It's a tie between bugs/technical issues and the animations. Now, obviously animations have never exactly been Bethesda's strong point, but their inability to create half decent character animations has bothered me for the last eight years, to be honest. Blame it on the fact that their constantly switching engines, I don't care. The point is that bad animations just ruin the feeling of immersion- when I can notice that every NPC walks/runs in a silly manner, that you're doing something wrong. The same goes for the numerous amount of bugs that each TES game is shipped with. I understand that they're big games, and it's hard to eliminate all of the bugs before shipping, but when I start to notice all of the glitches in a game something has gone horribly wrong, because I'm not immersed in the experience anymore.

Level system (artificially raising skills you don't want to use just to get +5 Attribute multipliers on level up = bad. Take the GCD approach instead!) and the animations.

urmm... Really I love Beth. But I would have liked to pick more than one option.

I picked animation, but they have never done good combat, and the voice acting has always grated me.

But somehow, with all the blatent flaws, the sublty and true genius of their games shine through.

Could you imageine how good a Beth game would be if they had the animation of assasins creed, the voice acting of Uncharted, the combat of Demon's Souls, and the magic of all Beth games *drools*

It's difficult to pinpoint a specific weakness throughout the entire TES game series, plus FO3, because the games vary so much from each other in many respects, despite the similarities ("sandbox" world. A lot of the things which were perceived as problems in one game were compensated for (or overcompensated for) in the next.

story line - fairly bland overall main storylines, in general, but with some interesting twists to take them well beyond that; side quests ranged from insipid to brilliant.

animation - definitely not a strong point, but not somethng that bothers me. Lack of sufficient variety of animations contributed to the poor combat in both MW and OB.

graphics - good, overall, but with moments of both excellence and mediocrity. The artistic "feel" was part of what sold me on MW, the better "quality" of OB's graphics couldn't compensate for the lack of "originality", in my eyes. Some of the scenic views were spectacular, though.

sound, including voice acting - background sound was never an issue for me; Voice acting, on the other hand, went from "just enough to convey the idea" to "not enough lines to carry the entire game by itself". Voice acting overall was BAD in OB (with a few notable and expensive exceptions), with a LOT of misread lines, including NPCs mispronouncing their own names (such as "Vernardo" instead of "Varnado"), two adjacent but very different characters of different occupations and races sharing the same voice and lines to the letter, and the same character switching between two very different voices. Lack of overall dialog, and options, was a game-breaker for me, and I eventually went back to playing MW.

combat system - went from terrible looking, but entirely adequate for "conflict resolution", to one which was better looking but functioned entirely wrong for the genre.

bug support/technical issues - could be better, could be worse.

expansion packs - not an issue, one way or the other. I bought them, and played TB and parts of BM for MW. I got the expansions with OB, but was too depressed after "finishing" the basic game to tackle the expansions. I hear the SI was good, though.

level system (can't believe I forgot that one!) - needs a LOT of help. This is the poll option that bothers me second-most. I LIKE the TES skill/attribute system, but the "multiplier" approach not only invites, but requires, powergaming to some extent. I find it extremely immersion-breaking. With MW, I use either GCD or MADD Leveler mods; with OB I felt it necessary to add Kobu's after only about 5-6 hours of play.

Beth games are the ones I keep going back to, so clearly there's nothing I really hate. I suppose that PC UI is the area in which I'd most like to see improvement. Having a big menu block the center of your screen every time you want to select a spell really breaks the flow. Unlike some others I really like the skill-based leveling system, although I could see some tweaks, like eliminating the incentive to level endurance early. I also loved the mechanic in Nehrim where luck started out much lower but could be raised by eating rare plants, as well as via the regular leveling process. The plants that raised your carrying ability were also fun.

Of the above, I chose Combat System, primarily because of the AI. The AI is poor in general, but combat is where it really... err, what's the opposite of shines? I quit FO3 because I couldn't find a balance that made combat challenging but playable for a stealth character. The UI (console port :thumbsdown:) comes in a very close second.

When it comes right down to it, OB and FO3 - haven't played New Vegas, but heard some very promising (non AI-related :rolleyes:) things about it - are downright unplayable without heavy modification, and AI/UI are areas where modification can't do enough to overcome the fail. Though I sometimes wonder if the mod-ability is somehow responsible for or related to the poor Vanilla experience, whether because of complacency/laziness or technical/IP (Intellectual Property) issues.

I hate the alignment system. It is the single most stupid alignment system
I have ever encountered.

they have to end, I really hate that, one of the coolest and saddest moments in Oblivion, and fallout, and new vegas

Oblivion and post-Broken Steel Fallout 3 never end, in the traditional sense, they just get stale.

Wow, just about everything beth has done good in thier latest games is on your poll.

Bethesda could learn something from Obsidian (or themselves, considering the system they used in Daggerfall). Alignment should only count for specific situations, whereas certain factions' perception towards you should count for the big picture. I don't think, for example, that the Mages' Guild gives a crap if you're a nice guy, so long as you don't cause them any trouble.

Basically, return to what Daggerfall did. It feels much more natural and plays much more natural, as we've seen in New Vegas. Its just a straight up superior system.

there was no poll option for gamebryo............its a horrible engine.

Voice-acting, Oblivion's leveling system and animation. Though I don't hate them, I just think they have more room for improvement than the rest of the game, in general. There will always be bugs, and I can't say Bethesda's games are any more buggy than other games I've played. They're pretty big games, so you can expect bugs and since most of them are fixable or work-aroundable, it's not that big of a problem for me.

But the voice-acting just gives me the creeps sometimes. The people... when they talk... it's just so... annoying and unnatural! Argh. Animations are sometimes clunky and just plain strange. For example the jumping animation for Oblivion has me cracking up whenever I try to play in third person (which is not very often, but still). Oblivion's everything-levels-with-you-system just made me want to die and throw my computer out the window. It's not realistic and it's not very nice when at levels 30+ you can easily get killed by a Goblin and suddenly all the Marauders out on the roads are sporting full Daedric and you need a good ten minutes to kill even one of them.

Every game has it's own failures.
TES2 has a great storyline, sounds and musics are great without voice acting, combat system is neat and simple and sprite animations are good Levelling system works ok, you always have some challenge and finding a full set of daedric armor is hard.
The bugs are terrible.

TES3 is pretty much great in every aspect, it just lacks a great deal of factions, skills and size. The expansion packs are good.

TES4 lacks even more, and this time the story line is terrible. Expansions are mediocre, but the DLCs are just terrible. I never want to see more of them, since mods are always a better choice, and they should focus on decent expansions.

So I'd say that in general the whole dialogue writing, voice acting, bodily/facial animations, choice over conversation are lacking, which makes talking to NPCs not pleasant. They should learn from Bioware's recent games.

for me

combat system (gets boring fast)

animation (too robotic)

leveling system (svcks)

The rulesystem of Elder Scrolls looks like somebody sat down and worked really, really hard and very successful on the project of how to make the rulesystem that is as awful as in any way possible.

Highlights:

- No control over how your character develops. Your mage is out of spells and needs to swing a sword ? Too bad for him, suddenly he gained levels in swordfighting, even if you didnt wanted to have anything in this respect.

- Not even the slightest idea of balance. Having a level 1 character that has 100 in several skills ? No issue, just dont make them major skills. Ugh.

- No variance. Everyone ends up with a character that has 100 in all skills and attributes. You can be the best possible mage, the best possible fighter and the best posible thief at the same time. Its really only race and birthsign that make a real difference in gameplay on the long run.

- Simplistic magic system without balance or any other depth.

All in all the worst of all RPG rulesystems I know of.

Ideas for a "quick fix":

(a) Give players control over their character
- Give players an on/off button for which skills they actually want to level
- Or: the player has to decide at each levelup which skills they want to train. Once they trained all these choices, they are ready for the next levelup.

(b ) Introduce a sense of balance in the levelup system
- The highest skills are automatically the major skills
- Hitpoints depend upon current level and current endurance, same for manapoints with intelligence instead of endurance
- Balance races and birthsigns to each other

(c ) Allow players to have unique and individual gameplay and characters
- Real feat system. Dont give us some fixed specials for high skills, give us a way to individualize our characters.
- Flexible birthsigns and races. Not every Breton gets the standard shield spell. Instead having a certain birthsign or race allows to access certain reserved feats at levelup for only these birthsigns or feats.

(d) Aspects that affect both the idea of having balance as well as the idea of individuality
- No bonus on stats on levelup, or ...
- ... even better no levelup of stats at all. You automatically get better at those stats where you have high skills.
- If you want a limit, limit level instead. Sorry cant have more than 40 levels - or something like that.
- No fixed upper limit for stats, so for example, a mage can always train intelligence even higher and will always be better at magic than the Jack-of-all-Trades

(e) Improve the magic system
- Have different elemental spells have different properties. For example:
* Fire puts on additional damage by applying a damage over time effect after the main effect.
* Ice slows, in large amounts even freezes opponents.
* Lightning drains stamina and mana of victims.
* Acid would destroy armor and weapons and disrupt skill and spell useages.
- Rework the whole simplistic combat system, because right now its all linear and primitive, like armor is just the percentage of how much damage gets through. The computer allows for very complicated formula easily. For example: armor could reduce damage by an inital amount, then reduce to a certain second amount, then everything above gets through full. All dependend upon weapon type and armor condition.
- Strictly avoid any game breaking magic effects, like 100% chameleon, or the lower resistance cascade popular in Oblivion. If it totally has to be all linear and primitive, at least introduce reasonable limits, like no more than 85% chameleon, and no more than 100% weakness to anything.

Really, its not THAT hard to make a fun rulesystem.

All tohse points you picked are what makes TES what they are. They are about giving you 100% choice without being stopped by stupid rules.
If you use a sword then naturally you will become better at the usage of the sword. You can't just switch you learning sense off.

Also if you really want to become master at combat, magic and theft then why not. Only you can break your own game and it if you think it's game breaking then stay away from it. Some people enjoy being experts at everything.

Voice acting for me. Needs a bit more variety, I think. But, if it meant taking money away from other areas, I'd definitely forgive them for leaving it as it is.

I don't hate anything but I think the weakest is the voice acting. If it were only OB,then leveling. The leveling in MW wasn't great but in OB it was really terrible. My first OB game I leveled improperly and ended up not being able to survive in the Planes at all. I had to quit and restart.

Unless you play on console, in which case it's quite intuitive.

I voted "Sound". I'd like to see bethesda spend less money on 5 minutes of big-name talent and more money on varied, talented voice actors.

Okay, there's only one thing I really hate about Beth's games: Too long wait for TES V !

Everything else is trivial.


(Really getting my anticipation up for this one.)

Level-scaling in Oblivion.

A lot of people complain about graphical stuff like animations and the buggy engine. But you require A LOT of graphical sacrifices to make a complex, dynamic, huge and detailed open-ended RPG game.

I mean, the animations are fine, they are not the best, but it is something so simple that I really don't care. Oblivion and FO3's animations never bugged me, it suited the game fine. (Morrowind animations were really painful though)

And, the engine... it is a great and wonderful engine! Glitches are everywhere in any sandbox game, so you got to get used to it if it's your favorite type of games. The engine is amazing, it is simple and easy to learn, but that doesn't mean you can't make something complex and dynamic out of it. If it wasn't for Gamebryo engine, we wouldn't have the great PC mods and the huge amazing games that Bethesda creates.

As for the Leveling System, Beth did it right in FO3, and with FNV they will learn to make it even better.

The sounds are great and immersive, the voice-acting too, however they need to hire more voice-actors. The only annoying thing about this subject is the repetitive voices, the quality is just fine.

Combat System is fun and simple, RPGs don't need crazy, fast-paced action combat like in FPSs or any other genre. All the stats and character progress behind the combat makes up for it. But they could learn a thing or two from Arcane and the awesome Dark Messiah.

Expansions... SHIVERING ISLES!!!!!!!!!!!! nuff said.

Now the storyline is something they could improve, a mature, dark and intricate mainquest can really make their games shine even more. FNV did it almost perfect (it just didn't had the surprises and memorable moments in Fallout 3) , FO3 was better than Oblivion's by far, especially because of some moments like the Tranquility Lane and Enclave's attack in Project Purity.
Elder Scrolls lore is wonderfully designed and beautiful, full of stories and interesting things. I hope Bethesda never pulls a Bioware type of storyline, it's always the same!

"You are a simple person, a big twist happens and now you are important, something evil is destroying everyone, recruit a bunch of idiots and save the world. TAH DAH!"

I disagree on the sound. I got tired of the NPC's saying silly repeated things l like, "Look at the muscles on your" over and over. I'd have preferred no NPC pvssyr to that. The actual character talking was, IMO, pretty good, though.

I voted for Sound, Including voice acting, however the vote was just for voice acting. If we are going to have a gigantic world with thousands of NPC's have more that 7 or so voices for them.

I vote that the music for the games is awesome. It is well matched and sets a perfect mood. No quarrels with the sound but voice acting is about the only thing i hate or am annoyed with.