This thread is for ideas and suggestions for future Elder Scrolls games, and to keep all the discussion in one series of threads.

We also have an official thread specifically for http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1511970-tes-vi-location-and-setting-speculation-15/ suggestions for future games.
Now that Skyrim has been released the number of suggestions and ideas for the next ES game are starting to show up. We have a long way to go before we get another ES game and all topics like this will be closed and either transferred or referred to this one.

Please keep any discussion of Skyrim in the correct forums.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1513983-official-beyond-skyrim-tes-vi-50/

Loot that isn't 'something x of y'. Think more Shockguard Robes and Boots of the Olympian rather than Ring of Destruction/Archery/etc.

Boss drops. Oblivion's bosses dropped nice loot (Mankar, that Telvanni dude in Mehrunes' Razor, etc) but Skyrim's rather poor on unique boss loot. I'd expect the Thalmor ambassador to wear more bling than a standard Justiciar.

Robes robes robes robes.

Better character development and better writing please, with choice and consequence.

My character's story in Skyrim had to have a lot of imagination (and mods) to execute correctly, although Oblivion and Morrowind didn't have that problem.

Weapons and armors should not be upgradable, skill and item quality alone should determine the stats.
They should not be craftable either, because as alot of people already stated, it makes dungeon crawling/exploring optional.

Bring back item durability. Not so they can break, but to a point where they just reaches their base stats. Again, this has been suggested by others.

Vendors should never be able to sell items higher than Steel quality, save for some unique items that some may have in their inventory. In Skyrim late game, Glass and Ebony becomes far too common. Still better than Oblivion, but not enough.

Bring back real item value. Why is Spellbreaker worth 277 septims when an Orc Shield is 500? Was this an oversight?

More types of armors and clothing, please bring back Morrowinds slot system. Greaves, pauldrons, left gauntlet, right guantlet etc. The more customization available, the better.

Make a better system for selecting items during gameplay. Why was Oblivions quick-select wheel removed? I never had to pause my game during a fight, but in Skyrim I do it constantly.

Let us have more weapons visually equipped. Let me have a dagger, sword, shield and bow at the same time. For example, when I take out my bow, let my sword be sheated and my shield on my back. Should be possible with next gen! Just for looks, but then again, looks is important!

Ok there are a quite a few mods that add spears for the PC version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on PC. I have one of them, but I just saw this mod on the Nexus mods websites on the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim mods section.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62609/?

It adds both Javelins and Spears. Todd Howard at D.I.C.E. 2012 showed off a GameJam video for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim what the Bethesda Game Studios employees can do in 1 week, the GameJam video showed them using a spear with a thrusting movement. It must of been either getting the right animations for spears or time that vanilla The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim did not get any spears added, not even in patches for free or DLC's.

I really hope Bethesda Game Studios for The Elder Scrolls VI adds spears back as well as Throwing Knives and Throwing Stars.

Also I really hope the separate armor pieces to be equip-able on the Player Character (PC) comes back. Let me equip a Daedric Left Gauntlet, Dwarven Right Gauntlet, Ebony Left Pauldron, Iron Right Pauldron, Steel Helmet, Silver Cuirass, Leather Greaves, and Orcish Boots.

I have so much fun mixing and matching armor in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind that I just hope Bethesda Game Studios adds this feature back in The Elder Scrolls VI.

A also hope very much for attributes to return back. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim having so much features cut out is just boring, while I still play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to this day because of all those features.

Maybe no The Elder Scrolls VI getting announced in 2015 or even 2016 means Bethesda Game Studios is taking their time to really make The Elder Scrolls VI shine when it gets announced and then released for sale.

Maybe Todd Howard wants The Elder Scrolls VI to return to it's roots and blow everyone's minds again with The Elder Scrolls VI, especially since the PC, PlayStation 4 (PS4), and Xbox One has so much more powerful hardware now and 2 years to 3 years from now compared to what the PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Xbox 360 has.

This is all my dreams and hopes are, which I hope becomes a reality.

My post from the previous thread.

The Skyrim levitation mod spells make it really difficult to take off. If levitation was to return, it should be more realistic like in the Skyrim mods and not super easy like in Morrowind.

The easiest solution to Levitation (and Passwall) is to make it a high cost channel spell (note, I don't want to see the old style.of Spell crafting return, but something which is based entirely on combining effects, not creating entirely new spells). This means you have to keep it equiprd to maintain it, and only high-Magicka characters are going to be able.to sustain it for any length of time. I think Logorouge had a similar model in mind, though I've taken it a step simplier.

As for Mark and Recall... Really the best model is simply to have set Mark points which can be activated, somewhat like Hearthstones or Wayshrines.

I'll talk about gear later...

It would be fairly jarring for levitation to return. Although never a great fan/user of it in Morrowind, it still was jarring when Oblivion removed it out of existence. we have gone two games without it and i don't see it returning in the next one either.

To anyone who knows more about animation. Is it possible for BGS to reuse animations from Skyrim and Fallout 4? If so that could make it easier and cheaper to create an even larger range of animations for future games.

edit regarding levitation : They very subtly removed within the lore, so it could possibly return

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Levitation_Act

Animations are stored inside .kf files used by the Netimmerse/Gamebryo/Creation engine. If they continue to use that engine, it might be possible. But if they move to a different engine all of the animations will have to be created from scratch.

What I'd really like to know is where the hell staves disappear to when you resheathe them.

No crafting? That's terrible.

And how does crafting making dungeon crawling/exploring optional? How are the two even remotely related?

Hammer Space.

Anyway... I suppose I might as well ramble a bit about attire...

The more I think about it, the less I want to see individual gloves, pauldrons or belts to return. Head, body, legs, feet and hands are fine. In fact, I may go so far as to say Skyrims components are just fine. The issue I, and most others, have isn't in gear and stats... But rather in customizable aesthetic. To achieve that, you don't actually need specific equipment or more body parts. You just need varried gear.

Simply have armour composed of parts themselves. Toggleable aesthetics for shoulders and hands, letting you mix and match styles without the need to individual items, minimises the need for extensive equipment lists, enchantment bloat, and weird stat-scaling on gear.

You can craft vastly more powerful weapons and armor than you can get from loot, even artifacts. Other than a few neat gimmicks, crafting >>>>> loot, which is kind of bad in what's essentially a dungeon crawler.

There's no real sense of progression in equipment other than visuals, either, when you can reach the armor cap via smithing a relatively low-tier armor piece. Mages get the most shafting though, there's no sense of equipment progression for them anyway. You don't find better and more ornate robes as you explore, and every staff of their respective school looks the same.

Of course, Beth's kind of trapped themselves with this, since now players will start whining that the demonic armor forged with eldritch sorceries and reagents merged with the blood of a god shouldn't outshine some smith's steel armor. Crafting needs an overhaul to supplement loot, not to completely overshadow it.

^^If I can't run around with just a pauldron and gauntlet on my right right arm, me no happy.

A great relaxing atmosphere, like Morrowind's amazing atmosphere and how the lighting and candles look good and the houses looked like people actually live and sleep in them unlike Skyrim, I will always love the amazing atmosphere Morrowind has, and that's one of the reasons I'm hooked on to it, I want a mix of Baldur's Gate II and Morrowind for the TES: VI

Also a great and detailed magic system, because most of my characters are mages, and magic is honestly the most unique and interesting thing in a game set in medieval-like times, swords, archery and normal fighting style is generic and tacky and very overused, any game that has an amazing magic system is always well appreciated, like Baldur's Gate, Dark Messiah, Rift and Path of Exile

And you can buy spells more powerful than any you will find in loot. Or craft them yourselves in the older titles But I don't see all the Morrowind fans saying spell crafting makes exploring obsolete...

If people only quest/explore because of the "loot" they might get, then the game has much bigger problems than balancing loot vs crafting. Not saying it can't be improved, but you were talking about cutting it completely, which is a terrible idea. Crafting was a great addition to the series, and way overdue.

They would have the raw animation files that could be run in just about any 3D program such as 3ds Max or Maya. The process of exporting into the game engine's local format is further down the pipeline.

Plenty of games use modified versions of previous animations rather than starting from scratch, but any true sequel needs a lot of updating and overhauling so I wouldn't expect saluaging old animations to actually reduce development time. Re-using assets generally is a bit of a newbie mistake when it comes to 2D and 3D art. The most time-consuming part about creating something - be it a 3D object, texture or animation - isn't creating it, it's making it look right. You can build a treasure chest - or a wood texture or a swinging animation - in an hour or less, but polishing it and making it fit everything else aesthetically is what takes another 10 hours. So unless the asset you're taking is so absolutely perfect that it needs no major adjustments, you may as well just start again.

Retroactive modifications to old objects and animations is a huge pain in the ass, and will be completely invalidated by even the smallest change such as modifying the rig/skeleton of the character in question.

You couldn't get spells - not scrolls - in Morrowind from loot, you had to go around and buy the effects you wanted to create/enchant. Additionally, you couldn't enchant certain enchantments that you could get from loot (try enchanting an amulet with the exact stats of the Necromancer's Amulet and see what happens).

In Oblivion, spell tomes were a DLC and a rare drop from mage enemies. As for gear, while you could create OP gear through enchantment stacking, Oblivion already had plenty of powerful gear with effects you couldn't replicate through traditional enchanting (Spellturn Cloak, Mankar's Robe, Mundane Ring, Boots of the Olympian, Necromancer's Amulet, etc).

In Skyrim, spell tomes are levelled loot, which presents the issue that vendors check your skill level while levelled loot checks your character level. Skyrim also presents an issue where you could create items vastly more powerful than anything you could loot - and yes, looting is a major part of the game - and barring items with gimmicky effects like Dawnbreaker, you can create items that vastly outshine anything you gain from treasure chests or quest rewards.

In Morrowind - and, to a lesser extent, Oblivion - looting dungeons and questing was rewarded with a chance to get powerful treasure you couldn't get or far outstripped anything you could enchant. Morrowind additionally encouraged dungeon delving with Ebony and Daedric gear.

I'm not going to turn this into a roleplaying/immersion vs looting discussion.

Oh what I would give for artifacts with unique enchantments that I can't replicate or supersede with over powered crafting and enchanting. But I'd much rather see vendors fixed. I don't mind scaling (To a controlled point, depending on the vendor naturally), but I would like to see each vendor, particularly smiths, have their own stock and specialty and go from there. That's mostly in regards to the smiths though.

Artifacts must feel unique and powerful. In Skyrim, none of them really does. You dont have to make them OP like the above mentioned Mundane Ring (not an artifact, but still), but rather make random magical items much less powerful and still not too common.

I mean, where do you find magical rings more often, at vendors, or in dungeons? The right
answer makes no sense.

And YES, loot and gear progression is very important in games like these, and the way it is handled.

I think they should improve the dialogue options/relationships between the player and the NPC.

I know that this isn't Bethesda's strongest area but they had touched on it in the Dawnguard DLC. The relationship between Serena and the Dragonborn was something I actually cared about and it was because of the vast amount of dialogue the two had and the way Serena actually took the time to get to know the DB and vice versa. It wasn't bioware vast but still something I hadn't experienced in a TES game.

I liked the fact that if you asked certain questions that upset her you didn't have the option later for her to become human. I think Beth really missed an opportunity when you couldn't marry her, she was the only interesting woman NPC my character had met, the marriage part of Skyrim felt like more of a pointless feature as there was no relationship building between characters.

Even on a friend level I feel as if the main characters in the TES games go without close friends or if any of them do become close (Baurus or Martin in Oblivion) they die off.

Vendors should be fixed, but artifacts and unique items is higher on the priority list for me. I want there to be epic armor, weapons, clothing, and accessories that are the most powerful items (or at least unique enough) in the game, and can't be completely recreated or even made obsolete by crafting. I honestly wish smithing was brought down to making basic mundane armors and weapons (i.e. not Daedric. Making Daedric items is more of a conjuration thing) reparing armor (bring back durability!) and using materials to improve existing items. It should be a way to make basic gear, maintain all of your gear, and at it's highest levels improving artifacts and daedric items, but not actually making them.

I think enchanting was closer to what it should be than smithing was, but it just needs to be toned down so that, again, you can't make gear that replicates and even surpasses the most powerful artifacts in the game.

I might get a lot of flak for the comparison, but think about how WoW handles crafting. At earlier levels you can make gear that's powerful enough to get you by. At the end game, though, crafting can make very good gear, but nothing on par with the most current raid's equipment (roughly equivalent to what daedric stuff and other unique artifacts would be in Skyrim). To make up for raid gear being simply better than anything crafters can make, they give the crafters unique improvements they can make for those armors/weapons. In WoW it often involves adding gem slots which wouldn't really apply to TES, but there are also things like leather linings to add to your greaves that give it a slight offensive or defensive bonus. Point being, rather than make the high end equipment themselves, they simply make small (but not insignificant) improvements upon them in order to keep their profession relevant, but also not to make the high-end loot obsolete. I think that general philosophy is something crafting in Skyrim should be doing as well.

Generally speaking... I think crafting should serve a few purposes. Straight up being a part of the gearing curve isn't one of them. At least not until the end. Tailoring your aesthetic, maximising your specialisation and being tied to some attribute-activities should dominate the majority of crafting, with filling in gaps in random loot taking a secondary role.

There are two good crafting systems, in my mind, which I have encountered. WoW's and Dragon Age Inquisitions.

WoW's I think has a good concept-curve. Early on, you can make gear roughly comparable to what drops and what you get from quests. It serves the role of filling in the gaps in your equipment, rather than in totally outfitting your character. Towards the late-Game, it becomes mostly useless for gear. At the end, though, it becomes useful again, with high-grade items which require some significant effort, either in time or luck, most of which you have to work just to get the plans for.

If WoW has a good curve, then Inquisition has a good process. Your gear isn't some pre-set suit, but determined by the style and materials used. There are almost 100 different variants of Vanguard Armour, depending on the materials you use. ESO has a vaguely similar system, where the materials and the style of equipment are independent. You can make Dwemer armour out of Iron if you really want to. I think this is a far better approach to crafting than the standard 'All Elven Armour looks like this, and is made of Moonstone' approach.

So where does that leave us? With a crafting system designed to fill in the gaps during progression, but offer labour intensive end-Game options, while accommodating a variety of material combinations instead of linear progression.

So, from there... Imagine a system with, say, 6 types of armour (and 3 clothing). No true armour types, but rather types based on benchmarks in armouring. Leather-Studded-Scale-Banded-Plate-Riveted (and for clothing Simple-Elegant-Lavish). Each has 3 material components, a Primary (the main body, usually Leather or Metal) a Secondary (Straps, buckles, studs etc) and an Embellishment (gold trim, gems etc). The materials really only affect colour, but with the combination of ESO or Inquisition like materials, you create a huge variety of gear. Combine that with differing aesthetic styles, like in ESO and you generate thousands of options.

The materials are were the curve comes in. Some materials are rare, others more common. During the mid-Game, hunting down the Glass to make a suit of Glass armour is going to be time consuming. More so of the province has none, and you need to buy the materials from a vendor. So it's probably easier to track down some bandit Lord who has what you want and muder him for his shiny gear. End game, however... True Daedric Armour,composed of Daedrkc Ebony and bound in Daedra Skin is exceedingly rare. It may not even exist in-world. Hunting down all the materials to craft such a suit would be a. quest in and of its self, but worth the effort. You're still crafting the top-tier gear, but it's much harder, and much more fulfilling when done.

I'm still tinkering with aesthetic customization.. But truth be told, I'm leaning more towards less equipment slots, and using GTA and racing games as inspiration...

I like that in Skyrim each dungeon gets marked as complete once it's done. I think each dungeon should have a boss, and each boss should have some kind of unique item. So there is always an incentive to dungeon crawl because you can't craft those items.

Also for every chest (maybe only every locked chest) there is a tiny chance of something really good. To encourage searching everything. The word walls in Skyrim are a simlar idea and they are effective.

Some kind of system for making use of stuff you pick up: if you can't carry it you should be able to at least break it down and use it for repairs or something.

And it'd be great to be able to go to an inventory or container item and choose 'send to my follower for selling asap' and also 'send to my follower to keep.' Followers would excuse themselves in towns and take care of business (e.g. selling stuff for you, picking up food, arrows, etc).

I'd like some weird environments with a non-earthly look. Some oblivion plane stuff too: I liked these in TESIV (even though they were very similar). I want some Ayleid ruins, quests. Also some regions that are just idyllic and beautiful. Fields of flowers like in Oblivion, that autumnal look of Riften, etc. A really tall mountain / cliff ala Dive Rock.

In general, close attention to the UI to make sure it's efficient: we play these games for hundreds of hours so every unnecessary click adds up.

Let us make an unarmed character who has a viable progression. ie a boxer. Nothing over the top: just let unarmed scale with level with comparable perks.

Make sure we can place items and have them stay there. Hearthfire style house customisation in DLC is fine but make sure even the first houses have places to put my stuff. Good bookshelves. I want to be able to collect diamonds and make a pile of them.

Economy: make it viable to (for example) hunt animals or brew potions for a living.

Save files grouped by character please.

Bring back custom spells please.

To encourage interesting solutions to problems let us raise dead creatures, paralyse people and creatures, freeze, transmorph, make things weightless, frenzy, detect life, levitate, recall, poison, heal others, charm, terrify, turn.

Stats please as a starting point and then make levelling based on actual use (ie like skyrim w/ stats). I would like to have an intelligent character with low charisma, for example. I think you should get x points and choose how to allocate them.

Let us wear more than two rings but scale back the effect for each additional one. I think this could be cool: what if there were a set of four rings, and if you find all four and wear them it has some unique effect?

Make mage spells etc feel impressive and powerful.

I liked the mage's guild line in oblivion: it seemed much longer than that of Skyrim. Also it had that initial requirement of getting letters of recommendation. Every guild should have some kind of entry requirement. The DB line in Skyrim is a good example: you need to actively seek entry, not just show up (ok not many guilds are weak, but the skyrim mage's guild seemed too easy to join).