Skyrim - What would you change/add?

[thejboy88]

As much as I may love the recent open-world smassh hit from Bethesda, there are still a couple of things about it that I would like to change. And I'm not just talking about bugs and things.

For example, as in most Elder Scrolls games I am never given the opportunity to rise through the various levels of government this land has. The opportunity to become Jarl, or perhaps even high king would be greatly appealing to me.

In addition, I would love for the game's developers to have gone further with the whole "marrying" concept in the game. By that I mean it would have been nice to do something with my wife besides having her sit at home all day. I don't even get to have any children with her, something I hope future DLC rectifies.

Plus there's the basic issue of the "invisible walls" again, never being able to go beyond a specific point. If maybe they'd invent some sort of natural barrier, like a rockslide, or perhaps a toll-gate that's been closed for some reason, or something that might justify my not being able to go to those places once I've reached the end of the map, THEN I'd accept it. But as it is it just ruins the immersion of the game for me.

But what about all of you.

As popular as this game is, I'm convinced that there must be one or two things that you'd change about it. And I'd love to hear what those things are.

 

[Kud]

I agree on the wife/kids thing, I enjoy having that feature even if I don't use it often.

I would also like more actions for the dragons. After fighting 2 or 3 dragons you've pretty much got their actions down and the fights become stale, so I'd love more actions.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The problem with making your character gain ranks in the government is that your character HAS to be forgotten. It's easy to justify the Dovahkiin's role in the guilds as "the leader of those guilds aren't important anywhere else, and are thus not known". However being the High King, or a Jarl, isn't something that is just forgotten, it would force Bethesda to give your character a gender, race, ideals, that may not match your own, and thus invalidate what character you chose to play.

Bethesda would never do anything that invalidates, or forces them to invalidate, your choice of gender, race, and guild quests you may or may not have done.
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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.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I would fix the leveling system so that leveling up is tied to kills and finishing quests, like a normal RPG. Leveling up by using your skills may seem more natural, but it also means your character's development will fall dead in its tracks the moment your main skill set has reached 100. And using other skills I don't like or that don't fit my character simply for the sake of leveling up sucks.

The other change would be making the gameworld feel more alive. I can't really put my finger on it, but the land of Skyrim felt rather lifeless as opposed to games like Fallout 3 or New Vegas.

The quests were also dull as fuck; Go there, kill/find that, or don't. Those were the only options open to you throughout the game.

 

[webkilla]

I will agree to some of what SajuukKhar said

But then again - the issue of giving your character ideals... in an RPG? No, that's easy. You just give some dialogue options and multi-ending quests that give the player options on how to, say, lead a guild or administer justice.

Do you execute the petty thief or show mercy? Do you spend time getting a special order together for the business your wife set up? It would be easy, just look at Mass Effect and copy that formula.

 

[spectrenihlus]

I want the guilds to recognize me as the fricken DOVAHKIN. It breaks all credulity when you walk into the hall and they treat you like just some other guy even if you just slew an ancient dragon that landed on Jorvaskar. Also there needs to be more in game continuity as in if you already joined the mages college and became the archmage when you do the thieves guild quests the mage guy who helps you translate the falmer language recognizes you as the archmage.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

It needs those fetch quests removing where you gain nothing but 50 gold for walking the length of the world...they were pointless.

It certainly needs more work on the combat system which is woefully inadequate for a game of its size.

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

 

[Sir Pootis]

Stealthing definitley needs to be redone to the point I feel life learning how to use the Creation kit solely to mod it in.

 

[Eddy-16]

I'd like to be able to join the guards, that could be cool and better combat and such

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Some more spells. Particularly in Destruction, Alteration, and Illusion.

More enemies weak to ice or magic in general, and/or resistant to physical/lightning. I want a reason to use more than fire 99% of the time, and to use magic period over arrows,poison and melee. I wish that there were a SPELL that could freeze enemies in ice, or push them back. I mean there are quite a few shouts that mimic spells already like aura whisper, animal friends etc. why not have it go both ways?

Seemingly a lot of the mods for spells out there make "force push" one of their top priorities. Even bethesda made that vamp lord telekinesis spell to toss npcs around as one of their first additional spells so its what people want dammit! :3

Alteration could have spells that change you into a bear or giant. Why do you need to have a disease in order to alter your body? I mean its called MAGIC for a reason.

Why not let us turn iron into Malachite, or Ebony? I would like to be able to transmute something into dragon bones personally so I could use the new weapons without having dragons all over the place...

I mean they made the jagged crown out of something, so they had those bones in the old days. You should be able to find them n places like labyrinthian and other dragon cult dungeons.

Illusion could have spells that are more impressive than turning the enemies red or green. Why not have a scary phantom monster (like those black wraiths in meridia's temple) appear and it scares the crap out of everyone. Those that are not impressed would instead of running away would try to kill it, but since it isn't real it can't take damage and it makes a great distraction. You could have a spell that makes enemies kill themselves, or one that makes them run around picking up every random item because they think its diamonds. Or one that makes them think they are bunnies so they hop around.

Destruction needs spells that can decapitate at range, like an ice disc. I mean if ice is gonna be the most tangible of the spells and can already impale, why not have it cut em in half on occasion? I which that augmented element perks changed how all the spells in that branch worked. I know it makes fireball/ice storm/chain lightning better, but that is it aside from meager damage increases. I want it to make the basic ice spike into a triple ice spike like Wispmothers get even if it only retains the 50% damage boost instead of 3x. I want it to make firebolt set them on fire longer and burn hotter. I want incinerate to look different than firebolt, and icy spear to look better than simply a bigger version of ice spike.

Ditto for thunder/lightning bolt, even though I never use shock spells. I mean how cool would it be if another master shock spell simply tagged an enemy with a lightning rod debuff and then lightning came FROM THE SKY to strike them a few times like HELIOS in New Vegas? You could only use it outside and it took a lot of mp but it would be a spectacle, and thats what I like in my magic.

Blizzard is actually a perfectly fine spell, its a centralized AOE that moves with you and does DOT ice damage. Too bad its damage is based on YOUR ice resistance and damages YOU and the enemies for crap damage. It has the right idea though.

Firestorm would be nice if it didn't knock every item into the furthest corner. I would infinitely prefer the high bolide spell from dragons dogma.

In general I would prefer they replaced all the destruction spells with ones from Dragon's Dogma.

Lightning whip for the win...

Runes need to do more damage, or let you put down more than one since the augmented perks don't apply. I hear the wall spells don't work as they should either damagewise, but I think being able to set the whole place on fire for like 30 sec is pretty useful as it is.

Also now that I've used a horse for the first time and trolled bunnies form horseback I would like to be able to spam fireballs from horseback.

I would like npcs to act a little smarter, like running away from dragons and vampires if they are unarmed, using potions/healing magic etc.

Deer are way smarter than npcs, and that is kinda sad.

 

[black_knight1337]

Well, I'd have conflicting guilds to supplement the ones already present. So something like fleshing out the silver hand and make them join-able as an alternative to the Companions. Same things with each of the other guilds present so maybe some necromancers for the Mage's guild, maybe the Morag Tong for the Dark Brotherhood and maybe a more fleshed out version of the Summerset Shadows for the Thieve's guild.

Next thing would be an overhaul of stealth. Increase the realism for sound propagation and the lighting, make it so at high levels you still can't just walk across in the light right in front of them without being detected. Maybe add some of those water arrows from Thief so you can take out lighting from further away. Alter the ai so that if they hear a noise they'll search around and then return to their normal state (already present), if you hit one of the enemies then that enemy will stay in a high alert mode and try to find you while others might give up the search as if they just heard something and if you kill one of them then as soon as someone spots the body they call out to their buddies and everyone is on high alert and searching for you.

Add disguises like what was in Fallout: New Vegas and expand on the Civil War quest-line with this. Make it so that you can have different roles based on what kind of character you are building. So you could have a stealth type infiltrating enemy lines and grabbing some of their armour so you could get close to their higher ranking members to obtain information or even assassinate them. Which leads on to the fact that disguises would be a really good tool for the Dark Brotherhood. Stealing a set of armour, then casually walking to your mark, taking them out, then casually walking out. That would be awesome, especially in the last stage of the final mission for them.

Bring back Morrowind style armour customisation. So for all you that don't know you can equip left and right variants of boots, pauldrons, gauntlets and then a cuirass, greaves and helmet. Then at the same time you can equip some normal clothes to go under your armour or a robe to go over the top.

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. In Morrowind there was the 3 Great Houses, Blades, East Empire Trading Company, Fighter's Guild, Imperial Cult, Imperial Legion, Mage's Guild, Thieve's Guild, Ashlanders, Morag Tong, Tribunal Temple and three vampire clans (Aundae, Berne and Quarra). Compare this to the Companions, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Mage's Guild and the Imperial Legion/Stormcloaks that were available in Skyrim.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I want the guilds to recognize me as the fricken DOVAHKIN. It breaks all credulity when you walk into the hall and they treat you like just some other guy even if you just slew an ancient dragon that landed on Jorvaskar. Also there needs to be more in game continuity as in if you already joined the mages college and became the archmage when you do the thieves guild quests the mage guy who helps you translate the falmer language recognizes you as the archmage.

Umm the guy does recognize you as arch-mage, in fact he directly calls you arch-mage when you talk to him....

Just as when you are dong the Dark Brotherhood quests after doing the thieves guild Delvin calls you boss, and makes mention of you making friends all over.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

the problem with attributes is that when you have a system with attributes all characters end up the same.

In Morrowind and Oblivion as you leveled up you would eventually max your primary attributes and then be forced to raise other attributes instead, by the time you reached a high level you had most of your attributes at very high levels, and since so much of the game was controlled by attributes it made all characters, be they warrior, mage, or thief, the EXACT same.

Attribute systems are the literal murder of character diversity, bringing them back would only mean making your choice of play-style meaningless, like it was in past games.

furthermore you DO have attributes in Skyrim.
-Intelligence, which raises your magicka
-Strength, which raises your stamina and carry weight
-Endurance, which gives you more health
The attributes aren't gone, they are just hidden.

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.

 

[Quijiboh]

Some kind of dodge function would be nice. Also, an improved PC port that doesn't require you to go through a million steps to eliminate the input lag.

Other than that, the standard Bethesda game faults remain to be fixed:

- Dodgy character animation that makes tracking enemy movements more difficult.
- Combat that relies a little more on skill than on simply possessing the right collection of numbers
- Paper-thin characterisation. I can barely remember anybody's name because their personalities are so indistinct.
- A sense of anything you do having any sort of impact.

 

[GundamSentinel]

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...?

 

[SajuukKhar]

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, or murdering people
-Having people take over the business of other people you killed, and mention hating you for killing the previous owner.

I could go on.....

 

[DustyDrB]

I'd change the leveling system. I hate that you don't earn XP for completing quests. The leveling system that is there leads to things like...
-conjure a familiar. Whack it to death. Repeat.
-Forge 90 iron daggers
-Sell 90 iron daggers one at a time.
-Have your character sneak crouch in a corner for half an hour while you're away.

Some of that comes from people being too impatient to let their character level naturally. They get more joy in confirmations from the game and Skinner Box mechanics than they do from the gameplay itself. But some of it also comes from skills that are just ridiculously hard to level (Speechcraft in particular). In RPGs, I tend to like to create diplomatic or manipulative characters. Skyrim doesn't really allow that.

So really, look at what the Fallout series does. Do that. I want my master-manipulator character.

 

[Guffe]

I have nevre played Skyrim.
But I think they shouting thing is a bit unrealistic, but if everything he shouts he would fart instead, that would make the game a lot better already.