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

[TheLastFeeder]

Stop making characters essential. When I go on my little crime waves half the population shouldn't be invincible.

So having the same system as Morrowind?
If you kill an essential character, there just pops up a message that says:

"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed.
Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate,
or persist in the doomed world you have created."

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Stop making characters essential. When I go on my little crime waves half the population shouldn't be invincible.

So having the same system as Morrowind?
If you kill an essential character, there just pops up a message that says:

"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed.
Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate,
or persist in the doomed world you have created."

Yes. If you want to account for radiant events, make them flee into their homes instead of punching the dragon that is attacking the village.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-According to Bethesda?

-And everything you have stated is wrong, because it ignores everything about even the lowest standards of quality.

-And again, I never said they couldn't do it, I said they wont, because it isn't cost effective.

-The re-use of a skeleton, made for an animal the size of a lion, on a creature that's like 15 feet tall, would only show a STAGGERING lack of quality on Bethesda part. An animal that's 15 feet tall would have a radically different skeleton then an animal, of a similar shape, that is only 4 feet tall. All you have to do is look at housecats compared to lions, while similar, their skeleton are not the same. You cant use them between the two, unless you dont give a shit about the animals actually working right.

-And your evidence is wrong because it, again, ignores the fact that an animal that's 14 feet tall wouldn't use the same skeleton as an animal that 4 feet tall, and Bethesda isn't THAT half-assed in their games. You may be ok with a hack job like that, but even Bethesda has higher standards, and they have pretty low standards, as evidenced by all the bugs.

-AGAIN, i never said it was impossible for them to do it, i said it wasn't cost efficient. Not being cost efficient =/= being so expensive its impossible, stop fucking treating the same as the two.

-Kirkbride still writes for Bethesda...... so yeah, it is the same staff, largely.

-Well considering that making all 17 forms of Khajiit being impossible was never part of the discussion, now who is changing the goalposts?

 

[KingmanHighborn]

I'd like to have cities the size of the map of previous games like Oblivion. If you look at the numbers of lives that fight in, and are lost in the lore of battles and wars you need to be able to show the world's true size. Even in Skyrim I feel like it was 'shrunk down' to fit. A true scale city with 500-1000 people in it at the least, would be awesome. Especially if then are plenty of them to explore.

 

[The Lugz]

The voice acting, ai, and general polish needs a huge overhaul

I downloaded a guard dialogue overhaul mod and it made navigating the city's much better but the general combat ai is also terrible

running away from combat should be far harder, and every human npc should have a sling, bow, rock or spell to throw at range because cheesing mele enemies is far too easy, the ai feels like it has no chance which is obviously a total immersion breaker.

I can sneak up on any npc at any time no matter what they're doing with zero points in sneaking and plate boots.
that's just dumb.

makes sneaking too op.

other than that, i'm happy with 'skyrim 2' they could use the same engine entirely and even have a similar graphics level as long as it receives better polish

there are some serious texture/mesh/object/lighting flaws in the vanilla game,
the actual engine is capable of alot more.

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

If anything, I want the next game to be, first and foremost, robust. I wouldn't care if there wasn't anything new at all, as long as it didn't have any game-breaking glitches. If sticking with the current engine will do that, more power to the current engine.
I'm dead serious, I want the next game to motherfucking work! I've had to delete two characters, one which I had spent an entire year on, kept a journal from the perspective of, and grown to love. It was so disheartening that I honestly don't know whether I'll ever buy Bethesda's games anymore. I'm so sick of this shit. I get that it's nearly impossible to get rid of EVERY glitch in games as big and complicated as Oblivion, Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas but I think at this point, robustness in their programming is more important than novelty or good graphics. If they need to cut funding in some places to divert to testing and bug-fixing, so be it.
I'm dead serious: when The Elder Scrolls VI comes out, I won't buy it unless I hear that no quests are unfinishable, you don't get stuck in sneak mode, you don't mysteriously lose the ability to feed when you become a vampire, or any of that bullshit.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The same thing I want[footnote]and am promised in a roundabout way that never actually delivers[/footnote] every new TES Pinky: Daggerfall's design document done right. We have the technology, we can rebuild it. But Bethesda won't, because it's a hardcore RPG, which doesn't go over so well with the mainstream audience they've been courting for the last decade

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-Citation = Morrowind + Oblivion

-Because its wrong. You don't just scale and tweak a skeleton, because it wouldn't be right, and would have to change so much about many of the finer detail you would probably do better just starting it from scratch.

-What makes something cost effective has nothing to do with the goal of the game, it has to do with profit maximization, and Elsweyr, compared to Hammerfell, Valenwood, or Alinor, all of which not only lack the Khajiit issue, but have more connection to the overall narrative, lacks said profit maximization.

And the reason why Bethesda hasn't put in all 17 forms of Khajiit, in literally every TES game ever made, is for the very same reason you said lacks evidence to support it. Saying there is no evidence to suggest the high expense of putting in all 17 forms of Khajiit in one game, is literally saying that all of Bethesda's decisions not to in all past ES game didn't happen. Its nothing short of historical revisionism!

-I dont recall that conversation. Anyways, giants would likely have denser bones to support the weight without snapping.

-There's actually a lot about how the giants operate that differs from the 10 races in terms of skeletons and animations. Also, the silt strider doesn't move, its essentially just a static world object with a minor animations on the mandible things, or w/e they are. It doesn't even have a actual skeleton IIRC. They didn't have to do anything for it.

-Its an argument that is based off of all past information Bethesda has given over the years about why they only ever include one form of Khajiit per game. Hell, one of Bethesda's animators actually said on the Skyrim forms once they tried to put the digitigrade Khajiit in Skyrim, but ran into meshing issues, time issues, and budget issues, so it had to be scrapped, same reason they had to scrap a whole bunch of shit in Skyrim (and no, I dont have a link to the quote, so I dont expect you to believe it happened)

-Except that Bethesda, from Arena to Oblivion, has ALWAYS done the games in such a way as to allow for every possible player action to be true. It doesn't even have to be the warp in the west, even minor stuff like if the Nerevarine was the one who did Molag bal's daedric quest in Morrowind, thus got the helm of Orywn Bearclaw, and thus gave it to his descendant in Oblivion's fighers guild, who only says "an adventurer from Morrowind gave it to me". Its just everything from the ending of Daggerfall, to the helm of bearclaw, they ALWAYS write stuff as to never negate player choice, and there is no reason to expect Bethesda to do a complete 180 from nearly 20 years of consistent narrative design.

-Well, I never said you were pulling a strawman, so that rebuttal doesn't make much sense.

 

[Feylynn]

I have a binary opinion of future Elder Scrolls titles.
1: Game contains acrobatics and athletics greater than Oblivion. Combat needs to not only be usable while sprinting and jumping but altered and fun.
(Preferably with Dragons Dogma/Shadow of the Colossus elements but I'm now ruining the binary spirit... Sorry.)
0: Game sucks.
First they took flight, then they took jumping. Logically the next game will not even have walking and will instead be nothing but a camera you can toggle between stationary npcs with the right and left clicks of the mouse.

 

[SajuukKhar]

First they took flight, then they took jumping.

They took away levitation because
1. It served no gameplay purpose.
2. Cities were put in thier own cells, so flying over them would look dumb.
3. The game became scripted, and flying, along with teleprotation, would break many of the game's dungeons, and scripted events.

Also, you can still jump in Skyrim, quite far if you get a running jump.

 

[Darkasassin96]

I want to go to Eleswyr. Not just because I love the Khajit, but because a desert grasslandy place would be a nice change to the scenery of forest, snowy forest, and snowy mountain. Who else has wanted to play a fantasy RPG in the savannah?

I also want to world to be fleshed out a little more. SHow us some of the other beast races like the Gorrilla people, I think theyre called Imjee but im too lazy to look it up. They dont have to be playable but at least acknowledge their existence in game bethesda. Those slug people would be interesting in a Jabba the Hutt kinda way but the comparison would be too obvious.

In regards to the creature enemies, am I the only one that has noticed a lack of creativity or at least variety in the enemies in the games? What monsters did Skyrim have? Giant spiders, various zombies and skeletons that were just reskinned human beings, giants, and some woodland animals. Yes there were dragons I suppose but I want more interesting day to day encounters. I honestly am having a hard time thinking up another monster that was in skyrim. Im not counting the dlc where they added gargoyles even though they were badass. In Daggerfall their were centaurs, and imps, Morrowind was nothing if not creative, even Oblivion had a few minotaurs, although good luck finding them.

Basically what I want is for Bethesda to redefine the genre of fantasy. I want new settings, and some new original, creative monsters. Dont get me wrong I have loved every game in the series, but they need to step it up. Skyrim was a fantastic game but I expect better from you Bethesda. As far as the engine and gameplay goes though they are perfect, I just want them to get out of their comfort zone a little bit with this next one.

 

[Feylynn]

First they took flight, then they took jumping.

They took away levitation because
1. It served no gameplay purpose.
2. Cities were put in thier own cells, so flying over them would look dumb.
3. The game became scripted, and flying, along with teleprotation, would break many of the game's dungeons, and scripted events.

Also, you can still jump in Skyrim, quite far if you get a running jump.

I know and understand the reason for levitate being removed I just wanted some progression for my hyperbole, you can have that one.
You can't run and jump in Skyrim. Mods have yet to satisfyingly disable the engines hard lock on your controls while sprinting.

There is one mod I found that lets you spend a lot of mana or stamina to charge a super jump which is pretty awesome but it doesn't allow combat while mobile.

If you can direct me to a mod that lets me Jump/attack, Jump/cast, Sprint/Jump, Sprint/cast, Sprint/Jump/Cast/Attack then that would be appreciated I'm admittedly out of the loop recently.

 

[Smeggs]

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.

No essential characters.

There is a very good reason for why games like Morrowind didn't have essential characters, but games like Oblivion and Skyrim did. It's because in Morrowind, all important characters ever did was stand in the same place waiting to be spoken to.

In Oblivion and Skyrim, when characters actually walk around, interact with the environment etc. it means that not everything that happens to them is the will of the player. Now couple this with dragon/vampire attacks and imagine that while your back's turned a dragon swoops in and kills Eorlund Gray-Mane. You don't notice at the time because he's over at the Skyforge which you have no reason to visit if you're not yet a companion, so you kill the dragon and carry on with your game. Ten hours later you decide to join the companions and upon taking Vilkas' sword to Eorlund to be sharpened, you discover his tragically charred corpse. No companions questline for you.

It doesn't even have to be enemies like dragons, trusting NPCs to control by Skyrim's AI is akin to a death sentence in some cases. One of my Dragonsreach guards somehow patrolled right into the pond under the bridge, got stuck and subsequently drowned.

Precisely this reason. Though I honestly think I'd like it better if the dead required NPC's just respawned after a set amount of in-game days waited (like chests do), just make the stuff unlootable at the time. I can understand the annoyance of just wanting to be homicidal for no reason only to have half the fuckers who come after you crawling around on the ground for a few seconds before standing back up. As for the A.I., I once watched as a vampire attack begin to occur in Moorthal. Don't ask me how, perhaps the character accidentally struck one of the guards by mistake, but that wizard guy who cures your vampirism was being repeatedly beaten down by the town guard after the vampires were dead. I had to reload my fast travel save and go there again to fix it.

I was a regular vampire, which has to be one of the biggest pains in the ass in that game, and was going there to get cured. Now, imagine if I didn't have a fast travel save/that NPC wasn't immortal. That entire save would have been unplayable, the weaknesses of being a vamp far exceed any of those skills I obtain from it. -45 points of Stamina, Magicka, and Health and none of them refills in the daylight, on top of being 50%+ more weak to fire? Fuck that, fire breathing dragon battles would have been nigh impossible, especially since this character was a dual wielder.

 

[GAunderrated]

Everyone has such detailed responses. Mine is pretty simple, give me a new world that I would love to spent countless hours exploring and engaging.

 

[romxxii]

make combat have more depth.Make it so you can shield bash, disarm opponents, and block attacks by turning your blade at a certain angle

The two I highlighted are already possible in Skyrim. I actually made a shield bash-centric character, and he can solo a dragon via constant stun-locking and some hearty soups.

and dodge out of the way of attacks

isn't this already possible? See your opponent telegraph their blow, press back to avoid the strike. If you have the blocking skills levelled up, one of the abilities is for everything to go slo-mo when your enemy attempts a power attack and you attempt to block it. YOu can then circle around your opponent and give them hell.

as well as use the terrain ( If your being pushed into a wall and you have high athletics, then you could wall run over your opponent).

Athletics was killed a long time ago.

Also, it would be cool if you could damage certain body parts by cutting off someones arm or smashing someones kneecap in with a war hammer.

I'd like to see location damage too, but in my opinion it's highly exploitable. Reminds me of this one AD&D 2nd Ed game I played, where the DM's girlfriend abused called shots to make ridiculous killing blows at low level.

Finally, it would be cool if they had an "Arts" system, where you choose a particular combat style by studying under a master and then you get bonuses for using that style ( The Way of the Dual Wield Swordsmen would get an animation change to fit a unique style, and also get a boost for swiftness of attacks, but at the same time, to get the full benefits, you must adhere to a rule or something ( Maybe never using your swords to kill a women or Not wearing Heavy Armour) Studying under masters net you the ability to use the art, as well as continuous training under the master will increase its effectiveness.

This seems like an expansion of the current system's combat style; using different weapons changes up your stance and the speed of your strikes; dual-wielding removes your blocking but gives you higher damage potential and DPS.

More Weapons and Loot

Skyrim I felt lacked in that regard. it had beautiful items, but a bit to few. They should make the load out set look like this: Helmet, Cuirass, Left Guantlet, Right Gauntlet, Grieves, Pants, 2 Rings, and a Accessory ( Like Capes, Feathers, A Skirt, something to add more flair. They should also make more types of Armour types ( Copper, Gold, stuff like that), as well as make the most powerful Armour types more rare ( You'd only find something Daedric if you REALLY search for it.) Also, more weapon types. Crossbows, Spears, Flails, Maybe Muskets, Chakrams, Battle Staffs.

No. If there's one thing Skyrim did right, is that it removed the usual mishmash armor combination prevalent in nearly every fantasy RPG. Skyrim's armors looked far more cohesive, and the limit on the number of wearable items made you think twice about your enchantment loadout.

Leveling

I don't really like Level Scaling, so it would be ok if they put you in the area with lesser creatures, but at the same time you could run into a Level 3000 Daedric Mage that would kill you before you even got close. Hell, you could even make up stories like A powerful monster lurks through these woods at night, don't go out! make the lore centric and antagonist All powerful, while making Normal Bandits and Goblins there too. It would be an awesome feeling after coming so far, and defeating such a powerful opponent rather than just beating everything at level 1. Also, rather than just level grinding ( So much for Level Scaling, remember), it would be awesome if you could defeat opponents by utilizing a weakness or using your ability to outsmart them ( Something akin to how the people in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Fight) Example: You and your party are fighting an all powerful mage who can enchant the floor with deadly destruction magic. He is also immune to all attacks aimed at himself. SO in order to defeat him, you would have to levitate, throw your sword, Arrow, or Magic spell to an ally or a mirror or whatever, and deflect it off them or it, and use it to hit the enemy. I really wish this was in a game.

Skyrim already has a good level scaling; it's not as ridiculous as Oblivion where you're battling killer mudcrabs at level 50, nor is it the cakewalk that Morrowind allegedly was at higher levels.


Everything else you brought up, either I agree with or -- like the magic system -- totally ambivalent about.