The Next Elder Scrolls Game, what should it have

[bartholen_v1legacy]

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.

4. Coop play, One glaring weakness of skyrim is the lack of multiplay, At least give us the ability to have a few friends join in on big quests.

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.

 

[Tenkage]

A hard core mode needing you to deal with cold, hunger, thirst and mechanical injuries you just can't heal away

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

4. Coop play, One glaring weakness of skyrim is the lack of multiplay, At least give us the ability to have a few friends join in on big quests.

Nononononononononononononononononononononononononono!!!

Bethesda games are one of the last bastions of single-player focused triple-AAA games out there! Watch http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6718-Only-The-Lonely to put my opinion into better words. There are games that exist to play with a few friends (Team Fortress 2, COD, HALO etc. ) and games that exist to immerse you in a world (Skyrim, Fallout etc.

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.

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.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

NO multiplayer. TES has always been exclusively about single player.

4. Coop play, One glaring weakness of skyrim is the lack of multiplay, At least give us the ability to have a few friends join in on big quests.

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.

Read what so, so many others have 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.

A hard core mode needing you to deal with cold, hunger, thirst and mechanical injuries you just can't heal away

MODS! MODS EVERYWHERE!

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.

 

[IFS]

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.

 

[MrDumpkins]

4. Coop play, One glaring weakness of skyrim is the lack of multiplay, At least give us the ability to have a few friends join in on big quests.

Nononononononononononononononononononononononononono!!!

Bethesda games are one of the last bastions of single-player focused triple-AAA games out there! Watch http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6718-Only-The-Lonely to put my opinion into better words. There are games that exist to play with a few friends (Team Fortress 2, COD, HALO etc. ) and games that exist to immerse you in a world (Skyrim, Fallout etc.)

I agree completely, the amount of resources they'd have to put into getting working coop in those games would just detract from everything else. I think coop play would ruin the series completely, especially considering how many bugs get through to final release because of their scope anyways. It would just be a disaster.

I'd love to see a more deserty/jungle oriented experience, so somewhere in the world where that region exists. I'm sure they could do some cool stuff technologically with sand and water with the new generation. I really hope the story is about taking down the aldmeri dominion.

But the thing I want the most is for old forts or ruins to not always be populated by bad guys. How can you tell me that there is nobody but bad guys outside of cities and towns, it's ridiculous. I would feel so much more immersed if I could travel into a cave and have some friendly explorers or miners in there, that aren't always hostile.

 

[Voulan]

Well, I'll tell you what - after beta testing ESO, I'm really wanting a game to be set in either Hammerfell or Elsweyr. Those were easily my favourite locales. It would make sense as a continuation of the Great War as well. I'd also love to get to go into another deadric realm.

Back to things from the main series though, I'd love to have the hot key menu from Oblivion back instead of the favourites menu from Skyrim. I like being able to change spells on the fly instead of having to pause combat to switch things around. You could only hot key two things at a time as well, and it was really confusing as to what you're switching to and in which hand.

I'd also like to see medium armour make a comeback.

One thing I'd also like is more ability to have a say in quests. How about actually giving the player an option to say no? Or do the opposite to what they're required? Perhaps they could turn down the option to lead certain factions, or can only be a leader in one? Or perhaps if there's an opposing faction the option to choose them instead - I know I had a character in Oblivion that I wanted to join the Necromancers instead of the Mage's Guild. I loved that in Skyrim you can actually choose to wipe out the Dark Brotherhood (but I wasn't impressed that the same couldn't be done with the Thieves Guild). Just little things, even, like turning down becoming a werewolf or killing Parthunnax.

And I'd like followers to have proper back stories too. With the DLCs in Skyrim they took as step in the right direction purely by making those followers have far more dialogue, and comment on the environment they're in more often. One thing TES lacks in spades is NPCs that I actually care about. Just making them more dynamic would go a long way.

 

[Gamegeneral]

Do you understand how incredibly hard it would be for co-op in TES? That would probably break the game world. I'd enjoy it too, but lets be realistic here.

Honestly, if you build up the engine from the base up, co-op in skyrim is no harder than co-op in borderlands.

Quest syncing is trivial, and the weapons in skyrim are less complicated than you might think. If Mount and Blade can have large scale conflicts on the internet using melee weapons and arrows,
Bethesda has no excuse besides not wanting to invest in the architecture to set up internet co-op for consoles. P2P would work fine for PCs and maybe a server browser, but console online play is a bit more complicated.

BUT with the current generation, given its place in fourish years (If the release schedule for Elder Scrolls games is consistent), the architecture and required power will be more than enough to handle online co-op of two to four players.

If modders can do it (Albeit roughly, but they lack the source code), Bethesda or whomever has the TES license in four years can definitely have it done.

 

[hexFrank202]

~Expand on the nature element.
The visuals and atmosphere of Skyrim is really the only thing I love about that whole experience, so I wouldn't mind to just have an Elder Scrolls survival/hunting simulator thing. Where you can get ropes and climb mountains, climb trees, take elemental damage from frostbite in the snow, ext.

~Reconcile the problems with the first person perspective.
Swordplay and the first person view don't work together. Either ditch it and go for a traditional action game layout, or make a completely new kind of 1st-person mechanic structure where you actually have peripheral vision, can see your body like in real life, and everything has momentum and weight to it.

~Get worse voice actors.
Hearing the same busload of professional voice artists drone out their lines in the same boring voices made it impossible to tell everyone apart. I say screw quality, just bring in dirt cheap nobodies from around the globe to fill your game. That would make the characters more memorable, alongside more varied designs like others have said.

~Create an NPC system to simulate social inertia.
It's surreal to walk up to some random guy and have him immediately tell me about his nagging wife and absent father before we even say hello.

~Gender
Skyrim is one of the most sexless worlds in all of human imagination. Nothing has a penis or tits anywhere you go.

 

[The_Echo]

A foreword by Todd Howard confirmed Elder Scrolls Online as definitively noncanon.

Right now, that's all I want.

 

[The Feast]

Another discussion on how the next Elder Scrolls needed to be? This will also be a feedbacks and rants to the current Elder Scrolls. Okay, here I go:

1. (QUEST) First, the most important aspect of an RPG is the "quest" and Bethesda have become too common with the idea that they prefer quantity over quality, and Skyrim quest become boring as hell. The side quest feels like an errand instead of a story, and you're to put some layers of reason why you wanted to do that quest instead of a fetching errand and sending letters, just so you could get a small coin or an increased skill points.

The main quest feels like it have been put aside and focus on other side quest which feels annoying. Why bother putting the main quest at all? They could easily combine the Civil Wars quest and the main quest easily and it probably become more epic, but instead, the reason to finish the main quest is to get a dragon companion. The Civil War quest is merely attacking the fort and taking the main city, no story there and no consequences either.

The guild quest feels like a movie instead of a series and when you reach the top as the guildmaster, you get to do more errand quest...yay. There is no guild management or the feeling like you are the real leader of the guild like Morrowind and Oblivion. It sucks.

What I want for the quest for the next Elder Scrolls is to contain layers, meats, a story for every quest you are doing especially important quests. Bethesda able to make amazing lore but lazy at making engaging quest is just absurd. Guild quest need to combine both jobs and stories at the same time to make you actually care about the guild you're joining, and the addition of interesting guild management after you become the leader.

The main quest, PLEASE make a very engaging, emotional and long main quest. I Just hate watching the speed run of those main quest that Bethesda always held as a contest. IT IS ATROCIOUS!

2. (PLAYER) The perk features is cool but after implementing a better perk mods, Skyrim becomes stale when comparing with the work of modders. A deeper, balanced leveling and attribute system needed to be put in a game like the Elder Scrolls and not a very fast overpowering character that could easily beat everything in the game f you know how. Finding the alchemy enchanting ingredients and you could care less about the giants and dragons.

Having to wield the same type of weapon can get boring real easily and variety is important for RPG. Implementing the pros and cons of different weapons can make battles have more tactical excitement. The difference of armors need to have a good reason on why you wanted to wear ONLY that type of armor such as Dwarven and Orcish, which have different attributes to them.

Food needed to have long beneficial importance when compare to potion that gave immediate effect but short duration. Oh, and put some eating or drinking animation instead of the quick gulp from the inventory menu. Finding the right time to consume food or potion can give an adrenaline experience.

3. (ENEMY) More enemy and a lot more re-skins would be nice instead of watching the same looking monsters and NPCs over and over again. Plenty of enemy faction you have to face that have different method of fighting and loot. Giving different type of enemy the strength and weaknesses would also give better tactical challenge.

4. (COMBAT) What I was hoping from the Elder Scroll is that different people or faction have different fighting style and they also have pros and cons to them. This will give the combat a better experience instead of watching the pattern of attack every time. Of course, you could master different kind of fighting style and techniques, giving a good reason to strengthen yourself. These ideas could also be implemented with projectiles and magics.

Different weapons provide different fighting styles, marksman provide different way of shooting and magic user use different method of unleashing spells. They could also be combine with each other if necessary instead of just using two hands. Oblivion can shoot spells and attack, why not do that?

5. (CHALLENGE) There are enemies that will leveled with or higher than you no matter what because Skyrim is too damn easy. Western RPG have always implementing both charisma and combat together to complete a confrontation and I like that. Skyrim, however use speech very lightly and usually the best experience to get from the game is just fighting and not talking. I don't like that.

Of course, better AI and always better AI.

6. (FEATURES) Able to climb objects, cliff and building and the NPC can do it too. There are horse combat between the player and NPC. Multiple followers and better follower management such as command (ARMA style, Republic Commando or any other group tactical games), bigger cities, socialize, interesting NPC and not the annoying talking whenever you get closer, populated world, a much lovely reason to get married rather than an income payment, implement the whole Hearthfire features rather than DLC, and so on.

7. (CONCLUSION) But what I really want from the next Elder Scrolls is to have a HEART because I'm done hearing "You can do tons of quest and explore." or "You can play this game for 200 hours." or "The NPC have radiant AI". I want the those best feelings when I play Morrowind and Oblivion or any other RPG that have a heart.

The rest, Bethesda and Todd Howard need to get ready with the concept and think to themselves on how to execute it or the Elder Scrolls will always be bested by The Witcher, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma and any other RPG that can beat Bethesda's vision and mission.

 

[putowtin]

more factions, I had a great idea for a bandit faction.

You run into a few bandit camps, destroy them, then as your leaving the last one a bandit is found on his knee's begging for his life. You let him go. A month later (in game) he finds you and offers to follow you. More time later he mentions another hidden bandit camp, you go take it out and set it up as a base. He can arrange any new furnishings (you want a forge? he's the man to see) Other bandits will join you there and offer quests (bandit in jail, free him/ caravan to raid/etc)

Once you've done enough quests and upgraded the place the first bandit will give you the factions big quest (just like the main quests from the other factions) which could be to take out a rival faction or warn you that the hold's Jarl has put a bounty on all of your heads, this could lead to a massive ruck and the first bandit lead hold!

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I kind of want to see brothels in the game if we are going to high rock, something like the Blooming Rose so to speak.

Also, an atheletics/Acrobat (Fitness) tree that grants bonus health and stamina would be interesting, although mages will need something as well.

 

[rutger5000]

Return many of the lost elements of Morrowind, especially in the magic department. Return the schools of magic, the ability to create complex spells, and most importantly flying, teleportation and telekinesis are cool too. The later two really add something to those who want to play as a Night-blade.
And I think it would be really great to have interesting events that happen regardless of what you do, but you can affect the outcome. Say that there is a war in elder scrolls 6 (or something like that), then the game ought to make the fractions at war actually clash and let every clash impact the results of that war. The player could influence the war by siding with one or both of the fractions and help win key battles either by intel, sabotage or being on the battlefield. After a certain period of time or after a certain few key battles have been won by one side, the war would come to an end. And there would be clearly visible and significant change in the balance of power in the game world (new fractions and quests emerge, other are lost)

 

[rutger5000]

9) cliffracers

Please, no. Not again. Never again.

One of the greatest feelings of power I had in any game was when I flew across Morrowind with great speed (boots of bliding speed and strong levitation spell). Attracted a billion (more or less) cliffraces, than fly upwards beyond the height cliffracers could reach and than bombard the pilar (at that point it really did became a pilar)of cliffracers with devastating area effect spells, and see them all die one by one.

 

[Mobax]

Oh boy, the things I want! And the things I don't want. I suspect this will be a long post. For a summary just skip to the bottom.

Things I want:

- deeper npc characters, more dialogue options, more npc's that can converse
- I want npc's to act more friendly if I'm a guild mate, or through conversation over time
- conversely, I want npc's to be cooler or even rude if I've insulted or harassed them in the past
- I want deeper lore within the game, just little un-quested things. Like the rumors and secrets from Morrowind, just little misc. tibits that lead to a cave, a lost story, etc. Not great treasure, just little bits of depth.
- I want improved combat systems, the skills should matter more
- I want something like the vampire guilds from Morrowind again, NOT Dawnguard again!
- I want more groups I can join, and some rival/competing groups that I can join one or the other(s) ie: Morrowind's great houses
- I want to be able to play instruments/music in game, make being a bard a real class
- I want animations of reading/eating/drinking, so I can look like the npc's do when sitting in the taverns
- I want the different guilds to play to their respective strengths, it was stupid imo that the climax of the theives guild was a combat based conclusion, I'm a thief, not a fighter.
- extension of above, I want it to be extremely challenging or impossible to beat some guilds/misc quests w.o the right skills. ie: no sword swinging brutes will be arch-mages
- I would like to see longer quest lines, the Companions was a joke, you did like 3 quests and were brought into the inner circle, and then a few quests later you're the leader?!? Seriously?
- I would be in favor of the leadership of some guilds being unaccessible to the player initially, or at all, ie: you can't become patriarch of a temple.
- I want to be a highwayman, I want to approach travelers and demand their gold
- as above, I want to see more practical uses for speech/barter skill(s)
- bookstores, is all of skyrim illiterate? I want a big improvement in shops and game economy as a whole
- more ways to complete quests, and maybe some options if you fail a quest
- the ability to fail a quest, and have repercussions for it
- co-op mode, NOT an mmo, I want to be able to play in a world with 1 other person, maybe 2
other people.
- more skills again and bring back attributes!
- more magical spells and effects
- more/worse diseases, and have a disease get worse if left untreated. Have some be fatal

Things I don't want:

- a barter system where you can't ever profit through buying and selling
- the game leveling with you, it was better in skyrim for oblivion, but I would like to see it improved further
- mirrored questlines, stormcloaks/legion or vampires/dawnguard. If they want to have the player pick a side, at least make both sides different
- armor being heavier as it gets better, especially for light armor. The elven and mithril armors should've been lighter then leather armors
- cookie-cutter cities, same shops in every place, same goods, make different parts of the land feel distinct. Not just look different
- bugs, so many bugs in skyrim and broken quests

That's all I can think of right now, I think really what I want is Morrowind 2. By this I mean I want almost everything from Morrowind but dressed up in sharp new graphics. I want the rich dialogue, I want the deeper story and the lore within the game world. I want npc's to like and hate me in more obvious tones. I want the different areas to feel different. I like most of the changes to the combat and magic since Morrowind, but I feel the game's are losing their soul. If you took Morrowind as a foundation and added the best pieces from Skyrim and Oblivion that would be a great TES VI in my opinion.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Expand the game world to beyond Tamriel. I'm not saying we actually need to visit Akavir or anything but encountering some of it's inhabitants would be nice. Akavir ruled Tamriel for several centuries, so I find it strange you never find any holdouts of Akaviri peoples still in the Empire.

Akavir never ruled Tamriel.

One of the Taseci snake-men, who came over as past of the invasion centuries before, was eventually made Potentate of The empire, but that was just him.

Tamriel was never ruled by akavir itself.

 

[sanquin]

-Graphics...no, they're good enough. A new game doesn't need better graphics. It needs better aesthetics.
-No multiplayer...bad. Not every game needs multiplayer.
-Better and longer main quest. Make it at least better than the side missions.
-And for that matter, less 'go into cave and kill stuff' quests.
-More varied environments. I'd especially like to see jungle or forest-like environment.
-Better combat. They could take a pointer or two from Witcher 2.
-Don't make a console game and port it to PC. Make the game for PC first, then port it to console. So we don't get crappy console UI and other such things.
-Make some of the armors and clothing look less dull.
-No monster leveling with you leveling up! If an area has strong monsters, too bad! Die and come back later.
-Make factions/guilds mutually exclusive again. Like the thieves and mercenary guild. Or fighter and mage guild. So you actually do have to choose your path a little instead of being able to do EVERYTHING.
-Less 'streamlined' skills and stats. Part of the earlier games' fun was that you had to pick a little carefully.

That's what I can think of right now.

Captcha: rent-a-swag. I feel dirty just typing it...

 

[Trunkage]

Wait.. fast travel is an issue. I could accept limiting the fast travel to lets say 20 points otherwise you'd have to have the ridiculous short circuiting system from Dark Souls. Fortunately the areas in dark souls are so small that it doesn't take too long to get through. But all fast travel gone.. that would be god awful

 

[Fijiman]

Well one of my biggest complaints for Skyrim was the complete lack of an oanization system in containers. If they at least fix that I'd be happy.