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

[KungFuJazzHands]

I want Bethesda to hire a dedicated, long-term QA team to test, test, test the game before they actually release it. If they can fix 80% of the bugs and glitches, I'll be impressed and my faith in Beth as a developer will be restored. There's simply no excuse for the amount of broken shit that each TES game comes with on Day One.

Improved combat and follower AI would be nice too. Also, employ some competent writers this time around, please?

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I would like to be able to use pole weapons/thrown weapons etc, just to fill the gap between the extremely short range weapons and the extremely long range weapons we already have in Skyrim. Throwing axes, knives, bombs, smoke/flash bombs would all be really cool.

Also making the Dremora a playable race would be awesome, and any other additional races would be welcome in my eyes. As well as different tutorials/openings for each different race, they could all lead you to the same starting city/village/plot event or whatever but some variety in the games opening would be very refreshing.

I would also like them to bring back Hand to Hand combat as a skill and the custom spell maker from Oblivion, but a more complex one where you could choose the form of your spell (projectile, constant stream, aura etc) as well as its effect(s) and then balance its power with mana cost.

 

[Callate]

Mostly, I'd like to see fewer quests that are more fleshed- and thought- out with regard to how players might respond to them. I want a "no" option to being asked to do things I find abhorrent that's more than simply walking away. I want skills that are approximately equally useful, and serious consideration into how someone might approach things differently with arms, magic, or stealth (or, if I'm really dreaming, cunning and charm). I want two characters who each have 500 skill points in very different areas to be equally cool, but play very differently.

I also want to make a difference in the world- not necessarily in a "oh thank you, great savior" way, but in a way that shows that people notice me. I'd love for it to be possible to be as famous as a great weaponsmith or hunter as as a bounty hunter or guild member. And I'd like to not be offered a bunch of "which of these options is the least unappetizing", even if I have to work much harder to do something worthwhile.

Personally, I found Skyrim rather visually appealing. It would be nice if some of the settlements were a little more alive, but that's about as much as I'd ask with regard to next-gen trappings.

 

[ron1n]

Hardcore mode that involves survival aspects such as hunger, thirst, rest, spoiling food, weather adversity, no quick travel etc.

Co-Op. I know purists would ***** about this, but seriously, the game would be that much more amazing with 2 player Co-Op along with scaled difficulty.

Speaking of difficulty: Harder difficulty. Yes mods can fix this, but of all the things to use mods for, this can cause the most problems and it can often conflict with other mods. And make sure it's not just more hit spongey enemies. Make them smarter and more numerous.

More weapons. While the modding community tends to fill out this gap, there's seemingly always a metric shit ton of different swords, but not much else. Would love to see some physics based weapons such as flails or Nunchuku. More maces, spears, throwing weapons, good selection of punch daggers and claws, different classes of crossbow (both light and heavy), various types of short and long bows etc. Just want them to go nuts.

More recognition from the AI relative to who your character is, what they're known for etc. If there's rumours about you murdering people and you walk into a store, I want to hear and see the fear in their dealings with you.

More voice actors: I don't even care if they're amazing. More variety is needed. Heck, have a meet and greet with prospective voice actors from the gaming community. I'm sure you could find a bunch of half decent people willing to work for free just to be in an elder scrolls game.

More meaningful quest choices with consequences. Multiple endings to the main quest.

More factions to join with more side quests.

A larger pool of dynamic, randomly occurring side quests and characters.

More kill animations.

Mounted enemies.

 

[lacktheknack]

I want the most solid core they can give it.

Graphics can be modded.

Also, I want them to make a spellmaker again. They did away with it in Skyrim "for balance", but it choked allowance of modding one in, since magic didn't run from a table anymore. The thing is, they nearly perfected spellmaking with Daggerfll, and I'd love to see it come back somehow.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Three simple things I want:

1. Make Destruction a viable long-term combat skill by having the damage increase with each skill point.

2. As someone said above, this essential-characters-can't-die crap needs to stop somehow. TOO LONG have I lusted for blood and been denied.

3. Optional co-op multiplayer. There, I said it. I don't see why this couldn't or shouldn't be implemented. If you don't want to play with anyone, DON'T.

 

[ThreeName]

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.

 

[mrverbal]

I want a game in which the most sensible thing to do with every playthrough isn't become the head of every guild. Where even if you save the mages from Arcano, if you can't cast any spells other than flame or frostbite they tell you to fuck off you can't be archmage. Where doing the theives guild quests requires actual stealth. Where there is a fighters guild I can join without being a fucking wolf.

I want a game where, when someone tells you you urgently need to go fight a dragon or fetch something, you can't just ignore it for three months with no consequences. I want a game where the plot is engaging rather than an eye-rolling stupidity.

Skyrim is mechanically reasonably enjoyable. But viewed as a whole it is a horrible mess.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I can see that specific example as justified by lore (still would've preferred at least some reaction though), but still doesn't explain why I can't call upon guild resources to either influence politicians (assassinate Ulfric and his lieutenants, for ex.) or get things done (fighter's guild at the bruma gate).

Well, the DB only assassinates who the Night Mother tells them to, and the TG doesn't kill anyone, besides members of other thieves guilds/bandits, so neither of them would just go out and kill Ulfric, even if you told them to.

As for the FG not helping out at stuff like Bruma..... I dont really know. I guess its probably so that guilds dont get too intertwined with the MQ in such a way that players feel forced to do them.

However, I do know The Companions state they stay out of the Skyrim Civil War because it isn't their job to take sides in political battles, and the College is hated by everyone, so I guess they just dont really care.

Also, I want them to make a spellmaker again. They did away with it in Skyrim "for balance", but it choked allowance of modding one in, since magic didn't run from a table anymore.

Actually, the removal of the spell maker had nothing to do with balance.

According to Todd Howard, they removed the spellmaker because it took the magic out of magic. Essentially, it made magic something like a tool, or machine, whose parts you can just take apart, and put back togeather in any way you want, instead of this mystical force.

He also said they were looking into ways to fix it.

 

[bug_of_war]

The nudity was a joke, since the first mods made for any game tend to be boob mods.

And once again my lack of proper sleep has screwed me over again, sorry man...

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I would say a new engine is second to better writing. My main complaint with Skyrim was that the main plot was incredibly boring and inferior to the really interesting political intrigue that was the civil war. Make the plot less linear, greyer and more affected by player choice and it would be a massive improvement IMO.

Mechanically it was ok, I would recommend making the stealth system a bit more skillful, but other then that the main gameplay doesn't need to be that different.

Oh, and also spending more time on the faction missions as well. The only faction missions I was really interested in was the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines. The others sort of felt shallow and had a much less interesting plot.

Oh 2.0: Seriously, remove the essential characters can't die thing. Fallout: NV did it and was so much better because of it. Either build the main plot so it has no essential characters (a la F:NV) or do the Morrowind thing and have multiple paths to end the main quest.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I will probably get flamed because of this, but I really don't care. I'm not looking forward to an TES VI any time soon to be perfectly honest.

What I want is to see what CD Projekt RED will fare with open world with the Witcher 3 in 2014. Because from what I've heard from the press that have seen the 40min demo @ E3, they are almost there with pulling off the open world part. The storyline integration is just a step away.

I'm fine not having a new TES game for a few years, but I have high hopes that W3 will raise the bar and run with it.

 

[SoranMBane]

-More dialog options and branching storylines. I enjoy actually being able to roleplay in RPGs, but Skyrim was just a series of largely linear stories set in an open environment, while dialog was just pressing X a bunch of times to continue the plot. It might as well have been a GTA-style open-world action game instead of trying to pretend it's an RPG.

-More fleshed out companion characters. Serana in Dawnguard was definitely a step in the right direction.

-Bring back the acrobatics skill.

-Bring back polearms (spears, halberds, staves, etc).

-Set it in Elsweyr. I want to finally be able to see what Khajiit society is like, what their art and architecture is like, and what all those different breeds of Khajiit look like. Maybe there could even be a Senche follower that you could recruit and ride instead of having a horse. Things don't get much more badass than riding a giant, sentient armored lion.

-Weresharks.

 

[Headsprouter]

More interesting enemies... I found myself very unimpressed with Skyrim's enemy roster. Very uncreative, half the stuff existed in real life, anyway. The only thing I found particularly shocking in the vanilla game was Horkers, I was not expecting that! They're unrealistically pathetic, though, sadly...a real walrus would tear a man to pieces. Anyway, they were among the most interesting. The Falmer were pretty cool, but it's just a goblin, essentially. If Daedra were more prevalent, we'd have got more cool stuff like Lurkers and Seekers. Even so, it doesn't have to be Daedra to catch you off guard, land dreughs were an intimidating monster on my first encounter.

Even so, I have a favourite. Chaurus. Badass reimagining of earwigs. When the guy at the beginning mentions giant snakes when he meets frostbite spiders, it got my hopes up for something really cool. Sadly, it never delivered...

I want more quirky fantasy, but sadly, as the series becomes more mainstream, we're gonna lose that. Fucking dragons...I really could have gone without. I'm not a fan of the generic monster, I don't like knowing what to expect. Surprise me, Bethesda!

Also, I want them to make a spellmaker again. They did away with it in Skyrim "for balance"

Which is incredibly ironic, considering how OP enchanting is, anyway...

 

[Adventurer2626]

Uh, whichever one takes us to Elsweyr/Valenwood. But probably stable and more flushing out is good. I guess new engine if it means more and more stable scripts. Thems can be buggers.

 

[Epona222]

Just a different location in Tamriel. I love all TES games, but loved Morrowind most purely because it was an unusual environment. The settings for Oblivion and Skyrim just weren't as engaging or interesting. I grew up outside a town which had a Norman or do I mean Imperial fort, please give us a different setting for the next installment - some of us would really appreciate a game that took place in a setting that we couldn't see from our windows, that was less 'everyday', something a bit more out there would be good.

 

[Joe Joey]

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

 

[Misterian]

I want four things at very least to happen in the nest Elder Scrolls;

1) Skyrim's Dragonborn becoming Emperor during the events of the next game.

2) Customizable hair color, like in Oblivion.

3) More of the Beast Races playing larger roles in the game, like in Oblivion.

4) non-human child NPC's

I want to emphasize on the third one because one of the small gripes I had with Skyrim was how the Khajiit and Argonians were barely in it.

In Oblivion, you see those races in all the faction questlines and sometimes playing key roles in them.

In Skyrim, the Argonians seems to mostly play minor roles in any of the questlines and even then seem to mostly exist only to either die or be victim to whatever scheme you happen to be doing.

The Khajiit you rarely even see at all, as they're usually caravans that aren't allowed to enter the cities, or as the occasional bandit you fight to the death. J'zargo I think is the only Khajiit NPC that comes closest to playing any key role in any of the questlines, and even then, he's only an apprentice mage that happens to appear in some of the College of Winterhold quests.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I want to emphasize on the third one because one of the small gripes I had with Skyrim was how the Khajiit and Argonians were barely in it.

That's because Cyrodiil was the seat of The Empire, the homogenized center land, were every race gets treated equally. Skyrim however is the land of the Nords, who are very racist, and so, the other races dont want to live there.

1) Skyrim's Dragonborn becoming Emperor during the events of the next game.

That wont happen, the entire point of Oblivion's MQ was to end the line of dragonborn kings.

Also, all the player characters have to fade into legend so that Bethesda' doesn't have to invalidate what people played as by saying stuff like "the Dragonborn Emperor was a male imperial", instead of a Khajiit, or w/e you played as. They do it to ALL the playable characters.

 

[jollybarracuda]

I'd like all, or at least most, quests to have multiple outcomes or ways to complete them. I love Skyrim, and play it very much still, but being able to make some real choices within the quests is something that I haven't seen much of in that game. Beyond that, the series is really just about everything I want from an RPG at this point. Maybe throw in some more specialized skills without having to rely on mods to do it, so that when I level up my light weaponry skills I don't feel like im just doing a bit more damage. Give me skills that let me do new moves and make that skill more complex and interesting.