I didn't really like the perks system, the perks themselves and how it was handled. It just felt too artificial, why should i be unable to knock somebody back with my shield until i reach level X?
As you mentioned there could be a fluent system that just makes the mmore likely at certain levels till they reach 100% likelyness but personally i'd A. Change the preks themselves (which is a hard part to get right and not feel artificial) and B. have them reachable at "random" levels rather than fixed points. Possibly have them actually learnable instead of just getting them.

Though personally i'd remove perks at all.

i think training should be different. maybe instead of insta-training, there would be a little mini-game/course thing. maybe if you were training in blade youd have to attack training dummies, for acrobatics maybe jumping from building to building, etc.

the better you do the more skill youd get
if you did terrible, youd get a tenth of a point. if you did perfect, youd get a full point.

of course, you could just go for the insta-train to get a 0.5...

Had something similar in mind however with still allowing you "instant training". It would go something like this:

Like in your suggestion to actually get a levelup you have to do a training course, the thing is however depending on how good you do you can even rise more than one "level" at once, but your trainign partner will be harsh on you so don't expect to get more than 1 anyway. PLUS when doing the trainign course you actually train more than one skill at once like in combat you also train defending and averting hits.
However there is still a instant training, this however does NOT give you a level up. Instead if gives you a level up speed bonus meaning you level a bit faster for a while. This is mainly because you're just given tips and instructions instead of actually training, books would also function that way. You don't get a level up from reading a book but it gives you valuable hints so you can get a level up faster.

Since I'm on skills anyway, here's my proposal for the skill list:

Combat

-Sword: longswords, katanas, sabers, etc.
-Hafted: maces, axes, and hammers
-Polearms: spears, halberds, and staves
-Hand to Hand
-Plate: replaces heavy armor
-Chain: replaces medium armor
-Block
-Armorer
-Athletics

Magic

-Destruction
-Alteration
-Restoration
-Illusion
-Mysticism
-Conjuration: loses all undead summoning spells
-Necromancy
-Enchant
-Alchemy

Stealth

-Dagger: daggers, knives, tantos, khukris, etc.
-Marksman: bows, crossbows, and throwing knives (maybe)
-Leather: replaces light armor
-Sneak
-Security
-Acrobatics
-Mercantile
-Speechcraft
-either a Climbing skill, or a Throwing weapon skill

Whatever they add in TESV I think they should keep a lot of the stuff they had in oblivion and just add from there. Like the decoration of the houses and stuff like that.

theres something wrong with that, probably, i just dont know what it is, so ill link plate armour here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour#Composition
i seem to trust wikipedia more than most people

The only real suggestion I can come up with is a Daggerfall-like combat system, where you click and drag your mouse in a certain direction, and you swing your weapon in a particular way (horizontal mouse drags equal horizontal slashes etc), allowing you to do more/less damage.

On that same topic, WHY isn't there a DS version (port or remake, either's fine) of this game yet?

Of course, I could be biased because I've finally figured out how to NOT die in that game.

They should have more race-specific abilities. For example, all Khajiit should have constant night-eye effect. But it shouldn't make the world around them purple, it should keep the dark areas the same color, just much brighter. Transform into a werewolf in Bloodmoon and you'll know what I mean. Also, Bosmer should be able to command all beasts, not just mudcrabs and rats. In fact, it would be better if none of the beasts attacked them at all. They would be a constant ally to the Bosmer and would come to their aid or follow them around as a companion.

Should not be able to block with weapons - at least, not weapons made of Earth materials (iron, steel), unless the blade has been damasked to resist shattering.

Should not have full plate armor - metallurgy and other crafting techniques just aren't advanced enough in Tamriel to accomplish this. If you decide to throw that to the winds, then remember that full plate armor is NOT encumbering, especially the full plate, since the weight is distributed over the entire surface area of the body, which makes it less encumbering. A person in the most advanced medieval full plate is fantastically agile thanks to all the hinged plates.

Give bows some love. Recurve, compound, whatever. Do your homework, dudes, and make something beautiful, you hear? On that note, spice up the ammo department and make different heads - boar, barbed, etc.

It's not the position that gives you power, but the road you take to get there. I hope that Bethesda sticks to this motto when they design the factions/questlines so that one doesn't just progressively get better rewards as the quests go on, but have the character create his/her own reward through his/her efforts. Examples of where they did this right: The Great House Strongholds, the main quest for Morrowind, the Dark Brotherhood bonuses; the rewards weren't just given, they had to be "earned". The Stronghold required the player to go out of his/her way to set everything up themselves. The bonuses demanded that the player think, plan, and focus on how the target was to be eliminated (to a certain extent). The Morrowind MQ didn't really give too many rewards, and when it did, they weren't really all too useful (some were however, the travel-stained pants, Kagrenac's tools), and when one was to get such a reward, they went for a good walk and/or had to fight some serious baddies.

Forgive me if i'm missing something or being ignorant, but what makes you think the crafting techniques arent sufficient? Theres quite a bit of proof that they are advanced (armor made of glass for example). And why not block with weapons? They arent feeble, all swords are obviously expected to take impact, by your logic you shouldnt be able to hit an armored opponent either.

Yeeaaaaa... about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjMW5qenYyA

Rather depends on the style of weapon, does it not? Japanese-style swords? Sure; the forging techniques there do tend to make them comparatively brittle, so some degree of shattering could be a risk. But European-style swords tend to be more flexible. Granted, you'd probably need to see a blacksmith if you went through a fight just straight-up blocking rather than parrying (btw, parrying ought to be the way it's portrayed in TESV, in any event) to get the knicks and possible bends out of it, but it probably won't shatter on you.

arent daggers and knives different? from what i know, daggers are double-edged, and knives are only sharp on one side



thx a lot daniel_kay your video made me want to own some butterfly swords

I also liked the idea of the 'streetwise' skill in Daggerfall, climbing also, I'll play Daggerfall a bit later and see if I've missed anything.

Stephen.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no... no, no, no, no, no... no.

If anything they should throw away oblivion and start from Morrowind and Daggerfall.

Stephen.

In training, add a question section to a minigame to give a bonus to the training points. Eg. Which school of magic does the fortify strength spell come under? etc...

Stephen.

DING! What is Alteration, Alex.

I thought they were cool, and I use them a lot in the game, if they were trainable that would be fine, that would actually make sense, since then there could be multiple for one particular level, and then you could choose which you wanted to learn.

Say a different fighting style would be more efficient if you had got hand to hand on the certain level, but it would still be usable below that level, only with maybe a chance to fail, and exposing yourself.

This could also be used to turn fatigue into something more important, where not losing fatigue while running was a perk at a later level, for athletics or something.

You don't go underwater. I don't think a game should be designed so all players can do all things. If your character can't explore underwater, that will add to replayability.

My sentiments exactly.

The Quest Arrow

PC: Hey, I'm trying to find this artificat. It's been lost for hundreds, if not thousands of years. For all intents and purposes it's been lost for all time, but its' very important I find it, for all humanity depends upon it.

NPC: I won't bother to give you specific clues, hints, or limited information. Rather, if you look on your compass you'll find an arrow that will show you exactly where the temple is. You're special so this magic compass will show you what nobody has been able to find in this strangely small country. Then once you're in said temple, I've set up your compass so that a new arrow will show you EXACTLY where the item you seek can be found. Trust me, you will not have to explore, or search around. Don't ask me how this is possible. It's better not to ask questions. Just follow the arrow, get the artifact.

If the next game just does away with the quest compass arrow I could forgive bad voice acting and repetative main quest.

Start from Daggerfall? What, with the bugs and the randomly generated towns? Daggerfall had more gamebreaking problems than Oblivion.

That's why i suggest that the quest arrow does not insantly point to your target destinations, unless you do EXACTLY know where it is, but always narrows the position down to the closest location your character knows about. For example when searching a person:
If you only know that person lives is in a certain region the arrow will point you into that region but nothing more.
If you know the town the arrow will point to that town but you still gotta look around and ask around.
If you know the street (IF they add street names) or village in that towns area the arrow will only point you to the street/village, still gotta find the house.
If you know the house it will point you to the house, this is pretty much the narrowest it will point you to a person... unless
You ask around and find out where that person usually goes to or works, this will add markers to those locations as well. If you know WHEN that person usually is there they will be highlighted at those times (the other markers are still there but faded out) but there's no guarantee the person will be there, those are jsut the times the person would normally be there.
AND if you know what that person looks like from a description to talking to him/her before the marker WILL point directly to that person IF you can see him/her directly (is in your line of sight and nothing obscuring him).

That way it realistically points out locations and slowly narrows down what your character knows. This really wouldn't be a problem as it goes by information and, honestly, if you EXACTLY know where something is why shouldn't it be able to point it out?
Plus i think this system is not complicated at all, it just needs more pointer locations and some of them can even be created on the fly if there are location infos the game can generate something on.

Yes, because Daggerfall was all bugs and randomly generated towns. That's all it brought to the table at all.

Mind you all, though, Oblivion is actually influenced a lot by Daggerfall. Not in the ways I would prefer, but there was a Todd Howard interview I'll try looking up here in which he talks about playing all of their old titles when drafting design concepts for Oblivion, and he talks about several Daggerfall-style design choices that Oblivion uses.

I wish there were some sort of compromise. It was REALLY hard for me to find stuff in MW, and sometimes I wish there was, like, a vague cone on my minimap with the possible area where I could find something. The whole reason they even MADE the quest arrow was because of the [censored] SONOFA[censored] DWEMER PUZZLE CUBE FROM HELL.

If there were some middle ground, it'd be easier for me to accept either or.