The main problem is when finding it just comes down to luck. Hitting your sword against random walls because there might be an illusory one isn't fun. Nor is it fun to stop because there will be that thought in the back of your mind that the next wall you would've tried could've had a secret. It's meta-gamey, as you have to guess and think about where the developers may have tried to hide a secret, rather than something to immerse you in a world of adventure and exploration.

Additionally, by being a crap-shoot in luck to find a secret, it means the vast majority of people won't actually discover it. A good example of this is in Morrowind, with many of the more unique items were hidden with very few (if any) clues about where they are. What percentage of Morrowind players actually discovered the Mentor's Ring? Most people who actually find things like that do so by blind luck, and most everyone else who get it learn of what they'll find and where ahead of time so there's no mystique about it. It's extremely difficult to learn about a secret from online sources without spoiling how to do it and what you get from it. You'll know basically where to go and what you'll find from what you read about online, so it's little more than a fetch quest you heard about with a known reward.

It's when the game itself can lead you to secrets that it can most effectively avoid these problems. That doesn't mean the secrets have to be obvious or easy, but it should be possible to find and figure out by paying attention to the game. A random secret wall that looks like 100 other non-secret walls isn't that.

I have a feeling you're right on when it comes to (not) bringing back Attributes, and an extended Perk list can help recreate the mechanical and narrative effetcs of them. Still, i personally find it more engaging to have a set of broad characteristics that help define our characters, and I think that having the trio of very generic and broad Attributes, sligthly more specialized Skills and super narrow Perks creates a different feel than having to incoroporate the Attributes into the Perks. Did that makes any sense?

Anyways, since I'm bored I'll take another shot at an alternative for what Attributes could do:

I agree with this. I thought Skyrim's "Star Trek" menu and HUD look was bizarre. I liked it aesthetically, but it didn't fit the game. In fact, I haven't completely liked the look of any menu or HUD in the series. However, Morrowind's menu design is my favorite. Movable, re-sizable windows were pure genius. It allowed us to re-position windows side-by-side so that we only had to move the cursor a short distance when buying and selling.

Best of all, Morrowind's map updated dynamically. When Bethesda added Solstheim it appeared on the map, instantly and automatically. Oblivion's map never updated. It was just a static artwork. I also loved Morrowind's fog-of-war map. Uncovering the entirety of Vvardenfell was an adventurous mini-game with some of my characters.

I like the concept of a paper map in theory, I just thought Oblivion's map was ugly and was not functional enough. What I would like to see in the next game is something along the lines of Fallout's in-game Pipboy idea. That is, when we hit the map key we would see two hands raise a paper map into view. When we hit the inventory key we would see two hands raise a backpack into view. And so on.

Unless there is a very important story-based reason to do so, I am not in favor of hiding things from the player. I want to be able to make informed decisions. In order to make informed decisions I need information, I need to know what I am being asked to decide. And while I'm not the biggest fan of Dungeons-and-Dragons, I do prefer its old-school method of presenting us with actual numbers.

I am not sure what you mean by this term "Journeyman system." Are you referring to the skill tiers themselves (Novice, Apprentice, ect)? Or are you referring to the perks associated with the tiers?

If you are referring to tiers, I am not a fan. I think skill tiers are artificial. When a character is prevented by the developers from even attempting to open a lock at skill level 49 but is allowed by the developers to open it at skill level 50, I say that is bad game design. That is way too "gamey" for my taste. That is not how real life works. In real life we can attempt things far beyond our capacity...and fail. A good roleplaying game should emulate that.

I would go back to Morrowind's chance-to-fail system where we could attempt almost anything, but if the action was difficult for our character's skill level we had a chance to fail when attempting it. The higher above our skill level we reached, the greater the chance of failure. I don't want to be hand-held by a developer and prevented from attempting something difficult. Let my character try, and fail. I want to be able to take a risk and I want to suffer the consequences of my decision.

If you're referring to the perks themselves, then I'm still not a fan. I thought Oblivion handled perk terribly. Oblivion's perk system was not merely bad rolepayng design, it was actually anti-roleplayng. The notion that every character is forced by the developers to take the same four perks is so idiotic I can't believe it got past the drawing board. And magic perks were not even worth being given to us. In most cases they merely granted access to more powerful versions of spells we already knew.

Skyrim's perk system, for all its faults, was vastly superior to Oblivion's perk system. I hope they expand on it and make it more interesting in the next installment.

Ehh. the chance to fail system of Morrowind, when it came to things like lockpicking, was terrible, and unintutive. As dull as they can get after doing ti for the 500th time, the lockpicking minigames we have now are far better.

Honestly, I think Morrowind's and Skyrim's systems both are incredibly lackluster. Skyrim's is far too easy and makes lockpicking skill barely relevant, while Morrowind's is unintuitive and based too much on chance for my taste. It is one of those areas I think Oblivion did better than both Morrowind and Skyrim at.

Oblivion's lockpicking game irks me due to the random tumbler behavior. On the other hand, I find the Morrowind and Skyrim systems lackluster. I'd like something like what was used in Thief; a thing like Skyrim's, but with multiple tumblers you need to get and in real-time instead of a frozen menu.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply it was phenomenal. It wasn't. The tumblers did seem to act randomly from time to time. I was just saying that I think it was the best of the three and it had sort of the right idea.

Never played Thief, but that lockpicking mini-game sounds interesting. I'd have to look more into it.

Here's https://youtu.be/R_YRUaZm3cI?t=6m1s with someone picking a basic three tumbler lock in Thief 3, to give you an idea. It's a lot like Skyrim's but you need to get multiple tumblers and a guard could walk in while you're picking the lock. Plenty of room for perks and skill to adjust it, too.

TBH, I don't think lockpicking should be a skill anymore.

Hmm, that seems interesting. I like the general premise, at least, and more could be done with it (e.g. a perk that could somehow make it less obvious to any guards that walk by that you are trying to pick a lock).

Why not? It is a significant part of role-playing especially for thieves, so I don't think getting rid of it is a good idea. Unless I am missing something here. Do you believe it should be kept around but not as an actual skill?

Yes. Lockpicking, as a mechanic, should be around OFC. But its usefulness as a skill is gone. We can see this even in the lockpicking perk tree, where most of the perks don't even really deal with it.

They could easily move the "picking X kind of lock is now easier" and "lockpicks never break" perks into a branch of the stealth perk tree or something.

Lockpicking, the skill, is like the Big Guns skill from Fallout 3, its pointless, which is why Obsidian got rid of it in New vegas.

nothing wrong with fifa, pes, assassin creed that been produced every year.. they are good and graphic is always up tp date to next gen...

and here we have tes...cant even play...just talking on forum...still people dont want yearly game

I want realistic character model, like fifa, like assassin cred syndicate..

i want realistic animation too...even fifa use motion capture...not to mention ac syndicate...that is next gen

I think nerovergil is saying we can't play it because Bethesda hasn't released it. He/she would like Bethesda to release a new Elder Scrolls game every year like EA does with their FIFA series.

How do you feel about rolling it into a Sleight of Hand/Dexterity/Fingersmith-skill, which could cover things like pickpocketing, cheating at dice (if there are any:P), disarming traps, and more, in addition to picking locks, but without tying it specifically to being stealthy?

Fingersmith is a dumb word. That's really the most important thing here.

Something needs to happen with stealth, but I don't know exactly what. Lockpicking is way different, conceptually, than picking pockets. I'd probably put Pickpocket as a sub-branch of perks in the Sneak skill tree. Lockpicking could go here as well, but it might be better off in an expanded Security skill, which could include trap-making and disarmament.

I would like to play a character that can Home Alone 2 a dungeon and murder all of the bad guys with paint cans, or whatever the Tamriel equivalent of Home Alone 2 and paint cans would be.

So for skills:

Sneak (including Pickpocket)

Security

Alchemy

Athletics (affects jumping, dodging, sprinting, and damage from falling)

Marksman

Speechcraft

Armour (light, heavy and medium need to be one skill)

Blade

Blunt

Axe

Block

Smithing

Alteration

Conjuration

Destruction

Restoration

Illusion

Enchant

They are also typically made by teams at least 5 times the size of Bethesda, and tend to be just as bug-prone on release. Without dramatically expanding (to the point of it being dangerous to expand that rapidly) and totally overhauling how they make games, Bethesda just isn't capable of that sort of release schedule. Nor should they be. All those games have very little change from year to year, and the only thing they really manage to do is tweak graphics a bit.

I think Lockpicking could fit into a Sleight of Hand skill along with Pickpocketing, and maybe Traps, though that would be pushing the concept a little. They're all just as out of place in Stealth, which (in TES anyway) focuses on total avoidance of detection, not distraction and evasion, which are significant elements in Pickpocketing...

Yeah, there were some parts of Dark Souls that literally required you to Wolfenstien 3d your way around an area, because the camera would deliberately obscure an entrance or path. Newer gamers may find that novel, but i for one stopped finding that nonsense interesting with Duke Nukem 3d.

Meanwhile, it felt immensely rewarding, for me, to figure out how to reach the inaccessible treasure trove in the tomb of Jurgen Windcaller, because all the pieces needed to figure it out were available. You just had to put it together. It admittedly took me longer than it should have, but even with mediocre loot, the actual accomplishment felt good.

Being able to see what's ahead allows you to set goals, and fulfilling those goals is rewarding. Deliberately hiding things from sight and making their discovery pure luck or extremely obtuse behaviour doesn't really facilitate goal setting or problem solving.

Thief's Lockpicking is probably the best i've seen in a game for some time. It's Focus aspect also allows for greater tie-in to skill, by allowing you to 'see' what you're doing for longer stretches.

Real time lockpicking is one of my biggest wishes for TES VI. Dying Light uses the same mechanic as Skyrim, but since the game doesn't pause when picking a lock it is much more intense. Whenever it took me more than 3 or 4 attempts to open a police van I would exit the mini game to look around out of fear that a zombie might have wandered by. In Skyrim, if I was trying to break into a house, I could just enter stealth mode in front of the door and wait to become hidden. As long as a guard looked away for a split second I could take all day trying to pick a lock.

Even if the mini game stays the same, lockpicking could be justified as a skill if the game doesn't pause when you do it. A warrior or mage might not need to invest it since locked chests in dungeons would probably be safe to pick after the place is cleared. For a thief, however, perks that allow for faster picking would be essential when trying to open doors and chests in cities. In Skyrim, I only had trouble with the guards when pickpocketing (any ideas for a way to make this more than x% to succeed?). The radiant quests from the Thieve's Guild were ridiculously easy since even the most inexperienced thief has the godlike power to stop time when picking a lock.

I don't think most of those things need to be skills, or part of a larger skill, per say.

Traps are fairly easy to disarm so long as you can see them. Any idiot can disarm a bear trap with a long stick, and most other traps just require you to stop the tripwire, which you can then either jump over or cut with a knife. Pressure plate traps, once spotted, can easily be avoided by not stepping on them.

Pickpocket should probably still be its own skill, but the other stuff doesn't need to be rolled into it.

I would have to disagree with this.

Armor needs to be split into light.heavy skills, because both are pretty different from each other.

On the other hand, TES is not something like Dark Souls, where different weapon types are made to be dramatically different from each other. The one/two handed split in Skyrim was fine for the kind of combat TES has. Splitting them into Blade/Blunt/Axe is just splitting them up to make three skills that are all basically the same thing.