Hullo,

After reading all the crazy negativity about Skyrim here, I thought I would start out by saying I really enjoyed this game. I just have some small suggestions that would take something like this from good to great. I had a good time playing it, and was worth the hours of entertainment I got from it. Well done! I do however have some small critique on the game that may help with your next endevour, Bethesda Boffins.

1) Involve the character more. The character responses you get to chose from are just plain bad. A lot more effort should have gone into this. Just because people tell you you are the Dragonborn doesn't make you feel special. As your speech went up you should have gotten a lot of options in conversation with NPCs that you don't get normally. I felt the NPCs were doing all the role playing. This is supposed to be an epic role play not you playing a character who never seems like he or she gives two hoots about anything. More involving conversation options and more of them would have been much, much more immersive. Please remember conversation and story are the most important things in a role playing game, get this right and you have a winner regardless of system.

2) A story line with a serious villain who you really care about. Let me give you an example of what I mean here. John Irenicus from Baldur's Gate II. He had motive, power, brilliance, ambition, a real background and in the end you really wanted to hurt that *&^%$#@er. You were connected to him. Alduin was meh. He was trying to destroy the world like every other lame villain from every other story these days you can think of, for no real reason you ever get to find out. Great. I just didn't feel involved with him at all.

3) Inventory system. Oh god! Please stop with this! Can someone please come up with something that doesn't drive you insane? I wanna play the game not become some sort of crazy pack rat sorting my thingz. Skyrim's system is out dated and really needs a bit more thought. This is the only thing that REALLY ticked me off about the game. Along with crashing and losing 15 mins of gameplay.

Fix these things and you will have a classic on your hands. Hell, hire me! I will help you with the story boarding and character interaction and conversation options. The environments, animation and sound in this game were second to none. A bit more character substance, more making the player care about the story and your character and this game would have been an all time classic.

Well done though and thank you for putting so much effort into this, it was well worth the money and the reason I am posting this is because I care and want to see something truly epic in the furture.

Cheers

Seriously? Like seriously?

Okay.

yes, srsly

Please Bethesda, bring back Hand to Hand combats, Mysticism, Athletics and Acrobatics.

My opinions on your complaints.

1) I agree, there are points in Skyrim where I got pissed off, like when Delphine tells you to kill Paarthurnax, I wanted an option to start combat and kill her.

2) I also agree, Alduin is just too much of a generic villain, he needs a personality.

3) I disagree, I don't see any problems with the current inventory system, it's alot better than the old one.

I'd suggest something too:

A HC-mode of sorts including:
- Environmental hazards. Namely freezing. Imo the landscapes scream for low temperature effects somewhat similiar to radiation in Fallout, but working as follows: Subtle (but highly impactful if neglegted) decreement of a bodywarmth bar depending on the zone of the map (none at vulcanic areas, a lot in snowy zones), the weather (blizzard increasing it, calm sunny weather slowing it some, etc), and time of day (warmer in day time and colder in nighttime). At first the lowered bodywarmth would slow down movement and attacks, then start to require more and more stamina for running, fighting, jumping, blocking etc, then start to drain stamina and causing blurred vision, and finally start to drain health and eventually cause death. Bodywarmth would be controlled vial fireplaces, food (hot meal warms you, a cooked meal'd stay warm for a certain amount of time after which it warms you less, but can be rewarmed in fireplaces and cooking pits) and anyplace inside where there is fire to be had -- temporary magic effects and alcohol wouldn't be bad ideas either, but magick drains mana and alcohol would have it's own side-effects. Normal coldresistance wouldn't affect this as it is a resistance to magic.

- More to differentiate the races. Utilizing the cold effects, give every race a distinct natural resistance to low temperatures. Ie, Nords having high resistance due to being native to the land, Khajiits having also good resistance due to fur cover, Argonians having the least due to being reptiles, etc. The reasonings could be what ever fits best. Also, similiar handling on racial movingspeed. For example, Argonians would be fast naturally and low on coldresistance so the cold effects would hinder them less than orcs.

- Much slower skillprogression and leveling.

- Tweaked armors and smithing. Armors'd have a coldresistance specific to the type of armor (fur having large resistance, leather a bit less, normal metal ebony etc mails'd have very low to none -- what ever fits with any given armor). Skillprogression through common and low grade materials (iron, steel, leather, fur) would not contribute to skillprogression anymore after certain point -- you'd need to smith the better materials to get better. But you could combine different materials. Elven fur armor, for example -- sacrifice a bit of damage resistance to increase coldresistance in the hazardzones -- though there'd be limits, no elven ebony armor for example, only the lower grade materials (iron, leather, fur, steel) would be combinable with everything. There'd also be a chance to fail at crafting (and similiar effects to enchanting and disenchanting).

Just some random quick thoughts. Like or dislike, it ain't happening anyway.

At least here, the inventory system is highly erratic: it will not necessarily alphabetize, containers have no filter options, the way merchants do (why??), and actually selecting an item/filter in MY inventory may not do what is expected, but rather, it exits the menu. The old one was better, because I could depend on it, and any inventory had identical functionality.

I'm sorry, but "works 100% of the time" and "all inventories provide equal functionality for browsing" is a basic requirement for "better", because we had all this. Now, I don't, and I'm going to need a UI mod to get it unless Bethesda does a lot more in the next patch than I expect.

After seeing my poor Khajiit trudge through snowbanks in her metal boots my heart broke and I got her some hide/fur boots. Now that her feet are toasty warm I wonder what kind of idiot would walk around in snow wearing metal on his or her feet??!?

Indeed. And I'd think the game should reflect that given the high emphasis on creating a living/breathing world.
Or standing in a forest in the middle of a heavy snowstorm in nothing but a loincloth and deerskull.