To put it another way, the maps in Thief were designed with the plot in mind, for carrying it forward. The maps in Thief 2 were developed independently and adapted into the story after, so instead of a mansion designed with a fairly linear shape you'd have one designed like a real, huge mansion. And the game is often considered the best in the series, largely for the reason of level design.

In most cases it is better to rework an aspect than to cut it and do without, but in this case it's a synonym being treated as a separate category. It would be like having a skill for intelligence and a separate one for intellect. We can't kneejerk and say "keep it because we've lost so much already" because that is designing out of fear, not out of sound decision making.

The problem of the extra attribute is how spread out the melee fighter needs to be to be effective, and how to make a decent mana pool, any character with magical ability needs intelligence and willpower. My changes would correct some of that, so when the attributes are applied to the actions you are performing, you aren't tied to a deficit in an area even though an action can draw upon multiple attributes. The character who is a battlemage doesn't need to take intelligence skills to make sure his mana pool is high enough to cast his fireballs, but he won't be teleporting around without that ritual magic.

Strength - Determines your carrying capacity, knockdown ability, and physical intimidation.
Agility - Governs movement rate, missile reloading time, and weapon swinging speed.
Endurance - Governs hit points, healing rate, resistance to poisons and diseases, and the fatigue bars.
Personality - Affects how people react to you.
Willpower - Governs magical resistance, magical consumption per cast, and total magic.
Intelligence - Governs ritual magic, summoning magic, perception, and savvy.

Luck is knocked off of course, because if they're going to tie the attributes right to the skills, there won't be anything to do with it outside of character creation. I say we pick it from the beginning and it doesn't move.

On luck my take was to keep it but:
1: Make it invisible
2: Make it constantly go up and down depending on your characters condition

Pretty much it doesn't make luck a existent thing in the world, it's a psychological attribute. When your char is in pain, frightened, under high stress, your luck goes down. Relieving pain, enjoying things or relaxing can make your luck rise. That could also be one good reason to have food and different food qualities in game, or places where a character can relax like a bath house, or chill by going to a bar and having a drink or play games. It wouldn't just be filler, it actually influences your characters condition.
And again different character types could like different things. One who's kleptomaniac for example (could be a selectable trait) gets a small luck boost from stealing but it goes down when he can't or just doesn't steal. One who doesn't like crowded places won't feel well in a bar but can relax when he has his "quiet haven" somewhere away from the busy streets.

Whether it's a synonym is only partly based on the word itself, though. If I have Intelligence and Intellect as two different stats but the skills one governs are totally different from the other, the problem here is giving a bad name to the attribute, not that it means the same thing as the other. That's what I want to do with Speed; not just because I don't want things taken out. I already want there to be more skills than in past offerings, and if you increase the number of skills while decreasing the number of attributes, it quickly creates an imbalance toward every character rapidly filling out every attribute. The idea isn't to create a deficit of you lack a related attribute, but to give multiple paths, and the option to focus in an ability to have a leg up over other characters who are just "really good". I can master both Conjuration and Restoration so that my summons can be beefed up with fortification spells, but I'm not going to suffer for it if I only choose one. A fighter in the system I mentioned before might be good at heavy, pounding strikes or finesse and critical hits and do fine leaning on either, or blend of them, or for an all-combat character, be focused on both to stand apart like with fortified summons.

But the ONLY reason attributes exist is to be a commonality between the skills! From what you're saying, we'd be better off creating these multiple paths by not having attributes at all, by all skills not gaining anything between them. I'm saying there's enough similarity in the casting of an enchantment spell that you would gain some benefit to your thaumaturgy. The multiple paths have the advantage in the commonality of the attributes in my case in that a greater skill in archery directly lets you improve your staff ability since the strength is a common tie between them. The extra attribute divides the skills such that you are less able to pursue common interests of the skill with the benefit of the between modifiers since you will be spreading all non-magic users over a wider array of stats.

Even if we disagree on how to address the issue of the speed attribute, how do you feel about the suggestion of altering willpower and intelligence this way? Or changing luck?

I wouldn't say commonality is the ONLY reason. If someone chooses to stick with only a small set of skills they still benefit from increased attributes, even if they never touch other skills that benefit. They're also a sort of "base power" of the character apart from skills, sort of the functional sibling to Character Level compared to the more symbolic number. I never said I wanted to completely separate the build paths, just that I'd like them to exist. I can play something like Neverwinter Nights and make a dozen different fighters; knives and dodge-based, heavy armor and greatsword, single-handed blade and parrying defense, dual-wielding based on skill or damage output, etcetera. When I pick up a weapon in TES that's the extent of my options; what kind of weapon do I want to use? If anything, the system of applying two attributes to skills increases commonality. If each skill only raises one attribute but is helped by two, then when I use that skill and increase my strength, that strength is going to be helpful to twice as many skills. As far as how divided the skills are by the number of attributes, that's on the level of undecidable opinion; it's a balance between the two with no obvious "best" number. Too many attributes per skill and it gets watered down to the point that most characters will have attributes that are never raised and which have less point because they only raise the related skill, as well as probably being harder to implement into the game as useful. Too few attributes and you start draining value from skills, since why would you need 20 combat skills if mastering one makes me great at all of them, alongside loss of character variety/customization. But, I'm getting confused here. I think at least one of us is misunderstanding the other and I'm not sure who.

I'm not sure what you mean by "this way" regarding willpower/intelligence, but as far as luck, my stance is similar to what has been said. I would remove it from being something you could add points to or otherwise choose to "train up", and instead have its base level set by character creation choices and altered in-game by the actions of the player: changed by favor/displeasure from a deity, raised in tiny increments by unlikely actions (finding a four-leaf clover as a cheesy example), lowered by curses, and so on.

I like this idea, but pain could be bypassed by the amount of times one has been hurt. to simulate being used to pain.

This would be hard to do in my mind, it would require questions about personal preference in the beginning of the game.

if I were to make this game I think i would make luck like this

20 points from pain (this is affected by one's current health level, in a way that 100% health equates to 20 points and 95% health equates to 19 points. This is played with a possible 10 point permanent allowance for getting used to pain at a rate of 0.02% of a point for every time ones luck runs below 50%.)
20 points from karma (much like in fallout 3 where certain actions being good or bad would raise or lower ones total points from 10 respectively)
20 points from staying true to oneself ( this is judged by questions placed at the beginning of the game such as: do you like to steal? do you drink? do you enjoy quiet places?/// /// this could be placed at the beginning when one is talking to whomever else is at rock bottom)
20 points from sleep deprivation (slowly dropping 1 point from the maximum 20 points every hour passed after being fully rested)
20 points random (assigned at the beginning of every day with a 50% chance of getting 15 or more points)

luck would affect everything equally, this effect would be realized by 50% of the total skill being used as a base number and multiplying that by the percentage made buy luck, then adding that base score to 75 percent of ones skill level.
-----{example: one has 40 points in heavy Armour and he or she has 80 percent luck at one point in time, that person would actually be operating with 46 points.

i know it needs more tweeking but its just an idea

also i believe sleep deprivation should take one point off of every skill for every in game 24hours you don't sleep

{ deleted my doublepost }
also to add to the sleep deprivation thing
maybe it could affect some things more than others...?

183 threads ... damn.

I am sorry I don't have time to read them all. Normally I do actually trouble myself to do such. But for now I will just briefly interject with my biggest hopes and avoid the already well trodden discussion paths.

Defomable/breakable environments and objects. TES 1 had some of this, the first rat did this in TES 4. Minecraft is popular. Lets do it. We should be able to start and put out fires, smash chests and doors open etc. IIRC the GameBryo engine will be used, and that can support some of these effects.

Less Spreadsheet more Game. TES 4 added much more in the way of game in the way of a few MiniGames, but it still had too much spreadsheet business. Levelling (o avoidance thereof) was the worst. An example: too many spells, many of which are just generically stronger versions of each other; simply have the player hold a button down longer or something; this is essentially spell making in realtime.

Better MiniGames. The lock picking game was a nice touch. But...why do the ALL look exactly alike (excepting # of pins)? one would think that the Aeyelids would have a different way of doing locks, or at least a different art style. Why no combination locks either? I would have expected spell based lock bypassing to be similar to the lockpick version, but no lockpicks are used & broken, only spell points being drained for as long as it takes (essentially).

More MiniGames. Map travel should be much more interactive than Click-n-Arrive; I am not going to insist on a Silt-Strider thing, but at least it made sense and was fleshed out. How about a music minigame maybe Guitar Hero style, along with a playable bard class throw in a Match Lyrics to Melodies game too. Item and spell creation, repairs, actual in game games and sports to play (besides the Arena), all those could be nifty minigames.

Fully Fleshed out Classes per TES 4 There are simply too many classes and none of them are really meaningful. Since the PC can be in all factions and gain all abilities, Class has no meaning. Race did, though. If a Class is made, fully flesh it out and makes it's place in the world unique with abilities, quests, and other developments that can only be explored with that class.

Languages Text, and Voices I recall that the Red Guard game had an actual spoken language for the Kaijit race. Bring that back. Argonians reportedly also have their own. All races should have their own IMO. Additionally, subtitles should be enhanced with distinct fonts for each culture. The ten or so voice actors weren't as bad as some people make, but it did get old. More numerous (ie cheaper and thus less skilled) might help. Patrick Stewart and friends were great though. The only alternative would be to acquire/invent a suitable text-to-voice engine...not sure about that; currently these programs svck, or at least they are worse than the status quo of TES 4.

Interactive Environment Being an older gamer, I recall complex interactive puzzles from the Ultima Series, Dungeon Master, and others. TES feels brain dead in comparison despite the fancy graphical shell. I would have liked to see the Welkynd and Varla stones be more useful than for onetime recharges (excepting the Fingers of the Mountain quest), they had so much potential. How about some proper outdoor mazes.

Vertical Environments It's too flat. I recall this is really an issue with AI and possibly the animation budget; also I understand the procedurally generated outdoor ground-environments can only be huge by eschewing any true vertical surfaces, and especially vertically concave surfaces; this works fine most of the time. But dungeons and specially hand crafted zones only have the AI issue. Fix it. Try hiring the guys who worked on the 1st two AVP games. Get us some uniquely hand made environs amongst all the procedural stuff.

Draw distances I am only able to play TES4 on the Xbox 360, so I may be missing something. As such, thematically unimportant trees seem to have draw priority over interesting ruins....why? I'd sooner just have a procedural forest canopy represent far off trees, and draw the tops of ruins sticking out of them before drawing individual trees.

Demanding environments There is no point for roads, boats, and horses given the way the world works for the player. Because the environments don't really challenge us. Heat exposure and hypothermia never happen no matter the weather. There are no water currents to drag us along while we swim in full plate-mail, carrying even more suits in our underpants storage system. There are no rock/mudslides, no avalanches, no quicksands, no falling branches, no outdoor traps. There should be. Going off road should be an adventure.

Group activities My typical play style for TES4 is to get a set of invincible NPCs (Guilbert and Reynald Germaine et al) to do all the fighting for me. This is an exploit sure...but if the vulnerable NPCs who could follow me were more useful and upgradable, then I would likely play differently. The player aught to be able to at least trade/barter items and services with such close NPCs. It would be neat if other activities such spell casting could make use of multiple characters for enhanced effect. Siege engines. Complex puzzles. Mass rituals. etc.

Late for me now...will try to read some of the other suggestion threads now.

[quote name='Wakkawakkawakka' date='15 October 2010 - 08:35 AM' timestamp='1287124510' post='16485984']
I like this idea, but pain could be bypassed by the amount of times one has been hurt. to simulate being used to pain. [/quote]
Yea your pain tolerance could rise if you get injured often.


[quote]This would be hard to do in my mind, it would require questions about personal preference in the beginning of the game.[/quote]
Those would fall under character traits. They should have a big selection at the beginning of the game but they would be fully optional.


[quote][u]20 points from karma[/u] (much like in fallout 3 where certain actions being good or bad would raise or lower ones total points from 10 respectively)[/quote]
Ehh I would leave out any form of karma or enforced morality system entirely. No "the game says this action was good/bad".
[/quote]

Heavy Armor class needs to be fixed. As it stands, there is no reason not to wear heavy armor. So here are some suggestions:

1. You can't cast anything higher than apprentice level spells while wearing ANY heavy armor. So no mages need be wearing steel plate. (Limit spells to Journeyman for light armor)

2. You can't sneak while wearing ANY heavy armor. So no sneaky wood elf thieves wearing 40lbs of metal.

3. You can't fire a bow and arrow while wearing heavy armor gauntlets.

Now an advantage:

Bethesda should borrow the 'Damage Threshold' idea from Obsidian and apply it exclusively to heavy armor in addition to damage resistance.

I like the idea of classes having special abilities. I'd love to have a bard that can play different instruments, each giving different buffs or debuffs as long as the player is focused and avoids damage, or having a spy able to use various lockpick levels, like the apprentice, master, novice, etc. on Morrowind. Mages could be the only class to use wizard staffs, archers could fire multiple arrows at once, rapid-fire, and zoom in, barbarians could go into a frenzy where they would be able to attack rapidly with a lot of strength, but at the cost of mana, warriors could do lots of fancy attacks, knights could block all incoming attacks for a period of time and counterattack when the opponent misses them, assassins could catch snakes and other poisonous creatures (Think Metal Gear Solid 3) and keep them encaged as a source of poison, acrobats could get quickly behind opponents with a special jumping move or use a quick boost of speed, etc.

I'm confused. How does wearing armor affect your magic skill? The only thing that should would be gauntlets, as the spells come from your hands. It's not like armor svcks away your magicka-commanding abilities or anything. The only thing that should keep mages away from heavy armor is weight and mobility. But maybe there's some ridiculous lore reason for this.

That's kind of... overdoing it. I'm sure you could sneak in metal armor, if you sneak very lightly and very slowly. I personally think there could be a set of ULTRA RARE armor (black, of course) that let's you sneak effectively. I'd call it umbrinium (or umbranium, either one I think is good) ore armor. But I guess that's something for the modders.

You outright can't fire a bow? I don't think it would be totally impossible. All you do is nock the arrow (which you can do with thick metal fingers, I'm guessing), draw the string back, which you can do with an armored arm, and let go. Besides, don't most gauntlets only cover the top half of your hand? It shouldn't be that hard.

Personally, I'm all against the "game balance" thing. A knight is almost outright invincible in most situations. He shouldn't have to be totally nerfed down to the point where he can't do anything just because he keeps owning you. If you want to beat him, you have to want it. No more game pampering, let the game actually be able to kill you this time. The only times I've died in Oblivion is when I was either swarmed, or fell off a cliff. Only a few things could actually kill me, and they were truly overpowered. A scamp can do more damage than a Dremora mace? A scamp can take more damage than a suit of Dremora armor? Why is there even "Dremora armor," it should all be Daedric armor, truly unmatched. Teach those noobs that walk into Oblivion expecting a cakewalk a lesson. Teach them to stay out of your way. Dagon shouldn't have been so easily defeated. There should have been more than just 30 Dremora in the entirety of Cyroddil and Oblivion. Towns should be completely overrun, realms of Oblivion should have been filled with highly-trained, bloodthirsty warriors. They've been in Oblivion for ages, I think they'd have picked up some moves and wouldn't be defeated by a level 3 warrior in rusty iron armor with a steel claymore. C'mon, Bethesda, get with the game. BE THE GAME! ~ Snakes_Eternal

beginning and 1. Heavy armor is slower, not as good for sneaking, and, in Oblivion, armor weakens one's spell casting ability, but through effectiveness rather than spell levels,

2. Again, heavy armor is already not the best for sneaking.

3. Sure you can, but an archer may want to utilize running away/sneaking tactics, and heavy armor already penalizes that style.

You shouldn't have the best of all worlds in an RPG. You can be a mage OR a thief OR a bruiser. Not all three at once. If you can do literally everything in one playthrough, it just cheapens the experience.



The system you're defending now is pampering the player. I liked Oblivion, but it allows you to be an invincible armor-clad pro-wrestler, ninja super-Gandalf by level 15.

All of what you said can be remedied by simply increasing the sneak and heavy armor skills. I can't remember if it's journeyman or expert but a high enough sneak skill removes the penalty for foot wear. A master of heavy armor is not encumbered at all.

How much of the game does one spend with such a high skill level? Also, the magic effectiveness penalty may shrink, but it is always there to some degree. Would simply removing those endgame bonuses mean that much to you? I want them gone, but as I said, it's an endgame bonus, not something people typically deal with throughout the whole game. You would have to put up with crappy sneaking/running ability and/or a decent-sized magic casting handicap throughout much of the game, and what kind of entertainment is all about the destination point? You use the word "simply" as if mastering such skills are easy and done quickly. That is not the case. What about all the hybrid classes, while we're at it? You can't penalize them as you want. They've been a staple in the series and RPG gaming for many years and many classes, while shifting towards one specialty, dip into others. Knights, which I guarantee are an RPG favorite, for example, are mostly melee fighters with some knowledge of magic casting. Banning anything above apprentice level spells for them takes away any use of effective spell-casting above a certain level. More distinction between classes isn't a bad thing, in my eyes, but it's not as simple as reverting to a system similar to Arena's that Bethesda left behind 16 years ago. If someone wants to master every skill, why not let them?

Calling that an 'end game' bonus sounds like an exaggeration to me. To my experience, I can become a journeyman of sneak fairly early on, and of all the play time I had with Oblivion, I don't much remember my magic penalty being more than %5. I don't know when it gets down to %5, but I doubt you actually have to master heavy armor to get it. "Simply" is quite apt to describe increasing those skills. They are very easy skills to increase. There are some reasons not to wear heavy armor, but they aren't enough is what I should have said earlier.

As for the hybrid classes, yes there should be some kind of trade off. The expression "Jack of all trades/Master of none" needs to come into play at some point.

Crossbows, Halberds, spears, lances, flails.

Chain mail under plate armour and light armour becomes leather, pelts, wood mixtures, elven, Glass(shatters easily), Exoskeletons, bones.

Not sure about this idea only came up with it because real knights have chain mail under plate armour however in oblivion chain mail is light armour.

Perhaps you get more armour slots with higher heavy or light armour skill.

armor stats and weapon stats dont bother me, think the way they do things in those areas are fine as they are, the changes in game I want to see are more realistic looking armors/characters/animations/weapons... I want more housing options (like in morrowind where you built strongholds based on factions/houses you joined, and towns you helped to grow like in bloodmoon) with guards to protect them and thieves and such trying to steal your stuff and your guards grabbing them for you to torture/imprison/whatever/make slaves out of them to work your mines or plow your fields (like the mines you got with the stronghold quest outside Balmora) I also would like bone armor again loved that stuff it was so cool looking especially the different helms and the way clothes peeked out thru chinks in your armor in morrowind, I also would like to see more animations/additions both for my character and for like boats/carriages both should be in game even daggerfall had wagons and all the games have had boats in daggerfall you could buy them for travel/storage/homes... but heck we see skiffs all over in the games but always seem to be swimming out to stuff or waterwalking lol a skiff with animation would almost be easier.

Need to bring back pole arms and spears with true animation like throwing spears..... and as for the jack of all trades master of none guy ..if you put in the time to master all of them why not ? just make it if you dont periodically use a skill you start loosing points in it ..fair trade off yes??

Eh.. Nevermind. Disregard my suggestions about heavy armor. I'll buy ESV regardless of what they do anyway.

Lets see, that kills the battlemage, crusader, nightblade, spellsword, and witchhunter classes. I can learn my way around a weapon and heavy armor, but because of that I can't learn magic or how to sneak? You have the Arcane University to learn magic, you have the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood to learn how to sneak, and you have the Fighters Guild to learn how to fight. You can learn how to sneak quietly in heavy armor. You can learn how to wear heavy armor and swing a blade as well as magic. All you have to do is learn. Being a master at all three is difficult, very difficult, but it's not completely impossible, or else they wouldn't have allowed it. TES is about choice, and I choose to be a magic axe-wielding thief. If you want to go pure because you think it's the only way, go ahead. In TES you can do anything. There should be restrictions put only on certain things. Classes and skills shouldn't be one of them.

they also need to bring back flying spells.. i used to fly all over morrowind ..i loved it...got really peeved when i couldnt cast that spell in tribunal. also I dont want my mage to have to carry a weapon of any kind... it felt almost necessary in oblivion to have a staff...and why not a familiar like a cat or dog or pig even lol

There should be a couple of mods for that maybe not for tribnal since expansions generally have less mods