Skyrim - What would you add?

[[REDACTED]]

Quest variety for a start.
In Oblivion there was a lot more variety in the quests as to what you were doing. You could be silently killing everyone in a household one by one without being detected, driving the slowly dwindling survivors into attacking eachother. You could be sneaking through the prison you came from to stab the guy who called you a tosser. You could be breaking into the White-Gold tower to steal an Elder scroll from some blind monks while pretending to be a dignitary. In Skyrim however, the majority of the quests seem to have been simplified to "Go into dungeon and kill shit".

It's funny that those are really the only decent quests in Oblivion, and all of them are either part of the Dark Brotherhood or at the end of the Thieves Guild.

Not really. The quests in which you travel into a man's dreams and solve a series of surreal puzzles comes to mind. Or the quest were you travel into an expressionist painting and battle trolls with jars of turpentine.

 

[SajuukKhar]

If we're talking about having consequences in these games, they absolutely should do what you just said they shouldn't. Something can hardly be said to be consequential if it has no bearing on anything else in the game outside a neatly compartmentalized storyline .

Consequences in games should be based on necessary actions, and reactions, between various factions, that would, and only could, happen between those two factions. Anything else is arbitrary, forced, shoehorned, and all other similar terms.

Any child can make a game where every quest has members of two factions in them with the ending you take causing you to go up in reputation with one faction, and down in the other, but those faction's participation are wholly unnecessary in 90% of those quests, and exist only to enforce artificial re-playability in the game through arbitrarily denying you access to content based on illogical, and unnecessary, faction interaction.

It is the faction equivalent of making some areas of games only accessible through random encounters, and saying that those random encounter areas bring re-playability to the game, while true, the entire concept of "random encounters" is artificial, and said areas could have been included in the base game, with everyone getting to them, and thus, they should have been.

If you can take away components of a quest, and still get the same quest, then said components were never necessary. similarly, if I can remove factions from quests, and still get the same quest, then those factions have no purpose in the quest, and thus shouldn't be there at all.

An example, in Fallout New Vegas there was a quest given to your by the NCR to go out and kill three of the fiends leaders, and bring back their heads as proof of their death. This entire tie to the NCR was necessary, and should have been removed, as the fiends also attack the surrounding areas, such as Westside, and the quest could have come from a Westside NPC, thus giving you the same quest, while avoiding the NCR, who is tied to the MQ, and could be made hostile against you by doing something as simple as joining the Legion, thus denying you access to content you shouldn't have been denied to in the first place.

 

[Frezzato]

I already left this in the Fallout 3 features request thread, but I want some sleeping animals in caves. Hello? Bears and dragons. How were they typically depicted in pop culture? They were sleeping. In caves.

And some siege weapons other than weird looking ballistas would be nice. Trebuchet or catapult, even cannons with long load times would be nice. Mind you, I want all of these things pointed at ME. I've already spammed my armor/alchemy/enchanting.

Also, everyone here is talking about how the mechanics of fighting could be improved, but I think it's possible to use the current game and make aggressor NPCs smarter fighters. There's no point in archers being all spread out. They need to be in a line, away from the main fighting. Give me ten flaming arrows concentrated on me at once. Then send in the bruisers with clubs and shields or two-handed weapons. Give me a line of men with pikes. Why else would you give me a shield charging perk?

 

[Emiscary]

I'd personally strip every uppity side character of their plot armor and gleefully suck out their fucking souls.

IE:

Maven Blackbriar: Uppity Housewife with a Bowie Knife up Her Skirt. ("You'll regret crossing me!" Really? Why is that Maven? All the dead goons at your burned down estate? Your first level destruction magic? Or the Dark Brotherhood I WIPED OUT MYSELF!?)

The Greybeards. If I can kill Paarthurnax, I can kill his geriatric caregivers/lodgers.

The Blades. No, no I do NOT "have to" do anything you pushy blonde **** *stab*.

Serana's Mother. She's a disgrace to her entire species.

There are more, but you get the idea. I have alot of pent up anger, and I *really* resent being told by a game dev that I simply cannot indulge my urge to kill in a KILLING SIMULATOR because X/Y/Z person is a super special snowflake.

Wanna know who the only 2 "plot essential" characters in Skyrim are? The Dragonborn, and Alduin. Period. Everyone else can piss off.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Quests with a point and more reactive environment. I kill a bloody dragon middle of a town and after that everyone talks to me in the same bloody emotionless tone repeating the same fucking lines about what class I look like or what fucking potionshop they got.

Or when I erase a whole fucking town in bloody rampage while women cry and lament and men flee. The aftermath is just empty town and kids running around being total fucking tossers because they don't disappear or be killed.

Also I would add child NPCs that aren't tptal fucking tossers... When I come walking around the town with armor and axe full of my foes blood, they just go around taunting me like I would be some linen wearing peasant.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Consequences in games should be based on necessary actions, and reactions, between various factions, that would, and only could, happen between those two factions. Anything else is arbitrary, forced, shoehorned, and all other similar terms.

Any child can make a game where every quest has members of two factions in them with the ending you take causing you to go up in reputation with one faction, and down in the other, but those faction's participation are wholly unnecessary in 90% of those quests, and exist only to enforce artificial re-playability in the game through arbitrarily denying you access to content based on illogical, and unnecessary, faction interaction.

It is the faction equivalent of making some areas of games only accessible through random encounters, and saying that those random encounter areas bring re-playability to the game, while true, the entire concept of "random encounters" is artificial, and said areas could have been included in the base game, with everyone getting to them, and thus, they should have been.

If you can take away components of a quest, and still get the same quest, then said components were never necessary. similarly, if I can remove factions from quests, and still get the same quest, then those factions have no purpose in the quest, and thus shouldn't be there at all.

An example, in Fallout New Vegas there was a quest given to your by the NCR to go out and kill three of the fiends leaders, and bring back their heads as proof of their death. This entire tie to the NCR was necessary, and should have been removed, as the fiends also attack the surrounding areas, such as Westside, and the quest could have come from a Westside NPC, thus giving you the same quest, while avoiding the NCR, who is tied to the MQ, and could be made hostile against you by doing something as simple as joining the Legion, thus denying you access to content you shouldn't have been denied to in the first place.

I'm pretty sure we're actually in agreement on a lot of that. Please read that carefully. We're not on completely different pages here

That said, what I'm talking about is creating more situations "necessary actions, and reactions" actually occur, instead of every storyline being wholly divorced from all others. Also, why can these things only happen between two factions? Why not three? Or four? Or five? Or... why not? Also, what, in your opinion, constitutes replayability that is not artificial? I am perfectly fine with a game that does not let you access all content in a single playthrough, so long as the reasoning behind this does not feel arbitrary and the game itself feels like its actually worth playing more than once (and if it's not, why would I want to access all the content anyway?)

Your "random encounters" analogy doesn't hold water, since they are random, and a player's choice as to which factions they join and which quests they do is not.

On the rest, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree (on the parts we in fact disagree on) because it's really a matter of opinion and I'm too tired right now to toss those sorts of opinions back and forth.

EDIT: I also wholly disagree on your New Vegas example. It makes perfect sense for it to be tied to the NCR, because they have a vested interest in eliminating the Fiends. So what if it's possible not to get that quest if you make certain decisions? Really, so what? Don't like it? Don't make those decisions! That sounds perfectly fine and reasonable to me. I see nothing wrong with it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

The problem is that, due to the nature of the guilds specific talents, there is very little, if any, logical overlap for faction quests.

The Companions have very little, if any, reason to overlap with the TG, who steal stuff at night, and whose targets are wholly unknown until they attack, or The College, who only goes out of their building to deliver enchanted weapons, or the DB, who kills people suddenly, and unexpectedly, and all means of vice-versa. The TG, and DB, are too secretive, and the College is too isolationist, to interact with each other, or The Companions. It would be very contrived for two factions to overlap, let alone all 4.

What would constitute a non-artificial choice would be something like the Deadric quests where you often have the choice of either
A. killing someone to get some item
B. Not killing someone and losing out on some item.
Like how in Namira's Daedric quest you can take the priest to the ruin so get eaten by the cannibals, and in return you get Namira's ring, or you can kill the cannibals and save the priest, thus losing out on the ring, but getting some gold, and the thanks of the priest.

It makes sense they denying a Daedric lord his desire means you don't get his item, and how fulfilling their desires normally means someone has to die.

Considering that faction systems are forced upon the player, and the player is forced to pick a side in order to continue the game, there is no such thing as choice when it comes to faction systems, beyond which portion of content you want to be arbitrarily denied.

Westside also has a valid interest in stopping the fiends, as the fiends attack Westside often, why couldn't the quest be given by them? There was no reason to froce it upon the NCR, which could allow for players who side with the Legion to get denied said content if they side with the Legion, when said content could be provided for BOTH factions.

 

[positiveParadox]

Change some of the cookie cutter dungeons. I can't tell you how many times I had a Déjà vu moment. So many dungeons, strongholds, caves, etc. After a few times through, you know what to expect. That makes me sad.

 

[teh_Canape]

I'd personally want to see the language system they had in Daggerfall and Battlespire
it'd make it more interesting and engaging I think

also work some more on the immersion/atmosphere
don't get me wrong, TES5 if pretty atmospheric and all, but never in all the time I played it did it feel like Daggerfall felt, like walking around in the dungeons or, god forbid, arriving in Daggerfall City at night

 

[Zeldias]

Marriage that actually seems to matter a bit.

Or more varied quests.

 

[ComradeJim270]

snip

The problem is that, due to the nature of the guilds specific talents, there is very little, if any, logical overlap for faction quests.

The Companions have very little, if any, reason to overlap with the TG, who steal stuff at night, and whose targets are wholly unknown until they attack, or The College, who only goes out of their building to deliver enchanted weapons, or the DB, who kills people suddenly, and unexpectedly, and all means of vice-versa. The TG, and DB, are too secretive, and the College is too isolationist, to interact with each other, or The Companions. It would be very contrived for two factions to overlap, let alone all 4.

What would constitute a non-artificial choice would be something like the Deadric quests where you often have the choice of either
A. killing someone to get some item
B. Not killing someone and losing out on some item.
Like how in Namira's Daedric quest you can take the priest to the ruin so get eaten by the cannibals, and in return you get Namira's ring, or you can kill the cannibals and save the priest, thus losing out on the ring, but getting some gold, and the thanks of the priest.

It makes sense they denying a Daedric lord his desire means you don't get his item, and how fulfilling their desires normally means someone has to die.

Considering that faction systems are forced upon the player, and the player is forced to pick a side in order to continue the game, there is no such thing as choice when it comes to faction systems, beyond which portion of content you want to be arbitrarily denied.

Westside also has a valid interest in stopping the fiends, as the fiends attack Westside often, why couldn't the quest be given by them? There was no reason to froce it upon the NCR, which could allow for players who side with the Legion to get denied said content if they side with the Legion, when said content could be provided for BOTH factions.

Ok, now I see what's going on. You're talking about how Skyrim is, I'm talking about how I would have liked it to be. You're stating that there's little reason for those questlines to overlap, which is true. I'm stating that I'd like the game better if they'd been written in such a way that they had an impact on each other.

As for "forced to pick a side", you really aren't. TES games generally don't "force" you to do anything. I know plenty of people who got tremendous enjoyment out of them without actually finishing the main quest, or even faction quests. Some games do force this upon the player, but this isn't one of them. The only time that happens is the requirement to join the College to finish the main quest.

I'm still not seeing an issue with the New Vegas example. I see absolutely no problem with certain side-quests becoming inaccessible based on the player's decisions, so long as it makes sense in the context of the story, and in your example it absolutely does. In fact I'd rather have that than have main and faction quests exist in a virtual vacuum, or in a simple dichotomy that's out of place in an open-world game like the ones we're discussing.

But we're going off on a bit of a tangent here, and that's probably mostly my fault because I'm not just talking about Skyrim anymore but about open-world games in general. If you want to discuss it more, please start a different thread about it (preferably tomorrow, when I'll have gotten some sleep). I don't want to go hijacking this one.

 

[Neverhoodian]

There was a game... I can't remember it very well, that had this fighting system where you click the Left Mouse Button and slide your mouse in a direction, where your sword/bladed weapon would swing in that direction.

Ironically, the game in question sounds like The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. That game had all sorts of interesting features that were cut from subsequent games in the series. To be fair though, a number of these features were basically worthless. Magic combat sucked, too.

Here's my wishes for Skyrim:
-More complexity for cooking (more ingredients, more recipies, more dishes with stat bonuses instead of just restoring HP).
-Fewer dragon attacks, with stronger dragons when you do get to fight them.
-Bring back Alteration magicka.
-Bring back spell crafting.
-Tweak stealth so it isn't totally broken and OP (at the very least increase the time enemies will search for you).
-Remove the armor cap.
-Bring back the need to maintain and repair armor/weapons.
-Allow me to kill anyone and everyone if I feel like it, but with the appropriate consequences (breaking quests, instant death warrant if caught killing children, etc.).
-Less generous loot drops and higher shop prices. I always end up sitting on a mountain of gold early on with nothing worth spending it on.

This is coming from someone playing the Xbox 360 version of the game. I hope to get a new computer sometime and address a number of these issues with mods for the PC version (my current laptop chugs when I try to play Scribblenauts Unlimited on higher settings, much less Skyrim).

 

[ComradeJim270]

There was a game... I can't remember it very well, that had this fighting system where you click the Left Mouse Button and slide your mouse in a direction, where your sword/bladed weapon would swing in that direction.

Ironically, the game in question sounds like The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. That game had all sorts of interesting features that were cut from subsequent games in the series. To be fair though, a number of these features were basically worthless. Magic combat sucked, too.

Here's my wishes for Skyrim:
-More complexity for cooking (more ingredients, more recipies, more dishes with stat bonuses instead of just restoring HP).
-Fewer dragon attacks, with stronger dragons when you do get to fight them.
-Bring back Alteration magicka.
-Bring back spell crafting.
-Tweak stealth so it isn't totally broken and OP (at the very least increase the time enemies will search for you).
-Remove the armor cap.
-Bring back the need to maintain and repair armor/weapons.
-Allow me to kill anyone and everyone if I feel like it, but with the appropriate consequences (breaking quests, instant death warrant if caught killing children, etc.).
-Less generous loot drops and higher shop prices. I always end up sitting on a mountain of gold early on with nothing worth spending it on.

This is coming from someone playing the Xbox 360 version of the game. I hope to get a new computer sometime and address a number of these issues with mods for the PC version (my current laptop chugs when I try to play Scribblenauts Unlimited on higher settings, much less Skyrim).

Well, you'd like it on the PC then. I'm pretty sure there's a mod (several, probably) for all of those. With Steam Workshop, they're easy to find and install, too, if you don't feel like digging around TES Nexus for them and installing them yourself. Though Nexus has a mod manager that sometimes manages to install mods for you as well.

Really, there's no way I could play Skyrim on console. I wouldn't be able to do it for five minutes, vanilla Skyrim is just not worth a wooden nickel to me.

 

[drh1975]

Multiple marriages and adoptions. If people want to accuse Bethesda of ripping off Fable 3 when they made the Hearthfire DLC, why not go all the way?
More potential marriage prospects. For anyone who hasn't noticed, there are more available men in Skyrim than women. So I say add Serana, Svana (from the Bunkhouse in Riften), Idgrod the Younger (assuming she's old enough), the single women from the Skaal Village in Solstheim, and Nilsine Shatter-Shield (assuming you didn't kill her).
The ability to marry widows. Say, for example, you really like Adrianne in Whiterun. The problem is she's already married. But if her husband were to die from a vampire/werewolf/dragon/whatever attack, you should be able to marry her.
Now, enough marriage talk. Let's talk business. Rather than become an investor in a business, why not buy the shop? Or become business partners with the owner.
Buying and renting property. Let's say your neighbors in Windhelm "accidentally" die. Why not buy their house and rent it to someone?
Why not rebuild Helgen and Winterhold? Then you could buy property in those two towns.
Customizing your houses. Breezehome, for example, is an oversized hovel. If I had my way, I would have room for three kids, an alchemy lab and an arcane enchanter.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Multiple marriages and adoptions. If people want to accuse Bethesda of ripping off Fable 3 when they made the Hearthfire DLC, why not go all the way?
More potential marriage prospects. For anyone who hasn't noticed, there are more available men in Skyrim than women. So I say add Serana, Svana (from the Bunkhouse in Riften), Idgrod the Younger (assuming she's old enough), the single women from the Skaal Village in Solstheim, and Nilsine Shatter-Shield (assuming you didn't kill her).
The ability to marry widows. Say, for example, you really like Adrianne in Whiterun. The problem is she's already married. But if her husband were to die from a vampire/werewolf/dragon/whatever attack, you should be able to marry her.
Now, enough marriage talk. Let's talk business. Rather than become an investor in a business, why not buy the shop? Or become business partners with the owner.
Buying and renting property. Let's say your neighbors in Windhelm "accidentally" die. Why not buy their house and rent it to someone?
Why not rebuild Helgen and Winterhold? Then you could buy property in those two towns.
Customizing your houses. Breezehome, for example, is an oversized hovel. If I had my way, I would have room for three kids, an alchemy lab and an arcane enchanter.

Pretty sure you could do all of that before Hearthfire was even on the drawing board. The mod community for TES is pretty astounding, and I feel like anyone who gets the games on console is truly missing out. Morrowind and Skyrim are diamonds in the rough, and you can't cut and polish them unless you're on PC. As for Oblivion, well, it's not a diamond, it's coprolite. Still fun to mod though.

 

[Frezzato]

My only real complaint: Better marriages.

I'm alright with the combat system, with the lack of quests, and even the lack of story at times.. but the marriages. Why would I get married to a character who's going to be thumbed down into a sitting NPC that says the same line over and over again? It even makes the coolest and toughest characters (like Aela the Huntress) into a simple minded person in which she does nothing with her life.

There should of been way more thought put into this, and actions (not saying we needed sex but maybe a hug command or romance would be nice). You should just have someone as a follower, that way you won't turn them into a lesser person. Gosh I regret marrying Aela for she lost her trait as a hunter and merely repeated the same one liner over and over again.

Am I the only one that was offended when the main things you got to do with your spouse was ask:

Where's my money? and
Make me a sandwich

Eh, I'm guessing it's the same if you marry a guy. So I guess it's not sexism?

Sorry, I got back into Skyrim after a year-long break so I must have missed all the threads relating to this. I tend to not play games. Had to listen to "jokes" about the cake being a lie for almost a full year until I broke down and played, eh, you know which game.

 

[BleedingPride]

Parkour. More hoodies. Hidden knives that attach under your gauntlet-- oh wait...

 

[Dudeman325]

I feel sorry for all the console players posting here, because a significant number of these have already been done as mods.

 

[RatRace123]

-Better melee combat
-A good third person mode
-NPCs that don't spout the same lines at me when I walk past them. In fact, unless it's related to a quest, I'd actually prefer it if the NPCs didn't acknowledge me at all unless I initiate conversation with them first.
-More freedom to do things in the story the way I want to do them, a la New Vegas. Maybe I don't want to be the epic hero, maybe I want to be the sidekick to the epic hero, or maybe I want to be the bad guy, or work for a bad guy.

-And, on a personal preference. I'd like it if the way the player interacts with the landscape was more dynamic. Like, if I'm climbing up a mountain, I want to actually grip onto rocks and ledges and pull myself up rather than bunny hop up it. That kinda thing really takes me out of the atmosphere and reminds me that, yes, I am playing a game.
Things like that.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Definitely a major overhaul of how Bethesda writes characters, meaning they should actually have character for once. There isn´t a single NPC in the entire continent of Tamriel that I give a shit about. Not in any of the quest lines or otherwise. That has always been my only significant complaint with Bethesda.

WHAT! How can you forget about M'aiq the liar?


Love that guy.

I'd actually wanna see the dwemer return, or some real explanation as to where the heck they have been since the 1st era. So far it's all speculation, and the majority of the dwemer civilization set up all over skyrim back into the mountains, so perhaps an explanation should be in order for a dlc. Would also love a quest line for the rejuvenation of the snow elves or a way yo make the calmer slowly become more like them thru some ritual magics. Just my two cents.

My feelings exactly.

OP: Improve the sword/dagger combat. Its better than in Oblivion, but it still could use some work.
I hate the magic in this game, I wish there was a larger variety of spells. Also, the quest stories for the guilds should be longer and have better stories. I would also like to see more small towns were you can just mess around, they don't have to be important places. Finally, the ability to climb like in Assassins creed would be cool.