Poll: The Elder Scrolls VI: what do you want?

[AlbertoDeSanta]

If realism breaks immersion then..... I don't know what to say.

I'm not sure about you, but when I play a game set in a world with Dragons, Magic and the ability to Manifest loud, foreign words into forces of nature, Realism breaks the immersion that the game itself is trying to give you. It's like almost handing a biscuit to a dog and then taking it away; it's not the way it should be done and it screws with your head.

 

[Epona222]

Remember the murder house in Oblivion?
I want more of that.

Oh yes that was superb! And Hackdirt - I'll never say no to some Lovecraft style stuff.

 

[piinyouri]

New engine.

No essential characters.

Bring back a bit of the depth from the older games and mix it with the visceral, fun action based combat Skyrim had.

New engine.

Better guild quests.

Make guilds more specialized.

New engine.

More armor slots.

Bigger cities, or at least one large city.

Radiant quests need a tweak, or ditch them entirely.

NPC's not talking to you at any given chance when they see you on the street.

Better dialogue.

New engine.

 

[MrGalactus]

There has to be a new engine, right? Every TES game comes with one.

Anyhow, I'd like it set during this "Great War" between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion that only gets mentioned in passing during Skyrim. I think you should start as a child like Fallout 3, and be able to pick a the races of both your parents and your place of birth anywhere in Tamriel. If you pick an Elf born in Skyrim, obviously you'll have a more difficult, risky life than if you were born in the south, but from there what you do is up to you. If you want to flee Skyrim and join the Dominion, that's up to you, or if you want to join the Nords in the Empire, that's also up to you, but ignoring and escaping the war entirely should be a real challenge. For example, if you've just entered a town you don't fit into, you'll be treated with suspicion. Do one thing out of order, you risk being arrested as a spy, then questioned, or deported back to where your captors assume you're from. Maybe they'll try to trade you for one of their own captured spies, or you could try an escape during transportation, although then you'll be hunted. Escaping and crossing borders shouldn't be easy, either.

The war should actually feel like a war. If you join an army and become a leader of troops, death should not be the only failure state. The Skyrim Civil War from TES5 just feels like 5 or six random skermishes that you can't lose, where the only way to win is to kill everyone. Nobody ever surrenders, even when their forts (which, by the way, you shouldn't just be able to walk in to) are surrounded, their outnumbered, and they've just watched one dude take out 20 of their troops. You should be able to give orders to attack, retreat, take prisoners, ambush, or just be a footsoldier who can choose whether or not to follow these orders. Also, a war shouldn't be centered around one person. In TES5, it's like there is no war until you decide it's happening. Just makes it feel tiny and unimportant.

Also, I'd like to see the Fame level back, but make it much more important than recognition. In a world of infinite opinions, any notoriety can be positive and negative at the same time. If you're well known in one place, (depending on the place) some would praise and some would jeer. Obviously if you're a war hero for one side, some places would cheer you, and others would throw things, run and hide from you, or possibly attack you on sight if you happened to have killed someones relative or something. A more notorious person would be targeted by more groups, also, for example a top-class killer could be abducted by the Dark Brotherhood, a master spy could be approached by the Thieves Guild, or a skilled Mage could be recruited by some Mages guild or College.

I'd also like it if you could create your own secret or public guild of self recruit-able, like-minded people with or without your own HQ if you have an interest in building up your independent influence to a point where you could stay out of the war, influence it in your own way, shift power among existing parties, spread philosophy, or just make money.

There's other stuff I'd like to see but I've just realised how much I've typed.

 

[BlackFlyme]

5) If there must be a major sidequest (ala Skyrim's Civil War), you should not be able to avoid it completely. Not participate? Sure. But if there's a Civil War going on, the player needs to see it happening while running about. I'm sure I don't need to say how confusing it is to be told that a truce is needed before the main plot continues...when there hasn't been any evidence of real fighting since your capture before the game starts.

I still don't understand what's going on with that Civil War. Both sides seem completely interchangeable, though that's probably partly because fantasy bores me.

Compared to New Vegas, where there's constant signs of struggle between clear ideological powers, it's just weaksauce.

Actually, in earlier versions of Skyrim, while it was still in development, the Civil War was going to be the main draw of the game. It would have been very tactical, where everything would happen in real-time, and it was entirely possible to actually lose cities and fight in major battles even larger than the ones at Whiterun and Windhelm/Solitude.

The worst part about it is that quite a bit of it was done, too. Mostly just the major city battles, but because of the bugs it generated it was subsequently replaced with the current quest chain in the game now, with the leftovers hidden in Skyrim's data files.

Though none of the hidden data is capable of making either side more interesting, it still would have basically been "do you like red or blue more?"

Edit: Fix'd it.

Back on topic, I wish that Bethesda could do what they did with Morrowind, minus the clunky controls. I miss the throwing weapons, the polearms, beating people over the head with staffs, and most importantly, aside from the almost alien atmosphere and the amount of armour customization (by which I mean wearing seperate gloves and pauldrons, while wearing a robe over your armour over your shirt), is the most versatile enchanting system I've ever used.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

I want a new RPG revolution. I want something that I can't even imagine right now. Something that will shake the very foundation of how we see RPG's and blow my freakin' noodle.

If developers actually broke off with too many tropes, I doubt they would not lose a lot of their consumer base interest. Maybe have a completely non-violent RPG with a linear plot progression that features the struggle of a Pacific Islander middle-aged woman to succeed in the white-dominated modelling business.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The worst part about it is that all of that code is still buried, mostly completed too, in Skyrim's data files. The civil war was shoved to the side once they realized that it would out-shine the dragons, and they decided to ignore the idea of actually making dragons better as opposed to sweeping the civil war under the carpet.

That's actually not true, in fact, the majority of the cut civil war stuff is gone completely.

Out of the like 12 side quests that civil war had, only about 4 of them have ANY data left in the game, and only 3 of them are complete, the three that are used as the smaller filler quests between fort sieges in vanilla Skyrim.

The only thing that remains in any complete form are the city sieges, but even those are missing dialog, and followup quests, and a bunch of other stuff.

And no, the civil war was cut because it started to become a giant bloated mess that maxed out the PS3s memory, caused a whole bunch of civilian NPCs deaths, and broke a lot of quests in the process. along with making doing other faction quests, such as the DB, or Companions, annoyingly difficult, and cities kept changing hands all the time.

 

[Zen Bard]

1) Have a more organic world that actually reacts to the player actions.
-Player decisions should either unlock or remove complete quest options a la "The Witcher" or "Fallout 3".

-Joining and ascending the ranks of some guilds should completely prevent you from joining others.

-Dialogue should reflect some basic character advancements. For instance, if I'm head of a guild, I should be recognized as such and not chided about "fetching their meade"...

-There should be some sense of threat or consequence for NOT performing certain tasks or quests. The big problem with the dragons in "Skyrim" was their complete lack of impact. What if the dragon attack actually had the ability to damage the town or even kill some NPCs? Perhaps new quests could open up centered around rebuilding the town (finding a new blacksmith to replace the one killed in the attack, helping clear a forest of monsters so the townspeople could harvest timber, etc...).


2) Improve the Magic mechanic.
-Have spells become more powerful as the magic skills increase instead of just costing less mana. If I'm a level 34 Spellsword specializing in fire Destruction magic, even a simple fireball should be devastating when compared to someone with just a few points in the skill.

-Have some kind of mage-based economy. It seems the only way to really make money in "The Elder Scrolls" is to dungeon dive, loot, and sell the loot. Maybe enable the player to create spells and inscribe them into books that can be sold.

-Bring back levitation and teleportation. These skills got me out of some tough jams in "Morrowind".



3) Improve the Guild Quests
-Add some more breadth and depth to the Guild Quests. They were damn near perfect in "Oblivion"...just the right length and scope. And some (such as the Dark Brotherhood) had some interesting twists in the storyline.

-Have a more skill based approach to the Guilds. All the Guild Quests seem to all boil down to open combat. Perhaps the Mage's Guild quest should, let's say, be more magic focused on discovering a new spell or restoring a magic artifact instead of clearing out a dungeon. Leave that to the Fighter's Guilds.

-Becoming the head of a Guild should be determined at least partly by the level in certain requisite skills. A character with a low level in certain magic skills should in no way be allowed to become the Arch-Mage...

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

There has to be a new engine, right? Every TES game comes with one.

Morrowind and Oblivion both used Gamebryo. They do feel very different, though.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I want to see more of the same as in Oblivion and Skyrim.
More places to explore.
Also, it would be nice to be able to go everywhere in Nirn and Oblivion or even just in Tamriel.

Another thing I'd like: Oculus support.

 

[trollnystan]

The one thing I can think off of the top of my head is that I want it to take place in Elsweyr. If not there then the Black Marshes. (But mostly Elsweyr!) I'd love for the beast races to take centre stage for once. They're always kind of shunted off to the side in a oh-and-we-have-obligatory-fantasy-beast-race-here kind of way, especially in Skyrim. Unfortunately I can't see Skyrim's story leading to either of those places =( It's more likely going to be Summerset Isles or something.

Graphics and gameplay I'm not to bothered with, although many of the ideas I've read in this thread sound pretty neat.

 

[Hugh Wright]

I wonder how many of you are playing on console, as a lot of the requests are availbile through mods (realistic needs and diseases, lore friendly and unfriendly armour, more armour slots and more weapons than you can shake a pointy stick at). As for the next game I'hope they aren't completely rebuilding the engine as areas like Black Marsh and parts of Elswhere with lots of forest would struggle to be huge and or detailed if they tried to up the graphics by a step as large as from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim.

I think you played a wee bit too much Skyrim. That's a lot of man hours, dude.

For the next Elder Scrolls? Give me a humanoid hybrid of some crazy animal, like Giraffe or something. That would spark my interest. Better yet, Platypus humanoid.

What can I say, it's and explorers game and I love exploring it. I love finding unmarked bandit camps with scrawled notes about getting clap from the whore, or hunters using the hot pools to relax in.
As for a new human platypus race... I'd prefer human/ echidna or Nudibracht

 

[trollnystan]

Unfortunately I can't see Skyrim's story leading to either of those places =( It's more likely going to be Summerset Isles or something.

Actually, I think Elsweyr and Hammerfell are the most-likely in that order. I don't foresee Summerset Isles as that's going to be a confrontation with the Dominion and that will likely coincide with the end of the Fourth Age.

How you figure? I mean I'd love it if you are right - Hammerfell would be pretty cool to play in - but I don't see how Skyrim's story could lead to Elsweyr. Not to mention if they DID go to Elsweyr they'd finally have to make models for all those different kinds of Khajiit, if only for NPCs.

 

[Ickorus]

Honestly they can keep everything else the same if they just improve the bloody combat system, it's so awful at the moment and it could potentially be great.

 

[Smeggs]

I reckon the engine they have is fine. If the mods are any indication, it's capable of some truly beautiful visuals already, I just hope the AI can be improved.

I want the stealth AI, in particular, to be a lot better next time around. I want enemies to realize that the "wind" didn't just headshot their mate with an arrow. I suppose it would be too much to ask for NPCs to notice suspiciously opened doors and my character's shadow creeping up on them, though.

I could have sworn I've played games where leaving things out of place like that does get noticed by guards...hmm.

Anywho, the main thing I want? Reactive combat.

If I just smashed your face in with my Ebony Waraxe of Skullfucking, you should be reeling backward, falling down, or at the least show SOME reaction to having just been broadsided by a hunk of spiked metal. Sword combat has to be the most boring form of combat in Skyrim, next to standing back while you let your unending stream of resummoned Frost Atronachs kill everyone in the room. The AI does have some slight reactions, but usually those are reserved for critical power attacks or guard breaks. I should not be standing right up in the face of a Bandit Chieftain, swatting at his ugly mug with my dual-wielded Elven Maces of Bludgeoning while he is in turn just yelling at me and repeatedly swatting at me with his Iron Greataxe.

I think that one of the few things Dead Island did right was their melee combat. Bethesda should take some cues from that. Most small enemies were reactive to attacks, especially heavy attacks, and even the larger ones suffered from heavy attacks with larger weapons.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

I reckon the engine they have is fine. If the mods are any indication, it's capable of some truly beautiful visuals already, I just hope the AI can be improved.

I want the stealth AI, in particular, to be a lot better next time around. I want enemies to realize that the "wind" didn't just headshot their mate with an arrow. I suppose it would be too much to ask for NPCs to notice suspiciously opened doors and my character's shadow creeping up on them, though.

I could have sworn I've played games where leaving things out of place like that does get noticed by guards...hmm.

The guards in the Thief games and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (not sure about the others) notice stuff like that. I'm not sure how much harder it would be to implement in an open world game that isn't based around it's stealth element, though.