Some possibilities:

1. Do all of Tamriel in TES V (with years between releases of new games , and games (currently) being one province per game, fans may have to wait decades to see all of Tamriel, and such a wait is unnecessary). While this would likely require disk swapping to do justice to the scale, fans would be unlikely to object.

2. Instead of one size fits all beginning, have the player start the game in their home province. They would then start with the portion of the “Fate of the Empire” (see 3 below) which pertains to the specific province.

3. As the “Fate of the Empire” was mentioned in the final cut scene in Oblivion, it would be the appropriate theme (Main Quest) for TES V which should be a true sequel (note that this would tie in with 1 & 2 above). Developers could even use the map of Cyrodill from Oblivion in TES V and just add the appropriate updates (no more fires burning at closed Oblivion gates, Kvatch rebuilt?, Cropsford might be a full fledged city, etc.) A voice over cut scene from the Champion of Cyrodill writing the next Elder Scroll could be part of a bridge from the end of Oblivion.

4. Allow the player the option of being the descendant of the Champion of Cyrodill. They would have to be the same race and would inherit the houses and other material property of the Champion. This could also affect how NPCs react to the player. (Note: This would also affect which voice actor is used in the cut scene mentioned above.) (Note: This would work by loading an Oblivion save game at character creation time.)

5. Follower’s inventory (and skill levels ) should be either directly accessable or the player should have the option to give items to a follower (and teach spells and skills). As followers like the player less when they get hit, they can be made to like them better if the player heals them or otherwise is nice to them.

There can be different levels of followers. (Followers that can be had by becoming the head of a guild and hirelings as well as the quest specific ones).

Hirelings may start as standard re-spawnables (that stay for a specific time frame) with the option of buying them up to essential and permanent companions. (Note: Permanent companions would always ignore friendly hits. Their loyalty would be absolutely assured, but the upgrade should cost a substantial amount (given Oblivion scales say 5000 gold). Permanent companions could have two possible ranks: mercenary companion(they work for the player and are loyal, but are regarded as underlings) and friend companion (they also work for the player and are loyal but are regarded more or less as equals.) They might also have a disposition requirement. (The player would have final decision as to which category a given companion falls into. There could be a screen for managing companions which allows the player to specify.) Friend companions would have more interaction options.


6. Display items should be easy to use. (Shelves and wine racks could act like containers which display their contents. Putting multiple books on a shelf should not be a hassle for the player.)

On the subject of decorating, in addition to standard packages for a given house, shopkeepers could also sell things like (individually placable) candlesticks and stands (for Welkynd and Varla Stones), etc. So the player can make their houses unique.

7. In houses with multiple beds, the player should have the option of allowing (inviting) a companion to use extra bedding.

8. Spells: The ability to make genuinely unique spells (not just recombining existing effects) . Skill level in the appropriate spell college should determine how powerful it can be. (For example: At master of Restoration, the player could be able to make a resurrect spell.)

More variety: Add spells which might be used by someone who is not an adventurer. (Eg: A spell which causes a mess to get cleaned up. Or a spell which creates a banquet . These spells might only be available in High Rock and/or Sommerset Isle.) There could also be spells for adventurers such as bound repair hammer which summons a repair hammer to repair items. A repair spell could also be done that would repair one item per cast.) How about a flying spell?

This can also apply to enchanting. With a flying spell, one could enchant a flying carpet.

9. Guild leaders should have real leadership authority. Example: At the end of the Fighter’s Guild in Oblivion, Vilena Donton suggests that the player make Modryn Oreyn as second in command, but the player is the Master of the Guild and should have the authority to promote or demote as they see fit. Guild leader quest lines could also be added to steer the guild in a given direction (the player may have one of two or more options to pursue when becoming head of a guild.)

10. On money: Have banks where the player can keep their gold (and earn interest) and pay for everything with a debit card.

11. Add a mountain climbing skill. In Oblivion one can get close to “finding a location” on a mountain or other high area running but come up short (Eg. Lipsand Tarn) and have to use a roundabout approach to get footholds to reach the point of “location found.” This skill would mean that the more the player travels on land that goes uphill, the better they would get at it and footholds would be easier. At master, the player could walk (or run) up a vertical incline. This might replace the current "athletics" skill.

For the three I would call them Greatsword, Sword, and Dagger. Not that Dagger is the best name for it, but it sounds nicer than Small Hand Weapons or something. They could be called Quick Weapons, and have a system for a quickthrow when you have them equipped in a non-battle stance, like the throwing knife in Modern Warfare. I suppose it would only work if you weren't using a shield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfqTPJJtOCA

When sheathed, the misc weapons could throw. When readied they become melee.
A bonus to small weapons being throw-able and melee without taking up other functionality.

How 'bout Concealed Weapons?

There could be a key with a double function: first to throw an object in a "secondary" slot that only accepts daggers and throwing stars (which could also be used as primary weapons in melee, like you said) and the second to perform a shield bash, obviously when a shield is equipped or when dual wielding to attack with the other weapon, the middle mouse button could function better with this. Not too crazy about dual wielding though.

Also, in relation to that link in your sig, the guilds could be worked into the main quest by being making citizenship in a city-state a reward of sorts after reaching the rank of journeyman (which would be harder than in Oblivion).The thieves guild could "employ" the player in some inn as a front for their illegal activities as an equivalent to the other guilds. Citizenship would be a requirement for one way to advance the main quest. The other could be tied to some other group, like mercenaries or the descendants of an Imperial Legion that never returned to Cyrodiil. Or something.

Yessssssssssssss

Completely agreed. To be honest, N64 Zelda games managed to implement horses better than Oblivion did, and they're nearly 10 years older!

I would actually love for there to be a system similar to these games in TESV for horse riding. It actually worked well, and I suffered in the right ways, because of it.

Even daggerfall had better horses. (though, to be fair, they had no third person)

Speaking of third person, it needs a major overhaul. Many of us enjoy seeing our character as we play. The problem is, third person is really poor. I can't fight properly in it. Bethesda should look at some of the action games around, and take hints from them. Third person should never be better than first person, however. There's many people who would prefer first person, because they find it more immersive, and find it to be a good aspect of TES.

What I would like to see, if there's no major changes, is a simple camera movement. The camera should be placed over my shoulder and should look slightly left and down, to be able to see enemies without my head being in the way. I should be able to zoom in as far as I want, but when I zoom very close in, I shouldn't snap into first person as quickly as Oblivion. If I want the camera to be very close, I should be allowed to.

Also, I recently downloaded Darknuts new http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1031158-relz-darknuts-1st-person-enhanced/. I love that effect. It gives the character head bopping, lets me see my body, and saves the devs creating so many seperate animations for 1st person. Certain aspects, like head boppng, should be optional, though, since it makes some people feel sick.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Oblivion's horse-riding is better in third person. Not that I use horses much, but it seems more natural, even if the controls are identical.

Maybe, but my point was:

Third person is terrible for combat in both morrowind and Oblivion
And Horses are awful in Oblivion.

You can see them and kill them, so that has their usefulness on par with ogres. On top of that, you can buy them and steal them and ride them, so I would say horses are at least 150% more useful than ogres. Having horses around just as they are makes Oblivion better.

The Horse physics and mechanics are bad for many reasons, but I hate mainly two. You must unmount a horse when in combat, why can't we swing a sword (with limited range though) or thrust a spear or pike, or even throw one, and bows, bows where used by many archers while riding horses. Also your horse should sway to the left or right when you go that direction, like in a game like Assassins Creed the horse mechanics are better.

Also there should be (like many said) short and long blade, and medium armor, and un-armored. With enchant back too, because I can't imagine how far you have to go to find an enchanting person in Skyrim.

Medium armor was usless, from what I've heard(never tried using it due to what I've heard), and unarmored is too ridiculous to be a skill. "I'm going to fight without armor and learn how to become as good as those using armor without it". That's a bright idea and bound to be a suitable replacement for armor. :rolleyes:

You fail to take into account that unarmored was a mechanical approach to a problem that the game didn't really have the tech to answer. It was basically a form of dodging, yet the game did not use animations to represent failed attacks or dodged attacks, which is why unarmored added armor like it did, which was effectively the same as adding more dodge. Obviously though, with the advent of Oblivion's combat system, Unarmored was made utterly useless in every form and fashion, although the acrobatics perk to roll (dodge, in a sorts) hearkens back to the skill.

Also, calling any skill useless is missing a VERY VERY large logic point: it doesn't matter how useless a skill WAS because the skill was only that useless because the devs made it that useless, not because there is some fundamental issue with the skill that makes it useless no matter how well implemented it is. Take spears for instance, they were useless because their reach was negligibly higher than the other weapons for no decent damage (some of the highest spears did upwards of 70 damage, as compared to the highest being 100 for a long blade). It was bad because the devs made it bad.

That's the problem.
Regardless of animations, it should have still been called dodging. Dodging was dodging in Daggerfall and Morrowind's sword skill wasn't called "random dice roll with swing through opponent effect".

Spears weren't useless, but medium armor was. If it is to come back, it needs to be improved. If it is not going to be improved, I would rather have it stay out of the series and have the developers focus on more light/heavy armor variety. Spears should come back, but medium armor as a separate skill doesn't make much sense to me. :shrug:

Then it is simply a question of naming conventions. The skill was not useless because it still worked, although it did have questionable usage.

Medium wasn't really useless. I had many characters that used it because it allowed them to carry more equipment yet still have decent protection, as compared to lots of protection for much heavier armor or next to no protection for lots of inventory space. I can see the wish to combine the skill because light and heavy are so fundmentally different while medium was such a mix it made sense to combine the skills, breaking the lower end of medium armors into light, and the higher into heavy. However, I believe that medium COULD make a comeback if certain advantages against different weapons were added, such as mail being excellent against slashing and worse against stabbing in addition being lighter than many armors, while plate would be excellent against slashing and piercing (in certain areas, but others such as the armpits would be vulnerable) while being weak against blunt attacks (which crush and push forces through the armor with ease). Such fundamental differences between armors could also provide reasoning for the 3 armor types while also increasing the realism of combat and the tactics of choosing which armors to use rather than a simple minded "This armor has more armor rating and is better." There should be no straight armor progression from one set to another, but rather an odd flowing tree of choices weighed against risk.

Concealed weapons works. I like it. I'm not so in favor of dual wielding as I am of offhand throwing, grabbing, and casting.

Joining the knightly guild of that city is what I had in mind to cover that, knight not being a class so much as a title that grants you land.

Enchanting needs quite a rework, with much more field application and transition of the enchantments.

If the last time we saw the skill it was poorly done, it takes more effort and explaining why it should be brought back.

Bethesda just isn't trying very hard with their armor system. How in the hell is steel heavier than glass? They've all been asleep at the wheel to think that. A suit of glass armor like the ones they've shown in the game would weigh hundreds of pounds! The steel suit would weigh fifty pounds. The devs don't even grasp the concept of heavy and light armor, I say we don't let them make either a skill. Mostly because it doesn't take a 1-100 skill to wear clothing.

Especially when you wear the armor all damn day anyway. You don't increase a skill by letting someone kick your ass!

Doesn't wearing a lighter suit of the same type accomplish the same goal? Less protection, and less weight to carry? Yup. Not the best reason to include medium armor.

In fact in Oblivion, Glass armor had a defense rating of 50 with a weight of 40 pounds. Dwarven had a defense rating of 50 with a weight of 108. Is there some kind of skill that makes it hard to wear lighter armor than heavier armor? Would the fighter be somehow inhibited in combat by wearing armor that is just as strong, but 2.5 times less weight? Is he suddenly defenseless because he isn't wearing a stack of weight around him?

Not that it makes sense to make armor heavier as it progresses anyway. Better armor material in the real world always equaled lighter weight. The same defense with half the thickness due to a better alloy means that the wearer won't get exhausted and die nearly as fast. The lighter armor is always what would be preferred for battle.

Medium armor doesn't need to "exist" in the form of a skill or obvious classification. As has been suggested before, give armor a more advanced system than "weight" and "defense." Various degrees of resistance to different forms of attack (slashing, piercing, etc). That and weight varying with style and material, instead of a drab scaling quality level. If you want to call a weight range medium go for it, but "Medium" doesn't need to be a label any more than Light or Heavy. A system like that gives you more armor variety without worrying about whether a certain type is useless.

Medium armour wasn't useless. I use it all the time in morrowind it's one of my favoutrite armour types. Medium armour is a nice versatile medium. I can have it lighter than heavy, but more protective than light.

The reason there shouldn't simply be light and heavy armour types with varying weights and armour to represent medium armour, is because being able to use a versatile armour class is a perk of your class. I can't use heavy armour, or wear light armour. I can only use the versatile armour. I could actually say the same with light and heavy armour.

"Why not just have an "armour" class? There's no need for light and heavy, when I can just have physically lighter or heavy armour, with varying protection" :rolleyes:

It's also great for certain mage/combat users. Medium armour is perfect for them. It doesn't punish them with bad protection, but lets them have less weight, because of thier strength.

Medium armour also creates more variety between characters. Instead of just having light and heavy, and each character having one armour dependant on thier armour class towards the end, they could have more. There would also be the best valued medium armour. It does make that little difference.

Personally, though, I'd like it if certain armours wheren't just better than others. I'd like to see leather armour giving great stealth bonuses, steel armour giving reflwction effecs, etc. I like to have my characters wear arour that reflects thier class. I don't want my thief to be wearing shiny glass armour.

These bonuses should be in the form of multipliers, though. Perhaps a +0.25% sneak bonus for leather, as it would be better than armour values having to change as I level up, because of static values.

Instead of adding arbitrary effects to armor (leather makes you sneak better? it's not a Chinese Stealth Suit. It's armor.), why not keep some of the current aspects, but rework how skill levels work with those systems?

For example, in Oblivion, light armor is "fairly worthless" at low skill levels. Consider: a Leather Cuirass has a health of 80 and has an AR of 2.5. The Rusty Iron Cuirass has a health of 250 and an AR of 9. Now, given your skill level initially is "low", Leather is degrading at 1.5x the normal rate. So is the heavy armor. Given that condition affects the provided AR, and that the damage done to armor is multiuplied by 1.5x, well... the Rusty Iron stuff is crap, but at least it won't break easily. (of course, taking Light Armor as a major is likely to dramatically improve the situation in Oblivion. It's the 1.5x degradation that's killer)

However, try this:

Light Armor's weakness isn't "no damage reduction", so much as "My armor has less HP than I do, and takes damage almost as fast".
Heavy Armor's weakness is that it's freaking heavy. So, let's make those work with the Oblivion mechanics, but instead of using perks, let's directly use the skill levels.

At low PC+skill levels, Light Armor shoudl shred by taking more damage than usual. Heavy Armor should add additional encumberance to what the weight implies. Skill improves? Light armor skill involves protecting the armor first and foremost. Therefore, a light armor skill gain should make armor degrade slower. On the other hand, heavy armor should reduce the penalty assigned by the weight. Lower grade armors should have fairly low points to learn "basic use", while glass and daedric armors should be "stuff you really need to be good to get the most out of". Once you hit the right point (each material has its own learning curve), the "improved statistic" changes: at high skill levels (for the material), light armor is less encumbering, while heavy armor degrades slower.

I had prepared an example where glass provides a hell of a lot better protection than leather, but under combat conditions, it also fails much quicker. The basic idea is that you give out two armor values: Damage Resistance and Damage Threshold. DR is "when hit here, armor takes nn% of damage", while DT is "apply the first n damage to armor".

This allows you to cook up cases like "Iron has a higher DR, but more weight and a lower DT than steel", or "glass has an insane DR and a good DT, but low health". Of course, since high DR means the armor soaks up most of the hit, low health is bad for high DR armors...

It might give Bethesda a sane mechanic to make armors lore-compliant, make the skill levels do something reasonable, AND provide a less-than-clear upgrade path. With the correct DR/DT balances, it's even possible to create situations where the best armor changes based on what you encounter. (Rats? take DT. Six dremora? consider armor health when choosing DR/DT)

To me, it's much better than trying to provide a unique advantage to each armor if you simply use what's already in the game, combined with aspects of properties Zenimax owns rights to. (DT is, iirc, a Fallout mechanic)

In Morrowind, you can break the main quest and the game keeps going. One of the worst parts of Oblivion is that if you fail certain parts of the main quest, it's GAME OVER. Hmmph! Some open-ended RPG! At least in both Morrowind and Oblivion you can choose to ignore the main quest altogether and to heck with lore. The game shouldn't force a player to play a hero he doesn't wish to be.

One thing the developers should probably keep in mind is that if the player character does not accomplish the central feats of the determined lore, then he isn't the central figure of the determined lore. He doesn't have to be. Suppose we were allowed to abandon Martin and side with Dagon and the Mythic Dawn and go on missions for them. Following Morrowind's style, it would be "the thread of prophecy is severed" and the game goes on.

Alternatively, the thread of prophecy isn't severed and the game produces a true Champion of Cyrodiil to replace you. You take on missions for the Mythic Dawn and all the while you hear reports of the accomplishments of Martin's champion. Maybe you are sent on missions to stop him, but each time intelligence is wrong or too late. In the end, the Champion of Cyrodiil wins, your bosses are defeated, and you become the leader of the Mythic Dawn and the most wanted villain in Cyrodiil. The intended game lore remains intact despite the player playing counter to the main quest.

A quest shouldn't always have to be something you win or beat, but only something you experience.

I stated that Leather armour should have given a stealth bonus, because it's armour often associated with thieves and the likes. It wouldn't be an enchanment, only an extra side benefit. Every armour would have its own suitable effect, simply so my thief doesn't have to wear shiny glass armour, and my paladin doesn't have to look like the spawn of satan, when trying to be the best he can be. I would like it if certain classes had their own look about themselves. I want my paladin to wear steel armour, my thief to wear leather armour, my barbarian to wear orcish armour, etc, etc.

There should also be some kind of down side to wearing armour. I should be slowed down significantly (not so much, it's stupid, just so I have an advantage to unarmoured), in Morrowind and Oblivion, the cons where largely outweighed by the pros or wearing armour. My mages and armourless thieves should have a better chance without having to train for armour. I should also be hindered magically when wearing armour, moreso than Oblivion, if I'm not skilled enough. This isn't because magic is stopped by the armour, but simply because magic is done partially by hand genstures. My feeble mage isn't going to be able to move around very quickly with a full set of heavy steel armour, if he has no experience with it.

And I would be fine with the bad guy quest losing (or the good guy one, depending on how the lore is explained in later games), but I would think that a majority of casual gamers would complain about losing, since they have no knowledge of lore (I would think that the majority are casual gamers)

I've always said that casual gamers should never be a priority, I wouldn't expect to start playing another game series and know everything about it from one game, but that's how companies tend to go.

Personally, I don't really care how they do armor, as long as there are more than two skill choices. I don't really care if a few skills in the game are completely useless. The more skills the better, because it allows for deeper customization.

Sometimes I purposely pick useless skills to make my character level more slowly or for roleplaying purposes. Sometimes, the skills that are useless in practice add more fun to the gameplay, like the language skills in daggerfall or the jump spell in Morrowind. Lots of people in the real world have fun, useless skills. So why shouldn't the same be true for Tamriel?

When you start nitpicking at skills, and try to slim down the skill list so everything is totally practical from a combat and leveling perspective, you detract from one of the most fun parts of an RPG: character customization.

In Daggerfall, there weren't armor skills, so armor was purely aesthetic. While imperfect, I liked it because it allowed me the freedom to choose armor based on how it looks. I liked the inclusion of medium armor with heavy and light in Morrowind, because I could have two different combat-specialized characters of the same level, who look completely different.

When you only have a choice between light and heavy, all your high-level fighters will be in daedric and and all your high level non-fighters will be in glass. When you only have light and heavy, customization and aesthetics are taken out of the equation completely and the only question is: will I be adsorbing damage mostly, or will I be dodging attacks mostly? And each of those questions only has one type of armor that is the correct answer.

I know I could have better verbalized that point I'm making, but basically, when you only have two armor skills, armor becomes a purely practical application and there is absolutely no freedom to aestehtically customize your character.

So, what I'm trying to say is that, I don't really care how armor is done, as long as you don't focus completely on it's practical application in combat, but also on the customization choices or lack of choices that would result from your armor system.

Reading Rhekarid's posts has actually given me a newfound appreciation for combat in RPGs, but I still must say that, at least in my opinion, combat is the single most menial and negligible aspect of any fun RPG.

Anyone being looking Demon's souls? Each weapon has it's own animation, the whole game is in third person..even magic. Look at that game... It is a forefront of rpg's.

One thing i would like to see in TES:V is special skills that you only can learn by complete a guild and doing a special quest. For example, for a warrior a special move with his axe/sword/poleaxe etc. Or as a "evil" magician a super awesome reanimation spell, or for a more stealth type of character a special dagger or bow attack. And also, the player can only choose 2 of these special moves, so he must pick wisely.

That's a pretty cool idea, as long as there's some lore to backup why the skill is exclusive. But a special kind of spell or move wouldn't technically be a skill.

Well, creating a lore to that shouldn't be too hard. For example, a super crushing blunt move could be learned from, lets say, a norse eremite that lived long in the cold mountains of Skyrim and spent most of his days training, bashing mountain rocks or so.