Here's a thought: have the boards mostly feature radiant quests with some non-radiant pre-built quests thrown in. Should give players some incentive to check the boards if there's at least one interesting quest guaranteed.
That's more or less what i'm getting at.
I agree with practically everything Huleed is saying, which makes me think i'm not explaining myself particularly well.
I don't think that an over-reliance on Bulletin Boards is the answer. I don't think we should take The Witcher approach and cram 90% of content into a single delivery system. Nor do i think they should totally replace traditional methods of issuing Radiant content.
But using them as another tool to deliver content is a good idea. They allow you to easily open up more generic jobs for a wider range of NPCs (Stardew Valley is a good example of this) with minimal extra work, they offer a way to garner interest in areas that would typically serve as social gathering places, and they offer an additional way to deliver information about points of interest and new opportunities without an over reliance on forced exposition or those thrice damned Couriers.
Like most world-building and quest-delivering tools, it's not something that can cover every angle comfortably. Over reliance on any single approach diminishes the whole. But as a tool to increase the range of quests, and how they're delivered, it's something that shouldn't be discounted.
So... I don't know about y'all, but if the minuteman Slave-General driving quests are anything like Radiant quests, than I think they should tweak that and make it the General dishing out orders instead of being ordered.
i agree with most of these. as for the notice board hot topic. for the people who haven't checked that mod out, it's just a "quest center" like the barkeep telling you rumors, it also acts as a gathering point for NPC mercenaries whom the player can actually join on radiant quests.
i also don't mind that it's just a "quest center" handing out radiant quests. specifically because they are radiant quests.
i would be annoyed if they did this to main quests or large quest lines, but i don't mind this for radiant quests. it saves me the time from asking the barkeep for rumors or asking the jarl or steward for bounty contracts that i can't choose.
the notification board allows the players to choose which radiant quests they wanna activate. that's a cool feature for me.
edit :
-i don't think handing avenicci's sword to her father or faendal's quest as "radiant quests".. <----- those are sidequests, not radiant quests.
radiant quests are repeatable and randomly generated.
i agree, the best place to check which probable new features to add would be to look at the most endorsed mods.
as for adding a new race. a lot of people wanna preserve the status quo and it's a hot issue that somehow offends people as if you slapped them in the face, the moment someone even remotely suggests adding a new race.
i don't mind having a new race though. as long as they implement it good and seamlessly.
I think for TES IV the most important things for me to improve on are:
Remove radiant quests - I much prefer well fleshed out quests that are limited in numbers compared to the radiant quests we get to fetch things, kill something, save somebody etc. from Skyrim and FO4. It allows the game to be endless yes but it's completely uninteresting to me since the quests are meaningless at the same time.
Better quests for factions, in fact, better factions - I don't care much if the main questline is whatever, since I feel like the factions and other entities (places, people) are the things that make the world amazing. We need to have much better storylines for factions, more varieties of factions (instead of the standard thieves guild, dark brotherhood, mages guild, fighters guild, and/or variants of these). Factions should also be not so simple as "go here and sign up" to join, they should create stories on their own that provides interesting ways of joining, interesting developments within the guilds (instead of do quests and rank from noob -> master), and plot twists. I feel like one of the biggest gripes I have with Skyrim is the writing was a let down so much compared to Oblivion.
Examples of the faction issue...
Thieves guild
Oblivion - Loved how you could join by having high disposition towards beggars. Great end quest.
Skyrim - Go to a sewer and simply join
DB
Oblivion - Had to murder somebody in cold blood
Skyrim - Go speak with Aventino to join... (seriously this was the biggest disappointment when I played Skyrim for the first time ever, for the quest to pop up saying "speak with ... about joining the dark brotherhood")
Mages guild
Oblivion - Recommendation quests
Skyrim - Pass a very simple test and join the college (then rest of questline can be completed without any knowledge of magic)
Fighters guild was the only meh guild I felt in Oblivion and similarly I felt like the companions questline was extremely short and let down by the fact that it's made up of just radiant quests.
I think in terms of the world Bethesda is hands down the best and they absolutely smash it when it comes to making an amazing world, but just seeing how the Witcher 3 brought open world RPG to a whole new level wasn't its combat, or crafting, or other gimmicks, but simply it's stories, and sub stories. We have the great worlds that Bethesda create, now they just have to bring it to life with great stories and TES IV will be absolutely mind blowing I think.
You can't stop yourself from being snotty to people for no reason, can you?
Sure, but then it's just about delivering content, and nothing about radiant quests specifically. Radiant quests would still be available through people, and hand-made quests and notices would also appear on the notice board.
Although I'm still not overly fond of relying on such message boards to get anything (such that it's the only way to get a lead on something). I think NPC interaction is too important, that talking to NPCs should be the defacto way of getting information about relevant events/jobs/etc, and any message board use would be completely optional. I miss being able to talk to NPCs about general gossip and rumors.
More like, you get approached by a guy who just straight up goes "You're a thief, right? Wanna do a little work for me? I'll let you join my buddies if you're good." There is absolutely no pretense to it at all, they approach you with the proposition regardless of the type of character you are, you don't have to show any gumption for the kind of work they do, and they'll still let you in even if you fail. More than just being sloppy, it's outright out of character for a secret underground guild of thieves, especially one that's on the verge of collapsing, to approach random people they obviously know nothing about.
By comparison, in Oblivion, you had to track the guild down yourself in one of various ways just to find the meeting point... either actually getting arrested for theft to get their attention, buttering up the beggars, or talking to the right people. Get there, and you're tasked with doing a job to get in. If you fail that job, you don't get in because you're not good enough. Though they will of course give you a second chance that's practically impossible to fail, but it still does a much better job of having you find your way in to a secret underground criminal organization instead of being propositioned in the middle of a busy market square the moment you set foot in the token "seedy city".
They don't really just run down a random murderer. They see you murder someone, and then they task you with murdering someone else of their choosing, as a show of trust (at which point you could deny it and actually kill him, or follow through with it), then get let in when you succeed and show yourself to be worth joining.
Skyrim's wasn't bad in general, since you still had to make the effort of actually murdering people to get their attention, but I can't help but feel they pushed it in your face way too much. Random innkeep somewhere in the province, "Aretino's trying to contact the dark brotherhood". Two weeks later, in Windhelm, "Don't go in there, Aretino's doing something evil." Two weeks later when you feel like checking it out, you find him alone in his house performing the black sacrament. People all over the province have known what this kid's been doing for a month, and he's been alone in his house this whole time in the middle of the city (which has also been having problems with murders), and no one's done anything to stop him?
The beginning of Skyrim's Mages Guild quest had a lot of promise. But it completely falls to pieces once you hit Sarthaal a couple quests in. With Oblivion, it felt like you were earning your place in the AU by getting the guild hall leaders to vouch for you, with quests and events that fit thematically and foreshadowed the upcoming conflict really nicely. Overall, I liked Oblivion's a lot more, with the main downside being it should've had you doing magic a lot more.
And that leads to one of the bigger problems SKyrim's guilds had. Each guild was based solely in a specific city. Companions, Whiterun. College, Winterhold. Thieves, Riften, DB, Falreath. To turn in a quest and get the next one, you were heading back to the same place over and over again, which helped make the game world feel small. In contrast, previous games had guilds in various locations. Thieves Guild had you being based in Bravil, Anvil, the IC, etc. The Mages Guild had you being based in Bruma, Chorrol, Lleyawiin, etc.
Don't bother...Lachdonins brain works on New is better...no matter how stupid.
I find it mildly amusing that seeming as of late, degrading weapon conditions seems to be a thing again. The Witcher was one thing, but the Legend of Zelda? Colored me surprised.
The important thing for me is just how you repair items. Repair hammers were pretty lame. It looks like Breath of the Wind doesn't have a repair mechanic, and you just replace broken items with new versions. Really wouldn't work for Elder Scrolls, but as long as equipment repair feels "right" I won't whine about it. Would certainly add another good layer to crafting and material qualities.
But what really got me about the new Legend of Zelda, though. I'm going to eat my words for this, but that climbing looked so natural. It's not just some obvious "see that patch of vines on an even surface? you can climb it" like in any other adventure game, you can climb almost anything and it looks right. The biggest obstacle Elder Scrolls has that Zelda doesn't is actor AI - even if NPCs can't climb (you could probably add a new type of navmesh for scalable walls, but then they've still got to program how the AI handles combat, or chasing the player, etc), they'd need to figure out how to reach the player character or target them while they're climbing.
I've played all of 5 minutes of Zelda in my life. Zelda 2, i think... Anyway, i can't really say much about it, because i've barely been exposed to it, but the new one looks rather Survival oriented, rather than the traditional Action-Adventure route... so degradation is more of a standard element.
Degradation is a great idea, in principle, but everyone seems to be sticking with the same old implementation. Use Weapon, Break Weapon, Repair Weapon. It was just as bad in Wild Hunt as it was in Oblivion... Its something i'd like to see, but it needs to be handled differently.
i play dark souls, so stuff like weapon degradation just seemed natural for me. there's also mods like loot and degradation, so i'm already kinda used to weapon degradation in skyrim.
i've also played with mods like frostfall and iNeeds, so survival stuff isn't new to me either.
i've also played with mods like bleed them dry, battle fatigue, and crippled limbs, so stuff like crippled limbs, bleeding, and fatigue isn't new to me either.
if only i could find a good parkour mod for skyrim, things would be more immersive, but the closest thing i found is better jumping which adds a double jump and a sprint jump, which isn't exactly what i'm looking for. :/
Random spur-of-the-moment thoughts on degradation:
- Only power attacks degrade weapons. Armor only degrades from power attacks. And of course degradation spells.
- Effectiveness doesn't constantly scale down with durability, maybe lowered effectiveness at 25% or lower durability.
- Broken items are unusable, but take up no carry weight in our inventory. A la broken power armor in Fallout.
- Can repair an item at the same workbench used to upgrade it, using some of the base components used to craft it. Probably a perk to reduce the material cost for repair. Armorers can repair all items.
And since I'm here, I've been thinking about how they could handle equipment progression in a semi-nonlinear way. It'll probably be easy enough to give armor enough different variables to give players more options than just Daedric or Glass/Dragonscale at the end of the game, but with weapons you've got to spread those variables across the different weapon types, materials, and craftable upgrades for each weapon. They'll figure something out, but giving each weapon at least one unique "thing" that they do well ought to help provide options for people not just looking for a raw damage bump. We don't know what kind of materials will appear/reappear in VI, so just some examples to help explain what I'm thinking about.
Steel: Still just early-game stuff, but extremely versatile. Armor can be crafted to serve nearly any purpose, heavy or light. Weapons and armor can be fortified with silver to boost effectiveness against undead/werewolves, or other materials for boosts like stronger enchantments, better durability, etc. With the right crafting perks, can be upgraded to advanced to compete with higher-tier armors like Orcish, similar to Skyrim's Steel Plate Armor.
Dwarven: pretty heavy, enchantments aren't as powerful, but damage/armor rating is solid, and it never breaks. (or, it has the highest durability of all materials and almost never breaks >.> )
Elven: good enchantment strength, and weapon enchantments last longer before running out of charges.
That, or attacking heavily armored opponents/trying to block an opponents power attack with a weapon.
But yeah, I'm in agreement with the item maintaining its optimum damage until a certain point, ala New Vegas.
Oh yeah, it breaks from external forces. Time might not do it in, but pipes bursting and anything impacting it still bends it out of shape.
Most durable probably goes to Dragonbone/scale. Daedric does the most damage, while Ebony has the highest enchantment value. Strikes me as sensible. Need returning rewards for items that are difficult to craft with uncommon materials.
I've never really been against the idea of Durability and Degredation, simply it's execution. The over-emphasis on 'Breaking' has always annoyed me, partially because it doesn't really do anything beyond generate an automated repair cycle. This was compounded by the fact that Repair could happen anywhere, and repair tools had finite uses.
Part of the issue is... Degradation doesn't work the same way for everything, so every system starts as conceptually awkward to begin with. Weapons aren't prone to breaking and becoming useless, unless poorly made, and few suits of armour really survive single encounters intact. Meanwhile, good craftsman tools can last several lifetimes of hard use.
One of the better ideas i've seen (from Jackal, maybe... Its been awhile, i can't exactly remember the source) is having Skyrim-eqsue improvements degrade over use. A Weapon or Armour wouldn't drop below it's base state (normally) but you'd still have to put some maintenance into it to keep it in peak form. There's some interesting variations that can be applied to the idea, from improvement limitations to Corrode spells, but it's a better start than the normal system.
Overall, though, the issue is that if you degrade too fast (Oblivion) it becomes tedious, if you degrade too slow it becomes ignorable. If you make repairs too limited, it only encourages carrying a bunch of replacement gear, where if you make it too easy it defeats the entire point of the system.
I've yet to play a game that makes Durability and Degradation a worthwhile mechanic. At best, it's a throw-away annoyance, at worst it's an automated maintenance loop. It doesn't add an increased sense of difficulty, it doesn't serve a character-development purpose, it rarely makes any sort of sense, and it doesn't offer any real diversity in game-play approaches. And those are issues that need to be addressed, otherwise it's a pointless addition for it's own sake.
Here are my ideas for weapon degradation:
Lmao, something just occured to me. Would you guys want to see settlements in TES VI as well? I wouldn't, unless its just fortifying forts for different factions.