Hi again folks. I'm Absinthe82.
I'll make a detailed post (again) describing the game mechanics of my ideal TES game. You'll see similarities to TES2, a lot of added realism, roleplaying material, and zero hand holding and appealing to masses, or "dumbing down". I'm 30'ish, an average gamer according to most studies. A game with a built-in-walkthrough making it easy for 10-year-olds to run through, and childish quests, dialogues and plots is very much the opposite of what I want to see from the next TES single player game. We've had plenty of that already. There's a huge demand for more mature games that is not answered.
Roleplaying to me is that you've given free hands to flesh out your character. Having literally millions of character variations to play with, and choose from. Then you start the game, roleplaying that unique character. It's bad roleplaying to start as a tabula rasa each time, then spend a hundred hours to level up your character to somewhat resemble what it should have been from the start.
Like real people, your game character should have strenghts and weaknesses. They define your playstyle. Being able to do anything, any time, is not roleplaying. Character development system, or a perk system, is found in almost every game today. Some evolving during gameplay does not equal a good character creation.
The biggest strength of TES games is being able to play anything. We're losing this strength. Skyrim character creation is terrible, I see absolutely no difference between characters, apart from six and race. The multitude of characters would give us infinite replay value, IF the game mechanics in general make each and every playthrough different. Being able to complete everything with one character is not only ridiculous and unrealistic, it makes it pointless to reroll and start over.
Few steps to have a game of the millennia. First, make the char gen greatly flexible, with a ridiculous number of choices. Second, make the gameplay demanding, but give the player a huge array of choices of how and when to use his skills. Failing should not only be possible, it should be constant. Player should rely on his strengths, truly making decisions on the characters, not his own, skills and attributes. Third, remember what you said Bethesda, sometime when Morrowind was made. It should be like living another life in another world, not playing another game. Everything in the game needs to make common sense. It should be realistic, so you should act according to what you know of real life, not what you know of game design. Example: should I jump into that frosty water, wearing this plate mail? In a realistic game world you know not to do it, but in 99,9% of the games, you know the devs don't give a flying *** about realism, and it will have no consequences.
I have vast experience of TES games, having played all of them but the mobile ones. I know the game mechanics of the past games, and I know if there has been a better system, then replaced with a poor one, or where something was improved, or when a whole new game element was introduced. Or axed. I describe what I truly believe would be the best possible TES game mechanic. Especially the new players might not agree with everything, but luckily I love when player is given choice over the game, so many sort of different players could tweak the experience for their own personal taste. Things like class system and amount of realism should be optional and changable. I aim for a game with a long lifespan, so our yet unborn children will play it when they're old enough.
Contents:
1. Player Character and NPCs
1.1 Attributes
1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
1.2.2. Description of skills
1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints
2. Character Creation
2.1 Questions
2.2 Deriving Attributes
2.3 Choosing Skills
2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages
2.5 Modifying appearance
2.6 Picking a Birthsign
2.7 Editing reputations
3. Gameplay
3.1 Gaining levels
3.1.1 Training
3.2 Fast travel
3.3 Items
3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization
3.4 Spells
3.4.1. Teleportation
3.5 Surroundings
3.6 Non-lethal combat
3.7 Wildlife
3.8 Realism
3.8.1. Toggle Realism options
3.8.2. Time consuming actions
3.9 AI
3.10 Random quests
3.11 Vampirism
3.12 Guilds
1. Player Character and NPCs
1.1 Attributes
Strength (STR) Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with heavy melee weapons like axes and maces, as well as how much you can carry. You will have trouble pulling the strongest bows if you're STR is low. Being stronger than an NPC helps you intimidate him. Forcing doors and locks open is dependant on your STR. Pushing boulders, lifting heavy stuff, that's what strong people are good at.
Intelligence (INT) Determines your maximum Spell Points (SP). Hight INT always makes a better spellcaster in general. Being smarter than an NPC helps you fool and trick them. Logical debating and persuasion takes INT. Some game puzzles should be able to be skipped with high character INT.
Willpower (WIL) Helps to determine your rate of Magicka consumption from spellcasting and your chance to resist Magicka. Your skill in magic school in question also effects the amount of SP used per spell. High WIL really helps you resist magic, like in old days. Strong willed character are also not so easily seduced, manipulated or talked over.
Agility (AGI) Determines the hit bonus in combat, as well as your dodge bonus. Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with light melee weapons like daggers. Agile characters can climb better and ride horses better.
Endurance (END) Determines your Hitpoints (HP) at all times. You have always one hundred plus Endurance in hitpoints. It also determines your resistance to poisons and diseases, and the chance of, and time taken for, recovering from them naturally. Even after treating the poison or disease with a spell or potion, it should take some time to recover. Fragile characters need to have a disadvantage for their physique.
Speed (SPD) Controls your movement speed (slightly), the speed you swing a weapon in combat, and the speed you complete certain tasks, like reload crossbows, craft stuff, brew potions, skin animals etc.
Charisma (CHA) Controls how much people like you when they first see you, and the prices you get at vendors. CHA determines the ease of admiring and seducing NPCs. (Renaming from Personality makes sense, since people have different personalities, but an amount of charisma)
Luck (LUC) affects every action you do in a small way. Also a luckier character might find more precious loot, or survive an incident that could have killed others. Unlucky character has harder time finding or earning goods. Luck could also effect your chances of Critical Strike. Luck is rolled once in a while, while looting, gambling etc, and a critical succes or fail is rewarded with an outcome.
Your Fatique is calculated from STR, END and WIL. The amount of damage you can deal in melee (per time unit) is affected by STR, AGI and SPD.
New dialogue options, and abilities to interact with the game world, are opened to you with certain attributes reaching a treshold. Outwitting an NPC through dialogue is possible only if your intelligence is high enough compared to the NPC. Portcullis will become manually liftable when your strength suffices.
1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
Weapon skills (7)
Long blade
Short blade
Blunt weapon
Axe
Polearm
Marksman
Shield
Magic schools (7)
Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Illusion
Conjuration
Mysticism
Enchant
Physical skills (7)
Hand-to-hand
Dual wielding
Athletics
Acrobatics
Dodge
Stealth
Horse riding
Know-how or mental skills (14)
Mercantile
Speechcraft
Deception
Pickpocket
Security
Medical
Alchemy
Herbalism
Smithing
Heavy armor
Light Armor
Critical Strike
Survival
Music
1.2.2. Description of skills
Weapon skills in general control your efficiency with each weapon. Mastering a weapon skill can also help you use a weapon from other groups as well. With higher Axe skill you get bonuses while you use blunt weapons that are similiar, like clubs. CHigher Long Blade gives you bonus when you use short blades like wakizashis. And vice versa.
Your chance to hit an enemy is greatly affected by the weapon skill, but your AGI and the enemy's Dodge skill also play their part. You get a minor damage bonus with high enough skill, and that with a minor bonus from STR are the only things that improve the basic damage you deal. Damage per time unit is also affected by your skill and SPD since you can hit faster.
Depending on your stats, your chance to hit an enemy is somewhere in between 33 and 99%. Even the clumsiest and least experienced person lands every third hit, while the most agile weapon master can miss once per hundred strikes.
Throwing weapons (as seen in TES3 and Battlespire) could be reserved only for spears and daggers, for example, and the throwing would be covered by the weapon skill in question. A key could be set, that changes the characters grip of the weapon, redying it for throw. Spear lifted on the head, or dagger held from the blade. Then pressing the attack button would launch the wepon.
Note: Polearm used to be called Spear, now including all hafted weapons and staves.
Shield covers the usage of shields, while parrying with any weapon (or bare hands) is dependant on the weapon skill in question. Parrying is always part of the weapons training, you don't go to one trainer to learn how to hit with an axe, and then to other one to learn how to block with it.
Shield is the most effective blocking device, and can be used for bashing too. Shields can even protect you from magic projectiles, while naturally they cover you from arrows and bolts quite well. You don't suffer any damage from succesful shield blocks, usually.
Magic skills in general control your efficiency with each spell.
Hand-to-hand determines your efficiency when you fight unarmed. The damage bonus from skill is much higher than in weapon skills.Your ability to kick in doors is also dependant on the skill. Kicking during melee combat should be easy but taxing for the character. Kicking in Dark Messiah was very overpowered thanks to level design and the unnatural strenght of kicks.
Dual wielding determines your efficiency when wielding two one-handed weapons. Several weapons in human history are ment for dual wielding, and the skill would make it easy for modders to add even more dual wielded weapons. (Tonfas, butterfly knives, scimitars, short sticks)
Athletics controls your fatique loss while running and swimming. Higher skill allows faster and longer spurts. Swimming is a subskill of Athletics, and you can't improve your swimming abilities much by running only.
Acrobatics determines the height and lenght of your leaps, as well as the damage you suffer when falling from great heights. Climbing is a subskill of Acrobatics, and you have hard time improving your climbing abilites by jumping only.
Dodge determines the chance of enemy weapon, arrow or spell missing you. It is checked every time, unless you are blocking, (that is, wielding a shield in hand, or holding the block key) or you are wearing too much heavy armor. Light armor doesn't prevent dodging, but gives you slight penalties. Projectiles are harder to dodge, while some spells are impossible to dodge. Outmanovering AI to prevent it from hitting you is not dodging, and it's not dependant on character skill.
Stealth, known as Sneak in previous two games, determines your chances to stay hidden and silent while stalking, or blending in a crowd of people without rising suspicion. If there are random encounter while fast traveling, this skill helps you evade enemies and their ambushes. Backstabbing is NOT covered by Stealth, but Critical Strike. Stealth is the skill that allows you to move into striking distance, and Critical Strike is a know how skill to tell you where to hit. Fully pacifist thieves should be able to move silently, without meanwhile learning backstabbing.
Horse riding skill determines what sort of horses you can mount, how they handle, their maximum running speed and jump abilites, and higher skill lowers the penalty for using melee and ranged weapons from horseback as well as casting spells. You also mount and unmount faster. In some circumstances you can be thrown off horse, if your skill check fails.
Mercantile as in Morrowind. With item trading between penniless individuals and haggling. The haggling system was far superior to anything in TES series before and after that. Only, haggling always too aggressively should have permanent effect on merchant disposition. Vast knowledge on any skill should affect your ability to appraise item values. A swordsmaster will know swords, while an alchemist knows the value of equipment and ingredients. Not all merchants are honest. And, even the honest merhants shouldn't be buying endless amounts of hacked in, bloody armor pieces if there's no demand for them. Thus, a more realistic economy system. Mount&Blade has a simple but good system which allows you to earn your living as a travelling merchant. Buy where the supply is high and prices low, and sell where the supply is low and prices high.
Deception skill is checked every time you tell a lie to see if the NPC buys it. Seducing NPCs depends on ones disposition, CHA and Deception skill. You should be always presented with options to lie in conversation if you're asked something. A good liar can accomplish a lot through dialogue only, but being caught from a lie repeatedly can be bad for your reputation. Even hiding your real personality is dependant on the Deception skill. Wear a hooded robe and act a bit to fool guards. If you're suspected of a crime, you should have options to lie (Deception), debate and persuade (Speechcraft) or bribe (Mercantile) in addition to fighting or surrendering. Finally, if brought to court, you can plead to your good reputation to judge (or make a threat, mentioning your Dark Brotherhood connections)
In RPGs, I find little use for lying, while in real life lying is done commonly by most people.
Pickpocket! A skill hard to learn, and one that was pretty useless in TES2. But it's a DIFFERENT thing than sneaking around. Many pickpockets talk to their victims as they do it, or bump in them and apologize. Improve the earning possibilities, maybe by stealing keys, jewelry, stuff like that. A viable option to get hold of some quest items. Shoplifting from TES2 should make a comeback, governed by Pickpocket skill. Even during every conversation, you could check up the potential victim, and see the items he wears and the chances of succesfully snatching them. Purses are pretty easy, while it takes a master thief to steal rings and other jewels being worn by someone. But, people skilled like that really exist.
Security covers picking locks and disarming traps. No player skill over character skill. Ability to kick in doors and prey open chests would give strong warriors ability to NOT learn Security without missing on loot. Maybe you can make a lock stuck if you break a pick in there, and it has to be bashed open. Real time lockpicking like in Thief would also make it much more exciting.
Some traps are invisible to the player until a succesful skill check (or detect traps spell), while high enough skill can highlight the traps and tripwires of all low level traps.
Medical skill is knowledge of physiology, anatomy, wounds, illnesses and their treatment. It determines your chance of identifying diseases and poisonings, your healing rate when you rest, and the use of all medical equipment like bandages, salves, potions and bloodstopping powders. Those you can use on yourself or NPCs. Basically, it's the skill of healing and restoring for those who don't have magic abilities. Playing a priest, druid, ranger or monk would become much more interesting.
Alchemy skill is checked when you identify ingredients like animal parts and venoms, powders, metals, jewels, and every non-organic alchemy ingredient. Your chance of succesfully creating a potion as well as the time it takes is calculated by the skill. The potion strenght and duration is slightly affected by the skill, but also by the equipment you use, and INT. No more should you be able to make 100 heal potions in a second, put them behind a hotkey and use one every time your HP goes below half. Almost like using a godmode. Not cool or fun. Potions should take hours to brew, and using too many of them should get you intoxicated, finally killed.
Herbalism skill is checked when you identify plants, mushrooms and their effects. Many herbs and shrooms can be used in wound treatment, curing or as antivenom as they are, some go also as alchemy ingredients. Poisonous ones can either be applied straight to the weapons, food or drink, or brewed into harmful potions. Some plants have benefits on your mana, speed, or other attributes as you digest them or inhale their smoke. The skill also determines how succesful you are in harvesting the plants. There should be several different poisons, with remedies from varying herbs. Not just an universal poisoning. Alchemy is sort of a magical thing used by wizards, and requires the right equipment. Alchemy effects are also more mystic. Herbalism is more natural, and can be used by rangers far from civilization, without any equipment, as well as some assassins to poison their victims. Common plants and mushrooms should only have healing, fortifying, restoring, curing or poisonous effects, while it takes mystical alchemy ingredients (like ectoplasm or vampire dust) for mystical effects, like reflecting spells, going invisible etc. If mixing carrots and flour would make you levitate, then a common carrot cake would be a bad idea to serve during a feast.
Smithing skill should be expanded a bit, and made much more realistic. No banging that bow of yours with a hammer anymore to make it good as new.
Critical Strike is basically the old skills Backstabbing and Critical Strike merged. It determines the chance of your succesful hit in combat being a critical strike, as well as the damage multiplier for succesful critical strikes. You automatically deal a critical strike when hitting an unaware enemy (backstabbing).
Chance in combat about 0.1 - 5%, damage multiplier about 2 - 6, both according to skill. High skill also makes you more effective in combat even if you use a weapon you're not highly skilled in.
Survival could determine your speed and food consumption as you fast travel in wilderness or without using inns. Building a fire and shelter, fishing, and turning prey into edible food or trophies are part of the skill. Hunting and tracking in general could be merged into Survival. Trophies should be valuale enough to make hunting a viable option to earn a living, but finding (tracking down) and killing animals should be much harder. During winter a fire could be required if you rest outside.
There are tremendous possibilities, it would also present a welcome challenge in the gameplay, other than constant fighting. Challenge is, after all, what CRPGers are after.
Music skill is checked when you try to use a musical instrument or sing to please a crowd or NPC, or to pacify a hostile animal or other beast. The most talented bards are paid well from an evening's entertainment. Lute, flute, harp and drums are the most common instruments. Quests to entertain nobles would be perfect change for all the killing, and might earn you precious fame among the nobles. And for an assassin, why not have a cover identity of a famous bard to gain acces to castles for committing assassinations?
The bard is an old class in TES series, but they've never known how to sing, play an instrument, or entertain a crowd. It would be about time.
Dual wielding, Horse riding, Deception, Herbalism, Survival and Music are the only skills that have never before been in the series. All the others have already earned their right to be in the skillset. None of the skills is useless.
1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints
Player characters HP is 100+END. The same goes with NPCs, and they show some physical hints of how much punishment they can endure. The toughness of beasts, daedra, and other possibly hostile creatures are harder for you to determine, but usually anything goes down if you manage to land a couple of massive hits in. A succesful backstab should finish most of the humanoids, while some harder skinned daedra might just get upset.
Now the high level characters would be harder to kill thanks to:
-Good armor
-Reflect, shield and other spells or items
-Higher dodge skill
-Higher agility
-Small increase in HP
Instead of:
-Ridiculous amounts of HP
Magic
You can always create a character who is not connected to the flow of mana, if you feel like putting all your energy into something else than magic.
While fighting an enemy, it might be hard to tell ones magical abilities. If one keeps casting spells, he might have regenerating mana. Usually common sense helps you. If the orc you're fighting is not a shaman, it's very unlikely for him to suddenly throw a spell on you. Daedra and other mystical beasts are dreadful, and you're going to be dead before an ancient lich is out of mana. So the best tactic would be silencing him or using antimagic shields.
2. Character Creation
2.1 Questions
When you create a character, you're first asked the common questions wether to pick a class from a list, or create a custom one. The gender and race are asked, preferrably in the old method of showing the map of Tamriel, with brief description of the province and the race. A new interesting question would determine your relationships with divine ones. "Whom do you worship?" The choices include all the Divines and Daedra Princes. Last two options are: "I would never worship them" and "None, Yet". Choosing to worship any of them increases your reputation with the deity and it's followers, and decreaes it with it's possible rivals. Choosing never decreases reputation with all of them, but might have some benefits you learn later on in the game. None, yet, does not affect the reputations and lets you decide if to start worshipping any of them during the game.
The whole process could be merged in the game, as in TES3, where it was really well made. Sure, just having a form to fill up would be so old school it would be wonderfully nostalgic. Tutorial dungeons, as in TES2, 4 and 5 get boring REALLY fast. I'd rather not have those.
Another question to really spice up the character creation... even if I know Bethesda would never do this...
"Your sixuality?" The choices include hetero-, homo-, bi- and asixual. Hard core roleplayers as myself would find it interesting to play as an asixual martial artist monk, or a bisixual rogue that indulges in earthly delights anytime possible. Seducing and getting seduced as part of the gameplay would bring much great material.
Not long ago I read another SETA activist ranting how there are no agonists in games that are of some minority. Having this would not only add roleplaying potential but it would also be realistic.
Then you can choose if your character is left or right handed. Again, most games bug the minority for no good reason.
"What motivates you into a life of adventurer?" was a question in Daggerfall. There were few options, and they didn't have a big impact on anything. That is easily fixed. New question "What gives you pleasure in life?" will determine how you roleplay to stay in character. The gameplay should somehow encourage you to occasionally do the things that you decide your character loves to do.
Some quick answer examples out of my head:
-Helping others
-Riches
-Knowledge
-Fame
-Eating good food
-Eating a lot
-Drinking fine alcohols
-Getting drunk
-Hunting
-Fishing
-Living outdoors
-Living cosily
-Bathing
-Wearing fancy clothes
-Doing business
-Gambling
-Brawling
-Stealing others' property
-Killing innocent people
-Inflicting pain
the list could be endless. Especially when it's easy to mod in more content.
Choosing only one option should represent an unhealthy obsession in something. How easy would it be to roleplay a drunkard, if drinking was the only thing that he's looking forward. Or a homicidal maniac. A normal person might have 3-6 things that he/she finds important. My ranger and woodsman would be happy living outdoors, hunting and fishing his own food, and occasionally doing some good errands for people. My fat merchant would be motivated by riches and high-life. He'd live in the most expensive inns, drink and eat only the best consumables available, dress fancily and travel here and there always buying and selling new stuff. Just add a sadistic urge on top of that, and you have a whole new person there!
In these forums people use the verb 'roleplaying' or RP as sort imaginary game elements. They just decide that their character should do these things, and then it's all up to themselves if they stick to the plan; the game mechanics don't have anything to do with it. Now you could choose IF you want the game to support your roleplaying, and it would have an impact on your playing. Choosing none should also be an option.
2.2 Deriving Attributes
We have the basic attributes again. As in any decent RPG. You must be able to determine if your character is strong/weak, smart/dumb, lucky/unlucky etc.While the attributes of NPCs endorse the racial perks (orcs and nords being stronger usually, bretons and elves smarter) it's totally up to you what kind of character you're going to play. It's important to consider your starting attributes, since they are not going to be all maxed out in the end.You HAVE to sacrifice the same amount of points in one attribute to have another higher in the beginning. You CANT take 5 points here and there, and put them all in one Attribute.
The starting attributes are 40 +/- 30, which means you can start with all of them in 40, or move 5, 10, 15 ...30 points between any two attributes. The minimum would then be 10, while maximum would be 70. This encourages you to improve attributes that are important to the class and sacrifice the others. Of course, having them all equal at start and rising the right ones during game is also a good way to do it. An extreme strenght would require you to be extreme clumsy, dumb, or unlucky. Attributes will improve a bit over time, but not nearly as much as before.
2.3 Choosing Skills
Since TES2 only skill advancement has leveled you up. Then you needed to create a class, and only certain skills led to leveling. Now in TES5 anything you do levels you up, there are no classes. I'd give the player choice if to have primary, or class skills, and how many of them. Even when using an all-skills system, you should be able to dictate which skills are higher to begin with, creating the characters background. I would use the following system:
Ten Primary skills count towards your leveling and are easiest to raise. They start at 35, and there's +/-10 points to move around, just like with Attributes. It might take years in game time to become the Master in one skill, even a Primary one. After 90 the skill advancing should become radically slower.
Ten Secondary ones are slightly harder to raise, and they start at 20 +/-5. They don't count to leveling, but can still be very important to your class.
The rest fifteen skills are Miscellaneous, they start at 5, and are even harder to raise. Still, with hard work and good tutors you might become very efficient with some of them, if you find it important to you.
You can drag and drop your skills in any order you want. You can also copy skill list from an existing class and make adjustments for your custom class.
2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages
Some advantages would be free for some races, but you could choose not to take them. Nords get resistance to cold for free, but nothing prevents you from making it a critical weakness to cold. As I said, you have control over the character.
Dis/Advantages are divided into levels, depending how dramatically they affect your life. Higher level advantage helps you a lot, but forces you to take more disadvantages to compensate. You can't pick total advantages of more worth than disadvantages, but the other way around you can since that is a way for you to add challenge for yourself.
You can't pick Dis/Advantages that cancel each others out. Like not having spell points AND not being able to regenerate them. Or being immune and having weakness to disease.
2.4.1 List of Advantages and Diadvantages
Advantages:
2x INT in spell points
3x INT in spell points
Regenerate mana while awake
Regenerate health while awake
+10 pts to HP
+20 pts to HP
Expertise in a weapon skill (more effective)
Expertise in another skill (just raises faster, no starting bonus)
Bonus vs. certain enemy type
Immunity vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Higher tolerance vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Absorb spells (maybe 50%)
Reflect spells (again 50% or so)
Adrenaline rush (Daggerfall/Battlespire or Morrowind style)
Disadvantages:
0.5x INT in spell points
0x INT in spell points (NO spell points, inability to cast spells)
Inability to regen mana by resting
Inability to regen health by resting
-10 pts to HP
-20 pts to HP
Inability to use certain weapon type (hard to justify, but gives RP choice)
Gimped skill (raises slower, represents a talent your character does NOT have)
Inability to use certain material
Phobia vs. certain enemy (less damage to them, they might paralyze or kock you down easier)
Critical weakness vs magic , poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Lower tolarance vs. magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Damage from sunlight
Inability to sleep in sunlight
Damage from holy places
Inability to sleep in holy places
Then a perk that can't be considered plainly negative or positive:
Total immunity to magic. You can't be teleported, healed, or cured with spells, and sanctuary, shield, or invisibility spells don't stick on you. Luckily you can't be damaged by magic, either, or paralyzed or harmed in any way.
Many, many other dis/advantages can be easily made up, those are just for starters.
2.5 Modifying appearance
The Face Gen is similiar to one in TES5. There is a list of ready made faces for all races you can pick and modify to your taste if needed. The face files can be saved and shared easily online. Also, there are three sliders for the body appearance: the amount of muscle, the amount of fat, and height. You can play an unexpectionally tall Wood elf, a fat scholar, or a muscular barbarian.
2.6 Picking a Birthsign
The superior Dis/Advantage system makes Birthsigns, as they were in TES3 and 4, absolete. One option is to make all treats gained from Birthsigns once-a-day Powers. i.e. Paralyze for Lover. And so on.
The effect of your Birthsign would be dramatically more powerful in the time of the year Tamriel is under your sign. You can not change your Birthsign during game. That would be crazy.
2.7 Edit reputations
Merchants, Peasants, Scholars, Nobility and Underworld were the social groups in Daggerfall. You could modify your starting reputation among them to represent your past activities with other people. Those groups make a return, and are possible expanded with groups like Soldiers and Priests.
If you make quests for the criminal factions, you would not earn 'fame' among the law abiding people. Often your actions would satisfy one group and displease the other(s).
3. Gameplay
3.1 Gaining levels
You earn leveling points (LP) by improving skills. It's been like that for a long time now. Still, it might be nice to earn them form other things too, like guild promotions, completed Main Quest objectives etc. Only like, 1 LP per skill improvement OR guild advancement. It would be hardly noticable if compared to plain skill use, but still would reward the player.
3.1.1 Training
Training can be made very realistic and working at the same time. We only need to merge the training systems from previous games. First the restrictions. In TES2 you could train once per day. Or every 12 hours. In TES4 you could train only 5 times per level. But, in TES4 trainers only knew one skill, which didnt make much sense.
In TES6 we could train twice a day, 3 hours per lesson. You could train only 5 MAJOR skills per level, but minor skills as much as you want. Leveling up by training only would then be impossible (like in TES4), but still if you want to spend a lot of time and money on a skill, you should be able to do it. (like in TES 2 and 3) The trainers would be able to teach several skills, if its reasonable. Of course a weapon master at the Fighters Guild knows at least basics of every weapon type.
In TES3, you could stand in front of a master trainer and click the training button until your skill was at 100, if the attribute allowed it. That would mean several days of doing NOTHING else but training. We would get rid of that.
The cost of training. How do they know exactly what to charge you? They can tell if your skill is at 45 or 46? And then they charge you more for the same amount of training hours? That would mean (irl) that if a person goes to a driving school, and already has practised a bit, he would pay more than the others for the driving lessons. Because he's skill is higher. Wouldnt it be more realistic to have the trainer charge the same price from everyone, and every time. Haggling should, of course, still be possible. Some trainers would be more expensive than others. Some would be able to teach more skills than others. Eventually, you would notice that training with this particular person is no longer worth it. You need to seek a better tutor. Alternatively, the teacher admits he can't show you anything new anymore. Perks like special moves should be taught, not learnt suddenly on your own.
The "red bar of power gaming" needs to go. You don't need a visual hint to know that the next landed strike with a staff will improve your skill.
Training will give you a good mount of "ticks" for your skill, but not necessarily one full skill point.
Skills should be improved in various ways. Defeating a fully armored knight while fighting unarmored and from the distance, should improve your heavy armor knowledge just by watching and striking the enemy.
If you spend time watching an archery contest, or an alchemist at work, you could earn a tiny amount of skill ticks.
3.2 Fast travel
You can only fast travel along ROADS that are marked on your MAP. You can upgrade the 'worldmap' by buying different maps from cartographers, or by exploring yourself. The actual fast travelling is done by zooming up until you see the map/satellite sort of view, and then you can move along the roads, decide in which taverns to stay on the way, where to stop and where to go. Random encounters are possible with merchants caravans, bandits, or just common people. Also:
-When you reach the end of your explored/bought map, you just continue manually. That is back to 1st person.
-The map is 'colored' as you explore, like in TES3.
-If you need to reach a location in the middle of nowhere, you can only fast travel as far as the roads go.
-The world map is big enough to make week's travels possible, as in TES2.
-It's still possible to travel in 1st person, but the distances make it really time-consuming.
-There are believable amount of locations, farms, temples and taverns along the roads.
-Much less actual dungeons/forts/caves/ruins, but way bigger. As in TES2.
-Lot of cemetaries, but not all of them inhabitet by undead.
-You can buy services from boats and caravans.(Like Silt striders and boats in TES3)
-You can instantly teleport between two Mages Guilds, but that's extremely costy. (In TES2 and 3 teleportation was so cheap and easy it should have made ALL other ways of transportation extinct!)
-Quests have deadlines to make the teleportation more necessary, even if it's costy.
-You can get loans from banks or loansharks.
-Teleporters in guilds might need more time between their spellcasting, to give the illusion of demanding spells.
-Survival skill is used whenever you need to sleep in the wilderness. During winter you need to build fire. Shelter during rain etc.
-The stats of your horse or other mount (reindeer?) affect the speed and range you can fast travel. Heavily armoured warhorse is slower and tires easily. When walking, your own stats matter.
There was a topic for how the game should begin, some years ago, and I was thinking that you might escape from captors in a remote and randomly selected place, finding a crude map showing 2-3 nearest cities, and that would seriously limit your fast travelling in the start. Would also get rid of the repetitive, soon boring, beginnings in the same location over and over again.
3.3 Items
Unique, magic items, and those artifacts that can be found randomly are not hand placed as in Morrowind. Thus knowing beforehand where everything is, on you 2nd or higher playthrough, is impossible. They're also not random. It's a mix of these two systems: There are hand placed item locations spread across the world. Let's say a thousand of them. Among those thousand, a hundred pre-created items are randomly scattered each time you roll a character. This way you will stumble upon neat items, their locations make sense as in Morrowind, but on your next playthrough you don't have divine knowledge your character is not supposed to have. 10% chance to find anything in the spot your last character found something, and only 0,1% chance to find the same item in same place.
Long blades: Shortsword, broadsword, longsword, katana, dai-katana, claymore, sabre, bastard sword, all swords imaginable.
Short blades: Dagger, knife, tanto, wakizashi, throwing dagger, butterfly knife, sai, every short blade imaginable.
Blunt weapons: Mace, morning star, flail, short sticks, tonfa. Every blunt weapon you can imagine up to improvised ones: Broom, severed nord leg, wine bottle, tree branch, a bar stool!
Axe: hatchet, battle axe, war axe.
Polearms: Spear, quarterstaff, halbert, trident, naginata, lance, pitchfork, battle fork.
Ranged weapons: Bow and crossbow. Bows are mostly recurve or long bows, but access to a compund bow could be through ancient dwemer technology or an inventor.
Light and Heavy armors: All the basic TES armor types and materials, with separated gauntlets and pauldrons. Many visual variations for same armors like in TES2.
Medical equipment: Bandages, healing salves, potions, powders, all are more effective in the hands of a experienced healer, and all can be applied on NPCs.
Alchemy equipment as in Morrowind. You'd need several sets to brew many potions simultaneusly.
Lockpicks like in Morrowind, but they don't always break if you fail picking a lock. Probes and tonges to disarm traps.
Smithing equipment: Hammer, thongs, anvil, forge, etc. You cant fix your bow by hammering it on your leg. You should seek a real smith if you want to fix something valuable. Failing could lead to destruction of the item.
Alchemy ingredients like the ones in Daggerfall: jewels, metals, pearls, eyes, teeth, scales, wings, blood samples, lich dust, poisons and venoms etc. Everything non-organic or from fauna.
Herbalism ingredients: All mushrooms and plants. Everything fungi or flora.
Clothing: All imaginable. From arm bands to sandals.
3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization
In all TES games theres a tiny annoying thing. If I want to keep using the best weapon, it has to be even red/ugly or somehow clumsy looking, since Daedric is the only real choice when you look at damage only. I rather use a weapon that looks and feels right, but it makes no sense sometimes when another one does twice the damage. The damage should be brought more together, and have your weapon of choice rely on more things than that only.
Easiest example I can think of:
Silver is not a good metal to use in weapons, it doesnt stay sharp and breaks easily when used against armored enemies. But it cuts werecreatures and ghosts like butter. Therefore, it should be used as a backup weapon, not a primary. Also, isn't silver supposed to be kinda expensive? It should be!
Another thing: lighter weapons should be faster to use, but deal less crushing damage.
And third: Why not have glass weapons as they should be: extremely sharp, but very fragile, and once they break there's no mending them anymore.
Then about the specialization: If you use a single weapon for a looong time, you get used to it! Goes with firearms in real life, and goes with melee weapons too. You should slowly gain specialization points for a weapon you use a lot. Silent Storm had that sort of system and it actually made you feel fond of your oldest weapons, so you didnt ditch them even if you found better ones! That is exactly what I want to see my character do!
In TES2, you get very fond of your ebony dagger*, and other ones are VERY hard to find. Still, it's only in the players head. Daedric is still better, yet uglier. With a good specialization system your ebony dagger would be more effective than a random daedric one, cause the ebony one's been in your hand for months and you've killed hundreds of enemies with it. In Silent Storm I kept using the Suomi SMG cause the guy had it from the start and was most accurate with THAT paticular weapon, thanks to full specialization bonus. I want to see a same sort of system in TES6!
*enough to feel naked and vulnerable the two days it's being repaired at the smith's!
3.4 Spells
All spells that have been in previous games, if they only make sense. I even have an idea for the comeback of Passwall. A very demanding spell your mage can only learn on high levels, which gives you a couple of seconds of moving with collision off. You are blinded when you move through solid ground, object or wall, and you instantly die if the spell wears off while you are inside. You are, merged in another material, which of course is lethal. Levitation too could only be meant for true mages, and learned in high levels to prevent abuse.
I want all effects back that have been in before, like area around caster, and usable magic items like enchanted jewels, wands, bracelets etc. In TES4 we only had cast when strikes items and constant effect ones.
There must be a choice to create or buy spells that gain magnitude according to your skill or level, like in TES2. Most of them sort of leveled with you, so they never became useless like most of the spells in TES4. TES2 spell creating system is superior to anything seen after that, so wouldn't it be just reasonable to go back a few steps?
Removing or hiding spells MUST be possible too. You might, for example want some practising spells, but dont wish to see them clutter up your spell book.
Enemies who lore defines as deadly magic using entities, such as liches, should really be able to kill you with their magic. No more puny fireballs you sidestep easy, but spells like Blind, Slow, Fear and Incinerate which they can cast on you immediately they have a visual or other, mystical knowledge of your presense. Think of Doom 2, the humanoid fire demon who could set you on fire any time it saw you. The most scariest enemy in all the Doom games, including the big bosses!
3.4.1 Teleportation
Mark and Recall should return, with divine intervention. Scrolls should be rare, though, and spells very demanding. Mages guild of course still teleports people, but it should be dependant on your disposition to the guild. Only a high rank member could teleport for free. Non members would pay a big amount of gold (otherwise why would ANYONE use boats or other means of transportation?) and those who are unwelcome would not be served. On certain holidays mages guild services would be for half price, including teleport.
3.5 Surroundings
Visuals in video games keep improving, no question about that. The sounds, especially ambient and nature sounds are ok, but they certainly havent improved as much as visuals during the TES series. There used to be dogs barking, cats meowing, horses neighing and cows ammooing in the towns. Monsters had idle sounds: brainless zombies moaned as tormented, while they crept the dungeons. You could even avoid the most horrid enemies if you listened carefully. Now that was something.
There was another thing in TES2 which should be brought back and improved. The little messages about your surroundings. Especially what you smelled. You enter a graveyard and smell freshly buried dead. In someplaces you smell smoke. Many, many things like that. And NOT as pop ups, but a gentle text above the screen. What you feel could be told too. You could feel cold, warm, comfortable, uncomfortable, hungry, sleepy, thirsty. Thats one thing that separates TES series from medieval fantasy shooters like Heretic, Hexen and Dark Messiah. Its not a game, its a world. You are not a floating weapon hand, you are a living and feeling person!
In TES6, when I enter a tavern, I'd like to smell freshly baked bread, roasting pork, or spilled ale. Or even vomit, depending how classy a place I enter. In Mages Guild I could smell sulfur, ozon and something foul. The smell of leather and oil would float around in Armorers and Fighters guild, while blood and sweat would dominate the air of arenas. It would make the game world so much richer, with almost no effort at all. Wouldnt take a genius to implement that.
More on the visual surroundings. I need to see my own shadow, and my feet and body. Play Thief 3 through once, and you can never be fully satisfied with a game that doesn't have real shadows. If the NPCs would react to your shadow too, that would make sneaking much better and realistic. I'd much rather see dynamic shadows that are not that good, than live in a world without any shadows.
And NO battle music. It ruins every moment of surprise. People play with music turned off just because of that. And if a rat is stuck between a wall, why do we have to be told about it with trumpets? Regional and seasonal music, and personal like it was in TES2. Hollywood kind, epic music is a big turn off in a game. Eric Heberling would make alot better CRPG music than the guys you've seen trying to do it for the last ten years.
3.6 Non-lethal combat
Killing. The only way to settle things in TES games. That has to change. You need to be able to:
-Teach NPCs manners or just plain humiliate them by beating them down
-Work as a hired thug, again just beating people
-Rob people without killing them
-Interrogate NPCs by overpowering them and then questioning
-Bring people to justice (why everyone has to die for stealing bread?)
How is this done? In Gothic 2, if you attack an NPC in a town, when they lose almost all HP they fall down. You have plenty of time to rob them, and their house. Or, finish them off, which is seldom a good choice. When they get up, theyre beaten and comment something accordingly. Several quests are about teaching someone manners by just knocking him off. Bystanders react only cheerfully when they witness a fight. If you go too far and kill, they report you.
I think that works very, very well.
One option would be possibility to open dialoque with fallen foe: choices to interrogate, let live, or kill him. Plus the quest related things to say: -Next time you try stealing from [random merchant] I wont be this gentle with you.
Non-lethal combat could be an automated thing, taking place when certain criteria is met. Or, it could be toggled on and off with one press of a key. If youre about to assassinate someone, you toggle it off. Alternatively, by default all blunt weapons could first knock the enemy out, then kill. So use a blade if you only wish to kill. Even more diversity for weaponry there.
3.7 Wildlife
Elder scrolls to this day: all animals attack you on sight, feel no pain, and will not rest until they or you are dead. They run forever after your horse in TES4, while animals, undead, daedra and humanoids all joined forces just to harass the player in TES2. Again, Gothic series succeeded making wildlife better ages ago. Take that as a guideline and make it so that:
-Animals flee or defend their territory, according to their person. Wolves, bears and deer stay away from you, usually. Hungry pack of wolves or a bear defending it's cub is different.
-Animals/beasts might taunt you off their territory and return to their business after you back off.
-Some predators will stop chasing you if they find an easier meal. Run past a deer carcass and the wolf chasing you loses interest in the two legged meal.
-Hunting something should be harder. No running to catch a deer. Prey have acute hearing and smell, so they WILL notice you before you're close enough to hit with a dagger.
-There is no way any ecosystem can sustain the number of predators seen in previous games. Solstheim, with a bear or wolf under every third tree? Same mistake is found in Gothic series and Risen. You basically fight your way through, no matter where you're going, and you end up carrying hundreds of wolf skins etc.
-Why would a rat keep biting your metal greaves and boots?
-Animals should have a different attack than just a clumsy animation. They jump ON you, and bite and claw. See Dead Space, how the enemies grab the player.
-Hurt prey should leave blood traces, especially on snow. Humans too of course.
3.8 Realism
-You sink in water. Especially when wearing heavy armor or carrying huge amount of stuff.
-You don't swim as fast as you run. Argonians maybe, but not others.
-Children exist.
-Gold has weight.
-Money don't grow on trees.
-There are banks. You can buy houses from banks if you got the gold, without doing some stupid quests for them.
-Smithing, repairing objects, talking with people, alchemy, they all take TIME, instead of happening instantly.
-No one would really build towns an arrowshot away from each others.
-No one would call a village with 10 houses a town, even less, a city.
-There are seasons.
-You can't run through a whole Tamrielic province in a couple of hours. Iliac Bay by boat took a week.
-You don't restore fatigue by running.
-You can't jump 12 meters, especially without a running start.
-Time scale should make sense, unlike it did in Oblivion and Fallout 3.
-You are not a floating weapon hand. Head bobbing, own body, own shadow, all should be present.
-If I manage to immobilize a small goblin by poison or magic, it shouldnt take me 2 hours to kill it. Or several hundreds of strikes in the skull.
-If there are 20 arrows piercing every single one of my vital organs, I shouldn't be running around anymore.
-My character shouldnt be able to hit a coin from 30 meters if he's never seen a bow before.
-Standing still for one hour should not heal me of my near lethal injuries.
-If I can kill a rat with one Flare spell when my Destruction is at 5, how come a same kind of rat takes 50 Flares when my Destruction is at 100?
-Global Positioning System, GPS, is not present in Tamrielic lore.
-When you've given a job or quest, they should usually expect you to finish it too, within a reasonable amount of time. Thus timelimits and ability to FAIL quests.
In northern regions...
-Summers are warm, even though very short. You can still grow crops. There are flowers, bees, honey, and ultimately, mead. It's not just snow all the time.
-During summer nights the sun don't set. The more north you go, the longer the 'midnight sun' period is.
-During mid-winter, the sun don't rise. Same as above.
-When it's dark enough, you can sometimes see the northern lights.
-You can collect most of the mushrooms only during the fall. Same with most berries. Only few mushrooms grow at spring or summer. Some berries are only ripened under the snow, and are harvested in springtime (more interesting alchemy)
-Lakes are fully covered in ice most of the winter, and it takes some manpower to hack a hole in it. Ships are stuck in ocean harbours unless they have ice-breakers or use magic.
-Accidentally falling in icy water is usually lethal.
Also, it makes no sense you can ONLY lockpick doors and chests, without any alternatives but spells.
In TES6 you should have following options if you need to get a lock open, or enter a locked place:
Security: lockpicking and disarming traps
Weapon skills: bashing open chests etc, preferrably with blunt weapons to avoid damage on blades
Hand-to-Hand: kicking in doors
Alchemy: using acid to silently destroy locks
Alteration: casting open (and lock!) spells
Destruction: well... destroying the damn doors!
Pickpocket: getting your hands on the keys NPCs have on them
Speechcraft: lie or debate to get in places, like private homes in the middle of the night (knock first!)
Mysticism or what ever: Passwall, for exmple into that bank vault, and hope you're powerful enough to cast another spell to get out, too!
More realism in Archery:
-Higher skill really allows you to pull stronger bows.
-A weakling can NEVER pull bows that are built for a much more strong person.
-Skill also allows you to aim for longer without tiring yourself.
-Skill, and in lesser extent the quality of the bow determine how well you hit your target.
-The strenght of the bow determines how fast the arrow flies, which determines the energy of impact. The damage is not dependant on your skill, or how long you've been aiming.
-The arrowhead and it's material will determine which materials they penetrate.
More realism in Melee:
-Instead of Damage, each weapon would have Damage Per Second (DPS). By the time you land a huge, skull breaking hit with a heavy battlehammer, you would have been able to stab a dagger between the ribs multiple times. In both cases the victim would die. Now the player wouldn't be cheated to think that bigger is always better. A rule might be that weapons of same material and of same workmanship would do the same DPS, be it a dagger or two handed sword. Weight, reach, size and durability would then be more important factors when choosing what to wield.
Hit locations bring realism:
-If I shoot a reindeer with my crossbow and it hits his behind leg, I should use the next half an hour tracking him by the blood on the snow, and find him immobile about 0.5-1 kilometers away.
-If I hit the heart, he'd only run for 100-200 meters before dying on his feet.
-If I hit the head and the damage is enough to kill him, he drops where he stands. If not, the bolt bounces off the skull and he's wounded, but not lethally.
3.8.1. Toggle Realism options
Since there are several things about game realism that irks the casual gamers, let's make some of them togglable in the options menu. Here's what I've been thinking:
Options menu -> Realism
Toggle on/off :
Hunger effects
Thirst effects
Environment effects like freezing
Fast travel
Left handed character
Bleeding
Crippling
Move slider for:
Hours of sleep per day required
0-8
Damage multiplier on the player character/allies:
0.5 - 2 x
Damage multiplier on the enemies
0.5 - 2 x
Toggle on/off:
Lock the options for this character
Damage multipliers are not only the improved version of difficulty level, but also let you have more or less brutal melee according to your liking. Bleeding and crippling are almost like in Fallout 3. You just need to use Medical skill to splinter your bones or bandages to treat the wounds. Or according spells. I'd like to see more complex Restoration spells than ones just recovering HP. Mending bones, stoppping blood, that kind of thing. Blood stopping (hemostatic) powder could be made by alchemists, too.
Locking the options prevents you from abusing them in a tough spot.
The modders have made realistic eating/drinking/sleeping mods for both TES3 and 4. I think it's time for game developers to do it, instead of leaving it to modders.
And for those who keep saying that realism ruins the games, that games are not supposed to be like real life: Compare the fighting system of Mount & Blade to ANY other first person game, it's the best because it's the most realistic.
3.8.2. Time consuming actions
Each action that takes time IRL should do the same in the game. Now, if I run around in TES4, I bumb into some deer occasionally. Killing them is fast, but what is even faster is skinning and chopping them: it takes no time at all. IRL, even a skilled butcher might use hours to skin and chop the carcass, depending on it's size. This applies to everything: brewing potions must take it's time, it's not an instant thing you can do whenever you wish. Of couse conversations and such need to be real time also, but maybe the most exiting action to do real time would be lockpicking. In Thief 3 you could pick the lock, constantly looking over your shoulder to spot any approaching guard. Now that was an adrenaline rush.
Now, things taking time give some immersion, but it all gets better with time limits on quests and other things! Example: You're sent to help someone out of a cave full of terrible monsters (or some other high priority stuff). You pass a pack of deer on your journey. Now, who would actually stop to hunt, skin and chop the animals if someone's life was at stake? Or, stop outside the cave, pull out your alchemy equipment and spend few hours brewing potions of healing and others to help in the fight.
Examples:
- Armorer/smithing: Sharpening a blade (5 min) up to repairing a plate mail (2 hours)
- Survival: Taking a trophy, such as deer antlers (5 min) up to skinning a huge bear (2 hour)
- Alchemy: Depending on the amount of ingredients and difficulty of the recipe, potion should take 30 min - 12 hours to brew. Having multiple alchemy sets in your home will save you time, since you can brew different potions simultaneously. Talk about a neat wizard's alchemy hall!
These don't have to be minigames, just applying the equipment, or using the animal carcass will give you options of what do do with it, and display the amount of time it approximately takes to do it.
Lockpicking should still be a minigame, and a skilled guy should be able to crack the lock in matter of seconds, or even instantly if skill and luck were much higher than the level of lock.
Time consuming actions bring a minor element of choices and consequences: if you choose to spend some time home, going through your weapons and repairing armor, or just doing alchemy, you really DO spend some time doing it. Also, drinking potions or looking at spellbook in mid combat should be realtime.
3.9 AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Examples of bad AI:
-Enemies like animals and some humanoids always attack on sight.
-When they attack, they never stop chasing you or return to patrol their area, even if they can't catch you.
-They are always willing to fight even if they have no chance of winning.
-When dying, they never surrender or flee.
-Other enemies in the group dont seem to care if one of them sees the player, yells and runs to fight him/her.
-Arrows and fireballs flying past an enemy's head and hitting the wall besides them doesnt alert them.
-Ally NPCs always run in front of you even when youre aiming with a bow.
-Once you go invisible, mages dont use detect life, fighters dont even try to hit the air where you stood, and animals dont smell you.
-NPCs always greet you in the streets. Sometimes the only person/thing they react to is the player.
-When someone thinks he saw something (a sneaking player) they always say something stupid like "I think I saw something" or "well, guess it was nothing"
-Your intelligent enemies like humanoids dont stay in groups or call for backup.
-If you hop on a rock, the enemy runs around helplessly until you've made a pincushion out of it.
How to improve AI:
-Fix above.
3.10 Random quests
Why does Daggerfall have more replay value than later TES games? Because there's always something for you to do. Even if you never leave a city, some work always comes up, and you can be sent to do jobs in other cities or locations. In TES3 and TES4, you end up in a world where you've already solved everyone's every single problem.
You shouldnt be able to start the game and decide "I'll go and do these quests first, since they're easiests" like you can in TES3 and TES4. You can't think "Before buying stuff from him, I do his quests to get my disposition up" if there's no certainty that this particular person has some quests.
If nothing else, change the order of quests you complete for a faction. Or make it like in The Witcher: there is a notice board with jobs, and you can pick which ones to do and in which order.
I want the following to be possible in TES6 (like it is in TES2):
I can ask around if anyone knows any work possibilities. Maybe a random quest is generated to a random merchant. I'm directed to him. He offers me a job, and if I don't like it, I can refuse. (Like asking me to guard his shop for the night because Thieves Guild tries to get his stuff, and you are in the TG yourself). The quest usually has a dead line, since who would actually wait for his delivery from next town for months or years? Or, in TG example, you fail to be present the night the theft was happening. Then, when I either complete or fail the quest, it affects the NPC disposition and slightly the social group disposition. (Merchants around the area start trusting you more after enough jobs well done, while underground gets pissed at you when you're botched up enough of their jobs).
Maybe there's 1-2 random quests generated per day per area. Peasants have troubles or job offers, merhants too, and nobles and scholars. The guild quests would be the ones with best rewards, like a real salary. If you try to help everyone and solve every problem that is pushed on you, you just end up doing running errands for the rest of your life, since people are never out of small things to do.
One thing I really enjoyed in Mass Effect: After completing a huge number of irrelevant side quests, I said to the Admiral who was, again, sending me on some stupid errand, that I was trying to save the world here and he could shove it. Gave me great satisfaction, hearing his awkward mumbling, but unfortunately the quest still appeared in my journal.
3.11 Vampirism
Vampires used to be scary. I avoided contact with them, and the disease was more terrifying than the plague or corprus to me. That was before TES4, where vampires were more a nuicance than a threat. Every fight with one, bang, you get hemophilia. Luckily (sarcasm) you find enough cure potions to make the disease powerless (useless). So, vampires become yet another type of monster without any sense of threat or disgust. Curing the hemophilia right away is pointless, since you need to clear the whole cave of the vampires so you only need to gulp down one potion. Otherwise you need a potion per vampire...
So what would make vampires and vampirism more of a threat?
-Harder to catch the disease
-Harder to cure the disease
-Disease should be stealthy, you dont know about it instantly
-Becoming a vampire has huge disadvantages (lose all guild reputations and ranks, you die and wake up in a cemetary)
Vampirism is a curse, most of the players should feel the urge to avoid it. No matter if you're a thief, psychopath or assassin, still you dont want to be an inhuman beast!
3.12 Guilds
-Huge number of joinable faction. Several temples, and each major force (city, family, Mages Guild) having their own knightly order.
-One person can't join all guilds and participate in them in a meaningful way.
-Infinite number of quest in guilds. Like having a real daily job.
-Promotions only once a month, after proving yourself.
-Skill or attribute requirements for joining and promotions.
-Demotions after enough failing quests or inactive time, thus ability to fail quests, too.
-Only after a good time of serving the guild, you're considered trustworthy, thus starts the "guild quest line"
-Guild quest line not mandatory, you can always turn down any job.
-As a newb, you're often given more experienced partner for dangerous guests.
-As an experienced guild member, you're sent to look after newbs.
-Meaningful Guild services that are opened to you through promotions.
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I'll re-read all of this later and fix some things. Thanks for reading!
edit: added "3.12 Guilds"
» Fri Sep 26, 2014 10:32 pm 
