I dont think small animals or creatures like rats or mudcrabs or butt thumpers should ever level with you. They should all stay as level 1.

Not neccesarily. A HUD is necissary because, In real life, you know how tired and healthy and (probably, if magic existed) haw much Magicka you have. Games can't give you thagt feeling with out showinf you. so Its important to show those.

i think that arrows should do more damage if it hits the head (depending on armor of course) or if it hits the chest or just the head but it would depend on the armor the NPC is wearing

I'm all for locational damage, but I don't want a VATS system like Fallout. I want to have to actually hit the place myself. It would make locational damage great for my thief types and warrior types. I don't like the spasms and blinding of magic, though. Seems far too over powered. And the more powerful spells being "deathblows"? <_< Remember how strong magic already is.

Well I never meant it in the way of VATS, it should be a "you hit this, it does that" system in real time. What I wanted to clear up is what most people seem to think locational damage is, namely "you hit someone in the head and he dies instantly" or "hitting in the arms does 5HP damage, chest 10HP and head 50HP", it should be neither of that but simply have different effects depending on where you hit.
Silting someones throat would fall into that too, in normal combat the throat is very hard to hit but you have a chance to slice it and cause a sever or even lethal bleeding, when you sneak up one someone they don't see you coming giving you a chance to hit that zone with higher "accuracy" (slitting would be a automatic action though, you don't really have to aim, however aiming could be implemented for different stealth kills). That way you don't need a damage multipliers or anything.


Well first off armor offers some protection against magic as well, a fireball hitting a armored arm will cause it to heat up and "cook" in it but not burn it as much as direct contact hit, projectile magic could also be blocked by shields. Spasms caused by a lightning strike wouldn't always make you shake like you're in a earthquake, they'd likely more equate to getting hit suddenly and twitching to that hit. blinding wouldn't be permanent, just like you suddenly can't see for a second, plus always hitting the head or even they eyes, which are a very small zone, is not as easy as it sounds. Plus it wouldn't work that well on a helmet with a visor or goggles (like some helmets in Morrowind had).
What I meant with deathblows where really the top edge spells. Plus not everyone should be a magic caster, Oblivion did this horribly with giving absolutely everyone magic spells and then even leveling them with you.

A bit off topic but please bethesda could you please emhpasise the difference between male and female walking/running animations. Been playing obliv lately and noticed how un-intimidating a heavily armoured orcish warrior looks with a womanly swagger. Perhaps a more imposing style of movement for male characters in the next game?

I want to see something between Oblivion and Morrowind; Fairly stiff, but not too much.

There are several games that have been able to eliminate a HUD entirely and successfully without much complaint. I am not saying that is what should happen here; let me just reiterate that I am talking about less HUD, not the entire riddance of it. I mean, if anything, you could just have a HUD during combat or when casting or doing another action appropriate for such things with an option to toggle it always on or always off by each different display. Don't like the minimap? Switch it off. Want your magicka bar to only come up when it is moving or actively being used? Change a setting. I still like the idea of a healthbar being illustrated through graphical effects a la Red Dead.

But, you seem to have entirely missed the main point of my post, which was about the elimination of hitpoints for a percentage system. Bravo on taking a nail out of a metal recycling plant.

I don't want to get rid of hitpoints.

Farcry 2 had allmost no UI and I love it (the UI), The only thing on the UI is a little ammo counter that only apears when your fireing your gun. Other than that there is no UI, and if you want to check the map or a compass your character actually pulls out a map or a compass or binocculars which can be read in game. And that added alot to immersion.

RPGs needs UI more then FPS games, fps are more simple and straight forward, personally i would want the UI to stay somewhat the same except with a bit fancier graphic.

I wouldn't remove but re-purpose them, as said before I'd include a blood loss system, hitpoints represent your blood loss. The harder your wounds are the faster your HP ticks down.
It would still count them in % for some things, reaching a certain % of HP/Blood loss severely weakens you, down to 10% you run high risk of passing out. 0% would not necessarily mean death though, that means you KO, if you health ticks all the way down to -20% you bled to death.
This is kinda taken over from how some DnD versions work by not having 0 HP as death but -10 HP, 0 simply means you're disabled from acting and basically a "one hit kill" then.

But, I suppose what is really important is just how fun killing people is. The easiest things to ensure that every fight leaves you feeling happy you won/lost/ripped the guy's hairy yarbles off are locational damage that has a noticeable effect on the victim, visible magical damage in the form of burns, spasms, frozen body parts, necrosis, perhaps even witchcraft-like disgorging of pins and needles, the application of not just slashing at a body but slashing and stabbing into it, and, of course, more ways to kill someone than just the skills you can pull out of your magical hat-bag. Hooray for chopping someone's legs off and forcing them to crawl through a field of starved mudcrabs.

This. Or at least have several optional animations that we can choose from (sample short video clips) to further enhance RP, and emphasis on more or less femininity or masculinity.

Maybe 4 distinct seasons? A realistic climate? Fall in Skyrim would be awesome to see in a video game.

Oh god yes, seasons PLEASE.

And make the wildlife not so hostile...

I do agree that 0 health shouldn't kill me.

If I get "killed" by a citizen/guard, I should be knocked unconcious and taken to prison. It would actually give me a reason to escape prison, and guards could be made hard until the mid levels without my low levels getting killed whenever they steal a spoon.

If I get "killed" by a bandit, I could get captured and enslaved, at which point I'd need to escape from the bandits or whoever I'm sold to.

If I get "killed" by a necromancer, I'd be captured and taken to get rituals performed on me. I'd have to escape, and some good inventive things could be thought of here.

I could even get some quests this way. If I get "killed" by a daedra, I could be taken to the prince/the prince's shrine, where they could offer me to do things for them (I fill some kind of prophecy or something)


If the NPC has no use for me/don't care about giving to the guards, or it's a non sentient creature, I would just be killed after I've got to 0% health. It could add a lot to gameplay.

But, I don't agree that health should be done in percentages.

I think you misunderstood that a bit, HP is still in "points" kinda, you can still raise them, but there are certain things that count them in %.
For example here is how it COULD calculate them, getting various wounds just lets your HP ticker down as long as they bleed, the more severe the faster. However a hit in the heart could give a instant 50% heath damage plus a severe bleeding, a slit throat could give a 25% damage plus the severe bleeding. Reaching a certain total percentage of health loss can cause a shock (KO), maybe depending on your attributes as well (higher willpower or endurance make you resist KOs more).

Also calculating it in % would have another advantage with the minus values, death would only occur around -20% health, that means the higher your total health is the more abuse you could take below the 0 line.


EDIT: A total percentage of health loss within a certain time could cause a shock, forgot to add that.

I wouldn't mind seeing this in some kind of critical hit form. Taking location damage into account, if I get a hit in the body, there'd be perhaps a 10% chance to hit the heart, which would give the 50% health drain. It would also be dependant on the attack style. I'd have a higher chance of getting the heart with a stab, for example.

So does theis mean that a succesfull block with a shield will protect 100% of a weapons damage?

DId anyone else find it annoying that when you murdered someone (with more than one hit) in Oblivion, your bounty would instantly go up even if no one saw it? I found this really annoying and it took away the feeling of an RPG. Your bounty should only be raised if:

a. A regular citizen sees you commit a crime, and they report it to a guard tower/barracks/castle

b. A guard sees you commit a crime, and they report it to a guard tower/barracks/castle

c. You commit a crime in front of a guard at a guard tower/barracks/castle

I think this simple mechanic would make the game a lot more realistic and a lot more fun.

It would completely block the slashing and piercing damage, though the blunt damage from any weapon should factor against your stamina. A sword doesn't have much blunt damage, so you can block many more sword attacks than you could warhammers.

But what do the player gain from lvlling block skill?

I would do the heart as a "physical" damage location as it's relatively small. The lungs would be a "theoretical" damage locations since they pretty much take up most of the chest, they'd have a 90% chance of hit, your ribs protect you from hits in the lungs, they are too a theoretical zone of 40% chance of hit.
The heart is too protected by the ribs so additionally to being a very small zone to hit it also has a "chance of protection" around it.

That explanation may be a bit too confusing though and may come over wrong so i excuse in advance if it isn't clear really.



Not necessarily, the kinetic energy of every hit is still carried over on your body which requires stamina (making you tire out) and can give you blunt injures. And getting hit by a chunk of metal, even if it doesn't break your skin, can still be damn painful and cause some damage (this is also why I am for actually differing the kinds of damage).


EDIT:

You can hold your balance better (less chance of a knockdown), you can recoil a hit better (less stamina loss), you have better grip on your shield (less chance of it getting knocked away), you can hold your shield better in your way (it doesn't get knocked to the side that easily), you can take heavier blows... the list goes on.

What I'd like to see, is a better spell reflection system. If I successfully reflect a spell, it should fire back to the caster, as a homing spell, and if they reflect, it should do the same to me. There's often times when the only once rule will make a fight easier than it should be, and it's pretty bad. The spell, of course, should lower in intensity until the spell wears out, incase there's a 100% each way, and there's some infinite loop.