Long time TES fan, but just joined the forums today so if I have any ideas that have been thought up already, bite me it's not y fault. First off, I love what they did with Skyrim, total reboot of the series and it is easily the best yet. Theres a few isssues here and there, but all around a great and well-rounded game. I'm sure Bethesda's already in secret works on the next title but in the off chance that they will acutally read my post, i had a few ideas i thought were decent and would like some feedback ffrom either Bethes or you guys.
--First off, I loved the inclusion of NPCs from Hammerfell and their garb. It brought a feeling that they had come from an 'Arabian Nights' kind of a place and this got me thinking. Why not base the next game IN Hammerfell. Just think, we as the Gamers were brought from the dark, desolate lands of Morrowind, to the little bit brighter lands of Cyrodiil, and then BAM! We got smacked in the face with the bright, vivid and almost obscenely detailed Skyrim. Now imagine if Bethes took this attention to detail to the great deserts and possibly Arabian themed cities of Hammerfell. We could be looking at colorful bazaars, quicksand traps, a host of desert based enemies, mirages, a dense jungle oasis here and there, a whole new world of regional weaponry, hell- even riding camels instead of horses! I was just thinking that this would be another great step, i mean Bethes took a huge leap forward in the innovation of the series and taking it to Hammerfell could be an equally lucritive and fantastic venture.
--Next, I was thinking the inclusion of weapon and armor customization. Skyrim brought a new world of armor, some revamped from the original Oblivion sets and devilishly delightful newbies. But this too got me thinking, we were given the oppurtunity to aquire the materials and forge our own armor and weapons. What if we took this already great idea and took it to a whole nother level? Say it takes a few bars of steel and some leather to build a longsword, and it comes in a preset from. But for and extra leather, you can create a custom hilt with interlaying, braided, stitched design or what have you. Then add dyes to color the hilt. But then you could pay an extra bar of steel for the blade's customization, such as a lenthening or broadening it, adding jagged or curved edges for increased damage, possibly even inlaying a custom insignia. Then pay a little more to add a pommel to the end for slots to add enchanted gems to increase the zeal of the blade in whatever way. This customization could then be included to armor as well, with custom helms, chestplates, gauntlets, pauldrons, boots (and for god's sake, add some greives next time Bethes). Adding extra layers or material for increased armor rating, reinforcing rebar in the form or interlacing a stronger material then what the item is made of inside of it, insignias and dyes, enchantment slots and so on. I was thinking how cool it would be to have a completely original set of armor to brag about to my friends instead of just saying I have a level above them.
--Lastly, little tweaks here and there. Like a larger voice cast; hell if it comes to Bethes having an open public casting call for NPC voice actors, there will sure as [censored] be a line around the corner of people who want their voice in the new game. Its not like you need to have a golden voice to read off a sheet of paper. I think a cast of around twenty to thirty would provide enough variation that players wont be heard griping about so and so sounding like so and so. Different race perks, bring back the Arena and better quest and combat balance and all that.
Well thats my thoughts on that. I know that if the next installment is any better the than last, even if its the same, it will be a great game. I just hope that Bethes takes some feedback into account; and if they do choose to utilize my ideas, I don't neccisarily want credit, just do a good job of bringing them to fruition.
Cheers

Oh, God. In Oblivion I thought the voice acting can't get any worse... just wait until the army of pro bono horny pubascent voices come in. I think they improved the cast with Skyrim quite a lot and I hope they stay professional. Bethesda has the resources and there are plenty of professional voice actors, known and unknown that can be hired. Maybe in home made mods you don't need a golden voice to read off a sheet of paper, but in an AAA title like this people expect high standards.

Bigger cities.

And bigger worldspace in general (because otherwise, with bigger cities, the world will feel smaller).

HI ElricWul! Sure hope you're doing fine.

I endorse the Bigger-everything plead. Off Topic, then again maybe not, I just watched the utterly amazing Kara tech demo from Quantic Dreams. Who would've thought that much power lies in an elderly PS3? They showcased real time rendering and it looks staggeringly beautiful, not ot mention the prowess of expressing emotion to an umatched degree. I remember Todd Howard citing Quantic Dream's previous Heavy Rain as as a prime example of excellence and innovayion, so I'm dead sure he'll be following closely their next steps. If Quantic is able to squeeze additional computing juice from an aging console, maybe Bethesda will be able o pull off a massive open world with little or no repetion on next generation hardware. One can only hope.

(pasted here because of evil mods ) So i was playing a bunch of different rpgs on the xbox (Probably not the rpg platform, most of these problems were bolstered by tiny text) and iv seen enough to know that...


1: There are too many abilities to choose from when you level up. Massive ability trees are Never approachable for the novice.

2: Forced lore (the stuff that you have to listen too, rather than the stuff you can read) Comes at you Far too early, It's usualy not very good either. I also have a problem with boring lore and contradictions and great simplifications to earlier titles not explained.

3: Too many Stats that need explanation and too many items with too many stats. There is never a problem with heavy armour, short blades, alchemy or acrobatics because those are self explanatory- There is always a problem with dexterity/whatever that always seems to change for every game and there is also always a problem with items altering too many stats so that you have to work out what an item with +1 +4 -3 +7 is for your character. This is less of a problem late game.



Anyways... Solution time



Firstly- With skills. Why not tell the player how to do things or what something with skill increases? Here's some examples.

Blade
what it weighs and an approximation of damage (Novice) The weapon looking damaged or rusted is your indication of condition
It's condition and material as well as what's the best attack to use (apprentice)
How much armour it will ignore (adept/journeyman)

Enchanting
- you find out what enchantment is in the thing when you see the effects. Or when bought or identified by someone who knows enchantments. you can recharge items (novice)
- You know what kind of soul is in an item and a worded approximation of what's left. You know what effect it has if you've seen it. you can enchant things with lesser soul gems. You can use cast on use enchantments (for those who don't know- in morrowind you could use items as reusable scrolls by enchanting them- a Belt of scamp summoning for instance) (Aprentice)
- use all soul gems (but anything above common has a chance of failing). Have percentage knowledge of how full an item is. Can put multiple enchantments on the same thing although each addition subtracts from the others. Can make daggerfall like problems to increase the positives (Journeyman)
- Know the numerical value of a soul (like morrowind) and know all enchantments but the very rarest (expert)
- No failing , Can learn the enchantments of artifacts (master)

^ boom, we have a very complex Enchanting system that Eases the player in without intimidating them.

Acrobatics
- Can climb over things,step and (messily) dive away from danger (novice) (speed is determined by fatigue and what armour is worn, player learns that these affect acrobatics)
- Can vault over things , grab ledges, Swing from things and climb easy surfaces and may grab things correctly when jumping to them (apprentice)
- Climb harder things, swing from things, limited wallrun, Dives a lot cleaner, can roll, lands on people from high places better (adept)

Hand to hand
-Can punch (novice)
-Can kick, elbow, headbut, knee (etc) with one button and can use this whilst holding weapons. Can grab enemies with another new button(with poor technique, although some fortify strength would do well) Can block (apprentice)
-Can grab well, can grab attacking arms, Can countergrab (and throw)
- Attacks passively go for critical areas and can counter countergrabs (expert)
- Counter-counter counter grabs (master- )

^ again, Player gains knowledge at the same rate as his character

destruction
Can use spells of 20 skill below my skill one handed (which is more difficult and uses more magicka
Holding down a charge spell for more time gives it more of your mana for power. Higher level- Less magicka and more power. (rate slows after a bit)
Using two buttons instead of one for two handed attacks- more power


Anyway- im sure that you can think of examples for every skill. One other thing that's important is to use Dreams (when your character sleeps) as tutorials.

Also- Have attributes auto level up so that the player need not worry about them. Perks should be Fallout style... Because skyrim's perk trees were poorly thought out and defeated the point of "you are who you play" and "freedom" because you needed to put perks into "enchanter" and "armsman" to keep up with the leveling.


Secondly
The lore/writing.. while i would slyly suggest that bethesda should actualy hire writing staff i need to say a few things.

1: The start.. Don't force the player anywhere. Walk him/her out of prison. No Cult/dragon attacks. Give them some suggestions on where to go. No characters spurting religious nonsense or whatever. The starting area should be fairly boring with mostly human characters and a few natives. Don't keep it like this though. The world needs to become more interesting as you venture from this safe place.

The main quest should be started in many mundane ways that Grip the player. Not an emotionless story of slaying dragons. Perhaps the game doesn't even need a "main quest" but instead several long questlines with good story

-Someone outside a tavern calling to you .."hey, you look like a strong lad/lass, why don't you join us for some work" (then in a tavern you discus plundering a ruin, then you move onto bigger jobs and get to know the world from this group, you might get some story revolving around your relationship with these guys and may even get political)

-the person who lets you out of jail might offer to help you turn your life around and enroll with the legion

- a person offers you money if you kill someone

- a mage wants alchemical ingredients, she then offers a position in the guild


2: But it's AFTER this first part that the game needs to get MORE unique. Dwarven ruins made of bronze, Illogical daedric ruins, Unearthly plants (not oversized with glowing things on but rather , Alien daedra, creepy cults, dungeons that terrify, Monsters (werevultures? Giant crabs?) strange lands

anyways- the goal is too put the player in a comfort zone and expand this zone till it is huge. Rather than tone already logical things down to be more acceptable (Mostly stone dwemer ruins in skyrim, because copper isn't "mainstream") Space the weird out.

Nothing should be strange or illogical "just because". I doubt that i am unique in my distaste for Large pauldrons and big swords and high fantasy plants that have features which are impractical. Yet i still find it believable that a race might have large amounts of scientists that build robots, live in metal halls and wear monocles. I Dislike reading about something awesome in books or finding something in past games which is cool and finding that it isn't in existence according to the new game. (werebears, everything on solthstiem, ice vampires, daedra, sophisticated orcish art, decently sized cities, winterhold, slightly elven bretons, crossbows/spears/throwing, fearsome dremora,wakazashi,levitate/jump,Guilds, sutch,jungle cyrodil...)

Hello again jack254. Good to see you're back.

While I love your idea of a qualitative levelling up, I don't think we should do away with quantitative one entirely. There should still be some damage increase as one levels up, just not exceddingly. Anyway, overall, I like where this is going. Kudos.

Thought of this earlier. It would be cool if they implemented a system where you could put a bounty out on NPC's or even preform the black sacrement yourself and put a hit out on people. That would be good for people that have the motives to get rid of people yet aren't the fighting type.

Better combat system
Though i think they've improved alot since oblivion, i think they can do better than a game that came out 2006 ( Dark messiah M&M, they can just use that system).

Hand to hand
My khajiit wants his hand to hand back.

Climbing
possibly with a rope bow, an assasins creed climbing system or some gloves that let you climb spiderman style

Multiplayer
Possibly like borderlands.

Sandstroms
Incase the next game is in Elsweyr i want sandstorms.

Camels
I want camels incase the game is set in Elsweyr.

Intro idea
I've come think of a great intro, however it's only a suggestion for a game set in elsweyr, considering many people dont want to be thrown into the main story in the begining i've made it so that they dont, atleast so they don't know they're the hero, ohh and you will have a skip intro button at the top of the screen


The player starts in the desert running from something, after after a while he passes out of exhaustion, when he wakes up hes tied to the back of a camel, he and several other camels with khajiit on them ( non tied, a khajiit caravan ) are just about to get into a large city, while in the city the camels walks past a man ranting about something related to the main quest, he then gets arrested by the guards, after a while the caravan stops, you're sold to the arena, after entering the arena a man tells you that you shall go and wash yourself and that you will have to fight for your freedom, after you've defeated your opponent you're free to go wherever you please.

( When you go to wash yourself you will see your reflection in the water/the character creation screen )

If you dont want to fight you could just buy your way out from the slavery by giving the slave driver 100 septims, you can earn them by helping citizens or stealing, one last thing, if you dont want this long intro and dont want to skip it there may be a / some other shorter intros to choose from.


Minor things

Minor things to make the game more realistic


Slipping
For instance

• After someone has shot ice magic at the floor and you walk over it you will ( or atleast have a chance of slipping)
  
• When walking around and its raining you will have a chance of slipping ( This effect does not work on certain things, like sand, whilst the chance of slipping while it's raining is doubled when walking down a hill, if running the chance will be larger, if walking the chance will be smaller )

Diving
While standing on cliffs and locking down into the sea you've got the ability to dive.


Footsteps
walking around leaves small footsteps, riding leaves larger footsteps, would be used to trackdown animals, track down certain npcs, find out what creature you will face in a dungeon, footsteps will disappear in sandstorms and rain.

That is not a bad idea only it seems a little long for just an intro I would say after you get brought into the city you can go wherever the whole arena thing is unnecessary.

well there is a skip button

Edit: updated the suggestion

I'm curious what Beth will do with shouts. Obviously, it is a game mechanic that will prolly not fit, lore-wise in the TESVI. So, what becomes of shouts? They are kind of a big deal around here now. Has Beth cornered themselves now going forward in that some new super-skill will have to be invented for each new installment to equate with the fun that are shouts?

Yeah I know, but still some people will not want to skip it, like me, but they do not want to go through the beginning part all over again for the tenth time. Still a really cool idea hope we have something similar to it.
I hope they do not incorporate shouts into the next game I find the shouts useless, besides Become Ethereal, I do not want them to try and top the shouts by adding some god-like powers to the next game.

I have a feeling it's going to be another 5 years at least untill the next Elder Scrolls game.

Which is not bad in my opinion, because they'll have plenty of time to learn how to use the next consoles, test them with Fallout and then TES will be a more mature/polished product than Oblivion was for the 360 back in the day. On the other hand if it comes in 5 years the new consoles hardware will be still young enough to keep up honorably with the PC specifications, so it's more likely they can make a game that uses the newest direct x goodies.

• Better prisons (dungeon variation, darkness, blood, screams...make the prisons dirty and painful and harder to escape. Prisoners that will help you escape distracting the guards, stealing keys, etc... and if you don't help them they would alert the guards...The prison looked like 3 star hotels in Oblivion and I hoped the harsher land of Skyrim would have more dirt, death and violence in its prisons...was hoping for a prison atmosphere to really creep me out with the music, the noises and the screams, especially now in time of war)
  
• Better taverns (while I appreciate the improvements, they are still sub standard. Think the Witcher kind of inns, more people drinking and eating, noise, smoke, gambling...)
  
• Better magic (more spells and effects, spellmaking, open and lock spells)
  
• Better combat (locational damage, let us see the effects of each hit on our enemy like broken limbs, broken swords and shields, the enemy kneeling and trying to protect their face or injured part of the body with their hands... make believe by providing natural reactions, what real people would do when hit with pointy heavy weapons, not what kamikaze robots would react)
  
• Better dungeons (darker dungeons, at least some of them should be so dark that you must use a torch or a spell; more alternative routes, they are too linear as they are now; harder puzzles)
  
• Better cities (open seamless cities with more buildings and more ways of breaking into each building; more motion between the cities and inside for instance make the traders go buy the merchandise in real time when they run out of stock, load it and unload it from handcarts and carriages, travel between cities fully loaded and be exposed to robbery, etc...)

remove the idea of 'levels', it's unrealistic. I think that it might be good to move that gratification from leveling to every skill. And I'd hope that the skills would then also be expanded upon. It's the weakest thing in Skyrim after the quests, characters, choices and consequences.

What's wrong with that?

I want attributes brought back, and bigger perk trees. An interplay between them could be very fruitful. I would also like to see an expanded skill-list with at least 25 skills, preferably more. I don't care if they're superfluous. An RPG is all about choices, and I want more of them.

I'm working on a large suggestion-related project (a continuation of the lumbering behemoth I had going waaaay before Skyrim was even announced), and was curious of people's opinions on the concepts of saving and respawning. I tried talking about it long ago and people went a little nuts about changing the game and loss of immersion and so on, without my having even suggested anything, just bringing up the topic. Yet here I am bringing it up again to see how it goes, because I am a genius apparently. The reason it comes up at all is because making any substantial changes to balance (which my suggestions would do) are going to be relevant to save/respawn functions, as the repercussions for failure and death are a major part of overall game balance.

There are pros and cons to any system. The benefits of the current save-anywhere system are, well, being able to save anywhere. It's highly useful and causes minimal frustration. The main con, I'd say, is how extremely easy to abuse it is. If you save regularly, being taken by surprise from any trap or ambush, losing a close-to-even match, have almost no impact. You can instantly reload and avoid the trap. Once you know the hard enemy is coming you can take the time to use buffing items first and blow them out of the water. If you can fail at a task, you can just reload until you get it on the first try. While I dislike this aspect of it, this method of saving is unlikely to be replaced by something better, as saving anywhere is important for people in deep wilderness who may not have time to go to a save point or something, and is also valuable for a game as unstable as TES tends to be. There's also the con that if balance is changed to make consequences more severe and failure more immediate, you run the risk of someone who doesn't keep multiple saves being "saved into a corner", so to speak. If you're in prison, up for execution, and don't have any earlier saves, you could be pretty well screwed. While some would argue the "their own fault" angle, I would say it's generally unacceptable for it to be so easy for this to happen in a game that can accumulate hundreds of hours.

Another system is the "constant save" style seen in Diablo-type games. In this version you don't have a save or reload button; the game autosaves frequently in case of crash or other problems, but only the most recent is kept. One of the major pros of this system is that you have to live with the consequences of your actions; if you just wasted a bunch of rare materials trying to craft something beyond you, you can't load and get them back. If you don't like how a boss fight went, you can't go in again after raising resistances so you don't use as many health potions. Supplies become more valuable, since if you have an emergency, you have little choice but to just use the rare item instead of reloading. A major con, though, is that it saps a lot of the penalty of death, because a system without reloading requires respawning. This generally comes with some penalties, but the system as a whole has some weird problems converted into a game like TES. Do you just walk back and fight the enemy again? Stroll back through the gates of no return you just went to and back to the dramatic, scripted bossfight like nothing happened? Things get weirder when you think of crime and punishment. Do the guards execute you for murder, then you get back up and things are totally cool now that you've been "punished" with your nondeath?

While the "save points" system exists, I don't think it really has much applicable use in an open-world game. You can wander into the wilderness and stay there for hours, and you're left with either punishing people with less time to play or the risk of dying and losing hours of progress. If you add more save points to counter this, you end up with a system not very different from the save-anywhere variety, only now with a bunch of immersion-breaking save spots awkwardly scattered everywhere. Feel free to try and convince me of any merits the system has that I'm not seeing, though.

One possibility is to keep the current save-anywhere system, have the increased danger and consequences, but include a respawn function as a sort of "emergency button." The penalties would be high, but it would provide a means to escape otherwise doomed conditions without losing your character and game progress. However, this faces the same issues as respawning with the Diablo-style system, and awkwardness with how the game would treat you essentially teleporting out of a normally inescapable situation, along with balance risks of allowing exactly that for reasons not quite within the function's intent.

So for the most part I'm left pondering between keeping our existing save system and wondering how to keep our freedom of saving while also being able to introduce more substantial consequences, which I feel the game needs, and a Diablo-style system that preserves those consequences and is equally good for saving/quitting anytime, but without a respawning system that really doesn't work in this sort of game. It is a chin-scratching problem. So, I'm bringing it up in the hopes that a different brain can suggest options mine isn't seeing. What do you people think of the matter, and do you have any suggestions for it?

what i want for the next tes is longer faction quests better writing and for them to get rid of that damn radient quests [censored] that kinda ruined skyrim for me because pretty much every side quest was pretty much the same thing fetch quests and kill this quests oblivions side quests were so much better than skyrims like the one were you go into the painting. but other than that i love every thing else about skyrim

The Giant trees of Valenwood can move. The Hist are totally immobile.

[img]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r105/Enoil/DarkFishyStick.jpg[/img]

My vote goes to Hammerfell.

Valenwood - land of the Bosmer. It feels like the most neglected province to me, and it would make sense when you consider it's half of the Aldmeri Dominion.
Summerset Isles would be the obvious choice, though. Could be quite interesting!