:thumbsup:

As always, I want improvements in how the rulesystem works. TES rulesystem really is the worst of all rulesystems known to me. Very simple rulesystems like those used in Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, or Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic are already much more enjoyable than the horror of the TES rulesystem. Oblivion offered some minor improvements compared to Morrowind, but none of the major issues have been addressed. And fixing these issues is IMHO not THAT hard to do.

Major issues are for example:

- No control over how your character develops. Your mage is out of spells and needs to swing a sword ? Too bad for him, suddenly he gained levels in swordfighting, even if you didnt wanted to have anything in this respect.

- Not even the slightest idea of balance. Having a level 1 character that has 100 in several skills ? No issue, just dont make them major skills. Ugh.

- No variance. Everyone ends up with a character that has 100 in all skills and attributes. You can be the best possible mage, the best possible fighter and the best posible thief at the same time. Its really only race and birthsign that make a real difference in gameplay on the long run.

- Simplistic magic system without balance or any other depth.

Ideas for fixes:

(a) Give players control over their character
- Give players an on/off button for which skills they actually want to level
- Or: the player has to decide at each levelup which skills they want to train. Once they trained all these choices, they are ready for the next levelup.

(b ) Introduce a sense of balance in the levelup system
- The highest skills are automatically the major skills
- Hitpoints depend upon current level and current endurance, same for manapoints with intelligence instead of endurance
- Balance races and birthsigns to each other

(c ) Allow players to have unique and individual gameplay and characters
- Real feat system. Dont give us some fixed specials for high skills, give us a way to individualize our characters.
- Flexible birthsigns and races. Not every Breton gets the standard shield spell. Instead having a certain birthsign or race allows to access certain reserved feats at levelup for only these birthsigns or feats.

(d) Aspects that affect both the idea of having balance as well as the idea of individuality
- No bonus on stats on levelup, or ...
- ... even better no levelup of stats at all. You automatically get better at those stats where you have high skills.
- If you want a limit, limit level instead. Sorry cant have more than 40 levels - or something like that.
- No fixed upper limit for stats, so for example, a mage can always train intelligence even higher and will always be better at magic than the Jack-of-all-Trades

(e) Improve the magic system
- Have different elemental spells have different properties. For example:
* Fire puts on additional damage by applying a damage over time effect after the main effect.
* Ice slows, in large amounts even freezes opponents.
* Lightning drains stamina and mana of victims.
* Acid would destroy armor and weapons and disrupt skill and spell useages.
- Rework the whole simplistic combat system, because right now its all linear and primitive, like armor is just the percentage of how much damage gets through. The computer allows for very complicated formula easily. For example: armor could reduce damage by an inital amount, then reduce to a certain second amount, then everything above gets through full. All dependend upon weapon type and armor condition.
- Strictly avoid any game breaking magic effects, like 100% chameleon, or the lower resistance cascade popular in Oblivion. If it totally has to be all linear and primitive, at least introduce reasonable limits, like no more than 85% chameleon, and no more than 100% weakness to anything.


P.s.: As I already said in another thread, if I would only be allowed ONE change to the rulesystem, then I would demand getting a lock toggle for the skills. That alone would guarantee me full control over how my character develops, as most other rulesystems already have it builtin.

[*] A more powerful weather particle and animation system, that affects the environment more, from light snowfall to heavy blizzards, with the particle animation being independant from player movement (so not like in OB) and with roofs / trees obstructing the particles (if you stand under a bridge the particles should not pass through the bridge above you)

[*] More varied atmospheric wildlife, with birds, rodents, insects (fireflies!), fish, etc

[*] deep snow with footprints, and for really deep snow (waist deep) some temporary mesh deformation effects would be cool

[*] I'd like to see the Morrowind style armor slots return, pauldrons , L/R gloves, etc

[*] some sort of system that can be used to watch your combat from interesting third person angles. I know most people on here are against a VATS like system being in the game, I just want some way to make the fighting more interesting, maybe an option to watch a replay of the last few seconds of a battle

Improve the facegen:
- GOOD LIGHT so you can actually see how the changes will look in the game itself !!!!
- LESS sliders or at least no sliders that are duplicates of other sliders.
- No silders that move if you move another slider.
- No color changes in the face if you move any sliders, unless its a color slider.
- Ability to save/load designs !
- Maybe a bodygen, too ? Or alternative bodies to choose from. Just so not everybody has exactly the same height. Old people with young bodies = very weird.
- Actually if it would just be me, you might very well remove the age slider altogether ... I never played anything but youngest possible. Just for the record.

I had completely forgotten about the paudrons and gloves. Maybe make it a generic glove so you could equip one on each hand and still mix and match? I think light versions of each of the heavy armors, something like a light ebony scale plate on a leather under layer would be cool and functional. Also, CROSSBOWS! For starters, they were sweet in Morrowind and made some very cool musket and pistol mods possible. Dual wielding would be nice, but something like an assassin would be one of the only to do it highly efficiently. Tanks could use a short sword well enough I guess, but throw a dagger with the left hand and then follow up with a swipe to the head for the win. Also, throwable items, mixed potions that explode for the win, give the assassin-alchemist an edge and some fun.

I'd like to see a deeper level of customization for player houses. We invest hundreds of hours into these games and collect a vast amount of things over the course of the game so a home to decorate and display the things we've acquired over the span of the game is important. Some ideas for this could include the following..

1 - Dummies/figures that can be moved around with complete sets of armor to put on them.

2 - Various plots of land that can be purchased, stolen, rewarded through out the game to build a home on. From there a variety of architectural structures could be built by paying a merchant. Additional rooms, interior furniture could be purchased. This was in Oblivion but a more detailed variety would be nice, the option to purchase specific pieces of furniture, distinct architectural styles, etc. Maybe even a painter you could go to and purchase any number of interesting paintings to display on the walls of your home.

3 - Decorative structures/paintings/chairs, tables, etc, would be fun to collect through out the game. It would be amusing to discover a Daedric chair in some dungeon that could take up a large amount of weight, but were I interested in taking it to my home it would be a fun thing to put on display.

4 - Monster Trophies - They started this with the castle expansion in Oblivion where you could go to a taxidermist and exchange parts of monsters for a taxidermy version of that creature that would appear in your castle. I'd like to see more things like this, especially the option to cut the heads off of monsters in the game and be able to take them home to put on a display wall.

I object to the "no-spriggans"... spriggans were awsome monsters in bloodmoon, where they splintered when you killed one and two grew back... you had to fight off upto 16 of them from one spriggan, they were a tough fight for sure.
They did gimp them in Oblivion though. :whistling:

The magic system:

- Ability to REMOVE a spell
- Ability to RENAME a spell
- Ability to store spells in a spellbook to keep your active spelllist short and store spells you only need for crafting away

The weapon system:

- Ability to SWITCH WEAPON at any time. You may delay the actual swithing of weapons until the animation is ready. Just allow the command given at any time.

A suggestion I would like to add, is enhancing the Armourer skill so that you can use those pelts, metal and precious stones to make armor and maybe arms.
Werewolf hide leather armor anyone???
Mine your own Ebon/Glass armor?

A Timberwolf companion is much needed.

I mean, wolves are awesome and it would be very fitting to have a white Timberwolf as a companion when exploring Skyrim.

Haven't read all the suggestions so far, so consider any repetition to be a vote of support.

• Seasonal change (perhaps limited to a broad summer/winter variation)
  
  
• Environmental & weather effects (tangible effects for extreme cold, wind, ice storms...)
  
  
• Dynamic/persistent spell effects (fire magic can set targets on fire, frost can freeze targets, etc.)
  
  
• Self-sufficient & wilderness alchemy, enchanting & spellmaking (accommodated by workshops in abandoned forts, mysterious/legendary forges, etc.)
  
  
• Inanimate training objects (combat dummies, archery butts, etc., which provide [limited or reduced rate] training when accurately struck with an appropriate weapon)
  
  
• Varied ambient fauna (butterflies, fish, wolf packs, birds which flutter away as the PC nears, etc.)
  
  
• Unique battles & monster hunts (in the style of Umbra, but featuring large monsters, etc.)
  
  
• Item crafting (allow the PC to create or repair/upgrade items using component items)
  
  
• Trophy items (taken from slain "boss"-type monsters, with or without a practical use; 'Great Wolf's Pelt', 'Dragon Skull', etc.)
  
  
• Player-owned housing variations (homes which aren't houses, but caves, shelters, small towers, etc.; and which aren't acquired by payment, but cleared of monsters, repaired, etc.)
  
  
• Expanded creature attacks (have monsters throw rocks, shake the ground, knock the PC flying, breathe flame, etc.)
  
  
• Player-set traps (allow certain world objects to be used by the PC to set traps and cause damage (wooden spikes, huge logs, precariously-balanced boulders, etc.)
  
  
• Environmental dangers (falling icicles & rocks, small avalanches, pitfalls, crumbling floors, etc.)
  
  
• Tactical battle scenarios (flying creatures with ranged weapons/thrown rocks, bandit/barbarian ambushes, archers firing from cover, etc.)
  
  
• Cowardly enemies (intelligent foes flee the PC if overwhelmed)
  
  
• Armed & armoured monsters (ogres, minotaurs, and/or similar creatures with low-quality weapons and piecemeal armour)
  
  
• Hero & thief NPCs (implemented as part of quests or rare chance encounters; as allies, enemies, neutrals or rivals)
  
  
• Shapeshifting (via alteration magic, unique item[s] or as a quest-granted power)

[*] Ability to look out of windows from interiors, look into interiors from outside

[*] windows light up at night from flickering candle-light, lamp light, or fireplace light

[*] PLEASE divide savedgame lists by Character first, then by date saved. Please get rid of having one giant list that is only sorted by time saved.

From this thread which was quickly locked by the moderators:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1149216-so-bethesda-are-you-finally-going-to-scrap-your-ancient-and-useless-engine/

It started back in 2002. I read an article about Morrowind, this amazing new upcoming RPG, so I worked hard to earn enough money to purchase the limited edition of the PC version of the game. What I got was nothing like what I was told it would be. But the game had its good points, and I made a number of plugins for it. The main issues with Morrowind were:

1. Interior cells. Every room in the game that had windows that could not look outside, because all the interior rooms in the game existed in a separate area from the outside area. This became a constant thorn in the side of many talented modders, myself included. Why? Because it ruins the most important thing any game needs to have - the suspension of disbelief.

2. More fog that then the Scottish coastline.

3. Uncreative, disappointing travel options. A ride by boat or stilt rider resulted in a black screen and the eventual load of the your destination.

4. Lack of Side, Top, etc. views in the editor,.

5. Clunky editor in general, extremely hard to create dialogue. Bugs like double doors and double chests as well as other technical issues in the editor. There were so many issues folks in the community had to create things like TESAME to fix them!

So Oblivion came out and I couldn't have cared less. I ended up playing a friend's copy on the Xbox 360 and noticed that you could ride a horse now, so kudos to the devs for one needed fix. I think I tried the editor once and discovered that it was much the same as Morrowind's.

Now we come to Elder Scrolls V, and here's your chance to redeem yourself Bethesda! With games out on the 360 now like Arcana Gothic 4 you're going to have to up your game. No more excuses, no more crap. Throw out your engine - it's 4 years old and a piece of garbage. These are some of the features you need to include:

1. No more interior/exterior cells. If Gothic 4 can run on the 360 with no lag, no fog, and no separation between the insides and outsides of buildings ES5 certainly can do the same.

2. No more excess fog. I told you before, many times, how to code a game whereby objects in the distance render with less detail than those within a certain radius of the player. With good coders you should be able to create an expansive world with no lag, no fog unless its a weather effect, and epic vistas for the player to admire.

3. Boat rides should be in real time, In other words the player should be able to enjoy the wind at his or her back as they cross the see to another town. Fast travel should also be included for those who don't want this.

4. Fix the editor, find a way to give the players more views to manipulate objects in, don't have stupid things like certain boxes needed to surround a model in order for it to sit on the terrain of the game world, don't use some proprietary mesh format, make it easier to import custom assets, etc. If you guys have been smart you have kept notes of all the features the community wanted in the editor, and all the bugs they encountered, Add the features, remove the bugs.

5. Be more creative in the design of your towns and villages! Remember this is a FANTASY RPG, emphasis on fantasy which is short for what? FANTASTICAL! Nothing about Oblivion was, and only the mushroom houses in Morrowind were.

6. Better terrain tools for the editor, including the ability to change the angle of the cursor for slanted surfaces and the ability to dig into the ground to create caves and tunnels. Buy a copy of Far Cry Instincts Predator and see how elegantly they designed their terrain tools. Don't re-invent the wheel, study the solutions other game companies have come up with!

7. Make sure you include an editor for the console versions of the game, and that you allow import of custom assets in the Xbox 360 version at the very least. I know it can be done for this system - no so sure of the PS3. This will also help you in the design of your editor, forcing you to keep things simple to use but powerful. Again I recommend you study the FCIP editor. You can do at least 3x better with a more modern engine I'm sure!

8. CLIMBING! The player should be able to jump, run, swim, climb and fly! So fix this ladder issue you seem to be having!

9. Better furniture and player interaction with it! The player should be able to place books and other items on a shelf like you place a book in normal life. They should be able to place armor on mannequins and place the mannequins wherever they like. They should be able to place swords they want to display on sword racks and place the display racks wherever they want. No display cases though, they don't fit with the time period.

I will be back with more suggestions. I hope this time you listen to me, and others telling you the same things -
- Deathbliss
(author of Valenwood, creator of the WD tree models, author of Amaya Lodge, compiler of the Official Mods package and sender of several comprehensive bug reports)

UPDATE 12-14-2010
Strikeout of new engine suggestion. I have been told that Bethesda is using a new engine for the game, although the interpretation of engine is rather loose right now so there is still some speculation.

I'd like a hunting guild. It just seems apt in Skyrim, to hunt bears and boars in the forest.

Yes to all of these!

1. Overhaul character leveling system, so that playing a focused character doesn't gimp them horribly. Remove or change attribute multipliers so that grinding minor skills doesn't become a necessity. Uncap (major?) skills and attributes, so that we can continue playing a character that we want to play for the whole time, rather than be forced to diversify. It was great how in Fallout 3 I could play the character I wanted to play - a sneaky, silver-tonged sniper the whole way through, rather than be forced to switch to a melee fighter at some arbitrary point, just to be able to continue leveling.

2. Make weapon skills really different - give weapon classes different speed, damage, animations (it is really awkward how they all shared the same animation in previous games and looked ridiculous) and perks. Picking a different combat skill should provide a fresh experience or why have them?
A spell that slows time and allows the klutzes among us to enjoy the weapons combat regardless would be great, too.
Also, for those of us who don't want to play serial killers, a way to KO humanoids and still be able to plunder them would be very much appreciated. Freedom, right?

3. More random things to do in the world - killing, stealing and gathering alchemy ingredients isn't "do what you want!", not by a long stretch. I also want positive random things to do as well, like I dunno, healing people, delivering messages or whatever and neutral things like games, etc. Look at the GTA series for possibilities.

4. Add climbing and/or levitation with extra entrance points into buildings, etc. for characters that use them.

5. Finally add decent mounted combat - an indy game like Mount and Blade managed a long time ago, it is very doable.

6. Improve writing and quest design.

7. Borrow wholesale from F3: sneaking mechanic, which is the best in a non-dedicated game ever and lock-pick mechanic, which is quite good too.

I wouldnt mind stealth kills, if you can kill something instantly, why not have a different death mechanic than "they all fall down." Dark Messiah of Might and Magic had a brutal stealth kill option, exactly what stealth killing is, quietly taking down an enemy quickly and effectively.

wow everyone! ive seen some great suggestions and criticizms, keep it up!

i got some more ideas ill share with you now

[*]tatoos
[*]quests to capture or kill cerial killers/rouge guards/bandits; for a reward
[*]nets
[*]pitchforks
[*]more guard levels, like normal guards, captains, just more guard diversity
[*]bigger map! for me i loved the free roam aspect and id love more of it
[*]witnesses, like people you can stop if they see you commit a crime
[*]able to keep hostages
[*]some npc's try to kill you to claim your bounty (dont overdo this tho, or it will get annoying)
[*]some sort of bounty status, like a name to go along with your bounty
[*]sometimes in oblivion, a guard could be across the city, and it would still say you are being chased by him, unable to do many things because of this, and then get arrested.....fix this please

thats what i got for now, tell me what you think!!!

I want oh-so-many things!

- I want more Skills, including Subskills and related Skills recieving a boost. i.e., Blade Skill; One-Handed Sword, Two-Handed Sword, Dagger. For every three levels One-Handed Sword increases, the other two Subskills increase by one level. Works between Skills and Subskills.

- I want an intuitive combat system. I don't want combat to be a battle between Health and Damage. I want to be able to be a badass rogue who can take out a top level merc with a rusty dagger, because a rusty dagger is going to open a man's liver just as well as an Ebony dagger. Well, almost. I want more strategy than just holding block and waiting for them to stagger. I want to parry, I want to flourish, I want to side-step a thrust and slice a rapier across my opponent's exposed throat, or to have my blow deflected off of his pauldren because my One-Handed Sword Subskill isn't high enough to succeed in such a strike.

- I want improved locational damage. If I'm gonna cripple a man's leg, I'd better be able to do something more than just kill him. There's no point in locational damage if the end result is always killing therm. I want to be able to maim and disable a person to the point that they're no longer capable of hurting me in any way, or so that they're no longer hostile, or so that they'll give me information I desire. There are many ways it can play out if Locational Damage is implemented properly.

- I want awesome perks and abilities. I want them to be more than just stat buffs too. Climbing ceilings, killing three men in one strike, making explosives, seducing some random person into giving me their housekey. I don't evem know what kind of crazy perks I want, but I want them!

- I want to talk my way through the whole game. I want to hire thugs to do the dirty work for me. I want to profit from their deaths. And I want to do it whilst retaining a a positive reputation with all major factions, perhaps even all minor ones.

- I want Magic to have more defined and varied effects on not only NPCs but the physical word. I want Ice-based attacks to cause the ground to become slippery, Fire-based spells will burn down trees or buildings (maybe a bit too far), Lightning-based spells might be diverted if highly conductive objects are around. Improved animation would hurt either.

- I want stealth that involves more than walking around in a crouched position, even in the most counterintuitive situations possible. I want climbing up walls, through windows, jumping from roof to roof, hanging off of ledges, pressing against walls, hiding behind curtains, stealthily dispatching enemies both lethally and non-lethally, disposing of bodies, poison-making, hiding in plain sight and improved combinations with stealth-based Magic like unlocking locks, invisibility, levitation, walking through walls and creating distractions.

- I want so many god-damned factions! Dozens. I want to be able to join all of them. I don't want to be able to join all of them at once, though. Fighters' Guild, Mages Guild, Assassin's Guild, Thieves Guild, Morag Tong, Imperial Cult, Imperial Army (or whatever), local militia, the major clans, Vampire families, Werewold packs, segregated race-specific factions - for Dunmer, Imperials, Bosmer, Altmer, Orc etc.

- Speaking of which, I want an enhanced Reputation system. I want some groups to hate murder, some to love it, some to be completely ambivilent toward it. Same goes for theft and assault.

- I want corruption. I want to be able to bribe a guard into letting me go. Or threaten them. Or maybe have such a good reputation amongst the city guards that they turn a blind eye to such minor transgressions.

- I want non-lethal barfights. I want to be dragged from my opponent. Then I want to pull a knife and stab the bastard then run for my life from the authorities.

- I don't want psychic guards. I want a word-of-mouth system. If I kill a man before he makes a noise, and hide his body, it'll be some time before the guards come a-looking. Maybe they won't at all. If he let's out a scream, the guards will come too see the commotion. If I'm caught in the act, I will be arrested. Killing me will be their last resort (capture is the only other resort, so it's not like they're going to take much guff before they decide to get lethal). If a guard catches be me in the act of some nefarious doings, and I kill him, no other guard will know about it. But when his shift is over, guards will look for him.

- I want the only way for my crime to be reported is for a guard or citizen to file a report at the offices of the guards. Until that happens, it should be possible to kill or silence anyone with knowledge of the crime (i.e, anyone within a certain radius of said crime) in order to stop the crime from being reported.

- I want a revamped barter system and economy, where only pawn-brokers buy everything, where only a high skill in Mercentile or it's Subskill of Appraisal will know the true value of a seemingly random trinket that turns out to be owned by Talos (or some other great figure), at the same time, I want those without the skill - be it character on NPC - to have a much less acute awareness of the price of anything from raw minerals to produce to weapons. I'd like NPC's to buy and sell from one another (though that's probably just wishful thinking on my part).

I want more but it's getting late and no one will read half of this stuff anyways. Night y'all.

New and sick methods of transportation like griffins that fly from town to town.

my wishlist for skyrim:

- better animations (characters, spells etc)
- none or little level scaling (and remove the wolves become bears become minotaurs etc stuff)
- enchanted items recharge over time as in morrowind (this really bugged me alot in oblivion)
- more skills, and major & minor skills (just the way they did in morrowind, for example long blade and short blade, axe and blunt weapons, medium armor)
- weapons damage 2-10 for example, not just a single value as in oblivion (makes the weapons look more interesting in my opinion. this could go for spells aswell)
- bring spears back
- new spell system + more variety in spells. spells get better (not just cost less mana) when you become more powerful (making the first spells you bought still useful at higher levels). % chance to fail as in morrowind
- more complex quests (like mysteries and riddles, i love that )
- get to know the place-quests.( remember picking flowers around balmora? i bet thats one of the first quests alot of people did in morrowind. i personally loved it. i dont like getting thrown into something huge the first minute.)
- fewer map markers
- no instant fast travel (boats, some sort of silt striders whatever is good)
- cities not visible on map before you visit them)
- faction rivalry (like fighters guild and that other guild thing in oblivion which i cant recall the name of atm)
- more politics (as someone suggested in some thread. like the houses in morrowind. fun fun fun!)
- mysterious/forgotten/hidden/hardtofind unique caves/ruins
- no starting spells for combat focused characters (ok maybe a small healing spell. but what viking cast fireballs?)
- beautiful/unique landscape and locations with alot of background sounds/noises. birds singing, water dripping, wind in the trees, roars, you get the idea.
- werewolves would be cool, fits skyrim theme ok too i guess

all i could think of just now. too much to demand perhaps, i dont know :huh:

How about your fatigue degreasing slowly whenever you run and turn over to walk mode when you're out of breath, just like in Diablo 2? But this might be a little frustrating when in combat, also for those who like traveling on foot.

So far I haven't played any Fallout game, but I heard you get slowed down whenever you carry too much instead of freezing in place so you'll have to drop some stash. I'd like this one to be fixed in Skyrim. :yes:

Okay, these are my ideas for the game. I have already posts at the ideas and suggestions threads but now, while adding a few new things, i have removed many unnecessary details and my ideas are much easier to read.

I also want to say that these are potential ideas. I understand that many of these ideas are impossible to exist in TES 5: Skyrim either because they dont fit in the story or because the fans don't want or don't care about this.

Now, i am very proud of my ideas at the arts of magic area, where i changed the schools a little bit and added some very cool spells. Bethesda admit it!!! My categorization of magic schools and spells is better than yours!!! HA HA!!!


CONTENTS

1.0-BASIC CHANGES
___1.1-AGEING
___1.2-CHILDREN
___1.3-AFFECTING ATTRIBUTES

2.0-ATTRIBUTES, SKILLS, LEVELING
___2.1-FACTS
___2.2-ATTRIBUTES
___2.3-DERIVED ATTRIBUTES
___2.4-SKILLS
___2.5-LEVELING

3.0-COMBAT, STEALTH, MAGIC, JOBS
___3.1-THE ARTS OF COMBAT
_____3.1.1-MARTIAL ARTS
___3.2-THE ARTS OF STEALTH
_____3.2.1-ALCHEMICAL SECURITY
___3.3-THE ARTS OF MAGIC
_____3.3.1-SCHOOL OF PSYCHIC FORCE
_____3.3.2-SCHOOL OF ILLUSION
_____3.3.3-SCHOOL OF DESTRUCTION
_____3.3.4-SCHOOL OF SUPERSKILL
_____3.3.5-SCHOOL OF CONJURATION
_____3.3.6-SCHOOL OF RESTORATION

4.0-GENERAL IDEAS
___4.1-ENVIRONMENT
___4.2-QUESTS
___4.3-INVENTORY
___4.4-RUNNING
___4.5-ILLEGAL JOBS


1.0-BASIC CHANGES:


1.1-AGEING:
You and all NPCs grow up. You start at 15 and die at 80. One lifetime = around 70 hours of gameplay. There is always option to play without growing up.


1.2-CHILDREN:
You and all NPCs can have children. An NPCs generation process creates new NPCs. Your children start as NPCs. At sometime one becomes the playing character and your ex-character becomes NPC.


1.3-AFFECTING ATTRIBUTES:
Physical attributes never drop but its difficult to level as you get old. The new playing character gets 50% attributes of the parent. So there is more potential.




2.0-ATTRIBUTES, SKILLS, LEVELING


2.1-FACTS
These are chosen by the player at the beginning of the game.

FACTS

(R ) __Race__________one of races

(H) ___Height (cm)_____155 to 205

(BT) __Body Type_____Very Thin to Very Fat

(A) ___Age (years)______12 to 80

(S) ___six____________Male-Female

(AP) __Appearance____V. Dreadful to V. Beautiful

(B )___ Birthsign________one of birthsigns


2.2-ATTRIBUTES
The symbol f( ) means that the specific attribute is depended by the relevant fact.


ATTRIBUTES
Upper Body Strength__(ubs)_________f(R,BT,A,S)
Lower Body Strength__(lbs)_________f(R,BT,A,S)
Endurance__________(end)_________f(R,BT,A)
Steadiness__________(ste)_________f(R )
Agility______________(agi)_________f(R,H,BT,A)
Willpower___________(wil)__________f(R,S)
Intelligence__________(int)__________f(R )
Memory____________(mem)________f(R )
Personality__________(per)_________f(R )



2.3-DERIVED ATTRIBUTES
Derived from the character's facts and primary attributes.

DERIVED ATTRIBUTES
Health_________f(A),_______f(end)

Fatigue________f(A,BT),____f(end,wil)

Magicka________-_________f(wil,int)

Temp feeling____f(A)_________-

Speed_________f(BT,A),____f(lbs)

Fame___________-__________-

Infamy__________-__________-

Encumbrance___f(A),_______f(ubs,lbs)



2.4-SKILLS

SPECIALIZATION___GENERAL SKILL_____SPECIFIC SKILL__________ATTRIBUTES USED
____________________________________1 Hand Blade____________(ubs),____(agi)
COMBAT__________Chopping Weapon_____2 Hand Blade___________(ubs),____(end)
______________________________________Axe___________________(ubs),____(end)
_____________________________________Hammer _______________(ubs),___(end)
COMBAT__________Melee Weapon________Mace__________________(ubs),___(end)
______________________________________Club___________________(ubs),___(end)
_____________________________________Spear__________________(agi),___(ste)
STEALTH__________Long Weapon________Trident__________________(ubs),___(ste)
______________________________________Halberd_________________(agi),___(ste)
______________________________________Stick___________________(agi),___(ubs)
_____________________________________Bow___________________(ste),____(agi)
STEALTH__________Ranged Weapon ___Dart\Thrown Dagger_________(ste),____(agi)
______________________________________Javelin_________________(ste),____(ubs)
______________________________________Pea-shooter____________(ste),____(agi)
_____________________________________Punch_________________(ubs),____(end)
COMBAT__________Hand to Hand Fight____Kick___________________(lbs),____(end)
______________________________________Wrestle________________(ubs),____(end)
_____________________________________Running________________(lbs),____(end)
COMBAT__________Athletics_____________Swimming______________(end),___(ubs)
______________________________________Jumping________________(lbs),____(agi)
______________________________________Climbing________________(ubs),___(end)
_____________________________________Shield Block____________(ubs),____(end)
COMBAT__________Deflect Attack_________Heavy Weapon Block_____(ubs),___(end)
______________________________________Heavy Armour____________(end),___(ubs)
_____________________________________Light Weapon\Shield Block_(agi),____(lbs)
STEALTH__________Avoid Attack__________Unarmoured____________(agi),_____(lbs)
_______________________________________Light Armor____________(agi),_____(lbs)
_____________________________________Metal Weapon Create_____(end),____(ubs)
COMBAT__________Heavy Armorer________Metal Weapon Fix________(end),____(ubs)
______________________________________Heavy Armor\Shield Create_(end),____(ubs)
______________________________________Heavy Armor\Shield Fix____(end),____(ubs)
_____________________________________Wooden Weapon Create___(ste),____(mem)
STEALTH__________Light Armorer_________Wooden Weapon Fix_____(ste),____(mem)
_____________________________________Light Armor\Shield Create__(ste),____(mem)
_____________________________________Light Armor\Shield Fix____(ste),____(mem)
_____________________________________Sneaking________________(agi),____(ste)
STEALTH__________Sneak_______________Pickpocket_____________(ste),_____(agi)
______________________________________Sneak Attack____________(ste),_____(agi)
_____________________________________Lockpick Security_________(ste),____(mem)
STEALTH__________Security_____________Probe Security__________(ste),_____(mem)
______________________________________Alchemical Security ______(ste),____(mem)
MAGIC___________Conjuration__________Material________________(int),_____(wil)
______________________________________Immaterial______________(int),_____(wil)
MAGIC___________Destruction__________Elemental______________(wil),_____(mem)
______________________________________Fundamental____________(wil),_____(mem)
MAGIC___________Restoration__________Corporeal_______________(wil),_____(int)
______________________________________Spiritual________________(wil),_____(int)
MAGIC___________Superskill____________Mental_________________(wil),_____(int)
______________________________________Physical________________(int),_____(wil)
MAGIC___________Psychic Force________Massive________________(wil),_____(int)
_____________________________________Circumstantial___________(wil),_____(int)
MAGIC___________Illusion_______________Illusion_________________(int),____(mem)
MAGIC___________Alchemy_____________Alchemy________________(mem),__(int)
______________________________________Beauty_____f(BT,A,S,AP)_(per),___(int)
NO______________Speechcraft__________Dread______f(BT,A,S,AP)_(per),_____(int)
______________________________________Mercantile_______________(per),_____(wil)



2.5-LEVELING
By training a skill you also train the connected attributes. At the same time you get a little better at specific skills which are under the same general skill. But not for sure, as the other specific skills might not have high attributes enough to upgrade.





3.0-COMBAT, STEALTH, MAGIC, JOBS



3.1-THE ARTS OF COMBAT


3.1.1-MARTIAL ARTS:
When you get experience in a weapon, you choose style of combat to upgrade and you learn the basic moves. With more experience, you learn more moves, move combinations and combinations with other skills.
There are not general trainers now, but trainers in specific arts.
All one handed weapons can be used as double hand weapons. So there are different arts for them.



3.2-THE ARTS OF STEALTH

3.2.1-ALCHEMICAL SECURITY
you can open a lock by using a specific acid and burn the material of the lock. But there are many materials used in locks, or some locks could be made by more than one materials. In this case, you need more experience in Alchemical Security in order to open it.



3.3-THE ARTS OF MAGIC


SCHOOL OF PSYCHIC FORCE
Massive________Telekinesis*
_______________Levitation
_______________Feather
_______________Burden
_______________Jump
_______________Slowfall
_______________Swift Swimming
Circumstantial___Open
_______________Lock
_______________Waterwalking
_______________Shield
_______________Reflect Damage


Telekinesis can cause damage.



SCHOOL OF ILLUSION
Illusion_________Command
_______________Chameleon (Invisibility)
_______________Paralyze
_______________Silence
_______________Possession*
_______________Transform*
_______________Telepathy*
_______________Rally
_______________Demoralize
_______________Charm
_______________Dislike


Possession:
Possession is not similar to command. When you possess a target, you have the full command of his brain but no control over your own brain. A spiritual force leaves your body and enters the targets mind. Note that, while possesing someone you can use his physical attributes but not his mental. Also note that you can chat with your victim during possesion.

Transform:
You can transform yourself into another specific humanoid. Tranformation does not affect clothes, weapons etc..

Telepathy:
The ability to chat with someone without talking either he lives far away or is near you.





SCHOOL OF DESTRUCTION
Elemental_______Fire Damage
_______________Frost Damage
_______________Shock Damage
Fundamental_____Damage
_______________Weakness
_______________Disintegrate
_______________Wave*
_______________Weather Control*
_______________Absorb*



Wave:
You use a medium (air, water or lava) in order to create a wave of the medium towards a direction. By using this spell, you can simply throw someone away using an air wave or you can bloat a dried river (remember Arwen against the nazguls at lord of the rings?). This spells effect has also to deal with your experience at the school of psychic forces.

Weather Control:
If you are a high level wizard of Destruction you can manipulate bad weather conditions towards a specific area.

Absorb:
This spell is also affected by your level of restoration.





SCHOOL OF SUPERSKILL
Mental__________Detect Life
_______________Sixth Sense*
Physical ________Waterbreathing
_______________Water Unbreathing
_______________Light
_______________Blind
_______________Night Eye
_______________Super Vision*
_______________Super Hearing*
_______________Through Vision*
_______________Fortify
_______________Flying Wings*
_______________Fishmorphing*
_______________Morphing*


Sixth Sense:
Like Spiderman. This spell is used to warn you when you are in danger. For example when someone is prepared to use a weapon against you or when you are approaching a trap. When the sixth sense becomes active, you should leave that position immediately.

Super Vision:
You can zoom far far away like you were a hawk.

Super Hearing:
You can zoom your hearing towards a direction and listen to very far or very soft sounds.

Through Vision:
You are able to look through materials.

Flying Wings:
You get a pair of wings at your back and you can fly like a bird.

Fishmorphing:
You turn into a half fish-human (Argonian). You can swim fast and breathe underwater.

Morphing:
You take the morph and attributes of non-humanoid creatures. Not undead creatures.





SCHOOL OF CONJURATION
Material__________Summon Creature
________________Bound Item
________________Mark/Recall
Immaterial_______Necromancy*
________________Soultrap
________________Turn Undead
________________Enchanting


Necromancy (Summon Soul):
When you perform necromancy, you summon a soul back to its dead body. When the duration of the spell ends the body becomes dead again. Necromancy in general has more things than just summoning souls such as using parts from dead bodies to create amulets with certain effects, potions etc.





SCHOOL OF RESTORATION
Corporeal_________Cure
________________Restore
________________Resist
Spiritual__________Dispel
________________Spell absorption
________________Reflect Spell





4.0-GENERAL IDEAS


4.1-ENVIRONMENT
There should be more people in the cities and especially in the streets.

There should also be a larger variety of animals, especially underwater and in the sky.

And something else. How is it possible to know everybody’s name before speaking with them? You must speak with someone, ask his name and then know how to call him.


4.2-QUESTS
Why do we have to finish the quest when we become the leader of the guild?


4.3-INVENTORY
I believe that there should be more realism in the quantity of items a character can carry. For everything you carry, you should have a place to put it. Items like bags, scabbards, empty flasks and purses should have a place in your inventory and the ability to fit other things in them.


4.4-RUNNING
In oblivion, I hated that my character moved like a car. I think that the running speed should be affected by fatigue. I also think that you should be able to feel the mass of your body while running (you know a small tremble of the image when your feet reach the ground and more realistic sound).


4.5-ILLEGAL JOBS
Apart from already known illegal ways to make money, there should be:

The ability to create your own gang.

The ability to create or simply join a pirate ship and attack cities and other ships for money and goods.

The chance to join the underworld of Necromancy.



That's all. Thanks for reading.

Summer, I don't like the reboot of these threads

Contents:

1. Player Character and NPCs

1.1 Attributes

1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
1.2.2. Description of skills

1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints


2. Character Creation

2.1 Questions

2.2 Deriving Attributes

2.3 Choosing Skills

2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages

2.5 Modifying appearance

2.6 Picking a Birthsign

2.7 Editing reputations


3. Gameplay

3.1 Gaining levels

3.1.1 Training

3.2 Fast travel

3.3 Items

3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization

3.4 Spells

3.4.1. Teleportation

3.5 Surroundings

3.6 Non-lethal combat

3.7 Wildlife

3.8 Realism

3.8.1. Toggle Realism options

3.8.2. Time consuming actions

3.9 AI

3.10 Random quests

3.11 Vampirism


1. Player Character and NPCs

1.1 Attributes

Strength (STR) Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with heavy melee weapons like Axes and maces, as well as how much you can carry. You will have trouble pulling the strongest bows if you're STR is low. Being stronger than an NPC helps you intimidate him. Forcing doors and locks open is dependant on your STR.

Intelligence (INT) Determines your maximum Spell Points (SP). Most races have INTx1 in spell points by default, while Bretons and High elves, for example, have INTx2. This can be changed to anything from zero spell points to 3x INT in spell points in the character creation by choosing dis/advantages. Being smarter than an NPC helps you fool and trick them. New dialogue options are opened for smarter characters. Learning spells is also easier the more intelligent you are.

Willpower (WIL) Helps to determine your rate of Magicka consumption from spellcasting and your chance to resist Magicka. Your skill in magic school in question also effects the amount of SP used per spell. High WIL really helps you resist magic, like in old days. You can endure a lot with high willpower: you can, for example, manage yourself better through long times in prison or captivity.

Agility (AGI) Determines the 'hit bonus' in combat, as well as your 'dodge bonus'. Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with light melee weapons like Daggers.

Endurance (END) Determines your Hitpoints (HP) at all times. You have always one hundred plus Endurance in hitpoints. It also determines your resistance to poisons and diseases, and the chance of, and time taken for, recovering from them naturally.

Speed (SPD) Controls your movement speed, the speed you swing a weapon in combat, and the speed you complete certain tasks, like reload crossbows.

Personality (PER) Controls how much people like you when they first see you, and the prices you get at vendors. PER determines the ease of admiring and seducing NPCs. New dialogue options are available for stunning personalities.

Luck (LUC) Effects every action you do in a small way. Also a luckier character might find more precious loot, or survive an incident that could have killed others. Unlucky character has harder time finding or earning goods. Luck could also effect your chances of Critical Strike. It worked well in Fallout 3 I think, and would make Luck a bit more useful compared to other attributes.

Note: Your Fatique is calculated from STR, END and WIL. The amount of damage you can deal in melee (per time unit) is affected by STR, AGI and SPD.



1.2 Skills

1.2.1 Skill list


Weapon skills (7)

Long blade
Short blade
Blunt weapon
Axe
Polearm
Marksman
Shield

Magic schools (7)

Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Illusion
Conjuration
Mysticism
Enchant (some would gladly replace this with Thaumaturgy, and I wouldn't mind)

Physical skills (7)

Hand-to-hand
Dual wielding
Athletics
Acrobatics
Dodge
Stealth
Horse riding

Know-how or mental skills (14)

Mercantile
Speechcraft
Deception
Pickpocket
Security
Medical
Alchemy
Herbalism
Armorer
Heavy armor
Light Armor
Critical Strike
Survival
Music

1.2.2. Description of skills

Weapon skills in general control your efficiency with each weapon. Mastering a weapon skill can also help you use a weapon from other groups as well. With higher Axe skill you get bonuses while you use blunt weapons that are similiar, like clubs. Higher Long Blade gives you bonus when you use short blades like wakizashis. And vice versa.
Your chance to hit an enemy is greatly affected by the weapon skill, but your AGI and the enemy's Dodge skill also play their part. You get a minor damage bonus with high enough skill, and that with a minor bonus from STR are the only things that improve the basic damage you deal. Damage per time unit is also affected by your skill and SPD since you can hit faster.
Depending on your stats, your chance to hit an enemy is somewhere in between 33 and 99%. Even the clumsiest and least experienced person lands every third hit, while the most agile weapon master can miss once per hundred strikes.
Throwing weapons could be reserved only for spears and daggers, for example, and the throwing would be covered by the weapon skill in question. A key could be set, that changes the characters grip of the weapon, redying it for throw. Spear lifted on his head, or dagger held from the blade. Then pressing the attack button would launch the wepon.

Note: Polearm used to be called Spear, now including all hafted weapons and staves.

Shield covers the usage of shields, while parrying with any weapon (or bare hands) is dependant on the weapon skill in question. Parrying is always part of the weapons training, you don't go to one trainer to learn how to hit with an axe, and then to other one to learn how to block with it. Shield is the most effective blocking device, and can be used for bashing too. Shields can even protect you from magic projectiles, while naturally they cover you from arrows and bolts quite well. You don't suffer any damage from succesful shield blocks, usually. Sure, a minotaur lord landing a huge warhammer on you might make your shield hand numb.

Magic skills in general control your efficiency with each spell. Use the same schools that were in TES3. Or, replace Enhant which was out of TES4 anyways, with Thaumaturgy.

Hand-to-hand determines your efficiency when you fight unarmed. The damage bonus from skill is much higher than in weapon skills.You ability to kick in doors is also dependant on the skill. Kicking during melee combat should be just as easy as it is in FEAR, even if it's a shooter. It worked. Kicking in Dark Messiah, though, was very overpowered thanks to level design and the unnatural strenght of kicks.

Dual wielding determines your efficiency when wielding two one-handed weapons. Several weapons in human history are ment for dual wielding, and the skill would make it easy for modders to add even more dual wielded weapons. (Tonfas, butterfly knives, scimitars, short sticks)

Athletics controls your fatique loss while running and swimming. Higher skill allows faster and longer spurts. Swimming is a subskill of Athletics, and you can't improve your swimming abilities much by running only.

Acrobatics determines the height and lenght of your leaps, as well as the damage you suffer when falling from great heights. Climbing is a subskill of Acrobatics, and you have hard time improving your climbing abilites by jumping only.

Dodge determines the chance of enemy weapon, arrow or spell missing you. It is checked every time, unless you are blocking, (that is, wielding a shield in hand, or holding the block key) or you are wearing too much heavy armor. Light armor doesn't prevent dodging, but gives you slight penalties. Projectiles are harder to dodge, while some spells are impossible to dodge.

Stealth, known as Sneak in previous two games, determines your chances to stay hidden and silent while stalking, or blending in a crowd of people without rising suspicion. If there are random encounter while fast traveling, this skill helps you evade enemies and their ambushes. Backstabbing is NOT covered by Stealth, but Critical Strike.

Horse riding skill determines what sort of horses you can mount, how they handle, their maximum running speed and jump abilites, and higher skill lowers the penalty for using melee and ranged weapons from horseback as well as casting spells. You also mount and unmount faster. In some circumstances you can be thrown off horse, if your skill check fails.

Mercantile and bartening as in Morrowind. The haggling system was far superior to anything in TES series before and after that. Only, haggling always too aggressively should have permanent effect on disposition.

Deception skill is checked every time you tell a lie to see if the NPC buys it. Seducing NPCs depends on ones disposition, PER and Deception skill. You should be always presented with options to lie in conversation if you're asked something. A good liar can accomplish a lot through dialogue only, but being caught from a lie repeatedly can be bad for your reputation. Even hiding your real personality is dependant on the Deception skill. Wear a hooded robe and know how to talk, act and walk differently and you can fool guards. If you're suspected of a crime, you should have options to lie (Deception), debate and persuade (Speechcraft) or bribe (Mercantile) in addition to fighting or surrendering.
In other RPGs, I find little use for lying, while in real life lying is done commonly.

Pickpocket! A skill hard to learn, and one that was pretty useless in TES2. But it's a DIFFERENT thing than sneaking around. Many pickpockets talk to their victims as they do it, or bump in them and apologize. Improve the earning possibilities, maybe by stealing keys, jewelry, stuff like that. A viable option to get hold of some quest items. Shoplifting from TES2 should make a comeback, governed by Pickpocket skill. Even during every conversation, you could check up the potential victim, and see the items he wears and the chances of succesfully snatching them. Purses are pretty easy, while it takes a master thief to steal rings and other jewels being worn by someone. But, people like that really exist.

Security covers picking locks and disarming traps. No player skill over character skill. Ability to kick in doors and prey open chests would give strong warriors ability to NOT learn Security without missing on loot. TES3 lockpicking system was ok, but should be spiced up a bit. Maybe you can make a lock stuck if you break a pick in there, and it has to be bashed open. Real time lockpicking like in Thief would also make it much more exciting.
Some traps are invisible to the player until a succesful skill check, while high enough skill can highlight the traps and tripwires of all low level traps.

Medical skill determines your chance of identifying diseases and poisonings, your healing rate when you rest, and the use of all medical equipment like bandages, salves, potions and bloodstopping powders. Those you can use on yourself or NPCs. Basically, it's the skill of healing and restoring for those who don't have magic abilities. Playing a priest, druid, ranger or monk would become much more interesting.

Alchemy skill is checked when you identify ingredients like animal parts and venoms, powders, metals, jewels, and every non-organic alchemy ingredient. Basically alchemy and ingredients were most interesting in TES2. Your chance of succesfully creating a potion as well as the time it takes is calculated by the skill. The potion strenght and duration is slightly affected by the skill, but also by the equipment you use, and INT. No more should you be able to make 100 heal potions in a second, put them behind a hotkey and use one every time your HP goes below half. Almost like using a godmode. Not cool or fun. Potions should take hours to brew, and using too many of them should get you intoxicated, finally killed.

Herbalism skill is checked when you identify plants, mushrooms and their effects. Many herbs and shrooms can be used in wound treatment, curing or as antivenom as they are, some go also as alchemy ingredients. Poisonous ones can either be applied straight to the weapons, or brewed into harmful potions. Some plants have benefits on your mana, speed, or other attributes as you digest them or inhale their smoke. The skill also determines how succesful you are in harvesting the plants. There should be several different poisons, with remedies from varying herbs. Alchemy is sort of a magical thing used by wizards, and requires the right equipment. Alchemy effects are also more mystic. Herbalism is more natural, and can be used by rangers far from civilization, without any equipment, as well as some assassins to poison their victims. Common plants and mushrooms should only have healing, fortifying, restoring, curing or poisonous effects, while it takes mystical alchemy ingredients (like ectoplasm or vampire dust) for mystical effects, like reflecting spells, going invisible etc.

Armorer skill should be expanded a bit, and made much more realistic. No banging that bow of yours with a hammer anymore to make it good as new.

Critical Strike determines the chance of your succesful hit in combat being a critical strike, as well as the damage multiplier for succesful critical strikes. You automatically deal a critical strike when hitting an unaware enemy (backstabbing).
Chance in combat about 0.1 - 5%, damage multiplier about 2 - 6, both according to skill. Now this skill is a perfect merge of TES2's Critical Strike AND Backstab skills. High skill also makes you more effective in combat even if you use a weapon you're not highly skilled in.

Survival could determine your speed and food consumption as you fast travel in wilderness or without using inns. Building a fire and shelter, fishing, and turning prey into edible food or trophies are part of the skill. Hunting and tracking in general could be merged into Survival. Trophies should be valuale enough to make hunting a viable option to earn a living, but finding (tracking down) and killing animals should be much harder. During winter a fire could be required if you rest outside.
There are tremendous possibilities, and no 1st person CRPG has yet gone as far in Survival as The Unreal World, a rogue like game from Finland. I'd love for TES5 to be the first. Survival elements would surely earn more (and more positive) publicity than Radiant AI and next gen graphics. It would also present a welcome challenge in the gameplay, other than constant fighting. Challenge is, after all, what CRPGers are after.

Music skill is checked when you try to use a musical instrument or sing to please a crowd or NPC, or to pacify a hostile animal or other beast. The most talented bards are paid well from an evening's entertainment. Lute, flute, harp and drums are the most common instruments. Quests to entertain nobles would be perfect change for all the killing, and might earn you precious fame among the nobles. And for an assassin, why not have a cover identity of a famous bard to gain acces to castles for committing assassinations?
The bard is an old class in TES series, but they've never known how to sing, play an instrument, or entertain a crowd. It would be about time.

Dual wielding, Horse riding, Deception, Herbalism, Survival and Music are the only skills that have never before been in the series. All the others have already earned their right to be in the skillset of TES5. I've kept the skill list very traditional, no renaming to Swords and Daggers, for example, or adding loads of skills. Please Bethesda, even if adding new skills is unappealing, at least bring back the ones from TES2 and Battlespire.


1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints

Player characters HP is 100+END. The same goes with NPCs, and they show some physical hints of how much punishment they can endure. The toughness of beasts, daedra, and other possibly hostile creatures are harder for you to determine, but usually anything goes down if you manage to land a couple of massive hits in. A succesful backstab should finish most of the humanoids, while some harder skinned daedra might just get upset.

Now the high level characters would be harder to kill thanks to:
-Good armor
-Reflect, shield and other spells or items
-Higher dodge skill
-Higher agility
-Small increase in HP

Instead of:
-Ridiculous amounts of HP, gained by abusing the 5x multiplier to up END early on.

Magic

You can always create a character who is not connected to the flow af magicka. Pick INTx0 in spell points, if you feel like putting all your energy into something else than magic. You can play a Breton with only 1xINT in spell points, or an Orc with 3xINT. Raising it is just more costly for some races, while lowering it earns you points to spend on advantages. More on those later.

While fighting an enemy, it might be hard to tell ones magical abilities. If one keeps casting spells, he might have regenerating mana. Usually common sense helps you. If the orc you're fighting is not a shaman, it's very unlikely for him to suddenly throw a spell on you. Daedra and other mystical beasts are dreadful, and you're going to be dead before an ancient lich is out of mana. So the best tactic would be silencing him.


2. Character Creation

2.1 Questions

When you create a character, you're first asked the common questions wether to pick a class from a list, or create a custom one. The gender and race are asked, preferrably in the old method of showing the map of Tamriel, with brief description of the province and the race. A new interesting question would determine your relationships with divine ones. "Whom do you worship?" The choices include all the Divines and Daedra Princes. Last two options are: "I would never worship them" and "None, Yet". Choosing to worship any of them increases your reputation with the deity and it's followers, and decreaes it with it's possible rivals. Choosing never decreases reputation with all of them, but might have some benefits you learn later on in the game. None, yet, does not affect the reputations and lets you decide if to start worshipping any of them during the game.
The whole process could be merged in the game, as in TES3, where it was really well made. Sure, just having a form to fill up would be so old school it would be wonderfully nostalgic. Tutorial dungeons, as in TES2 and 4 get boring REALLY fast. I'd rather not have those.

Another question to really spice up the character creation... even if I know Bethesda would never do this...
"Your sixuality?" The choices include hetero-, homo-, bi- and asixual. Hard core roleplayers as myself would find it interesting to play as an asixual martial artist monk, or a bisixual rogue that indulges in earthly delights anytime possible. Seducing and getting seduced as part of the gameplay would bring SO much great material. A homo count making advantages on your manly, straight warrior? How to handle that one. Or getting to trust your handsome rogue's charm to make all women head over heels, only to find out that one certain countess is impervious to you and instead of being flattered throws you in jail.
But not in this lifetime, not in where Bethesda hails from.


2.2 Deriving Attributes

While the attributes of NPCs endorse the racial perks (orcs and nords being stronger usually, bretons and elves smarter) it's totally up to you what kind of character you're going to play. It's important to consider your starting attributes, since they are not going to be all maxed out in the end.You HAVE to sacrifice the same amount of points in one attribute to have another higher in the beginning. You CANT take 5 points here and there, and put them all in one Attribute.
The starting attributes are 40 +/- 20, which means you can start with all of them in 40, or move 5, 10, 15 or 20 points between any two attributes. The minimum would then be 20, while maximum would be 60. This encourages you to improve attributes that are important to the class and sacrifice the others. Of course, having them all equal at start and rising the right ones during game is also a good way to do it.



2.3 Choosing Skills

Ten Primary skills count towards your leveling and are easiest to raise. They start at 35, and there's +/-10 points to move around, just like with Attributes. It might take years game time to become the Master in one skill, even a Primary one. After 90 the skill advancing should become radically slower.

Ten Secondary ones are slightly harder to raise, and they start at 20 +/-5. They don't count to leveling, but can still be very important to your class.

The rest fifteen skills are Miscellaneous, they start at 5, and are even harder to raise. Still, with hard work and good tutors you might become very efficient with some of them, if you find it important to you.

You can drag and drop your skills in any order you want. You can also copy skill list from existing class and make adjustments for your custom class.

Many people have suggested different skill caps, like Primary max at 100, secondary max at 75 and so on. That's just wrong in my opinion. The skills should just be so hard to raise that you would focus on your Primary skills, which could be also called 'playing your character'.
TES4: Oblivion makes no sense without a mod that makes skills raise 3-5 times slower. Without one, your character ends up being the master of everything, even if you don't focus on training.

2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages

Some advantages would be free for some races, but you could choose not to take them. Nords get resistance to cold for free, but nothing prevents you from making it a critical weakness to cold. Bretons and High elves have 2x INT in SP for free, but you can make it 0, 1 or 3 if you want. Etc.
Dis/Advantages are divided into levels, depending how dramatically they affect your life. Higher level advantage helps you a lot, but forces you to take more disadvantages to compensate. You can't pick total advantages of more worth than disadvantages, but the other way around you can since that is a way for you to add challenge for yourself.
You can't pick Dis/Advantages that cancel each others out. Like not having spell points AND not being able to regenerate them. Or being immune and having weakness to disease.

2.4.1 List of Advantages and Diadvantages

Advantages:
2x INT in spell points
3x INT in spell points
Regenerate mana while awake
Regenerate health while awake
+10 pts to HP
+20 pts to HP
Expertise in a weapon skill (more effective)
Expertise in another skill (just raises faster, no starting bonus)
Bonus vs. certain enemy type
Immunity vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Higher tolerance vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Absorb spells (maybe 50%)
Reflect spells (again 50% or so)
Adrenaline rush (Daggerfall/Battlespire or Morrowind style)

Disadvantages:
1x INT in spell points (only for races who have more than 1 in default)
0.5x INT in spell points
0x INT in spell points (NO spell points, inability to cast spells)
Inability to regen mana by resting
Inability to regen health by resting
-10 pts to HP
-20 pts to HP
Inability to use certain weapon type (hard to justify, but gives RP choice)
Gimped skill (raises slower, represents a talent your character does NOT have)
Inability to use certain material
Phobia vs. certain enemy (less damage to them, they might paralyze or kock you down easier)
Critical weakness vs magic , poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Lower tolarance vs. magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Damage from sunlight
Inability to sleep in sunlight
Damage from holy places
Inability to sleep in holy places

Then a perk that can't be considered plainly negative or positive:
Total immunity to magic. You can't be teleported, healed, or cured with spells, and sanctuary, shield, or invisibility spells don't stick on you. Luckily you can't be damaged by magic, either, or paralyzed or harmed in any way.
Many, many other dis/advantages can be easily made up, those are just for starters.



2.5 Modifying appearance

The Face Gen is similiar to one in TES4 with few expections. There is a list of ready made faces for all races you can pick and modify to your taste if needed. The face files can be saved and shared easily online. Also, there are three sliders for the body appearance: the amount of muscle, the amount of fat, and height. You can play an unexpectionally tall Wood elf, a fat scholar, or a muscular barbarian. As before (and unlike so many other companies) I'm sure Bethesda treads women with respect and there won't be a briast size slider for young boys to play with.

2.6 Picking a Birthsign

The superior Dis/Advantage system makes Birthsigns, as they are now, absolete. One option is to make all treats gained from Birthsigns once-a-day Powers. i.e. Paralyze for Lover. Steed may spurt like a real horse, but only once a day. And so on.
The effect of your Birthsign would be dramatically more powerful in the time of the year Tamriel is under your sign.

2.7 Edit reputations

Merchants, Peasants, Scholars, Nobility and Underworld were the social groups in Daggerfall. You could modify your starting reputation among them to represent your past activities with other people. Those groups make a return, and are possible expanded with groups like Soldiers and Priests.
If you make quests for the criminal factions, you would not earn 'fame' among the law abiding people. Often your actions would satisfy one group and displease the other(s).





3. Gameplay

3.1 Gaining levels

3.1.1 Training
Training can be made very realistic and working at the same time. We only need to merge the training systems from previous games. First the restrictions. In TES2 you could train once per day. Or every 12 hours. In TES4 you could train only 5 times per level. But, in TES4 trainers only knew one skill, which didnt make much sense.
In TES5 we could train twice a day, 3 hours per lesson. You could train only 5 MAJOR skills per level, but minor skills as much as you want. Leveling up by training only would then be impossible (like in TES4), but still if you want to spend a lot of time and money on a skill, you should be able to do it. (like in TES 2 and 3) The trainers would be able to teach several skills, if its reasonable. Of course a weapon master at the Fighters Guild knows at least basics of every weapon type.
In TES3, you could stand in front of a master trainer and click the training button until your skill was at 100, if the attribute allowed it. That would mean several days of doing NOTHING else but training. We would get rid of that.

The cost of training. How do they know exactly what to charge you? They can tell if your skill is at 45 or 46? And then they charge you more for the same amount of training hours? That would mean (irl) that if a person goes to a driving school, and already has practised a bit, he would pay more than the others for the driving lessons. Because he's skill is higher. Wouldnt it be more realistic to have the trainer charge the same price from everyone, and every time. Haggling should, of course, still be possible. Some trainers would be more expensive than others. Some would be able to teach more skills than others. Eventually, you would notice that training with this particular person is no longer worth it. You need to seek a better tutor. Alternatively, the teacher admits he can't show you anything new anymore.

3.2 Fast travel

You can only fast travel along ROADS that are marked on your MAP. You can upgrade the 'worldmap' by buying different maps from cartographers, or by exploring yourself. The actual fast travelling is done by zooming up until you see the map/satellite sort of view, and then you can move along the roads, decide in which taverns to stay on the way, where to stop and where to go. Random encounters are possible with merchants caravans, bandits, or just common people. Also:

-When you reach the end of your explored/bought map, you just continue manually. That is back to 1st person.
-The map is 'colored' as you explore, like in TES3.
-If you need to reach a location in the middle of nowhere, you can only fast travel as far as the roads go.
-The world map is big enough to make week's travels possible, as in TES2.
-It's still possible to travel in 1st person, but the distances make it really time-consuming.
-There are believable amount of locations, farms, temples and taverns along the roads.
-Much less actual dungeons/forts/caves/ruins, but way bigger. As in TES2.
-Lot of cemetaries, but not all of them inhabitet by undead.
-You can buy services from boats and caravans.(Like Silt striders and boats in TES3)
-You can instantly teleport between two Mages Guilds, but that's extremely costy. (In TES2 and 3 teleportation was so cheap and easy it should have made ALL other ways of transportation extinct!)
-Quests have deadlines to make the teleportation more necessary, even if it's costy.
-You can get loans from banks or loansharks.
-Teleporters in guilds might need more time between their spellcasting, to give the illusion of demanding spells.
-Survival skill is used whenever you need to sleep in the wilderness. During winter you need to build fire. Shelter during rain etc.
-The stats of your horse or other mount (reindeer?) affect the speed and range you can fast travel. Heavily armoured warhorse is slower and tires easily. When walking, your own stats matter.

There was a topic for how the game should begin, some years ago, and I was thinking that you might escape from captors in a remote (and even randomly selected) place, finding a crude map showing 2-3 nearest cities, and that would seriously limit your fast travelling in the start. Would also get rid of the repetitive, soon boring, beginnings in the same location over and oer again.

3.3 Items

Long blades: Shortsword, broadsword, longsword, katana, dai-katana, claymore, sabre, bastard sword, all swords imaginable.
Short blades: Dagger, knife, tanto, wakizashi, throwing dagger, butterfly knife, sai, every short blade imaginable.
Blunt weapons: Mace, morning star, flail, short sticks, tonfa. Every blunt weapon you can imagine up to improvised ones: Broom, severed nord leg, wine bottle, tree branch!
Axe: hatchet, battle axe, war axe.
Polearms: Spear, quarterstaff, halbert, trident, naginata, lance, pitchfork, battle fork.
Ranged weapons: Bow and crossbow.
Light and Heavy armors: All the basic TES armor types and materials, with separated gauntlets and pauldrons. Many visual variations for same armors like in TES2.
Medical equipment: Bandages, healing salves, potions, powders, all are more effective in the hands of a experienced healer, and all can be applied on NPCs.
Alchemy equipment as in previous 2 games.
Lockpicks like in Morrowind, they don't always break if you fail picking a lock.
Smithing equipment: Hammer, thongs, anvil, forge, etc. You cant fix your bow by hammering it on your leg.
Alchemy ingredients like the ones in Daggerfall: jewels, metals, pearls, eyes, teeth, scales, wings, blood samples, lich dust, poisons and venoms etc. Everything non-organic or from fauna.
Herbalism ingredients: All mushrooms and plants. Everything fungi or flora.
Clothing: All imaginable

3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization

In all TES games theres a tiny annoying thing. If I want to keep using the best weapon, it has to be even red/ugly or somehow clumsy looking, since Daedric is the only real choice when you look at damage only. I rather use a weapon that looks and feels right, but it makes no sense sometimes when another one does twice the damage. The damage should be brought more together, and have your weapon of choice rely on more things than that only.
Easiest example I can think of:
Silver is not a good metal to use in weapons, it doesnt stay sharp and breaks easily when used against armored enemies. But it cuts werecreatures and ghosts like butter. Therefore, it should be used as a backup weapon, not a primary. Also, isn't silver supposed to be kinda expensive? It should be!
Another thing: lighter weapons should be faster to use, but deal less crushing damage.
And third: Why not have glass weapons as they should be: extremely sharp, but very fragile, and once they break there's no mending them anymore.

Then about the specialization: If you use a single weapon for a looong time, you get used to it! Goes with firearms in real life, and goes with melee weapons too. You should slowly gain specialization points for a weapon you use a lot. Silent Storm had that sort of system and it actually made you feel fond of your oldest weapons, so you didnt ditch them even if you found better ones! That is exactly what I want to see my character do!

In TES2, you get very fond of your ebony dagger*, and other ones are VERY hard to find. Still, it's only in the players head. Daedric is still better, yet uglier. With a good specialization system your ebony dagger would be more effective than a random daedric one, cause the ebony one's been in your hand for months and you've killed hundreds of enemies with it. In Silent Storm I kept using the Suomi SMG cause the guy had it from the start and was most accurate with THAT paticular weapon, thanks to full specialization bonus. I want to see a same sort of system in TES5!

*enough to feel naked and vulnerable the two days it's being repaired at the smith's!

3.4 Spells
All spells that have been in previous games, if they only make sense. I even have an idea for the comeback of Passwall. A very demanding spell your mage can only learn on high levels, which gives you a couple of seconds of moving with collision off. You are blinded when you move through solid ground, object or wall, and you instantly die if the spell wears off while you are inside. You are, merged in another material, which of course is lethal. Levitation too could only be meant for true mages, and learned in high levels to prevent abuse.
I want all effects back that have been in before, like area around caster, and usable magic items like enchanted jewels, wands, bracelets etc. In TES4 we only had cast when strikes items and constant effect ones.
There must be a choice to create or buy spells that gain magnitude according to your skill or level, like in TES2. Most of them sort of leveled with you, so they never became useless like most of the spells in TES4. TES2 spell creating system is superior to anything seen after that, so wouldn't it be just reasonable to go back a few steps?
Removing or hiding spells MUST be possible too. You might, for example want some practising spells, but dont wish to see them clutter up your spell book.
Enemies who lore defines as deadly magic using entities, such as liches, should really be able to kill you with their magic. No more puny fireballs you sidestep easy, but spells like Blind, Slow, Fear and Incinerate which they can cast on you immediately they have a visual or other, mystical knowledge of your presense. Think of Doom 2, the humanoid fire demon who could set you on fire any time it saw you. The most scariest enemy in all the Doom games, including the big bosses!

3.4.1 Teleportation

Mark and Recall should return, with divine intervention. Scrolls should be rare, though, and spells very demanding. Mages guild of course still teleports people, but it should be dependant on your disposition to the guild. Only a high rank member could teleport for free. Non members would pay a big amount of gold (otherwise why would ANYONE use boats or other means of transportation?) and those who are unwelcome would not be served. On certain holidays mages guild services would be for half price, including teleport.

3.5 Surroundings

Visuals in video games keep improving, no question about that. The sounds, especially ambient and nature sounds are ok, but they certainly havent improved as much as visuals during the TES series. There used to be dogs barking, cats meowing, horses neighing and cows ammooing in the towns. Monsters had idle sounds: brainless zombies moaned as tormented, while they crept the dungeons. You could even avoid the most horrid enemies if you listened carefully. Now that was something.

There was another thing in TES2 which should be brought back and improved. The little messages about your surroundings. Especially what you smelled. You enter a graveyard and smell freshly buried dead. In someplaces you smell smoke. Many, many things like that. And NOT as pop ups, but a gentle text above the screen. What you feel could be told too. You could feel cold, warm, comfortable, uncomfortable, hungry, sleepy, thirsty. Thats one thing that separates TES series from medieval fantasy shooters like Heretic, Hexen and Dark Messiah. Its not a game, its a world. You are not a floating weapon hand, you are a living and feeling person!
In TES5, when I enter a tavern, I'd like to smell freshly baked bread, roasting pork, or spilled ale. Or even vomit, depending how classy a place I enter. In Mages Guild I could smell sulfur, ozon and something foul. The smell of leather and oil would float around in Armorers and Fighters guild, while blood and sweat would dominate the air of arenas. It would make the game world so much richer, with almost no effort at all. Wouldnt take a genius to implement that.

More on the visual surroundings. I need to see my own shadow, and my feet and body! Play Thief 3 through once, and you can never be fully satisfied with a game that doesn't have real shadows. If the NPCs would react to your shadow too, that would make sneaking much better and realistic. I'd much rather see dynamic shadows that are not that good, than live in a world without any shadows. Even now, 2009, I see big games pushed out with NO dynamic shadows. Unbelievable.

And NO battle music. It ruins every moment of surprise. People play with music turned off just because of that. And if a rat is stuck between a wall, why do we have to be told about it with trumpets? Regional and seasonal music, and personal like it was in TES2. Hollywood kind, epic music is a big turn off in a game. Eric Heberling would make alot better CRPG music than the guys you've seen trying to do it for the last ten years. The Witcher also had a great soundtrack.

3.6 Non-lethal combat

Killing. The only way to settle things in TES games. That has to change. You need to be able to:
-Teach NPCs manners or just plain humiliate them by beating them down
-Work as a hired thug, again just beating people
-Rob people without killing them
-Interrogate NPCs by overpowering them and then questioning
-Bring people to justice (why everyone has to die for stealing bread?)
How is this done? In Gothic 2, if you attack an NPC in a town, when they lose almost all HP they fall down. You have plenty of time to rob them, and their house. Or, finish them off, which is seldom a good choice. When they get up, theyre beaten and comment something accordingly. Several quests are about teaching someone manners by just knocking him off. Bystanders react only cheerfully when they witness a fight. If you go too far and kill, they report you.
I think that works very, very well.
One option would be possibility to open dialoque with fallen foe: choices to interrogate, let live, or kill him. Plus the quest related things to say: -Next time you try stealing from [random merchant] I wont be this gentle with you.
Non-lethal combat could be an automated thing, taking place when certain criteria is met. Or, it could be toggled on and off with one press of a key. If youre about to assassinate someone, you toggle it off. Alternatively, by default all blunt weapons could first knock the enemy out, then kill. So use a blade if you only wish to kill. Even more diversity for weaponry there.


3.7 Wildlife

Elder scrolls to this day: all animals attack you on sight, feel no pain, and will not rest until they or you are dead. They run forever after your horse in TES4, while animals, undead, daedra and humanoids all joined forces just to harass the player in TES2. Again, Gothic series succeeded making wildlife better ages ago. Take that as a guideline and make it so that:

-Animals flee or defend their territory, according to their person. Wolves, bears and deer stay away from you, usually. Hungry pack of wolves or a bear defending it's cub is different.
-Animals/beasts might taunt you off their territory and return to their business after you back off.
-Some predators will stop chasing you if they find an easier meal. Run past a deer carcass and the wolf chasing you loses interest in the two legged meal.
-Hunting something should be harder. No running to catch a deer. Prey have acute hearing and smell, so they WILL notice you before you're close enough to hit with a dagger.
-There is no way any ecosystem can sustain the number of predators seen in previous games. Solstheim, with a bear or wolf under every third tree? Same mistake is found in Gothic series and Risen. You basically fight your way through, no matter where you're going, and you end up carrying hundreds of wolf skins etc.
-Why would a rat keep biting your metal greaves and boots?
-Animals should have a different attack than just a clumsy animation. They jump ON you, and bite and claw. See Dead Space, how the enemies grab the player.
-Hurt prey should leave blood traces, especially on snow. Humans too of course.


3.8 Realism

-You sink in water. Especially when wearing heavy armor or carrying huge amount of stuff.
-You don't swim as fast as you run. Argonians maybe, but not others.
-Children DO exist.
-Gold DOES have weight.
-Money don't grow on trees.
-There are banks. You can buy houses from banks if you got the gold, without doing some stupid quests for them.
-Smithing, repairing objects, talking with people, alchemy, they all take TIME, instead of happening instantly.
-No one would really build towns an arrowshot away from each others.
-No one would call a village with 10 houses a town, even less, a city.
-The seasons really exist. You know, summer, fall, winter and spring?
-You can't run through a whole Tamrielic province in a couple of hours. Iliac Bay by boat took a week.
-You don't restore fatigue by running.
-You can't jump 12 meters, especially without a running start.
-Time scale should make sense, unlike it did in Oblivion and Fallout 3.
-You are not a floating weapon hand. Head bobbing, own body, own shadow, all should be present.
-If I manage to immobilize a small goblin by poison or magic, it shouldnt take me 2 hours to kill it. Or several hundreds of strikes in the skull.
-If there are 20 arrows piercing every single one of my vital organs, I shouldn't be running around anymore.
-My character shouldnt be able to hit a coin from 30 meters if he's never seen a bow before.
-Standing still for one hour should not heal me of my near lethal injuries.
-If I can kill a rat with one Flare spell when my Destruction is at 5, how come a same kind of rat takes 50 Flares when my Destruction is at 100?
-Global Positioning System, GPS, is not present in Tamrielic lore.
-When you've given a job or quest, they should usually expect you to finish it too, within a reasonable amount of time. Thus timelimits and ability to FAIL quests.

IF the game is set in Skyrim...
-Summers are warm, even though very short. You can still grow crops. There are flowers, bees, honey, and ultimately, mead. It's NOT just snow all the time.
-During summer nights the sun don't set. The more north you go, the longer the 'midnight sun' period is.
-During mid-winter, the sun don't rise. Same as above.
-When it's dark enough, you can sometimes see the northern lights.
-You can collect most of the mushrooms only during the fall. Same with most berries. Only few mushrooms grow at spring or summer. Some berries are only ripened under the snow, and are harvested in springtime (more interesting alchemy)
-Lakes are fully covered in ice most of the winter, and it takes some manpower to hack a hole in it. Ships are stuck in ocean harbours unless they have ice-breakers or use magic.
-Accidentally falling in icy water is usually lethal.

Also, it makes no sense you can ONLY lockpick doors and chests, without any alternatives but spells.
In TES5 you should have following options if you need to get a lock open, or enter a locked place:

Security: lockpicking and disarming traps
Weapon skills: bashing open chests etc, preferrably with blunt weapons to avoid damage on blades
Hand-to-Hand: kicking in doors
Alchemy: using acid to silently destroy locks
Alteration: casting open (and lock!) spells
Destruction: well... destroying the damn doors!
Pickpocket: getting your hands on the keys NPCs have on them
Speechcraft: lie or debate to get in places, like private homes in the middle of the night (knock first!)
Mysticism or what ever: Passwall, for exmple into that bank vault, and hope you're powerful enough to cast another spell to get out, too!

More realism in Archery:
-Higher skill really allows you to pull stronger bows, since it's about 70:30 strength and technique imo.
-Still, a weakling can NEVER pull bows that are built for a much more strong person.
-Skill also allows you to aim for longer without tiring yourself.
-Skill, and in lesser extent the quality of the bow determine how well you hit your target.
-The strenght of the bow determines how fast the arrow flies, which determines the energy of impact.
-The arrowhead and it's material will determine which materials they penetrate, and how much flesh, for example, does the arrow cut.

More realism in Melee:
-Instead of Damage, each weapon would have Damage Per Second (DPS). By the time you land a huge, skull breaking hit with a heavy battlehammer, you would have been able to stab a dagger between the ribs multiple times. In both cases the victim would die. Now the player wouldn't be cheated to think that bigger is always better. A rule might be that weapons of same material and of same workmanship would do the same DPS, be it a dagger or two handed sword. Weight, reach, size and durability would then be more important factors when choosing what to wield.

3.8.1. Toggle Realism options

Since there are several things about game realism that irks the casual gamers, let's make some of them togglable in the options menu. Here's what I've been thinking:

Options menu -> Realism

Toggle on/off :
Hunger effects
Thirst effects
Environment effects (if Skyrim, freezing, ultimately to death)
Fast travel
Left handed character
Bleeding
Crippling

Move slider for:
Hours of sleep per day required
0-8

Damage multiplier on the player character/allies:
0.5 - 2 x

Damage multiplier on the enemies
0.5 - 2 x

Toggle on/off:
Lock the options for this character

Damage multipliers are not only the improved version of difficulty level, but also let you have more or less brutal melee according to your liking. Bleeding and crippling are almost like in Fallout 3. You just need to use Medical skill to splinter your bones or bandages to treat the wounds. Or according spells. I'd like to see more complex Restoration spells than ones just recovering HP. Mending bones, stoppping blood, that kind of thing. Blood stopping (hemostatic) powder could be made by alchemists, too.
Locking the options prevents you from abusing them in a tough spot.

The modders have made realistic eating/drinking/sleeping mods for both TES3 and 4. I think it's time for game developers to do it, instead of leaving it to modders.

And for those who keep saying that realism ruins the games, that games are not supposed to be like real life: Compare the fighting system of Mount & Blade to ANY other first person game, it's the best because it's the most realistic. Then, compare Richard Burns Rally to any other rally game, it's the best only because of the realism.


3.8.2. Time consuming actions

Each action that takes time IRL should do the same in the game. Now, if I run around in TES4, I bumb into some deer occasionally. Killing them is fast, but what is even faster is skinning and chopping them: it takes no time at all. IRL, even a skilled butcher might use hours to skin and chop the carcass, depending on it's size. This applies to everything: brewing potions must take it's time, it's not an instant thing you can do whenever you wish. Of couse conversations and such need to be real time also, but maybe the most exiting action to do real time would be lockpicking. In Thief 3 you could pick the lock, constantly looking over your shoulder to spot any approaching guard. Now that was an adrenaline rush.
Now, things taking time give some immersion, but it all gets better with time limits on quests and other things! Example: You're sent to help someone out of a cave full of terrible monsters (or some other high priority stuff). You pass a pack of deer on your journey. Now, who would actually stop to hunt, skin and chop the animals if someone's life was at stake? Or, stop outside the cave, pull out your alchemy equipment and spend few hours brewing potions of healing and others to help in the fight.
Examples:
- Armorer/smithing: Sharpening a blade (5 min) up to repairing a plate mail (2 hours)
- Survival: Taking a trophy, such as deer antlers (5 min) up to skinning a huge bear (2 hour)
- Alchemy: Depending on the amount of ingredients, potion should take 30 min - 2 hours to brew. Having multiple alchemy sets in your home will save you time, since you can brew different potions simultaneously.

These don't have to be minigames, just applying the equipment, or using the animal carcass will give you options of what do do with it, and display the amount of time it approximately takes to do it.
Lockpicking should still be a minigame, and a skilled guy should be able to crack the lock in matter of seconds, or even instantly if skill and luck were much higher than the level of lock.

Time consuming actions bring a minor element of choices and consequences: if you choose to spend some time home, going through your weapons and repairing armor, or just doing alchemy, you really DO spend some time doing it.


3.9 AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Examples of bad AI:
-Enemies like animals and some humanoids always attack on sight.
-When they attack, they never stop chasing you or return to patrol their area, even if they can't catch you.
-They are always willing to fight even if they have no chance of winning.
-When dying, they never surrender or flee.
-Other enemies in the group dont seem to care if one of them sees the player, yells and runs to fight him/her.
-Arrows and fireballs flying past an enemy's head and hitting the wall besides them doesnt alert them.
-Ally NPCs always run in front of you even when youre aiming with a bow.
-Once you go invisible, mages dont use detect life, fighters dont even try to hit the air where you stood, and animals dont smell you.
-NPCs always greet you in the streets. Sometimes the only person/thing they react to is the player.
-When someone thinks he saw something (a sneaking player) they always say something stupid like "I think I saw something" or "well, guess it was nothing"
-Your intelligent enemies like humanoids dont stay in groups or call for backup.
-If you hop on a rock, the enemy runs around helplessly until you've made a pincushion out of it.

Ideas to improve AI:
-Fix above.


3.10 Random quests

Why does Daggerfall have more replay value than later TES games? Because there's always something for you to do. Even if you never leave a city, some work always comes up, and you can be sent to do jobs in other cities or locations. In TES3 and TES4, you end up in a world where you've already solved everyone's every single problem.
You shouldnt be able to start the game and decide "I'll go and do these quests first, since they're easiests" like you can in TES3 and TES4. You can't think "Before buying stuff from him, I do his quests to get my disposition up" if there's no certainty that this particular person has some quests.
If nothing else, change the order of quests you complete for a faction. Or make it like in The Witcher: there is a notice board with jobs, and you can pick which ones to do and in which order.

I want the following to be possible in TES5 (like it is in TES2):
I can ask around if anyone knows any work possibilities. Maybe a random quest is generated to a random merchant. I'm directed to him. He offers me a job, and if I don't like it, I can refuse. (Like asking me to guard his shop for the night because Thieves Guild tries to get his stuff, and you are in the TG yourself). The quest usually has a dead line, since who would actually wait for his delivery from next town for months or years? Or, in TG example, you fail to be present the night the theft was happening. Then, when I either complete or fail the quest, it affects the NPC disposition and slightly the social group disposition. (Merchants around the area start trusting you more after enough jobs well done, while underground gets pissed at you when you're botched up enough of their jobs).

Maybe there's 1-2 random quests generated per day per area. Peasants have troubles or job offers, merhants too, and nobles and scholars. The guild quests would be the ones with best rewards, like a real salary. If you try to help everyone and solve every problem that is pushed on you, you just end up doing running errands for the rest of your life, since people are never out of small things to do.
One thing I really enjoyed in Mass Effect: After completing a huge number of irrelevant side quests, I said to the Admiral who was, again, sending me on some stupid errand, that I was trying to save the world here and he could shove it. Gave me great satisfaction, hearing his awkward mumbling, but unfortunately the quest still appeared in my journal.


3.11 Vampirism

Vampires used to be scary. I avoided contact with them, and the disease was more terrifying than the plague or corprus to me. That was before TES4, where vampires were more a nuicance than a threat. Every fight with one, bang, you get hemophilia. Luckily (sarcasm) you find enough cure potions to make the disease powerless (useless). So, vampires become yet another type of monster without any sense of threat or disgust. Curing the hemophilia right away is pointless, since you need to clear the whole cave of the vampires so you only need to gulp down one potion. Otherwise you need a potion per vampire...
So what would make vampires and vampirism more of a threat?
-Harder to catch the disease
-Harder to cure the disease
-Disease should be stealthy, you dont know about it instantly
-Becoming a vampire has huge disadvantages (lose all guild reputations and ranks, you die and wake up in a cemetary)

Vampirism is a curse, most of the players should feel the urge to avoid it. No matter if you're a thief, psychopath or assassin, still you dont want to be an inhuman beast!



Hope you managed to go through this all, and agree with at least some of it!

Agreed Fully. Also no fast travel (It breaks "Reallism")