Alas, budget and time limited I guess.
In Morrowind, a big part of gameplay was figuring out where you needed to go to progress in a quest. A NPC might say to go to a town, take the East road out, turn left at the lake, and proceed until you see a certain kind of tree. You actually needed to do all that just to find the next step of the quest. It felt incredibly immersive. In Skyrim and a lot of post-Skyrim games, you just take a direct path to the quest marker without even thinking about it.
Quests in Skyrim often feel shallow because you put in almost no effort. It's a little skippable dialogue, a run across the mountains to a quest marker, kill something, loot something, and run to another quest marker for more optional dialogue. The dialogue in these quests often didn't even explain how you know where to go. Maybe the NPC puts a mark on your map, or maybe you're just psychic! Writers no longer had to care about giving directions, so they often didn't.
Bethesda probably did this because players were complaining about getting lost in Morrowind. If a quest isn't carefully written and the world carefully designed, it is often easy for players to miss the mark. After Skyrim, quest makers became the norm in all sorts of RPG's. It reduced effort for developers and ensured players don't get lost. However, it may be the case that the frustration of getting lost and the triumph of finding your way are parts of a compelling role-playing experience.
BG1 and Fallout 1/2 were both games where you could get badly lost and wander into areas that were way too tough for your character at the stage of the game you were currently in. Getting a little bit lost, a little bit in over your head, and stumbling upon something hidden was actually a lot of fun.
But it's also weird because all of these mods sound like you're just beating yourself in the head, and perhaps we are. I remember a game development class I took, and one of the first things we did was define what game was. I thought it was quite stupid at the time, but in hindsight maybe the guy was onto something: "A series of unnecessary obstacles."
And so it always sounds great to remove obstacles, but the more obstacles you remove, the less of a game you have left at the end of it all. For those of us who grew up in the Nintendo era I think none of us will ever forget Battle Toads, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Punch Out, and other such games where the entire games are basically about beating yourself in the head repeatedly, yet at the end of it all - it felt great!
I would love to play an RPG where I need to take notes. Where I fear to get lost in the wilderness if I take the wrong turn because I could get eaten by a horrible beast then.
I mean, that's what real adventures are about, or not? The mystery of exploration. The need to navigate by markers in nature or even the sun.
In a perfect world for me, game devs would add more dynamic and intelligent NPCs with their own agenda. I am bored by the feeling of Potemkin villages, where everything feels like it is designed to give you a smooth game experience and every NPC is standing there forever, just waiting for you.
I'm probably nitpicking here, but I really hope they put a lot more thoughts into each quest. For example I remember one of the brotherhood tasks is to assassinate the Emperor, but it was a very disappointing task as far as I remember. Admittedly, removing the markers and such definitely helps a bit, but I can't help feeling that the game designers just wanted to pump as many quests into the games as possible, and call it a day. I'd rather have just half of the quests, but with each of them having more depth and require more thoughts.
[0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/SKALD_Against_the...
[1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1063540/Space_Wreck/
All the plebs on the ship are being too noisy, just cut out all their tongues.
Beamdog remastering Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights was a good excuse to replay them, though the new scenarios (Siege of Dragonspear, Pirates of the Sword Coast,...) didn't really do much for me. I believe they're working on Neverwinter Nights 2, which is I game I'm quite fond of (Mask of the Betrayer is such an interesting story), so I'm looking forward to seeing it.
The indie scene is also doing interesting things, Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark is a neat take on the Tactical RPG style based on Final Fantasy Tactics.
For anyone looking for an alternative, Bethesda’s Morrowind has it all, an open world and no scaling enemies.
I really miss the variety of CRPGs we used to have. I don't like real-time games. I like being able to chill playing turn-based games (including strategy games like Civ). I don't think I'm alone in that and it's one of those fundamental misunderstanding game publishers have: thinking players want "hard" games, which for a CRPG (or, rather, an ARPG) really means how fast you can react.
But I really dislike the Bethesda CRPG model, which is really the only model left. I hate scaling content. It's lazy. I really dislike that in games like Skyrim you have to level efficiently or you get weaker (because of content scaling) and that forces you to do some non-fun things to optimize your levelling.
I know a lot of people enjoyed the Fallout serivce. For me, the aesthetics killed it for me. A brown wasteland just isn't aesthetically pleasing as a fantasy environment.
To contradict myself, I have to give special mention to Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I wish I could erase my memory to play that game for the first time again. It's not without its issues but the feeling you have of being in the world is virtually unmatched by any other game.