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

[unit5016]

I would like more interactivity with the bosses, such as from Dragon's Dogma. The dragons were awesome until the third or fourth one, the problem was either it was too hard (when I upped the difficulty) or too easy (when I lowered it back to what I was playing at) because of the nature of Elder Scrolls combat. They didn't feel epic after the first couple dragons/giants/etc. It got either too cheap because at the higher difficulty the dragon would fly around and one shot me. On the lower difficulty it would die in a couple of hits since the combat only works as standing still and spamming until it dies. In Dragon's Dogma, you can climb onto the dragon and fight it while in the air and various things like that. That would be very awesome in first person.

Add the ability to see your character in his armor on the menu, like it was in Oblivion.

Add meaningful character interactions, such as having a family and being able to have your own kid, like your wife suddenly starts throwing up (sick from the pregnancy) and eventually she would give birth. The adoption thing in Skyrim was too artificial and did not have any of the emotional weight of having your own kid would be like.

Going along with that maybe add the ability to have some political power and be a lord with your own castle and army, then have the emperor send you a note requesting aid in a battle and actually march out with your army while having a farewell to your son and wife (like in 300).

Finally, to go along with that add bigger battles, giant landscapes with armies and you give the tactics and lead the charge with your own customized army that you chose the colors, banner symbols, etc.

Overall things that would add more heart to the game.

 

[CriticalMiss]

I would like the game to start with your character not in prison/under arrest. It's a big ask but someone had to say it.

I don't really mind if the game map isn't 'x times larger than Skyrim/Oblivion/very big thing'. A smaller map with maybe some more variety in the environment would be nice, perhaps it could span two of the smaller regions of Tamriel?

 

[Cecilo]

I love how everyone assumes there will be a VI. If Elder Scrolls online is a success, you can pretty much kiss Elder Scrolls Single Player games goodbye. Just like WoW and Warcraft's series. Why would you make an entire new game to compete with your MMO.

You are aware that the MMO is being made by a different company, Zenimax Online, specifically so that Bethesda can continue to make single player ES games? Its also why they set the MMO over 1000 years in the past.

Well then, this man

I think you should read the mod page before you talk about it
"This is more like the kind of facial restoration that Uncle Pete, who isn't really your uncle, does in his van in his backyard for 50 bucks a pop. This feature restores battles for Morthal, Markarth, Falkreath, Fort Greymoor, Dawnstar, Riften, and Winterhold - and puts them all back in the game. "

And as I said before as I said before

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.

Everything else in his mod is of his own creation, and tries to mimic what Bethesda originally planned, but its not Bethesda's code.

And if you actually read the quote YOU posted, he said Bethesda left the INFO, as in, what they planned to do, not the code itself.

I stand by my statement. The Rights owner (Bethesda) would not allow another game in the series, if it is in direct competition with the MMO set in the same universe. It isn't good business, please remember that Bethesda was the company that put out Horse Armor. If the MMO is good, if it makes money, it if keeps people. Then you can kiss Elder Scrolls Single Player games goodbye, because there is no reason to make a single player game at that point, Developer makes money, publisher makes money.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I stand by my statement. The Rights owner (Bethesda) would not allow another game in the series, if it is in direct competition with the MMO set in the same universe. It isn't good business, please remember that Bethesda was the company that put out Horse Armor. If the MMO is good, if it makes money, it if keeps people. Then you can kiss Elder Scrolls Single Player games goodbye, because there is no reason to make a single player game at that point, Developer makes money, publisher makes money.

Bethesda is also the company who apologized for horse armor, then made Shivering Isles, The Pitt, Point lookout, Broken Steel, Dawnguard, and Dragonborn, amongst other DLC.

Also, IIRC, the rights to the ES series are owned by Zenimax, Bethesda's parent company, who also owns Zenimax online. And Zenimax is run by one of Todd Howard's best friends, and lets Todd do whatever he wants. You have no idea what your talking if when you say they will stop making TES games if TESO does well.

There go those goalposts. I was under the impression that it was long understood by fans that Bethesda intended to do at least one game in every entry part of Tamriel.

I dont know of anyone who believes that. The only thing I have ever seen said is that no one believes they will take the series outside of Tamriel.

Again, how much money do you expect them to spend on this? The resources for most of the races already exist in Skyrim, minor tweaks and they're set.

Minor tweaks? your joking right? Making a cat that's twice the height of an Altmer, and can carry 20 people, is not a tweak.

Isn't TESO suffering from severe Faramir syndrome? Anywho, considering how many fans want a game set in Elsweyr and Black Marsh, ignoring that is a surefire way of pissing everyone off. I mean, what is Bethesda gonna do? "Well we've finished TES 6: Hammerfell, we could go to these very interesting places where races we haven't explored very well live, but let's go back to Cyrodiil instead."

What is faramir syndrome?

Also, they will likely go to Valenwood, and Alinor, to bring The fight to the Dominion, after Hammerfell, if Hammerfell is the next game in the series.

Yes, I know. Two look like Bosmer but the description for the Pahmar/Pahmar-Raht and Senche/Senche-Raht (that's four) is "tiger-like" not "lion-like". The difference between the two isn't all that much either, tigers and lions, so it's a moot point. My point stands, Bethesda doesn't have to spend enormous amounts of money on this project since so many of them will-likely be reskins of previous models. Even if they did create brand new models for every form of khajiit, so what? That isn't going to cost them an enormous amount of money, it would please the fanbase, and they'll likely make several hundred million dollars off of TES 6 even if they just had a 3D-rendering of Todd Howard's ass for 1100 hours.

You are ignoring the fact that the Senche/Senche-Raht are as tall as, or in the case of the Rhat, twice the height of, an Altmer. It's not something to where you just can upscale a sabre cat and call it a day. All of the different forms of khajiit would require their own models, textures, animations, skeletons, etc. etc., and they would also have to completely design a world that can fit all 17 forms of these things.

As it stands now, the only reason Bethesda is able to put all of the 10 races they have now, is because they all share the exact same framework, and they can just copy-pasta everything, from skeletons to animations, to no end. Making all 17 forms of Khajiit would take more work then it does to make all 10 races/both genders already, and that simply isn't worth it for one game.

 

[King of Wei]

I want a stable game! Seriously, If I can play it without having to wait a year for all the patches to make shit work, I'm a happy man.

Far as features go...

1: Have enemies be able to sneak up on/sneak attack the player. Like those guys that stalk you in crowds in Assassins Creed Revelations, so awesome!

2: Morrowind's factions system. The ranks and relationships with the other factions really added to the immersion.

3: Text based dialogue! You can convey more information with 'em and it's probably cheaper!

4: Tougher riddles in tombs. Don't gotta be overly complex but putting the combination right next to the door you want sealed isn't very effective. Then again Skyrim's tombs were built by Nords, so that may actually be lore friendly.

 

[MrGalactus]

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.

YOU SRS? Damn, they feel years apart in every aspect.

 

[MrGalactus]

1: Have enemies be able to sneak up on/sneak attack the player. Like those guys that stalk you in crowds in Assassins Creed Revelations, so awesome!

Great idea. I'd never considered until now the fact that nobody uses stealth but the player character..

 

[SajuukKhar]

You?re being disingenuous; it?s been a contention of fans for as long as I can remember that we will eventually explore all of Tamriel, and not in a dinky ?everything in one go? MMO or in Arena. There?s certainly no technological or artistic reason for avoiding it, despite your claims to the contrary.

There is a reason to avoid it.... its not cost efficient, its not worth having to design the world to fit all the forms of Khajiit, nor is it worth all the animations/skeletons needed to get it to work.

What system do you play Skyrim on? I?m just curious, because you talk as if you?ve never cracked open the Skyrim modding tools. Yes, it absolutely a minor tweak. What you state here is certainly not true in the slightest.

Are you serious? are you REALLY trying to say that a half-assed jury-rigged solution like that would be acceptable in anything outside of a mod?.....

Upscaling the skeleton of a Khajiit and a sabre cat is exactly what muppetpuppet did when he created Cathay-raht and pahmar-raht for the Moonpath to Elsweyr mod. No new animations were needed, at worst you?re looking at a retexture. Animations might need very slight tweaks to address possible pathfinding and clipping issues. They certainly wouldn?t need to create all 17 forms of khajiit from scratch as you?re claiming.

.....Apparently so

Have you actually played Moonpath to Elsywer? The kahjiit forms in that mod had obvious animation problems, especially the larger ones walking like a much smaller animal then they should. That mod was hack-job, a barely acceptable hack-job, and while some mod may be able to get away with it, if Bethesda seriously tried to release an Eslweyr game that was that half-assed, it would be just as bad if they made an Eslweyr game without all the forms of Khajiit.

Valenwood would be nice but I have reservations about Hammerfell being next in line. Everything we?ve been told about Hammerfell in Skyrim is that Hammerfell and the Dominion have a ceasefire in effect. I?m willing to bet that the canon result of the Skyrim civil war is an independent Skyrim, so I imagine the Dominion will be prepping for an invasion of a very isolated Cyrodiil rather than opening hostilities with Hammerfell a second time around.

If Skyrim plays out like literally every other TES game, both endings will be canon, or be made moot through some event.

But if they did chose one ending over another, I think the Empire ending would be the one they pick. Ulfric is unable to defend himself against the full might of the Legions, something he makes clear if you try to attack Solitude when The emperor is there, or when Victoria is getting married. If he can't fight off the Legion, he has no chance against The Thalmor. On top of that, all the mythic heros of history have been pro-Empire. Pelinal, Ysmir, Reman, Tiber, the Empire was made by Akatosh, and his conjoined twin Lorkhan, they wont just let it fall to the elves, nor would they let their avatar destroy it.

Evidence? You?ve certainly been asserting this a lot but your stated reasons don?t hold up under scrutiny.

Evidence? just open up the damn creation kit and look, all races use the EXACT same stuff, that's why they changed the Khajiit and Argonians used in their games, between Morrowind and Oblivion, to the normal footed ones, so they can use the same animations/skeletons for all of them, because it wasn't cost efficient to keep them the way they were in Morrowind.

You are woefully uninformed about basic game development.

 

[TheLastFeeder]

Stop making characters essential. When I go on my little crime waves half the population shouldn't be invincible.

So having the same system as Morrowind?
If you kill an essential character, there just pops up a message that says:

"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed.
Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate,
or persist in the doomed world you have created."

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Stop making characters essential. When I go on my little crime waves half the population shouldn't be invincible.

So having the same system as Morrowind?
If you kill an essential character, there just pops up a message that says:

"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed.
Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate,
or persist in the doomed world you have created."

Yes. If you want to account for radiant events, make them flee into their homes instead of punching the dragon that is attacking the village.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-According to Bethesda?

-And everything you have stated is wrong, because it ignores everything about even the lowest standards of quality.

-And again, I never said they couldn't do it, I said they wont, because it isn't cost effective.

-The re-use of a skeleton, made for an animal the size of a lion, on a creature that's like 15 feet tall, would only show a STAGGERING lack of quality on Bethesda part. An animal that's 15 feet tall would have a radically different skeleton then an animal, of a similar shape, that is only 4 feet tall. All you have to do is look at housecats compared to lions, while similar, their skeleton are not the same. You cant use them between the two, unless you dont give a shit about the animals actually working right.

-And your evidence is wrong because it, again, ignores the fact that an animal that's 14 feet tall wouldn't use the same skeleton as an animal that 4 feet tall, and Bethesda isn't THAT half-assed in their games. You may be ok with a hack job like that, but even Bethesda has higher standards, and they have pretty low standards, as evidenced by all the bugs.

-AGAIN, i never said it was impossible for them to do it, i said it wasn't cost efficient. Not being cost efficient =/= being so expensive its impossible, stop fucking treating the same as the two.

-Kirkbride still writes for Bethesda...... so yeah, it is the same staff, largely.

-Well considering that making all 17 forms of Khajiit being impossible was never part of the discussion, now who is changing the goalposts?

 

[KingmanHighborn]

I'd like to have cities the size of the map of previous games like Oblivion. If you look at the numbers of lives that fight in, and are lost in the lore of battles and wars you need to be able to show the world's true size. Even in Skyrim I feel like it was 'shrunk down' to fit. A true scale city with 500-1000 people in it at the least, would be awesome. Especially if then are plenty of them to explore.

 

[The Lugz]

The voice acting, ai, and general polish needs a huge overhaul

I downloaded a guard dialogue overhaul mod and it made navigating the city's much better but the general combat ai is also terrible

running away from combat should be far harder, and every human npc should have a sling, bow, rock or spell to throw at range because cheesing mele enemies is far too easy, the ai feels like it has no chance which is obviously a total immersion breaker.

I can sneak up on any npc at any time no matter what they're doing with zero points in sneaking and plate boots.
that's just dumb.

makes sneaking too op.

other than that, i'm happy with 'skyrim 2' they could use the same engine entirely and even have a similar graphics level as long as it receives better polish

there are some serious texture/mesh/object/lighting flaws in the vanilla game,
the actual engine is capable of alot more.

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

If anything, I want the next game to be, first and foremost, robust. I wouldn't care if there wasn't anything new at all, as long as it didn't have any game-breaking glitches. If sticking with the current engine will do that, more power to the current engine.
I'm dead serious, I want the next game to motherfucking work! I've had to delete two characters, one which I had spent an entire year on, kept a journal from the perspective of, and grown to love. It was so disheartening that I honestly don't know whether I'll ever buy Bethesda's games anymore. I'm so sick of this shit. I get that it's nearly impossible to get rid of EVERY glitch in games as big and complicated as Oblivion, Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas but I think at this point, robustness in their programming is more important than novelty or good graphics. If they need to cut funding in some places to divert to testing and bug-fixing, so be it.
I'm dead serious: when The Elder Scrolls VI comes out, I won't buy it unless I hear that no quests are unfinishable, you don't get stuck in sneak mode, you don't mysteriously lose the ability to feed when you become a vampire, or any of that bullshit.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The same thing I want[footnote]and am promised in a roundabout way that never actually delivers[/footnote] every new TES Pinky: Daggerfall's design document done right. We have the technology, we can rebuild it. But Bethesda won't, because it's a hardcore RPG, which doesn't go over so well with the mainstream audience they've been courting for the last decade

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-Citation = Morrowind + Oblivion

-Because its wrong. You don't just scale and tweak a skeleton, because it wouldn't be right, and would have to change so much about many of the finer detail you would probably do better just starting it from scratch.

-What makes something cost effective has nothing to do with the goal of the game, it has to do with profit maximization, and Elsweyr, compared to Hammerfell, Valenwood, or Alinor, all of which not only lack the Khajiit issue, but have more connection to the overall narrative, lacks said profit maximization.

And the reason why Bethesda hasn't put in all 17 forms of Khajiit, in literally every TES game ever made, is for the very same reason you said lacks evidence to support it. Saying there is no evidence to suggest the high expense of putting in all 17 forms of Khajiit in one game, is literally saying that all of Bethesda's decisions not to in all past ES game didn't happen. Its nothing short of historical revisionism!

-I dont recall that conversation. Anyways, giants would likely have denser bones to support the weight without snapping.

-There's actually a lot about how the giants operate that differs from the 10 races in terms of skeletons and animations. Also, the silt strider doesn't move, its essentially just a static world object with a minor animations on the mandible things, or w/e they are. It doesn't even have a actual skeleton IIRC. They didn't have to do anything for it.

-Its an argument that is based off of all past information Bethesda has given over the years about why they only ever include one form of Khajiit per game. Hell, one of Bethesda's animators actually said on the Skyrim forms once they tried to put the digitigrade Khajiit in Skyrim, but ran into meshing issues, time issues, and budget issues, so it had to be scrapped, same reason they had to scrap a whole bunch of shit in Skyrim (and no, I dont have a link to the quote, so I dont expect you to believe it happened)

-Except that Bethesda, from Arena to Oblivion, has ALWAYS done the games in such a way as to allow for every possible player action to be true. It doesn't even have to be the warp in the west, even minor stuff like if the Nerevarine was the one who did Molag bal's daedric quest in Morrowind, thus got the helm of Orywn Bearclaw, and thus gave it to his descendant in Oblivion's fighers guild, who only says "an adventurer from Morrowind gave it to me". Its just everything from the ending of Daggerfall, to the helm of bearclaw, they ALWAYS write stuff as to never negate player choice, and there is no reason to expect Bethesda to do a complete 180 from nearly 20 years of consistent narrative design.

-Well, I never said you were pulling a strawman, so that rebuttal doesn't make much sense.

 

[Feylynn]

I have a binary opinion of future Elder Scrolls titles.
1: Game contains acrobatics and athletics greater than Oblivion. Combat needs to not only be usable while sprinting and jumping but altered and fun.
(Preferably with Dragons Dogma/Shadow of the Colossus elements but I'm now ruining the binary spirit... Sorry.)
0: Game sucks.
First they took flight, then they took jumping. Logically the next game will not even have walking and will instead be nothing but a camera you can toggle between stationary npcs with the right and left clicks of the mouse.

 

[SajuukKhar]

First they took flight, then they took jumping.

They took away levitation because
1. It served no gameplay purpose.
2. Cities were put in thier own cells, so flying over them would look dumb.
3. The game became scripted, and flying, along with teleprotation, would break many of the game's dungeons, and scripted events.

Also, you can still jump in Skyrim, quite far if you get a running jump.

 

[Darkasassin96]

I want to go to Eleswyr. Not just because I love the Khajit, but because a desert grasslandy place would be a nice change to the scenery of forest, snowy forest, and snowy mountain. Who else has wanted to play a fantasy RPG in the savannah?

I also want to world to be fleshed out a little more. SHow us some of the other beast races like the Gorrilla people, I think theyre called Imjee but im too lazy to look it up. They dont have to be playable but at least acknowledge their existence in game bethesda. Those slug people would be interesting in a Jabba the Hutt kinda way but the comparison would be too obvious.

In regards to the creature enemies, am I the only one that has noticed a lack of creativity or at least variety in the enemies in the games? What monsters did Skyrim have? Giant spiders, various zombies and skeletons that were just reskinned human beings, giants, and some woodland animals. Yes there were dragons I suppose but I want more interesting day to day encounters. I honestly am having a hard time thinking up another monster that was in skyrim. Im not counting the dlc where they added gargoyles even though they were badass. In Daggerfall their were centaurs, and imps, Morrowind was nothing if not creative, even Oblivion had a few minotaurs, although good luck finding them.

Basically what I want is for Bethesda to redefine the genre of fantasy. I want new settings, and some new original, creative monsters. Dont get me wrong I have loved every game in the series, but they need to step it up. Skyrim was a fantastic game but I expect better from you Bethesda. As far as the engine and gameplay goes though they are perfect, I just want them to get out of their comfort zone a little bit with this next one.

 

[Feylynn]

First they took flight, then they took jumping.

They took away levitation because
1. It served no gameplay purpose.
2. Cities were put in thier own cells, so flying over them would look dumb.
3. The game became scripted, and flying, along with teleprotation, would break many of the game's dungeons, and scripted events.

Also, you can still jump in Skyrim, quite far if you get a running jump.

I know and understand the reason for levitate being removed I just wanted some progression for my hyperbole, you can have that one.
You can't run and jump in Skyrim. Mods have yet to satisfyingly disable the engines hard lock on your controls while sprinting.

There is one mod I found that lets you spend a lot of mana or stamina to charge a super jump which is pretty awesome but it doesn't allow combat while mobile.

If you can direct me to a mod that lets me Jump/attack, Jump/cast, Sprint/Jump, Sprint/cast, Sprint/Jump/Cast/Attack then that would be appreciated I'm admittedly out of the loop recently.