The Next Elder Scrolls Game, what should it have
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Less or No dragons. Seriously. I get so tired of fighting dragons.
More variation in general. Like.. In skyrim there are always "Types" of places. There's underground dungeons, ruins, and religious relics. And you know what you're going to find when you go into these types, because you've already seen them before. So more random and unique places. Random unique creatures and mini bosses!
Add more personality. Make some characters sultry, some weak, some firey. Just give me something other than the sterotypes. And let me interact with them.
I'm not a very good looter. I dont strive to be the best in skills and armor, I like going after storylines. I honestly don't care if the world size gets bigger, if the graphics get fancier, or if the fighting mechanics change; just give me more story and memorable characters.
More variation in general. Like.. In skyrim there are always "Types" of places. There's underground dungeons, ruins, and religious relics. And you know what you're going to find when you go into these types, because you've already seen them before. So more random and unique places. Random unique creatures and mini bosses!
Add more personality. Make some characters sultry, some weak, some firey. Just give me something other than the sterotypes. And let me interact with them.
I'm not a very good looter. I dont strive to be the best in skills and armor, I like going after storylines. I honestly don't care if the world size gets bigger, if the graphics get fancier, or if the fighting mechanics change; just give me more story and memorable characters.
Go back to what made Morrowind great:
1.) 27 skills instead of 18. Attributes. A complex, non-idiot-friendly character creation and levelling system that kept the dumbshits out of Tamriel, or at least dying horribly at the tiny talons of cliff racers.
2.) NO QUEST MARKERS! Have NPCs give me directions by street sign and landmarks again, please. Make the world feel like a place to explore, where your immediate undertaking often leads to other, not necessarily related quests.
3.) Remove fast travel. Nobody who matters likes it. It detracts from the story and world that the game exists to present.
4.) Make NPC interactions make sense. Guild members should never ever just somehow, automagically ~know~ that you are the PC, and offer you guild membership on that qualification alone. My Stendarr-loving paladin does not want to join the Thieves' Guild, and would probably challenge him to a duel then and there in the streets of Riften for insulting her honor in such a brash manner.
For that matter, getting the guild's main story quest right at the beginning is a little dumb, too. You're brand new to the college and you're already the savior of all magic, as foretold by the Psijics. You barely do a few jobs for the Companions and already they're pulling you face first into the whole werewolf pack thing. Some closely-guarded secret that turned out to be.
This seems to be the longest one, so is probably the most important. I suppose I could sum it up with one sentence by saying: "Please, please, PLEASE, bring the role-playing back into the RPG genre."
1.) 27 skills instead of 18. Attributes. A complex, non-idiot-friendly character creation and levelling system that kept the dumbshits out of Tamriel, or at least dying horribly at the tiny talons of cliff racers.
2.) NO QUEST MARKERS! Have NPCs give me directions by street sign and landmarks again, please. Make the world feel like a place to explore, where your immediate undertaking often leads to other, not necessarily related quests.
3.) Remove fast travel. Nobody who matters likes it. It detracts from the story and world that the game exists to present.
4.) Make NPC interactions make sense. Guild members should never ever just somehow, automagically ~know~ that you are the PC, and offer you guild membership on that qualification alone. My Stendarr-loving paladin does not want to join the Thieves' Guild, and would probably challenge him to a duel then and there in the streets of Riften for insulting her honor in such a brash manner.
For that matter, getting the guild's main story quest right at the beginning is a little dumb, too. You're brand new to the college and you're already the savior of all magic, as foretold by the Psijics. You barely do a few jobs for the Companions and already they're pulling you face first into the whole werewolf pack thing. Some closely-guarded secret that turned out to be.
This seems to be the longest one, so is probably the most important. I suppose I could sum it up with one sentence by saying: "Please, please, PLEASE, bring the role-playing back into the RPG genre."
1. Better combat. The current combat has a pretty good style, I mean it's weighty and it controls well, but it needs more depth. You've got a good number of different attacks that can be pulled off with just the basic buttons, but there's not really a fat lot of point to most of them. It needs more movement; a regular strafe attack should be countering the enemies lunge purely by it's shape and movement. That's very simple stuff that would dramatically improve the current combat while keeping the same style. And the numbers are way out, with some really obvious mistakes in the way the stats work (e.g. hyperbolic returns on the stacking of certain effects). I think if the core gameplay mechanics were better it would be a massive boon to the modding community too; currently it's very difficult to balance any kind of content mod, because there's so many different balance mods out there that different people are using. If there was some sort of challenge standard set by the vanilla game then there could be all kinds of interesting content additions people could come up with.
2. More procedural generation with regards to NPCs and quests. One thing that stands out to me in the series is how empty some of the areas are, particularly towns. That's because most of the NPCs are distinct personalities with pre-written functions, and it's simply not feasible to create a bustling town environment with that kind of detail. What they could do, is keep that same level of detail for the proper NPCs (in the same numbers they have right now), but then fill up the areas with additional generic NPCs over the top (with simpler randomised behaviour, e.g. wandering around a market, trying to pickpocket people, etc. but not needing full conversation options). Similarly with quests; they hinted at this in Skyrim with the radiant quest system, but they could go a lot further. Same idea, keep the more detailed quests as they are, but bulk it out a bit with some randomised content so the world doesn't feel quite as lifeless.
3. Hardcore mode. The obvious answer to the dumbing-down accusations. Let players remove hand-holding features if they so desire. In particular, the removal of fast-travel and compass markers should be an option (with the world correctly designed with this in mind; NPCs giving you directions in words, with suitable landmarks to look out for). And sure, I'm well up for having a proper food/drink system.
4. Coop? Meh, not the biggest of deals, but I sure would love to play a TES game two player. None of this MMO stuff, just peer-to-peer and split-screen. And for goodness sake don't lock anything out of single player; don't be putting any super powerful items in that can only be found in multiplayer.
2. More procedural generation with regards to NPCs and quests. One thing that stands out to me in the series is how empty some of the areas are, particularly towns. That's because most of the NPCs are distinct personalities with pre-written functions, and it's simply not feasible to create a bustling town environment with that kind of detail. What they could do, is keep that same level of detail for the proper NPCs (in the same numbers they have right now), but then fill up the areas with additional generic NPCs over the top (with simpler randomised behaviour, e.g. wandering around a market, trying to pickpocket people, etc. but not needing full conversation options). Similarly with quests; they hinted at this in Skyrim with the radiant quest system, but they could go a lot further. Same idea, keep the more detailed quests as they are, but bulk it out a bit with some randomised content so the world doesn't feel quite as lifeless.
3. Hardcore mode. The obvious answer to the dumbing-down accusations. Let players remove hand-holding features if they so desire. In particular, the removal of fast-travel and compass markers should be an option (with the world correctly designed with this in mind; NPCs giving you directions in words, with suitable landmarks to look out for). And sure, I'm well up for having a proper food/drink system.
4. Coop? Meh, not the biggest of deals, but I sure would love to play a TES game two player. None of this MMO stuff, just peer-to-peer and split-screen. And for goodness sake don't lock anything out of single player; don't be putting any super powerful items in that can only be found in multiplayer.
I'd like to see different varieties of Khajiit or even a couple that are masquerading as Bosmer.
As somebody else mentioned it'd be nice to stumble upon non-hostiles in random caves or areas. Given the state of the world it makes sense that people who've lost their homes or have a lot of to lose might flee to strange places. Something I liked about Oblivion was the fact that ever now and then you meet a live non-hostile adventurer in dungeons.
I like the quest markers for clarity but it'd be nice for NPCs to give me directions anyway or to point to someone - or somewhere - that could help me out.
More opportunities to avoid battle with NPCs. I got sick of killing in Skyrim - which is highly ironic as someone who loves the Dark Brotherhood - I kept wishing for more opportunities to talk people down or have them talk me down from a bloodthirsty rage.
As somebody else mentioned it'd be nice to stumble upon non-hostiles in random caves or areas. Given the state of the world it makes sense that people who've lost their homes or have a lot of to lose might flee to strange places. Something I liked about Oblivion was the fact that ever now and then you meet a live non-hostile adventurer in dungeons.
I like the quest markers for clarity but it'd be nice for NPCs to give me directions anyway or to point to someone - or somewhere - that could help me out.
More opportunities to avoid battle with NPCs. I got sick of killing in Skyrim - which is highly ironic as someone who loves the Dark Brotherhood - I kept wishing for more opportunities to talk people down or have them talk me down from a bloodthirsty rage.
1. more monsters in the over world, walking for hours without fighting anything worth the while is really boring
2. better rewards for completing quest. I hate the fact that the only way to get the best weapons and armor I need to craft it
3. this one is by far the more important, a better 3rd person mode. When TES goes into 3rd person mode, you know since you might want to look at your character that you spent hours creating and not to mention hunting all those armor sets, the game shouldn't penalize me for wanting to look at him,,, specially when the Legend of Zelda exist! Just copy that Bethesda
4. more modding options, can stress enough how much better the game is thanks to the mods
5. and lastly, locomotion. Trains, trolleys, etc. it's time to introduce coals and steam powered vehicles to TES, at least one city should be sporting the looks of the future
2. better rewards for completing quest. I hate the fact that the only way to get the best weapons and armor I need to craft it
3. this one is by far the more important, a better 3rd person mode. When TES goes into 3rd person mode, you know since you might want to look at your character that you spent hours creating and not to mention hunting all those armor sets, the game shouldn't penalize me for wanting to look at him,,, specially when the Legend of Zelda exist! Just copy that Bethesda
4. more modding options, can stress enough how much better the game is thanks to the mods
5. and lastly, locomotion. Trains, trolleys, etc. it's time to introduce coals and steam powered vehicles to TES, at least one city should be sporting the looks of the future
All I ever ask for are Orcs, Two handed weapons, heavy armour and a pretext for killing things. I'm a simple man of simple needs.
This. The Khajiit have some amazing lore behind them and it would be really cool to see that put into a game.TheSapphireKnight said:
Also GIANT MIGRATORY TREES IN VALENWOOD. Need I say more? =D
You know, it doesn't matter if they implemented a co-op feature or not. You can still ignore it completely if you like and play it just as you normally would.GamerAddict7796 said:
And BTW, Elsweyr would NOT be a great place to do the next ES. People are saying, "Oh look, Khajiit live there! It'll be great with deserts and stuff!"
But let me tell you how it'll actually go down.
"Khajiit see you."
"Khajiit wants to sell you something."
"Khajiit hates you."
"What does Khajiit want with you?"
"Khajiit will leave now. Khajiit."
You hear about 10 mins. of that and it'll be the Shivering Isles again.
I want to see something that isn't "generic fantasy land" like we had on Oblivion and Skyrim. I think that Summerset Isles could be interesting to explore.
Other than that, everything the OP said except for the co-op. The reason for excluding co-op is because it will only work well if dungeons are built for that kind of gameplay. I would love to see an Elder Scrolls game that's built around the idea of co-op gameplay, but TES VI should be a single player game in my opinion.
Other than that, everything the OP said except for the co-op. The reason for excluding co-op is because it will only work well if dungeons are built for that kind of gameplay. I would love to see an Elder Scrolls game that's built around the idea of co-op gameplay, but TES VI should be a single player game in my opinion.
I don't get the knee-jerk reaction people are having for the idea of co-op play. I think when most people suggest it, especially myself, I mean something like Borderlands Co-op. The game can be played perfectly fine on your own, but the idea of being able to at least just walk around with your buddies for a bit in a big massive world is awesome. Just do what Borderlands does and turn up the difficulty as more people join your game. Although given the nature of the game, it should probably only do that when the players are close to each other. Hell, a cool idea might be a smaller scale of ESO, with the ability for small numbers of players to purposely share a world. Obviously there's plenty of room for dickishness, but the point is that this would be a thing you have to set up, so it's not like some random guy from the internet could go into your world and jack your shit.
Ideally, if you wanted to play alone you could and not lose anything from the experience, but if you wanted to load up another save and play with friends or something, you could. Just having the option to do so, even if it's just so that you can fight each other to see who has the more badass character. Maybe you could talk to each other to establish to the world whether you're working with each other, or are playing as enemies, so that then if say he tried to go near your house, your companions would fend them off, or vice versa let you in to explore.
Other than optional co-op play, uh, maintain the ability to mod the game to shit, cause that's really big, and I guess just keep doing what they've been doing for awhile now. I've played over 300 hours on a single character in skyrim. If they keep making similar styled games but with even more to explore and more realistic NPCs, then I don't how I'd find time to eat.
Ideally, if you wanted to play alone you could and not lose anything from the experience, but if you wanted to load up another save and play with friends or something, you could. Just having the option to do so, even if it's just so that you can fight each other to see who has the more badass character. Maybe you could talk to each other to establish to the world whether you're working with each other, or are playing as enemies, so that then if say he tried to go near your house, your companions would fend them off, or vice versa let you in to explore.
Other than optional co-op play, uh, maintain the ability to mod the game to shit, cause that's really big, and I guess just keep doing what they've been doing for awhile now. I've played over 300 hours on a single character in skyrim. If they keep making similar styled games but with even more to explore and more realistic NPCs, then I don't how I'd find time to eat.
Wont be touching another elder scrolls until its totally back to Offline singleplayer. Then i will actually consider watching a trailer and reviews on it.
Down with MMO.
Down with MMO.
NO multiplayer. TES has always been exclusively about single player.
Make the difficulty mean something other than damage and hit point changes. Increase the number of enemies. Make magical items more rare. Increase the cost of items in shops. Increase the risk of getting a disease. Hell, add Hardcore mode like in Fallout: NV.
Make the dungeons feel like actual caves again, not garden hoses with a branch or two.
Keep the dual-wielding from Skyrim and improve upon it.
Make the difficulty mean something other than damage and hit point changes. Increase the number of enemies. Make magical items more rare. Increase the cost of items in shops. Increase the risk of getting a disease. Hell, add Hardcore mode like in Fallout: NV.
Make the dungeons feel like actual caves again, not garden hoses with a branch or two.
Keep the dual-wielding from Skyrim and improve upon it.
You do realize that this is exactly what studio execs want to hear to justify shoehorning multiplayer into singleplayer-focused games? It's a terrible idea. If you want multiplayer TES, buy ESO.Rattler5150 said:
First off, no-one is forcing you to play with friends. Literally no-one. No-one asked for co-op that made Bethesda set entire mechanics towards it or remove the facets of singleplayer, people just want their friends to function like companions so that they can play around in an amazing world with them. Second, immersion doesn't need to be solo. If you don't believe me, try playing Divinity - Original Sin with a friend, it is an amazing game and it's co-op works beautifully.GamerAddict7796 said:
OT:
Like others have said, I want only a few things:
1. Co-op.
YES. It's not going to ruin it, it's not going to invade your game and rape your save files, it's not going to ruin the singleplayer, all people want is for their friends to be able to take the same role Lydia or such takes. If you want to play by yourself, do it! But for many people who actually have nice friends who are great to hang out with, games fun multiply with all of your friends you add to it. Also, a few notes: Randoms can't join your game, any people who use that as an argument need a swift pipe over the head. People do not want to remove from the singleplayer, as that IS co-op. Co-op is singleplayer, just with humans controlling the companions. And if anyone dares say to play the MMO instead, I think I'll have to roll to Barbarian Rage because that pile of shit is not what anyone asked for.
2. CROSSBOWS!
Yeah yeah, Dawnguard added them but still, crossbows need to be featured more, and not hidden behind a pay-wall.
3. OTHER WEAPONS!
Spears, shrunken, tower shields, pikes, throwing axes, warhammers and medium armour. I can't believe they removed these. They really meant that the characters were either a: Sword and Board, Duel, Two handed or none. Morrowind was more along the lines of ALL OF THE WEAPONS GOOD LUCK CHOOSING!
4. BIG CITIES!
The Imperial City was amazing. Vicec was amazing. All of the 5, small, closed holds in Skyrim felt a bit shit. They were tiny and not to mention that they were about village size compared to the other games. The villages themselves were small and tiny. It just kind of annoys me that all of the "big" cities were just small and pretty much the only towns in the game. The other villages never had anything important or cool in them, and were mainly just there to see people farm.
5. FACTIONS!
Please. plz. plox. all of the please. I remember how fun the old billion different Morrowind factions were, how good the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood was and how shit all of the Skyrim ones were. The Skyrim Dark Brotherhood was a bit stupid and... generally shit. The Companions was a cool idea but all of the playthrough was literally just done to be a werewolf. All the quests before that were just kind of average. The Bards College was a fucking joke and the Mage's College seemed ok, but I never played through it. The Thieve's guild seemed ok, but the way the ending went seemed a bit "We need to make it like the Oblivion Gray Fox!" and tried to make the player some kind of mega theif, except this time it was literally granted by a god instead of just a really good thief who's first incarnation literally stole a mask from a god. Which is pretty damn bad-ass.
Read what so, so many others have said:bartholen said:
Co-op =/= multiplayer. Co-op is literally the singleplayer with friends taking the roles of companions. It's not shoehorning if all you do is put in an option for someone to take the role of a companion. And dear, dear Sherrogoth, ESO is NOT co-op. It's a shitty MMO that no-one wanted, when they asked for co-op.
MODS! MODS EVERYWHERE!Tenkage said:
Unless you are on PS3/Xbox, in which case I'd say yeah, a hardcore mod or some kind of "Mod Movement" to those consoles would be nice. Maybe the community votes on a few mods to move to the consoles, and then you can choose to activate them or not? Hell, they would probably end up behind a pay-wall, which would be a pain, but I'm sure many people would love some of the complete mods or hardcore mods.
1. Better combat: Now Skyrim was a huge step up from Oblivion in terms of combat but its still got plenty of room for improvement. The main ways I would like to see it improved would be through greater enemy variety, better combat AI (and this goes for NPCs too, random shopkeepers and so on shouldn't be charging vampires and dragons when there are guards and the PC around to handle it) doesn't need to be too fancy but enemies that actually make use of tactics like stealth, supporting each other (say a restoration mage supporting some other enemies), and so on would be fun. It would also be cool to have magic weapons (particularly for important artifacts) that act differently than normal weapons, having say Volendrung have a power attack that slams the ground for a shockwave would be awesome for instance. Making the different weapon types handle differently beyond swinging at slightly different speeds with slightly different reach would be nice, different attack patterns for instance. More options in combat would be good as well, plunging attacks for jumping down on enemies, parry/ripostes (possibly as some sort of timed blocking thing), there are a lot of different ways it could be added to. Improved stealth would also be good (I'd look to Dishonored for examples on how to improve this), though a lot of that falls improving the AI.
2. More/better skills: Again I think Skyrim did a pretty good job here overall, the perks were fun but again there is plenty of room for improvement. Spellcasting was kind of nerfed, and while I personally don't mind the loss of spellcrafting I do think there should be a greater variety of spells, as well as better scaling for spell effects as a lot of schools of magic (destruction in particular) become nearly useless in the late game. Bringing back some removed skills would also be greatly appreciated, an actual unarmed skill would be nice, I would combine acrobatics and athletics to create a skill to add more mobility to combat. I don't really mind mysticism missing, though I would like to see the spells Mark and Recall, and especially levitation be brought back. Finally it would be nice to see more uses/more variable uses for existing skills, lockpicking could use more useful perks, speechcraft has a lot of problems as well, and personally I'd like to see alchemy allow you to say craft firebombs, maybe smoke bombs, things like that.
3. Improved immersion: No NPCs should be unkillable (except maybe kids I suppose) its incredibly obnoxious not to mention immersion breaking to get fed up with (for example) Maven Black-Briar for her making stupid threats and trying to kill her, only to find she's invincible because there is an off chance she might become the Jarl of Riften. New Vegas is an excellent example of the game still being able to function just fine while not making anyone invincible (there are two characters who come back from death, but there is an in universe explanation). I know there is concern of a player being locked out of a quest, but that just means you need to have backup ways through a quest, or depending on the quest just let it be lost. Improved AI could also help with immersion, especially for stealth as enemies should have an alert state they go to rather than deciding that the arrow sticking out of their head was 'just the wind', not necessarily the same hunting for who shot them but certainly keeping an eye out more. Finally better writing would do a lot for this, after all there are a lot of quests and characters in Skyrim that act nonsensically or stupidly.
4. Better quests: More quest variety, longer faction quests, and quests with more options/choices. There are some good examples in Skyrim even such as the Dark Brotherhood quest, which is overall pretty fun with some creative missions, and while its writing isn't that good it does even give you the option to wipe out the faction instead of joining it, which is an awesome choice to have (shame there isn't a similar option with the thieves guild) and while I don't think there needs to be an option to wipe out every faction just having different ways to handle them would be nice.
5. Optional Hardcore mode: Hunger, thirst, sleep, and depending on where in Tamriel its set maybe even a mechanic regarding staying warm like the frostfall mod on Skyrim. Keeping this optional would be ideal as some people would hate it while others would really enjoy it.
2. More/better skills: Again I think Skyrim did a pretty good job here overall, the perks were fun but again there is plenty of room for improvement. Spellcasting was kind of nerfed, and while I personally don't mind the loss of spellcrafting I do think there should be a greater variety of spells, as well as better scaling for spell effects as a lot of schools of magic (destruction in particular) become nearly useless in the late game. Bringing back some removed skills would also be greatly appreciated, an actual unarmed skill would be nice, I would combine acrobatics and athletics to create a skill to add more mobility to combat. I don't really mind mysticism missing, though I would like to see the spells Mark and Recall, and especially levitation be brought back. Finally it would be nice to see more uses/more variable uses for existing skills, lockpicking could use more useful perks, speechcraft has a lot of problems as well, and personally I'd like to see alchemy allow you to say craft firebombs, maybe smoke bombs, things like that.
3. Improved immersion: No NPCs should be unkillable (except maybe kids I suppose) its incredibly obnoxious not to mention immersion breaking to get fed up with (for example) Maven Black-Briar for her making stupid threats and trying to kill her, only to find she's invincible because there is an off chance she might become the Jarl of Riften. New Vegas is an excellent example of the game still being able to function just fine while not making anyone invincible (there are two characters who come back from death, but there is an in universe explanation). I know there is concern of a player being locked out of a quest, but that just means you need to have backup ways through a quest, or depending on the quest just let it be lost. Improved AI could also help with immersion, especially for stealth as enemies should have an alert state they go to rather than deciding that the arrow sticking out of their head was 'just the wind', not necessarily the same hunting for who shot them but certainly keeping an eye out more. Finally better writing would do a lot for this, after all there are a lot of quests and characters in Skyrim that act nonsensically or stupidly.
4. Better quests: More quest variety, longer faction quests, and quests with more options/choices. There are some good examples in Skyrim even such as the Dark Brotherhood quest, which is overall pretty fun with some creative missions, and while its writing isn't that good it does even give you the option to wipe out the faction instead of joining it, which is an awesome choice to have (shame there isn't a similar option with the thieves guild) and while I don't think there needs to be an option to wipe out every faction just having different ways to handle them would be nice.
5. Optional Hardcore mode: Hunger, thirst, sleep, and depending on where in Tamriel its set maybe even a mechanic regarding staying warm like the frostfall mod on Skyrim. Keeping this optional would be ideal as some people would hate it while others would really enjoy it.