Why didn't Bethesda allow the player to craft their own style of armor with Smithing?

They let you customize the race, look, and gender of your character.

Would it not be cool if we could design our own armor?

I'd probably base my armor after Jygalagg's Knights of Order.

Does anyone think future TES games will get a feature like this?

Personally I would prefer if Bethesda could work on adding platforming to the game and up their puzzle solving/riddles instead of adding armor detailing. Don't get me wrong, that would be awesome! But I would rather have the gameplay edited and added to before the smithing.

Do you have any idea how complex 3D modeling is?

I'm all for proper puzzles but I hate most types of platforming, I for one hope we don't see it in a future TES title or the return of the silly super jump agility.

A simpler thing would be a feature where we can color existing armors, maybe give us 10 different color choices that look realistic instead of a huge variety that looks painted on poorly.

The easiest way would be to go back to multi-slot armor, similar to Morrowind. Give the player several different designs of cuirass, greaves, pauldrons, etc, along with a choice of colors and materials. Then one could mix and match to get the look desired.

I guess i was thinking more in terms of Valenwood with the giant tree villages. It would be interesting to add in simple climbing mechanics there similar to how Mass Effeft added some abilities in their third installment thst did not detract from the game. ^^

You can do that. It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk_3ds_Max or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software). Look into it.

I believe the OP meant without the use of added tools. As in, the ability is in game

Honestly, that capability would be kind of absurd. Like Haggar said, the best that could be done would be to offer different colors or as glargg said back to Morrowind's increased number of armor slots.

[quote name="King Coin" post="23728296" timestamp="1407518692"]

Oh I totally agree with you. Just clarifying what the OP meant.

I agree to the fact that there are other areas that need more attention in expanding. Like others have mentioned. A customizable 3D model that is to be done acceptably and worthy of the effort is too complex. The best would be texture selection and they already had to combine the armors to only a few pieces to allow more stuff on the screen at once. Maybe future engines will allow it but I think that even then it will be outweighed by allowing the render distance to be increased ahead of multiple armor segments.

The main impact to improving the game that i want to see is complex questlines and dialog arcs with every quest ending with multiple scenarios. Along with more fleshed out storylines and characters.

OP, take your pick:

• Time constraints
• Engine Limitations
• Hardware limitations of previous-gen consoles

I would def like to see new story arcs. I want more rpg elements like decision making and dialogue options, different endings. Skyrim felt very linear in the sense that you couldn't make your own choices. This was made very obvious in the thieves guild quest line where you often only had one dialogue option.

Having suggested the armor slots as the easiest way, I don't think it would actually be so very difficulty to implement some kind of crafting mini-game that worked similar to the face editor.

There could be a series of sliders for the various sub-parts of the armor, with presets that work like the face editor's mouth/hair/eye sliders. Once all the sliders were set, and the color chosen, the armor would be "frozen" as a single piece. Since it would all work on a system of presets, from a limited set of meshes/textures, it wouldn't necessarily create problems like clipping, and there wouldn't be the imbalance you'd get by having a lot of extra clothing/enchantment slots.

Exactly. It is those things that are the front runners for improvement to the series. It would do them well to take a page form Obsidian's work in FONV.

EDIT : This does not by any means suggest that FO and TES should be gameplay mirrors. I think they should remain as mechanically distant as possible. However, complex arc and characters are good bases for any RPG. That is where the similarities should end.