The combat doesn’t suck. Morrowinds combat is good, you just don’t understand how it works when you are new to the game.

The weapon swing animation tells the game to roll Attack dice, just like in a Table Talk RPG like Dungeons and Dragons. Then, if your Attack Roll (with modifiers like current fatigue, weapon skill, etc) beats the enemy’s Armor Class (with modifiers like their current fatigue and enchantments, etc), its a hit. Otherwise, its a miss.

The one thing Morrowind could have done better with combat is communicating the feedback to the player better. Because the game can get the result of the roll immediately, it can then change what animation plays back to the player, so rather than always playing back the same weapon swing animation regardless of result, it should instead choose different animations based on the result. Missed? Play an animatiom that looks like the player missed. Hit? Play an animation that looks like a hit. Hit but damage was blocked? You get the idea.

Perhaps it would be helpful if the game displayed a UI dice result to better communicate this, who knows. I like the game better without floating damage numbers, but they could be helpful to reduce frustration of new players that don’t understand how the game works.