Note: This thread isn't about the next TES game in ITSELF, but rather the Creation Kit that will accompany it, and your hopes, fears, and all that about it.

So the Creation Kit- that's supposed to be the trump card, that ensures everyone can be satisfied with the next TES game- or that's how it's supposed to be. But as a long time modder myself, I feel like I've learned of limitations it's had... Where in some ways, even the Creation Kit itself, seems to have lost potential it used to have. Maybe other people can find more things I haven't pointed out.

Some such things, are the fact that unless you literally request every modder who ever added Daedra for permission to release an altered ESP, and get it, and then manually gave every daedra/ghost normal weapon immunity, you'll never be able to play a Skyrim where all the ghosts/daedra have normal weapon immunity, unless you don't use any mods that add ghosts or daedra. Or the fact, that resist paralysis/paralysis immunity is much harder to implement now- if not bordering on impossible afaik, especially for the player character.

Or that while in prior TES games you could simply add acrobatics buff abilities that don't conflict with other mods, in Skyrim you can't do the same with jumping anymore as far as I know. Altering player jump height from what I know, requires altering the jump height itself, which if I'm not mistaken would conflict with any other mods. So for example, if you wanted a ring of jump height, it may conflict with a mod that gives vampires more jump height, I'm not 100% positive of that but I very strongly suspect that.

Or what about when the main story, or specific quest, or the factions in the game, end up being a major let down, or end up being very mundane and not very interesting compared to other TES games? That kind of stuff is far more complicated than everything else, and will tend to cause all sorts of mod conflicts, the more and more deeply stuff is changed.

Or what about the fact, that perks can do some things spell effects, and magic effects just cannot do, and that perks can only be added to NPCs via a patcher or via manual Creation Kit installation? From what I know you for example, cannot cast a spell on an NPC to grant them normal weapons resistance, when you might very well be able to easily program such a thing into Oblivion or Morrowind.

Or the armor pieces being merged together- to this day from what I know, there still isn't a mod to reverse that completely, and it still won't effect armor from other mods, when armor from other mods adds content that was removed in Skyrim. See what I'm getting at? And that's... Quite possibly just the tip of the iceberg. The Creation Kit is great don't get me wrong, but it does seem to have it's limitations.

And what I worry about in the next TES game, is, is the Creation Kit going to be capable of bringing back content it might remove as well?

Like for example, I DO NOT THINK they are actually going to DO THIS, but what are you gonna do, if health and stamina get homogenized into "Physical Ability", and the more points you put into physical ability, the higher both stats go? And what if there is NOTHING the Creation Kit can do, say hypothetically in that situation, to make health and stamina separate like they were in Skyrim? I seriously doubt they'll homogenize that into "Physical ability", I don't think it will go to nearly that extreme, but what if something like that happens? I'm not trying to sound alarmist or anything, I'm just saying, that it seems the Creation Kit has it's limits, and that the ability to fix certain issues, can only be done if the Creation Kit itself is up to par.

What I worry a lot about is, if the next TES game ends up being unsatisfying to a huge percentage of long time fans for any number of reason- not saying it will happen but it could, then... How will it's Creation Kit fare? Will it's CK be more user friendly? Maybe have more options? Will it's CK at least provide more modding potential?

My dream view of the Creation Kit in the next TES game, would have user friendly texture altering/mesh altering software built into it, so that more modders could really delve into their creativity at great depths, without being held back by the massively steep learning curve of having to install all sorts of programs, and people wouldn't have to be Blender experts for example, to say make a mod that would just for example, make a stronger bigger more muscular imposing version of a Sabrecat that mutated from drinking a Skooma pool.

Now that's just ideal- possibly unrealistic thinking, I don't know if that'd be too difficult to make such a thing built into the CK, maybe it would be, but it would be nice, if the next CK, had things like player jump height spells/paralysis resistance/etc/ all built into it making them optional in mods, even if the devs weren't quite sure how to balance these things themselves.

Poblem is that you're mixing hard coded content with modability of what's offered. In example of jumping, in Skyrim it's one static setting. It's not meant to be edited, and thus bethesda added no support for modability of that aspect and people have to find workarounds, if they are possible at all.

Other things you mention simply don't make sense. If a modder creates a creature that is supposed to have specific stats it's up to him to do it. If they didn't add that you can change it manually yourself. I don't understand how would CK help you there, or I didn't understand what you said at all.

In any case, yeah, future kits will definitely have things you won't be able to add if devs didn't intend to have it in the game, like we had no way to add a completely new skill in any TES games so far. It's not impossible, of course, there is always a chance that they will add a bit more to the kit to enable us greater flexibility in modding the game as we see it fit, but I doubt it, if they bother to make it all engine-compatible, it will likely be included in the game. Don't forget that the game is the main topic here when they release a new title, creation set or kit is completely optional, free added content that thy may not even add if they feel like it at that point (but we all know that would be insanely stupid and that kits seriously increase the duration of usability of their titles).

I can't speak too much for the creation kit. I tried it once and was overwhelmed. As an (incredibly) amateur modder, TES5Edit is far easier to work with, especially with some of the tools and resources other modders have developed for it.

My post is mostly to point out that I think there are ways around the armor thing. Several mods for Skyrim add additional armor pieces, and I believe SkyWind armors will be broken up like they were in Morrowind. Not sure how they've achieved these things, and if they've gamed things to pull it off or whatever.

I am curious. What is the advantage for Bethesda to hardcode things and make them impossible to change in the Creation Kit? Does it make their job simpler/cheaper in any way?