History ScrappyMechanic / TheElderScrolls

** Thankfully a mod called "Run for your Lives" available PCs and the eighth generation of consoles fixes it so in event of Dragon and Vampire attacks, most (usually except combat capable and essential) [=NPCs=] run to safety. For the Nintendo Switch vampire attacks are (thankfully) removed from the game even in vanilla. No luck for those on [=PS3=] and [=Xbox=] 360 though.

** The final word of the Bend Will shout is no doubt useful, but you'd think the ability to ride dragons at will would be great right? Wrong, for one simple reason: when you ride a dragon, ''you have no control whatsoever of where the dragon goes''. You want to fly across the land on the back of a dragon? Too bad, they'll just circle around the area and never go the direction you want to go. While you can still fast travel on them, that means you have to already have found the area, meaning you essentially can't use this to explore.

** A mod called "Run for your Lives" available for all consoles except [=PS3=], XBOX 360, and Nintendo Switch, fixes it so in event of Dragon and Vampire attacks, most (usually except combat capable and essential) [=NPCs=] run to safety. As for the Nintendo Switch itself, vampire attacks are completely removed from the game despite the Nintendo Switch version features all the DLC.
* Kill cams, both how they interfere with certain play styles and how it can instantly kill players without warning. They have a nasty habit of missing with projectile kill cams, they interrupt player control, and there's mounting evidence that they disregard all damage-mitigating factors: damage resist, magic/elemental resist, blocking, cover, not being anywhere near close enough to be kill-cam'd... Not much of a problem when you inflict it on people, but when that dragon bite-thrash-toss kill-cams you when you were nowhere near, had capped armor, your shield raised, had over half your health left, and were beyond their bite range. The worst part is that the game checks for the kill cam at the beginning of the attack animation, so a bandit could be swinging a slow warhammer at you and you'll be immediately killed before you have the chance to drink any potions, dodge out of the way, or use a shout. It was eventually patched so kill-cams only trigger for the last enemy in current combat.
** The fact that some gory deaths only limited to kill-cam (and even worse, locked behind high-level perks) arguably made combat dull for those who liked LudicrousGibs or combat feedback as for some inexplicable reason, the game lacks [[BloodierAndGorier gore]] introduced in ''Videogame/Fallout3'', despite the engine is an upgrade.

* The strictly [[LevelScaling scaled leveling]] mechanic attracts a large degree of hatred, essentially punishing the player for not being a {{munchkin}}. To note some of the specifics around it:
** One major issue caused by the level-scaling is the tendency toward EmptyLevels, making it very easy to end up on the wrong side of the level-scaling curve. Enemies level scale based purely on your level, but your actual strength in combat involves many factors besides just level (health gain per level, attributes, equipment, and skills). As such, leveling up with too many non-combat skills is likely to result in an insignificant bonus to your abilities, but all enemies still increase in strength. Even if you've been [[MinMaxing careful in your leveling]], damage caps at a certain point while health does not, meaning high-level fights become increasingly drawn-out with even standard foes becoming [[DamageSpongeBoss damage sponges]] without providing much challenge. While being a full blown Min-Maxing {{Munchkin}} is only necessary if you want to max out every single attribute, you're best served incorporating elements of it in order to avoid falling on the wrong side of the curve.
** It's possible to gain a significant LowLevelAdvantage by leveling up skills but ''never sleeping''. Though this severely limits your ability to make use of NPC trainers, as you can only use them five times per level, your skills will still increase naturally through use and by finding [[RareCandy skill books]]. This ultimately leads to the world being saved from a horde of feeble monsters by a [[WeakButSkilled strangely competent]] insomniac. Further, it makes exploring at low levels fairly boring (why go look for a new dungeon in hopes of a cool item when it will have the same exact useless loot guarded by the exact same enemies?) and [[GameplayAndStorySegregation leads to oddities]] like being the champion of the arena at level one thanks to the fact that skills increase independently from level-ups.
** Unfortunately, even if ''you'' level up effectively, some friendly [=NPCs=] do not (and/or have low-level equipment even at the highest levels), making {{Escort Mission}}s with non-essential [=NPCs=] [[NintendoHard much harder]] as your allies get torn apart in seconds by enemies scaled to ''your'' level. This is particularly blatant in a quest where you protect (what's left of) the city of Kvatch. If you do this quest early on, as the game expects you to, the CityGuards fighting alongside you are apparently being terrorized by the goblin-like Scamps, who don't do much besides fling slow-moving, weak fireballs. Postpone it until you're level 20 or so and the guards' reaction will finally look appropriate, now that they are facing humanoid crocodiles, magma golems, and demonic sorcerers.
** This also impacts quest rewards, which ''do not'' level up with you once acquired. It's entirely possible to complete a quest at level one and obtain a weapon little better than a butter knife, or complete the same quest twenty levels higher and obtain that same weapon in gamebreaker form. As many such rewards are unique, it leads to putting off those quests or encounters as long as possible in hopes of getting something that remains useful for longer than an hour.
** Some quests teach you leveled spells as rewards instead. Unfortunately, the leveling of said spells issn't particularly balanced. Do the quest at too low a level and you get something that's obsolete right out of the gate. Do the quest at too high a level, and casting the spell will cost more magicka than your character actually has.
** Some of the more popular {{Game Mod}}s are ones which address these level-scaling issues. One of them is the Quest Reward Leveler, which when activated, updates your quest rewards to the version you'd get if you'd just completed the quest.

** A mod called "Run for your Lives" available for all consoles except PS3, XBOX 360, and Nintendo Switch, fixes it so in event of Dragon and Vampire attacks, most (usually except combat capable and essential) NPCs run to safety. As for the Nintendo Switch itself, vampire attacks are completely removed from the game despite the Nintendo Switch version features all the DLC.

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind''

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion''
* The strictly [[LevelScaling scaled leveling]] mechanic attracts a large degree of hatred, particularly since the way the leveling system works punishes the player for not being a {{munchkin}}, makes exploring at low levels fairly boring (Why go look for a new dungeon in hopes of a cool item when it will have the same exact useless loot guarded by the exact same enemies?) and leads to oddities like being the champion of the arena at level 1 thanks to the fact that skills increase independently from level-ups.
* The stat mechanics are extremely wonky. If you want to increase your health, the best way to do it is to put on heavy armor and have a Mudcrab beat on you. If you do not manage your stat growths efficiently, the enemies can actually grow faster than you!
** The enemies levels up with you, but your abilities, your spells, friendly [=NPCs=], and many quest rewards '''don't''', which obviously makes the game [[NintendoHard much harder]] as you level up. To clarify and make it even more annoying, many quest rewards do scale as you level, but only take into account the level at which you obtained it. It's entirely possible to complete a quest at level one and obtain a weapon little better than a butter knife, or complete the same quest twenty levels higher and obtain that same weapon in gamebreaker form. As many such rewards are unique, it leads to putting off those quests or encounters as long as possible in hopes of getting something that remains useful for longer than an hour.
** One of the more popular mods is a Quest Reward Leveler, which when activated adjusts your quest rewards to the version you'd get if you'd just completed the quest.
** Some quests teach you leveled spells as rewards instead. Unfortunately, the leveling of said spells wasn't particularly balanced. Do the quest at too low a level and you get something that's obsolete right out of the gate. Do the quest at too high a level, and casting the spell will cost more mana than your character actually has.

* Dragon attacks, which work well in principle, but suffer from so many flaws that numerous mods were made simply to counteract them.

** Dragons will kill {{NPC}}s without warning. Since dragons level up with the player, but the town {{NPC}}s don't, an Ancient Dragon can easily wipe out towns such as Riverwood or Falkreath. Unless you survey the town for damage before saving, you'll likely end up losing merchants permanently, as well as having quest-givers killed before they can give you their quests.
** Dragons completely fuck with the fast travel system. Once a dragon is on your radar, even if it's a mile away, you can't fast travel until it is either dead or it leaves your radar, which is mostly up to chance.
** Dragons are ''annoyingly common'' at higher levels. The novelty of fighting dragons wears off quickly. You do need dragon souls to unlock shouts, and you also need dragon bones and scales to make equipment, but eventually you will end up with enough of both that you'll start using the former to reset perks en masse while selling the latter for gold (of which you'll likely [[MoneyForNothing already have plenty]]).
** Dragons are hard to fight with melee characters. Bows and spells are generally the best way to deal with them; dragons deal so much physical damage in melee (along with an instant kill move) that melee classes pretty much have to rely on potions to live. Not to mention that until you knock their health down quite a bit, dragons love to [[GetBackHereBoss fly around well out of your reach]].

** A mod called "Run for your Lives" available for all consoles except PS3, XBOX 360, and Nintendo Switch, fixes it so in event of Dragon and Vampire attacks, most (usually except combat capable and essential) NPC runs to safety. As for the Nintendo Switch itself, vampire attacks are completely removed from the game despite the Nintendo Switch version features all the DLC.

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall''
* Jumping became a ScrappyMechanic due to the buggy nature of wall collision detection near the seams. A badly placed jump can drop you into the Void. Fortunately this was fixed in the patch, that gave you a key press that took you back one step. You could use it to back your way out of the dungeon.
** It gets worse on more modern computers where your jump can be more dramatic or less useful, hence inconsistent, due to the ''recalculated'' number of times the game does a collision check during movement (as a result, you'll also walk slower and enemies may not be able to move).
** One specific kind of dungeon stairs is impossible to walk up like stairs and involves such dangerous jumping or dangerous climbing to navigate.
* Melee combat. It involves clicking and dragging the mouse on the weapon to swing it. Unfortunately, it's horribly slow and unresponsive, which means that first time players are often screwed the moment they first enter combat.

* The lack of passive magicka regeneration could make things frustrating for a mage oriented character. This means that you need to really stock up on magic potions and rest a lot if you have to cast multiple spells.

* The stat mechanics are extremely wonky. If you want to increase your health, the best way to do it is to put on heavy armor and have a Mudcrab beat on you. If you do not manage your stat growths efficiently, the enemies can actually grow faster then you!

* Kill cams, both how they interfere with certain play styles and how it can instantly kill players without warning. They have a nasty habit of missing with projectile kill cams, they interrupt player control, and there's mounting evidence that they disregard all damage-mitigating factors: damage resist, magic/elemental resist, blocking, cover, not being anywhere near close enough to be kill-cam'd... Not much of a problem when you inflict it on people, but when that dragon bite-thrash-toss kill-cams you when you were nowhere near, had capped armor, your shield raised, had over half your health left, and were beyond their bite range. The worst part is that the game checks for the kill cam at the beginning of the attack animation, so a bandit could be swinging a slow warhammer at you and you'll be immediately killed before you have the chance to drink any potions, dodge out of the way, or use a shout. There are mods that exist just to protect the player from kill cams.

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim''

** Dragons are ''annoyingly common'' at higher levels. The novelty of fighting dragons wears off quickly. You do need dragon souls to unlock shouts, and you also need dragon bones and scales to make equipment, but eventually you will end up with enough of both that you'll start selling the former for gold and using the latter for resetting perks en masse.

** Dragons will kill {{NPC}}s without warning. Since dragons level up with the player, but the town {{NPC}}s don't, an Ancient Dragon can easily wipe out towns such as Riverwood or Falkreath. Unless you survey the town for damage before saving, you'll likely end up losing merchants permanently, as well as having quest-givers killed before they can give you their quests. Then ''Dawnguard'' came along and added vampire attacks that can have the same outcome!

** Dragons are unexpected. You can't encounter them inside a walled city, but once you leave, you must be ready for a dragon attack at any time, especially since...

!!''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall''

!!''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind''

!!''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion''

!!''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim''

[[foldercontrol]]

!!''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'']]

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall'' :
*** Jumping became a ScrappyMechanic due to the buggy nature of wall collision detection near the seams. A badly placed jump can drop you into the Void. Fortunately this was fixed in the patch, that gave you a key press that took you back one step. You could use it to back your way out of the dungeon.
*** It gets worse on more modern computers where your jump can be more dramatic or less useful, hence inconsistent, due to the ''recalculated'' number of times the game does a collision check during movement (as a result, you'll also walk slower and enemies may not be able to move).
*** One specific kind of dungeon stairs is impossible to walk up like stairs and involves such dangerous jumping or dangerous climbing to navigate.
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'':
*** Spell reflection if you're a magic-oriented character. Many enemies in the game will randomly throw your powerful destruction spell right back at you - which, considering the likely power of your spells combined with your own [[SquishyWizard squishiness]], is more than likely to kill you outright. Gets absolutely ridiculous, to the point of being unplayable, in the expansions. Further complicating matters is that any enemy with even a small percentage of spell reflection can cause this to happen due to how the mechanic works. For example, an enemy with 10% Reflect doesn't reflect 10% of your damage back at you, which would be more tolerable. It means that enemy has a 10% chance to reflect ''the entire force of your spell'' back at you. Even low to mid-tier enemies like Ash Ghouls and Atronachs have at least a 20% Reflect.
*** The Imperial Legion's fixation on uniforms. When you first join, you're given an Imperial Chain Cuirass as your uniform that you HAVE to wear if you want to talk to anyone in the Legion. As you advance through the ranks, you'll be given additional armor pieces and increasingly better cuirasses up to the mighty Lord's Mail, which is one of the best armor pieces in the game. Until then though, you're forced to carry around least one Imperial-type cuirass with you (as you'll most likely find much better armor rather quickly) and if you make the mistake of talking to anyone (higher or equal-ranked to you) in the Legion without wearing it, you'll be curtly informed that you're out of uniform (which will cut off further communication) and suffer a small disposition loss with that person. Note that this will even extend to any fellow soldiers you're sent to rescue (unless they are of lower rank than you), who apparently [[SkewedPriorities care more about the Legion's dress policies than they do about being saved from murderous Daedra worshipers or bandits]]. The Legion is also the only faction in the game that has this mechanic, making it seem even more out of place.
*** Having to wait several days between quests for the East Empire Company in ''Bloodmoon''. While it makes sense in-universe in that construction on the colony is ongoing between assignments becoming available (and those assignments are usually you removing issues that were holding up construction,) it unfortunately allows all of Solstheim's [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou vicious and plentiful wildlife]] to respawn during that time. The lack of fast travel across much of the island means you'll be battling the same packs of wolves and hordes of Riekling Raiders every time you cross the same track of wilderness. While not overly challenging to a high-level character, they do wear out your equipment and greatly slow your traveling speed.
*** Stamina drains as you run and the more Stamina you lose, the more often tasks you perform fail. This leads to players having a hard time dealing with doing ''anything'' after running a short distance, including battle, unlocking things, and bartering. (While it makes sense that one would have difficulty with precise movement tasks and speaking if they are out of breath, it probably should have been an AcceptableBreakFromReality for the sake of the player's sanity.)
*** The lack of the series standard fast travel. Instead of going to a waypoint when you're outside and safe, you pay for travel services from one city to another. This makes traveling into the countryside very tiresome, especially when you're trying to find the Ashlander camps or your House manor.
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'':
*** The strictly [[LevelScaling scaled leveling]] mechanic attracts a large degree of hatred, particularly since the way the leveling system works punishes the player for not being a {{munchkin}}, makes exploring at low levels fairly boring (Why go look for a new dungeon in hopes of a cool item when it will have the same exact useless loot guarded by the exact same enemies?) and leads to oddities like being the champion of the arena at level 1 thanks to the fact that skills increase independently from level-ups.
*** The stat mechanics are extremely wonky. If you want to increase your health, the best way to do it is to put on heavy armor and have a Mudcrab beat on you. If you do not manage your stat growths efficiently, the enemies can actually grow faster then you!
*** The enemies levels up with you, but ''your abilities, your spells, friendly [=NPCs=], and many quest rewards don't'', which obviously makes the game [[NintendoHard much harder]] as you level up. To clarify and make it even more annoying, many quest rewards do scale as you level- but only take into account the level at which you obtained it. It's entirely possible to complete a quest at level one and obtain a weapon little better than a butter knife, or complete the same quest twenty levels higher and obtain that same weapon in gamebreaker form. As many such rewards are unique, it leads to putting off those quests or encounters as long as possible in hopes of getting something that remains useful for longer than an hour.
*** One of the more popular mods is a Quest Reward Leveler, which when activated adjusts your quest rewards to the version you'd get if you'd just completed the quest.
*** Some quests teach you leveled spells as rewards instead. Unfortunately, the leveling of said spells wasn't particularly balanced. Do the quest at too low a level and you get something that's obsolete right out of the gate. Do the quest at too high a level, and casting the spell will cost more mana than your character actually has.
*** Though not as heavily reviled as the leveling system, there have been complaints about the minigames required for lockpicking and conversation, particularly in convincing an NPC via a sort of pie-graph based system. [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] explicitly considers the latter to be a particular bugbear to the game's immersion.
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' has dragon attacks, which work well in principle, but suffer from so many flaws that numerous mods were made simply to counteract them.
*** Dragons are unexpected. You can't encounter them inside a walled city, but once you leave, you must be ready for a dragon attack at any time, especially since...
*** Dragons will kill {{NPC}}s without warning. Since dragons level up with the player, but the town {{NPC}}s don't, an Ancient Dragon can easily wipe out towns such as Riverwood or Falkreath. Unless you survey the town for damage before saving, you'll likely end up losing merchants permanently, as well as having quest-givers killed before they can give you their quests. Then ''Dawnguard'' came along and added vampire attacks that can have the same outcome!
*** Dragons completely fuck with the fast travel system. Once a dragon is on your radar, even if it's a mile away, you can't fast travel until it is either dead or it leaves your radar, which is mostly up to chance.
*** Dragons are ''annoyingly common'' at higher levels. The novelty of fighting dragons wears off quickly. You do need dragon souls to unlock shouts, and you also need dragon bones and scales to make equipment, but eventually you will end up with enough of both that you'll start selling the former for gold and using the latter for resetting perks en masse.
*** Dragons are hard to fight with melee characters. Bows and spells are generally the best way to deal with them; dragons deal so much physical damage in melee (along with an instant kill move) that melee classes pretty much have to rely on potions to live. Not to mention that until you knock their health down quite a bit, dragons love to [[GetBackHereBoss fly around well out of your reach]].
*** The final word of the Bend Will shout is no doubt useful, but you'd think the ability to ride dragons at will would be great right? Wrong, for one simple reason: when you ride a dragon, ''you have no control whatsoever of where the dragon goes''. You want to fly across the land on the back of a dragon? Too bad, they'll just circle around the area and never go the direction you want to go. While you can still fast travel on them, that means you have to already have found the area, meaning you essentially can't use this to explore.

*** The final word of the Bend Will shout is no doubt useful, but you'd think the ability to ride dragons at will would be great right? Wrong. When you do ride a dragon, you have absolutely ''no control whatsoever of where the dragon goes''. You want to fly across the land on the back of a dragon? Too bad, they'll just circle around the area and never go the direction you want to go. While you can still fast travel on them, that means you have to already have found the area, meaning you essentially can't use this to explore.

*** The Imperial Legion's fixation on uniforms. When you first join, you're given an Imperial Chain Cuirass as your uniform that you HAVE to wear if you want to talk to anyone in the Legion. As you advance through the ranks, you'll be given additional armor pieces and increasingly better cuirasses up to the mighty Lord's Mail, which is one of the best armor pieces in the game. Until then though, you're forced to carry around least one Imperial-type cuirass with you (as you'll most likely find much better armor rather quickly) and if you make the mistake of talking to anyone in the Legion without wearing it, you'll be curtly informed that you're out of uniform (which will cut off further communication) and suffer a small disposition loss with that person. Note that this will even extend to any fellow soldiers you're sent to rescue (unless they are of lower rank than you), who apparently [[SkewedPriorities care more about the Legion's dress policies than they do about being saved from murderous Daedra worshipers or bandits]]. The Legion is also the only faction in the game that has this mechanic, making it seem even more out of place.

*** The Imperial Legion's fixation on uniforms. When you first join, you're given an Imperial Chain Cuirass as your uniform that you HAVE to wear if you want to talk to anyone in the Legion. As you advance through the ranks, you'll be given additional armor pieces and increasingly better cuirasses up to the mighty Lord's Mail, which is one of the best armor pieces in the game. Until then though, you're forced to carry around least one Imperial-type cuirass with you (as you'll most likely find much better armor rather quickly) and if you make the mistake of talking to anyone in the Legion without wearing it, you'll be curtly informed that you're out of uniform (which will cut off further communication) and suffer a small disposition loss with that person. Note that this will even extend to any fellow soldiers you're sent to rescue, who apparently [[SkewedPriorities care more about the Legion's dress policies than they do about being saved from murderous Daedra worshipers or bandits]]. The Legion is also the only faction in the game that has this mechanic, making it seem even more out of place.

*** Dragons are ''annoyingly common'' at higher levels. The novelty of fighting dragons wears off quickly. You do need dragon souls to unlock shouts, and you also need dragon bones and scales to make equipment, but eventually you will end up with enough dragon bones to build a house and more dragon souls than [[spoiler:Alduin had dragons at the height of his power]].

*** Dragons are hard to fight with melee characters. Bows and spells are generally the best way to deal with them; dragons deal so much physical damage in melee (along with an instant kill move) that melee classes pretty much have to rely on potions to live.

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