I've never felt creeped out in Morrowind except for once. It was by a snack bar and some ticket booths in a big train station in a dwemer ruin added by a mod, I forget which one. I felt that way because it was such a big public place that should be full of people going places but it was completely empty, still, and silent. I get the same feeling in Fallout 3 sometimes. It didn't lead up to anything terrifying though, so I don't know if it is the same kind of thing you were talking about. Dwemer ruins don't typically creep me out, I guess because most aren't all that big, but that one place did.

I've never felt creeped out by the sixth house dungeons, don't know why.

I'm not sure what we're talking about at the moment in this thread, but I'm most likely changing the subject. So I apologize for the inconvenience. Although it's been talked to death many times, I myself enjoy discussing and speculating the release date for TES VI. From what I've read around the internet, most people seem to strongly agree on 2018/2019. As for me, I think the same. But if I had to choose I would have to go with 2018. Now this is not wishful thinking at all, I have a theory behind it. With the previous generation of hardware, Bethesda was able to spend a lot of time learning and tinkering with all of its specs, thus releasing three huge games in a matter of five years and some change.


TES IV: Oblivion - March 20, 2006

Fallout 3 - October 28, 2008

TES V: Skyrim - November 11, 2011


So again, that's three games released in 5 years, 7 months and 22 days.


So you would think by now, with the current generation of consoles being out for a little over two years, Bethesda should have a pretty good grip on how to use the hardware in the future.


Hopefully most of you get the point I'm trying to make because it makes sense to me. You also have to factor in the opening of the new studio in Montreal that'll contribute their great work (hopefully similar) with BGS Maryland. That should definitely help cut down some time in the development cycle.


What're your guys' thoughts and predictions for the release date of the (already extremely anticipated) next TES?

I hope the the long development time between Skyrim and FO4 and the opening of the new studio is because Bethesda is expanding the scale of the company. Hopefully they're using all the money they've earned from Skyrim, FO: Shelter, and FO4 to hire new talent and upgrade their studio as well as creating a new one. I think in order to expand the scale and quality of their games they need more man power as well as creative figures.

Not a fan. I don't like it when the game mucks around with my character for reasons outside of diseases and debilitating affects. This just runs into too much maintenance and upkeep to keep my character in top form. It detracts from actually playing the game when I have to worry about my stats degrading for whatever arbitrary reason.

This is one of those things that sounds cool because "yeah realism!", but makes for a absolutely dreadful experience. This wasn't a big problem in earlier games. The actions we could preform were very limited, and Fatigue usually last you a long ways before running out of puff. Combat wasn't particularly engaging, so you had to do something to keep from preforming perfectly at all times.

The newer games though, especially Skyrim? Running out of Stamina is, no matter what, going to happen. We have power attacks, sprinting, blocking, potentially dodging and parrying...all incredibly useful things you might want to be able to do, but with only a limited Stamina pool to dip into. Having to worry about your attack power just isn't needed, because without enough Stamina to begin with, your character is effectively crippled as it is already. Your guards will break, parry attempts will fail, you can't dodge, you won't be able to sprint away from danger, you can't use a power attack to knock your opponent away from you. I can't tell you the number of times running out of stamina was the death of me in Skyrim. This is one of those things where you really don't need another penalty for running out, because running out is already a monstrously bad thing to have happen to you.

Not entirely sure Short-Blade is needed. It would be okay to have back in, but...a single Blade skill could easily cover daggers on its own within a Tree, and Short-Blade doesn't have enough content to match any other tree on its own.

Eh. Frankly, I'd ditch Luck as an Attribute in TES. Haven't been able to think of a good way in order to make it work, and since the TES model of Attributes is not static...well, I don't see how raising it would end well within a leveling system. Also, Willpower needs to be retained. Its a key component of both the universe and actual spellcraft, so Wisdom doesn't cut it. I'd add in a Awareness Attribute, personally. TES doesn't have any form of observation based abilities, and I think something like that would actually function better here then it would in Fallout.

Oh, and Strength checks on arms and armor? No thanks, those never been implemented well in anything. My little Bosmer should still be able to preform with heavy equipment, even if it bogs them down more then stronger characters.

I'd be okay with ditching luck but I just feel it's a fun role-playing attribute. Also Wisdom and Willpower are essential the same thing just a different word used. I would also fold Awareness into Dexterity or Wisdom/Willpower which is why Wisdom makes more sense as the skill name. Basically how D&D handles it. As for strength checks I think it makes sense. A very thin and lanky Bosmer who's spec'd for magic or agility wouldn't have the strength to wear a super heavy armor such as daedric or dragonbone. They shouldn't be completely just told no from wearing but more so just get a performance hindrance from it such as more fatigue loss and slower movement.

Not really. Willpower is...well, exerting your will. Pushing yourself to the point that would break lesser men, overcoming the weak minded, turning peoples spells against them. Wisdom meshes closer to Intelligence, albeit just a different form of it. Doesn't quite work in the context of TES. Again, Willpower is literally the backbone of what Spellcraft in TES is built on, whereas Wisdom is more of an abstract closer to what Intelligence does. Calling it something else just doesn't work.

Awareness meanwhile...is really its own thing. It doesn't fold into something like Agility, as that's a mere physical component of your reflexes and movement. It frankly doesn't mesh with any Attribute TES presents us, which is why I think something akin to Fallout's perception should be included to some degree.

Which is, again, stupid when you're told you can't put on something because you lack the X requirement. Again, yes, a stronger character would have a much easier time doing something that actually requires immense physical strength. That does not mean you should be disproportionately punished for attempting it in the first place. TES is not D&D, and should not play anything like it. It being a pretty lackluster TRPG in the first place doesn't help.

Too say it's not and shouldn't be anything like it is very subjective and false to a degree as D&D is/was a HUGE inspiration to to TES. It also comes down too game design wise you need a each skill to do enough while not doing too much and keep a medium amount of skills to give the player enough variety without enough to overwhelm them which is why the 6 attribute D&D model or the WoW 5 attribute model work well. Also while I'll agree Wisdom can seem very similar to Intelligence they're very different. In very basic terms it would basically be book smarts and street smarts. Wisdom is about taking what you know from Intelligence and how to apply it in other ways as well as. The D&D wiki probably explains it the best "Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to anolyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings."

Also again the whole strength requirement just comes down to preference. I don't feel like a mage with no physical prowess should be able to put on a suit of heavy armor without taking penalties. Examples being like I said not having the basic strength requirements for armor increases stamina consumption as well as a speed penalty. Also a Very low strength mage or rogue character shouldn't be able to pick up a super heavy weapon like a war-hammer and be able to use it to any proficiency or even at all.

Even with the new Studio opening, I don't think anything earlier tthan 2017 is likely. 2016 is going to be focused on Fallout 4 DLC. Without knowing what the new Studio is going to be working on its impossible to really judge it's impact on overall development...




I actually think you may be on the same page on this, but something's getting lost in translation. Dargor seems opposed to outright restrictions, but open to penalties. No 'You need to have X strength to use this item', but more 'You move Y% slower unless your Strength is X'. You seem to be in the same camp, but are arguing from the other side...


For my part, I like the idea, but it's implemention always worries me. If handled like in New Vegas, it would be all most unnoticeable. If handled in a more D&D way, you quickly bump into the flat-out Restriction problem. There's also a diverse enough range of items that implementing some kind of low-Attribute penalty could become problematic... Would Intelegence impair Scrolls? Would Endurance impair Food and Drink? There are definately a lot of fun things you can do with it, but maintaining a sense of balance, and not going overboard, are always concerns.


As far as Luck goes... I really like it as a character concept, but I've never been able to come up with a decent way to handle it. It's not something you should be able to train or increase through conventional means, but excluding it entirely just doesn't feel right. I don't think it should be an Attribute, but I would like to find a way if including it somehow...


Attributes as a whole have always been a perplexing issue. A problem that afflicts many RPGs that contain both Skills and Attributes is the need to maintain the significance of both, without overshadowing one or the other. In TES, skills have long since surpassed Attributes in terms of significance, to the point where the latter became functionally irrelevant. Fallout went the opposite direction (which is good, because it means both games have taken different approaches).


There is no easy way to handle the balance... D&D for the longest time was very Skill-heavy for literally anything but combat (your +4 Int bonus doesnt do much when you have a Use Magic Device skill of 16). It's recently balanced this by removing Skill points entirely, but I actually think the older model has some merit...


Basically, Attributes should primarily govern everything that falls outside of the Skills influence. Things like your Stats, carry weight, whether or not you can move that body or work that rusty lever, how much you stand out in a crowd etc. You could then use Perks to 'unlock' Attribute interactions with Skills, but at base the two systems would govern seperate variables. This type of Dynamic could also open up a more range-option in which high Attributes aren't necessarily good, and low aren't necessarily bad, giving players more to play with without outright hampering gameplay.


In terms of what Attributes should be used... Well, that's another complex issue. I am personally a big fan of the Paradigm dynamic, because it allows you to work around more clearly defined concepts and develop more distinct mechanics to play into those concepts... But it is somewhat limiting with consideration to the outer limits of design (though, maybe we should focus on a good foundation to build from, and not think so much about what end result exists in the future...) but it also demands a degree of symmetry in its design. Which means equal Skills in each Paradigm, as well as equal Attributes. So, any List would need to be a multiple of 3... Which can get a little wonky...


Either you combine concepts awkwardly; like merging Perception into either Intelegence or Willpower... Or dividing things awkwardly; Like splitting Endurance into Vitality and Resilience.


I think the problem can be solved with some thought, but it requires a very clear picture of the concepts you want to work with, and some forethought regarding the mechanics you plan to work around.

Basically how I see it. Given how a possible Blade/Block/Blunt skills would work, the Sweep perk from Skyrim wouldn't be applicable, since it would need to exist within all of those skills. Reconciling it into a proper Perk that effects all two-handed weapons, regardless of what your Skill in any of them is, would be a good way to go. Naturally you'd need a fair bit of Strength to knock around multiple opponents.

Fallout 4 does do something interesting here though. In the case of Luck, one perk increases in effectiveness in proportion to how low Intelligence is. That was pretty cool.

Willpower Endurance Personality

Intelligence Strength Agility

Do we need a Speed attribute if an Athletics skill can be used to determine character movement? Seems redundant.

I'd say those six just about cover everything pretty well. That said, it still does look oddly bare, hence why I was thinking of an Awareness attribute to try and even things out.

But yeah, Speed is highly redundant. It doesn't do anything Agility or an Athletics skill couldn't easily cover.

I think an awareness attribute would just be superfluous.

One thing I have always found odd is how Bethesda claims that they narrowed down the list of skills etc. to give each a more unique experience. I think Todd Howard once mentioned the same thing about races. But looking at how stats in Skyrim are the same for every race and how even racial abilities are not as significant as in previous games, I have to laugh at such statements.

I wonder what could be done to give races a truly unique feel. I am talking about real changes that give you a real change in game play. Like water breathing for Argonians or permanent night eye for Khajiit. Claw damage was a good thing in Skyrim, as well. Racial differences in magic or weapon proficiency should be more pronounced.

So what do you people think will be the "new" or vastly improved feature Beth will add for TESVI?

Cultural, not racial. Only legitimate point is with the Khajiit and Argonians, but that's it. There really is nothing concrete in-universe or gameplay that actually has any real difference hold any water. Nords have produced extremely powerful mages, there's an entire clan of Altmer detatched from Alinor that extols the virtues of diplomacy and martial superiority, the Wood Orcs of Valenwood, so on and so forth. Racial differences in actual gameplay and builds doesn't effectively exist. The problem TES has with race is character interactions.


Not really. Perception/Awareness based attribute is actually one of the easiest ones to work with.

Some would say that's a good thing. Whether one likes it or not, New Vegas suffered from numerous basic design problems which most of its fan base refuse to address. Frankly, Fallout 4 is an improvement in almost every way over it... New Vegas certainly isn't the worst Fallout game, but it's not she shining paragon some make it out to be.


Anyway, the issue isn't so much that Awareness and Detect spells both cover the same angles, but in making their approaches to those angles distinct. Functional overlap isn't bad. In fact, it's something that should be pushed more often. Giving options on how to do something is the life-blood on RPGs. The problem lies in making those options more than just a superficial coat of paint. Having them function the exact same, and being divided only by the Skill/Attribute/Spell doesn't make for a meaningful decision, and doesn't change how one plays the game or approaches a situation.


Frankly, though, I think it's a rather easy fix.

I'm not saying it's "bad", but I feel like there are other ways to approach it than purely with Stats. Having skills like Perception and Awareness in RPGs were, originally, a means of knowing whether a character can see/hear/feel something or not when you couldn't actually see/hear/feel what the character was feeling (mainly talking about PnP games in this regard, by the way). Would you rather see the implementation of an Awareness skill that automatically tracks nearby enemies, or have enemy footsteps clearer, making listening to your surroundings a more important means of operation?

Granted, a higher "awareness" skill might make footsteps sound louder and more pronounced, but I feel like "Perception" alone is too niche of a stat for main inclusion. For instance, in classic DnD, perception/spot/listen checks are based on Wisdom (aka "situational knowledge"). However, the Wisdom stat is WAAAAY more than just that in DnD; it determines casting ability for Clerics, Druids, and the like, as well as Will saving throws to negate various control/illusion spells.

I don't know, maybe if it were a derived stat then I could see it working. But in Fallout (at least) the Perception stat really only added to compass alerts (which were removed from Fallout 4, anwyay) and VATS. Plus, since the only ranged weapons we'll likely see in a future TES game are Bows and Crossbows(?) I feel like it'd become most often a dumpstat.

Awareness/Perception would greatly benefit from something that TES doesn't really have so far, which is enemies that actually use stealth. Non-combat uses include being able to find and use secret passages or allow new dialog options, like being able to tell when you're being lied to, call them on it, and change the course of the quest. Without Luck, it would be a good thing to have affect crit chance and how much money you find on corpses or in containers. If you're Perception is really low, you might miss a pocket with coins. Between Perception and Agility, you could spot and hit weak points like gaps in armor, having them both affect crit chance.

Well, I was sniped. This pretty much covers everything I wanted to say.

A Detect spell is of course, functionally useful...if your character partakes in magic. The Thu'um in Skyrim made that slightly redundant with the vastly superior Aura Whisper, but unless the Thu'um returns, that won't be a problem. It'd also serve as a way for characters with low Awareness (calling it that just for the sake of convenience/contrast with Fallout) to not scout and find opponents...but that's it. This boarders on issues of the players ability to spy out in things in-game, but Awareness abilities could come stocked with special functions that highlight traps, keys, points of interest, when unmarked locations on your compass come into view, and things of that nature. We don't have any modifying factors for those types of things, and its frankly something that should at the very least be considered.

That's all really cool but doesn't mean we need a dedicated "Awareness" attribute. All that could be put into Wisdom, a person with a lot of wisdom would be able to know if someone is lying to them, or that people use hidden pockets to hide goods and that out of place rock may be a switch to a secret planet. Like what everyone is saying about awareness is cool but doesn't really qualify it to be a lone attribute. Just like Willpower can do a ton of cool thing but can still be part of Wisdom as well.

Again, Wisdom just isn't a TES thing, and frankly I don't think it flat out should. Your meshing too many sporadic concepts together as it is, and frankly it gets to the point where its a bloated mess of an Attribute. Wisdom just doesn't mesh here, and what you're proposing is far too incoherent.

At base, stick to what we know exists within the franchise before coining stats from different games and hoping they'd work without explaining what they'd contribute on a individual basis. Dialogue checks, Spell Resists, Environment perception, Enemy Perception, Magicka regeneration, vague quasi-intelligence tie ins are all too sporadic with no semblance of consistency or clarity to make what your proposing work. Its too vague for most players to get a grasp on, its too broad when examining it at length, its a new Attribute that tries to mesh old concepts together haphazardly when we already have a precedent for something else in the series, Willpower constantly being brought up nearly everywhere as a integral part of Spell-craft...its just not going to pan out well.

You also don't want to put too many effects on one attribute for balance reasons. If Wisdom handled everything that Willpower does in Morrowind or Oblivion along with what I suggested for Awareness/Perception it would be too useful. At that point, only a handful of specific builds wouldn't be able to justify dumping tons of points into Wisdom because at that point it grants broad bonuses to virtually every gameplay style and character type. The commonly proposed uses for Strength, for instance, don't greatly benefit a mage, and Agility/Dexterity doesn't usually benefit a heavy armor character.

On a philosophical note, as much as I appreciate the d20 system, I've never really liked Wisdom as a stat. That implies that it can be measured and quantified like Strength or Speed. Can you really measure how wise somebody is? Can you tell if one person is more or less wise than another? To me, wisdom is something that you have or you don't and is earned with experience.

Its an abstract at best, and even though you can get into the philosophical differences between Intelligence and Wisdom...it doesn't usually work in-games like this one. The core problem is oddly enough just trying to write a description for what it does within the game itself to give the player a decent grasp on what its supposed to do. Summarizing ideas like Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, Personality is easy, since they're almost self-explanatory, and what they'd control makes sense based on the name alone. Meanwhile Wisdom isn't truly indicative to much. Is it how the player applies their Intelligence? One would argue that we the player make that decision, and how "wise" our character is ultimately hinges on how well we select their decisions for them. Is it being to show how perceptive we are in conversation? Its more of a stretch, but then you get the dissonance of "Wait, why isn't Personality handling that?" due to how "Wisdom" is typically portrayed. If its simply supposed to be a substitute for Willpower to begin with, why bother changing the name? What is the word itself contributing here, when Willpower is a pretty easily indicative concept unto its own.

You do point out an issue of using something like Intelligence as a modifier for EXP. The idea's cool, but I frankly never liked it. It puts one single Attribute onto such a stand that for many builds, extremely high INT is just the way to go. All Attributes, regardless of build type, should be considered when designing a character, and said Attributes should be able to contribute to different types of characters. One shouldn't be important to the point that the rest can be regulated into dump stats though.

Indeed. A problem with SPECIAL (in 3 and NV at least) is that Intelligence is core to just about any character that you want to have last more than a few levels. I could easily make a character that had Intelligence maxed with all the others as low as I can get them and still be extremely effective due to the sheer number of skill points gained per level.

At the other end of the spectrum, Charisma in FO3 was pretty useless. A few perks depended on it and it gave a boost to Speech and Barter, but the perks were very situational or effectively useless and the skill boost could easily be made up for by Intelligence. NV making it affect companion effectiveness helped, but if you're like me and don't like companions it still wasn't very useful.