» Mon Apr 19, 2010 5:15 am Contents:
1. Player Character and NPCs
1.1 Attributes
1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
1.2.2. Description of skills
1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints
2. Character Creation
2.1 Questions
2.2 Deriving Attributes
2.3 Choosing Skills
2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages
2.5 Modifying appearance
2.6 Picking a Birthsign
2.7 Editing reputations
3. Gameplay
3.1 Gaining levels
3.1.1 Training
3.2 Fast travel
3.3 Items
3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization
3.4 Spells
3.4.1. Teleportation
3.5 Surroundings
3.6 Non-lethal combat
3.7 Wildlife
3.8 Realism
3.8.1. Toggle Realism options
3.9 AI
3.10 Random quests
3.11 Vampirism
1. Player Character and NPCs
1.1 Attributes
Strength (STR) Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with heavy melee weapons like Axes and maces, as well as how much you can carry. You will have trouble pulling the strongest bows if you're STR is low. Being stronger than an NPC helps you intimidate him. Forcing doors and locks open is dependant on your STR.
Intelligence (INT) Determines your maximum Spell Points (SP). Most races have INTx1 in spell points by default, while Bretons and High elves, for example, have INTx2. This can be changed to anything from zero spell points to 3x INT in spell points in the character creation by choosing dis/advantages. Being smarter than an NPC helps you fool and trick them. New dialogue options are opened for smarter characters. Learning spells is also easier the more intelligent you are.
Willpower (WIL) Helps to determine your rate of Magicka consumption from spellcasting and your chance to resist Magicka. Your skill in magic school in question also effects the amount of SP used per spell. High WIL really helps you resist magic, like in old days. You can endure a lot with high willpower: you can, for example, manage yourself better through long times in prison or captivity.
Agility (AGI) Determines the 'hit bonus' in combat, as well as your 'dodge bonus'. Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with light melee weapons like Daggers.
Endurance (END) Determines your Hitpoints (HP) at all times. You have always one hundred plus Endurance in hitpoints. It also determines your resistance to poisons and diseases, and the chance of, and time taken for, recovering from them naturally.
Speed (SPD) Controls your movement speed, the speed you swing a weapon in combat, and the speed you complete certain tasks, like reload crossbows.
Personality (PER) Controls how much people like you when they first see you, and the prices you get at vendors. PER determines the ease of admiring and seducing NPCs. New dialogue options are available for stunning personalities.
Luck (LUC) Effects every action you do in a small way. Also a luckier character might find more precious loot, or survive an incident that could have killed others. Unlucky character has harder time finding or earning goods. Luck could also effect your chances of Critical Strike. It worked well in Fallout 3 I think, and would make Luck a bit more useful compared to other attributes.
Note: Your Fatique is calculated from STR, END and WIL. The amount of damage you can deal in melee (per time unit) is affected by STR, AGI and SPD.
1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
Weapon skills (7)
Long blade
Short blade
Blunt weapon
Axe
Polearm
Marksman
Shield
Magic schools (7)
Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Illusion
Conjuration
Mysticism
Enchant (some would gladly replace this with Thaumaturgy, and I wouldn't mind)
Physical skills (7)
Hand-to-hand
Dual wielding
Athletics
Acrobatics
Dodge
Stealth
Horse riding
Know-how or mental skills (14)
Mercantile
Speechcraft
Deception
Pickpocket
Security
Medical
Alchemy
Herbalism
Armorer
Heavy armor
Light Armor
Critical Strike
Survival
Music
1.2.2. Description of skills
Weapon skills in general control your efficiency with each weapon. Mastering a weapon skill can also help you use a weapon from other groups as well. With higher Axe skill you get bonuses while you use blunt weapons that are similiar, like clubs. Higher Long Blade gives you bonus when you use short blades like wakizashis. And vice versa.
Your chance to hit an enemy is greatly affected by the weapon skill, but your AGI and the enemy's Dodge skill also play their part. You get a minor damage bonus with high enough skill, and that with a minor bonus from STR are the only things that improve the basic damage you deal. Damage per time unit is also affected by your skill and SPD since you can hit faster.
Depending on your stats, your chance to hit an enemy is somewhere in between 33 and 99%. Even the clumsiest and least experienced person lands every third hit, while the most agile weapon master can miss once per hundred strikes.
Throwing weapons could be reserved only for spears and daggers, for example, and the throwing would be covered by the weapon skill in question. A key could be set, that changes the characters grip of the weapon, redying it for throw. Spear lifted on his head, or dagger held from the blade. Then pressing the attack button would launch the wepon.
Note: Polearm used to be called Spear, now including all hafted weapons and staves.
Shield covers the usage of shields, while parrying with any weapon (or bare hands) is dependant on the weapon skill in question. Parrying is always part of the weapons training, you don't go to one trainer to learn how to hit with an axe, and then to other one to learn how to block with it. Shield is the most effective blocking device, and can be used for bashing too. Shields can even protect you from magic projectiles, while naturally they cover you from arrows and bolts quite well. You don't suffer any damage from succesful shield blocks, usually. Sure, a minotaur lord landing a huge warhammer on you might make your shield hand numb.
Magic skills in general control your efficiency with each spell. Use the same schools that were in TES3. Or, replace Enhant which was out of TES4 anyways, with Thaumaturgy.
Hand-to-hand determines your efficiency when you fight unarmed. The damage bonus from skill is much higher than in weapon skills.You ability to kick in doors is also dependant on the skill. Kicking during melee combat should be just as easy as it is in FEAR, even if it's a shooter. It worked. Kicking in Dark Messiah, though, was very overpowered thanks to level design and the unnatural strenght of kicks.
Dual wielding determines your efficiency when wielding two one-handed weapons. Several weapons in human history are ment for dual wielding, and the skill would make it easy for modders to add even more dual wielded weapons. (Tonfas, butterfly knives, scimitars, short sticks)
Athletics controls your fatique loss while running and swimming. Higher skill allows faster and longer spurts. Swimming is a subskill of Athletics, and you can't improve your swimming abilities much by running only.
Acrobatics determines the height and lenght of your leaps, as well as the damage you suffer when falling from great heights. Climbing is a subskill of Acrobatics, and you have hard time improving your climbing abilites by jumping only.
Dodge determines the chance of enemy weapon, arrow or spell missing you. It is checked every time, unless you are blocking, (that is, wielding a shield in hand, or holding the block key) or you are wearing too much heavy armor. Light armor doesn't prevent dodging, but gives you slight penalties. Projectiles are harder to dodge, while some spells are impossible to dodge.
Stealth, known as Sneak in previous two games, determines your chances to stay hidden and silent while stalking, or blending in a crowd of people without rising suspicion. If there are random encounter while fast traveling, this skill helps you evade enemies and their ambushes. Backstabbing is NOT covered by Stealth, but Critical Strike.
Horse riding skill determines what sort of horses you can mount, how they handle, their maximum running speed and jump abilites, and higher skill lowers the penalty for using melee and ranged weapons from horseback as well as casting spells. You also mount and unmount faster. In some circumstances you can be thrown off horse, if your skill check fails.
Mercantile and bartening as in Morrowind. The haggling system was far superior to anything in TES series before and after that. Only, haggling always too aggressively should have permanent effect on disposition.
Deception skill is checked every time you tell a lie to see if the NPC buys it. Seducing NPCs depends on ones disposition, PER and Deception skill. You should be always presented with options to lie in conversation if you're asked something. A good liar can accomplish a lot through dialogue only, but being caught from a lie repeatedly can be bad for your reputation. Even hiding your real personality is dependant on the Deception skill. Wear a hooded robe and know how to talk, act and walk differently and you can fool guards. If you're suspected of a crime, you should have options to lie (Deception), debate and persuade (Speechcraft) or bribe (Mercantile) in addition to fighting or surrendering.
In other RPGs, I find little use for lying, while in real life lying is done commonly.
Pickpocket! A skill hard to learn, and one that was pretty useless in TES2. But it's a DIFFERENT thing than sneaking around. Many pickpockets talk to their victims as they do it, or bump in them and apologize. Improve the earning possibilities, maybe by stealing keys, jewelry, stuff like that. A viable option to get hold of some quest items. Shoplifting from TES2 should make a comeback, governed by Pickpocket skill. Even during every conversation, you could check up the potential victim, and see the items he wears and the chances of succesfully snatching them. Purses are pretty easy, while it takes a master thief to steal rings and other jewels being worn by someone. But, people like that really exist.
Security covers picking locks and disarming traps. No player skill over character skill. Ability to kick in doors and prey open chests would give strong warriors ability to NOT learn Security without missing on loot. TES3 lockpicking system was ok, but should be spiced up a bit. Maybe you can make a lock stuck if you break a pick in there, and it has to be bashed open. Real time lockpicking like in Thief would also make it much more exciting.
Medical skill determines your chance of identifying diseases and poisonings, your healing rate when you rest, and the use of all medical equipment like bandages, salves, potions and bloodstopping powders. Those you can use on yourself or NPCs. Basically, it's the skill of healing and restoring for those who don't have magic abilities. Playing a priest, druid, ranger or monk would become much more interesting.
Alchemy skill is checked when you identify ingredients like animal parts and venoms, powders, metals, jewels, and every non-organic alchemy ingredient. Basically alchemy and ingredients were most interesting in TES2. Your chance of succesfully creating a potion as well as the time it takes is calculated by the skill. The potion strenght and duration is slightly affected by the skill, but also by the equipment you use, and INT. No more should you be able to make 100 heal potions in a second, put them behind a hotkey and use one every time your HP goes below half. Almost like using a godmode. Not cool or fun. Potions should take hours to brew, and using too many of them should get you intoxicated, finally killed.
Herbalism skill is checked when you identify plants, mushrooms and their effects. Many herbs and shrooms can be used in wound treatment, curing or as antivenom as they are, some go also as alchemy ingredients. Poisonous ones can either be applied straight to the weapons, or brewed into harmful potions. Some plants have benefits on your mana, speed, or other attributes as you digest them or inhale their smoke. The skill also determines how succesful you are in harvesting the plants. There should be several different poisons, with remedies from varying herbs. Alchemy is sort of a magical thing used by wizards, and requires the right equipment. Alchemy effects are also more mystic. Herbalism is more natural, and can be used by rangers far from civilization, without any equipment, as well as some assassins to poison their victims. Common plants and mushrooms should only have healing, fortifying, restoring, curing or poisonous effects, while it takes mystical alchemy ingredients (like ectoplasm or vampire dust) for mystical effects, like reflecting spells, going invisible etc.
Armorer skill should be expanded a bit, and made much more realistic. No banging that bow of yours with a hammer anymore to make it good as new.
Critical Strike determines the chance of your succesful hit in combat being a critical strike, as well as the damage multiplier for succesful critical strikes. You automatically deal a critical strike when hitting an unaware enemy (backstabbing).
Chance in combat about 0.1 - 5%, damage multiplier about 2 - 6, both according to skill. Now this skill is a perfect merge of TES2's Critical Strike AND Backstab skills. High skill also makes you more effective in combat even if you use a weapon you're not highly skilled in.
Survival could determine your speed and food consumption as you fast travel in wilderness or without using inns. Building a fire and shelter, fishing, and turning prey into edible food or trophies are part of the skill. Hunting and tracking in general could be merged into Survival. Trophies should be valuale enough to make hunting a viable option to earn a living, but finding (tracking down) and killing animals should be much harder. During winter a fire could be required if you rest outside.
There are tremendous possibilities, and no 1st person CRPG has yet gone as far in Survival as The Unreal World, a rogue like game from Finland. I'd love for TES5 to be the first. Survival elements would surely earn more (and more positive) publicity than Radiant AI and next gen graphics. It would also present a welcome challenge in the gameplay, other than constant fighting. Challenge is, after all, what CRPGers are after.
Music skill is checked when you try to use a musical instrument or sing to please a crowd or NPC, or to pacify a hostile animal or other beast. The most talented bards are paid well from an evening's entertainment. Lute, flute, harp and drums are the most common instruments. Quests to entertain nobles would be perfect change for all the killing, and might earn you precious fame among the nobles. And for an assassin, why not have a cover identity of a famous bard to gain acces to castles for committing assassinations?
The bard is an old class in TES series, but they've never known how to sing, play an instrument, or entertain a crowd. It would be about time.
Dual wielding, Horse riding, Deception, Herbalism, Survival and Music are the only skills that have never before been in the series. All the others have already earned their right to be in the skillset of TES5. I've kept the skill list very traditional, no renaming to Swords and Daggers, for example, or adding loads of skills. Please Bethesda, even if adding new skills is unappealing, at least bring back the ones from TES2 and Battlespire.
1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints
Player characters HP is 100+END. The same goes with NPCs, and they show some physical hints of how much punishment they can endure. The toughness of beasts, daedra, and other possibly hostile creatures are harder for you to determine, but usually anything goes down if you manage to land a couple of massive hits in. A succesful backstab should finish most of the humanoids, while some harder skinned daedra might just get upset.
Now the high level characters would be harder to kill thanks to:
-Good armor
-Reflect, shield and other spells or items
-Higher dodge skill
-Higher agility
-Small increase in HP
Instead of:
-Ridiculous amounts of HP, gained by abusing the 5x multiplier to up END early on.
Magic
You can always create a character who is not connected to the flow af magicka. Pick INTx0 in spell points, if you feel like putting all your energy into something else than magic. You can play a Breton with only 1xINT in spell points, or an Orc with 3xINT. Raising it is just more costly for some races, while lowering it earns you points to spend on advantages. More on those later.
While fighting an enemy, it might be hard to tell ones magical abilities. If one keeps casting spells, he might have regenerating mana. Usually common sense helps you. If the orc you're fighting is not a shaman, it's very unlikely for him to suddenly throw a spell on you. Daedra and other mystical beasts are dreadful, and you're going to be dead before an ancient lich is out of mana. So the best tactic would be silencing him.
2. Character Creation
2.1 Questions
When you create a character, you're first asked the common questions wether to pick a class from a list, or create a custom one. The gender and race are asked, preferrably in the old method of showing the map of Tamriel, with brief description of the province and the race. A new interesting question would determine your relationships with divine ones. "Whom do you worship?" The choices include all the Divines and Daedra Princes. Last two options are: "I would never worship them" and "None, Yet". Choosing to worship any of them increases your reputation with the deity and it's followers, and decreaes it with it's possible rivals. Choosing never decreases reputation with all of them, but might have some benefits you learn later on in the game. None, yet, does not affect the reputations and lets you decide if to start worshipping any of them during the game.
The whole process could be merged in the game, as in TES3, where it was really well made. Sure, just having a form to fill up would be so old school it would be wonderfully nostalgic. Tutorial dungeons, as in TES2 and 4 get boring REALLY fast. I'd rather not have those.
Another question to really spice up the character creation... even if I know Bethesda would never do this...
"Your sixuality?" The choices include hetero-, homo-, bi- and asixual. Hard core roleplayers as myself would find it interesting to play as an asixual martial artist monk, or a bisixual rogue that indulges in earthly delights anytime possible. Seducing and getting seduced as part of the gameplay would bring SO much great material. A homo count making advantages on your manly, straight warrior? How to handle that one. Or getting to trust your handsome rogue's charm to make all women head over heels, only to find out that one certain countess is impervious to you and instead of being flattered throws you in jail.
But not in this lifetime, not in where Bethesda hails from.
2.2 Deriving Attributes
While the attributes of NPCs endorse the racial perks (orcs and nords being stronger usually, bretons and elves smarter) it's totally up to you what kind of character you're going to play. It's important to consider your starting attributes, since they are not going to be all maxed out in the end.You HAVE to sacrifice the same amount of points in one attribute to have another higher in the beginning. You CANT take 5 points here and there, and put them all in one Attribute.
The starting attributes are 40 +/- 20, which means you can start with all of them in 40, or move 5, 10, 15 or 20 points between any two attributes. The minimum would then be 20, while maximum would be 60. This encourages you to improve attributes that are important to the class and sacrifice the others. Of course, having them all equal at start and rising the right ones during game is also a good way to do it.
2.3 Choosing Skills
Ten Primary skills count towards your leveling and are easiest to raise. They start at 35, and there's +/-10 points to move around, just like with Attributes. It might take years game time to become the Master in one skill, even a Primary one. After 90 the skill advancing should become radically slower.
Ten Secondary ones are slightly harder to raise, and they start at 20 +/-5. They don't count to leveling, but can still be very important to your class.
The rest fifteen skills are Miscellaneous, they start at 5, and are even harder to raise. Still, with hard work and good tutors you might become very efficient with some of them, if you find it important to you.
You can drag and drop your skills in any order you want. You can also copy skill list from existing class and make adjustments for your custom class.
Many people have suggested different skill caps, like Primary max at 100, secondary max at 75 and so on. That's just wrong in my opinion. The skills should just be so hard to raise that you would focus on your Primary skills, which could be also called 'playing your character'.
TES4: Oblivion makes no sense without a mod that makes skills raise 3-5 times slower. Without one, your character ends up being the master of everything, even if you don't focus on training.
2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages
Some advantages would be free for some races, but you could choose not to take them. Nords get resistance to cold for free, but nothing prevents you from making it a critical weakness to cold. Bretons and High elves have 2x INT in SP for free, but you can make it 0, 1 or 3 if you want. Etc.
Dis/Advantages are divided into levels, depending how dramatically they affect your life. Higher level advantage helps you a lot, but forces you to take more disadvantages to compensate. You can't pick total advantages of more worth than disadvantages, but the other way around you can since that is a way for you to add challenge for yourself.
You can't pick Dis/Advantages that cancel each others out. Like not having spell points AND not being able to regenerate them. Or being immune and having weakness to disease.
2.4.1 List of Advantages and Diadvantages
Advantages:
2x INT in spell points
3x INT in spell points
Regenerate mana while awake
Regenerate health while awake
+10 pts to HP
+20 pts to HP
Expertise in a weapon skill (more effective)
Expertise in another skill (just raises faster, no starting bonus)
Bonus vs. certain enemy type
Immunity vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Higher tolerance vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Absorb spells (maybe 50%)
Reflect spells (again 50% or so)
Adrenaline rush (Daggerfall/Battlespire or Morrowind style)
Disadvantages:
1x INT in spell points (only for races who have more than 1 in default)
0.5x INT in spell points
0x INT in spell points (NO spell points, inability to cast spells)
Inability to regen mana by resting
Inability to regen health by resting
-10 pts to HP
-20 pts to HP
Inability to use certain weapon type (hard to justify, but gives RP choice)
Gimped skill (raises slower, represents a talent your character does NOT have)
Inability to use certain material
Phobia vs. certain enemy (less damage to them, they might paralyze or kock you down easier)
Critical weakness vs magic , poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Lower tolarance vs. magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Damage from sunlight
Inability to sleep in sunlight
Damage from holy places
Inability to sleep in holy places
Then a perk that can't be considered plainly negative or positive:
Total immunity to magic. You can't be teleported, healed, or cured with spells, and sanctuary, shield, or invisibility spells don't stick on you. Luckily you can't be damaged by magic, either, or paralyzed or harmed in any way.
Many, many other dis/advantages can be easily made up, those are just for starters.
2.5 Modifying appearance
The Face Gen is similiar to one in TES4 with few expections. There is a list of ready made faces for all races you can pick and modify to your taste if needed. The face files can be saved and shared easily online. Also, there are three sliders for the body appearance: the amount of muscle, the amount of fat, and height. You can play an unexpectionally tall Wood elf, a fat scholar, or a muscular barbarian. As before (and unlike so many other companies) I'm sure Bethesda treads women with respect and there won't be a briast size slider for young boys to play with.
2.6 Picking a Birthsign
The superior Dis/Advantage system makes Birthsigns, as they are now, absolete. One option is to make all treats gained from Birthsigns once-a-day Powers. i.e. Paralyze for Lover. Steed may spurt like a real horse, but only once a day. And so on.
The effect of your Birthsign would be dramatically more powerful in the time of the year Tamriel is under your sign.
2.7 Edit reputations
Merchants, Peasants, Scholars, Nobility and Underworld were the social groups in Daggerfall. You could modify your starting reputation among them to represent your past activities with other people. Those groups make a return, and are possible expanded with groups like Soldiers and Priests.
If you make quests for the criminal factions, you would not earn 'fame' among the law abiding people. Often your actions would satisfy one group and displease the other(s).
3. Gameplay
3.1 Gaining levels
3.1.1 Training
Training can be made very realistic and working at the same time. We only need to merge the training systems from previous games. First the restrictions. In TES2 you could train once per day. Or every 12 hours. In TES4 you could train only 5 times per level. But, in TES4 trainers only knew one skill, which didnt make much sense.
In TES5 we could train twice a day, 3 hours per lesson. You could train only 5 MAJOR skills per level, but minor skills as much as you want. Leveling up by training only would then be impossible (like in TES4), but still if you want to spend a lot of time and money on a skill, you should be able to do it. (like in TES 2 and 3) The trainers would be able to teach several skills, if its reasonable. Of course a weapon master at the Fighters Guild knows at least basics of every weapon type.
In TES3, you could stand in front of a master trainer and click the training button until your skill was at 100, if the attribute allowed it. That would mean several days of doing NOTHING else but training. We would get rid of that.
The cost of training. How do they know exactly what to charge you? They can tell if your skill is at 45 or 46? And then they charge you more for the same amount of training hours? That would mean (irl) that if a person goes to a driving school, and already has practised a bit, he would pay more than the others for the driving lessons. Because he's skill is higher. Wouldnt it be more realistic to have the trainer charge the same price from everyone, and every time. Haggling should, of course, still be possible. Some trainers would be more expensive than others. Some would be able to teach more skills than others. Eventually, you would notice that training with this particular person is no longer worth it. You need to seek a better tutor. Alternatively, the teacher admits he can't show you anything new anymore.
3.2 Fast travel
You can only fast travel on ROADS that are marked on your MAP. You can upgrade the 'worldmap' by buying different maps from cartographers, or by exploring yourself. The actual fast travelling is done by zooming up until you see the map/satellite sort of view, and then you can move along the roads, decide in which taverns to stay on the way, where to stop and where to go. Random encounters are possible with merchants caravans, bandits, or just common people.
-When you reach the end of your explored/bought map, you just continue manually.
-If you need to reach a location in the middle of nowhere, you can only fast travel as far as the roads go.
-The world map is big enough to make week's travels possible, as in Daggerfall.
-There are believable amount of locations, farms, temples and taverns along the roads.
-Much less actual dungeons/forts/caves/ruins, but way bigger. As in Daggerfall.
-Lot of cemetaries, but not all of them inhabitet by undead and crap like that.
-You can buy services from boats and caravans.
-You can instantly teleport between two Mages Guilds, but that's extremely costy.
-Quests have deadlines to make the teleportation more necessary, even if it's costy.
-You can take loans from the banks or loansharks.
-A random encounter could be like: "You see smoke rising from the forest on your left". Choose to [stop] or [continue travel]. If you stop, you really see the smoke, and by following it you might find a camp or other fireplace, which leads you to a new POI.
-Survival skill is used whenever you need to sleep in the wilderness. During winter you need to build fire. Shelter during rain etc.
3.3 Items
Long blades: Shortsword, broadsword, longsword, katana, dai-katana, claymore, sabre, bastard sword, all swords imaginable.
Short blades: Dagger, knife, tanto, wakizashi, throwing dagger, butterfly knife, sai, every short blade imaginable.
Blunt weapons: Mace, morning star, flail, short sticks, tonfa. Every blunt weapon you can imagine up to improvised ones: Broom, severed nord leg, wine bottle, tree branch!
Axe: hatchet, battle axe, war axe.
Polearms: Spear, quarterstaff, halbert, trident, naginata, lance, pitchfork, battle fork.
Ranged weapons: Bow and crossbow.
Light and Heavy armors: All the basic TES armor types and materials, with separated gauntlets and pauldrons. Many visual variations for same armors like in TES2.
Medical equipment: Bandages, healing salves, potions, powders, all are more effective in the hands of a experienced healer, and all can be applied on NPCs.
Alchemy equipment as in previous 2 games.
Lockpicks like in Morrowind, they don't always break if you fail picking a lock.
Smithing equipment: Hammer, thongs, anvil, forge, etc. You cant fix your bow by hammering it on your leg.
Alchemy ingredients like the ones in Daggerfall: jewels, metals, pearls, eyes, teeth, scales, wings, blood samples, lich dust, poisons and venoms etc. Everything non-organic or from fauna.
Herbalism ingredients: All mushrooms and plants. Everything fungi or flora.
Clothing: All imaginable
3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization
In all TES games theres a tiny annoying thing. If I want to keep using the best weapon, it has to be even red/ugly or somehow clumsy looking, since Daedric is the only real choice when you look at damage only. I rather use a weapon that looks and feels right, but it makes no sense sometimes when another one does twice the damage. The damage should be brought more together, and have your weapon of choice rely on more things than that only.
Easiest example I can think of:
Silver is not a good metal to use in weapons, it doesnt stay sharp and breaks easily when used against armored enemies. But it cuts werecreatures and ghosts like butter. Therefore, it should be used as a backup weapon, not a primary. Also, isn't silver supposed to be kinda expensive? It should be!
Another thing: lighter weapons should be faster to use, but deal less crushing damage.
And third: Why not have glass weapons as they should be: extremely sharp, but very fragile, and once they break there's no mending them anymore.
Then about the specialization: If you use a single weapon for a looong time, you get used to it! Goes with firearms in real life, and goes with melee weapons too. You should slowly gain specialization points for a weapon you use a lot. Silent Storm had that sort of system and it actually made you feel fond of your oldest weapons, so you didnt ditch them even if you found better ones! That is exactly what I want to see my character do!
In TES2, you get very fond of your ebony dagger*, and other ones are VERY hard to find. Still, it's only in the players head. Daedric is still better, yet uglier. With a good specialization system your ebony dagger would be more effective than a random daedric one, cause the ebony one's been in your hand for months and you've killed hundreds of enemies with it. In Silent Storm I kept using the Suomi SMG cause the guy had it from the start and was most accurate with THAT paticular weapon, thanks to full specialization bonus. I want to see a same sort of system in TES5!
*enough to feel naked and vulnerable the two days it's being repaired at the smith's!
3.4 Spells
All spells that have been in previous games, if they only make sense. I even have an idea for the comeback of Passwall. A very demanding spell your mage can only learn on high levels, which gives you a couple of seconds of moving with collision off. You are blinded when you move through solid ground, object or wall, and you instantly die if the spell wears off while you are inside. You are, merged in another material, which of course is lethal. Levitation too could only be meant for true mages, and learned in high levels to prevent abuse.
I want all effects back that have been in before, like area around caster, and usable magic items like enchanted jewels, wands, bracelets etc. In TES4 we only had cast when strikes items and constant effect ones.
There must be a choice to create or buy spells that gain magnitude according to your skill or level, like in TES2. Most of them sort of leveled with you, so they never became useless like most of the spells in TES4. TES2 spell creating system is superior to anything seen after that, so wouldn't it be just reasonable to go back a few steps?
Removing or hiding spells MUST be possible too. You might, for example want some practising spells, but dont wish to see them clutter up your spell book.
Enemies who lore defines as deadly magic using entities, such as liches, should really be able to kill you with their magic. No more puny fireballs you sidestep easy, but spells like Blind, Slow, Fear and Incinerate which they can cast on you immediately they have a visual or other, mystical knowledge of your presense. Think of Doom 2, the humanoid fire demon who could set you on fire any time it saw you. The most scariest enemy in all the Doom games, including the big bosses!
3.4.1 Teleportation
Mark and Recall should return, with divine intervention. Scrolls should be rare, though, and spells very demanding. Mages guild of course still teleports people, but it should be dependant on your disposition to the guild. Only a high rank member could teleport for free. Non members would pay a big amount of gold (otherwise why would ANYONE use boats or other means of transportation?) and those who are unwelcome would not be served. On certain holidays mages guild services would be for half price, including teleport.
3.5 Surroundings
Visuals in video games keep improving, no question about that. The sounds, especially ambient and nature sounds are ok, but they certainly havent improved as much as visuals during the TES series. There used to be dogs barking, cats meowing, horses neighing and cows ammooing in the towns. Monsters had idle sounds: brainless zombies moaned as tormented, while they crept the dungeons. You could even avoid the most horrid enemies if you listened carefully. Now that was something.
There was another thing in TES2 which should be brought back and improved. The little messages about your surroundings. Especially what you smelled. You enter a graveyard and smell freshly buried dead. In someplaces you smell smoke. Many, many things like that. And NOT as pop ups, but a gentle text above the screen. What you feel could be told too. You could feel cold, warm, comfortable, uncomfortable, hungry, sleepy, thirsty. Thats one thing that separates TES series from medieval fantasy shooters like Heretic, Hexen and Dark Messiah. Its not a game, its a world. You are not a floating weapon hand, you are a living and feeling person!
In TES5, when I enter a tavern, I'd like to smell freshly baked bread, roasting pork, or spilled ale. Or even vomit, depending how classy a place I enter. In Mages Guild I could smell sulfur, ozon and something foul. The smell of leather and oil would float around in Armorers and Fighters guild, while blood and sweat would dominate the air of arenas. It would make the game world so much richer, with almost no effort at all. Wouldnt take a genius to implement that.
More on the visual surroundings. I need to see my own shadow, and my feet and body! Play Thief 3 through once, and you can never be fully satisfied with a game that doesn't have real shadows. If the NPCs would react to your shadow too, that would make sneaking much better and realistic. I'd much rather see dynamic shadows that are not that good, than live in a world without any shadows. Even now, 2009, I see big games pushed out with NO dynamic shadows. Unbelievable.
And NO battle music. It ruins every moment of surprise. People play with music turned off just because of that. And if a rat is stuck between a wall, why do we have to be told about it with trumpets? Regional and seasonal music, and personal like it was in TES2. Hollywood kind, epic music is a big turn off in a game. Eric Heberling would make alot better CRPG music than the guys you've seen trying to do it for the last ten years. The Witcher also had a great soundtrack.
3.6 Non-lethal combat
Killing. The only way to settle things in TES games. That has to change. You need to be able to:
-Teach NPCs manners or just plain humiliate them by beating them down
-Work as a hired thug, again just beating people
-Rob people without killing them
-Interrogate NPCs by overpowering them and then questioning
-Bring people to justice (why everyone has to die for stealing bread?)
How is this done? In Gothic 2, if you attack an NPC in a town, when they lose almost all HP they fall down. You have plenty of time to rob them, and their house. Or, finish them off, which is seldom a good choice. When they get up, theyre beaten and comment something accordingly. Several quests are about teaching someone manners by just knocking him off. Bystanders react only cheerfully when they witness a fight. If you go too far and kill, they report you.
I think that works very, very well.
One option would be possibility to open dialoque with fallen foe: choices to interrogate, let live, or kill him. Plus the quest related things to say: -Next time you try stealing from [random merchant] I wont be this gentle with you.
Non-lethal combat could be an automated thing, taking place when certain criteria is met. Or, it could be toggled on and off with one press of a key. If youre about to assassinate someone, you toggle it off. Alternatively, by default all blunt weapons could first knock the enemy out, then kill. So use a blade if you only wish to kill. Even more diversity for weaponry there.
3.7 Wildlife
Elder scrolls to this day: all animals attack you on sight, feel no pain, and will not rest until they or you are dead. They run forever after your horse in TES4, while animals, undead, daedra and humanoids all joined forces just to harass the player in TES2. Again, Gothic series succeeded making wildlife better ages ago. Take that as a guideline and make it so that:
-Animals flee or defend their territory, according to their person. Wolves, bears and deer stay away from you, usually. Hungry pack of wolves or a bear defending it's cub is different.
-Animals/beasts might taunt you off their territory and return to their business after you back off.
-Some predators will stop chasing you if they find an easier meal. Run past a deer carcass and the wolf chasing you loses interest in the two legged meal.
-Hunting something should be harder. No running to catch a deer. Prey have acute hearing and smell, so they WILL notice you before you're close enough to hit with a dagger.
-There is no way any ecosystem can sustain the number of predators seen in previous games. Solstheim, with a bear or wolf under every third tree? Same mistake is found in Gothic series and Risen. You basically fight your way through, no matter where you're going, and you end up carrying hundreds of wolf skins etc.
-Why would a rat keep biting your metal greaves and boots?
-Animals should have a different attack than just a clumsy animation. They jump ON you, and bite and claw. See Dead Space, how the enemies grab the player.
-Hurt prey should leave blood traces, especially on snow. Humans too of course.
3.8 Realism
-You sink in water. Especially when wearing heavy armor or carrying huge amount of stuff.
-You don't swim as fast as you run. Argonians maybe, but not others.
-Children DO exist.
-Gold DOES have weight.
-Money don't grow on trees.
-There are banks. You can buy houses from banks if you got the gold, without doing some stupid quests for them.
-Smithing, repairing objects, talking with people, alchemy, they all take TIME, instead of happening instantly.
-No one would really build towns an arrowshot away from each others.
-No one would call a village with 10 houses a town, even less, a city.
-The seasons really exist. You know, summer, fall, winter and spring?
-You can't run through a whole Tamrielic province in a couple of hours. Iliac Bay by boat took a week.
-You don't restore fatigue by running.
-You can't jump 12 meters, especially without a running start.
-Time scale should make sense, unlike it did in Oblivion and Fallout 3.
-You are not a floating weapon hand. Head bobbing, own body, own shadow, all should be present.
-If I manage to immobilize a small goblin by poison or magic, it shouldnt take me 2 hours to kill it. Or several hundreds of strikes in the skull.
-If there are 20 arrows piercing every single one of my vital organs, I shouldn't be running around anymore.
-My character shouldnt be able to hit a coin from 30 meters if he's never seen a bow before.
-Standing still for one hour should not heal me of my near lethal injuries.
-If I can kill a rat with one Flare spell when my Destruction is at 5, how come a same kind of rat takes 50 Flares when my Destruction is at 100?
-Global Positioning System, GPS, is not present in Tamrielic lore.
-When you've given a job or quest, they should usually expect you to finish it too, within a reasonable amount of time. Thus timelimits and ability to FAIL quests.
Also, it makes no sense you can ONLY lockpick doors and chests, without any alternatives but spells.
In TES5 you should have following options if you need to get a lock open, or enter a locked place:
Security: lockpicking and disarming traps
Weapon skills: bashing open chests etc, preferrably with blunt weapons to avoid damage on blades
Hand-to-Hand: kicking in doors
Alchemy: using acid to silently destroy locks
Alteration: casting open (and lock!) spells
Destruction: well... destroying the damn doors!
Pickpocket: getting your hands on the keys NPCs have on them
Speechcraft: lie or debate to get in places, like private homes in the middle of the night (knock first!)
Mysticism or what ever: Passwall, for exmple into that bank vault, and hope you're powerful enough to cast another spell to get out, too!
3.8.1. Toggle Realism options
Since there are several things about game realism that irks the casual gamers, let's make some of them togglable in the options menu. Here's what I've been thinking:
Options menu -> Realism
Toggle on/off :
Hunger effects
Thirst effects
Environment effects (if Skyrim, freezing to death)
Left handed character
Bleeding
Crippling
Move slider for:
Hours of sleep per day required
0-10
Damage multiplier on the player character/allies:
0.5 - 2 x
Damage multiplier on the enemies
0.5 - 2 x
Toggle on/off:
Lock the options for this character
Damage multipliers are not only the improved version of difficulty level, but also let you have more or less brutal melee according to your liking. Bleeding and crippling are almost like in Fallout 3. You just need to use Medical skill to splinter your bones or bandages to treat the wounds. Or according spells. I'd like to see more complex Restoration spells than ones just recovering HP. Mending bones, stoppping blood, that kind of thing. Blood stopping (hemostatic) powder could be made by alchemists, too.
Locking the options prevents you from abusing them in a tough spot.
The modders have made realistic eating/drinking/sleeping mods for both TES3 and 4. I think it's time for game developers to do it, instead of leaving it to modders.
And for those who keep saying that realism ruins the games, that games are not supposed to be like real life: Compare the fighting system of Mount & Blade to ANY other first person game, it's the best because it's the most realistic. Then, compare Richard Burns Rally to any other rally game, it's the best only because of the realism.
3.9 AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Examples of bad AI:
-Enemies like animals and some humanoids always attack on sight.
-When they attack, they never stop chasing you or return to patrol their area, even if they can't catch you.
-They are always willing to fight even if they have no chance of winning.
-When dying, they never surrender or flee.
-Other enemies in the group dont seem to care if one of them sees the player, yells and runs to fight him/her.
-Arrows and fireballs flying past an enemy's head and hitting the wall besides them doesnt alert them.
-Ally NPCs always run in front of you even when youre aiming with a bow.
-Once you go invisible, mages dont use detect life, fighters dont even try to hit the air where you stood, and animals dont smell you.
-NPCs always greet you in the streets. Sometimes the only person/thing they react to is the player.
-When someone thinks he saw something (a sneaking player) they always say something stupid like "I think I saw something" or "well, guess it was nothing"
-Your intelligent enemies like humanoids dont stay in groups or call for backup.
-If you hop on a rock, the enemy runs around helplessly until you've made a pincushion out of it.
Ideas to improve AI:
-Fix above.
3.10 Random quests
Why does Daggerfall have more replay value than later TES games? Because there's always something for you to do. Even if you never leave a city, some work always comes up, and you can be sent to do jobs in other cities or locations. In TES3 and TES4, you end up in a world where you've already solved everyone's every single problem.
You shouldnt be able to start the game and decide "I'll go and do these quests first, since they're easiests" like you can in TES3 and TES4. You can't think "Before buying stuff from him, I do his quests to get my disposition up" if there's no certainty that this particular person has some quests.
If nothing else, change the order of quests you complete for a faction. Or make it like in The Witcher: there is a notice board with jobs, and you can pick which ones to do and in which order.
I want the following to be possible in TES5 (like it is in TES2):
I can ask around if anyone knows any work possibilities. Maybe a random quest is generated to a random merchant. I'm directed to him. He offers me a job, and if I don't like it, I can refuse. (Like asking me to guard his shop for the night because Thieves Guild tries to get his stuff, and you are in the TG yourself). The quest usually has a dead line, since who would actually wait for his delivery from next town for months or years? Or, in TG example, you fail to be present the night the theft was happening. Then, when I either complete or fail the quest, it affects the NPC disposition and slightly the social group disposition. (Merchants around the area start trusting you more after enough jobs well done, while underground gets pissed at you when you're botched up enough of their jobs).
Maybe there's 1-2 random quests generated per day per area. Peasants have troubles or job offers, merhants too, and nobles and scholars. The guild quests would be the ones with best rewards, like a real salary. If you try to help everyone and solve every problem that is pushed on you, you just end up doing running errands for the rest of your life, since people are never out of small things to do.
One thing I really enjoyed in Mass Effect: After completing a huge number of irrelevant side quests, I said to the Admiral who was, again, sending me on some stupid errand, that I was trying to save the world here and he could shove it. Gave me great satisfaction, hearing his awkward mumbling, but unfortunately the quest still appeared in my journal.
3.11 Vampirism
Vampires used to be scary. I avoided contact with them, and the disease was more terrifying than the plague or corprus to me. That was before TES4, where vampires were more a nuicance than a threat. Every fight with one, bang, you get hemophilia. Luckily (sarcasm) you find enough cure potions to make the disease powerless (useless). So, vampires become yet another type of monster without any sense of threat or disgust. Curing the hemophilia right away is pointless, since you need to clear the whole cave of the vampires so you only need to gulp down one potion. Otherwise you need a potion per vampire...
So what would make vampires and vampirism more of a threat?
-Harder to catch the disease
-Harder to cure the disease
-Disease should be stealthy, you dont know about it instantly
-Becoming a vampire has huge disadvantages (lose all guild reputations and ranks, you die and wake up in a cemetary)
Vampirism is a curse, most of the players should feel the urge to avoid it. No matter if you're a thief, psychopath or assassin, still you dont want to be an inhuman beast!
Hope you managed to go through this all, and agree with at least some of it! And if you haven't tried TE2 yet, I urge you to. (Since now it's FREEEEE!)
P.S.
IF you, Bethesda, made TES5 to be the pinnacle of CRPGing of all times, you could keep making expansions after another, like some MMOs are doing atm (EVE, WOW and so on). Big expansions, not just DLCs. Expansions you buy on DVDs and get maps and stuff.
So if I was deciding of things, plainly on the monetary/commercial standpoint, I'd say delay the release as much as needed, finish the game, implement everything that would make it the BEST game ever (all this stuff here for starters), and kill the bugs. Then, even if it was too deep for some casual gamers, it would make huge amount of money when you release expansions every X-mas, and every summer (when no one else releases anything). The life span of the game would be something different from any other single player CRPGs, and that equals $$$ €€€ £££ !
And if the consoles can't handle all that, make it PC exclusive. Port afterwards if possible, when GOTY edition(s) are out, like you did with TES3:Morrowind. It's easy to see how PC exlusive (or games primarily made for PC) games are just... better.
1. Player Character and NPCs
1.1 Attributes
1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
1.2.2. Description of skills
1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints
2. Character Creation
2.1 Questions
2.2 Deriving Attributes
2.3 Choosing Skills
2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages
2.5 Modifying appearance
2.6 Picking a Birthsign
2.7 Editing reputations
3. Gameplay
3.1 Gaining levels
3.1.1 Training
3.2 Fast travel
3.3 Items
3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization
3.4 Spells
3.4.1. Teleportation
3.5 Surroundings
3.6 Non-lethal combat
3.7 Wildlife
3.8 Realism
3.8.1. Toggle Realism options
3.9 AI
3.10 Random quests
3.11 Vampirism
1. Player Character and NPCs
1.1 Attributes
Strength (STR) Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with heavy melee weapons like Axes and maces, as well as how much you can carry. You will have trouble pulling the strongest bows if you're STR is low. Being stronger than an NPC helps you intimidate him. Forcing doors and locks open is dependant on your STR.
Intelligence (INT) Determines your maximum Spell Points (SP). Most races have INTx1 in spell points by default, while Bretons and High elves, for example, have INTx2. This can be changed to anything from zero spell points to 3x INT in spell points in the character creation by choosing dis/advantages. Being smarter than an NPC helps you fool and trick them. New dialogue options are opened for smarter characters. Learning spells is also easier the more intelligent you are.
Willpower (WIL) Helps to determine your rate of Magicka consumption from spellcasting and your chance to resist Magicka. Your skill in magic school in question also effects the amount of SP used per spell. High WIL really helps you resist magic, like in old days. You can endure a lot with high willpower: you can, for example, manage yourself better through long times in prison or captivity.
Agility (AGI) Determines the 'hit bonus' in combat, as well as your 'dodge bonus'. Determines the damage bonus (or penalty) you get with light melee weapons like Daggers.
Endurance (END) Determines your Hitpoints (HP) at all times. You have always one hundred plus Endurance in hitpoints. It also determines your resistance to poisons and diseases, and the chance of, and time taken for, recovering from them naturally.
Speed (SPD) Controls your movement speed, the speed you swing a weapon in combat, and the speed you complete certain tasks, like reload crossbows.
Personality (PER) Controls how much people like you when they first see you, and the prices you get at vendors. PER determines the ease of admiring and seducing NPCs. New dialogue options are available for stunning personalities.
Luck (LUC) Effects every action you do in a small way. Also a luckier character might find more precious loot, or survive an incident that could have killed others. Unlucky character has harder time finding or earning goods. Luck could also effect your chances of Critical Strike. It worked well in Fallout 3 I think, and would make Luck a bit more useful compared to other attributes.
Note: Your Fatique is calculated from STR, END and WIL. The amount of damage you can deal in melee (per time unit) is affected by STR, AGI and SPD.
1.2 Skills
1.2.1 Skill list
Weapon skills (7)
Long blade
Short blade
Blunt weapon
Axe
Polearm
Marksman
Shield
Magic schools (7)
Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Illusion
Conjuration
Mysticism
Enchant (some would gladly replace this with Thaumaturgy, and I wouldn't mind)
Physical skills (7)
Hand-to-hand
Dual wielding
Athletics
Acrobatics
Dodge
Stealth
Horse riding
Know-how or mental skills (14)
Mercantile
Speechcraft
Deception
Pickpocket
Security
Medical
Alchemy
Herbalism
Armorer
Heavy armor
Light Armor
Critical Strike
Survival
Music
1.2.2. Description of skills
Weapon skills in general control your efficiency with each weapon. Mastering a weapon skill can also help you use a weapon from other groups as well. With higher Axe skill you get bonuses while you use blunt weapons that are similiar, like clubs. Higher Long Blade gives you bonus when you use short blades like wakizashis. And vice versa.
Your chance to hit an enemy is greatly affected by the weapon skill, but your AGI and the enemy's Dodge skill also play their part. You get a minor damage bonus with high enough skill, and that with a minor bonus from STR are the only things that improve the basic damage you deal. Damage per time unit is also affected by your skill and SPD since you can hit faster.
Depending on your stats, your chance to hit an enemy is somewhere in between 33 and 99%. Even the clumsiest and least experienced person lands every third hit, while the most agile weapon master can miss once per hundred strikes.
Throwing weapons could be reserved only for spears and daggers, for example, and the throwing would be covered by the weapon skill in question. A key could be set, that changes the characters grip of the weapon, redying it for throw. Spear lifted on his head, or dagger held from the blade. Then pressing the attack button would launch the wepon.
Note: Polearm used to be called Spear, now including all hafted weapons and staves.
Shield covers the usage of shields, while parrying with any weapon (or bare hands) is dependant on the weapon skill in question. Parrying is always part of the weapons training, you don't go to one trainer to learn how to hit with an axe, and then to other one to learn how to block with it. Shield is the most effective blocking device, and can be used for bashing too. Shields can even protect you from magic projectiles, while naturally they cover you from arrows and bolts quite well. You don't suffer any damage from succesful shield blocks, usually. Sure, a minotaur lord landing a huge warhammer on you might make your shield hand numb.
Magic skills in general control your efficiency with each spell. Use the same schools that were in TES3. Or, replace Enhant which was out of TES4 anyways, with Thaumaturgy.
Hand-to-hand determines your efficiency when you fight unarmed. The damage bonus from skill is much higher than in weapon skills.You ability to kick in doors is also dependant on the skill. Kicking during melee combat should be just as easy as it is in FEAR, even if it's a shooter. It worked. Kicking in Dark Messiah, though, was very overpowered thanks to level design and the unnatural strenght of kicks.
Dual wielding determines your efficiency when wielding two one-handed weapons. Several weapons in human history are ment for dual wielding, and the skill would make it easy for modders to add even more dual wielded weapons. (Tonfas, butterfly knives, scimitars, short sticks)
Athletics controls your fatique loss while running and swimming. Higher skill allows faster and longer spurts. Swimming is a subskill of Athletics, and you can't improve your swimming abilities much by running only.
Acrobatics determines the height and lenght of your leaps, as well as the damage you suffer when falling from great heights. Climbing is a subskill of Acrobatics, and you have hard time improving your climbing abilites by jumping only.
Dodge determines the chance of enemy weapon, arrow or spell missing you. It is checked every time, unless you are blocking, (that is, wielding a shield in hand, or holding the block key) or you are wearing too much heavy armor. Light armor doesn't prevent dodging, but gives you slight penalties. Projectiles are harder to dodge, while some spells are impossible to dodge.
Stealth, known as Sneak in previous two games, determines your chances to stay hidden and silent while stalking, or blending in a crowd of people without rising suspicion. If there are random encounter while fast traveling, this skill helps you evade enemies and their ambushes. Backstabbing is NOT covered by Stealth, but Critical Strike.
Horse riding skill determines what sort of horses you can mount, how they handle, their maximum running speed and jump abilites, and higher skill lowers the penalty for using melee and ranged weapons from horseback as well as casting spells. You also mount and unmount faster. In some circumstances you can be thrown off horse, if your skill check fails.
Mercantile and bartening as in Morrowind. The haggling system was far superior to anything in TES series before and after that. Only, haggling always too aggressively should have permanent effect on disposition.
Deception skill is checked every time you tell a lie to see if the NPC buys it. Seducing NPCs depends on ones disposition, PER and Deception skill. You should be always presented with options to lie in conversation if you're asked something. A good liar can accomplish a lot through dialogue only, but being caught from a lie repeatedly can be bad for your reputation. Even hiding your real personality is dependant on the Deception skill. Wear a hooded robe and know how to talk, act and walk differently and you can fool guards. If you're suspected of a crime, you should have options to lie (Deception), debate and persuade (Speechcraft) or bribe (Mercantile) in addition to fighting or surrendering.
In other RPGs, I find little use for lying, while in real life lying is done commonly.
Pickpocket! A skill hard to learn, and one that was pretty useless in TES2. But it's a DIFFERENT thing than sneaking around. Many pickpockets talk to their victims as they do it, or bump in them and apologize. Improve the earning possibilities, maybe by stealing keys, jewelry, stuff like that. A viable option to get hold of some quest items. Shoplifting from TES2 should make a comeback, governed by Pickpocket skill. Even during every conversation, you could check up the potential victim, and see the items he wears and the chances of succesfully snatching them. Purses are pretty easy, while it takes a master thief to steal rings and other jewels being worn by someone. But, people like that really exist.
Security covers picking locks and disarming traps. No player skill over character skill. Ability to kick in doors and prey open chests would give strong warriors ability to NOT learn Security without missing on loot. TES3 lockpicking system was ok, but should be spiced up a bit. Maybe you can make a lock stuck if you break a pick in there, and it has to be bashed open. Real time lockpicking like in Thief would also make it much more exciting.
Medical skill determines your chance of identifying diseases and poisonings, your healing rate when you rest, and the use of all medical equipment like bandages, salves, potions and bloodstopping powders. Those you can use on yourself or NPCs. Basically, it's the skill of healing and restoring for those who don't have magic abilities. Playing a priest, druid, ranger or monk would become much more interesting.
Alchemy skill is checked when you identify ingredients like animal parts and venoms, powders, metals, jewels, and every non-organic alchemy ingredient. Basically alchemy and ingredients were most interesting in TES2. Your chance of succesfully creating a potion as well as the time it takes is calculated by the skill. The potion strenght and duration is slightly affected by the skill, but also by the equipment you use, and INT. No more should you be able to make 100 heal potions in a second, put them behind a hotkey and use one every time your HP goes below half. Almost like using a godmode. Not cool or fun. Potions should take hours to brew, and using too many of them should get you intoxicated, finally killed.
Herbalism skill is checked when you identify plants, mushrooms and their effects. Many herbs and shrooms can be used in wound treatment, curing or as antivenom as they are, some go also as alchemy ingredients. Poisonous ones can either be applied straight to the weapons, or brewed into harmful potions. Some plants have benefits on your mana, speed, or other attributes as you digest them or inhale their smoke. The skill also determines how succesful you are in harvesting the plants. There should be several different poisons, with remedies from varying herbs. Alchemy is sort of a magical thing used by wizards, and requires the right equipment. Alchemy effects are also more mystic. Herbalism is more natural, and can be used by rangers far from civilization, without any equipment, as well as some assassins to poison their victims. Common plants and mushrooms should only have healing, fortifying, restoring, curing or poisonous effects, while it takes mystical alchemy ingredients (like ectoplasm or vampire dust) for mystical effects, like reflecting spells, going invisible etc.
Armorer skill should be expanded a bit, and made much more realistic. No banging that bow of yours with a hammer anymore to make it good as new.
Critical Strike determines the chance of your succesful hit in combat being a critical strike, as well as the damage multiplier for succesful critical strikes. You automatically deal a critical strike when hitting an unaware enemy (backstabbing).
Chance in combat about 0.1 - 5%, damage multiplier about 2 - 6, both according to skill. Now this skill is a perfect merge of TES2's Critical Strike AND Backstab skills. High skill also makes you more effective in combat even if you use a weapon you're not highly skilled in.
Survival could determine your speed and food consumption as you fast travel in wilderness or without using inns. Building a fire and shelter, fishing, and turning prey into edible food or trophies are part of the skill. Hunting and tracking in general could be merged into Survival. Trophies should be valuale enough to make hunting a viable option to earn a living, but finding (tracking down) and killing animals should be much harder. During winter a fire could be required if you rest outside.
There are tremendous possibilities, and no 1st person CRPG has yet gone as far in Survival as The Unreal World, a rogue like game from Finland. I'd love for TES5 to be the first. Survival elements would surely earn more (and more positive) publicity than Radiant AI and next gen graphics. It would also present a welcome challenge in the gameplay, other than constant fighting. Challenge is, after all, what CRPGers are after.
Music skill is checked when you try to use a musical instrument or sing to please a crowd or NPC, or to pacify a hostile animal or other beast. The most talented bards are paid well from an evening's entertainment. Lute, flute, harp and drums are the most common instruments. Quests to entertain nobles would be perfect change for all the killing, and might earn you precious fame among the nobles. And for an assassin, why not have a cover identity of a famous bard to gain acces to castles for committing assassinations?
The bard is an old class in TES series, but they've never known how to sing, play an instrument, or entertain a crowd. It would be about time.
Dual wielding, Horse riding, Deception, Herbalism, Survival and Music are the only skills that have never before been in the series. All the others have already earned their right to be in the skillset of TES5. I've kept the skill list very traditional, no renaming to Swords and Daggers, for example, or adding loads of skills. Please Bethesda, even if adding new skills is unappealing, at least bring back the ones from TES2 and Battlespire.
1.3 Hitpoints and Spellpoints
Player characters HP is 100+END. The same goes with NPCs, and they show some physical hints of how much punishment they can endure. The toughness of beasts, daedra, and other possibly hostile creatures are harder for you to determine, but usually anything goes down if you manage to land a couple of massive hits in. A succesful backstab should finish most of the humanoids, while some harder skinned daedra might just get upset.
Now the high level characters would be harder to kill thanks to:
-Good armor
-Reflect, shield and other spells or items
-Higher dodge skill
-Higher agility
-Small increase in HP
Instead of:
-Ridiculous amounts of HP, gained by abusing the 5x multiplier to up END early on.
Magic
You can always create a character who is not connected to the flow af magicka. Pick INTx0 in spell points, if you feel like putting all your energy into something else than magic. You can play a Breton with only 1xINT in spell points, or an Orc with 3xINT. Raising it is just more costly for some races, while lowering it earns you points to spend on advantages. More on those later.
While fighting an enemy, it might be hard to tell ones magical abilities. If one keeps casting spells, he might have regenerating mana. Usually common sense helps you. If the orc you're fighting is not a shaman, it's very unlikely for him to suddenly throw a spell on you. Daedra and other mystical beasts are dreadful, and you're going to be dead before an ancient lich is out of mana. So the best tactic would be silencing him.
2. Character Creation
2.1 Questions
When you create a character, you're first asked the common questions wether to pick a class from a list, or create a custom one. The gender and race are asked, preferrably in the old method of showing the map of Tamriel, with brief description of the province and the race. A new interesting question would determine your relationships with divine ones. "Whom do you worship?" The choices include all the Divines and Daedra Princes. Last two options are: "I would never worship them" and "None, Yet". Choosing to worship any of them increases your reputation with the deity and it's followers, and decreaes it with it's possible rivals. Choosing never decreases reputation with all of them, but might have some benefits you learn later on in the game. None, yet, does not affect the reputations and lets you decide if to start worshipping any of them during the game.
The whole process could be merged in the game, as in TES3, where it was really well made. Sure, just having a form to fill up would be so old school it would be wonderfully nostalgic. Tutorial dungeons, as in TES2 and 4 get boring REALLY fast. I'd rather not have those.
Another question to really spice up the character creation... even if I know Bethesda would never do this...
"Your sixuality?" The choices include hetero-, homo-, bi- and asixual. Hard core roleplayers as myself would find it interesting to play as an asixual martial artist monk, or a bisixual rogue that indulges in earthly delights anytime possible. Seducing and getting seduced as part of the gameplay would bring SO much great material. A homo count making advantages on your manly, straight warrior? How to handle that one. Or getting to trust your handsome rogue's charm to make all women head over heels, only to find out that one certain countess is impervious to you and instead of being flattered throws you in jail.
But not in this lifetime, not in where Bethesda hails from.
2.2 Deriving Attributes
While the attributes of NPCs endorse the racial perks (orcs and nords being stronger usually, bretons and elves smarter) it's totally up to you what kind of character you're going to play. It's important to consider your starting attributes, since they are not going to be all maxed out in the end.You HAVE to sacrifice the same amount of points in one attribute to have another higher in the beginning. You CANT take 5 points here and there, and put them all in one Attribute.
The starting attributes are 40 +/- 20, which means you can start with all of them in 40, or move 5, 10, 15 or 20 points between any two attributes. The minimum would then be 20, while maximum would be 60. This encourages you to improve attributes that are important to the class and sacrifice the others. Of course, having them all equal at start and rising the right ones during game is also a good way to do it.
2.3 Choosing Skills
Ten Primary skills count towards your leveling and are easiest to raise. They start at 35, and there's +/-10 points to move around, just like with Attributes. It might take years game time to become the Master in one skill, even a Primary one. After 90 the skill advancing should become radically slower.
Ten Secondary ones are slightly harder to raise, and they start at 20 +/-5. They don't count to leveling, but can still be very important to your class.
The rest fifteen skills are Miscellaneous, they start at 5, and are even harder to raise. Still, with hard work and good tutors you might become very efficient with some of them, if you find it important to you.
You can drag and drop your skills in any order you want. You can also copy skill list from existing class and make adjustments for your custom class.
Many people have suggested different skill caps, like Primary max at 100, secondary max at 75 and so on. That's just wrong in my opinion. The skills should just be so hard to raise that you would focus on your Primary skills, which could be also called 'playing your character'.
TES4: Oblivion makes no sense without a mod that makes skills raise 3-5 times slower. Without one, your character ends up being the master of everything, even if you don't focus on training.
2.4 Choosing Advantages and Disadvantages
Some advantages would be free for some races, but you could choose not to take them. Nords get resistance to cold for free, but nothing prevents you from making it a critical weakness to cold. Bretons and High elves have 2x INT in SP for free, but you can make it 0, 1 or 3 if you want. Etc.
Dis/Advantages are divided into levels, depending how dramatically they affect your life. Higher level advantage helps you a lot, but forces you to take more disadvantages to compensate. You can't pick total advantages of more worth than disadvantages, but the other way around you can since that is a way for you to add challenge for yourself.
You can't pick Dis/Advantages that cancel each others out. Like not having spell points AND not being able to regenerate them. Or being immune and having weakness to disease.
2.4.1 List of Advantages and Diadvantages
Advantages:
2x INT in spell points
3x INT in spell points
Regenerate mana while awake
Regenerate health while awake
+10 pts to HP
+20 pts to HP
Expertise in a weapon skill (more effective)
Expertise in another skill (just raises faster, no starting bonus)
Bonus vs. certain enemy type
Immunity vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Higher tolerance vs magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Absorb spells (maybe 50%)
Reflect spells (again 50% or so)
Adrenaline rush (Daggerfall/Battlespire or Morrowind style)
Disadvantages:
1x INT in spell points (only for races who have more than 1 in default)
0.5x INT in spell points
0x INT in spell points (NO spell points, inability to cast spells)
Inability to regen mana by resting
Inability to regen health by resting
-10 pts to HP
-20 pts to HP
Inability to use certain weapon type (hard to justify, but gives RP choice)
Gimped skill (raises slower, represents a talent your character does NOT have)
Inability to use certain material
Phobia vs. certain enemy (less damage to them, they might paralyze or kock you down easier)
Critical weakness vs magic , poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Lower tolarance vs. magic, poison, disease, fire, frost, shock, magic, paralyze etc
Damage from sunlight
Inability to sleep in sunlight
Damage from holy places
Inability to sleep in holy places
Then a perk that can't be considered plainly negative or positive:
Total immunity to magic. You can't be teleported, healed, or cured with spells, and sanctuary, shield, or invisibility spells don't stick on you. Luckily you can't be damaged by magic, either, or paralyzed or harmed in any way.
Many, many other dis/advantages can be easily made up, those are just for starters.
2.5 Modifying appearance
The Face Gen is similiar to one in TES4 with few expections. There is a list of ready made faces for all races you can pick and modify to your taste if needed. The face files can be saved and shared easily online. Also, there are three sliders for the body appearance: the amount of muscle, the amount of fat, and height. You can play an unexpectionally tall Wood elf, a fat scholar, or a muscular barbarian. As before (and unlike so many other companies) I'm sure Bethesda treads women with respect and there won't be a briast size slider for young boys to play with.
2.6 Picking a Birthsign
The superior Dis/Advantage system makes Birthsigns, as they are now, absolete. One option is to make all treats gained from Birthsigns once-a-day Powers. i.e. Paralyze for Lover. Steed may spurt like a real horse, but only once a day. And so on.
The effect of your Birthsign would be dramatically more powerful in the time of the year Tamriel is under your sign.
2.7 Edit reputations
Merchants, Peasants, Scholars, Nobility and Underworld were the social groups in Daggerfall. You could modify your starting reputation among them to represent your past activities with other people. Those groups make a return, and are possible expanded with groups like Soldiers and Priests.
If you make quests for the criminal factions, you would not earn 'fame' among the law abiding people. Often your actions would satisfy one group and displease the other(s).
3. Gameplay
3.1 Gaining levels
3.1.1 Training
Training can be made very realistic and working at the same time. We only need to merge the training systems from previous games. First the restrictions. In TES2 you could train once per day. Or every 12 hours. In TES4 you could train only 5 times per level. But, in TES4 trainers only knew one skill, which didnt make much sense.
In TES5 we could train twice a day, 3 hours per lesson. You could train only 5 MAJOR skills per level, but minor skills as much as you want. Leveling up by training only would then be impossible (like in TES4), but still if you want to spend a lot of time and money on a skill, you should be able to do it. (like in TES 2 and 3) The trainers would be able to teach several skills, if its reasonable. Of course a weapon master at the Fighters Guild knows at least basics of every weapon type.
In TES3, you could stand in front of a master trainer and click the training button until your skill was at 100, if the attribute allowed it. That would mean several days of doing NOTHING else but training. We would get rid of that.
The cost of training. How do they know exactly what to charge you? They can tell if your skill is at 45 or 46? And then they charge you more for the same amount of training hours? That would mean (irl) that if a person goes to a driving school, and already has practised a bit, he would pay more than the others for the driving lessons. Because he's skill is higher. Wouldnt it be more realistic to have the trainer charge the same price from everyone, and every time. Haggling should, of course, still be possible. Some trainers would be more expensive than others. Some would be able to teach more skills than others. Eventually, you would notice that training with this particular person is no longer worth it. You need to seek a better tutor. Alternatively, the teacher admits he can't show you anything new anymore.
3.2 Fast travel
You can only fast travel on ROADS that are marked on your MAP. You can upgrade the 'worldmap' by buying different maps from cartographers, or by exploring yourself. The actual fast travelling is done by zooming up until you see the map/satellite sort of view, and then you can move along the roads, decide in which taverns to stay on the way, where to stop and where to go. Random encounters are possible with merchants caravans, bandits, or just common people.
-When you reach the end of your explored/bought map, you just continue manually.
-If you need to reach a location in the middle of nowhere, you can only fast travel as far as the roads go.
-The world map is big enough to make week's travels possible, as in Daggerfall.
-There are believable amount of locations, farms, temples and taverns along the roads.
-Much less actual dungeons/forts/caves/ruins, but way bigger. As in Daggerfall.
-Lot of cemetaries, but not all of them inhabitet by undead and crap like that.
-You can buy services from boats and caravans.
-You can instantly teleport between two Mages Guilds, but that's extremely costy.
-Quests have deadlines to make the teleportation more necessary, even if it's costy.
-You can take loans from the banks or loansharks.
-A random encounter could be like: "You see smoke rising from the forest on your left". Choose to [stop] or [continue travel]. If you stop, you really see the smoke, and by following it you might find a camp or other fireplace, which leads you to a new POI.
-Survival skill is used whenever you need to sleep in the wilderness. During winter you need to build fire. Shelter during rain etc.
3.3 Items
Long blades: Shortsword, broadsword, longsword, katana, dai-katana, claymore, sabre, bastard sword, all swords imaginable.
Short blades: Dagger, knife, tanto, wakizashi, throwing dagger, butterfly knife, sai, every short blade imaginable.
Blunt weapons: Mace, morning star, flail, short sticks, tonfa. Every blunt weapon you can imagine up to improvised ones: Broom, severed nord leg, wine bottle, tree branch!
Axe: hatchet, battle axe, war axe.
Polearms: Spear, quarterstaff, halbert, trident, naginata, lance, pitchfork, battle fork.
Ranged weapons: Bow and crossbow.
Light and Heavy armors: All the basic TES armor types and materials, with separated gauntlets and pauldrons. Many visual variations for same armors like in TES2.
Medical equipment: Bandages, healing salves, potions, powders, all are more effective in the hands of a experienced healer, and all can be applied on NPCs.
Alchemy equipment as in previous 2 games.
Lockpicks like in Morrowind, they don't always break if you fail picking a lock.
Smithing equipment: Hammer, thongs, anvil, forge, etc. You cant fix your bow by hammering it on your leg.
Alchemy ingredients like the ones in Daggerfall: jewels, metals, pearls, eyes, teeth, scales, wings, blood samples, lich dust, poisons and venoms etc. Everything non-organic or from fauna.
Herbalism ingredients: All mushrooms and plants. Everything fungi or flora.
Clothing: All imaginable
3.3.1 Weapons, damage and specialization
In all TES games theres a tiny annoying thing. If I want to keep using the best weapon, it has to be even red/ugly or somehow clumsy looking, since Daedric is the only real choice when you look at damage only. I rather use a weapon that looks and feels right, but it makes no sense sometimes when another one does twice the damage. The damage should be brought more together, and have your weapon of choice rely on more things than that only.
Easiest example I can think of:
Silver is not a good metal to use in weapons, it doesnt stay sharp and breaks easily when used against armored enemies. But it cuts werecreatures and ghosts like butter. Therefore, it should be used as a backup weapon, not a primary. Also, isn't silver supposed to be kinda expensive? It should be!
Another thing: lighter weapons should be faster to use, but deal less crushing damage.
And third: Why not have glass weapons as they should be: extremely sharp, but very fragile, and once they break there's no mending them anymore.
Then about the specialization: If you use a single weapon for a looong time, you get used to it! Goes with firearms in real life, and goes with melee weapons too. You should slowly gain specialization points for a weapon you use a lot. Silent Storm had that sort of system and it actually made you feel fond of your oldest weapons, so you didnt ditch them even if you found better ones! That is exactly what I want to see my character do!
In TES2, you get very fond of your ebony dagger*, and other ones are VERY hard to find. Still, it's only in the players head. Daedric is still better, yet uglier. With a good specialization system your ebony dagger would be more effective than a random daedric one, cause the ebony one's been in your hand for months and you've killed hundreds of enemies with it. In Silent Storm I kept using the Suomi SMG cause the guy had it from the start and was most accurate with THAT paticular weapon, thanks to full specialization bonus. I want to see a same sort of system in TES5!
*enough to feel naked and vulnerable the two days it's being repaired at the smith's!
3.4 Spells
All spells that have been in previous games, if they only make sense. I even have an idea for the comeback of Passwall. A very demanding spell your mage can only learn on high levels, which gives you a couple of seconds of moving with collision off. You are blinded when you move through solid ground, object or wall, and you instantly die if the spell wears off while you are inside. You are, merged in another material, which of course is lethal. Levitation too could only be meant for true mages, and learned in high levels to prevent abuse.
I want all effects back that have been in before, like area around caster, and usable magic items like enchanted jewels, wands, bracelets etc. In TES4 we only had cast when strikes items and constant effect ones.
There must be a choice to create or buy spells that gain magnitude according to your skill or level, like in TES2. Most of them sort of leveled with you, so they never became useless like most of the spells in TES4. TES2 spell creating system is superior to anything seen after that, so wouldn't it be just reasonable to go back a few steps?
Removing or hiding spells MUST be possible too. You might, for example want some practising spells, but dont wish to see them clutter up your spell book.
Enemies who lore defines as deadly magic using entities, such as liches, should really be able to kill you with their magic. No more puny fireballs you sidestep easy, but spells like Blind, Slow, Fear and Incinerate which they can cast on you immediately they have a visual or other, mystical knowledge of your presense. Think of Doom 2, the humanoid fire demon who could set you on fire any time it saw you. The most scariest enemy in all the Doom games, including the big bosses!
3.4.1 Teleportation
Mark and Recall should return, with divine intervention. Scrolls should be rare, though, and spells very demanding. Mages guild of course still teleports people, but it should be dependant on your disposition to the guild. Only a high rank member could teleport for free. Non members would pay a big amount of gold (otherwise why would ANYONE use boats or other means of transportation?) and those who are unwelcome would not be served. On certain holidays mages guild services would be for half price, including teleport.
3.5 Surroundings
Visuals in video games keep improving, no question about that. The sounds, especially ambient and nature sounds are ok, but they certainly havent improved as much as visuals during the TES series. There used to be dogs barking, cats meowing, horses neighing and cows ammooing in the towns. Monsters had idle sounds: brainless zombies moaned as tormented, while they crept the dungeons. You could even avoid the most horrid enemies if you listened carefully. Now that was something.
There was another thing in TES2 which should be brought back and improved. The little messages about your surroundings. Especially what you smelled. You enter a graveyard and smell freshly buried dead. In someplaces you smell smoke. Many, many things like that. And NOT as pop ups, but a gentle text above the screen. What you feel could be told too. You could feel cold, warm, comfortable, uncomfortable, hungry, sleepy, thirsty. Thats one thing that separates TES series from medieval fantasy shooters like Heretic, Hexen and Dark Messiah. Its not a game, its a world. You are not a floating weapon hand, you are a living and feeling person!
In TES5, when I enter a tavern, I'd like to smell freshly baked bread, roasting pork, or spilled ale. Or even vomit, depending how classy a place I enter. In Mages Guild I could smell sulfur, ozon and something foul. The smell of leather and oil would float around in Armorers and Fighters guild, while blood and sweat would dominate the air of arenas. It would make the game world so much richer, with almost no effort at all. Wouldnt take a genius to implement that.
More on the visual surroundings. I need to see my own shadow, and my feet and body! Play Thief 3 through once, and you can never be fully satisfied with a game that doesn't have real shadows. If the NPCs would react to your shadow too, that would make sneaking much better and realistic. I'd much rather see dynamic shadows that are not that good, than live in a world without any shadows. Even now, 2009, I see big games pushed out with NO dynamic shadows. Unbelievable.
And NO battle music. It ruins every moment of surprise. People play with music turned off just because of that. And if a rat is stuck between a wall, why do we have to be told about it with trumpets? Regional and seasonal music, and personal like it was in TES2. Hollywood kind, epic music is a big turn off in a game. Eric Heberling would make alot better CRPG music than the guys you've seen trying to do it for the last ten years. The Witcher also had a great soundtrack.
3.6 Non-lethal combat
Killing. The only way to settle things in TES games. That has to change. You need to be able to:
-Teach NPCs manners or just plain humiliate them by beating them down
-Work as a hired thug, again just beating people
-Rob people without killing them
-Interrogate NPCs by overpowering them and then questioning
-Bring people to justice (why everyone has to die for stealing bread?)
How is this done? In Gothic 2, if you attack an NPC in a town, when they lose almost all HP they fall down. You have plenty of time to rob them, and their house. Or, finish them off, which is seldom a good choice. When they get up, theyre beaten and comment something accordingly. Several quests are about teaching someone manners by just knocking him off. Bystanders react only cheerfully when they witness a fight. If you go too far and kill, they report you.
I think that works very, very well.
One option would be possibility to open dialoque with fallen foe: choices to interrogate, let live, or kill him. Plus the quest related things to say: -Next time you try stealing from [random merchant] I wont be this gentle with you.
Non-lethal combat could be an automated thing, taking place when certain criteria is met. Or, it could be toggled on and off with one press of a key. If youre about to assassinate someone, you toggle it off. Alternatively, by default all blunt weapons could first knock the enemy out, then kill. So use a blade if you only wish to kill. Even more diversity for weaponry there.
3.7 Wildlife
Elder scrolls to this day: all animals attack you on sight, feel no pain, and will not rest until they or you are dead. They run forever after your horse in TES4, while animals, undead, daedra and humanoids all joined forces just to harass the player in TES2. Again, Gothic series succeeded making wildlife better ages ago. Take that as a guideline and make it so that:
-Animals flee or defend their territory, according to their person. Wolves, bears and deer stay away from you, usually. Hungry pack of wolves or a bear defending it's cub is different.
-Animals/beasts might taunt you off their territory and return to their business after you back off.
-Some predators will stop chasing you if they find an easier meal. Run past a deer carcass and the wolf chasing you loses interest in the two legged meal.
-Hunting something should be harder. No running to catch a deer. Prey have acute hearing and smell, so they WILL notice you before you're close enough to hit with a dagger.
-There is no way any ecosystem can sustain the number of predators seen in previous games. Solstheim, with a bear or wolf under every third tree? Same mistake is found in Gothic series and Risen. You basically fight your way through, no matter where you're going, and you end up carrying hundreds of wolf skins etc.
-Why would a rat keep biting your metal greaves and boots?
-Animals should have a different attack than just a clumsy animation. They jump ON you, and bite and claw. See Dead Space, how the enemies grab the player.
-Hurt prey should leave blood traces, especially on snow. Humans too of course.
3.8 Realism
-You sink in water. Especially when wearing heavy armor or carrying huge amount of stuff.
-You don't swim as fast as you run. Argonians maybe, but not others.
-Children DO exist.
-Gold DOES have weight.
-Money don't grow on trees.
-There are banks. You can buy houses from banks if you got the gold, without doing some stupid quests for them.
-Smithing, repairing objects, talking with people, alchemy, they all take TIME, instead of happening instantly.
-No one would really build towns an arrowshot away from each others.
-No one would call a village with 10 houses a town, even less, a city.
-The seasons really exist. You know, summer, fall, winter and spring?
-You can't run through a whole Tamrielic province in a couple of hours. Iliac Bay by boat took a week.
-You don't restore fatigue by running.
-You can't jump 12 meters, especially without a running start.
-Time scale should make sense, unlike it did in Oblivion and Fallout 3.
-You are not a floating weapon hand. Head bobbing, own body, own shadow, all should be present.
-If I manage to immobilize a small goblin by poison or magic, it shouldnt take me 2 hours to kill it. Or several hundreds of strikes in the skull.
-If there are 20 arrows piercing every single one of my vital organs, I shouldn't be running around anymore.
-My character shouldnt be able to hit a coin from 30 meters if he's never seen a bow before.
-Standing still for one hour should not heal me of my near lethal injuries.
-If I can kill a rat with one Flare spell when my Destruction is at 5, how come a same kind of rat takes 50 Flares when my Destruction is at 100?
-Global Positioning System, GPS, is not present in Tamrielic lore.
-When you've given a job or quest, they should usually expect you to finish it too, within a reasonable amount of time. Thus timelimits and ability to FAIL quests.
Also, it makes no sense you can ONLY lockpick doors and chests, without any alternatives but spells.
In TES5 you should have following options if you need to get a lock open, or enter a locked place:
Security: lockpicking and disarming traps
Weapon skills: bashing open chests etc, preferrably with blunt weapons to avoid damage on blades
Hand-to-Hand: kicking in doors
Alchemy: using acid to silently destroy locks
Alteration: casting open (and lock!) spells
Destruction: well... destroying the damn doors!
Pickpocket: getting your hands on the keys NPCs have on them
Speechcraft: lie or debate to get in places, like private homes in the middle of the night (knock first!)
Mysticism or what ever: Passwall, for exmple into that bank vault, and hope you're powerful enough to cast another spell to get out, too!
3.8.1. Toggle Realism options
Since there are several things about game realism that irks the casual gamers, let's make some of them togglable in the options menu. Here's what I've been thinking:
Options menu -> Realism
Toggle on/off :
Hunger effects
Thirst effects
Environment effects (if Skyrim, freezing to death)
Left handed character
Bleeding
Crippling
Move slider for:
Hours of sleep per day required
0-10
Damage multiplier on the player character/allies:
0.5 - 2 x
Damage multiplier on the enemies
0.5 - 2 x
Toggle on/off:
Lock the options for this character
Damage multipliers are not only the improved version of difficulty level, but also let you have more or less brutal melee according to your liking. Bleeding and crippling are almost like in Fallout 3. You just need to use Medical skill to splinter your bones or bandages to treat the wounds. Or according spells. I'd like to see more complex Restoration spells than ones just recovering HP. Mending bones, stoppping blood, that kind of thing. Blood stopping (hemostatic) powder could be made by alchemists, too.
Locking the options prevents you from abusing them in a tough spot.
The modders have made realistic eating/drinking/sleeping mods for both TES3 and 4. I think it's time for game developers to do it, instead of leaving it to modders.
And for those who keep saying that realism ruins the games, that games are not supposed to be like real life: Compare the fighting system of Mount & Blade to ANY other first person game, it's the best because it's the most realistic. Then, compare Richard Burns Rally to any other rally game, it's the best only because of the realism.
3.9 AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Examples of bad AI:
-Enemies like animals and some humanoids always attack on sight.
-When they attack, they never stop chasing you or return to patrol their area, even if they can't catch you.
-They are always willing to fight even if they have no chance of winning.
-When dying, they never surrender or flee.
-Other enemies in the group dont seem to care if one of them sees the player, yells and runs to fight him/her.
-Arrows and fireballs flying past an enemy's head and hitting the wall besides them doesnt alert them.
-Ally NPCs always run in front of you even when youre aiming with a bow.
-Once you go invisible, mages dont use detect life, fighters dont even try to hit the air where you stood, and animals dont smell you.
-NPCs always greet you in the streets. Sometimes the only person/thing they react to is the player.
-When someone thinks he saw something (a sneaking player) they always say something stupid like "I think I saw something" or "well, guess it was nothing"
-Your intelligent enemies like humanoids dont stay in groups or call for backup.
-If you hop on a rock, the enemy runs around helplessly until you've made a pincushion out of it.
Ideas to improve AI:
-Fix above.
3.10 Random quests
Why does Daggerfall have more replay value than later TES games? Because there's always something for you to do. Even if you never leave a city, some work always comes up, and you can be sent to do jobs in other cities or locations. In TES3 and TES4, you end up in a world where you've already solved everyone's every single problem.
You shouldnt be able to start the game and decide "I'll go and do these quests first, since they're easiests" like you can in TES3 and TES4. You can't think "Before buying stuff from him, I do his quests to get my disposition up" if there's no certainty that this particular person has some quests.
If nothing else, change the order of quests you complete for a faction. Or make it like in The Witcher: there is a notice board with jobs, and you can pick which ones to do and in which order.
I want the following to be possible in TES5 (like it is in TES2):
I can ask around if anyone knows any work possibilities. Maybe a random quest is generated to a random merchant. I'm directed to him. He offers me a job, and if I don't like it, I can refuse. (Like asking me to guard his shop for the night because Thieves Guild tries to get his stuff, and you are in the TG yourself). The quest usually has a dead line, since who would actually wait for his delivery from next town for months or years? Or, in TG example, you fail to be present the night the theft was happening. Then, when I either complete or fail the quest, it affects the NPC disposition and slightly the social group disposition. (Merchants around the area start trusting you more after enough jobs well done, while underground gets pissed at you when you're botched up enough of their jobs).
Maybe there's 1-2 random quests generated per day per area. Peasants have troubles or job offers, merhants too, and nobles and scholars. The guild quests would be the ones with best rewards, like a real salary. If you try to help everyone and solve every problem that is pushed on you, you just end up doing running errands for the rest of your life, since people are never out of small things to do.
One thing I really enjoyed in Mass Effect: After completing a huge number of irrelevant side quests, I said to the Admiral who was, again, sending me on some stupid errand, that I was trying to save the world here and he could shove it. Gave me great satisfaction, hearing his awkward mumbling, but unfortunately the quest still appeared in my journal.
3.11 Vampirism
Vampires used to be scary. I avoided contact with them, and the disease was more terrifying than the plague or corprus to me. That was before TES4, where vampires were more a nuicance than a threat. Every fight with one, bang, you get hemophilia. Luckily (sarcasm) you find enough cure potions to make the disease powerless (useless). So, vampires become yet another type of monster without any sense of threat or disgust. Curing the hemophilia right away is pointless, since you need to clear the whole cave of the vampires so you only need to gulp down one potion. Otherwise you need a potion per vampire...
So what would make vampires and vampirism more of a threat?
-Harder to catch the disease
-Harder to cure the disease
-Disease should be stealthy, you dont know about it instantly
-Becoming a vampire has huge disadvantages (lose all guild reputations and ranks, you die and wake up in a cemetary)
Vampirism is a curse, most of the players should feel the urge to avoid it. No matter if you're a thief, psychopath or assassin, still you dont want to be an inhuman beast!
Hope you managed to go through this all, and agree with at least some of it! And if you haven't tried TE2 yet, I urge you to. (Since now it's FREEEEE!)
P.S.
IF you, Bethesda, made TES5 to be the pinnacle of CRPGing of all times, you could keep making expansions after another, like some MMOs are doing atm (EVE, WOW and so on). Big expansions, not just DLCs. Expansions you buy on DVDs and get maps and stuff.
So if I was deciding of things, plainly on the monetary/commercial standpoint, I'd say delay the release as much as needed, finish the game, implement everything that would make it the BEST game ever (all this stuff here for starters), and kill the bugs. Then, even if it was too deep for some casual gamers, it would make huge amount of money when you release expansions every X-mas, and every summer (when no one else releases anything). The life span of the game would be something different from any other single player CRPGs, and that equals $$$ €€€ £££ !
And if the consoles can't handle all that, make it PC exclusive. Port afterwards if possible, when GOTY edition(s) are out, like you did with TES3:Morrowind. It's easy to see how PC exlusive (or games primarily made for PC) games are just... better.
Great post, Absint. I can't agree to all of it, but I can with A LOT. Especially the more 'realistic' approach and the better AI.
Also, on that note: it can't be all that difficult to have the shopkeepers actually have
1)a money system that actually makes sense (now, when you want to sell something of, say, 10000 gold, he says that he hasn't got enough money, but if you sell 2 objects of 8000 gold each after the other, he has no problems)
2)make other customers actually buy and sell stuff
3)even if point two would be too difficult, at least *give the impression* that stuff is being bought and sold: make a lot more variation in what is and isn't there, if a month later I come into the shop again. Now it basically all stays the same; that makes it too static.
Also, as a meta ecology/economy system: when enough animals of a kind are killed in a region (say, wolves), not only they should become more rare, but the assets you get from it (like wolf-pelts) should become more expensive in that region. Doesn't have to be all that complicated; easy programming would do (each 10% killing amounts to a 5% increase in value for the fur, for instance). This, of course, would also mean animals are not auto-respawn on the spot, of course (though there may be a slow respawning left).
As a whole that was one of the major problems I had with Oblivion; even with allk the vaunted radiant AI, it actually was much to static. I very seldom saw another character actually interact. The few times I did, were memorable; such as a hunter attacking a guard, or a thief getting chased and killed. That was fun, but it happened way to few times, and in the cities characters didn't really interact at all, except for some casual talk that didn't change anything in the game (though it was a good try in giving it *some* realism). But why there is so little real interaction, with, say, the shopkeepers? why not let at least one or two characters give the impression they actually 'better themselves'; for intance, a succesfull thief that manages to steal some things (even if it were only from dead people laying around), and improves himself with it (without relying only on the level-up better gear, btw). Sounds difficult, but even a crude simulation of it would help a lot, and isn't as difficult to program: for instance, when he walks past a dead body (those are recognised even in TES4, because they actually look at it) he automatically uses some invisibility/stealth spell of 100% (= this would eliminate any weird effects as described being difficult to counter with the AI system, since he wouldn't get 'seen' by the guards or anyone else) and steals everything of the corpse. then; everything that is better (more expensive for clothes etc., or more damage-points for weapons), he uses it instead of his old stuff. The old stuff, he sells to a shopkeeper. Repeat this every time. After a while, such a character will 'improve' himself too, and would introduce a nice change now and then, which wouldn't always be fully predictable - he could have found the dead body of a hunter at one time, giving him a bow, but if you would play it again, this may not happen at all).
As for the levelling itself. I've seen many comments pro and con for this, but I think Bethesda was basically right in implementing it - however, the *way* they implemented it was wrong. True; nothing worse, like in Morrowind, than to be hardly able to kill one lousy rat when you start, but one can kill even the strongest opponent with one swing of the blade at the end. Neither things are very compelling gameplay, and basically, it just causes frustration and boredom respectively. However, as some have pointed out - correctly - the way it is done In Oblivion doesn't make for very interesting gameplay neither. Sure, the opponents level up and keep being more resistant, BUT it does not make sense that, by level 10-12, every [censored] lowly pirate or robber and scumbag along the road has very expensive glass armour, or suddenly all got steel weapons, when none had before, etc. It derives from you the feeling that you're actually improving...which, if anything, is essential in an RPG. You have become stronger after many fights? Big deal, everyone has become equally strong at the same time, and always do. You have managed to get glass armour? Big deal; by then every lowlife has got some glass armature. your sense of advancement and accomplishment really gets a blow, there. Also, the levelling up-with-you doesn't make sense in respect to fighting middle- or 'endbosses'. For instance; it should not be possible for an inexperienced rookie at level 1 to beat the champion of the arena, and such. Not only does that not make any sense, it also deprives your feeling of accomplishment in another way, since it doesn't make clear that you actually *have* to improve (and to look forward to the time you ARE going to be able to beat him) before being able to deal with even the really strong opponents.
So, in essence, their idea was right, but the implementation wasn't. They should at least have made 3 different stages/levels where opponents are set in, and level up to a certain degree. For instance; low level crooks would start with the same level as you, and keep levelling up, untill you reach level 10, or so. Medium level crooks would start at level 2-3 where you had 1; this way, it would be hard to beat them from the very beginning, unless you had found some superior armature/weapons. After level 20 or so, they would stop auto-levelling with you, so you would have a good chance of beating them at around level 22-23 even with equal weapons. Then the high level bandits (or opponents, like the champion of the arena); they could start at level 3-6 where you would be at 1, making it next to impossible to beat them from the get-go. They would level up with you until they got around level 30, at which point you could actually start 'gaining' on them. This has the advantage above simply setting the champions at level 35 from the get go, since that would mean you never stand a chance, even with the deadliest gear, until you also reached that level. With setting them 3-6 levels higher and then auto-levelling with you, it makes it possible for you, when in comparison the levelling-difference isn't as dramatic anymore (1 to 5 has a bigger difference then 20 to 25), to actually be able to beat a stronger opponent if you have good armature and weapons, and the difference in skill is - comparitavily - not as big anymore. It would mean it's near impossible to beat an experienced fighter when you're a rookie, but you just *might* be able to beat him if you're reasonably experienced and have good gear (and/or luck ;-) )This would create some additional sense and variation of progress towards beating opponents, which would be far less static. (and more satisfying - also in/for the search of good lore).
Well, that were my minor gripes with Oblivion (was a good game though; put many hours in it). For the rest I thought your list was a good basis, and I wouldn't know what else to add. Except maybe introduce co-op for 4 players (NO MMO, please!). and things like better graphics and using directx11 capabilities, but that will be redundant, because I'm sure the guys of Bethesda are going to do that anyway.
good times. 
