Skyrim - What would you add?

[ComradeJim270]

That's actually what inspired it, but I always seemed to go Hlaalu instead of Telvanni.

Never did see an explanation to how those thing work other than they use soul gems.

They actually don't. Nobody knows how they do work, but they know that's not it.

There was a game... I can't remember it very well, that had this fighting system where you click the Left Mouse Button and slide your mouse in a direction, where your sword/bladed weapon would swing in that direction.

To be honest, I don't see why this would cause much of an issue in an Elder Scrolls game. Also where your weapons would rebound off walls if it touches them, they would slow down, or you can use a shield and reposte enemy attacks. All while in first-person. I guess the issue would be for console players, but oh well.

So give the console players something more like previous TES games, and give the PC gamers the good stuff. It'd sell.

 

[SajuukKhar]

There used to be more consequences, usually negative. You could break questlines in Morrowind, and several were mutually exclusive, or almost were. You could also break the main quest, which the game rather harshly penalized you for doing. But apparently some people were annoyed at not being able to do anything at anytime without affecting anything else, so they ditched that.

I've seen hints of the devs being able to include more interesting consequences in these games, but they seem to lack either the confidence or inclination to try it very often.

The only reason exclusive factions were in Morrowind was because it made sense at the time.

The three great houses, and the three vampire clans, were mutually exclusive because it just doesn't make sense t be in multiple great houses, or Vampire clans, as Vampirism came in different strains in Morrowind.

They haven't done it in any game sense because
1. There is no dual, or tri, faction group in any other province like the great houses to make exclusive.
2. There is no dual, or tri, faction group in any other province like the Vampire clans to make exclusive.

They haven't done is because it doesn't logically make sense to make the Companions/College/TG/DB exclusive.

 

[ComradeJim270]

That's what i didn't get.

Its been how many centuries since constructs were in the hands of mages? With full on schematics of them in dwemer ruins and knowledge boxes just lying around? And a damn living dwemer before he died?

So for all those centuries, mages cant understand them even with full schematics and memory boxes. And a full on Dwemer.

The Tamriel mages would have to be worse at investigation than the chasing UFO people on national geographic.

Since a back-round mage in skyrim can assemble and make a dwarven spider work, they must know something. You'd think "big ass defensive robots that don't need pay and do 2x what a human could" would be the first thing they would look into.

Aside from the fact most people don't know there's still a Dwemer around, and getting to him is not a pleasant experience, there's a big difference between most magic in the TES series and what the Dwemer were up to. Creating the appearance of life in a bunch of metal is a whole different ballgame. Just the fact that they could do it without a soul gem seems to break all the rules that mages are taught to even use magic in the first place. It shouldn't be possible. In fact some of what the Dwemer did really wasn't possible, as evidenced by the fact they developed technology that literally breaks time and space to the point even divine acts can only kind of fix it.

The Dwemer were an extremely secretive, obtuse and, to everyone else alien people, and it especially doesn't help that at the time of their disappearance, humans really didn't want to know about them because they really didn't like Mer of any sort, and the only other elves who had regular contact with them were comparatively primitive, so a lot of archaeological evidence that could be used to figure this stuff out was lost, and what's left doesn't help much because only a tiny part of the Dwemeris vocabulary is accessible to scholars, and a lot the technology they left behind is crazy advanced.

So... it's not that easy.

Now that I think about it, something exploring these very things would be an interesting place to take TES, but Bethesda would probably mess it up somehow. They're very good with their lore until they actually try to put it into a game.

 

[ComradeJim270]

The only reason exclusive factions were in Morrowind was because it made sense at the time.

The three great houses, and the three vampire clans, were mutually exclusive because it just doesn't make sense t be in multiple great houses, or Vampire clans, as Vampirism came in different strains in Morrowind.

They haven't done it in any game sense because
1. There is no dual, or tri, faction group in any other province like the great houses to make exclusive.
2. There is no dual, or tri, faction group in any other province like the Vampire clans to make exclusive.

Also, the MQ in Morrowind had a backpath, so even if you broke it, you could still do it. It was pretty much impossible to not be able to beat the MQ of Morrowind.

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to. The backpath sucked and required you to take a permanent reduction to your maximum health. The different factions being mutually exclusive was a meaningful choice, but what I was also talking about was how choosing to do the Fighter's Guild questline irreversibly broke the Thieves Guild questline if you had not already done it.

You may be right that they haven't been able to do it because it doesn't make sense, but I find it something of a failing that they haven't been able to make it make sense again. Being able to do everything in one playthrough kind of takes some of the fun out of it for me.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to. The backpath sucked and required you to take a permanent reduction to your maximum health. The different factions being mutually exclusive was a meaningful choice, but what I was also talking about was how choosing to do the Fighter's Guild questline irreversibly broke the Thieves Guild questline if you had not already done it.

Well, if your character was even remotely a high level, one could just drink down a million bottles of matze, and use sunder/keening without Wrathgaurd and kill Dagoth Ur that way. You didn't need to lose HP at all.

It was a meaningful choice that existed only because the lore allowed it to, the lore does not allow it to anywhere else.

The Fighters guild/Thieves guild cross over BS in Morrowind was so retarded, the entire Comma Tong plot didn't need to Fighters Guild to be in it at all, and their presence was so shoehorned in to force artificial re-playability that it made me wonder who thought it was a good idea in the first place. If one can remove a faction from a story, and get the exact same story, then said faction was never important the story, and not needed to the plot, and thus, shoehorned in, and shoehorning in factions go to "LOL CONSEQUENCE" is a bad game move. It's why Bethesda makes factions for each guild that you can join, such as the Necromancers in Oblivion, or the Silver Hand in Skyrim.

Joinable guilds should only interact with eachother's plot lines, or the MQ's plot line, when its 100% necessary for them to. Like how you need to go to the College in order to find out stuff about the Elder Scroll for the MQ.

 

[Schtoobs]

A main story that doesn't suck would be nice, there's loads of lore but why would I care when the parts I experience are always so dull.

NPC's with some depth and personality. Maybe spend less time padding books with lore and spend more time on the characters.

Less shitty combat.

Most of the stuff people mentioned above would be cool aswell.

Other than that the game is pretty damn good. Maybe the scale of it stops it from getting that final polish that would make it legendary. Most of the stuff people mentioned above would be cool aswell.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Well, if your character was even remotely a high level, one could just drink down a million bottles of matze, and use sunder/keening without Wrathgaurd and kill Dagoth Ur that way. You didn't need to lose HP at all.

Many people don't think to try not using Wraithguard, and that doesn't change the fact the MQ is a lot less interesting if you do it that way.

It was a meaningful choice that existed only because the lore allowed it to, the lore does not allow it to anywhere else.

I'm not disagreeing with that.

Joinable guilds should only interact with eachother's plot lines, or the MQ's plot line, when its 100% necessary for them to. Like how you need to go to the College in order to find out stuff about the Elder Scroll for the MQ.

If we're talking about having consequences in these games, they absolutely should do what you just said they shouldn't. Something can hardly be said to be consequential if it has no bearing on anything else in the game outside a neatly compartmentalized storyline .

 

[[REDACTED]]

Quest variety for a start.
In Oblivion there was a lot more variety in the quests as to what you were doing. You could be silently killing everyone in a household one by one without being detected, driving the slowly dwindling survivors into attacking eachother. You could be sneaking through the prison you came from to stab the guy who called you a tosser. You could be breaking into the White-Gold tower to steal an Elder scroll from some blind monks while pretending to be a dignitary. In Skyrim however, the majority of the quests seem to have been simplified to "Go into dungeon and kill shit".

It's funny that those are really the only decent quests in Oblivion, and all of them are either part of the Dark Brotherhood or at the end of the Thieves Guild.

Not really. The quests in which you travel into a man's dreams and solve a series of surreal puzzles comes to mind. Or the quest were you travel into an expressionist painting and battle trolls with jars of turpentine.

 

[SajuukKhar]

If we're talking about having consequences in these games, they absolutely should do what you just said they shouldn't. Something can hardly be said to be consequential if it has no bearing on anything else in the game outside a neatly compartmentalized storyline .

Consequences in games should be based on necessary actions, and reactions, between various factions, that would, and only could, happen between those two factions. Anything else is arbitrary, forced, shoehorned, and all other similar terms.

Any child can make a game where every quest has members of two factions in them with the ending you take causing you to go up in reputation with one faction, and down in the other, but those faction's participation are wholly unnecessary in 90% of those quests, and exist only to enforce artificial re-playability in the game through arbitrarily denying you access to content based on illogical, and unnecessary, faction interaction.

It is the faction equivalent of making some areas of games only accessible through random encounters, and saying that those random encounter areas bring re-playability to the game, while true, the entire concept of "random encounters" is artificial, and said areas could have been included in the base game, with everyone getting to them, and thus, they should have been.

If you can take away components of a quest, and still get the same quest, then said components were never necessary. similarly, if I can remove factions from quests, and still get the same quest, then those factions have no purpose in the quest, and thus shouldn't be there at all.

An example, in Fallout New Vegas there was a quest given to your by the NCR to go out and kill three of the fiends leaders, and bring back their heads as proof of their death. This entire tie to the NCR was necessary, and should have been removed, as the fiends also attack the surrounding areas, such as Westside, and the quest could have come from a Westside NPC, thus giving you the same quest, while avoiding the NCR, who is tied to the MQ, and could be made hostile against you by doing something as simple as joining the Legion, thus denying you access to content you shouldn't have been denied to in the first place.

 

[Frezzato]

I already left this in the Fallout 3 features request thread, but I want some sleeping animals in caves. Hello? Bears and dragons. How were they typically depicted in pop culture? They were sleeping. In caves.

And some siege weapons other than weird looking ballistas would be nice. Trebuchet or catapult, even cannons with long load times would be nice. Mind you, I want all of these things pointed at ME. I've already spammed my armor/alchemy/enchanting.

Also, everyone here is talking about how the mechanics of fighting could be improved, but I think it's possible to use the current game and make aggressor NPCs smarter fighters. There's no point in archers being all spread out. They need to be in a line, away from the main fighting. Give me ten flaming arrows concentrated on me at once. Then send in the bruisers with clubs and shields or two-handed weapons. Give me a line of men with pikes. Why else would you give me a shield charging perk?

 

[Emiscary]

I'd personally strip every uppity side character of their plot armor and gleefully suck out their fucking souls.

IE:

Maven Blackbriar: Uppity Housewife with a Bowie Knife up Her Skirt. ("You'll regret crossing me!" Really? Why is that Maven? All the dead goons at your burned down estate? Your first level destruction magic? Or the Dark Brotherhood I WIPED OUT MYSELF!?)

The Greybeards. If I can kill Paarthurnax, I can kill his geriatric caregivers/lodgers.

The Blades. No, no I do NOT "have to" do anything you pushy blonde **** *stab*.

Serana's Mother. She's a disgrace to her entire species.

There are more, but you get the idea. I have alot of pent up anger, and I *really* resent being told by a game dev that I simply cannot indulge my urge to kill in a KILLING SIMULATOR because X/Y/Z person is a super special snowflake.

Wanna know who the only 2 "plot essential" characters in Skyrim are? The Dragonborn, and Alduin. Period. Everyone else can piss off.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Quests with a point and more reactive environment. I kill a bloody dragon middle of a town and after that everyone talks to me in the same bloody emotionless tone repeating the same fucking lines about what class I look like or what fucking potionshop they got.

Or when I erase a whole fucking town in bloody rampage while women cry and lament and men flee. The aftermath is just empty town and kids running around being total fucking tossers because they don't disappear or be killed.

Also I would add child NPCs that aren't tptal fucking tossers... When I come walking around the town with armor and axe full of my foes blood, they just go around taunting me like I would be some linen wearing peasant.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Consequences in games should be based on necessary actions, and reactions, between various factions, that would, and only could, happen between those two factions. Anything else is arbitrary, forced, shoehorned, and all other similar terms.

Any child can make a game where every quest has members of two factions in them with the ending you take causing you to go up in reputation with one faction, and down in the other, but those faction's participation are wholly unnecessary in 90% of those quests, and exist only to enforce artificial re-playability in the game through arbitrarily denying you access to content based on illogical, and unnecessary, faction interaction.

It is the faction equivalent of making some areas of games only accessible through random encounters, and saying that those random encounter areas bring re-playability to the game, while true, the entire concept of "random encounters" is artificial, and said areas could have been included in the base game, with everyone getting to them, and thus, they should have been.

If you can take away components of a quest, and still get the same quest, then said components were never necessary. similarly, if I can remove factions from quests, and still get the same quest, then those factions have no purpose in the quest, and thus shouldn't be there at all.

An example, in Fallout New Vegas there was a quest given to your by the NCR to go out and kill three of the fiends leaders, and bring back their heads as proof of their death. This entire tie to the NCR was necessary, and should have been removed, as the fiends also attack the surrounding areas, such as Westside, and the quest could have come from a Westside NPC, thus giving you the same quest, while avoiding the NCR, who is tied to the MQ, and could be made hostile against you by doing something as simple as joining the Legion, thus denying you access to content you shouldn't have been denied to in the first place.

I'm pretty sure we're actually in agreement on a lot of that. Please read that carefully. We're not on completely different pages here

That said, what I'm talking about is creating more situations "necessary actions, and reactions" actually occur, instead of every storyline being wholly divorced from all others. Also, why can these things only happen between two factions? Why not three? Or four? Or five? Or... why not? Also, what, in your opinion, constitutes replayability that is not artificial? I am perfectly fine with a game that does not let you access all content in a single playthrough, so long as the reasoning behind this does not feel arbitrary and the game itself feels like its actually worth playing more than once (and if it's not, why would I want to access all the content anyway?)

Your "random encounters" analogy doesn't hold water, since they are random, and a player's choice as to which factions they join and which quests they do is not.

On the rest, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree (on the parts we in fact disagree on) because it's really a matter of opinion and I'm too tired right now to toss those sorts of opinions back and forth.

EDIT: I also wholly disagree on your New Vegas example. It makes perfect sense for it to be tied to the NCR, because they have a vested interest in eliminating the Fiends. So what if it's possible not to get that quest if you make certain decisions? Really, so what? Don't like it? Don't make those decisions! That sounds perfectly fine and reasonable to me. I see nothing wrong with it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

The problem is that, due to the nature of the guilds specific talents, there is very little, if any, logical overlap for faction quests.

The Companions have very little, if any, reason to overlap with the TG, who steal stuff at night, and whose targets are wholly unknown until they attack, or The College, who only goes out of their building to deliver enchanted weapons, or the DB, who kills people suddenly, and unexpectedly, and all means of vice-versa. The TG, and DB, are too secretive, and the College is too isolationist, to interact with each other, or The Companions. It would be very contrived for two factions to overlap, let alone all 4.

What would constitute a non-artificial choice would be something like the Deadric quests where you often have the choice of either
A. killing someone to get some item
B. Not killing someone and losing out on some item.
Like how in Namira's Daedric quest you can take the priest to the ruin so get eaten by the cannibals, and in return you get Namira's ring, or you can kill the cannibals and save the priest, thus losing out on the ring, but getting some gold, and the thanks of the priest.

It makes sense they denying a Daedric lord his desire means you don't get his item, and how fulfilling their desires normally means someone has to die.

Considering that faction systems are forced upon the player, and the player is forced to pick a side in order to continue the game, there is no such thing as choice when it comes to faction systems, beyond which portion of content you want to be arbitrarily denied.

Westside also has a valid interest in stopping the fiends, as the fiends attack Westside often, why couldn't the quest be given by them? There was no reason to froce it upon the NCR, which could allow for players who side with the Legion to get denied said content if they side with the Legion, when said content could be provided for BOTH factions.

 

[positiveParadox]

Change some of the cookie cutter dungeons. I can't tell you how many times I had a Déjà vu moment. So many dungeons, strongholds, caves, etc. After a few times through, you know what to expect. That makes me sad.

 

[teh_Canape]

I'd personally want to see the language system they had in Daggerfall and Battlespire
it'd make it more interesting and engaging I think

also work some more on the immersion/atmosphere
don't get me wrong, TES5 if pretty atmospheric and all, but never in all the time I played it did it feel like Daggerfall felt, like walking around in the dungeons or, god forbid, arriving in Daggerfall City at night

 

[Zeldias]

Marriage that actually seems to matter a bit.

Or more varied quests.

 

[ComradeJim270]

snip

The problem is that, due to the nature of the guilds specific talents, there is very little, if any, logical overlap for faction quests.

The Companions have very little, if any, reason to overlap with the TG, who steal stuff at night, and whose targets are wholly unknown until they attack, or The College, who only goes out of their building to deliver enchanted weapons, or the DB, who kills people suddenly, and unexpectedly, and all means of vice-versa. The TG, and DB, are too secretive, and the College is too isolationist, to interact with each other, or The Companions. It would be very contrived for two factions to overlap, let alone all 4.

What would constitute a non-artificial choice would be something like the Deadric quests where you often have the choice of either
A. killing someone to get some item
B. Not killing someone and losing out on some item.
Like how in Namira's Daedric quest you can take the priest to the ruin so get eaten by the cannibals, and in return you get Namira's ring, or you can kill the cannibals and save the priest, thus losing out on the ring, but getting some gold, and the thanks of the priest.

It makes sense they denying a Daedric lord his desire means you don't get his item, and how fulfilling their desires normally means someone has to die.

Considering that faction systems are forced upon the player, and the player is forced to pick a side in order to continue the game, there is no such thing as choice when it comes to faction systems, beyond which portion of content you want to be arbitrarily denied.

Westside also has a valid interest in stopping the fiends, as the fiends attack Westside often, why couldn't the quest be given by them? There was no reason to froce it upon the NCR, which could allow for players who side with the Legion to get denied said content if they side with the Legion, when said content could be provided for BOTH factions.

Ok, now I see what's going on. You're talking about how Skyrim is, I'm talking about how I would have liked it to be. You're stating that there's little reason for those questlines to overlap, which is true. I'm stating that I'd like the game better if they'd been written in such a way that they had an impact on each other.

As for "forced to pick a side", you really aren't. TES games generally don't "force" you to do anything. I know plenty of people who got tremendous enjoyment out of them without actually finishing the main quest, or even faction quests. Some games do force this upon the player, but this isn't one of them. The only time that happens is the requirement to join the College to finish the main quest.

I'm still not seeing an issue with the New Vegas example. I see absolutely no problem with certain side-quests becoming inaccessible based on the player's decisions, so long as it makes sense in the context of the story, and in your example it absolutely does. In fact I'd rather have that than have main and faction quests exist in a virtual vacuum, or in a simple dichotomy that's out of place in an open-world game like the ones we're discussing.

But we're going off on a bit of a tangent here, and that's probably mostly my fault because I'm not just talking about Skyrim anymore but about open-world games in general. If you want to discuss it more, please start a different thread about it (preferably tomorrow, when I'll have gotten some sleep). I don't want to go hijacking this one.