I hate Oblivion so much I bought it again last year during a steam sale. And I do mean hate, but damn do I love that game also. There's so much frustration and wonkyness to it, but there's so much more to enjoy. Theres no game I've started from the beginning over and over as much as Oblivion.

For me the freedom of Morrowind is everything. Oblivion definitely stripped it down tremendously, but you could still see a glimmer of what the freedom was. What was this freedom?
In Morrowind you could create ANY spell you wanted. When I say any, I mean ANY provided you had the 1) some version of the spell/effect you wanted and 2) the mana to cast it.
When I got to a point where I first realized the potential of this capturing monsters in crystals and using them for creation I started the game over. Made a character strictly magic and focused on increasing mana. What did redoing all those hours of gameplay get me?
Well I created a spell that, on touch, would cause the person touched to be inflicted by frenzy. Frenzy causes the enemy to go crazy attacking everything BUT me. So that lasted for around 30 seconds. This person was also poisoned, took a chunk of fire damage, lightning damage, and frost damage, and takes damage from all of them over time for a few seconds. The real kicker though is it caused an AOE at around a 15-30ft radius. ANYTHING hit by the AOE had it all activate on them. Anyone in the radius of that thing chained along and along.
I could only cast this spell ONCE. Cleaned my magic bar out. First time I used it in a city it was absolute bedlam. Screen paused for a few seconds. To the point I thought it froze. When that pause ended guards were fighting guards, people in the streets fighting to the death, killing someone then running to fight whoever was in sight. Then, suddenly everyone comes to their senses. Guards put there weapons away, fist dropped, routines started again. I walked past the many dead in the street and spoke to the guard that responds, “ Good day Citizen.”
Don’t even get me started on flight, breathing under water, making people float for 10 seconds wayyyy up and then when the effect ends…. GG.
Man that game was legendary.
Hopefully that gives a glimpse as to why anything after it was disappointing.

Morrowind hands down then downhill from there to a Mass market semi casual game

Currently playing Skyrim for the first time. I know I know lol, but better late than never!

The Daggerfall map was/is so, so huge. Stupidly, insanely huge. Yeah it is the product of procedural generation, but goddamn...it's monsterous. As in 15,000 locations and the size of Great Britain big. I don't think it would be humanly possible to "100%" that game by modern standards.

I'd love to see a current gen take on that design approach.

any list that ranks oblivion high is invalid and any lists that doesnt have morrowind number 1 is beyond invald