Bethesda never did anything explicit like when Obsidian incorporated Iron Sights, Weapon Mods, and Realistic Needs into New Vegas. But their modding community has been huge since Morrowind, and since I've only been on board since Skyrim and haven't kept track of the original release dates of mods, I can never tell when mods are taking features from later games and when the later games are taking features from mods.

Would this become too close to the speculation threads if I asked everyone what mods they think Bethesda should take a hint from for future games? >.>

Here are a few of my suggestions:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557/? by Arthmoor

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16736/? by Kearsage

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62051/? by Specs Weedle

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32695/? by whickus with fixes and expansions by William Imm

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3829/? by 3JIou and Redshift (instead of difficulty slider; dynamically configure stats of enemies from a menu)

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/21512/? by Magickman12

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9972/? by StannieDum

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32798/? by NoobProductions

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24377/? by WTFus

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26228/? by perseid9

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/11163/? by Chesko

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23600/? by Maegfaer

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4548/? by Phitt

And, lastly, if they adopt no other mod in the universe Bethesda desperately needs to adopt the Unofficial Patches as a model for how to properly do customer service.

They need to take notes on the follower mods, like Inigo and Sofia. They have hilarious dialogue during different situations and more interesting ways you can interact with them.

There were mods for both Morrowind and Oblivion that altered plants meshes after you harvested ingredients - they clearly took that and adapted it in Skyrim. Plenty more examples in a similar light, usually just small additions to the gameplay.

I imagine even the reversion of Imperial style armors (back to the being similar to Roman Legionary equipment) in Skyrim could be due to the plethora of Oblivion mods that did away with the random LOTR guard armors.

Honestly.. the only mods I can think of that they should tale a hint from are things like Wheels of Lul and Dwemerverse. Less dirt, more mageotech.

Some of the immersion mods are alright, but their implementation can be heavy handed (a frostfall-type mechanic in the base game would be too much, though could he tied into difficulty scaling) and regenerating stats are a gameplay standard now (though this can be tweakedwith Far cry like milestones)...

There is a lot of inspiration to take, from Tundra Defense to Inconsequential NPCs, bitbibdont see anything in mods that is really ready-to-adopt in its current form.

IIRC, they actually took some mod ideas into account for Skyrim, and the cooking bit was among them. I dont quote remember the rest though.

I'd add http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/14950/? by Alek to that list.

player headtracing like mentioned before

if there is one mod that really gives your character life it is that mod hand down

and it is even a pretty simple script , there is absolute no reason why this sjeldn t be incorperated in future games

there is a reason shy this is one of the most downloaded mods ever

Some that I can recall off the top of my head from Oblivion:

Decapitations and blood spatter - Deadly Reflex

Lighted windows at night and chimney smoke - ALWS & Illumination Within

"Picked" flowers and other Alchemy ingredients - Harvest Flora

Separate feminine movement animations - Womans Move

I'd add Interesting NPCs to that list

Here's an interesting article I found on this subject. http://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-discusses-horse-armor-and-the-power-of-mods/

I know they got the having to hold the right trigger( 360) longer to have a morr powerful shot with a bow from a mod

I doubt it, since that mechanic existed in Morrowind.

Tod howard said that in an interview or in the making of skyrim can't remember which

Even if he did, that doesn't make it true. Morrowind was the first TES game to support modding, and in vanilla Morrowind, you pull back the bowstring fully (by holding the control until it is "charged") in order to get a more powerful shot. All weapons in Morrowind work that way.

Idk remember having to do that in morrowind. As far as i know the only game that does that is skyrim but maybe thats just me.

Holding an attack longer to increase the power was most certainly a characteristic of bows in Morrowind, but I know what frylock223 is talking about. Todd Howard said that they were inspired by an Oblivion mod to make archery in Skyrim so that bows have longer draw times but more powerful shots. In Oblivion, archery mostly consisted of running backwards and firing arrows quickly and repeatedly. Bethesda changed that in Skyrim because they liked the fan-made mod's approach to archery better.

Okay, that makes sense. Skyrim does have a slightly longer draw time on the bow, and they do more damage. But in all the games since Morrowind, if you fail to draw the bow back completely you'll get a weak shot. If you do it in Oblivion, the arrow is likely to go about ten feet.