Skyrim - What would you change/add?

[Duskflamer]

Improve stealth mechanics - Here's an anecdote this time, do you all remember that storyline mission where you have to infiltrate the Thalmor embassy? I was psyched as all hell when I started that mission. I had visions in my mind of deftly sneaking around behind the scenes, careful not to alert any of the guards to the fact that I was even there. I carefully prepared my thieves guild armor, lockpicks, and a dagger for the assignment. I got through the opening social segment, slipped away, retrieved my items....and almost immediately there is an inescapable combat encounter. No, not just one, you have to fight through about a dozen guards all told to get through that mission. It's more or less impossible to sneak around them the way they're positioned, they didn't seem to react at all to my attempts to use the Throw Voice shout to get them to look the other way. I had to reload the game, send in some proper weapons and armor, and ungracefully slaughter my way to the information I needed. I have no problem with that method being an option for more combat oriented characters, but a more usable stealth system could have made that mission a much more memorable one.

You need to try that mission again, you can get through the thalmor embassy while fighting no one, use invisibility.

I got through it with literally zero kills to my name, and no alarms raised.

I'm not a mage. If the only way to sneak past people is to turn yourself completely invisible, you need to improve your stealth mechanics.

Invisibility is boring, it's easy. I'm sure I could just turn myself invisible and waltz through the compound. That's no more interesting or memorable than fighting through the Thalmor.

When I say I wish I could have done that quest in a more sneaky way, that's not me going through some metagame "beat this quest without killing anyone" challenge, it's me wanting to feel like I'm actually sneaking around.

 

[WaysideMaze]

Apologies in advance, SajuukKhar, if it feels like I'm nitpicking all your posts, it's just you make a lot of interesting points and I want to address them. So again, apologies for the massive wall of text to follow.

The problem with making your character gain ranks in the government is that your character HAS to be forgotten.

I'd say the problem is that Skyrim has your character go from lowly initiate to high supreme ruler of a faction in the space of an afternoon. It's bad enough when I'm announced as Arch Mage of a college that I only enrolled in a few days ago, I can't imagine how dumb the game would be to make you king in an afternoon. The quest lines in Skyrim were embarassingly short, but I'll come back to that later.

As for what to change/add. Make the combat less crap.

Bethesda already made Skyrim
-More diverse in landscape
-Have less copy pasta dungeons
-Made enemies not chace you forever, and actually give you a chance to backoff
-Have a decent enemy/loot scaling system
-Cut out all the unnecessary and useless buildings in cities that served no purpose but to hog resources

Bethesda has the world down, they just need to make the combat more interesting.

I agree with most of your points here, except for the copypasta dungeons. Yes, I know that they had a much larger team actually design them this time, but once I'd seen 10 near identical draugr pits I felt I'd seen them all. I never felt compelled to explore that next dungeon, because I knew full well I'd seen one like it not 5 minutes ago. Yes, the layout might have been different, but the way they looked and played out just felt the same.

Add disguises like what was in Fallout: New Vegas and expand on the Civil War quest-line with this.

Think about it though, what constitutes a disguise? Is it the chest piece? the helm?

Personally I'd say it's the full uniform. If I'm dressed like a Stormcloak soldier, then why would the other stormcloaks doubt me?

Bandits wear ALL TYPES of armor. How are the guards supposed to know if I am a bandit or not by my armor?

Well they wouldn't, but how stupid would it be if they just attacked anyone, regardless of uniform, because they might be a bandit? If you're in the armys uniform, then why doubt if you're a member of the army? Maybe a better way to go about it would be codewords. You know like the 'thunder' 'flash' thing used during WW2. They shout out the word, you respond wrong and they attack. I don't know, but it's an idea.

Also, Stormcloaks and Legion ALREADY do know if you are wearing armor of the opposite faction, but, just because you wear their armor doesn't mean you are actually part of the army, and they have no real way of knowing until you attack them first, so OFC they wont attack you.

But they shou;d. If I'm walking around dressed as an Imperial Soldier, I should expect to be arrested on sight in and around Windhelm. These 2 factions are at war, they shouldn't be showing me leniancy because I might not be a part of the enemy army.

And think about how BAD New Vegas disguises were.
-could wear a full suit of T-51B power armor that fully covers yoru face and no one suspects you are a borterhood of steel agent who JUST REMOVED THE ICON FROM THE ARMOR
-However, put on Ceaser's armor, that covers NONE of your face and everyone forgets who you are and goes gun-ho.

The problem with disguises is that, in a "realistic" setting like Skyrim, they make no sense, and the system wouldn't work, because EVERYONE uses most common types of armor, as they would normally. Which makes putting parameters on them impossible, because the armor would apply to every every faction.

Just because new vegas did the faction armour thing wrong doesn't mean it's a bad idea. I really liked the idea in NV, but like you said it was just implemented in a really silly way. I like this idea, and it could have really extended the civil war questline. A bit of espionage could have been fun.

Bring back attributes but give them a good overhaul. Maybe just have them level based of off of your skills. Also bring back athletics and acrobatics as skills. Lastly bring back the variety of join-able factions that Morrowind had.

As for the factions, go and replay Morrowind factions, look at the story they have...... ohh wait, they HAD no story, morrowind's factions had less story then Skyrim's because when you have so many factions ou cant take the time to make them good, and all of Morrowind's guild quests were just fetch quests. Skyrim and Oblivion have less guild sure, but having 5 good factions with plots > then having 10 factions that have no plots.

Agreed with you on the attributes part, so I've snipped it, but I feel the need to address your point regarding the factions. Mainly, I have 1 thing to say; Skyrims questlines were shit.

Now I'll be honest, it's been a long time since I played Morrowind, and my memory of specific quest lines is a bit hazy, but I remember having a much better time with the House of Telvanni than with the College of Winterhold. With the Telvanni, I remember feeling a real sense of accomplishment when I finally reached that last rank. It felt like I'd really worked for it. In Skyrim all I was left with was a feeling of '...that was it?'

And it was the same for all of the factions. The thieves guild really annoyed me. I couldn't believe it when I entered Riften and found a man in the town square accosting me and trying to get me to join the thieves guild. This is not the way it should be done! Finding a criminal organization should be much more difficult than finding the man doing recruitment drive in the town square. It just felt like lazy design. I'll admit Morrowind fell down here aswell, in that everyone knew exactly where the thieves hung out, but thats no excuse for it here. Especially after Oblivion did the thieves guild so much better. It's like a step backwards.

One word: consequences.

I'd like to see quests having impact on the world. When you finish the main quest in Skyrim, do you know what happens? Nothing. Nothing changes in the world. It's just the same as it was at the very start of the game even though you might have saved it from certain destruction multiple times and may have become a leader of some of the most influential organizations in the land. Nobody even seems to care.

Okay, maybe that's not entirely fair. After all, the guards say new things to you depending on your progress and the occasional dragon might spawn when you roam the land. That's something, right? Right...?

Lets see
-Weekly fire festivals in Solitude when there were previously none
-Having 5 forts, normally full of respawning bandits taken over by w/e side you choose during the civil war, who patrol the fort and the roads around it.
-Having several cities Guards, Jarls, Stewards replaced.
-Having reoccurring random encounters with Blood Horkers, Necromancers who tried to corrupt Azura's Star, and remnants of Pryite's afflicted, attack you for revenge for destroying their groups.
-Having every person you have ever helped in the game constantly mention it to you when you pass by.
-Having random thieves attack towns once you take them over for the thieves guild.
-Having thugs sent after you for stealing things.
-Having people take over the business of other people you killed.

I could go on.....

I never felt like I'd affected the world. I know you've just given a big list, but it just never really felt like I'd made any kind of meaningful impact. People just carried on as they always had done, and it just made me feel like I wasn't all that important in this world.


I really did like Skyrim. Honestly, despite my bitching, I spent a lot of time on it, and there was a lot to love. But I think I'd set my sights for it too high, and it just never met my expectations.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Wish blacksmiths and other people who sell and gives minor quests wouldn't get killed off by dragons. I would also like illusion and magic spells in general to scale better.

 

[thesilentman]

-Less buggy,
-Better writing in general

That's my 2 cents

 

[GundamSentinel]

People in Skyrim are poor, they CANT act on their desires, most of them make mention of this.

You know refugees? They're poor, right? Yeah... They couldn't possibly go to another country.

What event can you think of that isn't terribly contrived, like designing a city around a atom bomb just so you could give the player an option to destroy it, would Skyrim have.

I hear people constatly complain about wanting more "consequence" in the game, yet none have ever provided an example that didn;t relay on TONS of very very very heavily contrived situations and events to make them work.

Me: "How about something as simple as building a house?"
Bethesda: "What?! No, people don't build things in games. Houses have to be there from the start. No building!"

"But Dragons and armies destroy things, right? They have to be rebuilt."
"Destroy things? Nuh-uh. They can't do that. That's impossible."

"But it happened in Helgen!"
"Oh yeah, right. But that was a one time event, to start the game properly. Don't you dare touch those ruins though! No building things!"

"And don't people get killed? Don't they get a funeral? Don't people mourn them?"
"Only the great Kodlak can have a funeral. The rest of them we just warp into the crypt. We'll send you a nice letter though."

"But this giant spider killed this poor quest giver. Doesn't his family care?"
"Sorry about that, console commands will remedy that."

"That's not what I meant."
"I know."

"And it's started to rain as well. Damn. Hey, what about the weather? Won't the seasons change?"
"What? We have snow in the north and no snow in the south. Problem solved."

"And it's been a year since I found this random trinket for this shopkeeper, why does he still keep mentioning it? It's nice to get a discount, but this is getting creepy."
"That's to make sure you know you're appreciated."

"Hey, I think I just killed my 1000th Afflicted. Do you think they'll ever catch on to the idea that they're basically fighting a demigod?"
"Nah, they're very tenacious."

"And those bandits, don't they know who I am by now? Is that tenacity as well?"
"No, they're just very competitive."

"I saved the world from being destroyed by dragons and I stopped the war. They should celebrate me in the streets, build a statue, or a shrine, or grant me some nice farmland so I can retire or at least give me some money. What's up?"
"Well, you know how busy everyone is... doing the things they do. I don't think they noticed. Wait, did you say 'build'? You want to build things again, don't you? I've got your number, there'll be none of that!
The guards appreciate you though, but they're a bit shy. They're baking a cake for you. [sup][sub](That's a lie.)[/sub][/sup]"

That's all very contrived of course. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[SajuukKhar]

As much as I do love old school d&d style dice rolling RPGs, I can still enjoy an ARPG if it actually has good gameplay (like Dark Souls) OR good story elements, like Vampire Bloodlines say. Unfourtinatly Skyrim has neither.

Dark souls... the game that was only hard because the gameplay was so imbalanced against you... not because the enemies were actually smart, or had good AI. such GREAT gameplay there.

Also, Elder scrolls has a FAR better story then it appears t, or not to more preciesly.

Elder Scrolls isn't like a Bioware or OBsidian game were they force feed you the plot through heavily controlled environments.

Its a series who true plot, and whose true meaning can only be understood by understanding the mythic symbolism used through the games, its something that can only bee understood by reading every books and understanding how all the contradictions about the god or events actually aren't.

I doubt you understand ANYTHING about the plot of Skyrim, I doubt you know what CHIM is, or what The towers are, or mantling, or the truth behind Talos, of how Lorkhan is Akatosh and what that really means.

Your judging a story that your missing 90% of.

Furthermore neither Vampire or Planescpae had great stories, they were full of terrible cliche and badp lto twists. Vamprie had one of the worst endings in video games I can think of... "the think you were trying to get was really a bomb the whole time" and you kill yourself in several endings, or let someone else take the bomb to the face.

Why do you keep harping on bugs when they get fixed but shitty writing and game design never does ?

And again with the bs meaningless mainstream review scores. Herp.

The thing is OBSIDIAN NEVER FIXES ITS BUGS

That they have better writing is 100% meaningless because they never do anything to actually fix their games to make them playable.

Writing the best book ever written is meaningless if you can't get it printed on paper that doesn't decay after 3 minutes so that people can actually read it.

Also that excuse is one of the most retarded ever, its almost as dumb and idiotic as blaming the publishers for all of Obsidian's faults. Its a last resort card used because there is no REAL justification for how bad Obsidian's games are beyond the fact that they suck at making games.

Reviews scores are only meaningless to you because they take you away from the fantasy world you live in and force you to deal wit the truth of how bad Obsidian is at game making.

And Avellone only has about 100x as much talent when it comes to writing and story elements compared to the stooges over at Bethesda.

Funny because all of his games are full of terribly cliches.

Every Fallout Villain ever is a stereotypical cliche.

And if he was so much better at writing, why cant he write a game that gets good reviews?

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

The stealth skill is totally overpowered and needs removing altogether..it spoils everything

Stealth is one third of the game essentially. It'd be like removing the blue from colours altogether.

Less fighting the Falmer and Dwemer Centurions. Damn I grew tired of that shit fast. It seemed they were the go to enemies for when the devs couldn't be bothered to make a section of a dungeon challenging or interesting, they were just filler.

 

[Terminate421]

AI do not get executions on the player. I know it's to make them tougher but....no. Sometimes how much damage they do is bullshit. And its always unavoidable. Especially the front half of a dragon.

 

[gaiusimperator]

I'd remove voice acting so I could mod in a hell of a lot more dialogue, and make the existing dialogue better.


And then make tons of new quests and factions.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Morrowind's guilds were beatable within the space of 1 game week.

And if you actually look at Morrowind's guild quests you will see that 99% of the stuff you do in them SERVES NO REAL PLOT. All of Morrowind's guild quests, with the exception of the last 3 or so, served no purpose, they didn't connect to each other beyond "we gave you the last quest now take this one".

Skyrim guilds actually have plot, and that's why they are so damn short, because when you add a plot, and focus on it, shit gets done.

Its like comparing American cartoons to Japanese anime. Most American shows last for SEASONS upon season, and you know why? because they all have "Simpsons syndrome" the have no plot, no episode links together to form a coherent anything. Japanese anime on the other hand lasts, on average, for 13-26 episodes. Is it because they are bad? no, its because they have a plot and focus on it.

Yeah Skyrim's guilds are short... that's because they have plots, and focus on them. they don't adding unnecessary filler distraction BS that serves no purpose, that is for AFTER the guild story is done, in the form of radiant quests.

When you have a plot, and focus on it, it makes shit shorter, its just a fact of life. But I would rather have a 13 episode show full of plot, then some American sitcom that lasts for 12 years where nothing connects to eachother.
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I found myself wanting to explore every Dwemer ruin, and every Nordic hall, because each of them has some grand room that no other one has. I love seeing these vast gallerys tat are solely unique to this one dungeon.
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Because in Skyrim looting the dead is actually a common occurrence. Hell there's a random encounter specifically about a scavenger looting dead soldiers.

They have a reason to doubt you because
1.They have never sene you before
2. they know people are taking stuff off the corpses of their dead soldiers all the time.

Its the same for all disguise situations.
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For all the stormcloak soldiers in Windhelm know, you are one of them coming back from a espionage mission. they have no reason to arrest because they cant confirm who you are.
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The thieves guild in Oblivion was shit, I'm sorry. What Oblivion had a rabin hood society that totally crapped over everythign that made the thieves guild good.

As for the sense of accomplishment in Morrowind's guild quests, it was because they had A LOT of them, but as I pointed out before, them having a lot of them also meat they had no real purpose.

Morrowind's guild quests were essentially a very long grind of meaningless actions with the reward of guild-master at the end of it all. It was spending several hours doing tedious, boring, and often very repetitive tasks that most people actually hated at the time.

when you make getting guild master more flwoing, by making it tied to a central plot, it seems like you have done less because everything flowed into each other, it just feels like " I am doing stuff" instead of "I'm working my ass off in these boring ass purposeless fetch quests".

And that is why Morrowind's guild quests BLEW ASS. You DID NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE. It was 100% meaningless grind.
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but really, think about it for a minute, what do you do in the game that would actually warrant some drastic change? think back to the games that DID have big drastic changes or world altering events.

Fallout 3 had one, in the atom bomb thing, only because the entire story of the city was designed around the blowing up of said bomb, instead of an actual narrative that made sense with how things would naturally be.

In truth MOST games that add big world changing consequences do so via deus ex machinas, or VERY contrived set-ups. In reality 99% of the shit you do WOULDN'T AFFECT JACK-SQUAT. Killing the emperor of Tamriel would, realistic have ZERO impact on Skyrim.

Yeah it is kinda lame that the world apparently doesn't care, but I would rather have a world that doesn't care in a realistic manner, then one that does care by adding in asinine, ego stroking, highly contrived, plots like Fallout 3's atom bomb.

 

[Norix596]

The ability to jump back about 15 minutes in time to address glitches. Frequently there are bugs (like the Ivarstead dungeon entrance) that can only be fixed by encountering the location again. I know that there are saves whenever you want them but there's no reason you would be thinking to save in a lot of situations where bug arise.

 

[Valis88]

I'd keep the voice acting intact, but allow player made quests to appear in a text box. I had so much hope for the construction set (and remember all the fun I had making quests in Morrwind), only to have it dashed when I released that I can't make voices for my quests...and I don't know anyone that could voice any of my quests either...I'm not a game studio. >_<

I'd also improve or completely overhaul the marriage system. I have no idea why it even exists in the first place. Why would a Dunnmer, or a Bosmer or any other race with a different 'religion' from the eight divine ever agree to marry under Mara. What if my character doesn't believe in Mara at all?

Also the entire 'amulet and quick marriage' excuse just makes no sense at all. The Nords might have short courting times, but that's not true of anyone else. I'm a Dunnmer why should I court like a Nord does.

The whole things just feels completely cold, and loveless. Devoid of any sense of romance. Which is either a joke by the developers, or a huge sign that this was a last minute thing.

It needs lots of work. >_<

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

1) The ability to throw weapons, imagine seeing a bandit flee and then just throwing an axe into his back or, if you had the stamina, a fucking warhammer.

2) Make it so that you gain all shouts through the main quest, have dragons dissappear after you have finished the story.

3) An expansion pack in which you got broken down entirely, so that you could build yourself back up again.

4) Game-to-game save transfers, they would affect what was written in various books throughout the game, they would also make the game feel more like your own. Also they could generally do some awesome shit with that. If the exact same dungeon appeared in two games, it would be so awesome (but maybe impractical) if you could leave some weapons/armor in there in the previous game and then in the next game, you'd go inside, the first person to do so since your previous player character, and pick them up.

5) The Dreamstride is an awesome concept that should have been used more. I'm thinking inception-esque murder mystery.

6) Also, changing seasons. That would just be amazing.

 

[Aesir23]

Well, if I replied with everything I'd like to see done it would be more than a tad redundant so I'll just go with one.

Aside from seeing combat redone I would really like for Bethesda to use more voice actors. With all the NPCs they have in their world seventy voice actors isn't enough, or they don't spread them out well enough. It's a step up from Oblivion of course, but it's more than odd to run into a group of four Imperial soldiers all voiced by the same guy.

Oh, this is a biggy though. They should actually weed out the major bugs before sending out the final product. Things like the game crashing once per hour or the framerate slowly degenerating until it's a slideshow instead of a game even if it has become slightly better since the 1.5 patch. (Can you tell I have the PS3 version?)

Also, I'd have liked to see more Non-Nords added to the eligible spouses list. Some races (if they wanted to marry those of their own race) had very little to choose from and some races were excluded entirely.

 

[lord.jeff]

I like the idea of raising in government.

A quest line that lets me destroy/capture the thieves or assassins guilds by joining the guards or take out the guards and Companions to make life as a criminal easier.

More magic in the magic guild I shouldn't be able to become Arch Mage with barely having to cast magic.

And a rework on combat and stealth it never gets harder or more interesting it be nice to fit in ways that as you level you have to start worrying about more things.

2) Make it so that you gain all shouts through the main quest, have dragons dissappear after you have finished the story.

Also no, I would never do the main quest if that was the case I like having the dragons around and going into random tombs that give you a worthy reward.

 

[hazabaza1]

Man, this Fanbody slap-fight is fun. Grab the popcorn, guys.

OT: Just make everything a bit more polished I guess. Add in a dodge mechanic too, make combat more reflex based, similar to Dark Souls.
I dunno, most of the stuff I would want fixed can be done with mods I guess.

 

[KjellKanon]

I would add the ability to feed on people who are awake as a vampire.
That's basically it. If it was added, I might consider being one ;P