What used to make TES different, in their youth, was the vastness of the game world which was a promise of unlimited exploration and adventure. But quickly, Arena and DF players discovered that there was not much to do in the wilderness. In both MW and Oblivion, travel was easy with the GPS map and there were no risks, beside monsters, to get out of town.

What I would like in next TES, would be to feel the thrill of exploration, to be challenged when I navigate, and to have to prepare my adventures to be sure my character will survive.

I give you a poll about navigation, survival, and environmental hazards, to see how far people would like them to be developped before they become too invasive in the overall experience.

Those are just ideas, examples of possible evolutions, feel free to propose more ones.

Personally I think traps in ancient ruins should be more numerous and deadly but no more concealed than they were in Oblivion. I never really felt threatened by any of the ancient traps in Oblivion even though you should technically die after being slammed into fifteen ceiling spikes at high speed. Since they never felt like a real threat I never actually bothered looking out for traps while playing and would simply shrug off any damage done to me with a healing spell, I'd like to see more traps, different kinds of them and much greater risk from them. To top that off some were so sluggish I could just backflip off with 50 Acrobatics or higher before it could ever pose a threat.

Evidently there should also be some form of prevention against these threats, for example if a player has a high Block skill they should have the ability to raise their shield with a special animation to defend against severe injury with the amount of damage it protects against scaling based upon their Block Level. E.g. at 25 Block the ability is actually unlocked and reduces 10% of damage, at 50 it reduces 30%, at 75 50% and at 100 70%.
I personally don't think it should block all damage taken as you're still going to feel the impact regardless of whether or not the spikes penetrate your armour. Wearing a full set of heavy armour could also compliment this by adding another 20% or 25% to trap damage reduction. Giving the brawling warrior types a decent amount of protection.

For a more agile character using Acrobatics they could gain a dodge ability that unlocks at 25 and operates like a quicktime event. After the trap starts moving tapping the jump button should allow you to perform the dodge while directional inputs should influence where you evade to, if you decide to go forward rather than back when you've only just stepped onto the trap you should still get slammed into the ceiling or dropped into the pit if you don't dodge the right way. Once again level of the skill should determine how effective it is and at important increments such as 50 and 75 the distance that the dodge can reach should grow larger till at 100 you could just about escape if you dodged the 'wrong' way and reacted quickly enough.

Just suggestions evidently, but I'd like to see what you guys think.

What I voted, and why (UC - UnChecked, C - Checked):
Navigation
* No more GPS map, but hand writen approximative ones - UC - Our hero is already an adventurer, he has basic navigational skills.
* Make compass a rare, valuable and fragile tool - UC - Already an adventurer, he knows how to use natural signs that may not be properly portrayed.

* Fast travel - Both checked I've explained my dream setup elsewhere where FT is handled differently, with emphasis on exploration and survival. Nobody left out.

* Players should place landmarks themself on their maps - C - Should be automatic like now once you visit it, but add possibility to place own landmarks as well.
* NPC should give directions to follow, not marks on your map - UC - If he knows precisely where location is, why not mark it?
* For mysterious places, NPC should give general directions - C - Obviously.
* The player will have to keep track of his position himself using landmarks, signs and navigation - UC - Not with Oblivion style maps.

* Balance - both unchecked, not sure what you mean here.

* I don't want to search for any place nor any NPC - UC - Ask around for NPC, and get pointer to last known location. More work, but more natural. For dungeons, if you at least somehow (maybe by asking around, finding maps etc) get the name of the cell name, that would be nice. I hate overly complex dungeons to search where you know nothing. A GM wouldn't do that, but he also wouldn't give exact locations.

Survival
* The character has to eat, drink and sleep to survive - This one, obviously. Otherwise it wouldn't be about survival anymore. But this is tedious business, so as game progresses the effects become more and more minimal, until surviving is just about trivial. At least for a nature/surviving class character. But it needs new skills, probably a new way to handle health, mana, and fatigue (I've described a suggestion elsewhere), and also a new specialization that focuses such skills.

Environment
* Terrain nature affects movement - C - Both what you CAN do, and the speed you're doing it. Must also take more factors into account.
* Weather affects movement - C - Although a little unsure what you mean. Depends very much on the surface. And fog shouldn't have any effect
* River flow affects movement - C - Flow could have various effects. Like, what happens if you melt a frozen river with some fireballs?
* Cold weather or water cause frost damages to unprotected characters - C - Yeah, clothing is essential against cold and chill factor (wind) and wetness. However, dressing up for social events should also be an important factor. Most normal clothing and armor doesn't really mix well though.
* Some plants may hurt you and even poison you - C - Yes, but it would only be fun for so long. Maybe if covering a pathway, resistance to poison becomes more important. Currently I just ignore it as they are always so weak.
* You should be more exposed to diseases - C - At least being in the cold also lowers your immune system.
* Some rocks, ice, branches may fall - C - Little unsure what the point is, but checked just in case it is something fun
* On frozen or moisty surfaces characters may fall - C - Basic check against agility, would be too painful walking around like Bambi for the run of the game.
* Bad food or water may poison you - UC - Expiration date on food stuffs? Sounds too weird and awkward to implement. It holds out good in the cold weather
* Monsters and NPC should ambush you - C - Uhm, yeah, but, like... How? If possible, then do it. If not, I won't cry about it.
* Monsters and NPC should are dangerous enough - UC - Uhm, they can be dangerous enough, but I definitely want associative animal mentality. NPCs when I reach higher levels are just annoying.
* I want to run as fast on a snowy mountain than on a solid road - UC - MW and OB all over again? No thanks I'm hoping the new engine will allow more fluid everything, and a lot more natural modifications.

I basically chose everything as you, except for "NPC should give directions to follow, not marks on your map".
I prefer directions rather than marks on the map... makes me really look for the place harder. A lot more fun I think and "explory" I think (Cool I just made up a new word...).

What you say about traps should be extended to many other hazards of exploring ruined buildings or caves. Bridges, stairs, walls may be too weakened to survive our passage after centuries of abandon. Wooden structures as well as walls may react when we run straight into them. When we fight in an old mine with our axe swinging violently, there should be risks to have an accident. More generaly, many environmental elements should be physically affected by characters interactions and there should be many more risks of natural accidents.

It would indeed be nice for the world of the next ES game to actually feel dangerous.

Maybe what he choose to do depends on his disposition towards you? For places he knows the exact location of at least. For rumors and hunches, only general location is fine. But I also enjoy the occasional treasure hunt using good old fashioned hand drawn maps

As for traps, if we had a three split health system (critical damage that cannot be healed, normal damage that can be healed, and temporary damage, same also for mana and stamina), they could still have chance to inflict critical damage. Since you cannot heal these other than resting, you have to make a decision; do you continue exploring without rest and try with limited max health potential, or do you seek out proper treatment and rest to regain your health potential? Maybe the quest have a time limit?

As far as the map goes I'd like to see something like http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/F/Far%20Cry%202/Bulk%20Viewers/PC/2008-10-20/REV.182.FarCry2--map--article_image.jpg. I'd like to see areas appear on the map in what looks like hand written ink. It would also be nice to not start with any detailed map. Just a map that shows the whole area, you could purchase extra maps from cartographers.

The better the detail the map you buy the more your character notes down themselfs. If you have one map of the whole region then there would only be space for important large things, like forts and villages (Cities should already be marked on maps you but). Only once you've bought the smaller area maps can you note down dungeons and other details like that. Also I'd like to be able to mark the map myself.

I'm not really sure what I would change. I guess if I had to make a choice I'd probably say that the dungeons shouldn't be copy and paste they should all look different.

It would be great to have a survival skill, great thread. It should affect your logistics and travel time too.

How about if they give you scraps of paper with quickly drawn maps and directions. ^_^ I would love that actually.

my reply mainly focuses on travel.

all the penalties should apply for fatigue/health/mana depending on how long you have slept, how long you have ate and drank
i think realistic penalty should be given and an option to have it FATAL if you choose a harder setting.

but for travel maps ect.
map:
i say that your map should have general locations on it like main towns and some paths.but for things like map markers, no. i think those should be added based on your objective and how you got it, if the person only knows the landmark and the direction than thats all he can do for you, but if he knows more and likes you enough or just feels like it he can give you a marker of a general location on your map then that will be welcome also.

the compass as an item is also a great idea and they should not be durable -
say they break easy depending on your survival skill [they get wet or become de-magnetized or you are not careful with them etc]
also maybe you dont need them if your survival skill is high enough- say you can read the shadows on a tree like a sun dial-
or as your skill rises you get a perk [the lay of the land] or something that gives you a compass on your screen-because you know where you are WHEREVER you are.
(i know its not fallout but bare with me)

as for fast travel
NO!
let me explain. i want fast travel, i like it, its convenient. but it is an EXPLOIT and we need to man up.
i propose a Morrowind-like travel system only with a real-time travel mount like a carriage. or a giant skyrim MOOSE thing(unique creatures need a comeback)!.(MOOSE ftw)
and if your willing to shell out some serious money you could pay someone from the mages guild-or someone else you know to teleport you instantly.
morrowind had the right idea,

mobility across unfamiliar terrain and weather effects
brink inspired partly

this is probably not going to happen but i want to see some serious thought into how you navigate through an area,
climbing should make a comeback- daggerfall had it - i want to see it back and WAY MORE AWESOME!
if the ground is icy you need to watch your step.
if its 30below you need to stay indoors or be prepared for the chill-fire warm clothes- penalty for armor unless your skills and attributes allow for it (nord perk)
if the cliff is unstable you need to sprout wings (or levatate) or climb down the way you came

Really liking a lot of the stuff people are posting, one thing I would add is that disease and poison were never really strong threats in the TES games, I'm hoping for a complete change to them so that they become some-what of a threat to players.

I agree. I don't know, poison isn't something I'm facing very often. As for disease, even if I'm not resistant, I just choose to ignore it, because the effects are too trivial. I agree with senju in that some more survival and nature aspect is needed, by bringing in sleeping and eating. But I'd also go further and split the bars in three; temporal damage (fixes itself), normal damage (can be healed or by potions), and critical or permanent damage (have to sleep). The same applies to mana and fatigue, so the mana system becomes a mix of MW and OB but not the same extremes. However, potions and restoration magic can't fix these permanent damages (they may temporary lower their influence, but will crawl back up again), you HAVE to sleep and recuperate.

I would also add visual aspect to disease and poisons instead of stats only. Using a post processing system, you could have blurred vision, darkened vision, tunnel vision, wavy effects, whatever. Keep in mind that in dice based RPG there is usually some perception stat or skill that may be affected negatively, that in our game would have to be based on actual vision. So it needs to be affected somehow.

Well, even the GPS map of MW wasn't so bad, especially if you were looking for some cave using only written directions. Frustrating as hell, but satisfying. Felt like my character was really out on a quest, searching the wasteland, running into beasts and hostile Ashlanders or bandits, running low on potions. Then, the return trip. selling the loot, restocking, and going again.

I'd like to improve that with more environmental/terrain effects, and the need to eat and drink (this is not that hard to deal with folks...you can find bread or w/e in every crate and barrel. It just becomes a problem when you're gone from town for days. Either kill animals for food or raid a bandit camp.

There is a dimension of classical RPG that rarely felt in TES : doubt.
In my PnP RPG experience, I remember that finding information was one challenge, but being sure of those informations was another one. NPC can lie. NPC can commit mistakes. In past TES, NPC could give you directions or not. They never set you on a bad way. Therefore, you don't have to think about your source of information. You just multiply them until you get a precise answer. Introducing "handmade" maps, litteral directions and false answers could allow for more doubt, and therefore push the player to investigate : Do all NPC give me the same directions? Are there any other map of this area?

I feel information gathering is an important part of a quest or a trip. Developping it in TES could give more depth to the exploration challenge and a new dimension to our adventures. It would also give a bonus to scholar characters (to dig libraries) or social ones (to find the good contact).

A lot of these aren't things I would ever put into the game. At least, not by default - but in a "hardcoe" mode would be fine. More confusing and less accessible is not necessarily fun for everyone.

I prefer my balance somewhere between Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind was fine most of the time, but there were directions that just left players confused (and eventually angered. Screw the whole "find the Cavern of the Incarnate" quest.)

As far as improving the exploration element, more and varied locations go a long way to help here. Fallout 3 had a lot of similar visual locations (which fit that setting, but got old fast in OB), but Beth did a good job with giving locations a story and rewards for exploring. That's what Oblivion didn't do, because most of those copy-pasted Ayleid ruins just had level limited junk. Give me the feeling I might find something neat in Dungeon X, and I'll bother diverting from my quests to go exploring.

Traps in ruins are fine, but not every location should feel like it was written out by Gary Gygax. I don't want to creep along everywhere for fear there's a pit every ten feet. After all, something once lived in a lot of these places. Tombs? Sure. Other locations would depend on the type of ruin.

Slower movement for difficult terrain would be all right, but I don't want to feel as slow as I did in Morrowind. There's such a thing as making the player too slow.

I think those additionnal layers of complexity and challenge should be seen as a drift in the gameplay toward what TES should have been since a long time. In the early 90's, when I first heard of Arena and its outdoors, I was immediately dreaming about travel and exploration. Finally, it was not the core of the game, neither in DF which was still huge. Curiously, we had more outdoor wandering in MW and Oblivion, while their scale was no more adapted for exploration. Moreover, they both failed to give outdoors any serious adventurous interest. Wildernesses were just empty space between dungeons that were both too concentrated and which were curiously very heavilly populated. This doesn't correspond to my idea of adventure. When I think travel and exploration, it's all about outdoors and special natural sites, but not about ruins (which are more often visited from the outside inreality!), caves and "lost" temples crawling.

So, in my idea, survival-exploration should not become one additionnal barrier of complexity between the player and the main quest, but a part of it, a challenge and gameplay element or a quest by itself.
It is not an obstacle in the route of gameplay, but the gameplay itself. I do not think its too weird to consider survival-exploration-investigation-adventure as a good base for RPG gameplay (at least they are better than non stop gobelin bashing!).

A tiny addition that might help a little: For locations like dungeons, caves, mines, and ruins etc, don't place the "you found ..." marker until you actually point at the entry mechanism. And also be a lot more imaginative on how the entrances look, especially for caves and grottos. You could have passed a location many many times because the entrance is so well hidden, and then one day you go "wtf, has this been here all this time"?

On the first point, I agree that a benevolent NPC with a precise knowledge of the place you seek may mark it on your map... But it would become fun if your map was false or unprecise. We could imagine maps covering a more or less big part of the gameworld and with different degrees of precision/quality (for sake of simplicity, we could assume that your character will always pick his most precise map to navigate and to ask directions, and that places marked on one map will be reported on the new one if it is better than the older). The precision of the mark on your map will then depend on both NPC knowledge/disposition, and how precisely he can spot the location on the documents you have.

For the second point, the system may work a bit as in th classical PnP RPG Pendragon : you have a general HP score and wounds reduce this overall score (with a threshold of unconsciousness). But wounds are also tracked individually as "packages" of damage points. First aid is done wound by wound. You can only do one healing attempt per wound. If a first aid test do not heal a wound completely, the only way to recover your HP is rest and patience. Moreover, your stats determine a threshold above which a wound is critical, which can result in a continuous loss of HP if you do not rest quickly with appropriate healing, and even in a risk of permanent stat point loss. To say it simply, you can easilly and quickly recover from scratches and bruises, but more serious wounds require more attention and may force your character to withdraw to a safe place to take a break to recover.

Interesting side effect with loosing consciousness are fighting bandits and NPCs. After all, they're only there to rob you, not everyone should have a blood lust. They should also know that the penalty for murder is severe, and rather rob you clean and stash it in a cave nearby. Could trigger investigation quests.

Even some animals. They may only want to scare you off their territory, show their initiative (prove they're alpha male ), or protect their cubs. Guards should at least give you a basic set of common clothing, or better if you have the reputation for it. Some will have blood lust, or just see food in you.

Some great ideas in the original poll and in the thread. Generally, I want Skyrim to be a hostile environment requiring skill to explore and survive. I want what climbers refer to as 'objective' dangers, ie dangers from the environment itself, blizzards, hypothermia, rockfall etc.

I also want exploratrion to feel difficult, and have the sense of achievement when I find somewhere.

love the idea of a fragile, valuable compass.

Easy fix.

1. Options Menu: toggle map markers on/off

On: Players receive basic directions to quest locations in addition to the locations being highlighted on your map.

0ff: Players receive basic directions to quest locations, and general areas are only sometimes highlighted on your map.

(With both options, players are still free to place their own map markers.)

2. Options Menu: toggle fast travel on/off

On: Players can fast travel to and from any previously discovered location.

Off: Players must travel on foot/horseback or make use of mark/recall spells or local transportation.

Fast travel the same way as morrowind, with taxis.

Map should show quest destination, not as a pin-pointer, but as just a general medium-large region high-lighted

I'm not sure if it is that easy to build a game with whole gameplay elements to be turned off-on at will. I once was in favor of such system, but thinking about quest design, it makes things really different : for example, with the exploration-survival "hardcoe" more on, devs do not need to fill a dungeon with hundreds super-Liches to make its exploration a challenge. Player will first have to gather info, prepare his package (which make ma think I forgot an inventory-encumbrance question in my poll...), and spend some time in the wilds. 1/ I think "explorers" players do not want more layers of difficulty, but a shift in the place where challenge lies. In my example, if devs keep the super liches, it make the quest completely nuts for the "hardcoe" players because they have two gameplay challenges to manage. On the other hand, if what makes the mysterious dungeon a challenging quest item is the difficulty to find it, then activating automapping, GPS and easy fast travel would simply make this quest pointless and too easy.
The same idea can be developped for the map construction : If devs want really fast travel to be optionnal (Optionnal not a an ingame choice to use it or not but as a major gameplay option) while not completely ruining the rythm of the game, they will have to keep a small map like Oblivion, which will ruin the exploration gameplay. Symetrically, building a huge map for explorers without giving fast travel to other players will make any small quest a laborious task.

I think the best strategy is to give the player enough roleplay choices and enough real alternative pathes so each player may experience a different gameplay challenge. The idea is that if some players don't want to roleplay explorers, there should be plenty adventures and pathes that won't require to travel, navigate and survive, like being a thief downtown. On the other hand, player who will want to go outdoor and travel the land should be free to choose this path as their own adventurous way.