i think there should be a spell that works as a spell that stops your enemies in a dramatic way. Like a curse. This spell would allow the player too torture his enemies. Or just have fun. What the npc would do is he/she would get hit by the curse but then would on her knees and say please no stop it kill me. or just scream. If a creature was hit by the spell then it would scream out loud and fall. Even a evil laugh would be nice extra too the character.Even the curse could be sent continuously in a stream of energy.

Also wands should be introduced into the game. like wands should act as focusers for the mage. But also the wand should be able too have its own magic. It should be able too regenenerate energy. It could have the ability to knock back or knock down an enemy when you tap the attack button. A stream of magic would come out that had one or multiple effects. Also wands should be able to block attacks and spells. But also when your blocking you could release magic that would push back your enemies. also when the wand is in block position it should act as a torch by leading the way.

Also bethesda more clothing designs should be introduced and would each be in different colors. Also veils and cloaks of many colors should be introduced too the game. also on top of my veil or hood i would like to add a crown or etc. I would love to have the same rbes that dumbledore wore in hp1 and hp6. I would also love to have the robes that syl and thadon had.

Also there should be buyable and empty lots in ESV. That would allow for customization of property, security, services, there should be the ability to add fences to the property, and design.

Also these properties can be used for commerce like put a shop there or an inn. And every week or month you would earn money. Also you could support your buisness by hiring a express boy/girl. Who would go on horseback to town to town spreading the word of your new establishment.

There should be a banking system.
When the character wants too make another staff wand or any other weapon.. There should be a screen that pops up and lets you add your name in gold, put designs. make your weapon surrounded by flame. They could add crystals and etc. it should also be shown to you in a screen where you could make your customizations and etc. then you would know what your getting then it would be delivered to you or your residence for free or a fee. For furniture thet you order it should be customized and you should pick where it goes.

Also characters should be allowed to have stocks. And characters should be able too buy empty lots in all the cities. and turn them into houses inns or shops. For the shops the character should be able too hire workers too sell items. the character should be able too buy ownable mines and extract the minerals from the mine and send it too your shops. Also the goods can be sent by caravan too your stores. Then they could turn them into whatever and you get money. also the workers should be essential

for the inns you would get a permit and build however on your lot. then you would open your buisness to the public by sending messengers to send good news about your inns or shops.

Also for the guilds i think one go through special quests meetings paperwork and leveling before you could become the next level.

Also there should be pets like a lion or dog or etc.

There should be pools of substantiation where you could make creatures like pheonixes or daedra.

The arcane university should be as big as a small town. Also it should have a giant greenhouse with most of the worlds ingredients.

Also players should be allowed to design there house. By choosing everything or by starting with a already made design. You could add a fence or huge gate. Add a guard dog or daedra. Or add regular guards. Add your own services. You could have a house in the woods. Add what you want including floor and etc. now this is for empty lots.

shape shapeshifting should be allowed also possessing beings but not spirits.

Also for the buisness just for fun a player could own his own strip club or prosttute house Where you would hire your dancers. Or prosttutes. You could build it to your customizations. and for fun you could have any race any gender. now it could be either gay or straight. Just for civil purposes.

sixual content should be allowed in the game.
Well on my idea about the properties. I think that it would be nice to buy empty lots and change them into inn,houses,shops and even a prosttute house.

In these properties you would custromize it by a design thats already done and you would decide on everything else.

For the inns as i said earlier you would hire a inn keeper and a maid. You would pay them once and thats it because they have a place too stay and something to eat. You would also get all of your money sent to your bank account. For the design you have already decided how many rooms you want in your house. The workers would be essential. Also you would get someone too spread the news about your buisness.

For the prosttute houses you would design it and you would get your money sent to your bank account. The prosttutes would be all of the races and each gender. You would either have it gay or straight it's by what you choose.The game has too be gay friendly for sales. Also you would have the prosttutes pay you there tips. You would also decide how many rooms you would have in the rooms.

For the house.
Players should be allowed to design there house. By choosing everything or by starting with a already made design. You could add a fence or huge gate. Add a guard dog or daedra. Or add regular guards. Add your own services. You could have a house in the woods. Add what you want including floor and etc. now this is for empty lots.

for the shops,
Also characters should be allowed to have stocks. And characters should be able too buy empty lots in all the cities. and turn them into houses inns or shops. For the shops the character should be able too hire workers too sell items. the character should be able too buy ownable mines and extract the minerals from the mine and send it too your shops. Also the goods can be sent by caravan too your stores. Then they could turn them into whatever and you get money. also the workers should be essential.





Also for a item. There should be a special cloak that when warn has light or shadows coming from it. But when you double jump it allows the wearer to be engulfed in shadow or light and fly. While you fly darkness or light comes from you in a stream. Also u have the ability to to do spells. But when you touch the ground you are normal, also when your attcked you fall to the ground.

A spell ive been thinking of is a spell that makes surroung walls of fire appear. but you need a wand. Then any threat near you will be attacked by streams of fire coming from the walls. But you musty try to hold it for as long as possible. Like in hp6.

Also they should have giant daedra or monsters roaming the forest. or some place.

also some shapeshifting would be nice please.

please do look at these ideas.

+10,000,000
I don't mean to down on oblivion at all (it is an amazing game) but it was NOT a well optimized game engine really 2gb cap ? but yeah for it's time (and even now) it's graphics are truly amazing. We thank you Bethesda.

If the game takes place in Skyrim, as rumored, give Nords the Thu'um. or at least have the last main quest quest be a giant battle, and some Thu'um master kills everyone with one shout.

Controls should change during combat: so you have more options while fighting. This would tie into the idea that if you hit someone in the head, it hurts more than in the arm.

If you get hit, you are temporarily frozen -- in real life if you get stabbed in the back of the head you can't just turn around and fight as if nothing happened.

Do start as a prisoner. it makes an elder scroll an elder scroll.

Give the elder scrolls a bigger part in this game. I think the only time you actually see a single Elder Scroll is in the Grand Heist.

cities should have thousands of NPCs, but not all have to be in depth. there could be a random NPC generator that every day made a certain amount of NPC's with one speech option explaining why they can't talk right now. I was disappointed that there were only 100 people in the imperial city. i killed them all besides the guards: they respawn.

Ability to rise through the political system.

Mages guild would require you to preform MAGIC.

More factions, LIKE IN MORROWIND

EDIT: NO LINEAR QUESTS! every single non-daedric quest should have multiple outcomes.

Morrowind armor system again.

My plot ideas:

You are a prisoner in skyrim. You have been in jail for 7 years, and nobody knows why. You lost all your memory becuase you were hit in the head by another inmate. The prison is taken over by Redoran forces, and because there is no trace where you come from, they let you go. You go through a tutorial at a redoran boot camp, and then have an option to A.) help The redorans repel the Nords B.) Help the Nords take over the Redorans or C.) run away.

Fatness should be a factor! Eg. the more you eat, the more you gain in weight. Couldn't it be fun? "You are too fat to enter this door! Lose some weight!" haha

Now that just made me laugh!!!!

Go see genie craig "to prevent copyright infringement"

I'd like the option to save high quality photos on ps3 that would be nice . So I don't have to use my camera. Also, a video recorder for 360 and ps3 later on would be nice.

Great Idea but hard to implement.
Even top of the range computers have some trouble with video capturing with graphics intensive mods. However maybe Bethesda can make a free console compatible-light weight version of fraps. Or better yet microsoft and sony could...

Navigation:
Here are a few compiled ideas on travel, finding your way around and the map. (Warning: Long post)
They are made of older posts but overworked and with some details added.



1: Fast Travel:
OK here's my take on fast travel again specially the traveling methods. For this keep in mind that the game world in mind is FAR bigger than the one in Oblivion.
A full trip on foot from the two furthest points of the map, taking the safe main roads, regular rest stop and normal walking speed take one in game week.


How you travel:
Just like in Daggerfall it could simulate your travel AND what you did on the way, if you traveled rigorously or carefully, if you kept traveling or did regular rest stops, if you took safe paths or shortcuts etc.
All those then simulate how much money or resources you used, how far you walked and also your condition in the end, it could happen that you got sick on the way and have to cure that first.

-The route you take:
Main roads: Only taking the main roads is the longest path but also the safest, you won't encounter bandits here and very rarely small creatures. Also most inns are along the main roads, however camping on main roads isn't tolerated.
Side roads: Taking side roads can be a lot faster as you can take shortcuts but it's less safe, some danger of bandits and wild animals. There are less Inns but you can camp out without risk of the guards threatening to arrest you.
Cross country: This can be the fastest method but also the most taxing and dangerous since you really go though the wild. You can only rarely stop at a inn and pretty much have to camp out to rest.

-Resting:
Inns: Most relaxing and regenerating, uses money.
Camp out: Takes more time since you have to set up camp and can be less relaxing, uses food OR requires you to hunt.
Travel on: You can also chose to travel on without rest, this however can mean you collapse on your way making you a easy target for bandits. This shouldn't be done if you're injured and have to travel for more than 2-3 days.

You could also chose to hurry which makes you a bit faster but is more taxing.


Travel methods:
-Walking:
Walking is by far the slowest method of travel, as mentioned it could take a full in game week to travel from one end of the map to the other. Here you have free choice what way to take and how you want to travel.
Plus you can really go everywhere since you're not limited to a path.

-Horseback:
Similar to walking but faster and you can regenerate more, though not fully since you still have to ride. Again pretty much free choice of how to travel but horses can't go everywhere, very remote and hard to reach places can only be reached on foot or under special conditions.

-Travel service:
A bit slower than by horse and you're bound to their conditions, if they stop for the night it means you stop for the night too and. However you can fully regenerate since you can treat injures and get food on the way.
However you can jump off a travel service anytime too.

-Hitch a ride:
Similar to travel service, only here you don't have much control over where they go, they can pretty much just take you the same way they go.

-Mages guild teleporter:
By far the fastest method but limited to big mages guild halls so you can only get to certain locations and most likely the most expensive one. However if you can skip ? of a trip that way it's a good alternative.

-Teleportation devices:
Again like in Morrowind, scrolls, items and spells that can teleport you between set locations like a marked spot or temples/churches.

-Other teleporters:
It's also possible that other teleporters are scattered throughout the land like the Propylon chambers in Morrowind. Of course those would only have fixed locations, some of them could even reach to secret places like deep underground, on a mountain you normally cant reach or that have no other entrances.


What can happen:
First off you should NOT die or lose valuable items while fast traveling, it should not be a punishment. However you can use money, food and your equipment can be quite worn after a long trip.
Not to mention you can arrive quite exhausted and even injured. You can also catch diseases and infections on the way but again, you won't die on the way.
What CAN happen though is that the trip is too exhausting and you collapse leaving you as easy prey for anyone coming along.

During a bandit attack you could get a message, either chose to pay and go on, resist and fight or switch from travel to normal game and try yourself at it. Paying however wouldn't automatically mean you get out of it free.
Trying yourself at it also allows negotiating, maybe you could talk him out of it.
As mentioned if you travel on the protected main roads you will NOT run into bandits but it's the longest and also most expensive method since you have to take breaks in inns. Camping on the main roads is forbidden which could get you arrested and end up in the nearest prison.

When you lose a fight during fast travel you don't die but your fast travel is aborted, how you end up then depends on where it happened. Near a settlement there's a chance you awake in a hospital, a guard station, church/temple or if someone decided to take you in.
On the roads it's likely a guard finds you and wakes you up, most of the time they'd offer taking you to the nearest settlement except if you already managed to make yourself a quite bad name. However even in that case it's likely they won't just leave you out to die, after all they can still collect a bounty.
If you where further in the wild you'd wake up at some point near your path of travel beaten and injured but still able to patch yourself up.

Also one thing, if you want to go to certain locations OFF the main roads it pretty much demands to either go on foot OR choosing cross country.

When camping it can also depend on your gear, just camping with nothing is least relaxing as you pretty much sleep in the dirt, carrying a pillow makes it a bit better, then getting a bedroll, sleeping bag or even a tent.


Kinds of travel:
Of course what the trip looks like could differ too, here are a few ideas:

Long way methods:
-Fade to black:
Pretty much the way it was in Oblivion and Morrowind, you faded out and then appeared at your target location. When you appear again you can look in your statistics which show what happened on the trip.

-Map-travel:
When you start your trip your map is displayed and the path you take is highlighted, you can see yourself follow that path marking down rest stops and encounters and can skip out of it any time.

In fact of these two methods the map-travel could be standard and you can just chose “skip trip” and instantly appear on your target location.

Mid and short way methods:
-Road sign travel:
With this travel method it should be possible to click road or street signs and choose to travel to the locations they point to.
You remain in normal view of the game and walk along the chosen path with time speed up about 10x (environment details could be reduced to minimum so the game lags less). Again you could skip out of it anytime and see when there are encounters.
Inside of towns the speed up would be at about 4x so you can see the surroundings better (and the walkways are usually shorter anyway). You should be able to set the travel speeds in the game settings.

-Walk to location:
Of course one possibility is auto walk in real time. This would be useful if you simply didn't feel like steering your character all the time along a trip but still want to get some scenery.
You simply chose a point/destination on your map and select “go there” and your character will start the trip.
This is mostly useful on very short distances like a trip across town but can be done over any distance. Here you could freely switch between walk and run and also enter your inventory freely.

In both your character is simply controlled like a NPC following a main path.
Since those methods are a tad slower they are only really useful between or through towns but of course can also be used to cross the whole map.

Also, if you get into an encounter here, so your character KNOWS he is attacked, you could chose that the game automatically switches to pause. After all it could happen that you just let your character walk and left the room quickly, would svck if you got attacked and killed during that.


Why walk then?:
Now the big question is “why should I walk?”.
There where some BIG issues in Oblivion that just screamed to use fast travel, those need to be addressed in order to to encourage walking. The biggest ones where:

-Boring landscape:
All in all the landscape was just bland and repetitive, it simply got boring to walk the ways all the time. Plus if you saw one ruin/cave of a type you saw ALL of that type so why should you actively look for them?
--Solution:
Well, obviously to make better landscapes, check the Unique Landscapes mod since it really did WONDERS. More area diversity would help too.
Plus, Oblivion had a lot of “empty” landscapes like behind Kvatch... honestly, there was nothing except for a dungeons and monsters thrown in between the plants. Don't leave such empty spot, there can be some that are purely for scenery porm but not just EMPTY.
And of course more dungeon diversity so every visit in one is a new experience.

-To few settlements:
While there where a lot of dungeons there there barely any small settlements (and the ones that where there are absolutely tiny).
--Solution:
There needs to be a big change to them, Towns actually NEED to be bigger and look like towns, the size they had in Oblivion should the minimum you can still call a town.
Then there needs to be a bigger distance between major and capitol towns with smaller settlements in between, not just single inns in the middle of nowhere.

-Nothing to do:
Honestly, there was nothing to do in the land (where are the naked Nords?). You probably just walked the way from town to town and that's it.
--Solution:
With the previously mentioned “more settlements” you could of course have more places with people, meaning more possible quests.
AND a big point, there should be random quests, something like “could you help me with that” or small jobs like helping someone harvest a field or go hunting. Many of the rewards there instead of just gold or some ?ber item could be something like a favor like “come have dinner with me” or “you can sleep at my place this night, be my guest” or hell just “if you ever need help, come to me”.
Those jobs could also be given to you by people traveling the streets... oh yea talking about that point.

-Streets where empty:
Aside a few guards now and then the streets where dead, there was just NOBODY around.
--Solution:
Well obviously have travelers on the streets.

-Annoyances:
While a lot of people say “there should be more dangers on the way” they very quickly became an annoyance rather than a challenge, specially stuff like mountain lions that could kill you in 2 seconds and the Will-o-the-Wisps you couldn't kill with any ordinary weapon.
--Solution:
There can be stuff on the way but the MAIN roads should remain safe so you DO have a path without big dangers or at least under better surveillance.

-Missions are to spaced:
In Oblivion (and honestly in Morrowind too) missions sent you too far across the map. Even the tiniest fetch quest demanded you to go from one end to the other. This just made you walk the same roads over and over and over.
--Solution:
Most missions should be in the nearer area of where you got them, in bigger towns most of them would even be within the city limits.
So basically the mission goals you get are within a sane distance and IF they are further they are actually WORTH it.
Also missions should be done in a way that you can stay in a area for a while since there's either enough to do or the mission actually requires some time invested into it.

If you add all those together you get something that encourages actually walking your way.
You can have wonderful stuff to see, when finding something interesting it's actually something new.
You can actually find more places with people who can give you smaller stuff to do on the way to fill your pocket and stomach a bit. Plus you can actually make friends and increase your reputation. Or simply stay in a place a bit before continuing on your way to your ultimate goal.
And on the way, if you get tired of walking, you could ask people with horses or carts to take you along possibly in real time OR fast forward.
Or maybe talk to people on the way, do trading or travel with them.

All this would make the streets a LOT more interesting to walk instead of just choosing to skip the trip. So Fast Travel is neither fully necessary nor a punishment, you only miss out on the stuff that's in between.

On a little side note though, while in Morrowind you had to go through several loading screens while fast traveling and possible none on foot to reach your destination in Oblivion you just had to go through ONE during fast travel but several when walking normally.
Possible that this encouraged people to use this more.



2: Map:
The map should not be hard to use, it should actually be as convenient as possible.
Sure some people will say “It's more realistic if you can't see your exact location”, “RL you don't have a paper map that automatically follows/updates” and the like. While I don't really disagree on some degree, I have to say there should be more a point of user continence here. Plus you could take it that the map represents what the character KNOWS so he can point you location and add/take away things in his mind.
However since a lot of people like to play they way THEY want it I will go for the old but not necessarily wrong “make it an option” point.

Anyway, first off on the general map ideas:

Map handling and setup:
-Map details:
There should be different steps of detail for the map depending on how well it's explored.
Raw map: This map just shows some topography so mainly just mountains, valleys and rivers. This is pretty much the map you have right after starting.
First view map: When you look around the map in your visual range is automatically updated (the higher your position the better). It shows more details like main roads and bigger settlements.
Sketched map: When buying maps you can update yours with them, this map has a few more details including ones that aren't initially obvious or very hard to find so it might pay off to buy maps from time to time.
Explored map: This has the most details since you explored it going as far as showing every entrance and door you discovered. This could be updated in a radius of maybe 25 meters around you since it's everything you can see more detailed.
In the dark you can still recognize things and the map update is limited to maybe 5 meters, in TOTAL darkness it's limited to touch range (about 1 meter around you).
Details like doors are added on that view distance too but they also have to be in your line of sight so doors behind a wall are not automatically added.


-Detail levels:
The map itself should of course be freely zoomable but there should also be the possibility to switch between different detail levels. That way the large map wouldn't be too clustered by small details.
However the switch between them shouldn't happen automatic but rather manual as it can get annoying to zoom out and suddenly getting a different map popping up where the thing you looked for might not be visible.
World map: Just a rough area of the map that shows the borders of the land and main areas as well as some bigger details (mountains, valleys, large rivers, major settlements/landmarks and main roads). At standard zoom level the whole world map is visible.
County map: A step closer showing all small settlements as well as smaller landmarks and roads within a county around major towns. The zoom level here is at standard about as far in so you have a whole county in view at once.
Town map: Here every individual building of a town is visible on your map as well as their entrances (assuming you explored the town enough of course). As this step a medium sized town (about the size of Balmora in Morrowind) would be fully in view.
Building map: The closest zoom step, here, if you'd be inside a building, every small detail within it would be displayed (again assuming you explored it though).


Map mechanics:
-Zoomable:
The map should be freely zoomable as mentioned before, sometimes it's better to have a more detailed smaller section in view, sometimes you need to have all at once in view.
You could zoom freely with your mouse wheel or with predefined zoom steps (world, far, near...).

-Markers:
Aside the automatic markers you should be able to set manual markers too and also name them. Morrowind made a good step there after the expansions, sadly you could only see them on the close up map and not the world map but that was due to the cell system they used.

-Highlight markers:
Aside being able to set markers you should also be able to highlight already existing ones and write a note to them as well.

-Marker image:
Hacing a choice of different marker images (like google earth for example) would be nice too, for your own markers but also for preset markers.

-Design:
Personally I'd like to see something like the “satellite map” from Morrowind return, it was simply better to add new landmasses that way since it was automatically updated without need to make a new map entierly.
Plus you could also have auto-maps of uncharted areas, after all the Oblivion realms didn't have maps but sometimes could have needed them.
It would be best if the map was converted to a vector image, that way you could endlessly zoom in without it becoming pixelated or swallowing too much RAM for a high rez image. It would lose detail after a bit of course.

-Building maps:
A problem in Morrowind was that it always just made a image of the building you where in from above which meant you always just see the topmost floor. It should be able to detect your current hight and display several layers, that way you could have several floors within the same cell and not have them get in the way.
Easiest way there would be to simply have the map in 3D and you could scroll up and down. Also if it's a really real time map it would also update changes to the environment like changed furniture position.

-Defining areas:
When constructing a new area or (re)defining a existing one you shouldn't be limited to just placing a marker or renaming a cell.
You should actually be able to “define” a region on it, for example draw a border around a forest and when hovering you cursor over it it actually says “X cell name + X forest”. Like that you could also place regions within regions like “X cell name + X forest + X hidden shrine” and just layer them like in a vector document.
This can also be expanded to defining a property within a town or different rooms within a house.

-Knowing areas:
While you could update your map when looking over the landscape (specially from a elevated position) and mark the positions of settlements in view, they would simply be marked with relatively general terms.
A town would simply be labeled “town”, a village would be labeled “village” or a farm just “farm”. However when you go there the proper names are added like “Hillside farm” and when you got on the grounds and explored a bit also sub-areas like “Hillside farm – Crop fields / Main building / Stables...”.

-Map designs:
One more thing that would be helpfull is being able to switch between map designs, you could have a full color map but also switch to a vectors only map which might be easier to view in some situations.

As a small side note, PLEASE don't just say “no map notes” because it's to hard to write them on consoles. Adding notes is still useful and could maybe have some predefined ones too like “explore here”, “stash”, “gold”, interesting” etc.


Map options:
-Different mini map settings:
I already talked about this in another thread, here you should be able to set up how you want the mini map. Some possible designs can be:
Off: No mini map displayed.
Rectangular map: Like in Morrowind..
Round map: like for example GTA or Guild Wars.
Turn option: Chose if the map remains fixed always facing north or if it turns with your movements so on the map your character always faces up.
Compass separate or docked: You could chose to have the compass either as a separate item on screen or docked around your map.
Docking other things to the map: You could also chose to dock a clock/daytime display to your map instead of having it as a separate element. It could simply show a sun and moon going around your map which displays time for example.

-Legend:
Since the map got hopelessly cluttered after a while you should be able to turn elements of the legend on and off as you want.



3: Quest compass:
First a little explanation, a map marker is a marked position on your map and the compass just points to a highlighted marker. The others remain inactive until highlighted.

The quest compass could still be present similar to how it was in Oblivion but with a few changes.

Narrowing it down:
Instead of directly pointing you to your goal it always points to the next goal your character KNOWS about. To explain it better, think of this:

You have to find a certain person and only know the general area where he lives but neither the town, street or house. In that case the compass will point to center of the area or the capital of that area, so you roughly know where you have to search.
Then, after asking around a bit, you might know what town/village he lives in, the compass will then point to that town but again not where EXACTLY he lives. Asking around further you might learn the street or exact address which will place a marker there.
However the person still might not be there but you can gain further info, where he works (will place a marker at his workplace as well) or where he usually eats (places another marker there). That way you can narrow down where that person MIGHT be, at times where he's usually at that place the corresponding marker will be highlighted.


Showing the exact position:
There is a possibility for the marker directly showing your destination when you exactly know where something is OR if the target is in your direct line of sight.
It's hard to recognize a person on a computer screen but your character can, when a person you seek is in your line of sight and close enough he can have a marker since your character can see him now. Similar for objects you're looking for, when they are in your line of sight they can be highlighted.
That way you could also spot a NPC or target over larger distances through a telescope for example.


So basically instead of directly pointing to your goal it simply narrows it down more the more exactly you know where you have to go. If you know the area it will point to the areas center, if you know the closer area it will point more exactly to that point and if you know exactly where it WILL point exactly there, that includes directly seeing it.
And once you pinpointed a location it will set a marker there.


Setting the compass yourself:
You could still set a marker manually and then make the compass point towards it. That way you can manually pin a location like something you want to explore later on or already know that something is there.


Temporary locations:
There might also be the possibility to have a “faded” marker, for example when following a person the faded marker will show at the last position where you saw him or where people last saw him, if too much time passes that marker might even go away.


Finding dropped items:
I also had a thought on finding objects again, once you picked up a quest object and then KNOW it is one (once you get the mission to get it) it WILL show a marker on your map even after you dropped or sold it.

Now while many will say “that's quest guiding again” hear me out. First of it does NOT set a marker until you found the object itself, it will only do so afterwards.
What this does is add a safeguard so you can't accidentally give away or lose a quest item. When you look for it again the marker will remain at it's last know position, if you dropped it somewhere look near that place, if you sold it the trader will be shown.

What this is for is mostly one thing, prevent a lot of frustration.
In Morrowind it happened a lot that you just out of curiosity cleared a dungeon, found a seemingly normal item and either sold it or dropped it while cleaning out your inventory. And later found out it was a important quest item and is now lost forever.
This is what the system can at least to a big part prevent, you CAN find the lost item again since you REMEMBER it.

It could still be added that a quest item can't be destroyed (dismantled, molten, broken down...), while that would be a pretty strong hint that this is a important object it's still more subtle than a text message bluntly telling you it is.
Oh and if you dropped it in a place where you can never get it again like a lava flow, that REALLY is your own fault then .

I think the game could be improved greatly if Bethesda made the game much more interactive, but in a way in which character individuality could be created.
For example, creating mulitple dimensions of fighting (hand-to-hand, dextrous short-blade, unarmored knife fighting, heavy weapon combat, etc). Such gameplay could be made very complicated and engaging when two similar fighters are engaged, but nonetheless interesting when two different combat styles are combined.

make the game on a new engine plz. like daggerfall to morrowind.

What do you have against the Oblivion engine?

**** peta im talking about armor

They will most likely be using DX11 and at least DX10 with a vastly updated gamebryo engine as well as many other vastly improved things so it will be a large upgrade. They don't really need to switch engines Gamebryo is awesome for modding and modding is a huge part of the TES franchise. Even if they switched to a different engine even a moddable one community modders would have to relearn how to mod which takes a long time. It seems counterproductive to me

My bad didn't even see your first post about the matter. I understand now. I'm asking Bethesda to bring back factional reputation and social group dispositions, and asking more than that might be pointless...


You always wear leather or similiar inside chain mail. Any hit to the chainmail can drive parts of the rings in your flesh, and them being rusty/oily, you don't want that. So it protects you from your own armor, not so much from the enemy weapon. Sure a thick woollen cloth or other might do it if you're too much of a dirty hippie.

I'll bet on DX9 being available for a while yet. XP still represents too much of the userbase. Windows 7 could change that substantially, or not.

I mean, Fallout 3 still uses the same Shader 2.0 package on my DX10 card that Oblivion did. So even Shader 3.0 would be an "upgrade" of sorts. There's no reason to expect that Bethesda would go straight to DX10 shaders unless the demographics pretty much say "all of your XP userbase is moved to/moving to Windows 7 soon".

I'm not sure why but having a game with high system demands seems to draw people to a game like flies to a light at night. Look at why crysis sells. Ooh pretty graphics, Theres that whole thing of "My computer can run crysis". Hell I know people who use it as a benchmark :shakehead:. Although with most TES games you have Ooh look at the pretty graphics... wait they're nothing compared to the gameplay and roleplaying elements. Both Morrowind and Oblivion had some of the best graphics when they came out and I expect it to be the same next time round.

I could totally write a full list of things to add here, but the general things I want to see include:

Atmosphere:
No, not general aesthetic, I mean I want something that makes a really unique and interesting world. Now, I've only personally played Morrowind and Oblivion. Oblivion, I found to have a very pretty world, with all of the state-of-the-art graphics techniques and whatnot. It was a very pretty world, but something about it just seemed... Dull. It was your run-of-the-mill fantasy setting. I think the only thing that Oblivion managed to outdo Morrowind in, in terms of atmosphere, was that it had a much wider climate range, with snowy northern areas, as well as tropical southern areas... But because you had quick travel (which, I know I have a choice of whether or not to use, but of course, if I travel manually, my game tends to crash in like two hours in.) None of that could really be admired. In Morrowind, you always had a chance to travel around by foot, and while it was sometimes inconvenient, it was also really cool; you got to pass by deep ravines, with weird creatures you've never seen before, such as Kwama, or Netch, or perhaps some Cliff Racers (god forbid), but regardless, everything in Morrowind was just so masterfully set up in terms of creating a really unique setting; Odd adobe-styled buildings in some places, some Classic Medieval style seen in Imperial fortresses and ports, Some extremely interesting plantlike architecture seen in some mage guild areas, and of course, Vivec is just magnificent, and because the exterior of the city is continuous, you could really admire the size of it. Something that really seemed lost in the Imperial City in Oblivion. True, logically, it'd be huge, but the fact it was broken up into separate sections, all of which could practically be individually fast-traveled to, really cut down on the illusion of size of the city.

In short, in Morrowind, you never knew what to expect; Strange Dunmer adobe, or perhaps some Imperial Fortresses. Obsidian Daedric ruins, or Steampunk Dwemer ruins (which were easily the most awesome things to come by in my opinion; as soon as I came across one of their ruins, I instantly wanted to know more about who the heck they were). In Oblivion, there was no real underlying variety; everything was typical, western-european castles and such. This will either be a lot easier, or harder to accomplish, depending on where TESV is really going to take place...

Combat expansion:
There's several facets to what I want to see done here;

1. Re-expand the weapon choice.
One of my least favorite things about TESIV was that there were so many weapon types cut from the game; no spears, no crossbows, no halberds, no throwing knives, darts, stars... You get the picture. Of course, I clearly see that it was sort of a trade off for how weapons operated in TESIV; the animations used for two-handed weapons there would look extremely awkward when a spear is involved. So, that's the first and foremost thing I'd like to see come back; a full range of weapon types. Not only because of a little extra characterization it could offer, but it also plays directly into my 2nd part of combat expansion:

2. Introduce combat styles.
Not everyone fights the same way with a longsword; that should be reflected in TESV: Creating different styles of combat for different characters, which can focus on various strategies in combat. Depending on your skill, you can learn different charge attacks, each of which can be put into slots that correspond to the default charge attacks. So, for example, a master long blade user who didn't adopt any special styles would have the default settings:

Stationary Charge: Strong attack with extra damage.
Side Charge: Disarming spin blow.
Back Charge: Knockback twirl.
Front Charge: Paralysis forward charge.

However, as one progresses along in their quest and becomes more skilled, characters can sometimes come across various trainers that are especially skilled in the usage of a certain style of combat. Or, perhaps, at the start of a game, you can choose what style you might want if you have enough skill in using a weapon. Regardless, at any skill level, any charge attacks can be interchanged with different techniques, and depending on your skill level, the effects of these techniques can either be more or less debilitating.

There could also be extra slots for other situations, such as jumping attacks and sneak attacks, which can further increase the variation.

So, for example, here's a style that could hypothetically be used for a journeyman long blade user, focusing on attack:

Stationary: Slay; a straight stab that can instantly kill an enemy if they are below 25% health, or are stunned.
Side: Strafe Twirl; character moves sidways while spinning the blade around him; this hits all enemies around you multiple times, knocking them back slightly, while also moving you sideways.
Back: Lunge; A fencing-style lunge with some incredible range. No real special effects to the attack aside from that.
Forward: Crazy dash; Character wildly swings sword in front of him while charging forward; this causes knockback to hit enemies, and can juggle them through the air for each successful hit.
Jump: Falling slash; A powerful slash that brings a downward slash unto an enemy, flooring them and doing good damage.
Sneak: Low Stabs; a trick maneuver that bypasses blocking; the user crouches down, and proceeds to deal a lot of quick stabs to the legs of the opponent, reducing speed temporarily, and, again, bypassing any block that might be in action. It doesn't do a terribly high amount of damage, though.

Here's perhaps, an apprentice mace user that actually has a pretty cleverly set up set; it focuses on stunning the enemy, and then using powerful, slow attacks to deal massive damage. Interestingly, he also uses a few attack styles from other attack schools. In this case, he has one from an unarmed school as his forward charge attack.

Stationary: Smite; a very powerful overhand smash; takes a long time to execute, but does incredible amounts of damage, and will instantly knock down whomever it hits.
Side: Backhand mace; deals a quick backhand lash at the head of the enemy; a good hit will stun them for a while.
Back: Leaping crush; character will leap forward, and land with a powerful overhand mace smash to the ground. Does average damage in normal situations, does twice the damage when an enemy has been knocked down.
Forward: Elbow charge; character will run forward as long as the mouse button is held; while this is done, enemies will get knocked to the side by the attack, taking average damage. This is actually sort of useful as an escape tactic, as opposed to a legitimate thing to be doing in combat.
Jump: Descent smash; Another fairly situational technique; this causes the user to prepare a powerful ground pound that can throw enemies nearby the user's landing position off-balance, stunning or knocking them down. Enemies caught in midair by this attack will get carried to the ground with it, and be dealt extra damage.
Sneak: Skysender; an underhand attack with the mace that rises from crouching position to deal a very devastating attack that launches enemies into the air. Much like Smite, it takes a long time to set up.

Third example, this time with a spear! This setup uses the range of the spear as a distinct tactical advantage. Once again, this setup uses a technique from a different weapon school.

Stationary: Rapid shaft; deals a slew of quick stabs with the spear, knocking the enemy backward and off balance.
Side: Ward strike; a quick and last-ditch attack effort; basically, since the spear really isn't a slashing weapon, this attack comes out as a really quick swing of the spear, which can sometimes knock down an enemy.
Back: Retreating strike; A fairly close-ranged spear stab, which does more damage the closer an enemy is to the user; the outcome of this attack connecting is the enemy stumbling backwards, out of melee range.
Forward: Advancing strike; This is the opposite of the retreating strike, with the user doing an extremely far-ranged lunge with the spear. This does more damage the further away an enemy is from the user, and can sometimes disarm the enemy.
Jump: Falling kick; kicks out with both legs in midair. This causes extreme knockback to an enemy, easily knocking them out of melee range. Of course, the user is left prone shortly after this attack is used.
Sneak: Leg Pierce; this attack deals out a low stab for the legs, reducing enemy speed for a while.

Finally, a defensive, master-level setup for Long Blade.

Stationary: Cleaver; powerful, two-handed, overhand slash to an enemy, which can kill enemies instantly if they're at 25% health or lower.
Side: Dodge-Counter; a situational attack that is, nonetheless, powerful. When used in default, the user will simply appear to sidestep out of the way. If an attack is thrown at him while he's sidestepping, however, he will then return blows with a very powerful slash that can paralyze the enemy.
Back: Parry-Counter; similarly to the Dodge-counter, by default, the user will simply make a parrying motion. If this connects properly, however, the user will begin a fast chain of slashes, which can be further maintained by rapidly clicking the mouse button.
Forward: Windcutter; Causes the user to charge straight through the enemy with their blade. This can cause paralysis, and will kill an enemy instantly if they are at 15% health or lower.
Jump: Aerial ripper; If this connects properly, it initiates a long chain of attacks on the enemy that continues until the user and enemy have hit the ground.
Sneak: Halving slay; powerful, two-handed side to side slash to an enemy; kills an enemy if they are either at 10% health or lower, or will always guarantee death if the enemy is not facing you.

So, as you can see, utilizing something like this creates an interesting case of mixing and matching attacks from various different styles of weapon usage. In themselves, the attack schools for each weapon are self-contained, and are fairly practical in their own right, but in many cases, it can be a lot more effective to choose some of the best moves from different schools. Also of note in these different attack schools is that the charge attacks for each different directional action are obtained at different levels; a defensive style would most likely get its back charge attack before its stationary charge attack; an assassin's attack style would probably get a sneak power attack before anything else, and of course, a spear attack style would most likely get its side power attack last.

So, to summarize, the system can be divided up into unique attack styles, with various different attacks for each directional power attack slot, for each weapon:

Long Blade (1h)
- Longsword
- Broadsword
- Katana
- Rapier
- Bastard Sword
Long Blade (2h)
- Greatsword
- Bastard Sword
- Katana (depending on how one wants to use it)
Short Blade
- Dagger
- Knife
- Short Sword
Blunt (1h)
- Warhammer
- Mace
- Flail
Blunt (2h)
- Great Hammer
Spear/Polearm
- Spear
- Halberd
Axe (1h)
- War axe
Axe (2h)
- Greataxe

And for each of these weapon types, there would be various different schools that focused on various tactics used in battle:
- Offensive
-- Overwhelming; fast, glancing attacks.
-- Overpowering; slow, devastating attacks.
-- Crowd control; provides maximal effectiveness when fighting multiple enemies.
- Defensive
-- Disabling; reducing or stopping enemy action.
-- Mobility; getting the most movement and range out of an attack action.
-- Countering; reacting to enemy action.

And that would be that. Perhaps, some unique styles introduced for each subset of weapon; such as an assassin's attack set for Short swords or daggers.

Of course, in the midst of all this, there is also hand-to-hand combat. And as displayed earlier, hand-to-hand skills can actually be really useful for any warrior type, even if they do use a weapon. Why? Hand to hand combat skill sets are very widely spread, extremely versatile, and can be used to cover up weaknesses that might be observed in a purely weapon-based attack layout. Generally, attack types from Hand to hand that focus on punching can't be used while you also have a weapon in your hands, but as for kicking, it's mostly free-game! Also, because of the wide range of hand-to-hand styles offered, the number of attack type skill sets sort of makes up for the fact that there aren't really any weapons for that skill set.

A final part to this, that is actually quite rudimentary to implement, I'd say, is that...

3. Remove chance, replace with skill.

Face it, in Oblivion, you sort of failed to properly implement combat. Despite there certainly being a glimmer of skill in combat in that game, with blocking and charge attack elements being introduced, at heart, the game was all up to chance; chance of getting stunned by an attack, chance of countering an attack with a shield blow, chance of paralyzing your enemy, or knocking them down... That sort of cheapens the experience, I'd say...

So, replace that with skill. Make everything happen 100%, or 0%; stuns will always happen with this attack type, knockback is always dealt by a backwards power attack, a sideways power attack always disarms the enemy...

Now, now hold on! What are you, nuts? The game would be broken if that's the case!!

Perhaps, but to alleviate that, there would be extra elements of spice introduced into the mix to balance it all out:

- Dodging
Back in Oblivion, there was practically no easy way to dodge; if you had 50 or more acrobatics skill, you could roll all over the place to, hypothetically, dodge things. It was speedy, true, but it didn't work all that well; it did practically nothing to defend yourself from ranged attacks, and because it caused you to move so far, it rarely had any usage in up-close combat... Except maybe if you have a really sensitive mouse, but that's besides the point.

In addition to this, you could only do this if you had 50+ acrobatics.... Something that rarely anyone ever reached. In fact, I can recall many people asking me on YouTube video's asking me if I was using a mod that enabled me to dodge, so it wasn't a very accessible skill either. How to alleviate it, though, is quite simple; create a default dodge for all characters; all one would have to do is hold down the guard button, move a certain direction, and press the jump button. Instead of totally flipping out and rolling on the ground across 10 feet or more, the character will simply, but promptly, jerk their body out of the way, causing incoming attacks to miss. Side dodges tend to be the most effective for default attacks. For spinning or all-encompassing attacks that hit from all angles, a back-step backwards dodge is the best. The forward-dodge is actually a parry, which enables the user to stun an enemy that threatens you with an attack. In fact, if one has a high enough block skill, this parry actually becomes the shield smash, and can be used at any time as a quick stunning attack.

So, what becomes of the somersaults and fancy-pantsy stuff of Oblivion dodging? Well, if you get high enough in acrobatics, the ability becomes available again, but instead is activated by jumping twice instead of once; so, first click, a default dodge will be done, and the 2nd time, a fancier dodge-flip will be performed. Unlike the default dodge, which only moves the hitbox of the user to the side, the dodge-flip eliminates the entire hitbox, effectively making it a viable way to avoid incoming fire from archers and marksmen.

To put it simply, dodging becomes a bread-and-butter way to ensure victory in oblivion; it's quick, avoids all incoming damage, any character can do it (though, some better than others; obviously, wearing heavier armor will make dodging harder, and having a higher dexterity certainly helps a lot), and sets up very well for a counter attack.

- Blocking
Whereas blocking randomly got broken by some attacks, I feel there should be a sort of measure of how much blocking can be done; basically, if you're below a certain percentage of stamina in battle and you attempt to block, you will always fail, and your block will be broken. This percentage is generally determined by your block skill. Otherwise, your blocks will always work (against certain attacks; some attacks might be designed to break blocks), and endurance will be drained for each hit sustained.

- Disarming
I just want to bring this up; being disarmed is the most annoying thing ever; you drop your weapon, aim the camera down, press spacebar a couple of times to pick it up (which is a button you're usually not going to be pressing in the middle of combat...), go into your inventory, remap your re-picked up weapon to the proper hotkeys (don't quote me on that, though. I haven't played Oblivion in a while), re-equip stuff, and then get back to fighting... Just having to look down to pick up your weapon again is enough of a hassle to be potentially dangerous, especially if all percentages are removed and things generally have 100% chances of working. So, in order to alleviate that problem, I say that, if you get disarmed in combat, the weapons that were knocked from your hands should instantly be retrievable by simply clicking on them with the mouse (instead of pressing space and all that jazz), wherein the weapon will be put right back in your hands, hotkeys will be remapped, and you'll be good to go... Hopefully, if you aren't dead yet.

- Contests?
In the case of disarming, I feel that, in some cases, there should be a sort of 'contest' mini-game introduced into the mix if you get hit by a disarming power attack; since the attack is theoretically going straight for the weapon and not for its user, there should be a test that should be put up against the person hit by the power attack; the weapons of the fighters are locked against one another; it's purely up to strength and determination now to see who prevails in this situation. Basically, here, what you will want to do is rapidly tap the mouse button to keep strength going. If you manage to overcome a contest, the enemy will be thrown off you, and will be stunned for a duration as they stumble backwards. If you fail, then you get stunned, as well as disarmed by the attack. Generally, the fighter with greater strength will win a contest, but if one clicks quickly enough, they will conceivably be able to overcome most contests.

4. How ranged weaponry should work.

With the reintroduction of a variety of ranged weapons into the game, I feel that they should all work in entirely different manners than they have in the past.

To summarize, they generally acted always in a similar manner that the bow in Oblivion worked; you held down the mouse button to build up string tension, then released to fire the shot... You could also block with the bow, which makes absolutely no sense to me; you'd most likely have your sword and shield out if you had to really block, and if you were trading fire with another marksman, then you'd probably be trying to find cover instead of trying to block arrows with a bow.

Now, in TESV, they should operate in a much different manner; basically, the weapons will be separated into two sections;

A: Power weapons; weapons that build up power by holding down the left mouse button and are released to varying range and such. On these, the right mouse button will have no effect; weapons in this class have projectiles that are generally affected by gravity.
B: Shot weapons; these simply shoot out a projectile that flies at a set speed, meaning that simply clicking the left mouse button will fire a shot. Unlike class A weapons, these ones have to be manually reloaded with the right mouse button if they carry more than one clip at a time (if they carry just one shot, you'll automatically reload every time you fire). Projectiles in this class tend to travel fast enough to negate any major effects of gravity.

To summarize that, the two major players in the ranged game are the Crossbow and Bow, and both actually prove to have strengths and weaknesses. Below is a full list of what came to mind, as well as a few extra other ideas I threw around. In reality, the Throwing weapons are much more useful as side-arms than full-fledged weaponry to base your fighting style around. No big surprise, since all of these are still fundamentally based on the marksmanship skill.

Bow: Range is generally shorter, but can be increased by aiming the weapon upwards and holding back longer. Reload of this weapon is quite quick; ideal for quick fights at medium range.
- Composite Bow: Has an even longer range, and does generally the same amount of damage. However, it's a bit heavier.
Crossbow: Range is easily superior to that of the bow, even in some upwards-aiming cases. Damage is generally greater, but the crossbow takes a much longer time to reload, making this an ideal sniping weapon.
- Clipped Crossbow: This crossbow can be fed six-bolt clips, enabling it to fire six times before having to reload. This makes the weapon a slightly more viable medium-range weapon, and can actually work somewhat well if cover is available.
- Full-repeating crossbow: This crossbow has a direct feed of bolts into the weapon, enabling it to fire constantly and at a rapid rate. The last two crossbows were both manual-fire, with each click firing a single bolt. Holding down the left-mouse button on a full-repeating crossbow will fire a deadly stream of bolts at enemies, making this weapon quite hefty and expensive, but quite worth it in some cases.
Thrown
- Throwing axe: Highest damage, shortest ranged throwing weapon.
- Throwing knife/dart: Most balanced throwing weapon.
- Star: Furthest ranged and lowest base damage. Sneak attacks actually work well with this thrown weapon.
- Explosives: Yeah; gunpowder and explosives. To be completely honest, grenades were around in the real world since 700 AD or so; a time era much before that of the seemingly 11-1300 AD world of Tamriel. These are very powerful, and very situational. And in addition, each singular explosive is very expensive.
Guns: It might happen? Still, this isn't anything like miniguns or SMG's I'm talking about; this is more akin to the humble flintlock pistols or rifles of the mid 17th century or so. Very powerful weapons with some decent reload speed, but are also extremely expensive.

That's all I got for now; it's very late here right now!

there should be a werewolf and vampire guild ant they could have large war between the two factions at the end that would be funny

Would be funny, sure. Some people want more from their TES games than clichee movie ripoffs that are just 'funny'.

There should definitely be Vampire Clans though, I want a well-thought out vampire clan with a expansive storyline like the DarkBrotherhoods, with the option of being a Noble vampire of course.

EDIT-Trimmed down the post, shortened the quote to two simple lines that explain well enough what I'm referring to.




Good lord, I was about to write a post just like that, except...there was one already there, just waiting for me it was like you called me here.

There's some things in there I agree with but a lot I don't agree with too...Particularly your 'styles' thing, remember NPC's can do anything you can do, and generally, they're better at making sure they hit you with it too. I'm pretty sure no instant kills will ever make it into player skills even if they have to be low HP first, and I'm almost as sure no such thing would ever enter a NPC's ability range because that would only cause frustrating and 'unjust' deaths that mostly only happen by chance. There's no real way to know what % of HP your enemy has left or something like that, you can take a guess by judging the bar but that's as far as you could get, the NPC however would always be able to recognize your exact values and use the appropriate attacks and always get the effects they wanted. Bad idea. It feels like you were trying to make up for the weakness of melee weapons by giving them powerful 'specials' that's probably not the best way to go. Oh and explosives are a nono. Consider enchanted grenades. Free AoE magic effects? Too much? Definitely.

Now then, Let's start with Re-expanding the weapon choice. YES.

This NEEDS to be done. I never really used spears sure, except that one time I made an argonian for kicks back in morrowind, but to be walking around the imperial city and not see a single spearman feels wrong. Throwing weapons, I believe the statement for why they were removed was underused...underused? Hah! They might not have been the MAIN weapon of anyone but I bet you almost everyone had a few here and there they enchanted with effects to get hold of those annoying mages who like to sprint backwards while throwing a summon in your face and casting debilitating spells.

Spears need to be their own class of weapon, with their own set of animations and mix in some lances while you're at it so we have something to use from horseback.(Oh yes I'm going to get to mounted fighting later.) Not all spears are two handed weapons, yes they are big and usually awkward, but most are designed to be used in the company of a shield, particularly say...Lances. so a differentiation between spear and lance among the spear class with one being two handed and being 1handed and having their own animations, separate from those of the other weapons, They would have somewhat unique features like high end single strike damage, slow attack speed, but longest reach of all weapons. They would not get a bunch of different power attacks instead simply getting a powerful thrust that can have multiple effects, such as knocking down,a short Damage over time effect(I.E 'Wounding'), or a large damage armor effect(To simulate the effect of a spear piercing and weakening armor.) This also would go to my next point:

Weapons need to be more diverse. There should be more thought in whether to use a blunt weapon or a sword than just cosmetics. In this sense Oblivion failed miserably. At least in morrowind I had to think about what type of attack I was using with what weapon, and the default swing was usually whatever the weapon was best with but you DID have other options in case you wanted more reach or something. With oblivion the power attack system is nice and all but all the weapon damage's are practically identical. "Oh my that daedric axe has 4 more damage than the glass one. SO STRONG!" ALL of the weapons had the same range of damage from their weakest weapon(Excluding rusty iron variants) to their most powerful(The gap is exactly 14 dmg. Yes really. Only 14.) and the difference between 1 handed weapons and 2 handed is a paltry TWO damage for blades and only four for blunts and that's only at MAXIMUM skill levels.with anything less than max they might as well all be the same weapon, particularly when you're in the journeyman or lower range. at expert you start to see slight differences but the point is it shouldn't take mastery of the weapon type to be able to reap the benefit of using a better weapon. Especially when the game had leveled loot so the most powerful items didn't even exist in the world until you had achieved a high level.

Other weapon related issues
The cap on the bonus to damage from strength and skill level was also unnecessary. This felt like a gross over-reaction on the dev's part to the soul trap glitch of morrowind. It's like they got scared maybe they didn't fix it completely so they put a cap on it just to be sure no one can ever see significant gains from their weapons and increase the already massive gap in power between melee fighters and mages. Us real melee guys pretty much live on buff effects and going to town with our chosen implement of death. By capping it you essentially capped our power cutting our legs out from under us and forcing people to hybrid melee/casters to make enchanted weapons to keep up in the damage game. Instead of being able to just get gear with bonuses to our stats/skills to keep our damage going up. No matter which way you look at it an enchanted weapon is better of course. But the way things were done it felt like there were only really 4 weapons of each type.

A non enchanted normal weapon, an enchanted normal weapon, a 'special' weapon(SIlver/Daedric), and an enchanted special weapon. As really those became the only defining factors that mattered in a fight. The weapon itself or it's quality had little to do with it really because melee's were forced to rely on something other than their strength to get damage. So everything felt like pure chance, I shouldn't kill everything just as well with a rusty dagger as a daedric battle axe. Yet enchantments make their basic damage irrelevant and therefore power attacks irrelevant too. Why charge up a power attack when you can swing twice and do 3times the damage you would have with a power swing? Why use a power swing when it doesn't stack with any other damage increase, and poisons or enchantments are all the real sources of your power? And lets face it, that 4 extra damage or whatever from a daedric weapon is COMPLETELY meaningless by the time you're sporting levels like 35 or higher as many people go to. To have them capped at that pathetic damage only to become gradually useless is silly. Especially when you factor in fatigue's now massive effect on melee damage....yet total irrelevance to magic. Long story short, Melee fighters got shafted.

Next point:Two hand weapons

Why do you hate Two-hand weapons? Why bethesda why? Did claymores kill your parents? Was an orc with a battle axe your school bully? 2handers have been given the shaft far too much. I haven't played the games before morrowind(I do intend to try the free daggerfall DL soon though) But Seriously, what horrible thing have 2handed weapons done in the past to deserve the awful treatment they get now? No sneak damage bonus(Yet another reason 2hander dmg needs to be beefed up significantly why would you use one when you can get a SIX times damage multiplier with a sneak attack using a 1hand weapon or a THREE times damage multiplier using a bow...which you can almost always land a sneak attack with because you shoot from long range.) There's NO reason for 2hands to not have a sneak bonus their damage isn't much higher, you can't use a shield with one, they attack slow, the only plus is extra reach. Beef up 2handers. I laugh every time I see an enemy with one because I know they're no serious threat it doesn't even matter if it's enchanted, I know they're less of a threat than pretty much any other enemy just on the basis they have a 2handed weapon it's going to rapidly drain their fatigue, and it's slow enough I can simply dodge most attacks....even if it does hit it's not going to hurt nearly as much as that guy with the glowing sword or dagger who likes to attack in combo's. Maybe add a mastery skill for 2handed weapons or something to make them more useful if outright buffing them sounds too 'overpowered'(which it isn't I promise you.As it isn't a player only advantage and would give you something to think about next time you saw a big heavy fighter besides 'lol easy win'.) The power attack for a 2 hander should be more powerful than a 1hand weapon. There should be some kind of significant gap between the two, definitely something larger than the 2 dmg difference between a daedric claymore and daedric longsword or the 4dmg difference between a daedric warhammer and a daedric mace.

Moving on again: Thrown Weapons

Thrown weapons also need to be their own weapon type with their own skill. NOT lumped in with marksman. "But they work the same way!" You say? So do blades and blunts, but we've got separate skills for those now don't we? If you're going to use that logic how bout we consolidate all weapons into "Melee" and "Ranged" Weapon skills they all work the same way right? Anyway, Continuing on, Thrown weapons should work MOSTLY like they did in morrowind with one major exception, you should be able to enchant a stack rather than having to enchant them one at a time. If I get a priest to bless the bullets in my gun he's not going to do it one bullet at a time. Why should I have to enchant an item one by one? Now I'm not saying go buy 200 Throwing stars and enchant the whole stack with one gem, but rather when you go to enchant it automatically takes a stack of them of a preset size, let's say 10, and you enchant 10 at a time with one gem. Less hassle, less wasted time magicka/gold, more fun. All around good. This would also open the door for once again being able to enchant your own arrows rather than having to find them enchanted, but let's leave that alone for now....let's just give this to thrown weapons, bows are powerful enough right now.

Of course this assumes only smaller throwing weapons such as throwing stars,daggers, and darts were used. if larger ones like a throwing axe or pilum were used we'd have to stick to one by one enchanting most likely as I'd imagine the damage on such weapons would be pretty high.

Next lets talk about combat mechanics for just a second

I like the current system I feel it was done pretty well mechanics wise with the exception of things I already mentioned, but the nuts and bolts of actually getting in there and whacking things works well. It's not too hard to block or dodge attacks it's just a question of timing which requires skill. Some of the effects of power attacks did feel a bit too 'chancey' but I never had any qualms about the effectiveness of the knockdown attack, and really I never relied too heavily on the power attack effect, Generally I'd enchant weapons for combat effects I wanted If I wanted to stun/knockdown a damage or drain agility and/or fatigue effect generally took care of it.

In the future though I do hope for some more things to do in combat, Maybe dual wield? nah, the mapping for that would be murder on PC users and Console players would be the only ones who could enjoy it properly. Though it would be nice to be able to attack more than one NPC at a time when they typically come at you at least 2 at a time(usually big creature and smaller creature summoned by big creature, or two bandits who's conversation you just walked in on.) A specific attack done while jumping might be interesting, particularly if it had knockback effects or something to give a warrior some natural crowd control. Say a jumping power attack that causes you to plunge your weapon into the ground,knocking back all enemies in a set radius around you, but the tradeoff would be stress on the weapon (You are slamming it into solid ground after all) So it would cause some durability loss each time you use it.


Another thing, can we finally get a branching storyline or at least more quests with more than one possible end? I'd like to see what happens if I take the bad route for once. Playing Morrowind, when Dagoth Ur asked me "If I'd just asked you would you have joined me?" I said yes just to see what would happen. I kept waiting for him to outright ask. It felt like he was going to but he never did. Then in oblivion, there's the necromancer thing going on with the mages guild...When I first played Oblivion I happened to be playing a character that was more or less a necromancer(Who killed all his own minions himself with a longblade). Awkwaaaard. So the whole time I felt like I was on the wrong side of things. I'd like to see more freedom of choice and less 'oh you sure you can go out into the world and do bad stuff, but we don't advise it. bad things will happen to you and nothing good will come of it.' I mean it was REALLY hard to play evil character in Oblivion, with spell making and enchanting only available in the mages guild if you got thrown out that was the end of it. Basically GG man start over now because it's gonna be rough. The closest thing you get to a 'safe haven' is either a cave you cleared, or the dark brotherhood.

A word about Cells:

I expected with the introduction of cells that maybe just maybe if I did something in one place they wouldn't instantly know about it across the map in all towns simultaneously. There was missed potential here to break down that horrendous feeling of guards all having all seeing eyes across the planet. Fame/Infamy could've been broken down into regions and instead of being permanent you need to keep doing things to keep your fame or infamy in a region up. So they might still know what you did last summer in Anvil, but those guys up in Bruma have no idea. It would give you a way to disappear, just get out of town till eventually they stop looking for you.


Spells
I'd love to see the return of the spells that detected enchantments and keys. As useless as they sound, and Detect key probably is for most, Detect Enchantments was GLORIOUS. I can't count how many times I WISHED I had it in Oblivion as I spent far longer than I should have trying to find the enchanted weapon some bandit dropped in the tall grass. Particularly daggers. Or even finding the corpse of the guy wearing the enchanted armor I killed 5 minutes ago but couldn't loot right away because there were two other things wailing on my thickly armored hide that demanded my attention, only to find that when I went back for him his corpse had rolled down a hill into some ditch somewhere way out of my way and in some cases I never even found the body again, and far too often did I simply have to consider a valuable weapon 'lost' because it was dropped on a hillside, and promptly slid down the hill/mountain never to be seen again.(Some of which I suspect probably sank into rivers or were hidden by waterfalls.....don't ask.) A couple of times I've watched just how far a corpse can slide, and it's pretty dang far even on a minor incline. I've watched some slide all the way into lakes, particularly amusing was a storm atronach i killed which went down the hill as a pile of rocks and into the water. It almost looked like the stones were skipping off the water's surface, but I digress.

Mark and Recall would be nice to get back too. I get that Fast Travel was supposed to make up for not having them but...it didn't. Fast travel quickly becomes something you get addicted to and miss out on all the scenery, and often leads to many things going completely undiscovered throughout an entire playthough, I lent a friend the game once and he fast traveled the whole thing never even found a daedra shrine i don't think. his brother on the other hand walked it and had a map full of stuff. some of which even I'd never gone to because I fast travel somewhat more often than not. I preferred Morrowind's system, I got to see more, the world felt big and scary and I had good reason to avoid certain area's because I knew if I got in trouble I couldn't always count on a easy retreat. I had to make sure I had enough magicka or I had scrolls or a magicka potion so i could be sure i could cast the recall spell before i went anywhere. it was more like really gearing up for an adventure.

The horses are a nice addition though and I DO love those, it was only after I could afford to buy one did my abuse of fast travel diminish slightly(The paint horse you get early on usually dies on me pretty quickly, seems like everything in the world has something against that poor horse.) and this brings us to

my next point:Riding
Horses are far too fragile, for some reason or another can't REALLY be armored, and to top it off...you have to jump down off it's back to attack anything. What? Why? I can talk to people, I can pick up things, I can do everything but cast and swing.Horses are awesome, but they're a little too helpless compared to the other creatures of the world. Especially considering how much they cost. If we're going to be forced to pay an arm and a leg for a mount, that costs more than some houses it should really be able to defend itself at least rather than being so easily killed, often when you're not even around.(Such as leaving the horse outside while you venture into a cave or something, only to come out to find wolves or bears have eaten it.)

Guilds:
When you become master of a guild, or even just simply gain a certain rank you should be able to use anyone who's lower rank than you in the guild as a companion. If they're quest NPC's that's MY problem. I'll deal with it. Or even just have them refuse to go anywhere saying they're busy until any quests involving them have been done.


Hmn..what else what else what else....Ah yes armor. Someone explain to me how light armor protects just as well as heavy armor? I know heavy armor absorbs more hits before degrading but still, that's just silly and again armor suffers the problem of being more or less identical really until you have at least expert level skill in it. But with spell effectiveness(assuming that stays) many people now choose to not even use armor because shield spells get you just as much protection, with the added benefit of elemental resistance....what? Could we be any more biased toward mages? I'd like to see ES:V put warriors in the limelight, enough of the overly stressed magic stuff.I've only played Morrowind and Oblivion and already I'm tired of crafting mostly the same spells over again across multiple characters who despite being built entirely differently still need to use magic extensively. We get it, mages are strong, but warriors are strong too....or at least they should be and that's my 2bits.

A kitten's heart stopped when you posted that epic long post that you did just now post.

Oh, and I think I may have vomited in my mouth a little...

Damn. I guess I've been http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1044483&view=findpost&p=15147082.

@Darshia: Welcome to the forums, and have a http://www.imperial-library.info/dogate/til_fishystick.jpg! Though for future reference, it's generally considered acceptable to snip quotes if they're of significant length by highlighting everything inside the qoute tags and replacing them with "snip". Provides less quoted material for us to scroll through whilst still giving us a link to the original source. We're lazy like that.


EDIT: Oh and w00t! Diviner rank [censored]es! Yet another star signifying absolutely nothing but my own superimposed sense of importance and influence!

Murderer! Are you TRYING to kill us all? Did you even think of the repercussions of the http://marcvz.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/funny-pictures-zombie-kitten-cat.jpg?

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?