Just a little comment on the side.

I'd encourage people to less think in terms of "It's a RPG" when suggesting and commenting on ideas.


Now this may sound strange but hear me out.
TES, while yes it is a RPG, does not really stick to the "classic" RPG rules and personally I'd say that is a good thing.
In fact I'd go so far and say TES is a Action-Adventure-RPG (Or In Depth Action-Adventure as I often like to call it).

Always saying "This does not apply, it's a RPG" doesn't really help, in fact it just makes things more complicated. It just blocks ideas like better unarmed combat systems ("It's not a Beat'em'up"), deeper NPC interactions and relationships ("It's not a Dating Sim") or more detailed injure systems ("It's not a Shooter").
If you'd really go for the "classic RPG rules" a lot that has made TES great would have to go, no more freedom to shift your character in a different direction when you want to, restricting the path you can take forcing you to start new if you want to play something different (which you have to remember is a lot for a game you put several hours into just getting started)... basically all the FREEDOM that made the series great. Or would you rather prefer that the game even restricts you from playing certain character types because you didn't chose the fitting race for it as many "classic" RPGs do?


Now I really don't wanna get preachy or too rantish about the forums or users, mainly because I don't wanna get myself in trouble (again :rolleyes: ).
I simply want to say, please don't restrict yourself or others by saying you have to stick to the "dogma" of the genre or not allowing systems that functioned well in other games to be mentioned even if they could be relatively translated into the game just because they appeared in "certain" titles (I think most people here will know which game I especially mean here).
I can understand wanting to stick to the "classic formula" but remember that it's not that Formula that made the past TES games so great, it's making a GAME and taking elements here and there where they where appropriate.
TES didn't really invent anything new but they had a good combination of existing or altered elements and nothing should really come in the way of suggesting a new element to be added as long as it makes some sense, despite if it "fits the genre" or was in another game or not.

@Daniel_Kay:
you are absolutely wrong on this one. IMHO Bethesda should return to it's roots and make a true RPG, and not worry about action and physics and other atmospheric novelties, which just take up space on the disk and make the world more shallow.

A "true RPG" is a turn-based, isometric game that doesn't resemble Elder Scrolls games. Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all have too much hack and slash to be "true RPG"s. You are absolutely wrong on this one, in my opinion. A "true RPG" won't have the interesting exploration of an "adventure game", as both Morrowind and Oblivion have. A "true RPG" wouldn't be an Elder Scrolls game. You can kiss most of what makes Morrowind and Oblivion great goodbye if TES series becomes a "true RPG" series, which it has never been. Arena was originally supposed to be a hack and slash action game. Arena prevents the use of anything not a part of your class and it uses experience points to level up.

As an old scared person, its an rpg.

Beth has a set up that has consistently sold their games.
Fable has a set-up of lies, unbalance, and some great quazi linear story and fantasy that has consistently sold their games
Bioware has a set-up of combat and story in a mostly linear and restriced world that has sold their games.

I like Beth's games because explaining them is simple, and largely unqualified.

I guess we could really get into definitions if we want, but I just meant that they should go back to making it all about character skill and exploring and focus less on the combat.

Turns and isometrics have literally nothing to do with whether something is an RPG. If anything, those are far more endemic to strategy games. While "RPG" is a very vague and very widely-applied term these days, its real meaning goes to player control of what their character is and does, i.e., the role they have chosen to play. This boils down mostly to options. A game from another genre is said to have "RPG elements" when they add things like customizable skills and equipment, because they add a degree of customization to what character you're playing.

A "true" RPG is actually the potential I'd like TES to follow, because it enhances exactly what the series has supposedly been about. A "true" RPG has those elements of exploration, because the world is the most important aspect next to the character and their choices. The design of the world is the base upon which the character can make their choices. TES is a sandbox RPG, probably closer in potential to a true RPG than just about any other genre on the market, because you have the open world to do as you will and the options to customize your character. TES moving closer to a true RPG simply means adding more options and making it truly feasible to build a character around them, instead of being mostly "combat plus extras."

Worth noting, that includes action and physics. Simply removing combat instead of just moving away from it as the only focus is simply taking away options. Improved physics are beneficial to many aspects of a 3D RPG; it's not going to be ascii and text-based, so it's no longer feasible to select "pebble" and choose "throw." We need the physics to toss it, the physics for it to make the proper sound for what material it hits, and the physics for the sound to travel and distract a guard.

Completely agree. Of coarse, when you look at the true basic definition of an RPG, every game out there except maybe racing games or driving games, are RPG's, in the sense.

Well the basic thing is if you hear "I have this idea, this that and those" get the answer "This game is a RPG, your idea is not welcome" it seems like people have a "clear" definition what they think a "true" RPG is.

Why should I have to throw out ideas like location damage, just because they're not "the norm" for most RPGs, or because they're more common in action titles?
Locational damage especially would make a lot of sense (in my opinion at least) since it could actually reduce that "hack and slash" aspect TES had so far since it means having less to bite with slowly chopping down your opponents hitpoints, you could very well defeat someone by giving them a severe leg injure so they can't move well enough to defend themselves or attack/pursuit you. Hell this would open more options for NON LETHAL combat, a option TES seems to miss greatly so far. You don't have to cut someone to shreds to defeat them and you could actually attempt more strategic fighting.

And still locational damage gets a lot of flak, far not as much as it did before Oblivion but still, simply because "it's too action-game like".


That's the kind of thinking that bothers me, there's really nothing wrong with the idea itself and still it just gets put down a lot because it's not "genre true", even if that statement itself is untrue since there are no genre "laws" even if a lot of people seem to think so.

Being mainly used in genre X does not disqualify an idea and being in game x does not disqualify it. What disqualifies an idea is it being simply "not useful" and even there they can STILL have potential to be evolved and altered in something useful.

Just to add to what others are already saying ... the phrase "hack and slash" was coined to describe an RPG campaign where players do little else but fight things. Quite a few dungeon masters used to run hack-and-slash pencil-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Perhaps many still do. Being turn based or having an isometric view or having uninteresting exploration does not prevent a game from being a hack and slash.

Leaving aside hack-and-slash D&D campaigns for now, let's look at the others. No one would think an imaginative, varied, well-run, and well-played D&D campaign is anything but a true RPG. That they can have extremely interesting exploration is a given, so your point about interesting exploration making a game less of an RPG falls flat. Some of these true RPG's utilize figurines, thus providing a third-person perspective, but many others do not. Many dungeon masters describe the scene -- whether touring a village or fighting orcs -- through your character's eyes -- first person. Any claim that a game is not a true RPG because the view is not isometric is blatantly false.

Consider Morrowind and Oblivion. Those worlds are artfully crafted and are shown to you in masterful detail, just as they might be created and described by a good dungeon master. The player is given a great deal of freedom in customizing his character. Care and hard work was put into giving each NPC a life of his own -- personality, interests, stories, greetings, homes, behavior. NPC's serve for much more than simple targets for hacking and slashing. Combat is big and fun, but so it is in a lot of pencil-and-paper true-RPG's. Many of the game's obstacles can be overcome by stealth and trickery and alertness. Fighting is not a solution for more than a few obstacles. A player can, and probably will, spend a lot of time hacking and slashing in the Elder Scrolls, and so it might seem at times a hack-and-slash series of games. However, if a player stops for a moment and takes into account all of the other things the Elder Scrolls has, he will not call it a hack and slash.



I think of the basic definition as "a game in which the objective is to play a role." The game provides obstacles and complications, and the challenge to the player is not so much to overcome an obstacle as it is to play his character to the obstacle. When playing that way, even if the end result is the character's death, the player wins.

I suggest destruction magic's elemental spells be stricken from future games. For now on, destruction magic looks like http://www.elderscrolls.com/art/popup_concepts.htm. That's right, a tiny, red 'x.' No more fireballs, no more lightning rods, no more icee's. It looks like that. Affects include: ripping skin from the target, disentigration(!), sploding them to bits, shaking the ground and cracking the air, darkening light, and general face melting.

Game mechanics should not limit the player from chopping the arm off a wizard, as they're casting a spell, then grabbing the arm and firing the spell at surrounding villains.

I'd like to see Bethesda allow for better assassination. In Oblivion, while granted they tried to make assassinations more interesting with things like poison apples or rigging the moose's head to fall, generally it can be said that murders involved walking up to the target and fighting them noisily for a good five minutes. To me that just seems so... un-assassin-ish (yes I made that word up.) It's the warriors job to hack away with a sword, the assassin should have more subtle methods. You should be able to sneak up behind your target and silently cut their throat, or stab a dagger into their spine, break their neck etc... all of which would result in an instant kill. Of course this would have to come with a skill check, the higher your sneak skill the more likely the attack is to succeed... also more powerful NPC's could have a high perception skill or something, making them much harder to inhume without being detected.

To play a role could mean to take on another person's qualities as your own. If skills and attributes make a bigger impact on how a character behaves, then I think the RPG aspects will be more apparent.

For example, a low Marksman skill in traditional turn-based game would be a roll on whether the attack hits or misses. In an action-oriented RPG, it could mean the arrow physically goes off-course part of the time. If you're roleplaying a sword expert and you need to use a bow, you're going to miss most of the attacks.

In a traditional RPG, your have a percentage chance to block. In an action-oriented RPG, you could have better timing to block. If you're a newbie with a shield, your timing is going to be way off, and you can't react well to attack. But with more skill, you can bring up your shield much more fluidly after attack or recoil, and even have a chance to completely parry the attack. If your combat skill is low and you've been parried, you'll be wide-open for locationally-damaging back-stabs. But if your combat skill is much better, you're much less likely to get into those vulnerable positions.

I don't mind location damage, but I'd hope that it'd be usable in third person mode. Third person need a major overhaul, the whole system is rather crappy, and a lot of us like to see our characters when we play.

Also, everyone, please shut up about the "proper definition" of RPG's. The term has evolved, and you know it doesn't simply mean "any game where you play another role" anymore. A "slag" rarely refers to a pile of coal anymore. It's the same thing.

That makes me think, what if there were the option to play with a free camera that follows your character, rather than third-person-shooter style? Akin to Zelda or Fable. Certain skills would have to be automated and all, but I think it would be a nice option at least.

Hold on a bit, I understand where you are coming from with this but, you never mentioned location damage and neither did anyone object to it, I think the whole location damage thing is great and it was used by Bethesda very very well in Fallout 3, only thing I found lacking was actually effect.
I mean sure you shot a guy in the leg and he started limping, but he only lost like 25% of his skill and 0% of his determination, it did almost nothing and furthermore it did absolutely nothing to shoot him the second time. What I would expect when I shoot a guy in the leg is for him to fall to the ground in pain and loose his will to fight or at least stuble a bit and if shoot him another five times I expect his leg to fall off and not see his body explode *looks at fallout*.

In fallout 3 the system was head,torso,hands,legs
heashot does more damage
torso is standard
hands chance of disarm
legs barely noticable limp

what i would like to see in TES V is head, neck, upper body(heart and lungs), lower body (guts), arm, elbow, leg, knee... and maybe groin?

why?
neck - slice it, blood squirts out and kills the target
upper body - arrow shot into the heart is barely equal to an arrow shot into the gut
lower body - see^
elbow - you can cut an arm and it still functions but if you damage the elbow your enemy cant move bend his arm and thus he cannot attack maybe add shoulders with similar effect?
knee - similar reason as above, you get an arrow to the leg you can still kind of run or limp if you get an arrow to the knee you re out for good
groin - obvious weak point for non-lethal combat

There are however 2 problems with adding this:
1.you couldnt see these parts of the body since the game (hopefully) wont have VATS
2. you would suffer from equal effects if enemies hit your soft spots...

Things i really would like to see in tesv is:

No fast travel except by silt strider and mages guild and ships/boats.

The animals you meet shouldn't depend on your level, it should be random.

I'd like to see the cosyness you finds morrowind but not as much in oblivion.

The morrowind equiping system and armoring system.

The morrowind talking and bribing and threating system.

Someting romantic and perhaps something tragic.

A new world with possibilities to travel to morrowind and the imperial state(cyrodil?).

More books.

If it would be able to ride, you should be able to fight from the back of the horse.

Towns like balmora and the tel towns.

The map should look like morrowind andyou should be able to choose between local map and world map.

It would be nice with a jounal.

A lot of ruins from old civillisations and cultures.

The game should be more like morrowind, I love that game.


Mvh ILMWND

Well, I'm on mac. So, for me, it's a tiny, blue question mark.

What? these aren't problems.

1. I have eyes. I don't need to pause the game to see where someone's head is. Being able to aim is a part of fighting.

2. The games have always been far, far, far too easy. Something like this NEEDS to be implemented. At least, give us the option to have these usable on the player.


Also, give us GOTY Morrowind's Journal back. There isn't a problem with it at all, anyone who complains about it is an idiot. All you have to do to find filtered quests is go to options - quests. not very hard, and it works as easily as Oblivion' system. It's also more immersive to have an actual journal instead of a menu, and to have my experiences written down in order of what they happen. It's nice to go to one of the begining pages and look at the first quests you done.

All yhis talk of a "true rpg" got me thinking oh something.

Choices & World Impact.

Something that TES (and other rpg's for that matter) needs is to show how the players choices will have an impact on the world. Not only by the rumors, but the whole world wil reflect on thw quest you've completed and everything you do. In games, all the quest are just there for the player to spend time, but I want to actually have advantages of my choices in quests.

Lets say some bandits have robbed travellers on the road between 2 cities for month. This would mean that merchant of the 2 cities are running low on supply, and have to make their prices high.

The player can then.

1) Clear the bandit hideout and return all the stolen goods to the merchants, and the merchants will now lower the prices for the rest of the game by lets say 20%

or

2) Kill the bandits and tell the merchants that you was unable to defeat the bandits, and then you can keep all the stolen goods yourself, and the merchants wont lower their prices for the rest of the game.


The player shouldn't have choices between good and evil, but have different advantage of the choices dependent of how you want to play.

I think a dynamic political/economic map could do this really well. It would even account for thefts by the player, or well-established businesses by the player. These would affect the economy, and would streamline economic quest creation.

Sorry, I snipped a bit just for the sake of brevity, but I have to say I agree fully.

In the past RPGs were the way they were because of the technology at hand. There is technology that cna be used to make a roll playing game far more seamless without making it less fair or less deep. I would play a western turn based rpg, but to be honest what Oblivion did seemed to fit what I wanted to play far better. In the end I'd just say nothing should be off the table, all ideas even ones that seem to push RPGs into the action game territory are worth considering.

Just started playing morrowind again with the weapons and armor shop mod. Why can't something like this be done for the new tes.

If you're not familiar, this mod allows the player to own a shop, stock it with merchandise that is then automatically put on display, hire help, invest in training to up your employee's mercantile skill and up your profits or even fire them if you so please and hire someone else. Customers come in and out and wear/wield the items they purchase which are then removed from your display. Customers can't come in if it's nighttime (shops closed) or if the doors locked.

Simple elegant, and strangely immersive.

After dungeon diving for an hour or so in a long forgotten ancestral tomb, I'll go and check up on my business interestests, collect my profits, drop off some more inventory for the armor shop and continue saving the world.

There are similar mods that allow you to own/operate an ebony mine, and my personal favorite a tavern/bar. Tell me bethesda, if modders can come up with the stuff on their free time why can't you? It wouldn't take very much effort on bethesda's part for the player to be able to pick a name for the shop, locations or even a logo for the sign. Additions like that really make you feel like you're part of the game world and that's role playing imo.

I think that would be good too, but they would have to put in some safety mechanisms so that their vast and complex sim-economy wouldn't trap the player. In TES games you often had NPCs that were needed fall off of bridges get killed by monsters on the road and those 'unintended consequences' would cause problems. Imagine if for some reason a few weird events made you in game economy blitz raising the price of arrows 1000% or making all your items worthless to sell? I know in my game of Fallout 3 all the road traders died so that in two cases their pack animals full of good equipment was lost in some remote spot I could never find. I could still find some stuff in towns but my investment in those traders was lost and my access to their goods was too. YES, it did make playing interesting but it would have been nice if after a few in games weeks a NEW trader appeared to pick up the slack.

If Beth does what you say I'd want a robust 'correction system' that would kick in when hyper inflation or hyper deflation of the in game occurred. I want to see the wild-west economy at work that could be fun, but I think it needs a release valve too. Also, a system where when key NPCs in the economy die they are replaced in a natural way after some time. Also, if they made a real economy they would have to make resources finite and you the player would need to sell his/her loot very carefully.
While even I said I want a real economy what I really want is a better FAKE economy so I don’t have to think “Am I inflating of deflating the value of gold and item in my game?!?” We want more action & reaction in the economy we want it to seem more real, but that what we want we want it to ‘seem’ more real not ‘is’ more real. Otherwise, TES V will be called The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Banking Crisis

There are no taxidermists in Tamriel (unless you categorize them as necromancers). Since we already have men and women posessing husks of the once living with souls, we taxidermy is sheer stupidity.
Goblins are out. They're through. We have orcs, and they are civilized. No need for carbon copies or fringes from Tamriel's past as a d&d world. Though, orcs should look like disgusting goblins, not up-right elves. Strictly for contrast and hillarity.
Bring back the ogrim, or clannfear daddies. Those fat guys could be something, if given the chance.
Daedra encounters should be very rare, at all levels and be eventful. The societies of Daedra are so vast and incomprehensible, that I wouldn't expect to see the various races of Daedra collaborating, unless they are lead by a great master. That 'great master' should be a very, very rare individual.

TES series has never been all about character skill. The direction one swings in Arena and Daggerfall determines damage done and chance to hit, Morrowind requires a person to move in certain directions to use certain attacks, and Oblivion doesn't really focus on player skill any more than its predecessors. It allows one to block, but one doesn't choose to swing in different ways. Also, combat is quite a large part of the series, and are you suggesting that Bethesda dumb down combat? Also, Arena and Daggerfall svck at exploration. There's nothing to actually explore.

@Rhekarid, I know that is not the true definition of an RPG, but by what hamsmagoo says it is, that is what it would have to be. Real-time combat isn't all based on character skill and the exploration of Morrowind and Oblivion isn't present in the first two games of the series, Bethesda's roots.