part of this i know will be addressed because they arent using oblivions awful level scaling where bandits ended up with better gear than imperial guards.

illogical weapon stats bug me to no end. the Empire equipped their army with the second crappiest gear available and managed to somehow beat everyone else who had better gear. elven weapons were better and orcish weapons were better etc. what im hoping to see this time around are guards equipped with gear that isnt crappy. in obliivon even the higher ranking members of the imperial guard had only slightly better equipment than their soldiers. if you are a captain or general or whatever you stuff should reflect that and be very good equipment.

im hoping that the differences between the materials reflect other properties moreso than damage. iron and steel weapons are more than capable of cutting someone in half and having them as the pea shooters of the game is just daft. the differences in weapons should be in durability, speed, weight and enchantment. weapons shouldnt double in power every tier its just stupid. the big differences should be in how weapons are enchanted or upgraded at the smithy. glass weapons could be significanlty faster than other weapons but are fragile and require lots of maintenance perhaps even have them scripted with a low chance to shatter on every strike.

the one exception i would have would be daedric gear since its "magical" and otherworldly" id say that daedric weapons should be at most 20% more powerful than the other weapons. however it could have critical hit effects or ignore armor effect or something similar like some of them had in morrowind.

to sum it up if some bandit comes up behind me and hits me in the noggin with an iron warhammer i dont care what kind of armor im wearing i should notice it and it should hurt alot.

edit: these are the changes i made to my game..........in simple form.

steel............the baseline weapon average attack, speed and weight (these i just made proportional so ill just say speed from now on ) durability and enchantment
glass..........better attack, better speed, very low durablity, better enchantment
dwemer........same attack, worse speed, better durablity, same enchantment
elven............same attack, better speed, worse durablity, same enchantment
daedric/ebony.........better attack, worse speed, very durable, better enchantment (i just gave daedric a small advantage over ebony in all the areas except enchantment where i gave daedric a big boost in enchantment to reflect its "magicalness"
orcish........... duh arent in game. :tongue:

this way meant every weapon was useful to the end game and could be used for any character. i used glass weapons from my stealth character since those fights were generally shorter and i used steel or dwemer for my fighter characters since those were more drawn out fights. if i wanted to though i could use any of those weapons for any situation since the differences werent humungous. the exception being glass where since it was better in 3 of the categories i literally did have to repair it after every battle........but damn it worked really nice. and daedric which had significantly higher enchantment points than the other materials.

edit numero dos: one thing i forgot to address would be the beginning of the game where lots of people enjoy having crappy gear and working their way up. this could be solved by simply having varying levels of the same gear such as rusty or worn etc. those could be cheap and commonplace as they would most likely be used by every day farmers and workers who arent going to be sitting around sharpenign their swords all the time and in fact would probaly neglect them. they would be dull and rusty so would have weaker attack and be less durable.

Yes.

Although this idea seems realistic, theres also a risk of making the game Tedious. If all weapons were completely different in ways other that damage, leveling up (unlocking higher tier weapons) could cancel out alot of the fun in them. My Warrior class would therefore be inclined in using the incredible steel sword, which I unlock early in the game, and I would be leveling up keeping the exact equipment throughout. I think the idea of the higher tier weapons like glass and so on, for a start allows far more immagination with the design, but then they are not there so much for the realism, but moreso to upgrade from what you currently have. (So its not a case of Glass BEING Glass, but more of Glass being BETTER than Steel). Also, I feel alot of it is there to make you look like more a a bad-ass.

Its a good idea, dont get me wrong, I just feel it would be extremely awkwardly placed, if placed at all in a TES game. The OTT stats detail just subtract from the Fantasy/RPG-ness. Smaller details however I do not mind (such as Glass being more easily damaged, but this specific trait would be better placed if we have a portable means of repairing equipment - like repair hammers, but I think they are out of Skyrim, and that you are stuck with Smithing benches, but I may be wrong)

Good Read.

I just want guards to have armour that reflects how good they are. I liked how in Morrowind, Ordinators had great armour but they'd also kick your ass.

Yeah steel and leather base gear should also have high end versions. I'm hoping this is possible during smithing as well to improve your favourite gear up inline with higher tear gear.

Perhaps if they made some of the higher end materials much rarer. It's a bit of a downer when you're character, the hero of the story, walks into a fort or a ruin with their daedric weapon and armour only to face five dudes with the same equipment. If deadric, glass and ebony equipment is meant to be extremely rare and expensive, how come all these bandits and marauders have them?

I don't think so ....

I prefer his suggestion to yours, because what you just said is precisely what he would like to avoid. I don't think glass should automatically be better than steel. I think steel should have its own properties that are useful, just as glass should have its own perks.

What you've suggested basically means that everything but the highest tier of weaponry and armor is worthless. I don't like that. I don't think it's a case of glass being "better" than steel. They're two different materials. Give them their own pros and cons, and you end up with a far more interesting sort of weaponry usage than "oh i have glass now so it's better than iron even tho the tensile strength of glass compared to steel, iron, or other such metals is terrible"


So, to sum it up, I say no to your post. The points you put forth would result in a more simplistic, get-to-the-next-level-o'-gear game. I like my games interesting, and having to make choices in my playstyle.
Skyrim shouldn't be an exception to that rule. I'm banking on the hope that Bethesda thinks that too.

Gimme realism, not farcical grinding.
No offense.

ive heard you have to repair at smithys as well........which is good in my opinion since you shouldnt be able to repair a sword or armor with just a hammer while you sit on a log.

i started using the TIE mod which drastically changed weapon stats. i then made some tweaks to it to increase the differences even more. iron weapons were powerful but very heavy (i made them twice as heavy as other weapons) and very brittle (not durable) steel swords were lighter and more durable and so one. this had the effect of allowing you to use any weapon effectively but they all had their upsides and downsides. playing with a glass sword actually felt like it was made out of glass. it was very fast and very sharp but it was also very fragile and i had to repair it after almost every battle.

i used steel weapons as the baseline for damage and gave glass weapons a bit more attack power and increased enchantment but obviously much less durable. i considered the glass weapons as the "glass cannon" of weapons. fast, powerful but not good for long drawn out fights or campaigns. dwemer and elven weapons i made the same damage as steel but i made dwemer weapons a bit heavier and more durable and elven weapons were a bit lighter but less durable. ebony and daedrice are the workhorses and i made them heavier (not as heavy as iron though) and very very durable and a bit more powerful and with really high enchantment like glass. the downside is that they were slower becuase of their increased mass.

i played countless games this way and it was much better than the default system. you could still use that boring steel sword effectively for the entire game you just gave up something such as enchantment or speed and weight.

steel............the baseline weapon average attack, speed and weight (these i just made proportional so ill just say speed from now on ) durability and enchantment
glass..........better attack, better speed, very low durablity, better enchantment
dwemer........same attack, worse speed, better durablity, same enchantment
elven............same attack, better speed, worse durablity, same enchantment
daedric/ebony.........better attack, worse speed, very durable, better enchantment (i just gave daedric a small advantage over ebony in all the areas except enchantment where i gave daedric a big boost in enchantment to reflect its "magicalness"
orcish........... i just did the same as dwemer

this way meant every weapon was useful to the end game and could be used for any character. i used glass weapons from my stealth character since those fights were generally shorter and i used steel or orcish for my fighter characters since those were more drawn out fights. if i wanted to though i could use any of those weapons for any situation since the differences werent humungous. the exception being glass where since it was better in 3 of the categories i literally did have to repair it after every battle........but damn it worked really nice.

Orcish weapons??? Where!?

my bad. your right i changed the armor systems as well and i forgot there arent any orcish weapons. :facepalm: which is a bit silly since orcs supposedly were great weapon smiths.

I did admit that I do think that different materials should have different pros/cons to them, I just dont think that those should be totally what defins them. The point I was mainly trying to get across was that I dont want to level up, to find new equipment that I dont want to use because its too hindering to be useful. I dont want to think "Oh look its glass! I can get a few hits in there, maybe cause bleeding damage, but after 10 hits, I'll never be able to use it again. Also, I dont think "realism" would be the most correct term to use for a fantasy/rpg. Just to clarify, I DO think materials should have defining properties, but not to a point where they clearly out-weigh higher tier equpiment, I dont want to be level 10 using level 3 equipment because its still better than everything ove jjust unlocked. Fair points though.

Orcish weapons are probably in now we've already seen Orcish arrows.

No. Some weapons just SHOULD be obsolete after a certain period of time. This isn't a bad thing, and its been implemented well in many other games, most of which were done far better than oblivion. Take Star Ocean for example. Finding the new next great kickass weapon is a greatly satisfying feeling and it should be present in TES.

I will however agree that Oblivion wasn't done very well, and it could stand to have many improvements made. Hopefully Skyrim will be a bit more polished

Enchanting limit for items like in previous games will be awesome to see again, especially now when enchanting return as skill.
Thats was additional layer of quality what actually make gold ring better then brass ring, what make diversity between magician and warrior items fewer in stat but with great room for enchanting and stronger ones in properties like durability but with less room for enchanting.
Thats also will make clothing of different cost have different quality again, so Archmage robe will be better for mage then lower class rags, unlike of Oblivion where even starting prison outfit was better then Archmage robe.