Poll: The Elder Scrolls VI: what do you want?

[MrGalactus]

There has to be a new engine, right? Every TES game comes with one.

Anyhow, I'd like it set during this "Great War" between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion that only gets mentioned in passing during Skyrim. I think you should start as a child like Fallout 3, and be able to pick a the races of both your parents and your place of birth anywhere in Tamriel. If you pick an Elf born in Skyrim, obviously you'll have a more difficult, risky life than if you were born in the south, but from there what you do is up to you. If you want to flee Skyrim and join the Dominion, that's up to you, or if you want to join the Nords in the Empire, that's also up to you, but ignoring and escaping the war entirely should be a real challenge. For example, if you've just entered a town you don't fit into, you'll be treated with suspicion. Do one thing out of order, you risk being arrested as a spy, then questioned, or deported back to where your captors assume you're from. Maybe they'll try to trade you for one of their own captured spies, or you could try an escape during transportation, although then you'll be hunted. Escaping and crossing borders shouldn't be easy, either.

The war should actually feel like a war. If you join an army and become a leader of troops, death should not be the only failure state. The Skyrim Civil War from TES5 just feels like 5 or six random skermishes that you can't lose, where the only way to win is to kill everyone. Nobody ever surrenders, even when their forts (which, by the way, you shouldn't just be able to walk in to) are surrounded, their outnumbered, and they've just watched one dude take out 20 of their troops. You should be able to give orders to attack, retreat, take prisoners, ambush, or just be a footsoldier who can choose whether or not to follow these orders. Also, a war shouldn't be centered around one person. In TES5, it's like there is no war until you decide it's happening. Just makes it feel tiny and unimportant.

Also, I'd like to see the Fame level back, but make it much more important than recognition. In a world of infinite opinions, any notoriety can be positive and negative at the same time. If you're well known in one place, (depending on the place) some would praise and some would jeer. Obviously if you're a war hero for one side, some places would cheer you, and others would throw things, run and hide from you, or possibly attack you on sight if you happened to have killed someones relative or something. A more notorious person would be targeted by more groups, also, for example a top-class killer could be abducted by the Dark Brotherhood, a master spy could be approached by the Thieves Guild, or a skilled Mage could be recruited by some Mages guild or College.

I'd also like it if you could create your own secret or public guild of self recruit-able, like-minded people with or without your own HQ if you have an interest in building up your independent influence to a point where you could stay out of the war, influence it in your own way, shift power among existing parties, spread philosophy, or just make money.

There's other stuff I'd like to see but I've just realised how much I've typed.

 

[BlackFlyme]

5) If there must be a major sidequest (ala Skyrim's Civil War), you should not be able to avoid it completely. Not participate? Sure. But if there's a Civil War going on, the player needs to see it happening while running about. I'm sure I don't need to say how confusing it is to be told that a truce is needed before the main plot continues...when there hasn't been any evidence of real fighting since your capture before the game starts.

I still don't understand what's going on with that Civil War. Both sides seem completely interchangeable, though that's probably partly because fantasy bores me.

Compared to New Vegas, where there's constant signs of struggle between clear ideological powers, it's just weaksauce.

Actually, in earlier versions of Skyrim, while it was still in development, the Civil War was going to be the main draw of the game. It would have been very tactical, where everything would happen in real-time, and it was entirely possible to actually lose cities and fight in major battles even larger than the ones at Whiterun and Windhelm/Solitude.

The worst part about it is that quite a bit of it was done, too. Mostly just the major city battles, but because of the bugs it generated it was subsequently replaced with the current quest chain in the game now, with the leftovers hidden in Skyrim's data files.

Though none of the hidden data is capable of making either side more interesting, it still would have basically been "do you like red or blue more?"

Edit: Fix'd it.

Back on topic, I wish that Bethesda could do what they did with Morrowind, minus the clunky controls. I miss the throwing weapons, the polearms, beating people over the head with staffs, and most importantly, aside from the almost alien atmosphere and the amount of armour customization (by which I mean wearing seperate gloves and pauldrons, while wearing a robe over your armour over your shirt), is the most versatile enchanting system I've ever used.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

I want a new RPG revolution. I want something that I can't even imagine right now. Something that will shake the very foundation of how we see RPG's and blow my freakin' noodle.

If developers actually broke off with too many tropes, I doubt they would not lose a lot of their consumer base interest. Maybe have a completely non-violent RPG with a linear plot progression that features the struggle of a Pacific Islander middle-aged woman to succeed in the white-dominated modelling business.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The worst part about it is that all of that code is still buried, mostly completed too, in Skyrim's data files. The civil war was shoved to the side once they realized that it would out-shine the dragons, and they decided to ignore the idea of actually making dragons better as opposed to sweeping the civil war under the carpet.

That's actually not true, in fact, the majority of the cut civil war stuff is gone completely.

Out of the like 12 side quests that civil war had, only about 4 of them have ANY data left in the game, and only 3 of them are complete, the three that are used as the smaller filler quests between fort sieges in vanilla Skyrim.

The only thing that remains in any complete form are the city sieges, but even those are missing dialog, and followup quests, and a bunch of other stuff.

And no, the civil war was cut because it started to become a giant bloated mess that maxed out the PS3s memory, caused a whole bunch of civilian NPCs deaths, and broke a lot of quests in the process. along with making doing other faction quests, such as the DB, or Companions, annoyingly difficult, and cities kept changing hands all the time.

 

[Zen Bard]

1) Have a more organic world that actually reacts to the player actions.
-Player decisions should either unlock or remove complete quest options a la "The Witcher" or "Fallout 3".

-Joining and ascending the ranks of some guilds should completely prevent you from joining others.

-Dialogue should reflect some basic character advancements. For instance, if I'm head of a guild, I should be recognized as such and not chided about "fetching their meade"...

-There should be some sense of threat or consequence for NOT performing certain tasks or quests. The big problem with the dragons in "Skyrim" was their complete lack of impact. What if the dragon attack actually had the ability to damage the town or even kill some NPCs? Perhaps new quests could open up centered around rebuilding the town (finding a new blacksmith to replace the one killed in the attack, helping clear a forest of monsters so the townspeople could harvest timber, etc...).


2) Improve the Magic mechanic.
-Have spells become more powerful as the magic skills increase instead of just costing less mana. If I'm a level 34 Spellsword specializing in fire Destruction magic, even a simple fireball should be devastating when compared to someone with just a few points in the skill.

-Have some kind of mage-based economy. It seems the only way to really make money in "The Elder Scrolls" is to dungeon dive, loot, and sell the loot. Maybe enable the player to create spells and inscribe them into books that can be sold.

-Bring back levitation and teleportation. These skills got me out of some tough jams in "Morrowind".



3) Improve the Guild Quests
-Add some more breadth and depth to the Guild Quests. They were damn near perfect in "Oblivion"...just the right length and scope. And some (such as the Dark Brotherhood) had some interesting twists in the storyline.

-Have a more skill based approach to the Guilds. All the Guild Quests seem to all boil down to open combat. Perhaps the Mage's Guild quest should, let's say, be more magic focused on discovering a new spell or restoring a magic artifact instead of clearing out a dungeon. Leave that to the Fighter's Guilds.

-Becoming the head of a Guild should be determined at least partly by the level in certain requisite skills. A character with a low level in certain magic skills should in no way be allowed to become the Arch-Mage...

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

There has to be a new engine, right? Every TES game comes with one.

Morrowind and Oblivion both used Gamebryo. They do feel very different, though.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I want to see more of the same as in Oblivion and Skyrim.
More places to explore.
Also, it would be nice to be able to go everywhere in Nirn and Oblivion or even just in Tamriel.

Another thing I'd like: Oculus support.

 

[trollnystan]

The one thing I can think off of the top of my head is that I want it to take place in Elsweyr. If not there then the Black Marshes. (But mostly Elsweyr!) I'd love for the beast races to take centre stage for once. They're always kind of shunted off to the side in a oh-and-we-have-obligatory-fantasy-beast-race-here kind of way, especially in Skyrim. Unfortunately I can't see Skyrim's story leading to either of those places =( It's more likely going to be Summerset Isles or something.

Graphics and gameplay I'm not to bothered with, although many of the ideas I've read in this thread sound pretty neat.

 

[Hugh Wright]

I wonder how many of you are playing on console, as a lot of the requests are availbile through mods (realistic needs and diseases, lore friendly and unfriendly armour, more armour slots and more weapons than you can shake a pointy stick at). As for the next game I'hope they aren't completely rebuilding the engine as areas like Black Marsh and parts of Elswhere with lots of forest would struggle to be huge and or detailed if they tried to up the graphics by a step as large as from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim.

I think you played a wee bit too much Skyrim. That's a lot of man hours, dude.

For the next Elder Scrolls? Give me a humanoid hybrid of some crazy animal, like Giraffe or something. That would spark my interest. Better yet, Platypus humanoid.

What can I say, it's and explorers game and I love exploring it. I love finding unmarked bandit camps with scrawled notes about getting clap from the whore, or hunters using the hot pools to relax in.
As for a new human platypus race... I'd prefer human/ echidna or Nudibracht

 

[trollnystan]

Unfortunately I can't see Skyrim's story leading to either of those places =( It's more likely going to be Summerset Isles or something.

Actually, I think Elsweyr and Hammerfell are the most-likely in that order. I don't foresee Summerset Isles as that's going to be a confrontation with the Dominion and that will likely coincide with the end of the Fourth Age.

How you figure? I mean I'd love it if you are right - Hammerfell would be pretty cool to play in - but I don't see how Skyrim's story could lead to Elsweyr. Not to mention if they DID go to Elsweyr they'd finally have to make models for all those different kinds of Khajiit, if only for NPCs.

 

[Ickorus]

Honestly they can keep everything else the same if they just improve the bloody combat system, it's so awful at the moment and it could potentially be great.

 

[Smeggs]

I reckon the engine they have is fine. If the mods are any indication, it's capable of some truly beautiful visuals already, I just hope the AI can be improved.

I want the stealth AI, in particular, to be a lot better next time around. I want enemies to realize that the "wind" didn't just headshot their mate with an arrow. I suppose it would be too much to ask for NPCs to notice suspiciously opened doors and my character's shadow creeping up on them, though.

I could have sworn I've played games where leaving things out of place like that does get noticed by guards...hmm.

Anywho, the main thing I want? Reactive combat.

If I just smashed your face in with my Ebony Waraxe of Skullfucking, you should be reeling backward, falling down, or at the least show SOME reaction to having just been broadsided by a hunk of spiked metal. Sword combat has to be the most boring form of combat in Skyrim, next to standing back while you let your unending stream of resummoned Frost Atronachs kill everyone in the room. The AI does have some slight reactions, but usually those are reserved for critical power attacks or guard breaks. I should not be standing right up in the face of a Bandit Chieftain, swatting at his ugly mug with my dual-wielded Elven Maces of Bludgeoning while he is in turn just yelling at me and repeatedly swatting at me with his Iron Greataxe.

I think that one of the few things Dead Island did right was their melee combat. Bethesda should take some cues from that. Most small enemies were reactive to attacks, especially heavy attacks, and even the larger ones suffered from heavy attacks with larger weapons.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

I reckon the engine they have is fine. If the mods are any indication, it's capable of some truly beautiful visuals already, I just hope the AI can be improved.

I want the stealth AI, in particular, to be a lot better next time around. I want enemies to realize that the "wind" didn't just headshot their mate with an arrow. I suppose it would be too much to ask for NPCs to notice suspiciously opened doors and my character's shadow creeping up on them, though.

I could have sworn I've played games where leaving things out of place like that does get noticed by guards...hmm.

The guards in the Thief games and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (not sure about the others) notice stuff like that. I'm not sure how much harder it would be to implement in an open world game that isn't based around it's stealth element, though.

 

[trollnystan]

SNIP

We've already been to Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Morrowind and High Rock. Nothing is happening in Black Marsh, like, at all so there goes that one. Hammerfell is under threat by the Aldmeri and could use the newly weakened Cyrodiil and Skyrim to attack Hammerfell. I don't foresee the next game taking place in Valenwood, even though I'm a big archery fanatic and would love it. We've gotten some good hints of what's going on in Valenwood but it's otherwise quiet.

I think Elsweyr is more-likely because Bethesda might finally want to change things up from human-dominated lands, especially after Skyrim which is as human-centric as you can get. Summerset and Black Marsh are a definite no for reasons already stated. Valenwood seems unlikely and Elsweyr has a few interesting things going on. Could be interesting to see basically the only Dominion territory that joined willingly.

I hope you're right, because it'd be fun to get back to non-human centric storylines again, and it'd be awesome if we got a beast race centric one.

They really should have made the fact that Elsweyr joined willingly a bigger deal in Skyrim; I'd totally forgotten that until you said it. Then again the beast races have almost no presence in Skyrim beyond the caravans, the docks of Windhelm, and a couple of miners here and there.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

Time. If you are going to put something as big as a TES game should be, and make it deep as well, then you need time to do it. Please, don't release a sixth installment for the next few years.

As for the game itself, depth, and by that I don't mean making the dwemer ruins going even deeper, but proper depth. Your game world won't come alive through scripted events and poor AI occasionally doing something out of the ordinary.

Also something that has been bothering me (about all RPGs for that matter) is that you have no competition. Oh, you have plenty of enemies, but no rivals. Why are you the only quest-doing kleptomaniac in all the land? There should be other adventurers. They could accept the same quests as you, and then the additional difficulty is added of having to complete said quest first. Or in skyrim itself, you get the option to join the empire or the stormcloaks. If you join one, the quests of the other are largely ignored. If another adventurer-type would join them and do their quests, then it would actually feel like something is happening, because the whole rebellion thing felt like neither the rebels or the empire are doing anything. They just sit in their respective keeps, and whichever lucky enough to have you will send you off to get shit done. If both sides would have a resident shit-doer, then it would feel a lot more convincing.

Also, having the ability to be a member of all guilds simultaneously annoys me to no end. Isn't there a measure of rivalry between these organisations? I'm not saying you should only be allowed to join one, but polar opposites should lock each other out. These guilds should be actively competing for control, fame and money, not all of them, once again, doing fuck all, sending you off to do their respective quests. They should have opposing interests, conflicts of ideals, that sort of thing.

As immersive as the most recent installment could be at times, it always found a way to wrench me back out again.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I want:

1. More weapons and armour, and better scalability for them as well. Ending up with all Daedric on because it's flat out the best choice is stupid.

2. Get rid of perks that involve matching armour. I don't like wearing helmets because I want to see my ugly face I spent an hour creating.

3. A more fluid storyline, mainly for the purpose of...

4. ...being able to kill ANY NPC I want. Including children. Fuck children. (Or at the very least, don't make them the most belligerent little pricks you've ever had the misfortune of hearing talk).

5. Crafting skills gain experience in better ways. Maybe weapon durability/sharpness, allowing you to repair/sharpen a weapon and improve blacksmithing skills regularly. Better than making a million butter knives.

6. Dynamic events to be better. In other words keep the assassins, change up the notes they drop, and allow you to go and interact with the person who paid the assassin. And get rid of "Venture into Place X to get the Cleansing Iron Hammer" - in other words, change the format sometimes, and don't use everyday items you'd sooner leave on the ground. Perhaps even allow the player to erase a dynamic quest entirely from their to-do list if it's something stupid. Maybe have some NPCs only show up in dynamic events, over the course of a playthrough.

 

[kasperbbs]

As far as engine goes i would like to see some impoved animations, skyrim felt like oblivion with higher res textures.

 

[Longstreet]

-Classes.
The problem with Skyrim was that, at one point or another, you would be master of EVERYTHING. Why would i replay a game as a mage, when i got a level 60 warrior / mage / thief already. It doesn't have to be the typical warrior/rogue/mage choice next to your gender decision. But something that would prevent you from an expert in EVERYTHING would be nice.

-Better guild system.
In skyim, as a pure warrior, i can become the master of every single guild. Even to become the master of the wizard guild i don't really need to know any spells, a few to pass some tests, but then i can complete it with an axe just the same.
Preferably i would like to see that if you join the companions, the thief guild hates you. You can't join them, you might even get attacked. Hell, if you sleep in your own bed and you wake up, you could find a thief in your house. Just because you are a companion. Just the same the other way around of course, but as a thief you might also be able to join the brotherhood, for evil reasons.

- Enemy scaling
Don't make me run in to a deadric overlord of the death just because i chose to upgrade smiting a bit and i am still running around with an wooden sword.

I might think of more, but this is the most important stuff off the top of my head.

 

[Scrubiii]

2. As someone said above, this essential-characters-can't-die crap needs to stop somehow. TOO LONG have I lusted for blood and been denied.

No essential characters.

There is a very good reason for why games like Morrowind didn't have essential characters, but games like Oblivion and Skyrim did. It's because in Morrowind, all important characters ever did was stand in the same place waiting to be spoken to.

In Oblivion and Skyrim, when characters actually walk around, interact with the environment etc. it means that not everything that happens to them is the will of the player. Now couple this with dragon/vampire attacks and imagine that while your back's turned a dragon swoops in and kills Eorlund Gray-Mane. You don't notice at the time because he's over at the Skyforge which you have no reason to visit if you're not yet a companion, so you kill the dragon and carry on with your game. Ten hours later you decide to join the companions and upon taking Vilkas' sword to Eorlund to be sharpened, you discover his tragically charred corpse. No companions questline for you.

It doesn't even have to be enemies like dragons, trusting NPCs to control by Skyrim's AI is akin to a death sentence in some cases. One of my Dragonsreach guards somehow patrolled right into the pond under the bridge, got stuck and subsequently drowned.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I think Elsweyr is more-likely because Bethesda might finally want to change things up from human-dominated lands, especially after Skyrim which is as human-centric as you can get. Summerset and Black Marsh are a definite no for reasons already stated. Valenwood seems unlikely and Elsweyr has a few interesting things going on. Could be interesting to see basically the only Dominion territory that joined willingly.

Elsweyr is highly unlikely for the same reason it always has been, Bethesda simply doesn't have the budget to make all 17 forms of Khajiit in one game.

And not putting at 17 forms of Khajiit in an Elsweyr game would cause everyone to hate them.