After all these years of gaming the most fearful enemy a player has to face in any RPG still is... The dungeon walls ) And related unbreakable (and key requiring) doors.

Have you ever wondered why you get to such height in magical powers or warrior prowess and you still can't defeat a simple kitchen door?

In some games (with DD rules) you could even cast "wishes", arguably the most powerful spell in history, ever... And still couldn't pass that frail wooden door that standed between you and your quest goal...

Game balance is the issue here, and it is far easier for the designers to create an unpassable door and a key which pops up at the appropriate time than to foresee all implications of random, open ended, game playing and code them in the game... They already have trouble keeping up with bug cleaning and release deadlines as it is... Oh well, maybe one day. But there are other things that could be improved, even in such a truly amazing game as this is:

1. Food and Drink: Player needs to feed and drink or looses stamina and health after a day or so, possibly the Grandad of all RPG's (something called Dungeon Master, back in 1987 already had that (that's why companies should recruit senior players as game designers, they do not forget history, still remembering good ideas that were long forgotten... ) That would make cooking so much more appealing...

2. Gameplay: Legendary level makes you look like a rat fighting against an whole world filled with superman... You win anyway because you have brains and the PC don't, but it's... boring... Increasing the difficulty should be obtained by increasing the number of enemies. While increasing the level (hit points) only to some of the enemies (leaders, special creatures, etc...) plus, if you have staggering effect with your dual casting destruction spells and it's a single enemy you're fighting, if you time your blasts correctly the enemy has no chances, no matter how much hit points it has. Some enemies, particularly Dragons, should be immune to staggering (found that feature on Potema only, so far), it breaks my heart to defeat such an awe inspiring foe as a Dragon with a methodically fired stream of puny firebolts. The game should always be designed to be played at the "highest possible level" (the "realistic" level) with option for downgrading, never upgrading. Reality (whatever it means in a fantasy game) should always be considered the toughest thing possible (like in a simulator game).

3. It is far too easy to climb down a steep cliff, even mounted on my horse... there should be a "climbing" / "outdoors" skill (whatever) associated with the ability to negotiate cliffs (up or down) above a certain angle without falling: The player would get into a climbing position, and each lenght (say 10m) of distance climbed would be checked against the cliff difficulty, and his climbing rating (like lock picking) to see if he falls, stamina would drop according to weight carried, when stamina = 0 players falls unless he is resting on a ledge. When on a horse, limited to the real abilities of a real horse. Plus... Falling down mutiple waterfalls and not loosing 1 hit point does not seems correct to me... Try that in real life and see what happens. Even with waterbreathing spells or gear the fall itself would kill you...

I would hate to have to be required to take food and drink. I hated that in the old Ultima games. For me it was a nuisance that got in the way of my gameplay.

One big thing I love about Skyrim more than the previous TES titles is the level of immersion from less having to open up windows, like stopping to repair equipment. I'm glad that's gone.

Daggerfall had a good system though to where you dropped off your gear and picked it up in two days. Now that was awesome.

But not having to take food and drink. As much as I loved the Ultima games, I did not enjoy that.

Eating and drinking could be optional, like hardcoe mode in FallOut: New Vegas.

I can see the burden of trying to clear out a dungeon filled with food lying about, and not stopping for a brief moment to eat any of it, but not bat an eye when tossing back potions, found in the same dungeon, during fights.

I like the idea of stamina being charged to climb, but the TES games won't allow this easily. We can scale mountains because they're not really mountains, just a texture we can walk. That's why the jumping trick works, to get past those areas which should be inaccessible to us.

As for the door issue, that's something I'm sure everyone's thought of and finds it ridiculous.

Then again, some of us find it ridiculous a dungeon has lit torches, edible food, and usable potions in it despite having been locked for centuries.

If a person can take a few moments to eat, why bother putting it in the game.