know, they still don't know what the metal actually IS. Dragonbone, meanwhile, wasn't made because dragons didn't exist in that time period. Orcish...may be a new advancement, but I think it's more that it's an orc tradition not commonly practiced outside the Orc strongholds, which is why it isn't in Morrowind or Cyrodiil.

Though honestly, looking back over this post, I think you're probably right overall and I'm just nitpicking.

Nah, it's cool.

In a setting like TES im not really sure that magic and technological advancement are worth separating. Good point on Dwarven Metal, although the impression that i got from Morrowind was that they didn't even know how to work it, but i can't quote a source or anything.

I just realized Orcish is a weak example. It existed in Morrowind as well but looked different and was a very high level medium armour. It's possible that it's place on the Heavy Armour list is more a result of losing the Medium Armour skill then anything else.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

It's possible that it's place on the Heavy Armour list is more a result of losing the Medium Armour skill then anything else.

I think you've hit on our real issue here. It's kind of hard to talk about TES lore with regard to mechanical changes because the games just change so much between installments, and it's often unclear what causes what, e.g. whether they learned how to work all those new kinds of armor in the intervening period, if it's a regional thing, if it's just there now because of the changes to how smithing works, or some combination of all that.

 

[King Kazma]

It's interesting to note the Romanesc Imperials as their troops regressing armor wise, cause the same thing happened to Rome.

 

[Paragon Fury]

One thing I'd like to straighten out:

The reason for the legion wearing mostly leather and chainmail in Skyrim vs. Oblivion is because in Oblivion, you're at the heart of Imperial power, and the Empire has a lot of wealth to spread around at that time, so even basic patrolmen can have nice gear. In addition, most of the guards are experienced vets of some kind and have promoted to guarding the Imperial City and other places - so they're given better equipment to match.

The soldiers and guards in Skyrim are little more than a militia and greener-than-grass foot soldiers - they're given the bare minimum of gear needed to do their job at lowest cost to the Hold/Empire. If you notice, the officers on guard captains tend to wear the heavier plate armor and gear we saw in older versions of TES because they're more valuable and have earned it.

 

[[REDACTED]]

]

I have to disagree, technology is improving.

Look at Dwarven armour. It's ancient technology, salvaged from a dead civilization. Therefore, we can assume that it hasn't been changing. It's a reliable constant.

In Morrowind, Dwarven armour was one of the best kinds of heavy armour around. But in Skyrim, it's fairly early stuff that gets outpaced quickly. Clearly, there have been advances in armour and weapon smithing.

The Dawnguard DLC added crossbows.

Yes? And......?

Sorry, im not sure how that is relelvant to what i said.

Woops! Quoted the wrong post. Going back to fix that now.

 

[Mr F.]

First I checked to see if anyone else had jumped onto this, but nobody had. So I will give it a shot.

Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say ?oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.? So we got rid of them.

I think that Todd Howard is an idiot despite how much I love the Elder Scrolls. I fail to see how levitating out of combat is an illegitimate way to play the game.

Its broken and makes it way too easy. If it is easy to avoid major things the game becomes too easy. You lose dramatic tension when any melee based enemy is no longer a threat (Try running a Dungeons and Dragons game when the magic users have gained the ability to fly.). Actually, I had not thought about that. I have tried to balance a game where people can fly, your only option is to be cheap! You end up designing entire encounters around peopel flying, just for them not to take to the air.

Its a lot of work

This small seemingly meaningless design choice is indicative of a trend of failure on part of Bethesda to not let the player play the game however they prefer.

Just mod your game if you want to go against their design choices.

The Bethesda devs are thinking more about the spectacle they can achieve with their work by ensuring that all players are forced into certain scenarios in a specific way.

Well, No, just by limiting the options of flight and teleport. You can still stealth in, shoot people, stab people, burn people. Just not fly. Or teleport.

Sure, too much freedom and you can break the game,

And in their eyes, those skills broke the game.

but I remember having the most fun playing Elder Scrolls games when I knew I was using my skills and ingenuity to forcefully break the game. I would liken it to snatching victory from the jaws of obvious defeat.

I can guarantee you that the time that could have been used to create the proper statistics, artwork, and animations for Spears was used to create more bloody dungeons because, for some reason, every quest in Skyrim had to have a dungeon crawl or two.

Well, people like exploration and stabbing shit. Its why I downloaded a modpack which adds even more dungeons!

Also... The dungeons were built from a set of objects they had already created. The rocks. The corridors. You get the idea. The same reason why the dungeons look so similar is the reason you are wrong.

Putting together another dungeon, from a bunch of blocks that have already been made, takes very little time in comparison to building new items, balancing them, adding animations, putting them into leveled lists, adding perks, correctly linking them to already in place perks...

Also, I have spears.

I genuinely thought it was released at the same time as mounted combat. Apparently not? Could be down to me having a fucktonne of mods. Cause you know, Mods are your friend. And if you are playing Skyrim on consoles then, well, I hate to say this...

But my sympathy is non-existent. If you are going to complain about design decisions, play on a system where you can avoid those decisions. Don't like how easy stealth is? Play a mod that makes it much harder. Want more weapons and armour? Play a mod that changes that. Want your imperials to be even more roman? Mod will change that. Gratuitous nudity? Mod. Gratuitous blood? Mod.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29600/?

You can now levitate.

 

[xanderkun]

It's funny, I actually had the exact same thought not two weeks ago when I started to replay Skyrim. It makes the setting kinda depressing to me, as it represents a world that's dying without any real hope for advancement. You have several civlizations that were technologically advanced in their own rights (the dwemer and the alyids) with out anyone really taking measures to learn about the technology outside of the homogeny of the Mage's Guild who only really want the arcane aspects from either and not the mechanical ones, the 'science' based ones that any enterprising or aspiring smith or scholar could corner if they chose to actually learn from the various finds.

 

[SajuukKhar]

As far as I know, they still don't know what the metal actually IS.

That is correct, no one knows what dwemer metal is made out of, and all attempt to make something similar have failed.

They do however know how to smelt it down and use it for other purposes.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Well you dont want the tech to continually get better other wise The Elder Scrolls 10 will look like Fallout 3 but will magic and daedra. Actually that sounds quite good.

 

[Jandau]

One way in which the setting is moving "backwards" are the Elves. You know the age old story - in a Fantasy setting Elves are almost always on the decline or already mere shadows of some former ancient glory. But in Elder Scrolls Elves said "Screw that!", formed an Empire and are pretty much kicking ass. Sure, they're hardly nice and enlightened, but I still find it to be a cool deviation from the standard Fantasy formula...

 

[bug_of_war]

The "lore" reason is that the many natural disasters and wars has caused a hampering on progress and a loss of knowledge.

Of course wars in real life often cause a dramatic increase in technology due to the arms race that follows, the real reason is that Bethesda decided to be lazy shits and rely on the old "medieval European" fantasy setting rather then do anything clever or creative.

There's actually more reason than you've suggested as to why the loss of technology has happened. Firstly, the Elves have always been more superior in areas such as advanced technology and magic, seen mostly with the Dwemer (tech) and the Altmer (magic). Men on the other hand are more brutish, they prefer to use swords, axes, shields, anything that really gets them up close and make use of their stronger physique. Therefore, Morrowind set in an Elven territory was always going to have have more sophisticated technology, Oblivion set in the Empire homeland, set in the Imperial territory is more medieval fantasy because that's what Bethesda wanted to show us how the most succesful race of men advanced. As for Skyrim, we are set in the land where man first settled and the Nords populated, and out of all the races of men Nords are the most physically robust and brutish, they care deeply about their ancestors and it shows with their cities. There is also the whole 200 years of strife inbetween Oblivion and Skyrim.

A possible reason for why in The Elder Scrolls as to why technology didn't advance is that they seem to have not yet discovered gun powder or how to make combustion engines. Steam power is good, but it's limited, and when you can create fire in your hands/suits of armour, you tend to stick with that instead of look for something that may not exist.

 

[Vern5]

Snip

You don't understand. The TES games have always been billed as games that allow you to "Do what you want in whatever way you want". TES games were about freedom, which has what has always made these games so damn unique. But we've been losing features from game to game. Given a few more sequels, The Elder Scrolls will turn into a simplistic dungeon crawling game with no lore and no alternative gameplay in sight. It will have lost everything that made it interesting and unique in the first place.

I'm sure the people who only like exploring and stabbing shit will be just fine and not realize that anything has changed but they would have been happy playing Risen or Two Worlds or Diablo 3. I, for one, remember a time when TES wasn't solely exploring and stabbing shit.

The devs shouldn't allow themselves to rely on the community so much. I do love the mods but I shouldn't have to mod my game to pieces just so I can enjoy it. There aren't many other games that are given this kind of leeway when it comes to their final product. Why do we let Bethesda off the hook?

Finally, no there are no spears in the core game. If there are spears in your game then you modded them in and then forgot about modding them in.

 

[Exterminas]

Quite frankly I think you valuated some of the points in your OP a little one-sided.

Yes, Balmora has canals, but most of Morrowind is covered in hostile deserts or farmlands. There are plenty of poor places there that consist of crummy shacks and small stone buildings. And while Vivec is separated into neat quarters, they are built from dried mud and Vivec itself is a temple city. Not exactly the pinnacle of technological evolution. There were even a lot of Nomads in Morrowind!

Yes, Oblivion has a more clear medieval look to it, but it is a very advanced version of that style! Every town in Tamriel has fortified, well-maintained walls. There are huge, sprawling keeps to secure the land along with well-maintained roads and a diverse network of infrastructure. This is obviously a more advanced place than Morrowind, where Civilization was mainly along the coast and the inlands were largely dangerous wildlands. (I am thinking of the Ashlands especially)

Finally Skyrim. Yes, Skyrim is a somewhat more backwards place than Tamriel in Oblivion. But you have to keep in mind: Skyrim was always a remote, hostile place and at the edge of the Empire. The Empire itself has been in decline for years by the time we play Skyrim. And lastly, Skyrim itself has been in a Civil War for quite a time now.

With these points in mind, I don't think that there is such a clear trend in the TES-Universe that you can confidently claim it is in decline. It is a nice thought, though.

 

[Mobax]

I agree to a certain extent. A lot of the differences in setting between the last 3 elder scrolls games can be attributed to the cultures inhabiting the lands in which the games are set.

But I think there is some merit to the OP's point, Morrowind is a frontier island, and a wide range of settlements, from Vivec to Sedya Need to Ashlander Camps. I know for myself I found it odd that in Oblivion, they have nice roads and legion patrols, but really no small towns, it's all walled cities and a handful of inn's and farms. And it was also strange to see all the abandoned forts, one would think that in the Imperial heartland the legion would man their forts along the roads...

Skyrim I felt was a small step up in development and technology from Oblivion. I say small step because it's almost lost in the cultural shift. I appreciate that the Nord's culture is a stark break from that of men and mer in the previous games, and in that there is a thriving Nord culture. I did find it odd again that so many of the forts were abandoned, in the midst of a civil war, both sides fought primarily out of camps... Also, I chalk this to culture, but what happened to book stores? Not even in Solitude?

So yes, I think there is something to be said for the settings regressing, but that's not necessarily an error. Look at our own human history, civilizations rise and fall, knowledge is gained and lost. It does seem that in the elder scrolls world the collapse of the Septim dynasty would be a dark age for men.

A little off topic: I hope the next ES game will be set in Summerset, I very much want to see the cultured lands of the Altmer, it would be a wonderful chance to see some really unique architecture and culture. And hopefully a more civilized and developed world.

 

[Mr F.]

Snip

You don't understand. The TES games have always been billed as games that allow you to "Do what you want in whatever way you want". TES games were about freedom, which has what has always made these games so damn unique. But we've been losing features from game to game. Given a few more sequels, The Elder Scrolls will turn into a simplistic dungeon crawling game with no lore and no alternative gameplay in sight. It will have lost everything that made it interesting and unique in the first place.

I'm sure the people who only like exploring and stabbing shit will be just fine and not realize that anything has changed but they would have been happy playing Risen or Two Worlds or Diablo 3. I, for one, remember a time when TES wasn't solely exploring and stabbing shit.

The devs shouldn't allow themselves to rely on the community so much. I do love the mods but I shouldn't have to mod my game to pieces just so I can enjoy it. There aren't many other games that are given this kind of leeway when it comes to their final product. Why do we let Bethesda off the hook?

Finally, no there are no spears in the core game. If there are spears in your game then you modded them in and then forgot about modding them in.

Meh. The amount of books in game disagree with you. The amount of lore disagrees with you. The shit I have come across in dungeons disagrees with you. I, quite simply, disagree with you. The amount of random places with quest lines, blah. Yeah, its a bit fighty. But not too fighty in my eyes. The other games might have been different, true, but I fucking hated Oblivion with a passion and never beat it. So its better than Oblivion.

As for why we let Bethesda of the hook?

Because Skyrim was awesome without mods, was made more awesome with DLC and yeah, they actively support the modders. Thats a big thing in my eyes.

I guess this is all very, very subjective.

But in my eyes it has got the balance right. Lots of books to read, a game that is enriched by its lore yet not too infuriating, lots of quests and violence. Yeah, could have done with a lot more talking, I will agree there. Pickpocket, Lockpick and Speech are all fucking useless (To the point where I made the game unplayably hard by focusing on those traits.) but its still a fun game.

I guess I am saying I agree with you but respectively disagree with you. Its a good game.

 

[Vern5]

I guess I am saying I agree with you but respectively disagree with you. Its a good game.

Yeah... after everything is said and done I have to admit that Skyrim is a great Action RPG (but don't get me started on Oblivion). I'm just afraid that, in a few more sequels, TES won't be TES anymore. That would be a significant loss in gaming.