Yeah, I'd agree with that. I want the next game to have a bigger focus on Magic - and a return to the normally diverse and varied magic systems of previous games. Skyrim's combat magic suited it fine for the narrative, but if we venture into say Aldmeri Dominion territory, I'd want a more expanded spell listing.

Here's what I personally would like to see in TES VI:

1) I would really like some kind of one handed ranged weapon - throwing weapons for example. perhaps less range, but allowing you to equip a shield as well.

2) I know it's been said already, but I would really like to see spell crafting come back.

In oblivion, I remember a character I built to play in extremely high difficulties, and one of the tools that allowed him to suceed doing this was spell crafting. It wasn't because I exploited the system, but because the crafting system allowed me to design types of spells that weren't already there. not only did he use a long duration armor buff, but he also used custom long duration health regeneration to help keep me alive against the hard hitters on high difficulty, and he also used custom medium-long duration damage over time spells, to give a bit of help bringing carving through the massively healthy enemies. So he would cast these spells, and then fight in melee.

Spell crafting is very important to the ability to play your own way, and that is one of the things that makes TES such a strong series.

3) The balance in skyrim is a little bit off. Much of the time i'm stuck between two difficulties, with one where the regular enemies are effectively useless, and the next one where occasional stronger enemy wrecks me in two hits through my full orcish plate at level 15. Mages seem almost incapable of higher difficulties because spells don't do enough damage for the absolutely ridiculous amounts of health that every enemy has.

4) Quality of life timesavers. Someone on here suggested that followers have the ability to excuse themselves in towns and sell items for you. This would be amazing. Something along the lines of marking items as to-be-sold as giving them to your follower. I love TES, but I've never been able to get my brother to play for long because of the amount of time you have to spend in towns not adventuring.

5) another person suggested a horror bent to TES VI in the black marsh. This could be amazing, but it would have to be carefully done - enough horror to flavor the game, but not enough to take it over. too much would hurt the playstyle all the fans love, and to much would also hurt demographics and lose players.

One reason I didn't like that spellcrafting was removed was because in Skyrim other NPCs are allowed to create spells and talk about it like J'zargo and Festus in the Dark Brotherhood. It is just a big tease to those players who care about it. While I never used spellcrafting in Oblivion or Morrowind, I think it should be there for players that do use it. And I saw someone mention that it unbalances the game/gamebreaking and my opinion is this isn't a MMO. We aren't playing against other people online so who cares if spellcrafting "unbalances" the game or is gamebreaking, maybe someone wants their character to be almighty with amazing spells? They should be able to do that and if someone doesn't want to make their player OP then don't make spells that are OP.

I think inn Skyrim Spellmaking was removed due to the new magic system and mixing spells not really fitting. It also allowed power leveling by casting week spells that cost almost nothing but built up your level fast.

I hope it does return but it does need some ballance.

I would like to see it limitted to upper level spells and access being given only to upper level mages in the Mages Guild (or TES 6 equivelent)

Make us work for the power it brings

Yes, like I said there probably is a bit of lore on magic in the games. Like how it's made and how it works, I'm sure. But I don't really want to skim through tons of text from in-game books or wiki-pages, that's all I meant. It doesn't need to be a plot, just something you could talk to other NPCs about and it doesn't need to be anything complex. Magic being less common was just an interesting thought, since it seems to be no requirements at all for most in the games to use magic. I don't expect that to be a part of the plot though. Honestly, magic will probably be more common and that would make sense in a way. Another reason I thought of it was mainly beacuse of the Thalmors controll. They are elves and talented with magic, most of them, so if they were to be overthrown (in the game or between games as was with the Great War) it would make somewhat sense to if magic was more feared in the next game. But they are not the only magically capable race , so I wouldn't know what effect they will hold in the future.

As has been said, magic was a bit neglected in Skyrim, though I prefered it other spell-crafting. Perhaps they did take it to far but then again it seemed to suit the lore of Skyrim. Most nords don't seem to like magic a lot and the Arcane Univerisity would certainly attract more students than the Collage in the cold northernmost regions of Skyrim. I must say that mages should in some ways stand out, as should a warrior with ebony armor.

I want back classes and birthsigns as usual, unchanging -and, of course, the chance to make a new class using Major and Minor skills.

IMHO Skyrim is part of the saga,by the part of the Tamriel history, but NOT technically, because has changed the previous system that all of us knew.

We've been over both extensively... But in summary, classes unrealistically and arbitrarily limited progression and identity, and Birthsigns were just a pale stand-in for Daggerfalls superior Advantage/Disadvantage system, which is now once again attainable.


And in all cases, their amateur attempts backfire, or it is a long, ongoing process. Those references to spell creation in Skyrim are appropriate references to how intensive and dangerous Spell-Crafting SHOULD be. Either go slow and be exceedingly careful, or have it bow up in your face.

I want classes back but I don't want them as confining and restrictive as Oblivion and Morrowind. What I mean by this is if I pick Knight for my class then all the skills for that class get a boost and they will level slightly faster than your other skills. BUT you can still raise your other none class skills to level up your character like how Skyrim is. I think this is the best of both Skyrim's level system and the class system of Oblivion and Morrowind and so on.

I had talked about it before, but I could see classes coming back if they were just a minor adjustment to starting stats and equipment (similar to Dark Souls) - That is to say, it's a big determining factor to how you play early in the game, but has no longterm effects as you level up (even a Nordic Knight, for example, could become a very skilled mage.)

The advantage/disadvantage system from Daggerfall does sound interesting, but generally seems to go against the sort of paradigm that TES is going for, in that practically every class/playstyle should be open to the player at any given time.

I do this in Skyrim. Using Elys' Uncapper mod I configure how fast each skill levels and how much each skill will contribute toward leveling my character up. All skills level my character, but at the same time it also has some of the feel of the older class system. I like this approach very much.

Seeing you talk about advantages/disadvantages reminded me that I wanted to talk about those things before, but I have been so busy with other things I completely dropped the ball. So, I'll gladly take this as an opportunity to pick up the thread again!

If I'm thinking of them correctly, advantages/disadvantages are somewhat like perks that are selected at character creation, have overarching effects, and can be beneficial, detrimental, or some mix of both. In many cases, they help to enhance customization and/or roleplaying as they can define a character in ways that extend beyond attributes or skills. So, if I have properly defined them... why aren't they in these games? Ha ha ha...

What I wanted to mention was how I hoped they might be implemented. I can't remember how it worked in Fallout: NV, but I think you could select 2 advantageous perks, and then select from handful of mixed perks (which had bonuses and then downsides). From a pure character creation standpoint, I'd really like to see no limitations on how many of these you could select, granted that they weren't contradictory. Now, for many that might seem game breaking, and it might be depending on what they are, but if they are done right, I think we should have a lot of freedom to acquire however many we want. I view a system like this as a way of adding personal touches to our characters that can be definitive of our past, our experiences, or our gifts. Putting a limit on that makes it friendlier game-wise, but it seems restrictive in how we build our character. I attribute this to the bad ass factor. Balance is important yes, but I typically roleplay a larger than life character. He is wiser than others, more moral than others, more skilled than others, etc. A super-mer if you will. I would imagine that my character would have a disproportionate amount of good advantages, by nature of being who he is. Now, I don't know what those are, but depending upon the options available I would like to be able to select all that I believe would reasonably apply to my character (again, assuming they aren't contradictory bonuses or traits).

I know it isn't going to be done like that, but I don't see why it can't or shouldn't be. If the advantages aren't egregious then they should be able to play nicely together. I mean, in a system like this, I don't think you are typically limited on the amount of bad traits you can acquire, so I feel as though it shouldn't be prohibited to acquire as many good traits as we want. Ultimately, this would be a test of self control, which isn't a problem I have. If a bonus doesn't fit my character, I wouldn't select it. I am not interested in making a jack of all trades superhero, but I do think that if there are multiple bonuses that apply to my character, then I should be able to select them. I'm starting to just repeat myself, so I'll end it at that, but I'd be interested in feedback!

in terms of character creation options that effect the character

race should have the largest impact in terms of skills and npc reactions

birthsign should have a smaller impact on skills/special abilities but none on npc reactions

gender should have a small impact on skills and an impact on npc reactions

class if it returns in any form should be a very minor element of character creation, perhaps spending a couple of points to level up certain skills. But compared to race selection, it should not limit how you want to play.

I think that advantages/disadvantages is kind of neat, but I don't know if it should be in character creation. Maybe you could chose between a few, three or so, but no more. To get others I think you should earn them in the game, like through quests. For instance something similar to the Black Books in Dragonborn DLC. Perhaps not exactly, seems they seem to be only benefetial (I havn't gotten them all yet, so I'm not sure). But I remember New Vegas and kind of enjoyed some of the options, I must agree.

On the topic of character creation of oblivion etc I am a bit torn. I like the whole strength, intelligence etc chosing, but to me it would narrow the game for me if done the same as before. In Oblivion I might want to be an ligharmored archer or a mage, but I would feel compelled to level up HeavyArmor, Block or Armorer because I feel compelled to get som endurande. And if my athletics increased by misstake I would only use Speed-skills to gt the 5-plus bonus, to make my character effective while leveling up. I don't think that we should think like that while playing, IMO. So I'm not sure on that unless it's used entirely differently.

Another thing. Please, not so many mountains. Two or three, fine. But not an entire landscape, PLEASE! It drove me mad to have walk a ten-minute, realtime detour just to find a way up a small mountain. Don't get me wrong, they are amazing and epic-looking at times, and it was a must for the land of Skyrim, but no more, please. That may just be me i guess.

Eh, I disagree on race being that important. In regards to NPC interactions and reactions, yeah, I'm all down for that. It having a huge impact where our skills are concerned....not so much. I feel that if we get to select what skills we get to major/minor should trump racial (cultural) selection.

I think you're referring to traits. You got to select a couple of them, but most of them had some draw backs to them. I think some of the regular perks may have had a draw back to it, but I can't recall any off the top of my head.

Same. You can also control how much leveling up in a skill contributes to leveling your character, and I think it makes the Major/Minor skill idea work rather well.

Very much agreed. Specifically race based combat when it comes to animations and fighting moves/styles. For example, if you give a Dunmer two daggers and the same two daggers to a Khajit, there's absolutely no difference in combat aside for some skill advantages ( Khajit having a starting bonus in sneak/etc ). The animations are the same, the combat is exactly the same.

If you put both in a full daedric armor with a helmet you would have no way to tell the difference btw the two races, unless your point of view is from behind where Khajit's tail would be visible.

What I'm trying to say is that each race should have at least one unique move to them when it comes to combat and animations. Argonians and Khajit have sharp teeth and claws you say? Well then, make them be able to grab their opponent in unarmed and bite them, or even use bite to the throat as an execution animation. Both also rely on speed and agility more than on strenght ( unless we are talking about specifically bred Argonians or Nagas, or whatever those bigger Khajit's species are called ) so maybe have them be able to move faster a bit in combat? How about a unique crouching stance, etc?

Orcs and Nords for example would rely on strength, which means it wouldn't be so easy to stagger them and they could potentially " catch " your attack or even endure your punch and send you flying with theirs. Have Orcs rip their opponents limb from limb when execution animations happens.

Argonians should also have a bonus damage to their unarmed same as Khajit, since they technically have sharp " claws " as well. I'm gonna post a lengthy post later about all of the upgrades I wanna see but I'll leave this for now.

In terms of race... I don't think it should affect skills at all. At least, not their starting values. A Dunmeri farmer who has never dabbled in magic isn't going to have any innate advantage in Destruction. He's not suddenly going to be superior to a Bosmeri apprentice mage. However, his racial aptitude SHOULD make him pick up on Destruction magic faster, increasing the rate of progression.

Any who, 'Traits'... This is the name I used earlier for the Advantage/Disadvantage notion, and for the sale of clarity I'm going to run with it. The earliest I was exposed to the idea was Daggerfall, though GURPS used it as early as 1990 and, generally, I think embodies the optima system.

At creation, you ate given points to develop your character. These can be spent on skills, stats, and advantages, though in TES the first two ate obviously handled with other mechanics. In GURPS, you start with 100 points, and Advantages have different costs depending on impact and power. Rapid Healing is 20 points, whereas quick reflexes is only 5 (per level, up to 3 levels, but that's beside the point).

then you have Disadvantages. These are impairments of some sort, and instead of costing points, they GIVE points. Poor vision is worth -20, while something like Terminal Illness is worth a whopping -90 (for 2 years of life, up to -180 for 3 months). The basic idea is that you can buy bonuses, and impairments, to create increasingly specific characters.

Obviously, these points are out of synch with TES, but a similar system could be implemented, using the same basic mechanic as Perks. Say, 1-3 points per Trait. Things like Skill Aptitudes would be worth 1 each, while something like Magical Battery (increased Magicka and Magicka regeneration would be worth 2). As a fade off, you could buy problems to increase the points you can spend, taking skill impediments or Anemia.

If you start off with 2 points, it offers some advantage and customization, but limits the ability to just buy power-ups, forcing you to consider disadvantages. If you really want to go balls to the wall bruiser, consider Aetherially Stunted, preventing you from using magic altogether, but giving you extra points (I'd say 3) to be better at weapons skills or more durable.

Generally, I personally prefer this model to New Vegas' model,because it allows you to have more control over you tailoring and character design, instead of just taking straight pre-set identities.

That isn't much better though. A Dunmer who was never technically immersed in Dunmeri culture (Read: Telvanni) or magic in general isn't going to magically pick up on its concepts faster than anyone else. If we have a choice to determine how quickly certain skills level when compared to others, that should just be left to the player actually deciding what those skills should be, and not race. That's just bogus. At best, things that are innate (Altmeri sensitivity to magic, Nordic resistance to magic, Orc's durability) should one of the few things that should be unique across the board for them, with skill and attribute allocation being something ultimately modifiable regardless of race.

If this were the real world, then i would agree, but there have always been some skills which are deeply ingrained in the magical nature of the races themselves. This doesn't mean that they are inherently BETTER in these fields, but that they all have a natural aptitude for certain things. A Dunmer's gift for Destruction is an inherent to their race as their resistance to fire and heat, even if they never have cause to utilise either.

Eh. Strikes me as arbitrary to give each race a separate modifier for when you can just as well do so for the skills themselves. Sorta runs the risk of actively shoehorning each race into separate niches and making it a drawback to actually play outside those parameters. I can live with attributes (Even though I think you should be able to control what points you distribute where as opposed to just "tagging" them) and a paltry +5 bonus in some skills if I have to, but different leveling speeds that I don't have any say over...not so much. If we're being technical, magical talent doesn't exactly discriminate between races, even though you'd find more of them if you live in a place that's pretty comfortable with magic.

If someone wants the races to be more "unique" as it were, consolidating a handful of perks that could be applicable to only certain races would be ideal. At least then its at the players discretion, and they can decide whether or not it reflects how they see their character and his/her backstory or not.

So basically what you're saying, is that each race could have like 10 perks ( 5 max to choose ) in character creation in order to customize our character, right? I still think that combat itself and animations should be changed to fit the different races, not necessarily skills as you two argued.

But why? With the exception of Argonians and Khajiit, everyone else is physiologically the same. A Dunmer and a Breton, trained by the same person, aren't going to exhibit radically different styles. It's the style of training and specialisation in combat which should determine the animations used, not Race. A Nord who's spent his entire life in southren Cyrodiil isn't going to have any notion about Nordic fighting styles.

Not necessarily CC, but probably just leveling in general. You could argue with giving each race a cultural "class" by extension, but I prefer having a classless option there. As for animations, probably not going to happen. I honestly don't see (Aside from the Khajiit using their claws as you said) any reason why Beth would go through with giving everyone different animations, nor do I see much of a justification for it. I can't fathom how visceral you can make the whole thing feel without going into Dragon Age esque stuff, and that's way too over the top for this series as it stands.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Lach.

But it's just as you said, some things are just genetic/inherited. A Nord not born in Skyrim may not know how to fight in a nordic way, but he's definitely going to inherit some of prodigious Nordic strenght. It's just genes.

While I agree that skills should have no limit, some of the racial attributes should still exist. Even if it makes some of the races Op, elder scrolls aint a mmo game anyway, so balance shouldn't be that important.

Eh well that's what I meant. Argonians, Khajit, Nords , Orcs etc, races known for their physical attributes. Bretons and others would have some kind of distinctive magic related animations or even combat ones.

I think it would be best if Bethesda gave us like a 100 perks in total, 10 for each race and you'd be able to mix any combination on any race. That way there is no restriction, and you could easily build any class whatsoever from any class. You could go for usual archetypes like physically powerful orcs, or try something new and fresh, like weaker orc, but more faster and agile, etc.

Eh. I don't miss the classes at all. Witchhunters, for example, had some absolutely wonky Major/Minor skills.

As for traits/Advantages-Disadvantages...absolutely on board for something like that.