obviously its my opinion. but playing the witcher for the first time was similar to playing morrowind, my first TES game, for the first time. skyrim is my favorite TES game of all time even beating morrowind but i never at any point got the same feeling that i got the first time playing morrowind or the witcher. after so many games yes the backstory is new and even the location is new, but everything else is pretty much the same. id love to see a fantasy world thats blows the doors wide open on conventional stuff. a fantasy world without princesses and knights etc. all the usual cliches that come along with them and are in fact in TES games as well. if you think about it there isnt anything original in TES games with the exception of the odd creatures in morrowind. elves, nords, romans, orcs, dwarves (although not short) knights, goblins, golems (atronachs) mischevious gods that interfere with mortals, animal races (ever play any RPGs from the 90s?) all of this stuff has been rehashed over and over again it would just be nice to see something unique. the only thing i havent seen are gnomes in a TES game yet.

there was a game that i unfortunately never played but when i read about it sounded pretty cool because they didnt use any stereotypical monsters at all. ashens call or something.

The failings of Skyrim, are the same that generally plague every Elder Scrolls title. Namely:

Poor balance
Poor writing
Poor amount of world affecting choices
Lack of branching questlines

etc.

Unless they hand off those things to a different team, I think we will just have to live with them being subpar.

three of those would have been fixed by obsidian if they had built skyrim........of course it would have been as buggy as hell. i would love to see a collaboration between them.

Isn't an Artifact only an Artifact once its found?

Regarding the spell controls for mages (spending more time in lists than anything else), they need to do this:

First, the left (or right) d-pad button should bring up a separate Favorites list than the one that comes up when you press up or down. It needs to be a "combat list", a further special selection of favorite items that you want ot have for combat purposes only. That would give you a much shorter initial list to work with.

The second thing they could do, is make the right (or left) d-pad button open up a small interface that shows still a further, even more special list. This list, would correspond to hotkeys, including every button except the d-pad and left anolog, if they wanted to.

So instead you want to change spells. Currently, you have to go into the list of Favorites, find it, select it, use it. When you want to change spells again, you have to do it again.

With the proposed system, you would be holding the d-pad. Right d-pad + X (A?) = Fireball, once it's highlighted you click the trigger corresponding to your hand (or you could have a different key for each hand, and press both buttons to load dual casting). It's more intuitive, and it keeps us out of lists, while also giving us many options for hotkeys. Above all, it's FASTER.

The spells in this game would be awesome if we were simply able to switch spells faster. This idea would allow it. Copy and paste this if you like it. Tell the devs.

they need to overhaul necromancy.

good ideas.

They really need to do this, along with streamlining the problems with opening menus and all the misc problems dual wielding has as well.

I cast my vote for the next TES game to be an "Elder Scrolls Adventure" game, like Redguard or Battlespire or something. Doesn't have to be another "main" game. I thought that sprinkling different games between the "main" titles was kind of refreshing. Having three main titles in a row where the calling cards of the games are all the same (big open world, do what you want, etc.) gets old after a while. They're still fun, but despite the updated graphics and tweaks to the gameplay, the games themselves are essentially extremely similar, except setting and story of course.

I wouldn't mind them making a spinoff game again where you play one character and progress him/her through a linear but fascinating story, a la Redguard. Despite its dated graphics, Redguard was a hell of a game. It was like Elder Scrolls meets Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider or something.

Yes we need cars, guns, hokers, explosives and ninjas. I hope you are writing this down Todd.

I dunno about a overhaul but Id LOVE to see a redo on the first few games via a graphical/UI/Interface upgrade. Imagine playing Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, (I cant remember the first one off hand) with a current gen UI/Interface system (given Daggerfall's mouse controls were rudimentary IF there even WAS mouse support). I lloved the old games, but a upgrade would be cool

No

dude

what

No they do not need an overhaul, that's what fallout 4 is for.

History is written by the victors.

That said, there ARE some books which either slightly or totally conflict with others (don't ask me for cites right now please, I'm tired!) As in, two different viewpoints of the same history, usually written by two different races. Everybody in Nirn doesn't agree on the history. The reason is seems so homogenous is because the Empire has been around for a very long time and has had plenty of time to forward THEIR version of history. Histories which conflict with the 'official' version can be found, they're just not going to be on the average person's bookshelf.

Back to the OP: I don't understand the question. What are you trying to change? All the changes listed in this thread are not as much overhauls as enhancements of the existing game model. It's a sword-and-sorcery RPG. You quest, kill bad guys, and save the day. Most RPGS are like that (I don't count sims). You complain about same this, same that, but having a fully detailed backstory like in The Elder Scrolls gives the player valid reasons why things are as they are (factional fighting, racial proclivities, etc). As far as having the same mythic quest items, well, those things have been a part of lore from the beginning - these items were gifted to mortals and their stories all point to them being passed on from hero to hero as the gods see fit. There's no reason a new item couldn't be given, but again, that just an enhancement.

Did you mean game mechanics? Well, that will change - it already has for many things from Daggerfall to Skyrim. Such things will continue to evolve.

If I am off the mark, please clarify.

@Odd Hermit - You said "Every game so far has been so full of exploitable mechanics and extremely overpowered effects and so on, that you can barely avoid them without limiting yourself from using several skills at all."

I don't know how long you have been gaming, but you should realize that every single game ever put on the market has exploits. Programming is not perfect. Players will always find a way. As far as having to limit yourself, I see no reason to. People will play the game they want to play. I myself am a packrat and a terminal collector, so I always end up with loads of craftables. I'm not seeking to exploit anything - crap, I hate trying to get rid of alchemy ingredients by making potions because it levels me when I don't want it to. I just feel a bit guilty selling ingredients or ore - "Hey! Somebody might have needed that!" "If you're not going to use it, you shoulda left it for someone else to gather!" But I can't help myself...

Okay, so how about THIS!

A little roundish icon in the bottom middle of the screen, a small HUD. All it shows are the 4 D-Pad directions, and a description:

For "Up": Favorites. This can be your general Favorites list which, since you won't have to put your weapons, shields, and spells on it anymore will probably end up being mainly Shouts and potions (amirite?).

For "Down": You can do one or two things. You can make "Down" a sort of Equipment Manager hotkey spot (where we can save so many sets and name them, and their names appear when we press "Down"), OR you can make it a Shouts list. So that when you press "Down" on the D-Pad, a list of all your known Shouts comes up. This can also be the place where Racial abilities, and other large abilities should show up (like Night Eye).

For "Left" and "Right" respectively: Two criteria. Can it be held in (whichever) hand? Is it a combat maneuver?

If it can be held in (whichever) hand, then it can be placed into the (whichever) hand non-combat list. (This also allows you to have a non-combat A.I. for stuff like Torches, so that we can carry Torches and they will automatically switch to our weapons on entering combat, as the game will switch to combat mode. This is a much more intuitive sight by the players, as they actually realize they are in combat, and don't have to go into a friggin' menu to switch off their torch. It will also fix the Torch bug, promise.)

If the weapon, spell, or item is also a combat maneuver, then it can be assigned a hotkey. Using a new hotkey interface (designed to get paramount use out of this HUD), you are able to assign hot keys for each "hand". The following hotkeys can be supported (my guess anyway, and listed as PS3 buttons, since that is what I am familiar with): X,O, Square, Triangle, L1, L2, R1, R2. That gives us eight (8) combat hotkeys per "hand", for a total of 16 combat hotkeys. All we do to call them up, is press "left" or "right" on the D-pad.

Say I press "left", and what pops up? I see my Shield (got it on hotkey X, ofc), I see a healing spell (on O), I see an off-hand Sword in case I want to dual-wield (on Triangle), etc. In order to switch between these, I just have to continue to hold "left" on the D-pad, and press the corresponding hotkey.

Just remember, that there are two parts to this, being "combat" and "noncombat". So we would have to set two lists, of course, but we could change those out if we need to, out of combat, while we are in town screwing with all our other lists. You know, we will "load up" certain things to our hotkeys.

I believe that not only will this improve the quality of life of this game, it will improve the gameplay far beyond anything we are playing with now, that's for certain. Think of how FAST you would be able to play, as a caster, if all you had to do in order to switch spells was to tap "left"+[button] in order to switch spells!

Think of all of the Mage QQ, and all of the QQ about how this is a "melee" game. This one interface change, could send Skyrim to extremely new heights. Consider it. Use the idea. I don't want or need credit. IF it ends up in the game, I'm cool with that knowledge.

There is this thing with the ES series.. it's called lore. There is no "core" in this series without the story. That's why you see familiarity if you've played more than one or two games. The FF series is a great one if you don't want virtually any similarity from one game to another.

Only gameplay mechanics, namely, lack of diminishing returns on armor and magical defense, and lack of scaling magical damage, to name but a few. Bethesda makes compelling worlds, but the mechanics/formula designer needs to step up his game.

Lore and setting should remain or else ZeniMax risks getting protesters camping their head office for weeks.

I'm one of the many that are a little tired of the Daedric Shrines. In Skyrim they are totally pointless since you can craft things 300% better than anything they reward you. Ya a lot of the artifacts look cool; but, when they become unused there is no point in submitting to a Daedra. For once, why can't they allow the person to create their character before they start the game? Why do I always have to start off as a prisoner? These things, all though they have nostalgic value, they get old fast. Though they did change one thing with this game, they made the main quest chain the least appealing part of the game.

Pretty much this spot-on. The formula itself is perfect, but they remove a few "ingredients" with each passing iteration. They should be adding "more" to the game, not slowly making it hollow shell of what the ES series once was.

no to the topic or no to what I said lol

"There is this thing with the ES series.. it's called lore. There is no "core" in this series without the story. That's why you see familiarity if you've played more than one or two games. The FF series is a great one if you don't want virtually any similarity from one game to another. " I like how youll find books based about stuff you did/helped get done from the games in the past