Skill Trainer

I would like that if you get good enough at a certain skill, then you can teach others for money, like a job. This way you can take on apprentices, who will study under you, and come with you on quests.

Interesting idea. Maybe make it so these differences can sometimes be found randomly on items, since not every ebony sword is made by the same smith and won't be exactly the same. You should also be able to make the items from the raw materials I think. Maybe you could add one improvement to an existing item but up to three depending on your skill and the difficulty level of the material if you're creating it. Also, some of the properties could work together with enchanting. Like you could make a piece of armor with "x2 to mysticism enchants" on it.

Maybe even combine it with alchemy so you could use the powers on certain ingredients to add to items that you create. You could add frost salts when crafting your armor and have it start with ice resistance, which wouldn't take up the item's enchantment slot. So each skill would be good on its own but the tradeoff for taking three non-combat crafting skills is that you could create the most powerful items.

Yes, the player should also be able to find it randomly in the game world.

First off: technology on Nirn is not static. http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/marobar06.shtml implies that heavy plate armor has only become widespread since the beginning of the Second Era. Also, Akaviri weapons and armor would not have shown up in Tamriel until the invasion of Tamriel by Akavir. In Morrowind, the player could help Eldwena Elbert (sp?) in the Mages' Guild recreate Dwemer technology. Speaking of which, the guy that "Bloodmoon" adds to Ald'Ruhn built an airship.

Even if Tamrielic technology was static (which it isn't), then that would be a logical inconsistancy in the lore that would need to be fixed rather than maintained. The people of Tamriel have problems, so they will develop new ways to help with those problems.

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Congratulations, you saved the Holy Land!

I totally agree.

It's static enough that in 200 years the people of Tamriel wont have developed AK-47s and flying cars like people seem to want them to. There is plenty of advanced technology that has already been made on Tamriel, but none of that technology has become widespread. In terms of technology that all of Tamriel uses, technological advancement is rather static.

Things I would like to suggest:

NPC Intelligence:

I know is seems odd, but I found it very saddening that NPCs never jumped after me, while I happily lunged across a ravine instead of them following me they looked at me dumbfounded, screamed "You elves are all the same!", and ran away only to appear three minutes later.

They didn't seem to have much of a sense of danger all the time, if I stood across a waterfall a wolf would run at me and die.

Making it so they can detect arrows whizzing by their heads or spells that missed their mark would be great too.

Notoriety. If you're to blame for 10 murders and went to jail, it'd be nice for people to be wary of you.

Thieves never stole from the player, just NPCs. It'd be great to beat down a pickpocket and report him to the guards.

Calendar:

Seasons would be great. (Adding snow to the ground, red leaves to the ground, having some of the grass turn yellow during summer. People stay inside more during the winter, etc.)

Holidays where the people had a festival would be great too. After playing a... certain Renaissance game where I assassinated many people, my favorite atmosphere was that of the Carnival in Venice.

Transportation:

-If there were wagons to transport us place to place (if we were too poor to afford horses), that'd be a lot of fun, especially if bandits/necromancers/ogres/goblins could raid it randomly and the passengers have to fight for their lives.

-Boats that work, so we can be transported by sea to another part of Cyrodiil. And perhaps time could actually pass so you have to stay on the boat for a day and you can just do "Wait" if you want to skip it.

Miscellaneous Things:

First thing to come to mind is the lycans. I was heartbroken when I learned there were no werewolves or werelions to get contaminated by. (Werevultures that could fly would be... amazing.)

Crystal balls that had a use would be really fun, being able to remotely spy on someone would be a way for my thief characters to scout out the area. (Powerful mages would be able to detect if you're using it on them, and certain people know how to avoid it.)
(A certain little metal bird would be really interesting)

Jobs would be a great addition to the game, in my opinion. But let me elaborate:

What I mean, is the ability to earn money in a way that doesn't include killing, stealing, or harvesting (or perhaps it would).
-A tailor could play a mini-game to make clothes (hey, we had yarn and fabric). A blacksmith could make weapons and sell them. You could train an apprentice who could watch over your shop while you're away and collect money for you.
-A Primate of Akatosh could have the ability to give speeches every Sundas, and a healer could be sent on missions to heal people in need.
-A farmer could, well, farm. Planting vegetables, fruits, or growing animals to slaughter and sell. I actually just got a really great mental image as I typed that of a bunch of little piglets following me.
-A pirate could pillage far-away, possibly randomly-generated islands.

What would be a great addition is one to do things like gather bodies for necromancers or even be a necromancer yourself.

The addition of healers that you can see if you're injured.

The ability to use bows and swords on your horse (maybe only if your skill is high enough)

Combat/Skills:
I'm not an experienced blunt weapon user, but I've used all of the other weapons, and what I felt was lacking was the lack of an ability to dodge. You could roll out of the way, but even if the enemy was in the middle of an attack they'd still turn while swinging and hit you.

Communicative Skill Additions would really help me out since I'm not the type to feel fulfilled when I bribe somebody to tell me that a guy lives in the Talos Plaza district, or when I click "Joke". I didn't really like the system in Fallout 3 either, where it gave you a percentage chance. Perhaps it could be made so you could give people items, say an option of a few things that would rather raise or lower their disposition, and maybe they could do things for you in return like offer to go out on our journeys with you, or teach you a skill. Being able to ask somebody to follow with a skill, a signal that makes your character signal for people to charge, a whistle to call your lost horse, etc.

Skills in general: What I didn't like for whatever reason was that somebody would say "I can teach you all you need to know." I'd pay them, and I'd instantly advance. If I actually got to go chapel climbing with Ida Vlinorman, I would have been blown away by the game's interactivity. And that being said, if we could learn new skills instead of the game just saying "Congrats, You're a Journeyman of Alchemy.", or perhaps a combination of both, I'd be thrilled. Like, if you went to a specific guy who teaches you how to do a counter, or a spellsword who teaches you how to combine magic with a combat attack. Or somebody teaching you how to combine hand-to-hand with acrobatics so you could do more acrobatic hand-to-hand instead of just punching in a different form. Basically, actually learning skills from NPCs instead of them just saying "You won't learn these moves anywhere else.", and you... don't learn anything.

But the trick is that it would be much more fun if for each skill you had to do a mission/train with the trainer.

For example: Ullada Othram teaches the "Inferno Blade" ability, so you have to train with him and actually use the skill on a dummy.

Rendwen teaches high acrobatics training, she brings you to a unique spot in the woods with a bunch of bushes. She told you before she's planning to teach you how to dodge, and now she told you to "Stay put!" as she walked away. Suddenly a huge log swings at you, and to learn the skill you have to dodge it, she smiles and says "Maybe you have what it takes after all." and sends another log your way where you learn by dodging to flip over an opponent.

Rubella Wettle teaches the skill "Extrasensory Perception" which requires a high amount of Mysticism. She brings into a dark room and tells you to "Block when you feel it coming", suddenly the room gets darker and you can't see her anymore. You can't use detect life. Suddenly, there's a small white flash and the screen prompts you to hit "block", you do and you hear her fist smack into your block. The room lightens up again and you see her smiling proudly "Good, you've learned quite fast."

Essentially, mini-quests to learn skills instead of just gaining the ability to jump on water from jumping in place a bunch of times.

Sneaking skills:
Perhaps adding certain skills while you're sneaking like choking from behind with enough hand-to-hand or stabbing the dagger instead of swishing it would make the game just that much better.

NPCs (In General)

Diversity of height and weight.

Children (Great system in Fallout 3, you couldn't kill them)

NPCs never get sick if it doesn't have to do with a quest.

NPC Shop owners never seem to deal with other customers. They're always standing there behind the counter looking at you smiling thinking: "Please buy something, I need you!" It'd be great to walk into a shop and have the shopkeeper swindling a foolish store-goer out of all of their money. "Why ye-es this is a fine ring, some say that it has the ability to bring you good luck!" "You don't say..." "2,000 gold!" "Deal!" Lol.

NPCs never seem to congregate either. They don't go place-to-place with a group of friends. They'll wander around outside, go inside a place, eat, go outside, wander, go home. I'd just like to see an inseparable duo who do everything together.

NPCs that will do something if they're in the mood. Like if you're in a store and somebody walks in and they see you and their disposition is very low their AI will change to go somewhere else and avoid you, while a friend will run up to you and start a conversation.

Character Customization:

Now, this stuff, is the easy stuff that people do all the time.

More hair styles would be great. We already have an awesome selection, but I always felt that the "Hair Arsenal" was but half-full. There weren't any options for hair that goes down to your knees or to be bald.

More clothes would be a great addition because after a while you begin to realize that there really aren't that many shirts and pants in the game to wear.

Character backstory is something I considered the first time it was daytime in The Gold Coast, I was in a beautiful area, and I decided "You know what? My character's skin is a bit too pale." so I went in to change it. And I was stunned by the idea of creating a character that has a backstory, the scenery reminded me of High Rock. My character was a Breton, and immediately I thought: "How amazing would it be, if this is what her homeland looked like?"

Playing through the character's childhood, much like they did in Fallout 3, would be great. Especially if it was optional, like we chose from a menu that was artfully written so we didn't really feel like we were choosing "Where do you want to start?" more like you're filling out a form as an introduction to the game (like Morrowind), and they say "Where did you come from?" and then you answer:
"I come from the homeland of my people."
"I don't particularly come from anywhere, I travel a lot."
"You really don't want to know."
or: "I was born here, I don't see why I'm filling out this form."

And if you chose option 1, you'd be transported to your character's homeland, and playing as a child in your childhood home. After you were done with that part of the game it would end, and you'd be back in the office still filling out the form. A.K.A. You had a flashback.

If you chose option 2, it could show your journey to the location of the next game, on a boat, in a caravan, etc.

If you chose option 3, it could start off that you're a reckless teenage bandit, and the guards take out your whole gang and you're the only one left so you were forced to leave.

If you chose option 4, there wouldn't be a flashback, you'd just continue with the form.

Entertainment After The Main Quest:
It'd be nice that after the main quest is done and we're resting on our laurels in the middle of nowhere that a courier could come and give us a random event like "Participate in a parade!" or "Assassins are jealous of your fame, be wary." or even if you forgot to lock your door, hire a bodyguard, or get a pet "Your home was broken into, the thieves have been sighted near _____ Cave/Cavern/Settlement." and you can go get your stuff back. However having something stolen from the character all the time would be tedious, so there should be safeguards against it.

And an obvious must have for the next game...

A Construction Set!

Well, those are my suggestions.

Edit: I also love Hairdo Galosh Jam's idea for spellbooks, skulls, and orbs!

They pretty much remedied that in Fallout 3. There isn't much of a point criticizing something that has already been fixed.

Who if I may ask? Who SERIOUSLY demanded this? And is Seriously underlined enough, because i really mean who SERIOUSLY wants this?

You know there's something BETWEEN middle ages and current age, a lot of fantasy setting DO have some more advanced technology without ranging into modern or scifi, or hell even without having to go into steam-punk (which Morrowind pretty much was, so yea..). Thief for example had electric street lighting and simple machines to power elevators for and it didn't feel out of place at all.
Come on, at least TRY to see between 0 and 100, there's more than just "one side of the extreme or the other side of the extreme"...

Oh, it was this guy named... um... Oblivionfan123... and uh... he said it on um... a forum... that... I forgot the uh... the name of...

:P

Anyway, I don't care if Bethesda improves the technology. In fact, I really liked all of the Dwemer technology lying around in Morrowind. But I don't think 200 years is enough to cause a very noticeable advancement in technology, and I don't think a very long time should directly equate to more advanced technology.

However it also wouldn't HURT to, i really don't care either way. What i DO care about however is how people almost react hysterical when you suggest ANYTHING that would mean the slightest "development" of the world, instead they only accept "fantasy development" which means no actual change or progression but just blowing something big up... see Vvradenfell.

The industrial revolution only lasted 100 or so years.

Look at the before and afters:

Before: http://www.hermes-press.com/farmsc2.jpg

After: http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/springburn/springwor/springworleg03.jpg

A lot of change can happen in 200 years.

However, I too wouldn't want people sporting AK-47s and Hovercars.

I was quite depressed that I never found one windmill, horse-drawn carriage, or person wearing glasses. Since the Medieval Times we've had all 3.

THIS for example, why don't we see technological development like THIS. Those are the simplest machines you can think of.

Tamriel isn't really stuck in the middle ages, it's stuck in a STORY BOOK version of the middle ages.

Well, If none of you liked VATS, you must admit that the button munching of Oblivion was rediculous.

Perhaps making combat MORE like a fps, but having skills determine damage and if you even hit them, etc. For example,

Attacking: you click for every attack, holding down attack makes the attack stronger but more likely to miss. On average, it takes one or two hits to kill something, but it is very unlikely you'll get a hit (or at least one that doesn't bounce off armour.) Hit chance could be determained by
Hit-chance=((PCagility+PCweoponskill)-(TARGETagility))-(Locational armor rating+[If blocking the area] Shield armor rating)+(PCluck-TARGETluck)

Blocking: When blocking with a shield or bow, the camera would go to an over-the-shoulder perspective, and the character would have to aim the shield directly at where the blow was heading. Blocking with another weapon would actually be parrying, which would just come down to the timing of pressing the button.

I found it kind-of funny that they had bags of wheat and grain, but no windmills, or water mills, or manual mills. Just... bags of flour.

They also had printed books, posters and newspapers but no printing presses anywhere, though i suspect in that case it was because they simply didn't want to model those... and that also may be the reason why we didn't see any mills.

I really don't think we should compare the real world to Tamriel. Let Bethesda do what they want with the world they created, not what "seems right" in our world. Nirn has seen technology even more advanced than our own, in specific areas we're more primitive than they are. And in most areas of Tamriel, we're more advanced. If Bethesda adds horse-drawn carriages and lamps then that's fine, but if they don't, who cares, Tamriel has horses and Silt Striders (or had Silt Striders) and candles, they don't NEED better technology.

so if I had 60 agility, 70 skill with my longsword and 53 luck, And My enemy was wearing no leg armor and svcked at blocking with 90 agility and 60 luck, then My hit chance would be ((60+70)-90)-(0+0)+(53-60)=33. I'd hit that guy every third shot.

Agreed. I'd like a combination of VATS and Oblivion.

More like the critical areas sort-of thing. I want to be able to shoot a guy in the leg, so then he falls on the ground, and can't get up, or run as fast at least. If I hit somebody in the face with an arrow, it shouldn't teleport down to their sternum.

A magical VATS would be quite interesting. Or a throwing weapon VATS. But most of Oblivion's weapons are melee, so they didn't really need a VATS. All they have to do is add dodging to enemies, if you shot at people in Fallout 3, they'd duck behind things. I'd love that if you have a bow out they did that too. But missing when you swing a sword, unless the person knows how to block/dodge, is pretty hard to do.

P.S. Slow-motion power attacks... are amazing. I downloaded a mod for it, and it's so much fun.

I'm a fencer, and I promise you that I couldn't have exactly hit the apple off of my coach's head until i'd been fencing for a year. Especially with something your swinging with, your basically just using momentum and they can simply move out of the way.

They mentioned horse-drawn carriages in at least 2 of their in-game book series "The Real Barenziah" and "The Argonian Account".

But still, my animosity about a lack of horse-drawn carriages that pick people up and travel city to city shouldn't get in the way of my technology judgments.

A little bit of advancement would be nice, but I could see where it could get too extreme.


What I meant was swinging at somebody in heavy armor or who didn't move out of the way. They really need dodging for NPCs, games are becoming too interactive for us to imagine that the NPC dodged anymore is what I was trying to say.

But I agree that a 100% hit ratio is a bit ridiculous unless you're fighting a plant. :nod:

VATS was introduce to Fallout 3 to give the nostalgia feel of Fallout's targeting system in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. I prefer such system have no translation to any future TES Series; its real time action, not time stopping combat. The only thing I would almost tolerate with is locational damage.

As for "button munching of Oblivion", blame it on Oblivion on how such a combat system is like because of this. Human will take a handful of slashes to kill and creature are just frustrating with enormous HP. If anything, Morrowind and Daggerfall seem to fit on "how" to kill with an amount of slashes it take for a person to hit on the foe in order for it to die.

What about a real-time, sneak-only targeting system for head-shots/limb shots with bows/throwing weapons? Somebody sees you, it goes away.

I don't tolerate any form of time stopping in all combat for TES. I don't like exception either.

If such a system was actually going to be implemented, then I'd like that. When you're sneaking and you look at someone, the system kicks in and certain parts of their body light up and you can cycle through which part you want to hit. If you look away from the person, the system turns off or if they catch you, it turns off. You could use any weapon if you're close enough.

But, the problem with adding in any sort of VATS-esque system is that it will make people, including me, complain about the game being more focused on action like Oblivion was. But if it was done right I wouldn't be opposed to it.

I didn't mean time stopping. I just meant zooming in over the character's shoulder so they could aim, but you could target a specific person and body parts, but with time still passing.

Don't mistake me for a VATS advocate who won't compromise, I'm more of an in-between.


I know the post was pretty long, but did you happen to read what I wrote about the combat skills in the last page?

It could just as easily be one of those. Something you've got to learn through training, not just something that you go "Hey, I'm gonna have a super-accurate mode."

But I agree with you guys, there really should be more depth in the whole "roleplaying game" aspect. Not just sitting there, killing a bunch of things, and setting down the controller/mouse and saying "Done". More quests based on doing less killing, and more interactivity and well... roleplaying.