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

We have a long way to go before we get another ES game. In the meantime, similar topics will be closed and referred to this one.

Note there is a separate thread specifically for http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1540764-tes-vi-location-and-setting-speculation-27/ suggestions for future games. Please keep discussion of Skyrim in the correct forums.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1576880-official-beyond-skyrim-tes-vi-69/#entry24768648

What I want is more interactivity with NPCs and the game world. And meaningful interactivity. On the NPC front, it would be cool if you could engage in bartering with any friendly NPC - most of them probably wouldn't have bupkis, but it would be worth it just for the few times an NPC does have something that interests you. Especially if you could trade them outfits - although that would require a little extra cleverness to ensure you can't just buy them into nudity. And going beyond barter, it might be interesting if they could add a generic "got any work?" topic for every NPC that generates radiant quests. Not all of the time of course, but just something to essentially turn every NPC into a quest-giver. And of course, include some form of Fallout 4's intimidate perk, so we can play the role of the highwayman! (that was actually another fun, nonviolent way to obtain someone's clothes in that game - hold them up, access their inventory, and swap out their badass duds for a Harness or pre-war dress)

And here's a thought I've floated before: Radiant Economy. Completion of certain quests, or meeting certain conditions, affects the economy in a region: the amount of gold merchants have to barter, what they have in stock, how well equipped the town guard are, and even the loot and equipment for the bandit groups in the area if you really screw up the economy. Repeatable tasks like Skyrim's chop wood/mine ore/farm crops, radiant merchant quests, Thieves Guild quests, sabotaging the local farms, mills, and mines; lots of different things could affect the economy. And it could tie in really nicely with a Fallout 4 style homesteading feature - just instead of thriving settlements to rival the existing cities in lore, we'd have small estates like farms or manors.

I want deeper quests! Choices with different consequences!!! Damn! Fallout 4 from this point of view is a complete letdown! Or, better, it looks incomplete!

Does it? The main quest has about as much consequence as Wild Hunt did. More, really, since there's no clear 'GOOD' route and there are consequences regardless of who you side with. Admittedly, it is almost entirely surrounding the main quest, and the game does lack a great deal of the side-content that is so prevalent in past Bethesda games, but it's as leas as decision/consequence driven as New Vegas was.


Even then, though, consequences are a mixed bag. Too much choice rely impairs the ability to formulate a continuing story without invalidating choices. This is part of the reason why RTSs shifted to sequential campaigns rather than contrary ones.


Frankly, I want consequences to be as far removed from main, historically relavant plots as possible. They're fine in minor, personal events and stories that history doesn't give a rat's ass about, but in major events like the Main Story and the Guilds, I'd rather well-written linear plots. The choice comes in which stories you explore, not in how those stories play out. It's easier to write, and it's easier to continue a franchise off of.




On thus NPC front... Original Sin did the whole 'Barter with anyone' thing and it frankly wasn't that great. There is definately more thought and care that needs to be put into how interaction with NPCs works in order to prevent A: The anamatronic parodies of Oblivion B: the repetitive shallowness of Skyrim and the dead and lifeless drones of Wild Hunt/Assassin's Creed. I think this is predominantly a writing problem, and they just dedicate too little time to developing characters, and focus mostly on quest design. Of course, that's a major issue with the industry in general...




I think an easier economic model would he to simply base it off the Strategic Resource system that Civilization has been using for 2 decades. divide items into categories based on basic resources, assign 'production' of those resources to towns, mines and farms. Then Mark roads and triad routes linking cities to said sites. Have hostile locations generate an influence in surrounding cells which interput trade when they intersect those routes, decreasing the availability of (and increase the price of) the affected goods.


This could then be worked into a global leveling tystem that functions independently of player level, simulating a more living environment while at the same time offering the benefits of both Leveled and Unleveled world design. It also presents opportunities for Radiant Quests.

I'd like some language skill that should be learned to unlock dialogue with isolated communities where the common Tamrielic language is not known. Like some savage tribes of snake Argonians or something. Until you learn their language the dialogue will be like what Daenaerys sounds in GOT when she speaks other languages

It's funny to read fan suggestions because it shows the huge wall between what Bethesda wants for TES and what the old fans want. The more the game is simplified, the more people ask for crazy, old school, intricate features that require patience, reading, thinking, etc... while Bethesda wants everyone to feel like a superhero as fast and with as little effort as possible.

It's not quite that simple. For one, there isn't even consensus amongst so called 'Old Fans' about what they want. You can toss around vague concepts like 'Depth' and 'Choices' all you want, but they will invariably mean different things to different people. You then have the issue that, some Old Fans are very pleased with the series. And more so, the majority of the playerbase (which doesn't have any presence here) is quite pleased, otherwise Skyrim wouldn't be one of the best selling games on 3 systems and still maintain high-playtime on Steam. Top that cake off with the fact that many older systems are simply unusable now (the miss mechanic was a product of AI not being able to handle mobility. Now that they move around, tacking missing on top of it would make combat practically unplayable) or the overall paradigm has shifted. Yes, some smaller games do use older styles of mechanics to appeal to a niche audience, but a company like Bethesda can't afford to do that.


Bethesda DOES seem to have an inspirational disconnect, however. Considering the venom after Morrowinds release (some Bethesda employees were outright threatened because they had 'Ruined TES'. Yes, what is generally regarded as the best TES game, arguably one of the best RPGs ever, was susceptible to the same 'Old Fans' complaining about making the game too easy, dumbing down and ruining the depth) it's little wonder why they don't really engage with the fan base anymore... But their insular mature also seems to block them from looking at other games and series, and drawing inspiration from there. So many of the lackluster executions or problematic mechanics could be solved by drawing on ideas from other games, regardless of the Genre, but they seem more interested in trying to rebuild their own systems from the drawing board each time.


All of that said, had Bethesda listened to the 'Old Fans', the series would have died a decade ago. As an old fan (started Daggerfall in 1998) who still enjoys even the most recent titles, I for one am glad they haven't listened.




I've played around with the idea before, and it... Really doesn't work too well on a wide scale. Which svcks, yes, but there does need to be a degree of functionality to things, and I've never seen a language system work in a way that wasn't strictly prohibitive (like WoWs languages, which are strictly to limit intrafaction interaction). I think there is some potential for language perks related to Speechcraft, but beyond limiting hostility to some ranges of creatures (like learning Spriggan, Giant or Centaur to make said mobs non-hostile) there's not much that can be done with it. Maybe some dialogue choices.


Another thing I've been looking into lately is character generation. Fallout 4 was a vast improvement over previous models, but it's still somewhat behind the leaders of the pack. The two best character generators I've seen are EVE Online (to the point where it's almost weird, since you almost never see your avatar) and Black Desert Online. Of the two, I think I prefer EVE Online's, as Black Desert allows you to go too far in some areas, creating totally unrealistic appearances. I'm not fond of Black Desert's overal aesthetic style, either, though you can use it to contruct more varied and realistic people and not just Korean Supermodels...


Anyway, one if the main advantages these systems have is not so much facial design, but more depth to body configuration. Instead of just simple weight sliders, they give you control of everything from shoulder angle, to hip-width, cup size to how developed individual muscles are. in principle, you could create a character that looks like they've only ever worked out with their Left Arm.

So yeah hope werewolf returns. A return of the attributes would be welcome too.

Beyond the main quest there are no choices, nor consequences. I want to feel important in side quests too. If I choose to defend Whiterun as an imperial I want to be able to feel the inhabitants gratitude, and see the city rebuilt after the battle in an Imperial-oriented style. Otherwise, I want to be considered as an undesirable guest, while Whiterun is going to be Nord-style oriented!(I'm not complaining about Skyrim now, I'm just using it as an example!). If I do jobs for the Dark brotherhood, I want guards to hunt me if they rekognize some suspicious activity or gear, and people must fear me in a certain place where I have killed someone but failed to do it unnoticed. But mine are still bad examples (some of them are partially present in Skyrim already), I want to have real choices during the side quests with heavy or light consequences I can feel during the gameplay. Lachdonin, let's face it: The Witcher 3 has some strong points (side quests with multiple choices and branches), one of these is exactly what I'm asking for the next TES chapter. Fallout 4 has, for now, the simplest and flattest side quests ever developed in a Bethesda game! Repetitive. Haunting! (Preston Garvey and the minutemen are more haunting than an assassin's conscience!). There's not much variety in them! I meet mainly faction radiant quests short and uninteresting.

Beyond the quests problem, there aren't events and places able to surprise me like it happened in Skyrim. I miss them. A lot.

Less loading time, less interiors with loading.

More secret treasures and secret unique locations with stories inside and rare loot that are not tied to quests or questlines, just to discover by exploration.

Ok, I see where you're comming from now. And I generally agree, though I don't think Wild Hunt is a particularly good example of those consequences... But I do agree, there does need to be better general global reaction. And the best way to handle that, I think, is a disposition system.


I'm personally more of a fan of individual disposition, as I feel it better handles a depiction of the more complex interpersonal relationships (not everyone is going to love the new, eager to help goodie-goodie in town) but it does have some issues in regards to management and interaction, particularly if the population increases.


I also really, really dont like Fame and Infamy. Just because you're famous doesnt mean everyone is going to love you more. It was an awkward, clunky system that was too encompassing and never really made any sense.


One system I've recently been exposed to is from Civilization - Beyond Earth: Rising Tide. It changed the old diplomacy system to a dual approach mechanic that tracks how much other factions Respect and Fear you, giving you two approaches to diplomacy. I think this is interesting, because it serves basically the same function as Fame and Infamy, uses broader and more applicable concepts, and can easily be applied in a Town-By-Town basis.


I think something similar could function on its own, or if supplemented by a personal disposition mechanic it could prove to be the holy trail of interaction foundations.

The studio decided to forgo subtitles in open-world (i.e. non-mission) sections of the game because they made the screen “too busy", but players can still get a handle on what's happening around them as they pick up the basics of the various in-game languages, which are built upon a system of “real logic" (remember that Ubisoft actually had real linguists work on the game to help develop and then regress the tribal languages, to give them a greater feeling of authenticity).

So before I went to sleep last night I laid down brainstorming, and here's my ideas of how I'd improve Skyrim to be what I'd see as a million times better- USING the Perk system, to ACTUALLY replace attributes, and ALSO doing a huge overhaul of how stamina works, as well as creating an Ocarina Of Time inspired night time to also make it feel a little bit more like a survival horror game.

Instead of attributes LITERALLY coming back, there'd be Perks, with several ranks, that function similarly enough to attributes that they are immersive.

Also instead of Skyrim/Oblivion's much easier to level combat skills, and Daggerfalls/Morrowinds miss system, attacks even regular attacks would drain stamina faster, and only raising skill with a weapon type would make the drain rate go down, lower stamina would cause severe damage penalties as well as speed penalties.

Stamina Overhaul: You do 99% less damage under 5 stamina, 100% less damage at 0 stamina, 90% less damage under 20 stamina, 80% less damage under 30 stamina, 75% less damage under 40 stamina, 30% less damage under 50 stamina, and 20% less damage under 80 stamina. Under 20 stamina your movement speed is slowed by 30%.

Even regular attacks drain stamina, and stamina from regular attacks drains MUCH MUCH MUCH FASTER than it did in any prior TES game- UNLESS YOUR weapon skills explained down below, decrease the stamina drain from attacking.

Stamina no longer increases carry weight, carry weight is now increased by "strength based perks", an alteration spell, and alteration perks... However for every 50 stamina you gain you move 10% faster, to a maximum of 100% added speed.

Starting carry weight overhaul: Carry weight now starts at 50 for Altmer and Bretons, 80 for Suthay-raht and Bosmer, 130 for Imperials, 150 for Dumner, Argonians, and Redguards, and 195 for Nords, Cathay Raht Khajiit, and Orcs.

Khajiit players on character creation, could choose the optional Cathay Raht trait- instead of the regular Suthay-raht visually they'd just be giant Suthay-raht Khajiit for ease of programming expenses and time, which would make simply make them as tall if not a bit taller than an Altmer, and would make them start out with 195 carry weight, they would also start out with less stamina however.

Starting Stamina Overhaul: 50 for Altmer and Bretons, 80 for Imperials, 90 for Nords, Cathay Raht and Orcs, 110 for Dumner, 130 for Redguards, 140 for Suthay-raht and Bosmer

Starting Health Overhaul: 80 For Altmer and Bosmer, 90 for Suthay-raht Khajiit and Bosmer, 100 for Imperials, 110 for Dumner, Argonians, and Redguards, 130 for Nords, Orcs, and Cathay Raht Khajiit.

Starting Magika Overhaul: 50 for Nords, Orcs, and Cathay Raht, 80 for Imperials, Suthay-raht Khajiit, Bosmer, and Redguards, 110 for Dumner, and Argonians, 130 for Bretons, 175 for Altmer.

Perks: Every perk listed would have 15 ranks to max them out, resulting in it taking more time to become that powerful than it did in Skyrim. With one perk point per level. These perks are all described as if they are at max level.

Luck based perk: Looking at Daggerfall and Morrowind- this is how I'd create a perk to replace the Luck stat.

Sneak Tree- Lucky Hands: Grants 40 extra stamina, Adds a 5% chance to slow combat when you're about to be hit, 10% easier lockpicking, 10% higher chance to succeed with enchants and potions, adds a 20% chance to find better loot, although you'll still never find glass, ebony, or daedric armor randomly.

Strength based perks...

Two-Handed-SkullCrusher: Now at max rank gives 150 extra carry weight, on TOP of it's old bonuses of ignoring armor. However, the carry weight bonus doesn't stack with Bone Breakers bonuses if you choose to fill out both the two handed and one handed tree. Now requires 15 perk points to max out. Also at max rank your regular attacks cost 90% less stamina, and power attacks with this weapon type costs 50% less stamina.

One Handed-Bone Breaker: Now at max rank gives 150 extra carry weight, on TOP of it's old bonuses of ignoring armor. However, the carry weight bonus doesn't stack with Skullcrushers bonuses if you choose to fill out both the two handed and one handed tree. Now requires 15 perk points to max out.

Block Tree-Strong Arm: Does everything Shield Wall does, as well as gives 150 extra carry weight. Now requires 15 perk points to max out.

Heavy Armor Tree-Juggernaut: Does everything Juggernaut already does as well as gives 150 extra carry weight. Now requires 15 perk points to max out.

If you max out all these Strength perks, you can get 450 extra carry weight, and even the Altmer and Bretons could get 500 maximum carry weight like the max carry weight in prior TES games with no spells or enchantments. Nords and Orcs would have higher max carry weight than in prior TES games.

Other melee perks...

Two Handed-Deep Wounds: All the same bonuses as before, also at max rank your regular attacks cost 90% less stamina, and power attacks with this weapon type costs 50% less stamina.

Two Handed-Limbsplitter: All the same bonuses as before, also at max rank your regular attacks cost 90% less stamina, and power attacks with this weapon type costs 50% less stamina.

One Handed-Hack And Slash: All the same bonuses as before, also at max rank your regular attacks cost 90% less stamina, and power attacks with this weapon type costs 50% less stamina.

One Handed-Bladesman: All the same bonuses as before, also at max rank your regular attacks cost 90% less stamina, and power attacks with this weapon type costs 50% less stamina.

Speed/Agility based perks below.

Light Armor-Lightning Reflexes: Replaces Deft Movement, now requires 15 perk points to max out, makes you move 40% faster, jump 30% higher, and gives a 40% chance to slow your enemy when you are about to be attacked. Now a truly powerful perk for the end of a perk tree... That also brings back the FEELING that speed and agility were SUPPOSED to provide in prior TES games. It also stacks with the speed bonus from Stamina, for a total of 140% faster movement speed.

Edit: Meant stacks with Stamina not Alteration.

Alteration Tree- Arcane Buoyancy: Replaces Master Alteration, and provides all the bonuses of Alteration, plus gives 150 extra carry weight, 50% faster swimming speed, and the ability to walk on water even in heavy armor.

Yep you can now get 650 carry weight as an Altmer or Breton if you combine this with all the strength perks or even more as an Orc or Nord... More than prior TES games- but 15 perk points is a lot, perks should be rewarding, low level survival should be an epic struggle outside of Story Mode, and you'd need to be very high level to max all these out. In a world in which magic can increase carry weight- DOESN'T it just make sense that a Battlemage type who is strong in both magical spells and body would be able to carry the most? I think so.

Also some new ideas of difficulty are inspired by Daggerfall, I had an idea for a few different difficulty modes.

Story Mode: About as easy as vanilla Skyim. Low stamina doesn't cause a damage or speed penalty, and all races start out with their weakest stats, INCLUDING carry weight at 100, unlike in Normal mode where Altmer for example start with a paltry 50 carry weight. Durability isn't a thing in this mode. Also the nocturnal undead I'll explain shortly are very weak cannon fodder- the nocturnal undead max out at level 10.

Also the nocturnal undead will only show up about 5 at a time and after killing them their respawn time is an 40 minutes.

Torches/light spells/night eye spells last for about 2 real time hours in this mode unless cancelled more details later.

Normal Mode: Pretty much exactly as I described- Like Skyrim with a more complicated Perk tree that requires more perk points to reach max potential, and stamina much much more important. The nocturnal undead are unleveled but only about level 15-20. Torches/light spells/night eye spells last about 1 hour real time.

Durability is a thing now, though instead of breaking weapons just become about 10% less effective with their damage range... So yes durability loss is a thing unlike Skyrim or Fallout 4, but it's way more mild of a downside than other Bethesda games.

Also the nocturnal undead will only show up about 10 at a time and after killing them their respawn time is at 20 minutes.

hardcoe Mode: Inspired by Daggerfall, an Exhaustion stat that doesn't exist in Normal mode. It's like a giant orange fatigue bar, drains much slower and it would have a huge stat number, like 2000-3000, and it doesn't help you do anything unlike the actual stamina bar- when it hits zero you die if you don't sleep in a safe place. The unscaled nocturnal undead now are level 25-30, or up to level 35 if you walk around without a torch or light spell or night eye. Also disease can now kill you, and so can stats being reduced to 0. Map click Fast Travel is disabled in this mode.

As a vampire the sun will damage your health as well. Ghosts, and Daedra become immune to normal weapons in this mode, vampires gain a 50% normal weapons resistance in this mode.

Weapons and armor at maximum wear and tear, don't break but they become 95% less effective, where the armor provides near zero protection, and weapons at this point do less damage than untrained hand to hand. Gold and arrows also have weight, and there's more pressure to use an in game banking system that turns gold into light weight paper money similar to Daggerfall. Sneak attacks no longer work on Undead, any divine characters or Daedra in hardcoe mode- because they don't have mortal vital organs you can hit with pin point accuracy.

Sneak attacks work on vampires but do half the bonus damage they'd normally do. Torches/light spells/night eye spells last about 30 minutes real time. The nocturnal undead will continue to respawn, and there can be as many as 15 or 20 around you, but if you kill all nearby nocturnal undead they will have a 10 minute respawn timer.

Nightmare Mode: Everything hardcoe Mode has, only NOW the weakest nocturnal undead are level 35, and the elite night monsters are level 50-90. Weapons and armor actually break. Also just like Daggerfall magical items and artifacts can't be repaired. As a vampire the sun will kill you much faster than in hardcoe Mode. Torches/light spells/night eye spells last about 15 minutes real time. This time the nocturnal undead will only have a 2 minute respawn timer, and this time show up in groups of 20.

New Darkness system: If you have no torch, night eye, or light spell and are in a dark place your attacks costing 60% more stamina... This is supposed to simulate visual impairment from low light levels resulting in clumsiness on your characters behalf.

New Scary Night Time System: If you are out at night, and not close to a city or town, you will encounter undead beings extremely similar in their mechanics to the Stalfos in Ocarina Of Time Zelda. They will come out at night and follow you around. They will be ghosts, zombies, skeletons, that kind of thing, and they'd be stronger than most enemies in the open world. The idea is a bit inspired by the Stalfos in Zelda, as well as some horror games where light can literally repel deadly enemies.

I partially got the idea when I saw a Skyrim mod that makes predators avoid you when you have a torch out.

Now as for torches and light spells and night eye and stuff? Well you see, if you carry around a torch or use a light spell it will prevent you from encountering super high level elite undead, and reduce the amount of undead enemies that spawn around you. Using torches and light spells would guarantee the amount of undead wandering the night are fewer, and that the elite undead don't show up, using Night Eye wouldn't guarantee they don't show up, but would have a 50% chance of reducing how many undead show up, and a 80% chance of preventing you from encountering elite undead whenever you load a new cell. Undead would also randomly spawn inside of caves, and mines that aren't watched over by a lawful town or city.

As for named NPCs? Named NPCs in cities would be safe from undead, named NPCs away from civilization would usually either use a well lit campfire, or hide inside of their houses at night to avoid the wandering undead. This would be set up carefully so the undead would be a threat to the player, but wouldn't kill named NPCs... Other than maybe a FEW named NPCs who exist solely to be killed by the undead to add to the horror and immersion factor.

Khajiit Night Eye, and Khajiit Climbing Bonus.

Climbing is enabled by default with no skill requirement, the higher your stamina the longer you can climb for, Khajiit climb 25% faster, Khajiit also gain a night eye power that can be toggled on or off that lasts forever, and because of this Khajiit actually have an advantage in climbing, as well as being a bit safer exploring at night time.

Nothing in the game will actually require you be a Khajiit to climb to the top, Khajiit will just have an easier time climbing and be more efficient at it.

Making use of Argonian Poison Resistance.

I'd also like to perhaps add in something like toxic swamps- where walking or swimming through them can provide short cuts to various areas, but they also rapidly damage your health unless you're an Argonian. Hence non-Argonians would have to take the long way around, or climb or jump over said swamps. If you're not an Argonian you can use Alchemy or Restoration spells to shield yourself but it costs magicka.

Later on in the game perhaps you can get a mount- not a horse this time that's slightly slower than a horse but also immune to being damaged by these swamps.

Anyhow... THIS is how I PERSONALLY would've designed Skyrim's Perk System, as well as Skyrim's Stamina, and what features I would've implemented into Skyrim if I were like the head developer, these are the types of things I wish there was a mod for exactly...

And these are also ideas I'd like to see in TES 6, especially if Attributes themselves are never coming back, at least a perk system, that I feel would have a much better replacement than Skyrim's perk system. Personally I like it when the undead walk around the world at night, it's just something I find cool, and I think it would've made the Draugr and undead in TES games a lot more scary if they roamed the world at night and were more powerful.

Maybe my math is a bit off for perfectly balancing things, but what I described is how I wish Skyrim was, and how I hope TES 6 will be.

I've found your explanation very interesting, even if the stamina/damage reduction is a little too heavy.

I'd like to reintroduce and offer some ideas that came to my mind recently, beyond the quest system that in my opinion must be developed in a more complex way (but I'm not to repeat it again, I've written it just some posts ago).

Starting from Skyrim as base game, I'll split the features from the various points of view:

The map: in my opinion,

- loading screens between interiors and exteriors must be eliminated.

- the scale of mountains, trees, buildings, must respect the true scale in reality. I mean: in Skyrim, I've seen trees that were too big for the mountains they were on, that means that mountains were really too small.

The npcs: cities and surroundings in Skyrim and Fallout 4 were underpopulated, to say the least. There should be more population, everyone with his/her own name, no "Whiterun guards" or "settlers". There should be charismatic characters, memorable npcs for their personality or role in the story.

Cities and towns: they should have holy feasts in determined periods of the year, with people gathering for example by night, in the town square, illuminated by torches, with tables rich with food and beverages, with bards, poets, druids celebrating riuals. Peole should dress, in those occasions, with some sort of dresses or gear related to the festivity. Off course, there should be related quests involving the player in some sort of role inside the feast or some weird adventure during that particular feast!

Caravans: in Skyrim I would have loved to meet caravans of merchants of some different races, with carriages and horses, dressed with gear related to their culture, to their origins (Elsweyr, Cyrodiil, Blackmarsh...). The caravan npcs should offer, sometimes, weird stories or legends, starting some quests.

The weather system: damn it. In the Witcher 3 I swear I've witnessed the incoming front of a storm from the top of a hill. It was... immense! Fantastic! It must be implemented in the next TES chapter! It must!And there should be the seasons. Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, with their related weather changes.

The perk system: I'm not the all-numbers-and-stats rpg player, but I'd like it to be various and complex, and able to offer completely different types of gameplay, not only from the thief/mage/warrior/etcetera point of view, but form the Good/fairly good/Neutral/fairly bad/cruel psycho ( xD ) point of view. I mean: there should be branches related to some darker abilities (badass necromancer) or abilities for the followers of the "light" (paladins). This is becoming very difficult to explain, and I admit I've not a clear idea of what could come out. Maybe an example should do the job: the mmorpg "Star wars the old republic", from what I've experienced, lets the player choose for example to be a jedi or a sith. Once you have chosen the kind of warrior you want, you can still choose to be good, neutral or bad in various degrees. I have been a Good Sith, who was able to use certain type of light sabers, with certain stats. I'd like a perk system in which some branches can be unlocked depending on the choices you make during some quests, that for example could bring me to discover evil arifacts, which need some grade of cruelty to be used.

Highly specialized player characters should have top abilities: pure high level warriors should be able to dual wield two handed weapons, mages should be able to teleport, necromancers should be able to summon higher level demons, not only undead and skeletons and daedra. Yes, this is Wow reminiscent.

A coop mode: I'd like a coop mode needed to face the toughest dungeons bringing to the mightiest loot! Up to 4 players.

Variety of body types: in Skyrim there were only thin people of the same height. There were only children and advlts, no "teenagers". I want to see people like in real life: thin, fat, old, young, very young, mid aged, tall or short, and so on.

Magic: many of the old Morrowind magic powers and enchantments should be reintroduced. Levitation, water walking should be available not only as enchantments but as magic spells too, and much more developement should be used for telekinesis: grabbing and throwing stones, weapons, corpses, dust, enemies (at high levels and class (perk) specialization of the player character). Telekinetic blasts would be welcome as well.

Armor and weapons: I'll never get tired of saying that: Skyrim needed more armor and weapon variety, specially for the ranged or the casters classes. Mages, necromancers, pyromancers and others had just a few types of armor and they weren't even cool. The majority of staves had the same model with different properties. There should be more types of weapons, such as halberds, warglaives (Warglaives of Azzinoth anyone? xD), associated to different combat moves and styles.

Armor and weapon wearing and smithing: I really like the idea of multi-layered armor wearing, but as not limited as it is in Fallout 4. I'd do that this way:

first layer:

- hat/hood

- howl

- cape, with or without hood

- shirt, Jacket, fur coverings

- gloves

- trousers

- boots

- belt

second layer :

the possibility of fur coverings in order to face very cold weather! This implies another important thing I had previously outlined: a game mode for the true survival lovers in which there are hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue, illness effects to face!!! The fur coverings must be partially visible underneath the heavy armor.

third layer (leather, light or heavy metal armor, robes):

- Helm, armored hood

- cape (yep! I mean capes can be put with or without armor)

- pauldrons

- torso

- gauntlets

- pants

- reinforced/armor boots

fourth layer: visible Backpack or knapsack in which store odds and ends

about the smithing, I'd like the possibility of multiple improvements to be available, each one visually represented. An armor editor allowing the player to add spikes, blades, multiple layers, runes, decorations, and the possibility to choose the material to use for the armor would be a great finesse.

Off course, every piece or armor should be more or less enchantable with one or more magic properties.

Jewelry: pendants, multiple rings, earrings, bracelets, obviously everything enchanted or enchantable.

Environment: more animal variety outdoors, in the forests. Wolves should hunt in groups of 5-6 individuals. The trees should bend for the wind, and herbs and bushes should do as well.

Dungeons: the presence of vaster, deeper, more difficult dungeons, with multiple ways to face and explore them.

Enemies: completely lootable enemies and monsters (draughr lords didn't give their armor, just the weapons). Most enemies should have different types and ranks, and epic very rare monsters should wander the forests, mountains, ruins, dungeons and caverns in certain special moments, periods, seasons.

Mounts: mounts for both player and followers/companions. But not just horses! Tigers, giant wolves (yep, I know, it is a lot reminiscent of WoW).

Companions: the possibility to use multiple companions with a good AI, each one with different and specific abilities (like, yeah, the healer, totally missing from Skyrim's list of possible followers ), in order to face the toughest dungeons, in case the player doesn't like the coop option.

Professions: hunting, fishing, being a real merchan with my own shop, or a farmer. The possibility to live inside the game like a common person, not just the chosen one, the mighty hero or great villain.

Last but not least: no more problems with holstered weapons visualization. In Skyrim only one weapon was visualized. I Fallout 4 holstered weapons aren't even visible. And this-is-ridiculous!

PS: as already above mentioned: a survival mode, implying illnesses, fatigue, hunger, thirst, hot and cold effects and impairments, drunkenness and intoxication visual and gameplay effects and so on.

Honestly I don't entirely agree with the fact that all nameless "filler" NPC's are soulless. Oblivious they have much less personality and purpose then named and interactive ones but that doesn't completely diminishes their value. For one they don't have to be soulless, The Witcher 3 was able to add personality to them and the world with some well though dialogue, the best example being hearing the child in White Orchard singing a nursery rhyme mocking the Emperor and his father scolding him and telling him not to be friends with the friend who taught it to him. You really got a sense of the severity of the Emperor's reign and power over the area and it added weight to the world. If you gave these filler NPC's more dialogue like that, that informs you of the state of the world it could make them not seem like lifeless filler. This could also be done by them including dialogue including your actions like them whispering to each other about how a high rated government official was killed (obviously by you as part of the DBH) or other more heroic feats having to do with other guild or the main story. The only real problem about using padding NPC's s they make it harder for you to find interactive ones who have quest for you, With that said however I think there are ways to overcome that, The bulletin board from TW3 worked really well as it gave you a look into some of the lore of the area and characters along with giving you quest. You could also use Taverns as "hubs" where you can find quest or be pointed in the right direction. A third idea would be inspired form MMO's where they mark quest NPC's on your map with things such as question mark or giver character's specific name borders or special cross hairs that let you know they're interact able.

The weather in TW3 was just fantastic especially the wind. You really felt the change of the environment and it's impact which was great.

Completely agree with how you want Co-op introduced and It's the only really good way I seem them including it into the world. I'd also add a Co-op part with the Return of the Arena where you could do things like 1v1 where you fight another player, a 3v3+ where you and a some teammates fight another team, a horde mode where you alone or with teammates fight against hordes of npc's. Perhaps even objective mode with a WoW type capture the flag battle.

More body types is cool and more immersive. More armor/weapon variety is desperately needed. More enemy variety and uniqueness would be great. The example about the wolves is a classic one but I would also add they need pack mentality AI where they actually try to heard you so you either get backed into a corner or into the open so others can flank you, they also need an alpha/pack leader who is stronger and buffs/controls them. Weather affecting the environment is a cool idea and the weapon holstering while not being a big issue is pretty ridiculous.

No, sorry, I think that cities and dungeons should not be separated cells, with loading screens. Have you played Dragonborn DLC? Didn't you feel weird and incomplete, the fact that you weren't able to control dragons as you liked and fly to the cities? It wasn't possible to fly around them because they were in separated cells! What we were able to see from the outside was just a poor, low polygon representation of Whiterun, Solitude, Riften and so on. This must not happen again. The Witcher 3 has proven that big wonderful and detailed cities can coexhist with the rest of the world map in the same cell!

As for caravans, they were cool in Skyrim, just too few. And there were no carriages in which the merchants could store all the goods.

I almost forgot! Mobile camps for the player, with tents and bonfires (provided there is wood and stones nearby for the latter).

As for named npcs, I agree with you, maybe "Johnson Guard " could be really cool, probably better than full named guards. Regarding the citizens, I'd really prefer full named npcs. It looks more realistic!

PS: sorry for the harsh intro of my answer, I'm a real Skyrim fan, and I see that Bethesda has the numbers and the right ideas to do great, great games. Their problem is that they want to stick to the old, obsolete engine, that has many limitations.

No!! I agree with Sybelius here. Cities in separate world spaces are absolutely not acceptable! I can't fathom how anybody could think for even a second that they were acceptable. There is no excuse for that nonsense with today's current generation of consoles. If anything has to have loading screens, I would rather building interiors have them than cities. But,, really, I don't want them anywhere.

Under no circumstances do I ever want to see cities in separate cells again. Never, in any Bethesda game, ever again. It has to go.

Part of the reason the nameless NPCs work in the Witcher games is because of their mechanics. You can only get gear in specific situations, like as a reward for a quest or by buying it in a shop. You can't field strip a corpse and take their clothes, armor, weapons, potions, and gold like in TES games. Even if you gut most of their AI, if they still have a complete inventory then they're still going to eat more RAM than a Witcher NPC. The more RAM they eat, the fewer can be placed in a city. The fewer NPCs there are in the city, the smaller it needs to be unless you want it to look like a ghost town. The first Assassin's Creed game took 2GB RAM on Vista, but Oblivion only took 512MB on the same system. A lot of this is just tracking all those NPCs and they don't even have an inventory or more than one hitpoint, and I'm pretty sure that they only exist in a smallish area around Altair.

In two other game series with hordes of generic villager NPCs, Fable and Assassin's Creed, they're more of a feature or gameplay element than part of the world. The reason for having so many NPCs in Assassin's Creed is to make it harder for you to escape or to provide witnesses to increase your infamy. Fable's NPCs talk about your accomplishments, but their main purpose is to make the world not feel so empty and so you can kill them for evil points. In both games, they tend to be an annoyance more than anything else.

Yes, you can throw a unique conversation here and there, but Skyrim already did that to add more character to its unique NPCs and Oblivion showed just how bad an idea randomly generated 'atmospheric' conversations are. Similarly, Fable's NPCs repeating the same few lines about what quests you've done got real old real fast.

Finally, you can give the crowd as a whole character, but you can't give enough personality to the generic, faceless, nameless NPCs in it to get players attached or even to convince them to not kill them for sport. Seriously, I can't even begin to count the number of NPCs I killed in Fable just because I found them mildly irritating. And you can't create much punishment for doing so beyond having the guards attack, and really, how many of us consider the guards a serious threat?

Obviously No loading screens ever would be best but it's just not realistic. The Witcher was able to do it as most the city was completely locked off buildings and they had less things to process. Only having to see loading screens when entering separated and larger areas is a fair trade off. Flying mounts will probably never be as TES6 as they make the world feel too small, and require everything in the "over-world" to be in the same cell. Obviously these things can be solved but would be very hard and nearly impossible to do so. You'd need the size of the world to be close to MMO size to make flying mounts not feel like a jet plane. The single over-world cell would require them to either use a new engine or somehow find a way to cheese it in with the current one, or could be partly "solved" by including an invisible door that domes over the cities and acts as an entry way in-case you want to fly/levitate in.

In regards to the npc issus I think it requires them balancing a large population with basic level of customization. I don't think TES cities need to be as big or as populated as those games however the state they are at now is also just too small. Solitude has close to 75 unique characters which for a capital city is pretty small. I would suggest something like 100-120 interactive characters then something like 50-80 non interactive ones to fill the city out. Group them all into families of 3-5 so they can each have their own homes, you could even have the poor districts have houses that hold 3-4 families to save space and development time. Give them a basic AI routine just so they don't stand static.

I think both those ideas have a pretty unlikely chance of happening however. Although Bethesda opening a new branch shows that they have their mind on expansion since making a lot of money especially with their last 2 games + FOS. Hopefully they put funds into hiring new developers for their main branch as-well along with creating/severly updating their engines to not only bring them up to date but future proof as-well. An interesting thing to think about is that the expected release date of TES6 is around 2019-2020 which is around the same time we should be seeing a new console generation.

Double posting because I have no respect for the rules and want to start a new topic.

I wanted to bring up the topic of bosses. Bosses and boss battles are a pretty big part of RPG's if you ask me and they always feel pretty lame in TES. Some things I would like to know are

Who were the previous bosses/mini-bosses TES has had since Morrowind?

Best/Worse Bosses

Games that have the best boss fights.

And anything else you want to say about the topic.

Most people in any given city/town/whatever will like you for doing good things around them, though. I think the system would work really well with two layers: general area-wide disposition and individual disposition. General disposition is really good for keeping track of how every random person in town feels about you, which is important as it can make it feel like the people are actually seeing or hearing about the things you're doing, as well as making it so that BGS doesn't have to have an individual disposition tracker for every random NPC, especially since many of them will likely have nothing to do with any sort of quest which would make an entirely individual system a bit harder to do without bringing back something like the old disposition minigame which I hope never happens. This way, an individuals disposition could still be affected slightly by the general disposition (or not at all), but not be entirely dependent on it.

Bosses in TES have always been pretty meh. I liked Dagoth Ur, but that was mostly because I liked his speeches and all the little times he talks to you throughout the game. The fight itself was pretty boring. Come to think of it, I don't think I've actually enjoyed any of the boss fights in TES. Combat has just never been anything that mattered too much to me in TES. I would probably enjoy more bosses that had a more specific way of beating them. Some sort of puzzle or weakness or something that makes it beneficial to think about the fight rather than just bash their face in.

You flagged up some true problems. Hardware capacity is off course a big limitation, and I strongly agree with you, but... Bethesda is still recycling the same engine again and again. In Fallout 4 there was a loading screen in Diamond City when I entered my new apartment, Valentine's office and the Medic shop's basemant, that are really small places. Unacceptable. I cannot believe there is no technical alternative solution to the damned loading screens!

From the number of citizens point of view, I agree with you again: a wise increase of the number of npcs should be possible. I presonally can accept that at the moment very crowded places are still far beyond consolles hardware reach. I was even more cautious than you. I would have added to Whiterun, Solitude, Windhelm and the other cities not much more than 30 npcs to the ones already present.

Finally, I still agree with you that unfortunately TES VI will unlikely have new engine, no loading screens and well populated cities. And this pisses me off. A lot.

PS: regarding flying dragons and map size: as you said.flying mounts are needed just in extremely big areas, such as Kalimdor, Nothrend and Eastern Kindoms in World of Warcraft. Even here I agree with you. For what we can imagine now, next TES chapter is going to be placed in one region, not the whole Tamriel, so there's no real need of flying mounts at all. There just need of cool mounts, and charming areas to explore. I think we don't need a game with a map bigger than Skyrim, we need an area of the same size, but with more details, no loading screens, more npcs. I'm almost sure current gen consolles are able to handle that quite well.

PPS: regarding bosses, it would be cool to see rare epic creatures lurking around, haunting a certain dungeon, castle or area. But they would need to be damn tough, a real challenge for the players. And here comes the coop I suggested some posts ago! I'd limit it to 4 players maximum for the sake of good gaming: the more people you need to play a certain game with, the higher the probability to stumble into some 4$$h013 (WoW docet)!

Flying mounts aren't really relavant for travel in a game with magial teleportation widely available (most competent ma 've organisations can do it) or which mechanically has fast travel. I'd even go so far as to say that fast travel makes the world seem larger, because it causes more of a disconnect between travel and time. You can't physically experience the passage of time and the association with the distant covered, making it easier to fabricate an illusion of a larger world. I have been playing with the idea of a Dragon Riding faction, based off an offshoot of the Blades, but that's something else entirely...




Agreed. It depends somewhat on how NPCs are handled, and if there are 'Generic' individuals present. Anyone with a personality, I think, deserves some ability to interact with and form relationships, imagined or otherwise, But the system is useless on a generic 'Settler'. Of course... Sometimes stories crop up with them too... There's on farm in Fallout that I'm always being called to because some woman's husband is captured by raiders. I've saved the guy a dozen times, at this point I'm just convinced he's trying to escape an overbearing wife...


Anyway...




Yeah. The combat system in TES doesn't really facilitate boss fights well. The closest thing I think we've had to an interesting boss in TES has been The Caller, what with the teleporting and such... But on the whole they've barely even executed boss fights passably, let alone well.

I like this idea. There could be 50-80 generic NPCs named something like "citizen." They don't even have to actually own a house. They just disappear off the game when you walk to a different area. If you test the AI and follow one of them, then a generic schedule is generated to this NPC. He or she will walk to a random place and work there. If you keep watching this NPC, at the end of the day this NPC will walk to a random house, designated for generic NPCs. Basically, they are radiant citizens. They don't actually all have houses, but since you never look at all of them at once, they can still give the illusion of having schedule, carrying things in their pockets, and having a home. If you follow them they'll behave like a normal NPC, but as soon as you walk away, they disappear from the game. So all houses can still be entered, but you don't need 200 houses. Just one for each named character, and a couple for radiant NPCs in case you follow one of them home. They don't even have to be non-interactable. If you talk to them, you'd be able to ask directions and generic questions like "What can you tell me about this city?" and they'd give generic responses. The indication that they are generic would be in the name, like "citizen" or "merchant" or whatever.

This system isn't perfect because people would joke about how "every time I enter this particular house, somebody else is living here!" But it's still better than having an empty city.

Sorry but I would hate that.The like to be able to visit every npcs house and that they have a job and personality and houses that actually show which person is living in them and not just generic random npcs.