One thing I couldn't help notice about Oblivion is the lack of Factions, In morrowind there are loads of factions you can join, it gives the game so much more stuff to do away from the MQ. I say there needs to be more joinable Factions in TES V, what do you think? explain why you picked the answer you picked.

More of them, and conflicts too!

Yes so long as they are well done
The different factions in MW worked well because even similar factions in terms of skills and attributes required felt very different to each other. DF had even more factions than MW but most of them weren't well-fleshed out

They need to do a better job of designing the factions.

For instance, some of the factions should have underlaying stories with conflicts, dilemmas, and political intrigue while others (such as the Fighter's Guild) should simply serve as a "job" for the player.

I do not want every single group to have a "Warning! Dire consequences will ensue if you don't stop doing what the faction is about and divert your attention to this issue" feel to them like they did in OB. A good mix of bland and deep factions will make the game on the whole feel more deep. Making every faction deep makes the game feel bland.

I think the root of this matter is that there simply weren't enough quests in OB before the main guild "story lines"

I enjoyed the additional cinematic and climactic value of the more fleshed out faction progressions but I think that there should be more of a branching quest tree, especially for a game that prides itself on replayability. For instance - more choices on who you go to for quests, etc. Let the chapter where you join the guild determine your preliminary quests for instance to gain basic rank.

I really didn't like that the Fighter's Guild was almost completely consumed in a petty rivalry with another faction, and that you "the new guy" are put in charge of dealing with it. In MW, you spend almost your entire time working up the ladder doing menial tasks. Once you get to the top you begin to learn about the internal struggle and outside influences at which point you get to make a decision about who to support. I also found it irritating that for some reason every single faction in OB was having a major crisis that needed your help, all at the exact same time. At least in MW all of the crises were as a result of each other (Fighters and CT v. Theives, Mages v. Telvanni, The Houses v. the other Houses).

There should be more factions than a player can do in 3 play-throughs. I'm talking City-guards for individual cities, Individual gangs, and daedric cults, etc. Factions must block of entrance to their opponents (besides through scripted infiltration missions) until you are kicked out, and should have Randomly generated quests as well as the plot.
Basically Morrowind style but random quests, Guildmaster quests, (Like your two Telvanni Reward Quests, but more of them and also dealing with unruly guildmembers) and also just more joinable guilds.

I would love a lot more playable factions, but that would require an awful lot more voice-acting, and you know Bethesda will go with full voice-acting.

I think a solution would be to add more playable factions through some of the DLC.

There should be more factions again and they should be somewhat interwoven.
I don't mean just in rivalries but also working together and in undermining each other.

For example, when you join a thieves guild you could still join the fighters guild to infiltrate them and lead missions away from the actions of the thieves, not really sabotaging them but giving the thieves a bit more room to operate.
The other way around you could join the fighters guild and then the thieves guild to undermine them, maybe posing as a reject of the fighters and wanting to join as a "revenge" as you alibi.

That way it would not be "you're in guild X, you can't join" but giving you the option of wanting to work together or to infiltrate one side.
Of course in some cases some combinations are not possible, like opening joining two guilds that are open rivals but you could very well be a open member of ones that are either neutral to each other or allies.
Again with the thieves guild as a example, it could very well be allowed that you openly admit your membership to another guild and they're OK with it as long as you promise to keep your hands of their stuff.


This would of course influence which missions you get, working in both the fighters and mages guild could give you different quest lines for both, more magic oriented fighters guild mission and more combat intense mages guild missions, sorta a balance between them. Working primarily for one and only as a "honorary member" of the other would only slightly influence the missions.
Lastly some missions could only be available for certain guild/faction "combinations" as partner missions.

Seeing them work together from time to time would be nice too. Like you're a member of the mages guild and they announce the fighters have hired some of them for support, you could volunteer or decline to join that team, in some cases you could be rejected to join them of course if your "interests" clash too much with the clients.

Yes.

Why? well why not? To me, the factions and smaller quests is more important than the main quest itself, since i feel that the factions is what really defines you're character in TES. Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Imperial Legion, The Arena, i want them all. I would also like to see some kind of pirate questline... oh and a questline for the Vampires and the Werecreatures would be really cool too. If it meant more Guilds, Questlines and smaller quests, i would be satisfied with a shorter main quest.

This

There was potential in Oblivion that was not used about factions (just like many other potentials)..Also there could be an Imperial legion faction that goes after thieves guild...

So yes... please add more controversial factions to give us chances of choice...

I doubt anyone thinks not. We need more quests ala Daggerfall. I want to join various nine temples, and have it conflict with the native religion.

I should be able to join the imperial legion, and destroy the thieves guild. etc.

Yes :thumbsup: we need that and ALL fractions should be join-able.

Daggerfall had many factions, but no depth and every faction(of the same type) gave the exact, same, randomly-generated quests.

Daggerfall takes up an entirety of 148 Mega-bytes. Oblivion takes up 4.6 Giga-bytes unpatchd without any DLC or Mods. So, Daggerfall (being an overall better game) couldn't have gone extremley in depth without being un-playable for a few years.

I think so, yes. Morrowinds amount was pleasing. I'd like that amount of joinable factions in TES:V.

Morrowind did it nicely (even if Twin Lamps could have been more fleshed out) so a similar amount of factions and content for them would be perfect.

In the lineup, I would have them oppose 2-3 other factions directly, and have stray quests that go against all the other factions to keep them a bit separate and you needing diplomacy to explain what you did. This is how I would arrange their enemies lists.

Mages Guild - Necromancers, Witches Covens
Thieves Guild - Imperial Legion, Trade Factions
Fighters Guild - Knights Guilds, Bandit Factions
Dark Brotherhood (guild organization, faction status)- Imperial Legion, Knightly Factions
Imperial Legion (Guild)- Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood
Imperial Navy - Pirates, certain Trade Factions, Knight Factions
Trade Factions - Thieves Guild, Marauders and Bandits
Marauders, Pirates, Bandits – Trade factions, Fighters Guild, Imperial Navy
Religious Factions - Necromancers, Witch Covens, Mages Guild
Necromancers - Mages Guild, Religious Factions
Witch Covens - Mages Guild, Religious Factions, Fighters Guild
Knightly Orders - Dark Brotherhood, other Knights Factions

Each official guild should be organized into three divisions, regular factions would have just one division. These would each represent a different part of the organization, and would potentially have a different quest giver.

Many of these would be cut of course because they can't handle them all, but other than the normal four (Fight, Dark, Thieves, Mage) I would strongly hold out for the Witch's faction, the Trade faction, and the Knightly orders. Religion could be daunting because there have been before two factions per divine, and one faction for all divines didn't work in the game. The Brotherhood needs to spend more time killing murders who won't join them. Pirates and the Imperial Navy won't happen unless they get some sailing in the game. I don't think they need the player to control that.

Part of the issue people need to consider is that to be a guild, you have to suppress freelancers of the same trade. Guilds are designed to be monopolies, which is why we need some illegal opposition, like the Witches being non-compliant with the Mage's Guild. Each faction is also a political power in their region or town, so you can play them against the town government.

There should be more factions for more quests away from the main quest.

I'd also suggest that factions within each other can be split up, like the thieves guild not operating as one unity over the whole nation but rather in mob like families, they can have some unity within each other but largely they operate on their own terms.

This could extend that others don't operate united but have their "territories" and within those have different rules. Like lets say in area A Necromancers and Mages are rivals (opposing factions but don't really fight each other), in area B they're bitter enemies (the even fight each other) and in are C they're allies (work together and support each other).

And a short explanation, the Necromancers should NOT be made the "big evil faction".

Yes.

To be fair, the Mage's guild needs to be the big evil faction. And the good guys. It's a dragnet over the whole profession. That means there is no core ideal, it's a grab bag of everyone who uses magic officially. The good is that they train all those ready to be trained. The evil is that they murder everyone who doesn't do it their way. Note the quests from the games. Killing the separatists is what the Mage's guild is all about. How do they get away with this? The Brotherhood doesn't even mess with Mage's guild authority over souls. They are scary Big Brother types.

I'd love for the Imperial Legion to come back as a joinable faction. Also, have new wings of it, like a section for protection and law keeping, a section for exploring and prospecting new areas for resources for the Empire. Just new branches of each guild would be great I reckon

Very nice list there. Seems legit.