T w e n t y S i d e d

As I discussed last time, the series' abstract dice-rolling combats feltâ€"with the advent of more precise graphics and more engaging action-game contemporariesâ€"increasingly alienating and unsatisfying. There was always something reasonably abstract about a failed sword swing in a crudely-rendered 2D game, something that took the sting out of a wimpy failure, but players could now see that they were holding up their end perfectly; when they clicked the mouse, they saw their spear go right the enemy's bean, dead on the money. Hearing that damnable teeth-grinding whff that signaled a wasted attack felt like getting punished for something that was the character's fault, not the players'. As far as cardinal RPG sins go, creating a deliberate and hostile disconnect between player and character ranks highly.

Morrowind was just about the last videogame that hadn’t learned this lesson: if you're gonna roll dice, roll dice. Asking players to successfully perform a task and then rolling to see if it succeeds is just frustrating and obnoxious. This mishandling, compounded with the game’s rather stern beginning, makes for a very unpleasant and ragged start to the game.

There’s only one reason this combat is bearable at all, and it’s this: the game provides the tools to make failure rare or nonexistent. Let's talk about all the level scaling Morrowind didn’t have.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Altered Scrolls, Part 8: No Fair Fights”

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