My bad.
Wasn't clear on the definition of hack n' slash.

I was actually thinking of it as a synonym to "button masher."

Both games could have downplayed the fighting, but Oblivion was all fighting.

Bethesda really really really needs to work on hand to hand. It seems like such a cool combat style.

And if I may add this small suggestion:
Can spellmaking be done with NPC's again, instead of with those music stands?

With the NPC's it's as if you're actually working with a senior mage, to learn how to cast a better spell.

With the stands, it seems as if you are physically crafting a spell, like it's a ball of clay or something. It's a small thing, but it helps with the roleplaying.

No it wasn't. There are still books in the game(which I read oftenly). I love exploring, and I love taking trips to the bookstore, I love solving the occasional riddle(Rosethorn Hall), and I love the quests. Explain to me how Oblivion is more about fighting than Daggerfall and Morrowind? Almost every quest in Daggerfall revolved around a hack and slash, dungeon-crawling experience and Morrowind had just as much fighting as Oblivion. Oblivion having decent combat doesn't make it a fighting game, it just improves on the hack and slash elements that play such a big part of the series. It isn't a fighting game. It has flaws, but decent combat isn't one of them.

Y'know, a menu of some sort might be interesting. A whole section of the inventory/map menu could be devoted to crafting, enchanting, and spellcrafting. It would be very simple to make, and fairly easy. It doesn't make much sense that NPCs are the only ones who can help you make spells, and it's also very restrictive to only be able to do it in specified spots. NPCs might be better at it than the player, but the player should at least have the ability.

Actually, I'm kind of a fan of the idea of freeform magic; it doesn't require individual spells, but allows players to use magic they know by charging it up.

Different fighting styles? When an Elder Scrolls game is set in Elsweyr, learning the Two-Moons Dance should be an option.

That's why there's a huge demand for other activities than killing stuff. Scholarship in mages, survival elements, non-lethal combat, politics, courier work, Music-skill, expanded Restoration, along with the Medical skill, climbing, door bashing, trap detection... there should be huge amount of stuff for you to do that does not require wielding a weapon. Or.. killinh with other means, like magic -.-

What I liked about The Thief series is that a master thief shouldn't really need to kill anyone, right? Clumsy thief, yes, or a stupid thief, but not the master.

And you could pretty much rename Mages Guild into Fighter Mage's Guild because they do just as much fighting than the fighters at the Fighters Guild.

I agree. I think it's a bit odd that it only damages fatigue to a certain point, and then starts doing damage.
I've been in a fist fight, and I can surely say that my "fatigue" wasn't the only thing that was hurt..that's not realistic at all.

In Morrowind, there were several quests/ questlines in which there were many solutions besides fighting. Sometimes you had to get a little creative, but the options were always there.

In Oblivion, besides the Thieves Guild and two or three puzzle quests, the main focus was fighting. I'm always fighting something when I play Oblivion. Not so much in Morrowind. This comes from playing Oblivion for three hours a day for like three months. Oblivion really was a fighting game, IMO. Each quest was just an excuse to go out and mash the right trigger some more.

I can't really speak for Daggerfall, because I've only played the demo.

Morrowind could have downplayed the fighting a lot more, I agree with that. But instead of doing that, they went in the opposite direction and made fighting even more prevalent in Oblivion. Maybe you should start a game in Morrowind quick to refresh your memory on how much more there is to do, compared with Oblivion.

I think, with TESV, they should really focus on coming up with as many non-combat alternate solutions as possible, in all their quest lines. We ought to start argueing that, rather than wasting our time degrading this thread into another Morrowind vs. Oblivion thread, however.

Agreed. TES V needs to better accommodate players playing their characters the way they want to. Example, In Oblivion the only way to play a character that attempts to avoid combat, is to essentially never do a quest =O
If we don't see dialogue choices I would at least like to see alternative paths to quest ends, not unkillable NPC's to stop that from happening. I mean jeez, I killed Yagrum Bagarn and nothing bad happened. (besides getting chased by a few dozen guards)

P.S. Wasn't attepting to make a TES III Vs. IV argument, but rather try to show what would be nice to have implemented TES V that they for some reason removed for Oblivion.

Wasn't that like a planned mod for TES IV? I remember reading something about it...

gerg007 have some good points. As a roll playing game, TES is demanded to have serveral possiblilities in completing quests, fighting enemies and whatever way the player wants to play the game.

Decided to go over a few of the concepts I had in mind for the magic system. Most of it is things I've mentioned before and I don't usually repeat myself, but it's been a long time and there's some new stuff sprinkled throughout, so I figured why not.

*Magnitude/Effort Slider*
Along with the standard spell list, there would be a tab to see the Spell Effects List. I might be mistaken, but I got the impression from the last couple games that one of the reasons it wasn't so easy to delete spells was because the game used them to keep track of the effects you knew; accidentally delete all your fire spells and you'd have to re-learn the effect. Aside from that, the spell effects list would be used for spontaneous in-the-field casting. It makes little sense that I can know a weak fire spell and a strong one, but am incapable of casting a medium one without returning to town and making a third spell. With the spell effects list, the top half of the window would have the list, while the bottom half would contain the effort slider.

While some spells would warrant a direct numerical value, others, like Fire Damage, should have magnitude represent a percentage of effort. 100% magnitude would not be 100 damage, but would be the maximum power that the caster is capable of (although more specific numbers of what this provides could probably be shown underneath). 100% magnitude from an archmage would be dramatically more powerful than from a novice. Though the associated difficulty increase with higher magnitudes would drop with skill (75% is more powerful for a better mage, but also less difficult for them to manage), high percentages would always be difficult, because it's never "easy" to pour maximum effort into something.

The effort slider would represent this, and function as simplified spellmaking. Basically, you select an effect on the spot like Fire Damage, set basic magnitude/range parameters, and you're "equipped" with it on the spot like any spell. While doing something with multiple effects or more advanced abilities would require standard spellmaking, the effects list and effort slider would let you use the magic you know to a reasonable degree at any time, instead of having to make a new spell for every little thing.

*Effect learning*
Learning new spell effects is not as easy and immediate as buying them. Spell effects would have their own 0-100 competency rating, seen whenever you highlight them in the spell effects list, not unlike normal skill levels. It's not the same, however; a spell effect at 0 can still be used effectively, and the transition to 100 is less drastic, not to mention faster. While skill level determines how good you are with that school as a whole, the competency rating is how good you are with that one effect, and obviously it's raised by using it. In effect it's like a lesser version of the skill applied to that one effect, impacting how hard it is to cast, and how quickly it gets more difficult when you raise the magnitude. Aside from making more sense from a realism standpoint, it also helps to prevent some imbalances. A non-mage character with low magical skills can't simply buy a spell and immediately use it effectively just because it has low overall difficulty, but an accomplished mage can buy a new effect and use it thanks to the overall skill counteracting low competency in that one effect. As well, as an effect approaches 100, it becomes less useful toward raising the overall magic skill because your mastery in it means you're no longer learning anything new through its use, making it harder to stand around at inns spamming magic as a cheesy way to get better, instead encouraging the character to improve via new and difficult things. The more advanced the spell effect (Spell Absorb shields are more difficult in general than Water Walking, etc) the more slowly its competency increases. A novice could learn the basics of it, but would still need to reach higher skill levels to start using it effectively.

Obtaining them in the first place would generally not be as direct as purchasing them, also making it less easy and casual for characters not experienced as mages. Talking to someone who teaches you spells means you're not buying the knowledge so much as paying for their time and effort. When learning a spell, the higher its general difficulty and the more unknown effects it contains (someone experienced with Fire Damage already can more easily learn a spell using it), the harder it is to learn successfully, and one hour and 50 septims later you may have failed to learn the spell. The teacher's skill in Guidance: Training also effects the process. More isolated mages who don't want to use this process (or may not be welcome in the guild or civilized areas in general) can learn new effects via experimentation, as noted below.

*Spellbook*
While I don't support the idea of a spellbook being required for all casting, there are other functions I can see them used for. As an inventory item the spellbook could be used to create spells instead of needing an altar. Some more advanced spells may require a ritual to cast, such as correctly arranging specific items within a particular symbol drawn on the ground. Once a ritual is learned it can be stored in the spellbook, allowing the character to automatically perform it if they have the needed materials in their inventory, or displaying the directions on that page if the player enjoys doing it manually. Other miscellaneous effects such as minion AI (if/then behaviors assigned to a follower like an undead servant) can also be attached to a ritual, letting the caster use the spellbook to create a minion and give it the pre-created behaviors all at once, instead of having to set them each time.

Ritual experimentation could also be used to discover new spell effects rather than having to learn them from a teacher, though the process would have to be complicated enough that the player couldn't just easily learn everything through trial and error. For example, the spellbook might record a list of known magical symbols, runes and markings, which could be selected and painted on the ground with various methods (in the dust with a stick, drawn with blood, dye made from a certain plant, holy water, etc). Different objects like candles, daedra hearts, gems, or other materials are arranged within the symbol like a constellation. From there, a certain effect is then cast upon the ritual area as a whole to complete it. If successful, the caster learns a new bit of magic. If not, they might get lucky and have no effect, else they might set their hair on fire. The spellbook could be used to record failed experiments, keeping track of their own efforts.

Some spell effects might only be learned in this way, such as ancient spells lost to time. Certain types of ruins may hold clues like tattered pages or markings on pottery that hint toward fragments of the correct ritual. A scholar with simple curiosity-based interest might purchase such items as they come into town, while a necromancer may desperately scavenge ruins for hints toward the advanced rituals needed to become a lich, which are unsurprisingly not taught at any guild hall. This would make the spellbook a coveted object between mages and a thing to be protected; knowing that a rival is capable of a powerful spell they can't mimic, a mage might try to get past their traps and security to find their spellbook for a moment of "ah, so that's how it's done." Aside from basic spell effects like Fire Damage or Soul Trap, experiments could also yield more creative results such as a new spell "shape" aside from touch, ranged, area, etc, or difficult rituals to create advanced effects like powerful one-shot spells beyond normal parameters (such as Windwalker scrolls from Morrowind). The specifics of rituals could be easily randomized at the start of a new game, so that having played through once doesn't mean someone can start with the knowledge to cast all spells.

I want to go fishing. Or other skills that dont require me fighting. like tailoring, or black smithing, or farming, etc.

I would like to have different NPCs teach you different fighting moves. One would teach you, say, how to kick. Also, different techniques with the blade, and different weapons. It's very broad, so you guys could make up the different techniques you'd like to learn. My personal favorite with the blade would be the downward stab. You'd have to be quite skilled in acrobatics to pull this off, and of course, come down and finish him. I guess like Link, except it would be alot better in TES5.

I've already said this, but: Different skeleton types. Khajiit skeletons, Orc skeletons, etc. Same goes for zombies. I mean, are we to believe that the necromancers only use Imperials and somewhat other human-like bodies?

I would definitely love to see different color Khajiits. I mean, look at the big cats in the real world. You've got your jaguars, and snow leopards, etc. That would be really nice. Different fur colors is what I'm really going for, not neccesarily different kinds of Khajiits... though, that would be great as well.

That's all I have for now, aside from dismemberment, and collecting the pieces of bodies to decorate your house.

I thought about magic rituals awhile back but couldn't think of any practical uses for it since almost all magic in elder scrolls is used for combat. performing a ritual while you're being eaten by a bear seems counter-productive.

For combat, no, not much use with how things are. That post was just some mechanical stuff though; I've posted a lot of very long suggestions over this thread's 163 incarnations, including a full spell effects list and skill set that both allow room for a great deal of non-combat gameplay. A ritual can be the difference between a temporary daedra summon and permanently binding one as a servant, for directly dominating someone's mind and inhabiting it to move their body, or enhancing a darkness spell to blot out the sun over an entire town. They can also be specifically applied to take advantage of low combat effectiveness as a balancing aid; teleportation may have a simple ritual, but enough so that it's not so easy to simply poof out of danger, restock, and return every time things look bad. With greater use for non-combat spells you can also use them cleverly to let you use more powerful ritual spells in combat: set up targeted shields to block entrances and trap an enemy force in a hallway, taking the free moment as they hack at the barrier to set up the ritual and freeze solid every living thing in the vicinity.

hizzah

Willpower spells are the active combat ones, Intelligence spells can be the ritual magics.

Would make summoning more interesting.

I imagine willpower would be for restoration spells and protect spells. And intelligence would be for destruction spells, and charisma would be for illusion spells.

Woah, you've just offended a lot of people. Watch out.

Wow I completely agree, difference is good. Also I loved the look of Morrowind and Oblivion, both were different and great >.<. Variety in Nirn is gooooood

None of the games, before Oblivion, lacked in other areas because of it, though, is his point.

Oh, and "looks" doesn't mean "high poly-count". Morrowind looked so much better than Oblivion, because it had unique landscape, and cultural architecture. I would rather see well designed and well textured meshes than high poly counts any day.

Personally, I think the drain on resources isn't the focus on the graphical side of the game, but the mass of voice acting. Most of what lacked in Oblivion was likely due to voice acting taking up so much space.

Voice acting would be fine with me if it didn't take up so much space. Just like the argument about land mass, I would like to see it when technology allows it. I hate how games keep doing more of what matters least. I would be fine with voice acting, if it was done as an after thought. Once everything is created to a good standard, then start recording voices. Oh, and no "But then voices would be done quickly, and would lack a lot." It's OK for an area to lack, as long as it's not the voice acting? There's the same amount of time for everything, no matter what, and some aspect is going to lack. I would rather have the good gameplay, good looking world, and interesting quests than voice acting. Certain parts of games are more important than others.

I know voice acting is here to stay, because of mainstream gamers, and it's more about money than making games now, but I just want to rant...

Do the devs actually look at threads outside official ones, by the way? There's some pretty awesome suggestions out there, such as the ones in the staves thread...

Here's an idea; put all the minor voice-acting on a second, installable disc. Then if you don't have a hard-drive, you still get a huge, awesome game. But if you do have a hard-drive, then you can optionally install all the voice files.

I still like the idea of going Morrowind-style with most dialogue, but with more gestures and liveliness in NPCs while they're talking. A little body language and emotional "sighs" can go a long way, especially if the game has a huge scope to make up for the lack of voice-acting.