So, what feels better to you when you play an Elderscrolls game? Well answer above, and while you can discuss it below keep specific suggestions to the official suggestions thread.
"But I want everything!" you cry? Well so does everyone, the trouble is even Bethesda employees are only human, and so by making your voice heard in this way they'll actually know what their fans want in a more specific sense other than "everything in the world ever".

And remember, cookies are good! :cookie:

This would be easier to vote on if we could choose multiple options. None of those I find the most important in either category, but rather a blending of them.

I think a mix of Daggerfall and OB's melee would be nice having the skills in Longsword would help you do more damage but more of the attribute-based "more points more damage." A high STR will do more damage plus weapon skill and AGL would keep you from doing the 1 out of 1 - 16.


The story line should be long yet fell different. Maybe depending on class? :shrug:

In the second question, "Free play is better when..." I was surprised to see so many people not choose the more items and things to collect option. I mean, is it really that fun to have more caves and places to search that don't have cool items and rare things to find? Seems like people are putting the cart before the horse in that question poll...

... and do the items and such really matter much if there is only little variation because the game rules, ai, physics and such are so limited, and so they are basically a texture recolour and little more?

Um, these answers aren't mutually exclusive. Why would I pick just one, when pretty much all of them are important to TES gameplay?

I think all of those things are true, but exploration is king.

Stahlbrand agrees.

or pulling the cart while the horse walks next to them

anywho i also found the poll questions to be alittle um separated i guess its kindof like saying "here is a car, would you like pretty wheels or an engine?"

Generally, I'd like quests that can have at least two endings. They don't have to be complex endings, just two different rewards and dialogue for the paths you choose. And the option to fail quests of course, like in Fallout 3.

And maybe have some quests with one official ending, such as a quest to deliver stolen goods to that person, but instead you sell the goods, and lie to the quest-giver or something like that.



In terms of the amount of dungeons, I'd like an amount that Morrowind had, with pretty much the same size of dungeons. Dungeons in Morrowind were more interesting, mainly because they had hand-placed loot that was always a treat. Morrowind's dungeons were just generally more unique than Oblivion's as the bottom line. That's what kept Morrowind so much more refreshing than Oblivion's cut-and-dry dungeons with almost no variation and auto-leveled-everything. And one more thing that made Morrowind's dungeons better, was that they were more unique and varied. The cave meshes in Morrowind went in so many shapes and sizes of vertical height and drops and such and nooks and crannies. They felt like caves. Oblivion's caves were very, very cut-and-dry with pretty much no variation in slope and vertical height. Basically, Oblivion's caves felt like they were all man-made and factory-produced at fast speeds. No naturalness. Fallout 3 improved in the cave aspect though.

The realistic interaction with the enviroment is a big plus for me. Couple that with the exploration of Oblivion/Morrowind.

I chose that one for the cities really, but then they wouldn't be worth checking out without interesting AI/interaction and such I suppose...

Yes, it is.

I picked the first option for each.

Multiple endings are better than different ways leading to the same ending, though both are important. Multiple endings basically means you will have different options anyway while different possibilities could mean 'fake choices' if they lead to the same ending (they could mean fake choices, they can be done well of course.) The best would be a combinations of different ways and different endings.

With the second question you could only choose for more, more and more. I don't necessarily want more (it can be nice and too few of everything won't be a good thing) but better is much more important than just 'more'. I want interesting, detailed good enivroments rather than more (though if you can have both that would be great) Oblivion felt like it had very few different armor sets, much less than Morrowind, but you don't have to have extreme amounts of weapons and armor (again, if done right it can be very fun but it certainly shouldn't be the focus of development).

I would like the old skills (like axe and two different blade skills) and weapons (staffs, throwing, spears, crossbows etc.), but combat needs to be imporved anyway, not just the skill check hack and slash of Morrowind or the Oblivion kind hack and slash, the animations and moves of Dark messiah combined with the speed calculations and technical stuff of Mount & Blade (and still be skill dependent of course) would be great. But I choose for the last option because the most important thing in the next TES game should be the fact that the whole game isn't about combat. All the TES games forced you to use combat with sometimes the option to use sneak instead of fighting. I want to have the choice to use diplomacy, persuasion, bribery, trading, stealth, social stealth, acrobatics (climbing) etc. instead of combat. Most if not all the quests, situations etc. should have at least one non-combat alternative and somethings should not be solvable with combat.

So the biggest surprise so far is the "more interesting ways" outstripping the "more weapons and skills" category.

So far in the Elderscrolls the combat has never been great or deep, but the amount of different weapons has always been wide open. We've gotten any number of spells and effects in many different "schools" of magic, and have similar weapon variety in similarly large array of weapon skills.

So far the consensus seems to be that at very least the majority doesn't want yet more of these, and perhaps would take something of a reduction if the differences between them felt more pronounced and interesting. Perhaps the previous concentration on sheer variety is a reason behind the Elderscrolls series often lackluster combat in comparison to other titles, but on that point I digress.

Either way the balance between the other two categories seems to be right in line with the general game design theory which Bethesda has employed in the series so far. Quests completable by characters of a wider persuasion of builds with a secondary priority being the choices given in those quests. And a vast and varied land to explore with a secondary priority of ensuring that there's some interesting interaction to what you are exploring.

- Multiple endings (though I feel that multiple ways to get there is also important). Games like TES beg to be replayed. One of their appeals is that they have so much replay value. Multiple branching quests with meaningfully different endings really adds to the fun.

- More places to explore and do stuff. If I wanted more items, I'd play a hack-and-slash-and-loot. You can have only so many items before they are all basically the same with only marginal differences. Likewise, the novelty of physics wears off rather quickly.

- weapons and spells used in interesting ways

It'd be nice to have non-combat options to get by in the world. Maybe different spell and weapon usage could actually facilitate that while also keeping combat interesting, diverse, and fun.

We could have more skills, but that doesn't mean much if swinging an axe is just the same experience as swing a sword, dagger, claymore, mace, etc. Oodles of skills doesn't mean anything if they are all essentially the same and don't have their own differences to make them more than just an aesthetic choice (weapons and armor).

I'm thinking of Bioshock, where the plasmids affected the environment. Ice would freeze machines and enemies would shatter when hit. You could light fire to oil slicks and watch enemies roast. You could electro-bolt the water, and anything standing in the water would be electrocuted to death. You could momentarily incapacitate electronics by electrobolting them.

I want freeze spells to freeze water, fire to actually burn clothing and armor, or simple re-light my torch. I want spells that give NPCs crippling diseases. I want to be able to poison my enemies in a political coup. I want to be able to use a gust of wind to knock open a locked door or knock down a charging enemy. I want to take my weapon and knock someone out, shatter weak locks, chop down a locked door, mark a tree to find my way home, weaken a bridge to collapse under the weight of my enemies.

I found Morrowind already had a few multiple endings for quests, rather, for if you failed a quest which was very interesting. Like in Bloodmoon, one result if you get Mirisa safely back to Fort Frostmoth, and one if something happens to her and you fail in that.

Also, there are at least written differences for things that happen in the game, but many don't see them because they don't revisit old NPCs and see what they have to say months or years later. You'd be surprised how many things are different when you return later on.

For me, I definitely want more land, and more so, the ability to traverse it. If I cannot go over it, then make a cave system so I can at least attempt to go through it. I have nothing against going around, but is just seems a waste of resource to make that big an obstacle just for aesthetics. On the item front, it was an interesting surprise from Morrowind to Oblivion to see that the way I would set a natural marker of placing an apple in front of a cave, shrine, or door to note that it has been done already, doesn't work in Oblivion because the first time I did that, a NPC walked over, took the apple, ate it and walked away. I LOVED THAT!

I actually liked the way Oblivion handled the bow and loved the arrows that stayed visible. But like most, I would have loved to see the crossbow back/better. As for spells, which I used little of, from watching those that do, I would love to see some of the things I enjoyed in Champions of Norrath for the P2. Ice spells that freeze and people/creatures shatter upon the second hit, especially on arrows. A flame spell that cinders the target. Shock that shocks, and has a random cinder effect. I like how Oblivion spells affected the environment. I don't know how many establishments the Mrs. laid waste too with that Apotheosis or whatever spell that sends books, food, plates, and other items splattered all over. That was neat.

*second option of the second question is by far the least voted*

Enjoy your long empty stretches containing nothing of importance.

If you don't have a reason to go exploring, then exploration is pointless.

Oblivion suffered from this. There was no reason to explore dungeons except to finish quests (until you were level 30 or so and the sigil stones that Oblivion Realms gave you were no longer crap), no reason to search houses for loot, etc. You could just go between the same 3 dungeons, leveling up, gathering the new equipment that appeared as you leveled and selling what you didn't need.

Fallout 3 was better off for the bobbleheads, skill books, quests contained in a tape sitting on a random bench in the subway, etc.

I will. And I will http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4317/embracing_the_chaos_freedom_as_.php resulting from being able to do all kinds of interesting actions with the "unimportant" stuff and places, and I will enjoy the feeling of distance, and will also like the possibilities for modding it will bring.

Though I doubt we'll see that in TES5.

Such as?

TES has never been particularly great for that, but even with games that are, screwing with random stuff tends to get boring faster than doing things that wield rewards for your character.

While GTAIV was badly hurt by making this kind of thing less fun, you can only hit jumps, run from the police, and skydive from random areas in SA for so long before it gets boring.

Hitting jumps while searching for unique jumps? A little more interesting.



EMPTY DISTANCE.

LIKE WITH OBLIVION, WHERE YOU HAD FIELDS WITH NOTHING IN THEM, HOUSES CONTAINING LOW LEVEL EQUIPMENT AND USELESS NICK NACKS, AND DUNGEONS THAT YOU HAVE NO REASON TO EVEN GLANCE AT.

They need to make them interesting AND give you a practical reason to look around. Having unique, useful, and/or very powerful items laying around is important if you're going to make your game centered around exploration.



You're being pessimistic. Modding is a staple of TES, more so than with most franchises, and is one of the main reasons why people buy it. Bethesda would have to be pretty dumb to remove it.

Well, I picked 2.1 because I felt they were contradicting.

I want more places and more unique loot. But there wasn't such an option.

Example:

Most (but not all) of the gameworld consists of about 100 fairly generic settlements - some of them rural, others mining towns, ports, whatever fits - spread across a varied, vast expanse of similarly generic plains, swamps, hills, forests, ravines and mountains.

Your quest: "Defend against an incoming invasion." You took this quest and you'll try to achieve this goal.

That's it. There are no sub-goals stated for you, you're in charge of creating them yourself. There is no one true way to accomplish it, you have to be creative. There is no guarantee of success, and the most likely outcome is less than absolute - both absolute victory and absolute defeat should be fairly unlikely.

Let's assume you decide to try and raise an army, so you gather support from the settlements, buy or threaten them into your service where they aren't willing, decide on which people to train what and appoint captains for your army. You don't have to do it, of course, you could as well try diplomatic approaches, or try to penetrate the enemy's defences and kill their leaders, or a dozen more stuff nobody specially programmed in or predicted. But let's assume for a moment you decided to do it the fighter's way.

As you sit in your tent watching the map, the information comes in: The main enemy army has been spotted moving along a narrow ravine to one of the generic settlements. You were there before, it's a dozen homes to as many families, by the name of "Isaernwater". There is a good place to stop them nearby, so you decide to gather your troops and order them to move there, to your designated battlefield. A few days later, you manage to stop the other army. There is a big fight, hundredths die or are maimed for life, but your final charge manages to reach the enemy's encampment, break through and take their leaders prisoner. Your quest is fulfilled, even though a part of the country fell into the invader's arms. Sadly, in the midst of the fighting some of enemy's troops fall back to Isaernwater, and most of the place burns down, with a good portion of the population dying or fleeing into the woods, never to be seen again.

Two years later, you happen upon that place again. Most of the burned-down husks of the old building are overgrown by ivy, young birches grow in the ruins. A few houses have been rebuild though, and the inhabitants greet the hero of the war with great joy. There is a two year old girl here too, a sweet little child with curly blonde hair and big brown eyes. They tell you she's been born on the day of the battle, and her mother perished shortly after, so they took her and raised her as their own daughter. They called her "Victoria", to commemorate your victory.

In a game with a good, extensive game system, all of this would happen without any of this being scripted. Next time you play, you might decide to tackle the invasion another way, or the invading army would try a different approach, and none of this would happen - but other stuff would. Victoria might not even be born at all. Or maybe she would, but without a big battle nearby happening at the right moment, she'd be called "Saretis" after her grandmother instead.

That is how I want a sandbox RPG to work. I don't mind a generic background, I will change it and create my own through my play.

I want new ways to use weapons like slitting throats using the croshairs more for weak spots in the armor.