TES V requests/wishlist

[Pyramidhead123]

I'm am making this thread in the hopes that Bethesta one day truly listens to the requests of it's followers. Oblivion was a fantastic game. However, it had a lot of problems on top of an already unstable engine (I hate Gamebryo). Then they released 2 patches and never looked back. I am addressing these things in an effort to help Bethesta, hopefully, make the perfect open-ended fantasy RPG.

 

Also, bit of a fair warning. There's a wall-o-text coming, but there's a 'tldr' at the bottom.

 

Now with the formalities aside, this thread is for *you* the community. I have great respect for you all, and the things that you've helped make for Oblivion. If it wasn't for all of you, Oblivion would have had a *much* shorter life and I would have stopped playing a long time ago. That being said, I personally felt that Bethesta gave us (though out-standing) half of a game. Let me explain...

 

I have *never* seen modders, for a commercial game, go out of their way to make an actual script extender. Although this is to be commended, had Bethesta given us more tools to work with, rather than the horrible, God-awful Construction Set Editor. A script extender would have been unnecessary.

 

Let me give you another example, The Unofficial Oblivion Patch. If you're not familiar with this mod, let me give you the over-view.

 

The Unofficial Oblivion Patch, Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch and Unofficial Official Mods Patch are major mods by Quarn and Kivan that fix over 1,800 bugs (and 70,000 object placement errors) left over even after the latest official patch is applied. These fixes range in importance from trees that seem to float in the air up to conflicts that could cause the game to crash.

 

18,000 bugs, 70,000 placement errors...

This was after the (only) two patches that Bethesta gave us. Even after all those bug fixes, when I exit out of Oblivion it'll sometime crash for no good reason. I suppose the game crashing on exiting is the best time for a crash, but still...

 

I know how this might sound, I'm not trying to give Oblivion or Bethesta a bad name. I'm simply giving my reasoning for making such a thread. I would just really like to see Bethesta consider what the modding community has done. We are the reason why their games stay alive so long.

 

With all that being said, I would really like to here the things you have to all say. About Bethesta and Oblivion, and what you would like to see in the next installation of this wonderful series.

 

Let me start by listing off some things that *I* would like to see in TES V.

 

1. Soft-physics and Jiggle bones: For clothing and anything else you can think of (yes, breasts). Havoc I *know* supports this feature. You might be saying "that would be way too resource-heavy". First, computers are a lot more powerful than they were 4 years ago. Second, it would only be a feature for those who really want to use it.

 

2. Better NPC interaction: In a huge, open-ending role-playing game, where does the most amount of immersion come from? The NPC's, the towns-people, the characters! I want to be able to make friends, or lovers with the people that I can talk to. For example, you talk about some personal things to a particular NPC, and he/she grows to like you (through dialog, not a stupid "persuasion gauge"). You go out of town for a good while, then you come back. That NPC sees you, and immediately walks/runs over to you and begins to talk to you telling you how happy they are to see you.

 

3.Less static towns: This kinda goes under NPC interaction, but it's a little bit different. I'm so sick of seeing the same characters in the same cells *all the time*! Don't get me wrong, is was awesome that Bethesta gave every NPC a schedule. The fact that shop keepers would lock up and go to their homes at night is wonderful. But, why aren't the city streets filled with people, especially the Imperial City? The streets should be filled with the sounds of city life, shouting, laughing, arguing, and bartering! This goes for interiors as well. The clattering of glasses, and banging of chairs and tables. The tall-tales of a war veteran, the sound of someone playing the piano or guitar.  These would add tendentiously to the experience of playing an open-ended RPG!

 

4. Better combat system: Oblivion's combat system is leaps and bounds over Morrowind.The fact that you would slash at point-blank rage at an enemy and miss, DROVE ME MAD!  Also, Oblivion made magic in combat a lot better.But think of how much more immersive the combat in Oblivion would be if you could shield-bash, kick, light your sword on fire with a spell, etc...

 

5. Support for multiple body models: Aside from height and weight (which are fixed, and never change), everyone looks physically the exact same. I want to see different body builds, and different cup sizes!

 

6. First-person viewable body: Many games are still guilty for this, and I *do not* understand it. This is 2010, I am sick of being a pair of floating arms! Why isn't this standard in FPSs? Is there something I just don't know? Is there an actual reason for this?!

 

While I'm on the subject of cameras, I'd like consistency also. Try this, go into first-person and draw your sword. Your character is holding the sword up where you can clearly see it. Now go into third person. You're character is actually holding the sword at his/her side down by the hips. This is small, I know. It's also very preventable.

 

7. Better stealth-based game play: This is for all the thieves out there. I personally feel that the 'sneak' feature in Oblivion is pretty lackluster. Anyone who's played Thief knows what real stealth-based game play is. Using lighting to your advantage, distracting guards with sounds and putting out lit torches. Of course I'm not suggesting that they need to go that far, but at least make lighting an important feature. Also disguising!

 

8. Bosses: This was honestly one of the biggest let-downs in Oblivion for me.  TES V needs to have show-downs between you and a big'ol baddie.

 

9. Better interactions with physics: With the introduction of the Havoc physics engine, Bethesta implemented a "Grab" feature. It's very simple and, well lets face it, useless. The ability to rotate and throw objects or even grab NPCs would help to really make you feel apart of the world!

 

10. Loot system: There aren't a whole lot of types of weapons and armor in vanilla Oblivion. You got your steel, then Iron, then Leather, then blah blah blah...Too soon in Oblivion do you see all the types of gear that it has to offer. With the exception of quest-based gear, which brings be to my next plea.

 

11. Non-leveled quest items: When playing Oblivion for the first time I quickly found out that gear you get from quests scales based on your current level. What does that mean? The item you get from a quest is going to be more powerful if you do it when you're a higher level. Why is that bad? A lot of reasons... Mainly it greatly discourages players from even wanting to get items from quests, because they want to hold off and wait till they're a higher level. In return the items will be better. Thank God Quazzy went and made Quest Award Leveler! This wonderful mod makes quest-based items scale up to your current level!

 

12. Coop/Client-based multiplayer: There maybe some that will disagree, yet I think a small multiplayer feature would greatly benefit TES V. I wouldn't want a full on MMO, but a 2-4 player coop would amazing!

 

I hope throughout this seemly never ending post, I've nodded a few heads. These requests were mealy off the top of my head, I'll add more as time goes on. Now enough of my rambling, I want to hear what you all have to say!'

 

tldr; Bethsoft gave us half a game, list what you want in TES V.

Edited December 15, 2010 by Pyramidhead123

[ub3rman123]

SO you pretty much want ES5 to run on the Source engine?

[Pyramidhead123]

SO you pretty much want ES5 to run on the Source engine?

What? That would be awful. The Source engine is a generation behind everything else. Personally I think TES V should be on the ID Tech 5 engine. Bethesta has even published some of ID's games! It was made for big open environments, there's some pretty impressive technology behind it.

The initial demonstration of the engine featured 20 GB of texture data (using a more advanced MegaTexture approach called Virtual Texturing,[5] which supports textures with resolutions up to 128000x128000 pixels), and a completely dynamic and changeable world. This technique allows the engine to automatically stream textures into memory as needed, meaning that the developer need not concern themselves with memory restraints or texture limits.

 

What else would you expect from John Carmack though?

Edited December 3, 2010 by Pyramidhead123

[Velatus]

I'd like to see a more dynamic world in TES V, kinda like what SureAI did in Nehrim. For example being able to break down walls to uncover hidden areas and such. Also, stop labeling EVERY single activator... It'd be more exiting to explore ruins and then stumble upon a hidden room than going through a dungeon and have every single activator pointed out for you.

 

And for God's sake get rid of that horrid leveling system. It is ineffective to the extreme. Id rather have an XP based leveling system like Oblivion XP.

 

Exploring all the different regions would also be pretty cool. And maybe have a choice in starting area based on race and class. Maybe create sort of a simple background story for your character, instead of starting in prison like EVERY other TES game.

 

Basically take:

Oblivion XP's Leveling System

Deadly Reflex's Combat System

Supreme Magicka's Spell Fixes

Midas Magic's New Spell Types

Make Quest Award Leveling unneeded by giving atifacts a static level. There are no artifacts in ANY game that should be weaker just because the player is low leveled. Rather make the Artiacts harder to get.

Get rid of the fake lights everywhere.

Add more varying armors and weapons. Maybe take back Unarmored and Medium Armor from Morrowind

Build a more dynamic world and stop labeling all activators. Doors and such are fine, but labeling hidden levers and triggers kind of ruins the immersion.

More variety in creatures and enemies, and get rid of the leveled lists making the different enemy types dissappear and spawn as you level. Rather make them dissappear and spawn as things are happening in the world.

Perhaps a better way of placing objects. I like arranging my books, but it's utterly impossible to do so, because of the terrible physics system. I can't even make a potion bottle stand...

Make sura that if you have an endgame award of armor, that the armor is the strongest armor you can get (excluding artifacts). It's a little silly completing a game and then getting armor that is worse than what you already have...

Make it so you can be devoted to a Divine or Daedric Prince, and give them unique bonuses, missions and give them conflicts with each other.

 

That's everything I can think of right now...

[Pyramidhead123]

Interesting points, points I haven't even thought about. Especially the labeled activators. Though now that I think about it, they are a bit annoying. Great stuff! Keep 'em coming!

 

Hopefully if we make this thread big enough, and get enough attention, some of these things will make into TES V!

[CemeteryN7]

I want to feel like a role-player. Good, evil, neutral evil, neutral good, chaotic evil, chaotic good, etc. I don't want a one way quest for the good. Make one where you can be evil. Survival. ex eating, drinking, etc.

 

Realism/Immersion

 

NO MORE PRISONER START, an actual rp start. If i'm a fighter, something like the fighters guild would work, mage, mages guild... etc expand on the start.

 

Make the world of Nirn explorable (well if you can't just all of tamriel ex cyrodiil, morrowind, skyrim, high rock, etc)

 

Transportation (no more fast travel crap) Horses, ships, carts/wagons, silt striders, etc. Make em real-time too. Sail the world (possibly get attacked by pirates) plus a variety of ships, horses, etc.

 

COBL

 

More everything (armor,weapons,races)

 

I agree with everyone above also. And I could keep going on, all these immersion/realism mods we have, please Bethesda.

[Pyramidhead123]

NO MORE PRISONER START, an actual rp start. If i'm a fighter, something like the fighters guild would work, mage, mages guild... etc expand on the start.

What I feel what would have been a great touch, if their going to make your character a prisoner, actually making you feel you you're a prisoner. Start off the game with your character locked in a cage on wheels been rolled through the city by a horse, people are throwing things at you and cursing you. That's how they treated criminals back then (even today...) You just never get the sense that you're actually a criminal. For players who don't want to start the game that way, it's forced on you.

 

The game's going to start how it's going to start. If the prisoner thing is going to continue, at least make us feel like we're one!

 

On a side note:

I always thought it was strange that you could walk right back into the city that imprisoned you, and no one even bats an eye. It would have been so much more interesting if you were unable to re-enter the Imperial City for a while. Going from small town to small town, slowly working you way through the world till you can one day go to the Imperial City.

[backslider]

i want boats that you can drive xD..and other boat that go and..oeky sexy

[Velatus]

Transportation (no more fast travel crap) Horses, ships, carts/wagons, silt striders, etc. Make em real-time too. Sail the world (possibly get attacked by pirates) plus a variety of ships, horses, etc.

That would be really cool. To pay to travel to Anvil and see the entire journey, instead of just poof appearing there. And maybe have bandits or marauders attack you on the way so you have to stop and defend yourself.

 

And maybe seasons and holidays. And go back to when Daedric Princes could only be summoned during certain times of the year.

[ub3rman123]

I think it being in real time would get tiresome quickly. How about instead doing it like the boat ride in Point Lookout? Show the first and last minute of the journey. They could have a roll for random events to occur as well along the way, as in Crystal Chronicles.