Ok almost done bare with me here, conjuring, not much differences only some nice stuff for all you crazy necromancers out there (like the Entropy spells):

1- Summon skeleton: (not for 20 seconds) but for a decent amount of time, although it should be weak at first levels of course.
2- Summon skeleton archer: does what its says, duration increases with level/skill/usage.
3- Summon skeletal army: summon up to 8 skeletons (at highest level) to fight for you.
4- Summon armor: summon a full deadric armor for a while to protect you (not summon gauntlet finger, then after 50 levels u get the other figure, to complete the gauntlet…etc).
5- Summon weapons: Summon random weapons at first then you can chose on higher skill levels.
6- Summon zombie horde: summon a bunch of scary deadly flesh eating zombies.
7- Animate the dead: command a fallen enemy's corpse as your follower for a while.
8- Summon deadra: obvious.
9- Summon Dedroth: also obvious.
10- Summon Flame golem: I like those.
11- Summon Ice golem: good to have.
12- Summon Storm golem: awesome pet.
13- Summon spider deadra: looks like a crazy old woman BTW.
14- Summon scamp(s): when you level up you can summon more scamps at one time.
15- Summon Clan fear: as it says.
16- Summon Golden saint: why remove in the first place.
17- Summon lich: badass undead unit of doom what can I say more.
18- Summon oblivion rift: a small rift opens and random deadra start to come through, it lasts only a limited amount of time and the deadra are NOT under the caster's control.
19- Summoning Master (Passive): increase summons duration.
20- Necromancer(Passive): Skeletons become permanent summons until dismissed by caster (except skeleton army spell which only gains a nice bonus to number of summoned skeletons), also lich becomes permanent and zombie horde too, BUT you must chose one of these undead creature(s) at any given time, so u can't have all as permanent pets at the same time (so it's either a bunch of skeleton fighter/archers, a bunch of tough zombies, or a lich)
NOTE: you can't be a Summoning master and a Necromancer at the same time.

See I don't want to take the ES spell system and throw it away I just want to enhance it, and add stuff to it, is it really such a bad idea/suggestion!!
Ok now for the Restoration skill which I spiced up to accommodate all you dark and broody evil knights and fallen paladins too, its 2 sub trees now, which are:

-Blessings.

-Wrath.

The blessing tree contains most of the old spells but they are more balanced (should be):

1- Heal: heal wounds (has cool down so you can't spam)
2- Heal other: heals others.
3- Cure poison: cures any poison
4- Cure disease: cures any disease
5- Break curse (to accommodate new curse spells): breaks any curse except silence of course.
6- Resist magic: grants slight resistance to all kinds of magic, more on higher level but never 100%, could reach 75% with alchemy.
7- Regenerate: slowly regenerates health, fatigue, and mana.
8- Buff strength: temporary increase in strength.
9- Buff agility: same.
10- Buff intelligence: same.
11- Buff willpower: same
12- Buff speed: same
13- Buff endurance: same too (no more buff luck that’s silly)
14- Sanctuary: makes you immune to all damage but you can't attack while in sanctuary.
15- Healing Master (Passive): your healing spells have less cool down, and cost less mana.

For the dark ones the Wrath tree:

1- Absorb health: take health from target.
2- Fatigue: drain the target's fatigue
3- Destroy undead: a high damage spell for undead.
4- Control undead: control an undead corpse, using ur great knowledge about life and death.
5- Banish deadra: High damage curse for deadra if they die from it they get banished to oblivion in a cool way .
6- Mass fatigue: an AOE blast of negative energy that wears down your enemies.
7- Debilitate: curse that reduces main attributes.
8- Death: A powerful curse that has extreme damage and mana cost, it can kill lesser beings with one hit.
9- Dispel: dispel the target from all magic buff/curses.
10- Shadow bolt: a direct attack spell that does damage to target can weaken target at higher levels as well.
11- Vengeance (Passive): Your restoration harmful magics are greatly enhanced, but you can't heal others, and your healing spells are weakened

NOTE: You cannot take Vengeance and Healing master at the same time.

And that’s all folks, man I'm beat. Comments and replies plz LOTS of them. :user:

Vadagar, you've been playing way too much WoW. Your ideas are good, but they don't fit with the traditional TES style, know what I'm sayin'? You have one skill interface that you're so used to, then BAM! "What's this? They copied World of Warcraft?"

Anyways, horses should be done like Red Dead Redemption's; Not super ugly, not useless, and when your horse jumps it doesn't take a second-long rest. I HATED jumping with horses. *Jumps over fence post* "Uhm... Move, horse." Seriously, it has the momentum to keep going, why does it stop?

I love it! ^_^

Oh Midas where art thou ???

hear my call....... wouldn't be awesome if he like replies! Awesome and super creepy *X files theme music*

That music is creepy :cold:


... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


Hmm... there were no moments like that in Oblivion... Everything in Morrowind was like that... I wonder if Bethesda can find a nice balance in there?

:D Danke!

I'd like some more leisurely things to do, such as, fishing, bar games, etc. Just some ways to earn some extra septims.

I want to be able to pull off awesome combos wile fighting, instead of just spamming the same slash over and over.

Did do some stuff in Oblivion though, high acrobatics jumping over people hitting them in the head with power attacks. :flamethrower:

I want everyone to have names (even randomly generated for bandits). especialy the guards. There was a mod for Oblivion that did that and added custom faces for each of them. I'd see "Tim" guarding by the front gate one week and then I'd come back a few weeks later and he'd be patrolling the castle courtyard. It made it seem like the guards had lives too. I liked it.

Not only names, but families and homes. There should be no guard barracks with beds in it, even in the jail cells. If you kill a guard, you should know that he's got a family in the city that will be mourning his death.

Also, jails shouldn't be funded by the town council or something like that. Prisoners should have to pay for their own upkeeps while in jail, even owing money after being released if they can't pay. Rich prisoners should get really good treatment and luxuries.

Or better yet your wealth could become recognized and you could be put into certain social brackets. Just like in real life, you could bribe others or even be so high up on the social bracket that the local Mayor or Governor wouldn't even dare to jail you (as it would look bad for the town) or something like that. Rich people in real life usually don't find themselves in 'jail' unless they are spotlighted by the media because they can afford to pull a few strings in the political places that matter. You know what I mean?

Pickpocketing:

Pickpocketing should definitely improve, just having it either succeed or fail is not good as it only results in endless frustration of not even being able to pickpocket a sleeping drunkard or save spamming.

Here's what I'd rather like to see, different degrees of difficulty depending on how aware the person is you're stealing from, how valuable, notable (large or heavy items) or important that item is to the person and where they carry it and different reaction phases upon discovery.


Difficulties:
Awareness:
This primarily depends on how contentious the person is, being sick, tired, distracted etc. can lower this. For example someone walking around in the streets is a bit more aware than someone chatting with another person, so during a conversation pickpocketing can be a bit easier. When someone is tightly asleep it can be easier too.
This could be done by having a awareness value that either raises or lowers depending on several factors. During stressed situations like combat the awareness value would be very high, while relaxing or sleeping it would be very low. at KO it would be at it's lowest while the person is still alive, absolute 0 awareness would only happen upon death.

Item properties:
Of course it should also depend on the items properties, it will be easier to pick a single coin out of someones pocket than a entire key ring with keys, both because the key ring is larger and heavier but also because it will have more total value and importance to a person than a single coin.
So here the values that matter would be value, relatively easily done since items have a assigned value already, size and weight, same, it would just need to add a size value or go by the dimensions of the in game mesh and personal value. The personal value would be a bit more complicated to do, this could be done together with ownership though. A key ring with keys as mentioned above would be smaller and less valuable than a small jewelry chest for example but the key ring itself allows anyone to get into the persons home and possibly even workplace so it would have a higher importance.

Where it's worn:
The body should not just be a universal trashbag, people should actually carry items on them. A key ring or money bag could be worn on a belt or inside a large pocket or pouch, larger items possible in a sack worn on the back (or a proper backpack), some items such as a sword would be worn in a scabbard on your hip, jewelery open on the body and so on.
Depending on where the item is worn the difficulty can change, items loosely worn in a pocket can be easier to take than ones firmly tied to a belt. Again the items size would come into play as well, someone wouldn't carry around a huge hunk of meat in his pants pocket... at least I hope so.


Reactions:
In Oblivion and Morowind you only had 2 reactions, they noticed nothing at all or instantly discovered you. Have some range between those two, in fact they cam mix into each other. Even when you fail to take an item the person you pickpocketed from could still notice nothing, while even when successfully taking something the person can notice a few seconds delayed that something is missing.

When successfully taking an item the range could be:
Notices nothing at all:
Pretty much what it says, the person doesn't even notice the item in question is gone.

Notices when item is needed:
Same as above but the person would have used the item and then notices it's gone.

Long delay:
Person only notices several minutes to hours later something is missing.

Short delay:
Notices a few seconds after it's taken, still enough time to have vanished into a crowd or behind a corner.

Instantly noticed:
The person instantly knows something is gone, this however still allows you a mad dash to get away.

Notices “hand in pocket”:
You still got the item but the person noticed and saw you, still time to get away but now you have been seen.


When you fail to get the item the range can be:
Noticed nothing:
While you didn't get the item you let go just in time before the person could notice anything.

Notices delayed:
The person notices a few seconds afterwards that something wasn't quite right and checks around him, afterwards he will likely be more alert.

Notices something:
Same as above but without a delay, you can still play innocent or get away far enough before you're seen.

Notices instantly:
The person notices someone is trying to take something but you can still get away without being seen.

Notices “hands in pocket”:
The person caught you while you did it and saw you.

The same can also apply to reverse pickpocketing, here it's most likely that the person will notice delayed that something was added that doesn't belong there. However if that little sharp shard of glass laced with poison goes unnoticed long enough till he reaches into his pocket and cuts his hand on it that was successful enough.


Robbing:
I think this one belongs in here too, it's the more violent method of stealing something. But sometimes being blunt is the best way to remain undiscovered or at least not reported.
Robbing can be in different variations too.

Secret robbery:
This would pretty much be pickpocketing but with self created distractions. You can for example bump into someone which distracts them possibly far enough that you can take something off them, of course works best in a team, a bumper and a grabber.

Hostage:
Surprise someone from behind and hold a knife to their throat or back, then give them orders. Like that you could rob someone in a crowd, hold a knife to their back and then whisper what you want them to do, or surprise them in a quiet corner and hold the knife to their throat to do the same. Like this you could even make demands to someone else “empty your pockets or I'll gut this one here”.

Hit and run:
Similar to the secret robbery but far more blunt, run into someone at full speed, give them a punch or kick possibly to knock them off balance or slam them into a wall and quickly grab what you want, you can be gone far enough before the had a chance to see you. Possibly even knocked out which makes robbing the pants of their legs easier.

Open robbery:
Just jump out weapons drawn and grab the person, if you did it fast enough you have him in your grip before he could react. This is pretty much the hostage version but coming from plain view, of course in this method the robbed person can see you but there should also be a mask and disguise system. The robbery could also work if your target is severely underpowered compared to you.
Of course this method will only hardly work in crowded cities but in the wild on a lonely road you can give it a try.


Pickpocketing mechanics:
HOW pickpocketing works could use a overhaul as well. Here I actually had V.A.T.S. from fallout 3 partly in mind. Pretty much when you pickpocket you get a frozen view of the person you want to steal from highlighting the different zones where he has takeable items. Ones worn in the open can be taken like this, pockets or bags are shown as containers, bags however can be taken as a whole as well.
Doing so could already give you an indication how difficult it could be to take an item by color coding it. Green would be relatively safe, yellow would be difficult, red is almost impossible to take unnoticed. You can also take multiple things but as you do the risk of getting discovered rises so the zones slowly become harder and harder to pickpocket from.
Also you can only take what's in your view, so if the target persons body is in the way you can't take it as easily from behind

As your skill goes up some zones become easier targets, most remain difficult though. However with rising skills you will also be able to notice things that have previously gone unnoticed. For example, someone could carry a item in a baggy shirt sleeve, when you try pickpocketing that person a beginner you might not even see something is there, you could attempt to “feel up” a person and see if there are hidden items but that increases that persons awareness. As a more trained thief however you could suddenly also note hidden stashes, which could sometimes even safe your life if a hidden item happened to be a dagger.

Takeable containers:
Also a little something about items you pickpocket. As mentioned you should also be able to take bags of people without looking through them first. Of course doing so you don't know what you take or how much.
For example, taking someones moneybag away, you shouldn't be able to instantly know how much money is in it, you just get the money bag as a item and maybe a indication how full/heavy it feels. Could all be just lose change, could be more valuable coins or maybe some gems in there as well.

Grab and go:
Another function that could be nice for beginning thieves is “grab and go”. You can mark something on a distance, for example a apple on a fruit salesman's stand and then walk by, as soon as you're in range you grab it.
This way you can also plan a “secret robbery” by marking a persons pocket from the distance, walk by and just make a random grab in their pocket as you do. With a little luck you may steal something valuable that way.
This would also make coordinating such things with others easier, one plays the bumper who distracts that person while you walk by and just do a fast grab. Marking and walking by would also be a easier way to take a item from someones front side as reaching there from behind is difficult.


Disguises:
And yea you should be able to disguise yourself. Different clothing is already a start, if you can swoop around a corner and ditch that shirt you have been wearing you're already a bit less likely to be discovered. Better however if you wore a mask so your face was obscured enough. Face paint could help too, of course that's not as easy to get rid of but if you play out in the wild you can have enough time to get away.

amazing

but as u said some of the features might be hard to put in game, but not impossible, I loved the compass and map idea I think it adds a sense of exploration and excitement as the player "fills" in the blanks, and making ti skill related is even better as it adds an incentive to advance in skills.

After checking on Fallout: New Vegas a bit and looking over a few screenshots I can just repeat one thing again:

PLEASE HAVE REAL TIME SHADOWS.
It's not just a pretty thing, it HEAVILY increases the mood and makes things look less artificial.
If you can't do soft shadows at LEAST have hard shadows, they take less power to process and can STILL give a better effect.

Just look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwmAIfL_yoo where the Imperial City was exported into Cryengine2, it just looks more "real" when there are shadows.


And also, I know F:NV is not developed by Beth, however it's still on the very same engine that they will likely still use for TESV.

What i want is to see random scary [censored]. Like im walking through a cave and out of a crevice that i couldnt see from the angle i was coming from a monster jumps out and attacks me. Also i want bosses to actually look like bosses. In Oblivion warlords looked just like anyother bandit, i'd like one of those Oh [censored] moments like in the new resident evil it would also be nice..well scary.. if i smoke through a cave, demolishing everyone in my path, and then im waltzing back going that was easy and something drops down from the ceiling thats twice as big as you carrying a massive ass weapon that proceeds to make you [censored] your pants and run screaming from the cave in the vain hope that he wont be able to catch you.

Also it would be awesome if there wasnt a need for loading doors so you could run from the cave out into the wilderness with that bastard right on your heels maybe they could split it up into sections? so you have to load inbetween secions but not in the sections themselves? and they could clearly mark out where the loading sections are so you dont accidentally walk into one? idk it may not seem as open world if there are sections but i think it would be more open world to have the things in the sections not require loading rather than not having sections that require loading.

Well while the thread is here, I might as well pitch in my opinion. Now I realize it's probably too late, but I really think that they shouldn't pay any big names to voice act. I really want to see the whole voice cast be undiscovered talent. I mean honestly, it would really benefit things in many ways. Firstly, they'd save a ton of money that would have gotten spent paying for some big star to voice a single NPC (or multiple NPC's, which is worse). The money they save could be better spent diversifying their voice cast or improving other aspects of the game. Secondly, I don't know about you, but I don't actually like it when big names voice act for a video game. When I hear a familiar voice, it sort of takes me out of the game. For example, when I heard Martin Septim first speak in Oblivion, all I could think about was Sean Bean. I didn't feel like I was part of the world. Having a connection to the real world like that seriously destroys immersion for me. I know some of you may look at what I say and then think about how movies are any different. Well they ARE different. In a movie, it's all live action. It's more visually realistic. It's easier to get immersed into a film because everything LOOKS real. However, immersion isn't even really necessary for film. You aren't *in* the movie. You are just watching it. In a game, you *are* your character. Anyways, in a video game, things aren't photorealistic. The whole thing is a lot more fragile. Now when I hear Sean Bean start talking instead of this Imperial monk, I think "Oh hey that's Sean Bean" and the whole effect is lost. I know it's Sean Bean. He's just masked behind some digital facade. Everything feels so artificial.

Now, that compounded with the fact that each race has two voice actors for every NPC (except major ones), immersion is completely lost.

I hope I conveyed my thoughts coherently. I also want to let you all know I'm not some impressionable kid who can't tell the difference between reality and fiction. I just like getting lost in my video games. It really enhances the experience.

I'd also like to say that I don't really think big names are necessarily *bad*. I just don't want voices I find familiar. Now, if your big name can do a lot of different, unique voices, I guess that's alright. But then what's the point of having a big name if nobody can hear them? What's more, it'd just be a waste of money because it's something you can achieve with young, new, aspiring talent that is yet to be discovered.

This, so much.

Patrick Steward and Sena Bean where a waste, I neither found their voices fitting nor done well. Martin sounded like he would break into a sobbing pile every second and the emperor was purely forgettable.

I personally call that "celebrity voice actor failure", just hiring someone with a famous name and think "they will be great as a voice actor". Guess what, most "actors" are NOT good voice actors. Hire VOICE ACTORS!

I should also add that they didn't even give us 2 voice actors per race. Not even that. They lumped all the Mer races together and gave them the same voice. The once cold and introspective sounding Dunmer were given the same whiny voice as all the other Mer. it was ridiculous.

I agree with this as well. I feel like Liam Neeson did a kick ass job in Fallout 3. I'm hesitant to blame Stewart and Bean for their performances...considering what they had to work with (Oblivion's script). I think hiring experienced voice actors (or at least good ones) is totally the way to go if full voice acting is a must. Hiring famous people to do the voices isn't inherently a bad idea...Fallout 1 and 2 had tons of famous people, including Keith David who also did Mass Effect. And you look at games like the GTA series and you see tons of famous names. The problem is when you use those famous names as a substitute for quality, such as what happened with Oblivion.

I don't think they are bad either, and there is nothing wrong with experience. However, you don't have to pay huge sums to huge names to offer there standard voice, especially when it leaves you with no diversity at all. It also, in my opinion, seriously hurts immersion when you hear familiar voices within a video game. And honestly, why can't they just hold an open audition to help recruit new talent. If it fails, they don't lose much and they can still go with bigger more experienced names. If it succeeds, you save lots of money on wages that can be spent towards more vocal diversity or to improve other aspects of the game.

Yea some actors wouldn't be bad as voices if done correctly, for example I could totally see Rowan Atkinson do his Blackadder voice for some snobbish Breton bureaucrat, that could be quite cool.

As for some other character, if you play Daggerfall watch the intro, that guy did a kickass emperor and i doubt that was some highly payed actor, likely more someone from around town who they thought looked good for the job.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU1bRqxrIU

Absolutely. And in that sense I think this is what separates TES from other games. Where a Mass Effect or a GTA (or a Fallout) can get away with spending more for famous actors, an Elder Scrolls has to place a greater emphasis on variety than on big names. Trying to voice every single NPC in Oblivion must have been a nightmare of logistics, but to do it with only a handful of voice actors...ick. Thousands of NPCs...no other non-MMO game comes close.

I hate to bring Fallout 3 up again in every TES thread I post in, but Bethesda did correct the problem with lack of variety in voices in that game to an amazing degree which gives me hope for the future.

And while we're on the topic of voice acting...Oblivion's voice actors...spoke...so....damn....slowly, it was annoying. If I have to be subjected to full voice over dialogue then the least they can do is at least try to keep up with the speed I read. Half the time I just read the subtitle and skip ahead because the actor is talking so slowly and with such lack of emotion or excitement that I'd rather punch myself repeatedly with a ice skate then have to listen to them for one more second. If you compare Oblivion's "cinematic" dialog with other games that attempted the same concept (your basic Mass Effect), it's amazing the difference between the speeds with which the actors deliver their lines.




Ah, such simpler times they were back then. The Emperor is an actor, but the guy holding the torch actually worked on the video itself but I don't think he worked for Bethesda. Back in those days the people that did those live-action videos were either low level nameless actors or the developers themselves half the time. Often they did a better job.

And then there also was the opposite problem of the text only being on screen as long as the actor was talking, miss a line, tough luck we already moved on.
This specially made mods a pain as you couldn't just chose "hold text on screen till button is klicked". And that the text sections where always so short was a pain too, why not simply have ALL text or at least a large chunk of the conversation on screen when you directly talk to someone, nothing is happening anyway.
And again, in Morrowind you had some characters actually have a nice and long story they could tell you, like "traveling woman" and the story behind her name, that was nowhere in Oblivion all because every single nonsense blabber had to be voice acted AND it had to be kept short.

This is why I'd like to see the return of mostly text only conversations really, at least for longer things. NOTHING IS GOING ON, time is even frozen while you talk, so why have it in real time?

EDIT: And AGAIN the credit goes to modders. I played a mod for Morrowind that actually did both, had a text only conversation but overlayed it with voice acting for important parts... that works just fine.

And PLEASE no more "zoom in on their face" during conversations, that's just as bad as the "jumps out to third person for sitting down" crap.

Anyways, off the subject of voice actors, can the next game please not make every NPC look like they are 65?
I would also like to see less large cities and more smaller villages. Not in comparison to Oblivion, though. I think Cyrodil had the right number of large cities for its size. However, it didn't have enough small villages. I want to be able to just explore and if I'm lucky, come across a small town.

I seriously despised that, but what I hated even more is how it stops time. I ESPECIALLY hated it during the attack on Weynon Priory. There goes Eronor fleeing from an Mythic Dawn agent. He runs up to you, still being tailed by the assassin, and somehow, magically, he fits in entire sentences before the agent can even move. If he would've stopped, he would've had his skull bashed in.

Anyways, why do we even need to be locked into face-to-face conversation? Why can't the person talk while walking around (with subtitles; toggleable)? Is there really a reason for not being able to move?