Yes, You have many very good ideas here.



I would like it if they stopped calling powerful attack "power attacks" it just is such a cliche in the genre and a little immersion breaking. Nobody goes round saying I did a power attack. Also I agree with you we need MUCH faster combat at high strength levels a powerful bludgeoning attack to an unarmoured or even lightly armoured head, should mean instant death.

That brings me to my next point, Blade, blunt and marksman should NOT determine the damage one would do. Strength should be the sole factor along with where the target is hit, weapon type + enchantments etc etc for melee attacks whilst bow attacks should be determined where the target is hit what type of arrow is used, whether it is a short or longbow that was used. I mean how does training marksman make you do better damage? there is only so far a bow can be drawn (this should also be determined by strength especially for longbows).

Instead of the more simple level training from the trainers in Oblivion I want to see them teach techniques related to that skill. For example you could pay them say 100 gold and they would teach you a perk, for example: how to parry

Doesn't it kind of ruin the feeling of full-blown freedom, once you start putting caps, limitations & ceilings in the game? I guess this idea depends on how you view an artifact. It's a special one-of-a-kind (or extremely rare) item, probably made by an all-powerful lord or god. On the flipside, any bored all-powerful lord or god that decides to make a bunch of special items may view them as unimportant - so having it return (because it's theoretically wanted back) would be unnecessary. I'm just rambling here.

That is an interesting idea I never thought of it like that before. Personally I'm opposed to perk in this game and I personally like the skills but creative thinking. I also saw the thing on the bottom grappeling hooks would be awesome.

lore problems aside. your thinking it wrong. there actually would not be alot of different pairings or w/e. im talking about it being like a slider. there wouldnt be a completely other option in the character creating menu for that crossbreed. in the character creation there would be slider for each race. were the slider is at is how much the blood the character has of that race. set imperial all the way up everything else all the way down you got a pure imperial. it wouldnt be any more complicated than an age slider no matter how many different options there were.

oh but i guess because of some vague reference in lore that im sure majority of the fan base dosnt even know about means it cant ever happen

alright first off its a dumb idea, also lore is lore keep it.

You're not getting just how difficult a slider of that magnitude would be to implement. An age slider does nothing more than tack on some numbered normal maps that give artificial shadows and 3D complexity to what would normally be a smooth face. Numbered normal maps can't display the gradual shape-changing between say, an Imperial structured nose and an Orc's nose (and yes, an Imperial's nose is different from a Redguard's nose or a Nord's nose; the face generation program has different base values and structures for all the facial settings of all the different races). In order to display the differences between the base structures of each race's face, you'd have to create some form of facial blend animation mesh, one for each pairing of race, to represent the gradual transformation from one race to another. It's worth noting that since you'd be altering the base structure of the face from which all other player-customizable face data is derived, it can't be done dynamically.

Your slider system is actually even more complicated than what I mentioned, because you talk about having a slider for each race, meaning you could combine blood from more than two races. Now, you're not only going to have the major hassle of creating facial blend animation meshes for each two-race pairings; you're going to have to factor in a third or fourth combination, again, exponentially increasing your workload.

And that's only for the physical shape of the face or head. That's not even counting textures. To account for textures, you're going to have to, once again, create some texture progression to represent the positions of the sliders. For each two-race pairing, there will have to be at least 3 or 4 different facial textures (and body textures) to represent the different combinations and percentages of race mixtures. Are you 25% Dunmer, 75% Bosmer? And if you are, should you look the same as someone who is 50% Dunmer, 50% Bosmer? And just as with the meshes, the amount required becomes exponential when you factor in a 3rd or 4th racial contributor.

And then there's the differences in the structure of the normal maps used for the age slider. Changing the facial structure via that facial blend animation mesh means that the stock 10 sets of numbered normal maps aren't going to fit the face correctly. Which in turn means you've now got to do the same thing here as with your textures. Except they have to perfectly follow and fit however many "stages" are represented in the facial animation meshes. And again, the workload increases exponentially the more racial contributors you add.

You can't just declare a slider and say, "I want it to magically blend my races" and have it be so. There's a [censored] ton of work and effort involved to provide the resources to give that slider actual meaning and definition.

your very correct much more complicated process than he thinks. Then if say this is possible can you have like an imperial-kajjit reproduce with an orc-argonian then thast offspring has babies with an altmer-bosmer and then... I could go on but to make it logical you would keep mixing races.

Might be possible if the slide was paaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinfully long, and had 10,000 variations crammed into it.
And then 10,000 more sliders beneath that.

The only thing i hope...is TESV to be created...

what we want is an amazing TES V. If its almost the same has Oblvion I will consider it a let down. I mean they have been working on it for a couple year better be amazing.

Its probably a stretch, but I think the HP system should change. Make it more like the COD system.

I'm just sick of sitting on top of a rock unleashing hundreds of arrows into an ogre. It would be alot better if a few successive well placed hits can kill something.

I think this would make fighting much more fun.

Call me a bastard, but i have always been a firm believer that if i allow myself to be stabbed in the face, i deserve to die. If it were up to me i would abolish the out-dated health bar and make all damage dependant upon where you are hit and how solid the blow was. A weak strike to the arm wouldn't do much other than slow your attacking and blocking slightly, while a solid stab/chop/slice to the chest or head would be instantly fatal, or at least [censored] you up pretty bad.

This would give the different types of armour more realistic roles in combat. Wearing light armour, your priority should be to keep mobile and avoid getting hit. The armour can absorb a little bit of punishment, but don't go overboard. In heavy armour, you are able to wade into the fray and take a lot of hits, but after a lot of strikes you start to slow down from the fatigue and eventually you can get knocked down and finished by your opponent.

Blocking would play a bigger role, and fighting would be a lot more strategic and realistic. Aim for the weak points in your opponent's armour, and change your tactics based on the situation.

I meant keep the skill level system but add techniques or "perks" from trainers or it could be a 50/50 situation or whatever suits. It's always nice to hear someone else agrees with me

what they need to improve on is the rate at what a NPC can die i shot a NPC in the head while the person was asleep on normal difficulty and he didn't die if you have been hit in the heart or the head with a arrow you should generaly die

Fallout 3 improved on it a bit, what with the separate body parts having separate damage levels and all that, but even though i'm all for realism, i dont think it can be implemented in TES, how do you figure out how much damage something with natural or magical resistance will have, i'd much rather that they kept it simple and just added the segmented bodies from F3, that way you can have a pretty hard time fighting off hordes of monsters, plus i dont think damage is supposed to be realistic, take the undead for example, they are pretty much rotting sacks of meat or bones, they should pretty much break-down in a single hit, however that would be quite odd if you are a low level character, though i do agree, some aspects definitely need to change

How bout being able to lock doors behind you so you could stop someone chasing after you

Actually i believe this effect is possible in oblivion, it was one of a couple of spell effects that were scrapped in development, i know lock and darkness were in the CS, lock was decided to be scrapped as after testing they found that it could potentially mess up the AI's schedule, the NPC may be planning to go through a door which is supposed to be open, but end up stuck there. Darkness was scrapped because the icon didn't work for some strange reason, plus all the effect does is make the target slightly darker, nothing useful except visual effects.

A few words on Necromancers:

One thing that really greatly annoyed me in Oblivion was how it portrayed Necromancers. While they where displayed as "evil" in Morrowind it was more from a political and cultural standpoint, necromancy was simply not welcome there.
However in Oblivion the reduced them to "cliche evil" to simply have a strong opponent of the mages guild.

One big point there was that they didn't just appear as doing evil things, even worse, they made them cartoon evil villains who brag about how evil they are.

The thing is, Necromancers could have been done a LOT better simply if they hadn't succumbed to making them "evil guys" the mages guild has to fight. Hell, it could have even been a great path to actually join the necromancers.

HOWEVER, before you say "Cool, I can be all evil n' stuff", this is NOT what I meant. While they could keep some of the dark imagery they should not walk around and go "muahahahaaa" all the time.
In fact, there could be different necromancer clans which are more or less allied. The way they operate and appear could vary a lot, while some do their work secretly others could be relatively open about it, they could even try to integrate their arts into daily life like working as "doctors".
Some of them could even shake their heads about how other clans cling to the dark and evil imagery and how it doesn't help their already scratched image.

About them working as "doctors", this is actually quite close to what you could call necromancy, especially if you consider their knowledge of anatomy and transplanting organs and limbs of dead people.
So instead of saying "those evil people, messing with the dead" it's more along the lines of "If you lost a limb they might be able to help you".
Sure the eerie feeling of them handling the dead would still be there but, it could have actually gotten BETTER over time with a lot of the prejudice and fears slowly vanishing.


Also, while I did mention that generally the evil attitude should have gone down a good deal. There could STILL be extremist groups who perform atrocities or use extreme measures to achieve their goals.
However, this wouldn't necessarily make them evil, I mean just look at what the mages and warriors guild was like in Morrowind, or even further, in Daggerfall and where still not considered "evil".

^ Most definitely agreed.


Personally, I feel that objectively represented evil needs to vanish completely from TES. It's cliche, it's boring in plot usage, and it's damaging to fleshing out both sides realistically. Plus it's not fun.

I also agree vehemently with the "no, this isn't the same thing as 'Cool! Now I get to be the bad guys!'" mentality. What is good and evil within the games should be entirely defined and redefined and questioned and challenged by a multitude of factions, none of which does the game actually present through mechanics or innuendo as "truly evil" or objectively right or wrong. That's for the player to decide. There are people who played Morrowind who are still viciously opposed to the alleged moral faults of House Telvanni and their outlook, and at the same time, there are people who accept and embrace that outlook while decrying the alleged moral faults of Redoran and Hlaalu. And yet none of those people consider themselves "playing the role of the bad guys." THAT's what I want to see return with TES:V in all sorts of scenarios of opposition. Factions and people in the game who have deeply-fleshed out philosophies and moral positions that people, through their characters, can actually get behind and tangibly defend, rather than just "I'm a necromancer because I believe in evil and chaos and drowning puppies," or "I'm with the Dark Brotherhood because I wanna worship Sithis and evil and be a dark bloodthirsty cultist."

There's a Lock spell in Morrowind. It's great for trapping NPC's, and also training up your own Security skill when you unlock them.
Since it was cool, it was left out of the sequel.

why people should still regaurd people as evil. Because I think people will have moral standard depending on who they are. Like most citizens will look down on murders while murders might look up to other murders. I see what you mean but just because it can be concieved as good does not make it tolerable to everyone else.

Don't add more playable races, but have NPC's of all of them (meaning add Sload and all the types of Kajiit)

also, instead of only horses, let us get other mounts, such as battlecats. BUT NOT DRAGONS

Nor should it be tolerable to everyone else. There's a difference between eliminating objective good and evil and eliminating subjective moral standards. Hence why I said that good and evil should be defined by factions from within the world in a believable way.

So by all means have people who assert strong opinions against a subject or group. But don't sacrifice the depth and believability of that subject or group by failing to give it its own explanations, its own viewpoints, and its own conceivable philosophy to counter that strong opinion of evil; don't turn that subject or group into a cardboard "evil" to shoot at or as Daniel Kay mentioned, make it into a cartoonish villain that collectively cackles at the start of each day and says, "What havoc can we wreak upon the world today?"

Truth of life: No one sees themselves as evil. Everyone, even serial killers, engages in actions because their reasoning led them there. Whether it's faulty reasoning is irrelevant and potentially subjective. When someone commits an act, they do it because they believe it is the "right thing" at the time. It's just that definitions of what's the "right thing" vary significantly. For some, the right thing is doing whatever is necessary to further their own needs and interests. For some, the right thing is following the Nine or some other interpretation of that pantheon. For some, the right thing is completely counter to what most others would consider the "right thing." Take Mankar Camoran or Dagoth Ur as examples to the latter (Dagoth Ur in particular was one of the few antagonists in any game that I actually pitied and sympathized with).

What we should avoid, however, is creating some groups to be the "Knights in Shining Armor" group, a group or two to be the "we break rules, but we do it for the greater good" group, and a group or two to be the "we're evil because we relish in it" group. It's just not believable. The real world doesn't operate that way on a large scale. Instead, you give most groups some potentially beneficial aspects while also giving them significant dirt under their fingernails. And for the groups that few other groups (or players) can relate to or see the view of (such as the antagonist faction or factions who are generally considered by other groups to be in the wrong), you flesh out their reasoning and underlying philosophies and make sure they've got a significant amount of depth and characterization to explain why they have such differing views on things. And the game itself should avoid any mechanic that is a uniform good/evil measurement such as fame/infamy. That's what multiple faction reputation a la Morrowind or Daggerfall is for. And that multiple factional reputation is also immensely more believable than an "everyone believes the exact same things about right and wrong" system.

^ Indeed!

I agree I think people need to stop being put into generic DND style Good/evil/neutral stereotypes. If they believe in corporal punishment does not mean that same person will have the exact same views on capital punishment (whether some people find them to be good, evil, neutral). It would be nice to have a rainbow where you don't know what colour to pick instead of black and white. Hmm... will I save my best friend from drowning or will I go help put out that Huge infernal blaze destroying the town, or will I go to work, OR will I go buy some cookies