Concerning fast travel, I think it should be one or the other. If you can travel anywhere at a click of a button, for free, then what's the point of the other one?

The point of the other one is to please the other group. I understand what you mean, but if people hate Oblivion's style of fast travel so much, then why do they use it? If they can't resist using it, then why do they hate it?

For the same reason a heroin addict hates their syringes?

For a lot of people, it takes serious willpower to not partake in a cheat mechanic, even when they can completely recognize how it is ruining their experience. For example, there was a time that I knew (or could easily figure out in a few guesses) the ID for most of the items in Morrowind, and instead of questing for something, I would instead type a few commands and gain it instantly. Same thing with interior and exterior cell names; if I didn't want to walk back to somewhere or trudge back to a travel port, I would just port instantly to my destination via the console. I hated playing that way, and I would often start new characters with the promise that I would not ruin them, but I'd get stuck out in the ashlands, healf-dead, all diseased with broken equipment, and with civilization a loooong way off... It was tempting to spawn a fresh repaired set of armor, or spawn a cure disease or restore health potion, or to port myself to a city with a healing altar and port back.

In my defense, I learned to control myself after a long while, and now I use the console for eradicating glitches, creating in-game RP consequences, or gimping my character to make things harder.

Now, to be fair to the command console, it actually takes a bit of work and prodding and discovery to attain such levels of likely-game-ruinous cheatitude. Not so for the Oblivion fast-travel mechanic, as its a legitimate intended-for-use mechanic just waiting for a player to capitalize on it. Yet even for those who don't want to use it and can recognize its damaging effect on their game, it can be irresistible. A lot of people like to inject, "If you don't like it, don't use it," at this point, saying that its the player's fault if they lack the willpower, but there are serious issues if you design games around utilizing the player's willpower instead of mechanics. For instance, what if a god-mode toggle were a legitimate mechanic, and it were up to the player's willpower to use it or not? What if you could choose to rise to the head of a guild instantly upon joining, with access to quests and all faction-end benefits, leaving it up to player willpower to actually go through the guild's quests?

Game design is there to break down player will and make them strongly desire something, whether that be to finish a quest, get an item, see a certain place, etc. Game mechanics are there to provide concrete limitations once the player's will has been dissolved. Oblivion's fast travel, IMO, is too allowing and open-ended to properly fulfill the role of that concrete limitation.

Just put in a multi-mark/recall system. That way, you can fast travel to your favorite spots, but not to everywhere all the time. Just to a few player-selected places some of the time. Add in extensive transportation systems like in TESIII, and you've got an almost-fast travel system that isn't free.

Some of the fun - well, for me - is preparing my character for wilderness trekking. Stock up on healing potions and some repair hammers, some useful scrolls, and off we go into the unknown!

By the time this thread is over, Bethesda will have had 31,000 posts of suggestions. If they spend 2 minutes on each, it will take them about 43 days to get through each suggestion (unless my math is fail...).

But maybe thats why they're taking so long to announce TESV? Still looking over our suggestions? I say of course.

In light of that view, I would like to say Mass Effect. And by Mass Effect, I mean Mass Effect 2 also. I know its mostly a linear game, but it does do many things right in an rpg (in my opinion). They need to look at it, play it (which according to bethblog they have been doing), ponder it, meditate on it, and incorporate what gameplay elements they can into TESV. I'm talking mostly character interaction and depth, and choice and cosequence. If they have those elements, the story will come, or if it doesn't then there will at least be enough to distract us from a bad story. And for gods's sake put in some romance and some six. Everybody's doing it now (and by doing it I mean doing it [and by everybody I mean mostly Bioware])! There's no excuse for the player not to get involved in some hot situations (and by hot I mean hot [and by situations I mean between a NPC and a soft place]).

This is the last suggestion I will post, ever. At least until I come up with another one.

Just got the 1st Mass Effect today, and I would agree that it has many admirable qualities, one being the speech system, in my opinion. Similar to Oblivion in style but much more in depth, and without the stupid face zoom.

But come on. Anyone who doesn't want horses and mounted combat can...go play another game. Like Fable. Yeah. So what if horses are 'mundane.' Have you ever ridden one? It's awesome. And many people haven't, just as many people have never swung a sword, even if the item itself is mundane, its use is not. But not being able to fight from them is a huge detraction.

That said, I'm all for less mundane creatures as well. But there is a solid precedent in Daggerfall and Oblivion for the people of Tamriel using horses.

I disagree with romance. It's not something I want in my escapism, nevermind that it can't be done realistically and would just be a sham. We had a huge thread about that a few months ago...

I want Mirror's Edge style body-awareness and movement. Climbing, kicking, crouching (but not sneaking!), rolling, and tumbling. You could even incorporate the tumbling and whatever as a passive dodge, like how in Neverwinter Nights when an enemy misses your character, your character dodges or blocks; likewise with NPCs. I want to be able to do more non-combat stuff, too - like set up/disable traps, climb, manipulate the environment (move furniture around, break windows, break doors, break furniture).

Horses are boring! They don't even have horns. How lame is that? Even Wildebeest and the tiny http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dikdik have horns. And if it doesn't have horns, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_deer.

i feel that what es v really needs is mountable slaves. perfect game right there.

I used it because there were no alternatives. I didn't walk everywhere in Morrowind, I tried to use silt striders as much as possible.

But in OB, there was nothing. It was either feel like a cheater, ride a plastic horse that couldn't steer and actually made you go slower, or walk to every corner of the map and back. At least Morrowind's (limited) version of Fast Travel brought you to the general area of your final destination.

And the purpose of that was to make you feel like you're on an adventure, rather than just doing tasks.

Also, to bring back more of this feeling of adventure and exploration, give the option to remove the quest arrow. I truly enjoy getting lost, it makes the game last longer.
And have the NPC give you real directions using landmarks and stuff. I once tried to put a piece of tape over the compass so I could avoid using it, but I soon discovered 'somewhere in the mountains' really isn't sufficient information to find a specific cave.

Of all the sensations that I missed in TES:IV and want back in TES:V, that is up in the top 10. Just that sense of excitement and anticipation mingled with fear of the wilds that caused players to scrounge shops for scrolls, potions, torches, backup weapons, and all of that stuff before cautiously creeping outside city walls. I understand and agree completely :nod:

All Bethesda needs to do regarding fast travel is:

- Add a travel system between the major cities in the game
- Bring back teleportation spells like Mark and Recall and [___] Intervention.

Seriously, it's that easy. I find it very hard to believe people will complain about no fast travel if they have teleportation to cities, then transportation between cities.

Of wait, looks like I just suggested everything that was in Morrowind. Ooops...

Maybe they could add a spell that allows you to make one customizable fast travel point in the game that you can pick up and drop as you please. It's simple to make in the GECK so I don't see why Bethesda can't make it. :shrug:

Damn, I remember back when this was thread #67.

But the one thing I want fixed is the economy. I'd rather have an economy that was only partly driven by you. The market can take ups and downs depending on recent events and supply. I am not very good at implementing these, so can someone here try and elaborate on my ideas?

Have taxes on houses, make horse have needs like food and repair armor. Maybe merchants will give a little bonus to same race and gender.

Agreed completely.



Agreed completely, (in more ways than one).

We also need to find a way to make scrolls useful, like being able to add them to a spellbook. I bought one scroll, in my first try at an ES game, since then I never bothered with them because I can just buy spells which do the same thing. I want to be able to buy scrolls that have effects that you can't duplicate with a spell.

Stephen.

As far as romance is concerned, all that can be taken care of by a more in depth interaction with NPCs, which we should have anyway. The higher an NPC's disposition to you, the more likely they will be to follow a list of basic commands or offers, such as "follow me" or "sleep in my house." No special dialogue, no ceremony. If you really want a spouse, just get someone's disposition up and have them follow you, or stay at your place, w/e. The same system would also be used to issue orders to people of lesser rank within your guild, allies you meet, mercenaries you pay for, etc etc

As for fast travel and mounts, Oblivion's system was way too heartless. First of all, mounts should be much faster than the average character, maxing out at 150 or 200 Speed. You need to be able to attack from your mount. Fast travel should take place due to spells, or means of transportation at major travel hubs. Boats, carriages, even caravans just passing through. But the point is you have to walk to a secondary location to reach your final destination. In Oblivion, I would purposefully ride my horse just out of town limits before fast traveling, and arrive somewhere just outside the next city, and finish the ride to the stable. Made it 100x more enjoyable. It gives quests a true sense of journey.

Final thing. All one handed blades (not short swords or daggers tho) should have the option to wield with both hands. This would slow parry speed, but increase the durability of the block and strength of the attacks. In a similar way, there should be different styles of hand to hand, such as Martial Artist, Brawler, Animalistic. I might not want my Nord doing flying kicks but I sure want my High Elf monk to have more than just a right hook.

THE LITTLE THINGS:

Weather:
-Wind that sweeps across long grass
-Ominous looking clouds on the horizon leading to lightning and rain
-Rain makes NPCs look wet
-See NPCs exhale in the cold
-Visibility reduced by heavy blizzards and fog
-NPCs react to the weather. They stay indoors when it rains and offer pleasantaries like "Lovely weather we're having" when the sun is out

Wildlife:
-Birds land on trees, chirp and fly away
-Formations of migrating birds fly overhead
-Creatures feast on the carcasses of other animals, allowing you to sneak by them easier

Civilisation:
-Stray animals in towns scavenge dropped food
-Urchins steal from market and are chased by guards
-Hear dogs barking, roosters crowing at dawn

Oblivion had poor effort in its design. It was far too standard and generic, and the towns were all too similiar from each other.
TES V needs more unique setting and design like morrowind had, and the towns need to be more unique, instead of a standard tavern, cathedral,castle and a bunch of houses. Because when every town looks the same, and everywhere is the same european setting, the game feels souless and empty. One of the downsides of oblivion was the fact that i had no suprises in the game, apart from the shivering isles expansions. The game mostly felt grey otherwise.

Dont focus on the graphics so much, it was too much of a priority in TES IV, and thats what has ruined it.

Also the combat isnt interesting at all, but Morrowind's uniqueness and excellent quests made up for that, oblivion didnt have much to make up for that.

About quest markers:

I like having a compass, it's nice to know which direction I'm going. In Morrowind, I never knew if I was going north or south without having to look at the map. With the compass, I don't have that problem. What I don't like, however, is having quest markers on the compass. That leads to players blindly following the pretty arrow on the bottom of their screen instead of actually exploring for themselves.

I like having quest markers on the world map. When there's a lot of location markers on my map, it's nice to have a quest marker on the place I have to go for convenience purposes. I don't need it, but it's just nice to have.

I do not like quest markers on the local map. Again, that leads to people just following the arrow to their location instead of actually exploring for themselves. And if it's an NPC the player is after, no matter where the NPC is the player will be able to find them just by looking for the arrow marking them.

To summarize, I want a compass, but no quest arrows on said compass. I want the quest marker on the world map to still be there, just because it's convenient. Though I wouldn't miss it if it was gone. And I don't want any quest markers on the local map.

At the very least, make something similar to "hardcoe mode" like Obsidian is doing in Fallout: New Vegas, where there's no fast travel and no quest markers. It saddens me to say that no fast travel and magic arrows would be considered "hardcoe," but that's just the age we live in isn't it.

And of course, if there's no fast travel, make sure to add alternative travel systems like in Morrowind. But that should go without saying.

more character depth and more interesting characters. I want to feel something for different characters, either a slight sense of amusemant, a dislike, or caring for them, so that the lives of npcs have meaning and aren't just quest givers or target practice.

I agree that there needs to be more character depth. I could kill an entire town in oblivion or morrowind, and not feel all that evil or bad that i did it. more so i could just go to the thieves guild and pay off my bounty.

Perhaps, going into crimes, since the thieves look down on murder, depending on your crimes, ie, theft they would pay off along with tresspassing and the like. however, once it got to murder, you were on your own to deal with your decisions. this would defiantely make being some evil murderous character more fitting. Also, if you commit enough crimes, murder or otherwise, and are caught, your name should go down in a wanted list, so you might have to pay extra, or serve more jail time if youre caught again.

I haven't playd Daggerfall cause I coudn't get it to work :brokencomputer:, but I heard that thieves were ruthless did what they had to make a way of livin, even if it ment kidnapping, blackmail and other "bad" things. I want more of this, I didn't like the "Robin Hood" influence that they had.

I want Thieves Guild to have attitude!!!

I'd say it's best if the Thieves guild did do what it takes to make bank, killing if they need to. They restrain themselves from too much killing because they don't want to encroach on the territory of the Dark Brotherhood.

Value of items:

I always hated the way things where priced, for example:
Noble clothes: They should be expensive and not something a beggar could buy after an hour of begging.

From what i've seen items are priced on their usefulness, which is stupid. So if they payed some attention to this I would be happy(And hopefully more people than just me)

Options:

I want options, a great example would be murdering someone:
Normaly you would just follow a person, wait untill you are not seen by anyone and shoot him with your bow, or anything simular to that.
What I would want to see is more variety:

Person A meets player, they like each other, after a week of friendship person A invites player. Player bribes servants in house of Person A, at dinner player puts poison in food of person A, person A dies, servants do nothing as they have been bribed, player walks away.

Imagine if there where alot of options like that.
Then the game would be truly amazing.

It should be difficult to gain a lot of money. Mundane things can/should be pretty cheap; the better armors/weapons should be much more expensive, and hard to get. This would make me appreciate the better items more, and make it a bigger challenge to try to kill someone (like a guard) because they're better equipped than myself. This whole concept is destroyed when everyone levels with you, and you have 25 suits of glass armor because of some bandits. Who obviously didn't need to be bandits, because they have better gear than an average king.

When starting a large quest, it should be built up a lot, so that you get that feeling of nervousness right before you do it. You know what I'm talking about, like in a Street Fighter game right before you face the final boss you get excited and anxious. To be honest this element was hardly present in Morrowind and non-existent in Oblivion.