Whilst having all weapons readily available at the same time could be a bit excessive, I'd love it if you could quickly switch to an off-hand item (i.e. a dagger), somewhat like what Daggerfall had going on with the left/right hand slots.

Sounds like fun, though not my thing since you do restrict yourself to basically 5% of the available equipment in the game lol. But more power to you! I also played Stalker and found it an awesome game, but I enjoyed it more for the atmosphere and setting, so modding it to that extreme was not a concern.

So as I asked before, whats stopping you from doing all that with the current system? Why are you so concerned in forcing your experience and play style on others, which by the way I'm in no way berating, since it works for you and you find it so engaging and immersive? Nothing its stopping you from playing that way or modding the game to fit your needs if possible, one of the best features of a TES title, I believe.

If I'm fighting, I should be able to dig into my backpack or sack and grab a potion, given that I can run and hide around a corner for 10 seconds and get the bottle out and opened and drink some before the enemy catches up with me. But being able to drink 10 potions right in the middle of blocking an opponent's sword swipe is just flat out flake.

You can't carry unlimited weapons... they still have weight. Why shouldn't you be able to carry 10 claymores if you're the hulk on steroids?

As for potions, this would be too frustrating. No one actually uses more than a few different potions in combat anyway, so this would be an unnecessary hassle.

Being able to carry less weapons would be fun for a hardcoe gametype.

I personally think it would be kind of fun and more realistic only be able to carry 2 weapons. Either a bow and a dagger, longsword and dagger, two daggers, etc.

I think you're poll is a little unclear for the weapons. You should ask if you would rather have all weapons equipped at once rather than carrying them all, not do you want to be able to carry less weapons.

I would like to see my guy running around with the sword and bow equipped at the same time, and I voted yes for the belt, but I really don't think its better either way. Although the belt would dramatically reduce the usefulness of Alchemy. And I like Alchemy... Changed my mind, no belt.

Because every feature in a game has an effect on its overall feel and quality. The more recent TESs and FOs are in general too forgiving. You're given more things than you'll know what to do with, too many outs when things go wrong, and overly cheap and convenient ways to overcome obstacles. Take some of the controversial mechanics in Oblivion. Sure, you can ignore markers on the quest compass, and even get rid of them entirely by selecting some other quest, but the entire game is built around using the compass to find where you need to go. Ditto for fast travel; you don't need to use that, either, but then you're stuck having to hoof around everywhere, which will get boring eventually, no matter how fascinating the world is.

In the end, both Oblivion and Fallout 3 come across as easy out of the box, that the only way for the devs to add challenge to them is to throw utterly cheap fake difficulty at you. Hence we get ridiculous level scaling in the former that give lowly bandits Daedric Armor and hundreds of hit points to grind through, or bone-nosed tribals whom use weapons that outright ignore armor in the latter. In order for there to be real difficulty, developers have to place restrictions in what the players can do, and design the entire game around those.

And the whole "just mod it in" argument is weak. After all, if Bethesda were to make the game with the features we're suggesting, why can't you just mod the game so that it plays how you like? See what I did there?

So intelligent. So very intelligent.

I think that being able to carry everything you want (to the extent that your encumbrance allows) is every TES player's god given right. The old system of going into dungeons, loading up on loot and running back to town to sell it is a good one that many of us love. Changing that would be a massive change in the way the game is played and would be widely met with negative response by the fans.

Now that being said I think, if done right both these ideas are still good ones. I like the idea of having a limited number of weapons that are easily accessible. Such weapons should be no more than a button press or two away from being drawn. Other items should require a time consuming animation to be drawn and made ready for use. I'm sure we all recall the frustration of being attacked whilst trying to mount your horse or when standing back up after having been knocked down. A similarly time consuming animation of taking off your pack and rummaging through it for the desired item could be employed to make switching items that are not set to be easily accessible, during combat, impractical. I also like the idea of the potion belt but I can see its restrictive nature outweighing its realistic value. A simple way of making it more difficult go overboard on potion use is to require an animation of drinking each individual phial.

Nice thread by the way. It's definitely a topic worth exploring.

No, it wouldn't. It would be tedious. Characters in games have an inventory and encumbrance for a reason.

I liked how Diablo 1/2 did potions. Had a potion belt etc.

In Oblivion I never used potions cause it was to difficult to quickly open the back pack and use a potion in the middle of combat.

... For someone with no visible backpack, I always wondered how my char was carrying all that loot. It's not like she can stick a daedric tower shield and two claymore in her bra, seriously.

I'm with you insofar I think that the size of the object should be taken into account as well as the weight. Potions may be very light, but carrying 30 at the same time ? Alongside sharp and heavy implements ? Not really. On the whole, I rejoin the whole pack animal/waggon suggestion from that other thread.


What do you mean ? I put them in the shortcuts.

Which, re to the poll, works just as suggested. I know technically you can open your backpack, but since it doesn't work when you're striking (well, normal), all you have is what you have on the shortcuts. Pretty much like a belt of potions.

You seem so set on just ignoring other people's preferences, and I truly can't understand why? Using your examples, not only I can ignore the quest marker, I can mod it out if I'm inclined to, nobody its stopping me. And since I'm sure there are people that do like it, my best suggestion to Bethesda would be a toggle, real simple and everyone is pleased don't you think? The fix is not to kill the feature, but to make it optional, so you don't end up inconveniencing people just because your are set on x or y gameplay mechanic. Same with fast travel? Why get rid of the system in Morrowind completely, when its not at odds with the one in Oblivion? Both can coexists and It makes for a better game... for everyone! But they ended up killing it, a mistake that I get to correct with mods, since there is no other alternative, which really svcks for the console crowd.

The only reason Bethesda implemented something like level scaling is to allow people to experience any area of the game at any moment they please, not to make the game any more or less difficult. Bandits in Daedric has nothing to do with difficulty, is simply a lazy job by by the developers who couldn't be bored to make the pertinent equipment lists more tailored to what and actual bandit would wear. In the end, all they managed is to make select and rare gear by canon standards seem like stuff people just had laying everywhere, because I doubt that all that gear stopped you from murdering them with ease.

You see, what's broken is the leveling system, the one which allow you to become a god and max every stat and skill, the one that truly makes late game a joke. There is no room for specialization, all characters end up the same at the end of the road.

The features you suggested, in my opinion, only push realism in the game, they don't address the real problems in the game, like level scaling and the broken leveling system, which do have an effect on difficulty. They are simply minor tweaks to make the game behave in a way that mirrors what you can do in reality, and like I mentioned before, nothing is stopping you from playing you in that way, should you choose to. You don't even need a mod! Don't want to carry more than 2 swords? So don't... Don't want to use more than 3 potions? You are more than welcome not to. Don't want to open your inventory? Who is forcing you to? On the other hand, your tweaks force me to play differently, by imposing a bunch of restrictions that i can do without.

I'd have no issue with any of your ideas if they were not forced on me, by way of a hardcoe mode or something like that, but since that's not what you are suggesting, I'm happy to object to them.

And about modding the changes you suggest out? Of course I could, if the Construction Set allowed for it. But what about the others not able to, like the console community?

Controversial topic for sure, but I'm all for it (maybe as part of a hardcoe mode, like the ammunition in New Vegas?)

I hated how you could win just about every fight in previous TES games by just stacking enough potions. It'd be great if their number was limited, consuming them would take time, and they could even break when used while being attacked.
I also agree on limiting the amount of weapons, armor and all that jazz to something believable; i.e., one set of armor on the body, perhaps one other set to be carried around, that's it.

And it works perfectly well and is very much fun in non-computer-roleplaying games. I don't understand why just because something is a video game, it has to be less realistic than its P&P equivalents. We have the technical capabilities to make these games more realistic, why are so many people opposing that idea?
To those of you who have not experienced P&P roleplaying: In just about every P&P game, you are limited to carry a realistic amount of stuff. And it works perfectly fine. Sure, it means you might need a horse with you to carry stuff, or even organize a larger expedition if you want to retrieve lots of artifacts, that'd then be stored at home or in a museum, and then you'd also need to pay guards so the stuff won't be stolen while you're gone - you also could create magical traps instead or trust the quality of your locks if you don't want to pay for guards and aren't fond of magic. All this would be possible to recreate in a game, and I sure hope a mod will. Why is it not mainstream? I don't know. People are too afraid of losing "fun" for something more believable. I guess video gaming needs to reach a point where technical advance is slowed down significantly and developers can focus more on optimizing gameplay and believablitiy, I'm thinking these games would then take the same route as P&P games and even Hollywood movies; if you pay attention, you'll notice a recent increase of movie hereos holding their weapon properly, performing trigger safety, and less explosions of cars that drove against a wall. Not zero of course, but it's getting better. And there's enough other things to blow up to keep the audience entertained. But compare a shootout in an 80's movie and one in a more recent movie. Both will be unrealistic, but at least today you'll see people holding their guns with two hands and not flying backwards five meters because they got hit. It makes me believe that once a certain point of "wow effect" is reached, people focus more on the serious side of things.

Simple. People want to be walking swiss army knives of doom so they can save the world and drool at the same time . Most can't be bothered choosing what gear and goods to bring with them for the sake of surviving your game. Personally i find it much funner having weight and carrying restrictions, but hey we are in a minority.

I agree with weight and carrying restrictions, but there is an encumbrance system based on character strength already in place. A tweak to the weight of items would do a better job at balancing how feasible is to carry a mountain of loot, rather than having the game just outright preventing me from carrying a specific type of weapon or armor, which I find rather intrusive.

Weapons should weight more and our characters should be able to carry less.

Potions should be equiped from the journal and then placed instead of your weapon in your right hand, pressing attack makes you consume it. I think this would be great, as you wouldn't be able to consume three-four potions in a split second and poison your dagger too. Applying poisons would work in a similar way, but it would get in the other hand than your weapon (shield slot) and pressing block would activate it to your weapon in the right hand.
Just an idea, watcha think?

@beatcop: It’s all about having strong, focused game design, to have a clear idea into how the game should play, and it should challenge the player. To do this, there have to be clear limits into what he can and cannot do. They can be wide, they can be narrow, but they have to be there. If they're not, then the game has got itself some built in cheats that are completely, by its own logic, "legal." When the player himself has to impose limits to get around them and get any sort of challenge, something has probably gone wrong.

The issues that we’re discussing in this topic are limitations to what you can do in battle (and, perhaps by extension, everywhere else) so that there can still be a degree of challenge, because we feel the current ones don't go far enough. Combat, in real life and in these games, is a fast and frenetic affair where you simply don’t have a lot of time to think things through, because every second is a matter of life and death. The presence of potions is meant to alleviate this, since they can heal you, restore magicka, bestow defensive boons, and what have you. Unfortunately, as both Morrowind and Oblivion (and Fallout 3) demonstrate, you acquire such a staggering amount of them that after a point, combat is no longer anywhere near the risky affair it may have once been; you’re not likely to die because you can restore yourself effortlessly without risk or significant cost.

There are several ways to address this. One, you could try doing any number of things to make potions rare, expensive, and valuable that would make a player really want to budget them wisely. This can be tricky to balance, and it might entail nerfing or even outright removing Alchemy, which none of us wants. OR you could try limiting the number of potions you can even use while fighting, as the OP is suggesting with the “toolbelt.” My opinion on that: reasonable, but it might be too restrictive and/or might not even be enough anyway. Another idea coming up in this thread would be animating the act of consuming the potion in real time, rather than act instantaneously in the menu. That, in my opinion is…pretty good. It means that no matter how many potions you’ve horded, you still have to use them tactically, because you can die just as easily if you have only one or one hundred. It makes for a funner game, and that’s the general philosophy I’m suggesting Bethesda (and all game developers) follow.

Same idea goes for equipment switching. In Morrowind and Oblivion, you’re pretty much free to use whatever you’re carrying. The only limitation you have is that equipment weighs you down. Seems reasonable at first, but after a certain point your carrying weight can get so high, either through natural statistics or by utilizing spells and enchantments like Feather or Fortify Strength, that even that’s not going to mean anything, and you’re free to carry as much gear as you like to tackle any situation the game decides to throw at you. And even if that’s not the case, the worst that’ll happen is that you won’t be able to carry as much loot to sell, but then, who needs loot when you’ve got 50,000 drakes and nothing to spend them on (that’s a whole other issue for another topic)? Better to just be prepared for whatever the game throws at you. There needs to be another, more permanent limitation, and the way I see it, prohibiting you from freely changing equipment up while under attack (outside of weapon sets) is one possible way to do that.

Of course, we could also just say to hell with what’s been suggested so far, and make it so that unlike previous games, TES V never pauses when the menu is brought up. Hmmm, now there’s an idea.

But fine, you’re right, I can just “ignore” what I don’t like, or set my own rules and limitations. So you know what I’m going to do? Tell you the exact same thing. You don’t like the leveling system in Oblivion? Then ignore it. Don’t sleep at all in-game, stay at level 1, and focus on building up your major skills only. And do the exact same thing in Skyrim should its leveling system work the same way and be just as broken. Bethesda should in no way change it at all, lest there be some who don’t want it changed (and I guarantee you, they exist), and everyone can be happy!

If that suggestion doesn't work for you, then maybe you'll understand why it doesn't work for me.

Yes to both.

I'll pass on your suggestion, which is basically a very odd way to deal with a problem I can do nothing about unless I opt to mod the game. You on the other hand, do have a choice, without resorting to any kind of gimmicks or odd behavior like you suggest I do, by simply just playing the game the way you prefer, which involves all those restrictions that you can fully submit yourself to without the need to force them on anyone else.

But anyways, we all have our opinions, so I'm happy to disagree and simply move on. In the end, its highly unlikely that anything will come out of this debate, since most gameplay details should be set in stone by now. Like you said before, I'll mod what I don't like if possible, as I'm sure you'll do.

The problem is, while one can force himself to only have a certain number of weapons, the game is build in a way that expects the user to carry more.
Potions are a very silly way to win fights, in my opinion. They should be used to increase your abilities before the fight, like a drug, and to heal you after the fight, like medication. They should not be consumed in the middle of combat. If I just refrain from using potions though, the game gets much harder for me, which is not what I want. I want a game that is designed around the fact that I'm not having potions all the time.

Who knows? Maybe a BGS dev has seen this thread and will bring it up during development for another game, but for Skyrim we'll just have to wait and see.

it would be annoying. maybe carrying less in hardcoe mode or something though..

hardcoe mode: yes to both
normal: no to both.