Time for ideas on TES VI

[ElvenHeroine]

If you are to change or make anything new there needs to be two things you need to keep in mind.

 

1) The game as is.

 

2) The game as modded.

 

What makes Skyrim and Oblivion so great - I never played Morrowind :(, is the environment of making and changing things in the game it self. Elder Scrolls games are basically a game maker's or game programmer's paradise.

 

Nevertheless, you need to include enough material to make the game solid and great on its own without the need for mods. What essentially you could have in the mods would be more races, more towns, more quests, and editting NPCs that aren't important to allow more interraction within a specific city.

 

However, it is important to realize just how big this world scope environment out to be. What we are given as a supposed open world environment is rather laughably small. The only only laughably smaller would be what Bandai considers to be a full scale worldwide arena with its DBZ games. Now that is even more pathetic. What I recommend is a world large enough to encompass so much that it makes the Arena world look tiny. And Arena is freaking HUGE. (Yes I have played Arena)

 

I think we need to first come together and speak about just how big should big be in terms of each province. We should also exclude certain people from talking, since we ought to take a serious effort to consider things and not employ 12 year olds (who cannot even reason or say anything intelligent) to offer any words. I am surprised they even know how to type. We should be civil and really explore mentally to the extent we want a game to be in size in terms of a open world environment and to what measurable scale we could relate that to in realistic and enjoyable terms by people who would actually enjoy a large world environment.

 

Proceeding from that discussion, we can then move more into the detail about cities, races, and voices for NPCs.

[Lord Garon]

Well, I don't think Skyrim is dead. Heck, I still play Oblivion.

In any case, if I were to have a say in a new TES game, I'd ask for...

IMMERSION

1) Realistic inventory - Simple weight based inventory is stupid. I can carry hundreds
of potions, hundreds of thousands of gold coins, a zillion ingredients and 4,913 arrows.
Equipable backpacks/sacks would be great (and solve the inane storage problems in vanilla
houses around alchemy/enchanting/crafting stations). You could carry a FEW things (potions,
scrolls) in pockets (ready items) for use during melee. Like a limited Favorites list.
Inventory would not open during combat, except for "ready items", maybe spells.

2) Bed rolls - I want to lay on my back and gaze up at the moons after a long trek
through a ruin or across the countryside. And you can't stay awake for weeks at a time.
A buildable fire to roast that raw meat, else chance a disease. Maybe a tent. Could use
them until you find a house or join a guild. Or just live like a hermit. Or make
an epic trek across Nirn.

3) Food - You need to eat. And drink.

4) Weather and clothes - You can't run around the north shore and swim in arctic
waters without... something! Maybe a "fur lined" craft improvement. Something.

5) Random encounters - Meet travelers/friends at the Inn or out and about. Innocent
conversation may lead to skills/crafting/treasures/quests. They remember you and
hear about your exploits. Or just tell stories when you get drunk. (non-companions)
"My favorite drinking buddy, let's get an ale! Did you hear about the
Vigilant of Stendarr and the Priestess of Dibella, or the lost Thalmor that
wandered into Candlehearth Hall?"

6) Speaking of companions followers... if they get in your way/line of sight, be able to tell
them to MOVE. Or set some kind of option for melee style. And let them die. Be
able to RUN AWAY with them ("Fall back to the door/entrance/Whiterun!!!"). And for
Talos' sake, stop their fighting with "friendly" thralls.

GAMEPLAY

7) Morality - Hey, its just a GAME! Yeah, and I want to have fun. Its not
fun for me to waste an old woman in her bed, or murder blindfolded and tied
strangers. I've never done the DB questline and I hate the TG thugs. I need
SOME rationalization (not much, admittedly) in order to enjoy carnage. Give
us goody-two-shoes a way to enjoy the content; I'd take a quest to be a double
agent in the DB and bust THEM out. If I can get a fine for it in every Hold,
I'm pretty likely NOT to do it. But, I'll lie, grave rob, brawl with women,
lollygag, get drunk, and waste furry little critters all night long to fill
soul gems. Go figure.

:cool: Realistic Crafting - My 108 damage steel sword is cool, but you can't
craft a X10 damage increase in a basic weapon. Maybe X2 base damage. Make epic
weapons treasure, something to look for and find. Same with armor, except
I might go X4 with armor crafting. I don't think any crafting skill
should produce items more powerful than difficult to obtain treasures.

9) Climbing - Unless its a vertical cliff, let me go up it. I would MUCH
rather be stopped by a message ("You can't go that way.") than a dirt slope.
I'd even take Mountaineering perks so I could finally reach that hidden
cave or ruin.

10) Water - let me see underwater, somehow. And use a weapon.

11) Classes - Boy, oh boy. I understand that this concept can be unpopular,
but it drastically impacts replayability. Skyrim tried a perk based class
mechanism, but it doesn't really work that well. Let's do this, implement
classes with their own perk trees. But, add an additional class which unlocks
everything, say a "Super Mega Extreme Gladiator of Massive Awesomeness".
That way, the console kiddies can build their SMEGMA and the RPG players can
build thieves, bards, whatever, and actually think about ways to win.

12) Magic - I guess I'm one of the few who don't have a big problem
with Skyrim magic. I think even "pure" mages are the most powerful
characters you can build in Skyrim. I don't think wards should "break"
though. Just let them keep going and the caster's magicka will run out
at some point. Spell crafting - I miss it, but I'm not sure why. I went
back to an Oblivion game and checked out my custom spells; most of
them just had Soul Trap added. A few were highly customized drain/absorb
spells meant for fighting a small army of bandits or goblins. For me,
adding a Soul Stealer perk to the Destruction tree would be great.
A slider to adjust duration/strength/magicka when reading a spell book
might be nice, especially if you could re-read a spell book as your level
increased. Having a more powerful Sparks spell as an adept mage might be cool.
Again, keep thralls and companions followers friendly, or, better yet, improve their
AI to keep them from aggravating each other.

13) Death - I play hardcore Skyrim; if my character dies, I start over.
(Seriously. I've started hundreds of characters. I'm getting pretty good
at Bleak Falls Barrow; I could probably get through it blindfolded.)
There needs to be a major change when a character dies, maybe enabled
by a game option for the console kiddies. Resurrected naked outside a city
with your last four perks removed (you just loose the perks). Reduced
health/magicka/stamina. Your house was sold along with everything in it
to pay for your funeral (quest items could be kept in a local Hall of
the Dead). Something. Getting killed has to be more "inconvenient" than
simply waiting for the load screen to finish. Make it painful; ask the
player what he/she wants to give up. Health, perks, skill levels,
whatever; make the player feel the seriousness of it all. Have a
"harcore" option that puts the player back at square one for the real
masochists.

14) The Most Important Change - Get rid of Steam. I have played every TES
game since Daggerfall, but I will never buy another Steam game. I don't
even have any Skyrim DLC because it's only on Steam. I've actually
talked my family and some friends out of using Steam. And I'm not a
pirate. If I can't afford it, I don't have it. Because I don't wish to
financially support a particular enterprise, Valve/Steam, I am locked
out of one of the greatest series of games ever written under the false
pretense of DRM. Valve's business model is a monopoly, using DRM as an
excuse. They don't offer "great sales", they scam the consumer for
retail prices without having manufacturing or distribution costs. They
don't make CD/DVD's. They don't ship product. They just charge like
they do. I play single player games as personal relaxation. I do not want
or need Steam's advertising or data stealing. I registered Skyrim with
them, why do I need their useless client running on my machine? I don't
want a relationship with Valve/Steam, but Bethesda has forced them upon
me. Forced their slow and broken servers on me. Forced Steam updates on
me. Forced me to accept Valve/Steam TOS when I only wanted to support
Bethesda/Zenimax. No choice. Well, one choice; not to buy TES games.


GAME BREAKER ALERTS

- No dual effect enchantments.
- Cap fortify/resist magic at 85%, like armor damage reduction. Or lower.
- Nerf the sneak skill. Use invisibility spells or potions if you need them.
- Nerf crafting, see above.

Lots more to add, but this is a wall-o-text as it is.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Lord Garon

[ElvenHeroine]

Well, I don't think Skyrim is dead. Heck, I still play Oblivion.

 

In any case, if I were to have a say in a new TES game, I'd ask for...

 

 

Good list of things that should be in the game as it is.

 

I would like to include more still.

 

1) I agree that if it is to be weight based, but also slot based, which means you can only carry so many items and the extra bags and pockets or whatever just allows more slots, but doesn't take care of the weight. The means to deal with the weight issue is to have a companion or a horse or something like an armored troll (that something for having trolls that makes them very useful) that can carry much of the s*** for you until you reach a place where you can sell or store much of it. Or you increase your states or a particular state like strength or stamina until you can carry more. That is realism there. Because you cannot carry everything even if it all light or no weight. You need slots to determine how much you can carry and backpacks and stuff to carry more, but then you have the weight issue and no matter how many backpacks you have, there is a limit.

 

That is also why the Adoring Fan should be in every game, because he is useless except as humor, a meat shield, something to slap your frustrations at and a pack mule.

 

Besides that much of the mods based on this issue takes care of how it should function. However, it is difficult to manage between console and PC. So you kind of need to have two different game versions of the same, perhaps even made by two companies that cooperate much to establish much of the same game, but differ based on what each game should offer. Like the console should be more targetted for kids or more correctly PG13 due to violence, since kids are more likely going to play on console and continue playing on console no matter how much the Xbone sucks. You know, they don't understand what money is. Meanwhile, the more practical adult version with more adult content (given it is likely to be moded to allow such or deny such anyways) can be put on the PC.

 

2) Yeah there should be availability to stuff needed for survival like travel gear, food, sleep stuff like a tent or sleeping bags, and stuff. It can have its own market vender or/and be sold at the general store or a general store, since towns and cities should be bigger and thus have more than one general store. Nevertheless, as basic needs go, at a certain point of time like the Might and Magic games, you get tired and need to sleep.

 

3) Food, well again speaking of basic needs. You need the following needs: "Food, water or something to drink, do your business (you know poop/pee), sleep, shelter (when it is cold, stormy, or hot), take care of hygiene issues (bathe), and maybe other things that are permitted in certain versions of the game like in the adult version, you need sex, but in the console version, there is no such thing and everything is covered up, so no nudity except in the PC version." And of course you would have more needs based on certain other conditions that come forth like the need for blood as a vampire.

 

4) I agree. That is part of what should be as a basic need, to be properly clothed, or partially exposed to the elements depending on your race. Like Nords can survive in the cold butt-naked, while Dunmer and Imperials need to be dressed properly.

 

5) I agree more random people or just common people with no true importance that you could invest in meeting just to acquire something at random to greater populate the province. I mean there is less than 500 people in Skyrim who are not Bandits or Enemies or Guards (which could count as enemies). That is pathetic. According to the "lore," 500 companions assisted Ysgramor in conquering Skyrim. 500 is also the needed population for stability or to sustain without the need for incest. So it is quite remarkable that the entire Nordic Race could easily just be descendants of those 500+ (including Ysgramor and his sons of course) companions who settled into Skyrim. The common population in Skyrim should be much more than 500 by the time of four ages, you know after like several thousand years in which their population and prosperity should increase their population by at least 100 times. It is kind of pathetic that men can reproduce so effectively compare to elves, yet fail to demonstrate such by having than the 500+ people who contributed to the population of Nords we see in Skyrim today or in the game.

 

6) Followers, Companions are a guild in Skyrim. Followers is the correct term for anyone by your side whether it be Aela, Brelyna Maryon, Jzargo, or Cicero. I think they need to follow some sort of intelligent AI that can think on its own. It knows you need space to walk by, you need to be healed or protected when at low at health (it doesn't want you to die, or maybe it does to offer variety in followers like Cicero might not care if you die, but Aela would). It also is intelligent enough to think appropriately as a mercenary of when to want more money. Like you fight a dragon that nearly killed everyone and now Jenessa the Dark Elf Mercenary from Whiterun wants more money. Or you may even have some followers quit, because you are going to head strong against foes they know is a suicide mission. They also might take things from you depending on which type of character they are (like a thief) or they might steal for you or they might carry or find items that they'll carry and you might have to ask them for those times or they might just give to you as the assigned leader. It all depends on what their character is (which offers variety) and how high your relationship is. If you are close like close friends, then they won't steal from you or whatever they find, they'll notify you and you can also affectively tell them what they should and shouldn't take. If they are mercenaries, they might offer a discount for further missions or tougher encounters. They will stay loyal more often or completely. This of course requires conversating with them (which would require them to offer a lot of dialogue), be experienced as a group for quite sometime, and defending them and healing them when they need it. This is also useful for the adult version of the game where you can have sex with someone who isn't a prostitute like Aela if you are into girls or Cicero if you are into guys just by being close enough as a friend and asking for a handjob or for a small finger bang (for us girls).

 

Gameplay

 

7) Morality is what I can agree should be important and morality can determine the difficulty or ease of getting certain followers to cooperate. Like if you are evil then Cicero would do better as an ally. If you are good then good followers will do better as an ally. And conversely, you might find difficulty keeping your evil allies in check if you doing good deeds. And for each quest, you have two main plausiable outcomes, the good outcome and the evil outcome. You can deny doing things for Daedra after being put into said quest or you can do what should be an easy good quest like you for the thieve's guild, you are told to steal something from a rich guy who has been overcharging his sales and ripping people off, but you get the option to kill him and the guy who asked you to the deed, take their goods without much consequence unless there are guards nearby. You know variety of what you can do that fits your character as a murderer or a saint.

 

:cool: With crafting there should be even more variety like different types of the same gear for different body types. Like an outfit that fits for big busties (like myself) or an outfit modified to fit more modest looking beauties or modified for men to wear like daedric armor for instance. You need items for different modifications and you there should be availability to have greaves and shoulderpads. You can modify your look to fit anything you want and there are so many more outfits than one could imagine. You just need the right kind of stuff, you might even have to modify your materials with dye. And you get to make dyes too using alchemy and you can even offer special properities to your dye you use depending on what you use like a daedric heart to create red or black dye (I don't know if using Daedric blood would create red or black dye). Perhaps it should be understood that you cannot just create something just as strong as the Dawnbreaker sword, but if you ask the greatest Smith in all Tamriel (who works for the Companions) that you can obtain similar quality material from the Skyforge and he can even empower your sacred items to be even more powerful. Eventually you too can achieve the same results, but you need to train under him for like a year's time to become a grandmaster smith. Where your skills can make you a master, you need to go through special training not available just through experience to achieve an even greater GRANDMASTER status.

 

9) I think there should be a skill tree called survival and climbing should be a feat in that category.

 

10) Yeah, especially as an Argonian.

 

11) I think there should be three major classes (Fighter, Thief, and Spellcaster) and based on what you do you can proceed to a mastery on a certain theme in that class, thus become promoted. You can even grant hybrid status and even dual-class to be an Assassin/Paladin or a Druid/Ranger. It should be designed that you can unlock and with ease certain perk trees, but it becomes extremely difficult to master others. Thus making sense why there could be 300 levels in the game. And you can unlock super classes like "Aedric Templar" or "Daedric Champion." Classes that are unique and specific to the world of Tamriel and based on your disposition of good or evil.

 

12) Magic. Magic should reflect the multiple cultures in Nirn and be kind of diverse. Here is a scheme I created:

 

Discipline: Sorcery, Wizardry, Witchcraft, Ascentism, Priestry, and Spellswordry - reflects upon which ease on learning spells and how you better use those spells in a combat situation.

Culture: Reflects how you use spells, thus providing many different types of spells. Like Altmeri Culture is the type of spell casting you see in Oblivion, while Dunmeri culture is the type of spell casting you see done in Skyrim with two hands. Dunmer specialize in destruction and therefore prefer using both of their hands, which is also evident by their assassin style as well. Meanwhile, Altmer as a refined people prefer a sense of finese with their style of combat. They might not go all out as the Dunmer would.

School: Destruction, Illusion, Alteration, ect.

Element: I created some new ones, but the ones that come often to mind is ice, fire, and lightning. I prefer to include Earth, Wind, Water, Shadow, Holy, Wood, Acid, Salt, Sand, Blood, Mind, Spirit, Phantom, and more. The more variety of spells that don't immediately look like a hybrid the more you can have mixing spells together to create hybrid spells like Magma (Fire and Earth) or explosion (fire and wind) or Vacuum (lighting and wind). You can use diverse cultures together to implement a sort of magic barrage.

 

13) Wow.... Uh I disagree. That is something for modders to consider and the game should be made available so such is easy to do. I think what should make the game more difficult is that you cannot just drink a potion while in the middle of combat. You have to run away and get somewhere that is difficult for them or have enough distance that you can drink a potion, then continue the fight. If you need such immediate healing, duel-weild with the healing spell, so you can strike with one hand and heal with the other. Be proficient with dodging, so you can avoid getting hit or wear strong enough armor, so the damage is minimalized. So dodging would need to be improved and realistic and enjoyable, while using items for healing should seem almost as a disadvantage of allowing yourself to get hit, so you need to be wise in knowing when and where you can do that or just rely on your magic. Which then of course requires you know what race you are and how that might help or impair your ability to use magicka. I can agree that if you want to play after being killed that you could be somehow revived at a temple, but with some of your gold missing. Logically if you die but your allies survive then they would seek to revive you, but you might lose some gold for them to revive you. That is immersive. So you might be dead and have to see how the fight goes out with your allies, if they survive, you might see a load screen afterwards with you revived at a temple (unless you have a healer with the resurrection/revive spell), then you might get revived without losing anything. That is immersive. If you have no allies, you might get revived like you defined it as, but I think you should just die and require either loading your previous save or just starting over.

 

Most people are going load their previous save, not just start over like you do. Your means is kind of like disabling the ability to save your game. Most people are not going to start all over after getting killed, they'll load from their previous save.

 

14) I agree. I hate steam too. But there is nothing you can do about it unless you do something politically. Run for office and get rid of it that way.

Edited June 18, 2013 by ElvenHeroine

[scot]

1. I just wish better quests and not so much reliance on radiant repetitive quests.

[ManleySteele]

If you are to change or make anything new there needs to be two things you need to keep in mind.

 

1) The game as is.

 

However, it is important to realize just how big this world scope environment out to be. What we are given as a supposed open world environment is rather laughably small. The only only laughably smaller would be what Bandai considers to be a full scale worldwide arena with its DBZ games. Now that is even more pathetic. What I recommend is a world large enough to encompass so much that it makes the Arena world look tiny. And Arena is freaking HUGE. (Yes I have played Arena)

 

You are absolutely right about the size of the "map". It is pitifully small. Even if the map included all of Tamriel, it would still be small. In some future game, we need a continent, instead of an island. I've been thinking a lot lately, about America before Columbus as a game setting. If such a thing were going to be started, I would want the entire Mississippi Watershed for my stomping grounds. Crazy, I know. It would take a separate hard drive array just to hold the environment. That's without any people. Don't know what it would take, storage wise, to populate it. The first game to require one of the 300DVD changers just to run. lol. I suppose we could start with just Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, then add as needed. But that, of course, would get us back here, argu.......discussing which states to add next.

[Lord Garon]

 

Well, I don't think Skyrim is dead. Heck, I still play Oblivion.

 

In any case, if I were to have a say in a new TES game, I'd ask for...

 

 

Good list of things that should be in the game as it is.

 

Yeah, I know. Hopefully, the ideas could be extended to a new (and similar style) TES game. There are SOME similarities from Morrowind on. Basic ideas, like better inventory management and re-reading spellbooks, could be applied to a similar style game.

 

I suspect the old Gamebyro engine is pretty tired by now. Skyrim and the CK will live on, but a new TES game, if there is one, will probably be on a new engine. I just hope the .nif format continues; got a lot of time and effort invested in that. And... a new engine might just have a real script language. Lua...Python...Ruby...mmmmmmm; could give modding a whole new dimension. And...

 

No. Enough daydreaming for today.

[sgtsnorkles]

To me, TESVI should be a direct continuation of Skyrim, only moving back to the Empire. After all, the Empire was supposed to be ruled by a dragonborn. So, the campaign would be to gain the throne of the Empire, trash the Dominion (they do sound like Borgs, don't they?) , There can be a multitude of side quests with that scenario, like gaining allies from places like Hammerfell. Also, your character from Skyrim should be imported into the next incarnation, especially if it follows my suggestion of continuing the campaign.

[Argrista]

@OP You are missing a few mod references that could be updated. For instance the enemies not yielding has been adressed with a mod. But all in all a good wholesome thread. I would simply suggest updating it if the post limitations allow. Also a few of your isint's became isent's. But I digress.

 

@Lord Garon. I have two things firstly show me any other game that has even nearing 500 non combat npc's who have the breadth of realism that radiant AI offers. Not just pre scripted little things. To include more would require an even more massive system or game world requirement.

 

Secondly Cicero as bad morality is a poor choice. As in all actuallity if you happen to discover. He is actually the ONLY one doing the "right" thing as all hell breaks loose around him.

 

Also most of the flaws you mention are fixed in UFO and Skyrim overhaul and Frostfall mods respectively. I simply am mentioning this if the issues you raised still ail you, but I do agree they should have been addressed during the games development. Instead of leaving us to fend for ourselves. Not to say many talented people have risen up to the challenge in our community.

 

P.S. I have been modding for Mount & Blade since its Inception Beta build. And python while nice unless implemented well will be more restrictive and hard er to pick up then papyrus.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Argrista

[daventry]

Thanks and the Mod Links i posted are for Future TES so Bethesda can see that its Actually a Good Idea, hence the Game Jam they did where Most came into Dawnguard and Dragonborn, yet the Footprints came as a Mod and i think theres a Season Changing Mod aswell.

 

So yea, i need to Update my Thread. :D

[Argrista]

Great and extensive thread nonetheless. Also I notice people want more to craft/MOAR out of the box. But unless they change the camera system to something like Mass effect or even Kotor. The best you will see your character, besides the occasional free cam. Is their rear end... moving.... awkwardly in a direction. Or nothing at all if played in first person. So we never get the full vindication for crafting that perfect face or High resolution and quality armor.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Argrista