TES V, New Ideas

[bentalbot]

Alright, let me start off by saying that TESIV: Oblivion is the only installment I've actually played. I played about 10 minutes of Morrowind, but years after it first came out and the starting area put me off.

Now one thing I'd have thought would make Oblivion much more enjoyable is expanding the explorable area. In Tamriel alone (apparently there's at least one other continent) you have all these provinces surrounding Cyrodiil that are just beckoning for you to explore, but you're stuck on this side of the border. Allow players to go ANYWHERE they want to. If I overhear people in the street talking about the land of the Dunmer, I want to be able to hop on a horse and ride to Morrowind to see what they're talking about. I want to be able to ride North through the Jerall Mountains and visit Skyrim.

Of course in each of the different provinces, the ratio of race X to every other race should shift dramatically. Cryodiil is basically in the middle of all of them so as it stands it has mixture of every race, but Hammerfell should be predominantly Redguard and as someone else already mentioned races in different areas should be prejudice against certain other races/professions. Redguards don't really like mages, Khajit and Argonians don't really like each other, etc, etc.

I don't think the inclusion of other provinces should be done at the cost of having to shrink or simplify areas, either. I don't think game developers should really be afraid of using more than 1 disc for their games, like they seem to have been in recent years. As long as you're not making someone change the disc in their computer/console every time they go through a door into someone's house, I think most people could live with having to switch a disc as they pass a border between provinces. This would at least let you make each of those other provinces as large as Cyrodiil is now.

The leveling system really does need to be fixed. I think it's a common issue that practically everyone hates, because it doesn't feel like there's an adequate balance between working your ass off swinging a sword around and just jumping up and down on rocks. It's certainly a wonderful feature that leveling your characters is not strictly bound to killing creatures, but it doesn't really feel like you get much benefit for leveling up some skills. Why level security, when someone who's had enough practice can pick a very hard lock flawlessly at a level of 1? A Novice in security should have a different perspective of the lock tumblers, or have some obscured, or actually have some incentive to progress through the security levels to actually be able to pick locks easier.

Locational damage would add a lot more realism. As another said, hitting someone hard in the face with a sword should split their skull in half, not do nothing. Nailing someone in the arm with an arrow should make them drop whatever they were holding in that hand, or at least have them stop and try to pull the arrow out/snap it off. Slashing a running enemy across the back of the calves should have them drop to the floor and try to pull themselves away. Little things like this would add a lot of strategy and realism to the combat system and actually reward accuracy of blows, or aim with an arrow. On that train of thoughts, I'm a big fan of stealth-kills in games. If I can sneak up behind someone I should be able to slit their throat for an instant kill, not only get a damage modifier to my first attack. I suppose the largest point would be to make enemies vulnerable, not have a frail beggar easily soak up an axe blow to the nose.

Living economies help realism greatly. Rather than merchants having a fixed amount of gold to buy things with, they start out with a sum that increases or decreases whether they're buying things from your or you're buying from them. If you spend 4,000 gold in a store, that owner should be 4,000 gold the richer, and be able to spend 4,000 gold more on buying items from you. There's a mod that adds this into Oblivion but as mentioned, mods shouldn't be required. Having the option to find actually own your own store and profit from it as your source of income is also a wonderful idea, as you'd either have to sacrifice your time to running the counter or you'd have to budget hiring someone to run the store for you while you're off adventuring.

Someone's suggestion about having the option of ignoring the main storyline entirely if that's what you choose to do is excellent. One mod I installed for Oblivion has you arrive on a boat in Anvil instead of start in the Imperial Prison, and it's only when you actually travel to the Imperial City and get yourself arrested that the main quest begins. I had already gone and started my progression in the Mage's Guild before I actually had to go and bother with the starting dungeon and watching Uriel die.

Linearity is bad. If you don't force an event to happen only one way, and have the option of things working out differently, then there's so much more gameplay and enjoyability to the game. Having your character freeze when Uriel gets jacked really was stupid, you can even stand in the alcove that the Mythic Dawn member comes out of and he'll push you out of the way before killing the Emperor. There should have been absolutely no reason I couldn't have at least attacked him and tried to hold him off until Baurus could come help.

From the sounds of it, TESV is probably going to be the last installment in the story if it's even made, so there shouldn't really be any worries of "We need to make sure by the conclusion of the game that event X has happened." Just let the player have free reign over the plot. If I can save Emperor Uriel Septim and he survives the Mythic Dawn attack in the sewer, let me have the option of joining the Blades and defending Uriel inside Cloud Ruler Temple at the Mythic Dawn still try to assassinate him. Or let me not give a crap and go off to do something entirely different while the Mythic Dawn plot still unfolds in the world without my intervention. So no one saves the Emperor, the Mythic Dawn get the amulet, Kvatch is totaled and Martin is killed, Daedra overrun all of Cyrodiil and things turn out bad. Let them.

Oh, and forcing people to go through that long ass freaking tutorial dungeon every single time they start a new game is a HORRIBLE idea. Yeah, it's part of the quest that you've got to find another way through to meet up with the Emperor again, but it's so long and boring and trivial that it's off-putting. Give players the option of staying in their jail-cell if they want, or persuade Baurus to let you come with them from the start rather than locking you out of the door. Give alternatives that reward understanding of the game mechanics and past experience, as it adds so much more to replay value.

I think a lot of the basics are there in Oblivion as is, I love being able to forget about the Mythic Dawn and go off to do my own thing, with that quest-line still being there when I feel like doing some more of it, but I think it would be more immersive if they progressed regardless of my involvement. The Emperor tells me to take the amulet to Jauffre, I should be able to forget about doing so and have the Mythic Dawn start coming after ME. I should be able to ignore the Mage's Guild quests and further on in the game in the periphery of my involvement Mannimarco is ruining crap.

Non-linearity, immersion, and realism are all things I love in video games. With the astonishing start Oblivion gave, I think expanding and fixing any minor flaws would make an even more wonderful game.

This also turned into a really long drawn out rant, after simply having stumbled into this thread from watching Zero-Punctuation.

 

[dazirius]

Eye Spider: That's pretty much what I was thinking. It wouldn't take that many staff to make the new half-burned-down building and the new lines of dialog and I could be downloading said content as I set light to the place. If a small subscription fee were introduced it could pay for talented folk to build all sorts of new stuff to happen or indeed not happen, depending upon your actions, but it's all streamed. It's not episodic, it's just there are longer chains than the original release and there are days when the shopkeeper says "Did you feel that quake last night? Anyhoo, what you want?" rather than "I've got the best prices in all of Cyrodil". It makes it that much more immersive for very little cost and the opportunities to expand to whole new areas being developed (I believe ages of myst tried this) are fantastic. Who will take on such a challenge? Bethesda? Hope so!

 

[tim_sama]

I definitely don't want TESV to be a MMORPG, but some LAN-style online/local multiplayer would be nice, allowing people to load their save files and start a "server" capable of holding 16 players on 360, PC, and PS3. Eye Spider's ideas are great, and I'd love to play a game like that. Just fix the leveling system, and the idea about adding weekly content for a small monthly fee would be wonderful. Basically, don't make an MMORPG, but give me something I can play online with my friends in a persistent (from session to session, anyway) world to REPLACE my current MMO poison-of-choice (FFXI). Adding in weekly content would ensure I'd play it forever, and have more fun than grinding in an MMO.

 

[tim_sama]

Also, might want to pick up the GURPS (General Universal Role Playing System) books to get some ideas about character building/customization (although if you're working on Fallout 3, you've probably already done that).

 

[clouddyl]

I think more voice actors is a must, if i hear "i saw a mudcrab yesterday, vicious things" or whatever one more time im goning to explode, and also, i agree with all the above stuff but make certain aspects completely online. For exapmle, the Arena based area, or maybe a player market place thats completely run by us, i think that would be awesome, and would allow for people like my brother who enjoy merchanting for like, hours on end. once i gave hima runescape account that i didnt play anymore, it had like, 10k on it, by the end of the week he had somthing like 400k, but back to my idea, make player markets and online fighting things!

~~cloud

 

[Agamemnon582bc]

Everything has been pretty much been said, but if the main point that I wanted to bring up has been said, then forgive me. The setting should be ALL of Tamriel. Yes, I do mean ALL of it. I mean, if you can think of anything as monumental as taking on a huge enough project like that, then let me know. If the game takes ten years to produce then great, I hope it does; all the more of an attestment to how much time and effort they put into the last game of the series to be the end-all as far as open-ended single player RPGs go. Seriously, that's what I liked the most about TESIV. It was one of the few single player RPGs worth actually playing. Doing something as monumental as this would be unbelievably amazing.

 

[clouddyl]

that my friend, would be so damn awesome i think i may need to see it happen, even if it involves cyrogenic freezing. also, then the only fast travel would be to the capital of each province?

 

[Pyro Paul]

a few things to make the TES series Better.

1) A Party. even if that is just a traveling bard that sings you tales of your exploits, or just some squire which holds your swords, traveling alone gets drab and boring. maybe have a healer which can follow you around that can heal you and do nothing else. or you could be a healer and travel around with a strong swords man healing them...

2) Romance, love, and sex. lets face it, the world is becoming more mature and we need to stop hiding behind the vail of innocence. having a place to come home to put your boots up and be served a hot meal by your lovely wife is just the type of RPG that we need... or if you are a depraved individual, leave your blood stained boots at the door and walk into your fortress where your cadre of half naked concubines come to keep you 'company'...

3) non-important player. i hate how the player is always the key to most events in the game. i would love to just come walking down the road and watch a bandit attack on a caravan infront of me watching them kill all the people and run off with the loot with out caring that i was there.

4) be Evil... i wanna be a bandit and raid said caravan of its goods hiding it in my cave with my goons drinking meh alchole and evading the cops.

5) weapons being equial and the diffrent types only offer diffrent looks. so a Steel sword can be just as effective as an Ebony or Glass sword. you could add in diffrent stats to each making some weapons understandably slightly better, but for the most part, i don't want to drop my weapon after every fight so i can equip a fancy next dwarven sword to fight with until the next battle which will give me an even neater ebony sword.

 

[rougeknife]

What I would like is something set in a single, large, living, breathing city on the coast, whose name and location is unknown, but within in the empire, teaming with people. From the slums to the rich quarter, the markets and the docks, and the sewers that runs under the city, I want a city that feels ALIVE. Outside the city gates is the country side, with a few towns, dungeons and the like, but everything is central to the city.

I want to be dumped out on my arse without a clue of what to do in a place that seeks to kill me at every turn. To accept a delivery for a few coins from one side of the city to another, only to find I?ve been set up as the guy who hired me cry?s ?Theif!? To join with some mercenaries and escort a caravan through a dangerous portion of the country side, then be cheated by my employer. To end up owing money to the wrong people, and having to pay it back. Be forced to fight as a gladiator to earn your freedom when convicted. Try to join with a guild for the fringe benefits. Accept a job from a stranger to kill the man who was sleeping with his wife, and get involved with more than you bbargined for.
I want a place that gives the player a rich world, that offers the illusion of freedom of choice, because the player doesn?t have a choice in what they do, as they do what they must to survive. I stress illusion as true freedom of choice is far to hard to achive and still be fun, with the illusion the developers can keep a strong hold on the story.
Once the player gets past surviving and is well set up, is when they get dumped with a main story line quest, to save the world? or let it burn as they ignore it and follow their own petty desires.

 

[Surggical_Scar]

I really like Rogue's idea of twisted storylines and deception. Oblivion was far too cut and dried in that respect, especially when working for the Dark Brotherhood:

Spoiler

You end up bumping off half the Brotherhood, only to be forgiven almost instantly.

If you end up on the wrong side of the law, or a faction, you should be at least dipped in the cacky, if not up to your eyeballs in the steaming brown. Say, you get framed for a crime, you can go about clearing your name (or not) in different ways, gathering evidence, framing some other sucker, or buying your way out of it via corrupt individuals.

That's quite a point, actually, what other factions would we want to see in TES:V?

Personally, I'd like to see being able to join a law enforcement faction, bounty hunters, or city guards, hell, we could bring back the Imperial Legion of Morrowind. That way, there's always the potential to have a limitless supply of randomly generated quests, solving murders, thefts, tracking down fugitives.

On the flipside of the coin, how about working with a bandit group? Okay, we have theieves and assassins, but what if we want to break the law in a less subtle manner? Thus, we can delve into inter-bandit skirmishes, establishing new bases in infested ruins and caves, raiding small villages, the whole range of badassery in the name of profit and murder.

I'd also like to expand on what I said before on the combat system:

Blade:

Fencing: Make the most of the length of your blade, improving the speed and making it harder to block, but sacrificing damage and your own defence.

Blade-Kata: Discipline and technique, enhancing damage and defence at the cost of speed and flexibility.

Blunt:

Subdue: Not everyone just wants to crack some skulls. Used carefully, a club, cosh or mace can render someone unconscious without serious damage. Useful for Thieves looking to score some quick cash.

Follow Through: Utilising the momentum and stopping power of a cudgel, at the expense of fatigue, attacks that break someone's guard keep on coming until the attacker stops, or the defencer successfully evades them.

Hand-To-Hand:

Vital Attacks: As opposed to standard power attack effects, the flexibility of hand-to-hand aloows the fighter to burden, silence, paralyse, knock down, enrage or demoralise opponents without the use of magic.

Combat Styles: Brawling, for extra damage, martial arts for speed, dirty fighting for emphasis on attack effects, etc.

Other Stuff:

Throwing: Small to medium-sized weapons could be throwable, either as a desperation move against a fleeing opponent, or as an alternative to an assassin's bow. Chucking a dagger, axe, or even a shortsword is perfectly possible with skill, and rather powerful.

Coup De Grace: When you've knocked an enemy to the floor, or drained their health sufficiently (a la Deadly Reflex), why can't we finish them off with a well-placed sword-thrust or hammer blow? It seems a bit redundant that we can only slash at them when they're down, not jam a blade into their eye socket.

Two-Weapon Fighting: Within reason, limited to small and medium weapons, or one long and one medium or less. It just beggars belief that no-one in TES seems to have grasped that you can hold a weapon in your other hand, too.

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

i actually had a great idea for a character class which did not work out as well as i planned in oblivion, i created a mage who focused mostly on mage skills but i also gave him hand to hand, hoping i might be able to do a "paralyze on touch for x amount of seconds" and turn my fists into firey doom hands or electric mayhem, being able to paralyze people with a punch or some of the other magic spells imbued in your gauntlets maybe. i dunno just the concept of a mage/monk who used his spells to enhance the hand to hand seemed like fun, i had aspirations of leaving smoldering knuckle marks on mehrunes dagon's underlings. all i can say is thank god i also put blade as a major skill in case it didn't work out because it didn't work out so well.

i also will say i'm not a fan of the fact that ice didn't damage half the enemies in oblivion, anything undead was immune to ise attacks, which was alot of stuff, that could go away as well.

 

[EnzoHonda]

Lots of neat ideas here, people. Good work.

A few things I'll mention.

I love the idea of a big living city. Kind of like Assassin's Creed's cities, but with things that are fun to do. My only concern here is that a mostly city-based game would really change the flavour of TES. It's a lot harder to have huge cave/ruin/dungeon complexes in a city. "Get thee to the baker, inside will be a trap door that leads to an ancient ruin with many horrible daemons." Planescape: Torment pulled off the big city well, but then that whole game was pretty twisted.

Make characters that are attractive or at least give us that option. Seriously, no one in Cyrodill would ever get laid looking like that.

Make a cool world, whatever it is. Morrowind blew me away. Huge sandstorms, stilt-striders, slave plantations, Dwemer huts with the neat, wood wind-chimes. The game was dripping with atmosphere. Oblivion felt so ordinary by comparison.

I think a huge, cosmopolitan city would be neat. Rather than Chinatown, Little Italy, and the French Quarter, have Khajittown, Little Dwemerville, and the Elf Quarter. The city should feel like it has been built up by different cultures over hundreds of years, like in real life.

 

[Wormthong]

it may be just a small thing but wouldnt it be nice to have some effects of drugs(and more drugs added at that)and not just be dezesed and take a potion and walk away i want a hospital you know maybe a nice nurse that sais you have to take this twice a day for 2 weeks or youl be in a lot of pain and eventualy die
also what would be awesome is the ability to lose an arm for instance or maybe at least get scars just more interaction with yourself you know not just everyone else

 

[Funnysword]

My idea is that it could be set shortly after Oblivion finished, the Empire is disintegrating and the other races are declaring their independence and trying to establish themselves.
All the provinces would be present and accessible, Cyrodiil, Hammerfell, High Rock, Skyrim, Morrowind, Black Marsh, Elsewyr, Valenwood and Summerset Isle. Whatever race that you pick would decide where you start, for instance if you select Bosmer you would begin in Valenwood. You are probably thinking that you are tied into a quest line that is fighting for your nation's establishment but this is where it gets interesting. You would be able to 'turn traitor,' to work for the Imperials holding together the Empire or work for any of the other provinces. A Nord could become an Imperial spy in Skyrim or go to Morrowind and help the Dark Elves or Black Marsh or any of the provinces. There would be very open-ended quests and many factions.
In each province there would be a main city, that was vibrant and full of life and bigger than the Imperial City as well as many smaller towns sized like the ones in Oblivion. Each character in each city and town should have a backstory and their own agendas that you could work to fulfill.
In short I don't really agree with the 'big city' idea because I think that would be departing from TES storyline and wouldn't capture the largeness and diversity of Tamriel. I am more in favour of a game like Oblivion but much bigger, with many different factions that have ambitions and wants and a huge world to explore with all the provinces.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I think to make it better have the game set in one fucking big city. off the Charts big.

Have the main quest revolve around a war between factions.

However instead of letting us go in as many factions as we like keep the player limited to only one faction. We choose what faction we would liek to join early in the game. Throught out the game we level up our stats and also climb the ranking in that faction. At the end of the game the factions will be at war, you have to try and make your faction win.

To win you can destroy an enemy faction, hire assassins (you could be in an assassin guild and work for other factions hmm) to take down leaders, defend your leader, engage in gang activities such as vandalising enemy faction land or just plain out fight them.

The actions you can take will depend on the faction you choose, for instance a fighters guild will not hire assassins.

Actually screw TES, this could be a good game all on its own.

 

[Not From Antarctica]

I think, less Elf, More Nord, Everyone knows that Morrowind was a hit and when they introduced blood moon I practicaly came in my pants! Werewolves, Proud Nordes, And the quests ACTUALY made sense! It was like someone was beating me with a happy stick and then got tired of the little happy that came from it, so they switched to a happy war-mace (The one found on solsthiem in particularly)

And make players faster when they start, on morrowind, it took me 20 minutes when I started to get to Balmora on foot! Too slow.

And, instead, when your on a mass murder, if you come peacefully you will be scheduled to be executed, in which you will be jailed over night, giving you the opertuniy to pull a lockpick out of your arse and get away and if you lay low for about 3 weeks the hit eventualy goes down and then once it hits zero, your a free man. But if they see the escaped lunatic they will kill him if the hit is still on! (MORE VIGILANTIES TOO!!!)

Oh and more street brawling....

 

[meatloaf231]

Bring back Cliff Racers. JUST KIDDING PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME.

In all seriousness, I agree with the bigger cities, varied voice acting, actually having an epic battle if they tell you it will be epic. No more 12 vs 12 (though that was pretty large for oblivion) If possible, don't make cities separate cells. I want levitation/flying! For the love of God, when you make an ending quest series, please do not make us do the same thing OVER AND OVER. I had to close six or seven oblivion gates, then go close ANOTHER ONE in the aforementioned "epic battle". Seriously people. More quests like the painting mystery. That was amazing.

Oh yeah, let us kill anyone we want. So what if it ends everything right there? We want them DEAD, not unconscious, simply to rise soon in a sunny disposition. I also liked the shops in Morrowind more. You could just walk in and take everything they had if you had a good enough sneak skill. Needless to say, it would have to be much MUCH harder - nigh-impossible - to rob the super rich stores. They all have lists of items for sale. Where do they keep them? I want to have a heist. Pay off homeless to distract guards, scale the back of the building, all that fun stuff. Easily movable bodies that you could hide in trunks and wardrobes and the like.

No more psychic guards/enemies. Their companion was just shot with an arrow, at night, by me wearing a black cloak, from a rooftop. They instantly know who I am and where I am. Seriously, I want some masks or face covering hoods, and some in-combat stealth escapes. Go quiet, sneak across rooftops, scale the city walls, silently kill the wall guard, scale down outside to freedom. However difficult it may be, it would be SO much better than Oblivions Shoot-n-run system.