An opinion you're probably all alone with?

[Eldan]

I think cheating is fundamentally social. You cheat another person. If you do it alone, it's not cheating. You may not use the product as intended but that's no more cheating g than building your own thing with Lego instead of following the instructions.

[Ignimortis]

The great thing about Morrowind is that it does not have that awful training limit that Oblivion and Skyrim have, if you have enough gold, you do not need to grind.
I like just going exploring gathering up all of the most expensive stuff I can find and/or steal to sell. And then hunt down the master trainer npc's to max out all of my skills.

Oblivion's training limit made the game far more grindy. And Skyrim made it even worse by making the master level trainers only train you to 90 in a skill. (Boy was THAT exceptionally stupid)

I mean, it kind of does have a limit. You can't increase your skill past relevant stat value, so if you're training something reliant on your 30 AGI or 40 PER, you won't get much progress. Of course, training counts as skillups, so next level up you'll have a chance to improve those stats... But Oblivion/Skyrim's take on that was way worse, and one of popular mods for those games is actually either "disable training limit" (it already has a pretty high cost compared to Morrowind) or "stockpile all training skillups you haven't used over previous levels".

Who said anything about the game not holding interest long enough to level a single skill past the halfway point? 40 or 50 in a skill is barely past starting level for a major skill; it might even be starting level, depending on how your race and specialization bonuses stack up, because major skills start at 30, specialization bonus gives +5, and every race except Breton and High Elf starts with at least a +5 in at least one weapon skill and two (Redguard and Wood Elf) have a +15 racial bonus to a weapon skill.

You want to be good with weapons? Don't use minor or miscellaneous skills for your primary weapon skill at first level. If you design your character to be bad with weapons, you'll get no sympathy from me when it turns out that your character is bad with weapons.

QFT. If you want to be good with weapons, pick those weapons as your major skill(s). If you want to be good with magic, pick that magic as your major skill. Simple as. Having a 35 at chargen is not bad. 90% of complaints I've ever heard about Morrowind's hit system were from people who did not invest in Short Blades, picked up the dagger from the table, and tried to kill things with a knife they had 5-10 skill in using, instead of doing the sensible thing and buying a basic weapon from the Seyda Neen merchant who has a truly prodigious stock of weapons for every skill. If you trade Fargoth's ring back to Fargoth, you get a MASSIVE boost to the merchant's disposition and his prices drop enough that you can afford some basic armor and weapons, or a couple spells (and he has good spells, too).

Super-scaling bandits was strictly an Oblivion problem, because they didn't put any limits on how high the enemies would scale with you. In Morrowind, dungeons generally had a level range associated with them, so if you went in to the dungeon when you were below its minimum level you'd have a hard time of it, whereas if you were above its maximum it would be a cakewalk--in between those extremes the enemies would attempt to match your level. So it was always possible to find challenges or else find places where you could feel like a superhero as you mowed down enemies with abandon. That, to me, was the sweet spot, but obviously it required more work on behalf of the dungeon designer and we couldn't have that, could we?

It's also a Skyrim problem and a Fallout 3/4 problem. Bethesda still did not learn how to make anything more difficult except by tampering with HP pools and damage output. Fallout 3 was especially egregious in that regard, even worse than Oblivion, since it had 1500 HP Albino Radscorpions and 1000+ HP Feral Ghoul Reavers that are somehow just random encounters. Which means you see dozens of them in a playthrough.

But it's literally a Bethesda problem. They have balanced their games after Morrowind like they're competitive with players. If players find ways to trivialize their game, next game is going to have those things cut out. Oblivion had coded hardcaps for stat effectiveness because Morrowind was famous for INT-stacking potion abuse (which made its' return in Skyrim, though quite possibly not by Bethesda's intention). If a game has top-tier armor and weapons, Bethesda assumes everyone is going to be using them and balances around that. That 1500 radscorp? It's okay if you're toting around a Tesla Cannon or a Gauss Rifle or a Combat Shotgun (still gonna take 10+ shots, though). That .44 magnum is not doing much, and neither is your old Minigun (except burn through ammo like dry paper).

Getting rid of enemies that scale with the character would help a lot with this, as would adjusting the end-points. The harder consideration would be what you want to have happen if someone decides to power-level their weapon skill first, versus level skills in a balanced way, vs pick up a new weapon late-game, vs ...

Level scaling is a terrible idea for an RPG in general. It dunks on the feeling of progression and verisimilitude.

[Vinyadan]

I'm not going to sit and play word games about why modifying the game files of a game to make it easier is cheating. I'm just not doing it anymore. It's a single player game and you can do whatever you want. If you try that nonsense in a multiplayer game though you'll get banned. Because it's cheating.

In the specific case of removing misses, I don't think so, because, as explained above, it makes everyone stop missing, not just the PC. It's closer to playing multiplayer AoE2 with fog of war turned off in the settings, it gives every player both advantages and disadvantages.

In the same way, no one would say you are cheating at STALKER for playing Anomaly or one of the various gunplay overhauls that dramatically change damage and ballistics, unless it allows for some actual cheese (like increasing weapon range without increasing AI range).

[GloatingSwine]

It's also a Skyrim problem and a Fallout 3/4 problem. Bethesda still did not learn how to make anything more difficult except by tampering with HP pools and damage output. Fallout 3 was especially egregious in that regard, even worse than Oblivion, since it had 1500 HP Albino Radscorpions and 1000+ HP Feral Ghoul Reavers that are somehow just random encounters. Which means you see dozens of them in a playthrough.

This is a consequence of them swinging wildly backwards and forwards on balance over time.

All those silly-HP monsters were added in Broken Steel, which took place after the point everyone had broken the game open with either the Chinese Stealth Armour or Winterized T-51b (which is accidentally indestructible, having something like 10,000,000 item HP instead of the 1000 of normal power armour) from Operation Anchorage.

So they had to add in enemies with absolutely ludicrous HP pools so you can't either one-shot them with a sneak critting shotgun (because shotguns add their crit damage to every pellet so if they all crit you can score like 900+ damage), and enemies that just ignore player armour when using certain weapons (Tri-beam laser rifle when used by a super mutant overlord and one of the Point Lookout guns when used by a tribal have bonus damage to the player only which ignores DR).

It was probably due to how the Xbox data structure hived off DLCs into their own little boxes, so they weren't able to be patched separately they had to apply these really kludgy fixes.

But all that means is that stealth armour sneak crits with the Metal Blaster are the meta as soon as you hit level 18 or so (which is the spawn level for Feral Ghoul Reavers).

That said I think the game is strictly stronger without Broken Steel, as long as you don't play the main quest past about halfway and don't use any items from OA.

[WritersBlock]

This all makes me want to play some more Daggerfall Unity with the mods for it I have installed while I am waiting for the Wayward Realms to be one day released, supposedly this year. (An elder scrolls-like by some of the same people that worked on Arena and Daggefall, like Julian Le Fey, aka the guy responsible for the Elder Scrolls lore before he left and was replaced by Kirkbride.) Hope it ends up being good, or at least decent.

[GloatingSwine]

My Daggerfall Unity modlist is longer than the ones for any other Elder Scrolls game...

[Ignimortis]

This is a consequence of them swinging wildly backwards and forwards on balance over time.

All those silly-HP monsters were added in Broken Steel, which took place after the point everyone had broken the game open with either the Chinese Stealth Armour or Winterized T-51b (which is accidentally indestructible, having something like 10,000,000 item HP instead of the 1000 of normal power armour) from Operation Anchorage.

So they had to add in enemies with absolutely ludicrous HP pools so you can't either one-shot them with a sneak critting shotgun (because shotguns add their crit damage to every pellet so if they all crit you can score like 900+ damage), and enemies that just ignore player armour when using certain weapons (Tri-beam laser rifle when used by a super mutant overlord and one of the Point Lookout guns when used by a tribal have bonus damage to the player only which ignores DR).

It's also a consequence of trying to play catch-up with player power instead of making the world organic. While Tribunal has this issue (Dark Brotherhood can be a cakewalk at very exact levels when you're powerful enough to survive low-level Viperblades, but not high-level enough for them to graduate to Glass and Daedric ones, around level 9 or so), Solstheim is pretty much always a deathtrap for characters below level 25 or so.

Then again, I simply do not mind having single-player games with balance that you can break wide open if you want. It just means that you can play them the way you want and still enjoy them.

And, well, Operation Anchorage being entirely beatable at level 5 is also a bit of an issue, since it drops a bunch of endgame power items on you for no real effort.

[InvisibleBison]

I think cheating is fundamentally social. You cheat another person. If you do it alone, it's not cheating. You may not use the product as intended but that's no more cheating g than building your own thing with Lego instead of following the instructions.

I agree, I don't think it's possible to cheat in a single player game.

[GloatingSwine]

And, well, Operation Anchorage being entirely beatable at level 5 is also a bit of an issue, since it drops a bunch of endgame power items on you for no real effort.

Although that's only a problem because of the inconsistent scaling and the fact that armour protection goes too high.

No-cost proportional damage reduction that goes up over about 50% causes problems in basically every game it shows up in.

[Ignimortis]

Although that's only a problem because of the inconsistent scaling and the fact that armour protection goes too high.

No-cost proportional damage reduction that goes up over about 50% causes problems in basically every game it shows up in.

And Obsidian once again won with DT being a thing, to the point that you don't even need Power Armour, but it feels good when you have it. But it also feels good to roam the wastes in a dusty leather coat and not be bothered about not going for the best protective stats or Stealth Armour's cheese sneak field.

[Imbalance]

Single player cheat codes were always called cheat codes because you're cheating the computer. And finding them was pretty awesome before the existence of the Internet (the biggest cheat of all).

[Silly Name]

The "tough but fair" mantra repeated by the FromSoft fanbase is absolutely baseless, and Demon's Souls and Dark Souls worked well because they were unfair and encouraged the player to seek "unfair" solutions.

I hated the shooting parts in all the Uncharted games and wished there was more space devoted to exploration and puzzle solving - in fact, I wish combat was almost completely removed from the games.

Shadow of War was a dreadfully boring game.

I like Final Fantasy 2.

[factotum]

Solstheim is pretty much always a deathtrap for characters below level 25 or so.

Gating off areas because you're too low level to go there is entirely fine with me. It makes the world feel more believable...if I go somewhere and get my butt kicked, then level up and become much more powerful, it stands to reason I'll then have an easier time of it in that place I struggled in before. Heck, if you have to have level scaling in your game, do it the way Tales of Maj'Eyal does it--have the level of the area get locked in to whatever level you are at the time you first arrive in it, so if you struggle mightily to beat it at that same level you can go away, grind a bit, come back, and have an easier time of it. That also means that you'll be seeing the same sort of creatures in that area when you next arrive as you did the first time, which is far more reasonable...Oblivion would just kill your suspension of disbelief every time when you returned to an area where you remembered seeing tons of wolves only to find they'd apparently all died out and been replaced by mountain lions in the few days you'd been away!

[Kish]

I think cheating is fundamentally social. You cheat another person. If you do it alone, it's not cheating. You may not use the product as intended but that's no more cheating g than building your own thing with Lego instead of following the instructions.

I mostly agree with this.

(I started to post to second it wholeheartedly, and then I remembered arguments over the years with people who posted things like, "I can get stats of all 25 in Baldur's Gate without cheating! All I do is play through parts of the game over and over again and use the tomes!" So no, I don't think there's anything wrong with cheating in a single-player game, but I do think there's value in recognizing when you're cheating, if only so that you spend 60 seconds with Sword Coast Keeper to get the character you want to play, instead of spending hours and then getting a flat look when you insist the way you did it wasn't cheating.)

[Aeson]

I don't think either of those variants make much sense. In my analogy, the road with a 20 mph speed limit corresponded to a multiplayer game where modding isn't allowed. A driver changing or mocking the speed limit would correspond to... someone changing a multiplayer game into a singleplayer game? A single person playing a nominally multiplayer game without any other players? Not a particularly useful alteration to the analogy in either case, especially since neither variant does anything to push back against the actual point of the analogy, which was that different situations can have different rules.

The "road" is the game that you're playing; the "speed limit" represents its rules. Remove the random hit chance from or add passive magicka regeneration to Morrowind and what you're left with is still essentially Morrowind - you haven't suddenly started playing Oblivion or Dungeon Siege or whatever - so in your road analogy you haven't gotten off of your 20mph road, you've simply gotten out your can of spraypaint and changed the speed limit from 20mph to 50mph or ignored it entirely while racing past at whatever speed you felt like.

[GloatingSwine]

As someone who once did an all-25s playthrough of BG, it doesn't even do that much, apart from making carrying stuff really convenient all of a sudden.

(I will happily use Gatekeeper/Shadowkeeper to bump the NPC stat scores up a little where it counts because they're all pretty terrible, but I start myself with a legit-but-high roll I could get if I spent long enough clicking).

[LibraryOgre]

So yeah, even though I'm apparently all alone in this opinion, I stand firmly behind Morrowind's hidden-hit-roll system. Of all the things I'd like to mod onto Morrowind, that's not one.

I like spell failure, too.

TBH, you're not alone in these.

[Cazero]

As someone who once did an all-25s playthrough of BG, it doesn't even do that much, apart from making carrying stuff really convenient all of a sudden.

You didn't notice the HP regeneration? Your AC must have been excessively high, then.

[GloatingSwine]

You didn't notice the HP regeneration? Your AC must have been excessively high, then.

It's nice, but it's also slow enough that you have to stand around for ages or rest to have it really kick in. And if you're going to rest you cast all your heals anyway.

The carrying capacity and the saves are the big things that it buys you.

2nd just didn't hang a lot on attributes, really, at least not in BG's adaptation.

Str would give you a big THAC0 bonus but it's a low level campaign so 18/75+ with a +2 weapon would generally be enough for 99.99% of encounters, Dex would give you a good AC bonus but again the better plate armours would be enough almost all of the time because it's a low level campaign, Con gave you the regen but it was sufficiently slow you didn't really notice it as more than a nice bonus (1/10sec at 25) and HP bonus capped out at 16 if you weren't a warrior type, Int and Wis did nothing if you weren't a spellcaster and basically capped out at 18 if you were, and almost always get the most positive effects in dialogue if you had 18 Cha and 12+ rep.

[Rodin]

The "tough but fair" mantra repeated by the FromSoft fanbase is absolutely baseless, and Demon's Souls and Dark Souls worked well because they were unfair and encouraged the player to seek "unfair" solutions.

I used to think this way.

Then I started playing Dark Souls mods.

My respect for the fairness of the design shot up afterwards, because the enemy placement in Souls games only looks malicious. Once you have an amateur adding difficulty you begin to realize that the Souls games are made to reward careful, patient play. I rarely get super frustrated when playing the games. Playing mods is a different story - enemy placements feel utterly unfair, new mechanics are put in that are purely mean spirited, and bosses often change from an enjoyable challenge to a chore.

There's three particular points I'd like to expand upon for this opinion:

1) Even the best games don't always get it right. The infamous Anor Londo bow knight section being a prime example where it feels like the game moves from difficult to unfair.

2) Dark Souls 2 and especially Scholar of the First Sin break the design rules spectacularly. It's why I rate the game so low compared to the others.

3) Demons Souls struggles with balance. It's very easy to trivialize the game, and very easy to make yourself very underpowered. It's a flawed first effort of a formula that was perfected with Dark Souls.

[Rynjin]

2) Dark Souls 2 and especially Scholar of the First Sin break the design rules spectacularly. It's why I rate the game so low compared to the others.

I LOVE Dark Souls 2 (Scholar specifically) but I totally agree it's not "fair". But it's unfair in...predictable ways. That's what makes it fun.

It also has the greatest viable build variety of any of the games except maybe (MAYBE) Elden Ring because magic doesn't suck balls, so you have a lot of options for how to approach these unfair encounters.

DS2, of all the games, actually does epitomize what Silly Name was saying about the franchise. Encounters are unfair, so be unfair back. Nioh (2, at least, I never got far in the original because I hated it) takes this premise to 11, as an adjacent series.

[WritersBlock]

The Anor Londo ledge bow knights are no sweat if you bring a bow, and some poison arrows. Just stand back as far as you can from them when shooting where they do not aggro (Back against the wall after clearing out those gargoyles) First discovered that thanks to Dark Souls Remastered and its improved lighting. (The first one is the only one I really care for.)

[Ignimortis]

The "tough but fair" mantra repeated by the FromSoft fanbase is absolutely baseless, and Demon's Souls and Dark Souls worked well because they were unfair and encouraged the player to seek "unfair" solutions.

I dunno. If you expect "fair" to consist of "go forward, kill guys, don't get punished for not being cautious" - then yes, they're unfair. But DaS 1 in particular very much encouraged levelling the playing field. Walk forward with shield raised. Look at your surroundings, and then look again. Use a bow to pick off enemies from where they can't do anything to you. Use your third-person camera to look out of doors/passes to see if someone's camping there waiting to backstab you.

I like Final Fantasy 2.

I liked most things about FF2 outside of trap rooms. I have no idea who thought it was fun to have dozens of rooms in the game that contain nothing but a fixed encounter when you try to walk back out.

2) Dark Souls 2 and especially Scholar of the First Sin break the design rules spectacularly. It's why I rate the game so low compared to the others.

Didn't feel that way with 2. There are a couple stupid moments (first section of Iron Keep is a PITA, and Frozen Outskirts is the single worst area in the series), but I felt that "unfairness" really ramped up in 3, where a lot of enemies have real Poise (you don't) and seemingly do not have stamina bars even internally, since they never pause their attacks and can quite literally combo you to death.

2, on the other hand, is massively more enjoyable for me than the second half of 1 or the wholeness of 3. Build options are staggeringly wide. I have completed 2 with twin daggers, twin cesti, miracles, sorceries, several gishes, heavy weapons, plain old sword and board, and I think I could still get a few playthroughs that will feel rather different. Also, 2 is the only part of the series that does not lock build-critical equipment behind two thirds of the main game. You made it to Lost Bastille, fourth (or second depending on route) area in the game? Congrats, you have access to everything weapon-related you will ever need, and you've had a basic blacksmith since the second half of the first area. Basic pyromancy trainer is available from the start of the game. Basic sorcery trainer is available in the third area out of 20+. Basic hex trainer is available after clearing the second area, same as basic miracle trainer.

The Anor Londo ledge bow knights are no sweat if you bring a bow, and some poison arrows. Just stand back as far as you can from them when shooting where they do not aggro (Back against the wall after clearing out those gargoyles) First discovered that thanks to Dark Souls Remastered and its improved lighting. (The first one is the only one I really care for.)

Yep. The general design of Anor Londo's first two thirds is archer heaven.

RE: Archers in Dark Souls, I feel like the designers are not really sure what to do about them. It's clear they don't want you using bows as a main weapon due to how unwieldy they are. but they're excellent as tools - until 3 came along and said "you can bring 200 arrows with you, tops", so you can't use them as either.

[Nepenthe]

I'd like to point out that System Shock 2 also has a first person perspective where putting your crosshair on an enemy and clicking just selects that enemy to roll an attack against. I've never heard anyone complain about it there.

As for my unpopular opinion:
"Cinematic experience" belongs in movies. Fancy cutscenes, QTEs, and set piece encounters cannot redeem a boring core gameplay loop.

That said, I will stomache some truly horrendous gameplay if the atmosphere is compelling (Little Nightmares, I'm looking at you).

[GloatingSwine]

I'd like to point out that System Shock 2 also has a first person perspective where putting your crosshair on an enemy and clicking just selects that enemy to roll an attack against. I've never heard anyone complain about it there.

That's because it's not real... If you're missing in System Shock 2 it's because the graphics and engine are clunky and you actually did miss.

System Shock 2 does have ridiculously fragile weapons though. There's a .ini setting to change it though which we all always did.

[Nepenthe]

That's because it's not real... If you're missing in System Shock 2 it's because the graphics and engine are clunky and you actually did miss.

How is that any different than Morrowind though? Why is it that people can accept selecting an enemy and letting RNG determine if you hit in Diablo clones, RTSs, tactics games, isometric RPGs, JRPGs, and even other first person RPGs, but Morrowind players can't? Just because the game doesn't have the graphical parity to visually represent that the enemy dodged, or blocked or parried?

The only other game I can think of that received that kind of hate was Too Human, which marketed itself as the next God of War, but was actually more like Diablo.

[Batcathat]

How is that any different than Morrowind though? Why is it that people can accept selecting an enemy and letting RNG determine if you hit in Diablo clones, RTSs, tactics games, isometric RPGs, JRPGs, and even other first person RPGs, but Morrowind players can't? Just because the game doesn't have the graphical parity to visually represent that the enemy dodged, or blocked or parried?

The only other game I can think of that received that kind of hate was Too Human, which marketed itself as the next God of War, but was actually more like Diablo.

I think the difference is whether you literally just select an enemy (with zero percent chance of failing to do so) or if you actually have to aim (regardless of how easy said aiming might be) and see the weapon go where ever you clicked. There's a difference between "I want my guy to try at stab that guy" and "I want to stab at this exact spot".

[warty goblin]

I think the difference is whether you literally just select an enemy (with zero percent chance of failing to do so) or if you actually have to aim (regardless of how easy said aiming might be) and see the weapon go where ever you clicked. There's a difference between "I want my guy to try at stab that guy" and "I want to stab at this exact spot".

Also the first person perspective seems relevant. First person games are about you doing the thing, it's supposed to be very direct and have minimal friction between player and in-game action. And by the time Morrowind came out, there's a lot of genre expectation that first person games resolve action with the in-game physics system, rather than dice rolls.

Most third person games, particularly isometric ones, literally have a much higher separation between the player and the character. Abstracting things to dice rolls is a lot less bothersome because the experience is by construction more abstract. It's also a lot harder to see what's going on, in a first person game where I stab somebody and the dice decide I missed, the incongruity is roughly half the screen. In a top down RPG it's like a couple pixels clipping through each other, and objects clipping by tiny amounts when they shouldn't is just like the background radiation of playing games.

[Artanis]

How is that any different than Morrowind though? Why is it that people can accept selecting an enemy and letting RNG determine if you hit in Diablo clones, RTSs, tactics games, isometric RPGs, JRPGs, and even other first person RPGs, but Morrowind players can't? Just because the game doesn't have the graphical parity to visually represent that the enemy dodged, or blocked or parried?

The only other game I can think of that received that kind of hate was Too Human, which marketed itself as the next God of War, but was actually more like Diablo.

A lot of it is presentation, I think.

In XCOM, you click a bad guy, and it says you have an x% chance to hit - and if the roll fails, you watch the bullet go wide. In Morrowind, all you see is a sword hitting a bad guy - and if the roll fails, the sword still hits the bad guy, just without doing anything.


That's just my assessment of the argument though. I'm so unobservant that I never noticed whether a swing "truly" hit or not in Morrowind, and just kept clicking until the thing died

[warty goblin]

A lot of it is presentation, I think.

In XCOM, you click a bad guy, and it says you have an x% chance to hit - and if the roll fails, you watch the bullet go wide. In Morrowind, all you see is a sword hitting a bad guy - and if the roll fails, the sword still hits the bad guy, just without doing anything.

And people still get salty about missing 95% shots against dudes standing right next to them because even with the graphics showing the shot going wide it looks dumb and breaks you out of the game. There was your dude taking aim, there was the alien standing stock still like 10 feet away, how does Sergeant Badass McAlienMurder miss that shot?

Whereas if you miss shotgunning an imp who's getting all up in your business in Doom, it's because you aimed at the wrong spot. This is frustrating because you failed, but that's distinct from the frustration of the simulation producing what seems like a dumb outcome that's at odds with what the graphics say is, or should, happen.