Alright, I've been considering making a thread like this for some time now, but I figured it's better to get it off my chest. Ever since I started lurking on this sub I keep seeing threads on how to get into the game and how to mod it properly and what graphics mods are the best etc. on a somewhat regular basis. With this guide I intend to give you my perspective on all those issues and perhaps give you a different way of looking at the game (which might help you enjoy the game even more). I have spent an enormous time on this game and I still keep playing it after all these years. When I initially played this game when I was like 10 or 11 Morrowind was the latest TES game out there and I spoke no English at all, but here I am, a decade later still enjoying the game. So let me be here your older sibling and give you some of my takes and hopefully we can have a mature conversation in the comments.
GETTING INTO THE GAME/ UNDERSTANDING MORROWIND
I know this is the part where lot of people start feeling discouraged and reluctant to play. By this point you probably already know that the game is "outdated, graphics are dated and to steal the limeware platter in the Census & Excise offices". But I don't think most of the youtube videos give nearly enough info in order for you to understand and comprehend what the game actually is and what separates it from Oblivion and Skyrim. I am linking you here a very long and exhausting interview with some of the developers who had the biggest impact on the final game (including Todd). You don't have to read it, but it will help you understand the concept and theme of the game a little better, plus they will be the words of the actual devs.
Morrowind is nothing like Oblivion or Skyrim. It's from a different era of RPG's and it offers you an unique gaming experience. Oblivion and Skyrim are more like action role playing games which means they share some similarities with other action games in order to make certain aspects more enjoyable to the player. You might not think about this a lot, but it's also a somewhat big reason why Morrowind might seem so off-putting. Oblivion introduced gameplay that was more focused on the storytelling and exploration. Yes, it does share some character related similarities to Morrowind, but lot of aspects are already missing.
Diceroll mechanics for example. Today a very ancient and generally disliked technique to base your game upon, but after getting used to it, getting used to taking regular precautions to maximize the chance of getting a good roll, it's actually quite rewarding and makes you feel like your character is actually advancing (going from landing every 6th or 7th strike to landing every 2nd or 3rd strike for example). Yes this mechanic does make the game a little tedious and at some points just straight up bullshit, but with careful planning and, as mentioned above, taking regular precautions the experience is not very different from Oblivion's or Skyrim's early game. You need to take into account the fact that everything you do in this game has a certain chance of failing or successing. It's in your best interest that you do everything to maximize your chances of a successful roll to the maximum. But what really is that? Well let me give you an insight on how I see this issue.
ENJOYING MORROWIND
Well let's start with what I tell to practically everybody who has played either Oblivion or Skyrim before. Don't treat Morrowind as a game like those. Morrowind is a very unique experience from time, when RPG games were about something completely different. And even though Morrowind has some shortcomings, I think it does a spectacular job at setting you into an alien-like enviroment and gives you pretty much an arbitrary storyline in the form of the main quest. I think the main problem here is people being stuck in the "IM A DRAGONBORN XD" headspace which doesn't really let them dive deeper into the game. When I played Oblivion and Skyrim I felt like I'm doing what the game wants me to, but with Morrowind it was quite the contrary. I feel so in charge of my own story, my own destiny and I choose whether I want to complete this quest right now or not. The static world with lot of reading and lots of thinking gives me just enough space to let my fantasy do it's thing way more than in the other two games. And even though the world feels more static, it supplies you with enough variation all across the game that I personally struggle to notice that there aren't any voiced dialogues or that the journal is just a string of entries gathered by you just exploring the world. I understand that all of this might be a big deterrent to people who simply aren't used to a concept of an RPG game like this, I can assure everyone that investing yourself within the game is totally worth it, because where Morrowind comes short to Oblivion or Skyrim it makes up tenfold in other aspects. And to be honest, after I invested myself so deeply within Morrowind I can't really play either Oblivion or Skyrim for too long before I start feeling the urge to go back to Morrowind. The game allows you to do so much when you look under the ugly roof of "shitty combat and dated graphics".
Now let's talk about modding, graphical mods and issues alike. While I completely see why people would opt to try graphical mods I will always be a fan of the idea of exploring and experiencing the game how it was intended to be atleast once. The same goes for other minor and major gameplay related mods. You should play the game atleast once in it's full glory, with it's bugs and glitches and with it's original graphics. I'm strongly convinced that doing so will give you the most sober and honest idea what the game really is. Second of all, in my opinion no community made graphical mods will ever come close to portraying the game as the developers intended. Lots of mods like that are really trying to turn Morrowind into a completely different game, which is not what I would advise doing to anybody fairly new to the game. When it comes down to mods like Tamriel Rebuilt I'm more inclined to tell you to go ahead and use them, but once again, you should thoroughly explore the vanilla landmass before exploring the community added land. If you're thinking about playing Morrowind and using mods like "make my weapon always hit", don't. You're pretty much robbing yourself off a piece of the game that might seem annoying, but isn't completely impossible to get used to over time. You might as well spend the time you invest into the current playthrough getting used to the game's mechanics than cowardly using a mod that completely bypasses it.
Please note that everything I suggested or talked about in this segment takes a somewhat longer period of time to get used to, so not enjoying yourself during your first 10-15 hours of the gameplay is completely fine. The game is very annoying, tedious and grindy at first, but the way it works leveling up and advancing through the storyline will most certainly make you feel like it was worth it.
BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE MOST COMMON GAME MECHANICS
In Morrowind, lots of different aspects of the game affect the outcome of every roll (or the outcome of every action, whether it's a failure or success).
Combat: The three main aspects of the chance of landing a strike or not are: Agility, Fatigue and your skill with whichever weapon you're using (from here on referred only as "Skill"). If you're going for a warrior type build, I'd highly suggest keeping a big eye on these three. Whatever your starting level is at Agility and Skill, you'll need to raise those levels by at least 10 or 15 points in order to start landing hits somewhat regularly. If you pick, for example, Long Blade as your Main Skill, you should stick with long blades until you level up other combat skills, at this point preferably with training. Strength, Agility, Endurance and Luck all affect the combat and it's outcome.
- Strength affects weapon damage, weapon durability (degradation rate upon each successful hit; higher strength results in higher weapon degradation), and carrying capacity. It also helps determine maximum Fatigue and starting Health.
- Agility affects weapon hit rate, evasion, resistance to staggering and knock down, and success rate of Sneaking, Pickpocketing, Lockpicking, Blocking, and Jumping. Agility also affects maximum Fatigue.
- Endurance affects starting and maximum Health, and your maximum Fatigue. Also slows down fatigue loss while running, and while fighting.
- Luck affects every "dice roll" in the game.
Here you can see, and probably tell at this point, that some of these attributes are less beneficial towards a successful roll, but they all are important in their own ways. To sort of, power through this phase in early game, I highly suggest spending more money on training rather than buying gear you can't really use effectively at this point of your playthrough.
Secondly, there are attack types (also an ancient game mechanic), which admittedly can be completely disregarded by picking "Always use the best attack". I decided to cover these even though I don't think there is a single soul who isn't using "Always use the best attack"
They are Chop, Slash and Thrust.
To Chop, all you need to do is start your attack while standing still, or you can run forwards and strafe left or right at the same time (a diagonal movement). You will raise your weapon and do a downward stroke at your opponent. Most weapons seem to deliver the most damage with this attack. The only weapons that do not work very well with a chop are Spear class weapons.
To perform a Slash, start your attack while moving to the left or right. You will swing your weapon sideways (right to left) instead of downwards. This is a good attack to use in close combat, as you will be more likely to dodge your opponent's attacks while moving to the side. Most weapons are good for slashing, the notable exceptions again being Spears. A few, mostly Long Blades, are best used with this attack.
To perform a Thrust, start your attack while moving forwards or backwards. You will attack straight ahead with your weapon. This attack is good for keeping your distance from opponents, especially since you can start it while moving backwards, and always keep yourself out of range of their attacks. Most weapons do not do as much damage when Thrusting, but Spears are ideal for it. Most Short Blades also receive a slight advantage with this attack.
Attack values of Eltonbrand
Now for the attack values. The number values next to their respective attack types are damage outputs that are possible with the given item. The lower value indicates the damage you do when you just tap your left mouse and the higher value indicates how much damage you will do when you let your pull back your weapon the maximum.
So the success of every strike essentially depends on the level of your attributes, your skill with the weapon, fatigue and the weapon itself.
Magic: In magic your tool isn't your weapon, but your spells, and less attributes are crucial early game. Knowing how to create spells that will benefit you the most and deal the ideal amount of damage per cast is as important as knowing how to use your weapons. Let me elaborate on that, sometimes it's not the best strategy to just craft the best and most powerful spell that will drain all your magicka after a single cast. In this case going the middle way is usually the best strategy, until you're leveled up enough to have plenty of spare magicka. By going the middle way I meant trying to balance out the magicka cost and success chance during spellmaking. You should approach spellmaking depending on whether your Intelligence or Willpower is higher and by how much.
- Intelligence affects maximum Magicka. 15% of Intelligence is the amount of magicka gained per hour of sleep. Intelligence also affects Alchemy and Enchanting results.
- Willpower affects spellcasting success rate and resistance to Magicka (Paralyze and Silence). It also determines maximum Fatigue.
If, for example, your Intelligence is higher than your Willpower you can prioritize the success chance of the spell over how much it costs (and vice versa). But I advise that you should try to level these up equally and going the middle way with the creation of your spells. Also, don't use vanilla spells, except for spells like Almsivi Intervention/Divine Intervention or Mark/Recall.
Spellmaking dialog
Name: the name of your custom created spell
Point cost: how much magicka will be depleted upon attempting to cast the spell (doesn't matter whether the casting ends up being a failure or success)
Spell chance: the chance of the spell being casted successfully. Please note that this is governed by the Skill so if your Skill is low, but your spell has a high success rate, you will still be unable to reliably cast the spell.
Range: Touch - spell effect area is only the immediate vicinity right in front of you. Self - the spell will be applied to your character. Target - spell will be shot out in the distance and will only be effective in the range you set to it
Magnitude: the magnitude of the spell, some spells have no magnitude which means that setting a high magnitude on them is a waste and effectively making your spell more difficult to cast and take more magicka to cast. Destruction spells deal the amount of damage corresponding to the magnitude of the spell. If you set the min magnitude to, for example, 5 and the max to 15, upon casting the actual magnitude is a randomly rolled value between 5 and 15 (in our case). Note that every variable (max, min, duration and area) is treated as at least 1. Also take note that as opposed to enchantments spells spread over a duration are more cost effective.
Duration: duration of the spell effect in seconds
Area: which area the spell covers upon impact. Note that spells can only affect an object - if it is cast on Touch or Target and does not hit a humanoid or creature, the spell has no effect.
So as you can see combat and magic are pretty fairly balanced among each other and heavily depend on your Attributes and Skill. I could go into Alchemy and Enchanting too, but I feel like these two examples showcase the core mechanic of the game pretty nicely. What I intended to show here by this breakdown is how actually intricate and complex the game is under the roof. Personally, finding all this out by myself and generally just getting to understand the game by itself felt very rewarding, so also because of that I'm gonna stop here. Ofcourse, you can go to UESP.net and look basically anything you're interested in there yourself.
Fast Travel: Lastly I wish to discuss traveling in Morrowind, since it could also be a somewhat deterring factor for some people. I cannot stress enough what I'm about to say: Experiment with and abuse spells like Mark/Recall and Almsivi/Divine Intervention. An efficient use of these spells combined with public transportation services will make your travels as short as they possibly can be. Let's say I'm somewhere in the wilderness and I wish to transport to my base quickly. First of all I'm going to think about whether it's more efficient to use Almsivi or Divine Intervention. These spells transport you to cities which already have one or more public transportation services available. Then you can either take a silt strider or the Mages Guild guide or a boat. Combining these public transportation services with magic is very important, but I'll let you figure the rest. I'm going to include below a small map of which service will get you where, so you can get a cleaner picture of how to combine these services.
Red - Guild guide
Blue - boat
Yellow - silt strider
Green - propylon chambers
Map of public transportation services in Morrowind
FINAL WORDS
To wrap this up, first of all, I'm going to suggest to you to use OpenMW which is an open source Morrowind engine completely redone and coded completely over. It performs way better than the original engine, doesn't really change your experience at all and could potentially save you some mildly furious desk slams. Second of all, if you're doing your first playthrough or even second or third, please refrain from modding the game to a big extent. Morrowind is not Skyrim and you shouldn't treat the game as Skyrim. If you let the game to do it's thing and you pull through the initial phase of grinding and general dismay you will be rewarded with an unique Elder Scrolls experience. And lastly, play the game as you want. Failing and learning on your own mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, and you can't really skip this part of the learning process in Morrowind. Don't spoil your own experience with the game with someone else's input on what you should or shouldn't do. The game gives you tools and it's ultimately on you, how you choose to utilize them.
Play the game as you wish to, pay attention to the details and when you feel like you want to fly around Vvardenfell for 30 mins because you feel like it, go for it.
I'll try my best to answer any further questions or suggestions in the comments, let's try to help each other enjoy the game as much as we can.
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