How about more "exotic" weapons: chain-whips, culturized swords, and crossbows. Every type of blade had the same basic animation, a claymore should be restricted to attacks that you don't have to fight against gravity as much (chops and such).

Maybe "sneak attacks" should have "stealth kills" at higher mastery levels. Knife kills to the throat or strangle with a chain-whip or unarmed (yeah, this is more assassin stuff, but whatever). Wall jumps would also be nice for more acrobatic and athletic types.
And a more memorable and varied soundtrack could help (different tunes for battle and different locales). "Unmovable objects" can be justified in some cases, but every single crate and barrel in the game is non-flammable and immune to damage (restating another point here).

Shouldn't lethal frost spells cause an opponent to shatter? A fire spell create one of those "charred remains" we've all seen at one point in time? As I've said animals should have unique behavior (wolves have to stop in order to attack or bite you; what the crap?) Most four-legged mammalian predators jump on prey to knock it down and then maul it to death, that's awkward to put in a game, but that's the reality right there.

And large cities should have more residents, unless well over 50% of the adult (the only) population is single and not a part of a large family. The only families in Oblivion are the Draconis and..... what the woman's name is that wrote the (slightly biased) guides to the cities in Cyrodiil.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that for now. I wonder if anyone from Beth ever checks out Chorrol, we are on their fan site listing after all.

Alessia Ottus wrote the guides. God I hated her. I'm not one for wanton NPC murder, but she had to die.

Ahem. Did I just say that? What I meant to say was that I agree. And I suppose I'll say that more variety in the late-game encounters would (and I know everybody complains about this) would be nice. It gets boring, finding glass armor on every bandit you kill. It makes it hard to engender some level of remorse in the PC, too. I end up thinking, "They've been praying on a lot of travelers" instead of, "Man, this poor soul was just trying to survive." It's a small thing, but I think it's important.

This post has been edited by canis216: Jan 3 2008, 11:42 PM

Hey, all this discussion about the future has got me wondering.
Have they started making a fifth elder scrolls game?

No, they're working on the next Fallout, and then they'll start on ES V.

The glass armour or daedric armour that can be found on bandits late in the game is related with the poorly designed game levelling system. It's supposed to give even high level players a chalenge but all it manages in the end is to give the players and easy and accesable source of cash. If in need of some quick drakes, just go on a trip to another city and you're bound to get jumped by at least 3 or 4 well equiped and well armed bandits. In one of my games, I usually stripped bandits bare of their equipment after killing them and left it lying on the roads. Since I was always over-encumbered when I tried to collect their armour the first time, I usually left their armour and weapons lying next to their bodies. Since items don't dissapear, I always have a reliable source of easy money whenever I'm making my way to a certain city. Add a charm spell to make the merchant give me a better price and you can make a fortune.

One mod that alters this levelling system is Oscuro's mod, which reallyt makes the game more playable and enjoyable, correcting some other mistakes the devs made, like merchants who never run out of money and a non-existant economy in Cyrodiil.

I really liked the economy idea. In a game like Oblivion, you should be able to become whatever you want, not just an adventurer or weird guild member. Being a merchant should really be an alternative to being a warrior. Anyone who's played Mount and Blade knows what I'm talking about since the system you mentioned is the same one as in Mount and Blade (minus the ships and inns part).

I haven't played Oblivion (yet), but a place to rant is a place to rant so here I go.

I'd like to see more options of non-lethality. In Morrowind, it was kill or be killed. (or run away, but that is not the kind of non-lethality I'm looking for.) Even Hand to Hand couldn't be used to actually finish a fight while letting your enemy live. Sure, you could knock people out, but they were back on their feet and swinging their stuff in five seconds. Only beating them to dead could stop them. Oblivion made a step in the right direction with the yielding, but it is still not enough for me. Basically, when you yield, you say: ,,Ok, I give up, now stop beating on me!"

What I'm looking for is basically this. Being able to finish a fight without killing anyone, without running away and without surrendering. And I'm not talking about some rare scripted instance in a quest where some character surrenders at x% health. I'm talking about regular gameplay here. Disarming causing the opponent to surrender. (unless said opponent is the brave/foolish/stubborn type or simply doesn't need a weapon anyway. In that case, go ahead and keep fighting.)

Maybe a 'stun meter' that activates during combat, fills up when you get hit and slowly lowers if you're not being hit, lowering faster when not doing anything and standing still. If the stun meter maxes out, the victim is knocked out (give or take, for two minutes?) If you keep up a constant barrage with a less than lethal weapon, like fists, you can max out the stun meter before the opponent's health is depleted, resulting in a knockout rather than a kill.

And for the mages, Stun spells. Thieves, a sort of chloroform or what have you that triggers during a melee sneak attack. (won't work on Atronachs or skeletons. Sorry, but I don't see a floating pile of rocks being gassed.)

If the player is knocked out, I'd rather see some options. Now, you're just dead. But what if you got defeated by a bandit or the Legion? They'd rather strip you of your stuff and leave you for dead, or strip you of your stuff and haul you to jail. Getting them too mad will have them continue waling on you, ala Morrowind's death warrant.

The perks to knocking out? Not much, other than making pacifism an actual option without instantly locking out most of the combat. Of course, it would be even more awesome if ropes were added to the game for tying up knocked out opponents with. Hey, when I joined the Legion in Morrowind, I was hoping to beat up some criminals and then haul them to court, alive. Now I just ended up having to kill each and everyone.
And while we're on the subject of ropes, I'm going to be unreasonable. Grappling hooks, for those who can't levitate or jump like kangaroos.

Finally, on the subject of the court, either death penalties on everything or NPCs placed under arrest as well. Seriously, I break the law and I get to pay a fine or spend time in jail. I kill someone, or three someones, jailtime. NPC picks a flower in someone else's garden? OH NOES, EXECUTE HIM!!!! Seriously, that just doesn't make sense at all. Where is equality?


Oh, one real last finally. Intimidation. No matter what you're wielding no one gets intimidated. Ok, I noticed like a 5 points disposition decrease in Morrowind with my sword out. That's pathetically low, considering the scale goes to 100. I guess the same thing is there in Oblivion as well. But I would absolutely love it if I strode into a camp of some simple farmers, coated in full Daedric and wielding a flaming Claymore of the same stuff, and all those farmers crapped their pants and ran away to hide. Hey, you're trying to look like a badass for a reason here, not just so you can admire yourself in the mirror.

This is probably where fame infamy should come into play as well.
High fame (multiplied by the knightly armours like silver): Simple bandits and other crooks avoid you like the plague. Only real big bads, like the higher ranking Dark Brotherhood, will challenge you. (In their own way, with poison and stealth)
High infamy (multiplied by the bad armours like Daedrid.): Good people will run away, the Legion will crap its pants and require extensive persuasion from a commander to attack you even if you're outnumbered. Heck, what if some priests tried to cleanse you off evil with a prayer and a shower of holy water? Awesome!!!!!



OK, and that ends this rant. Looking back up, I see that I've fallen into further regions of things that are cool but add little. Still, one can only dream.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Jan 7 2008, 08:09 PM

I'd agree with all of that and grappels aren't unreasonable. In fact that whole system needs reworked - why when I jump do I have to get my feet onto something to land on it? You should be able to grap things and pull yourself up. And most of the walls look fairly climbable so you could get up things like that (with a risk of falling depending on the wall and your skill (ok that might be difficult but its possible)).

And windows - why pick a really hard lock when you could just pan in the window next to it? Not subtle but not everyone wants to be. Obviously some windiws might have bars but upper story ones might not - you might even be able to pick their locks...

And the final things that bugs me - why can't you crawl though narow gaps. Always standing upright just doesn't make sense.

Anyway thats todays things I'd like to see in the next TES.

Funny enough, climbing was a part of Daggerfall. I used it once to escape from a skeleton that was whooping my behind in the starter dungeon. Unlike Morrowind and Oblivion, Bethesda had no problems whatsoever with dumping monsters on you a level one can't defeat head-on. I ran into an Orc or two as well and the thieves could kill me in 2-3 hits. And I was using a 100% warrior dude in full armour! That was pretty cool, cause you actually felt weak at first.

Anyway, climbing was there in Daggerfall, but got dumped in Morrowind. I assume it's because of Levitation becoming more prominent and it being harder to do with the more rugged polygonal surfaces. Daggerfall had a collection of smooth panes, rocks were just a texture or a sprite.

But yeah, the return of climbing would be awesome and really help the stealth portion of the game, together with window entries. (Or chimney entreys. Hey, I wanna roleplay Santa!)

There are situations though where I feel that grabbing a ledge should not be allowed.
1: If you're heavily encumbered, like more than 50% of your max. Consider this a case of 'I can climb, but I'm simply too heavy at the moment'
2: When there's a shield strapped to your arm.
3: When you've got a weapon out. Both 2 and 3 mean you can't effectively use one or even both hands.

It would be great if Bethesda could add small little touches which, if done with taste, enhance the roleplaying aspect of the games, an aspect which I feel has been somewhat ignored with Oblivion. I mean, in Morrowind you had much more options through which to affirm yourself in the land. I personally chose the path of the noble in a Great House. It felt good seeing my character's name on an official document bearing the seal of Duke Dren which stated that I was a noble and tasked to defend the land if need arose.

In Oblivion there weren't even documents that bore your character's name. They could have done that in the same way they made documents with the player's name in Morrowind.

A cool thing that would add to the RPing would be, imo, vampire hunters or werewolf slayers which actively set out and stalk the player, following him subtly in cities and attacking him at unawares when he is in the wilderness. The greater your power, the greater your fame grows among the local creature slayers. Like that guy from the book in Oblivion which hunted vampires all around Tamriel.

You mean the guy who was in fact a vampire?

No, I'm not talking about an actual NPC. I'm talking about a character from a book which you can actually find in that guy's house. It's called Immortal Blood if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, and the hunter in Immortal Blood is a vampire. There was no miscommunication. You can find it at the bandit camp in Vilverin or whatever the first Aylied ruin you can go to is after exiting the sewers.
Anyway, you answered my question, so thanks anyway.

No, the hunter wasn't a vampire--the guy who was teaching the hunter about vampires was the vampire. The book, in fact, never indicates in anyway that he himself ever hunted vampires, just that he knew a lot about them.

Oh, yeah...... I've been blowing hot air (kind of) for that last few posts. I haven't read the book in awhile, not unless my character just started out (TES V also needs a replay feature, so that way if you want to relive the main quest with your character being uber-awesome).

Unless you save at all the cool parts beforehand, you're hosed when you beat the MQ.

To be honest, I think Beth could take some hints from the more popular mods out there like Oscuro's or Francesco's mods. The first thing that has to go is the current levelling system used for both NPCs and creatures since it's way too annoying and unrealistic. After a point the player character is supposed to be the most uber in the land so goblins or bandits shouldn't be giving him too much trouble. The daedric-wearing bandits are also stupid and unrealistic. These men are supposed to be cutthroats and outlaws living the way they do because they have no other choice. If they were to simply sell their high quality armour they could live off the winings for the rest of their lives.

Secondly, Oblivion is too stale and bland when it comes to atmosphere in towns. Especially taverns. I mean, entering an Oblivion tavern reminds me of a modern day library. I can almost see a "Keep your voice down" sign hanging over the bar. Besides the random conversation about mudcrabs between two NPCs there isn't much noise. Oblivion could take an example from the Witcher in these areas. Add drunkards, singing bands and rowdy people ready to get in a brawl with you. The ability to actually get drunk is also quite important if you really want to have a proper tavern-going character. Being able to play tavern games like dice or cards would also add to the atmosphere considerably. The cities should also be more realistic and lived-in. I mean the cities are too clean when they should be dirtier and less happy. Adding a few generic NPCs simply for making the cities seem more believable seems like a good goal if you ask me. Also, another thing which I found extremely interesting in The Witcher was the fact that cities actually got dangerous at night. Fanatics started walking the streets and attacking nonhumans at random. If they saw me get near they would also attack me. Adding something of the like in the more shadier parts of cities in Oblivion would be great, I say. It would generally give you a feeling of dread to walk the streets at night in the more dangerous parts of town like the slums. Of course, being part of a guild like the Thieves Guild could make you well-known enough that minor thugs leave you alone but being part of a guild should also create new enemies. Thus, members of a street gang which challenge the Thieves Guild could begin attacking you on sight just for being a member.

I'm sure you all have thoughts which could help the game so spew them out without any fear. On the internet, no one can hear you scream afterall.

A good suggestion there about towns getting dangerous at night. That could be carried further up in Bravil - due to a certain statue there, I suppose there would be things happening associated with one particular assassin brotherhood. Plus, that place just looks like all the inhabbitants would be doing is mugging each other. Whenever I RP a character in Bravil, he carries around at least a shortsword, for safety purposes.

Also, in addition to the whole dangerous towns thing, perhaps you could be a mugger yourself. What I mean is a creepy guy with a wooden stick with a nail in it and some torn up clothes. For example, if there were no guards in sight, you could have the 'gold or life!' option of conversation, or something like that. Depending on how you looked, how was the person armed, how many gold did it carry and the time this was said, the person would either take it as a joke, ignore you, get unnerved enough to walk away fast, start running, start fighting back or give up the money.

Example - if it was nighttime, you looked like a prisoner that had just broken out of jail, the person had nothing more but a rusty iron dagger, had been carrying some two hundreds (let's say he was lucky gambling that night), and there was no guard nor any other person in sight, the person would just give away the money in fear of his/her life, and would probably be scared enough to keep shut for some time, until finally alerting the guards, by which time you could be far far away already.

This post has been edited by Gaius Maximus: Jan 10 2008, 07:31 PM

I'd like to see TES do something about voice-acted dialogue. Maybe the worst thing in Oblivion. For a NPC to fully explain something (like in Morrowind) would require much more voice-acting than was present in Oblivion. Instead, they used a frickin' quest compass. So, I say they go back to more text-based dialogue (which they won't do, because that would look like they were retreating from "next-gen" or they do voice-acted dialogue right. Anything in-between runs into the "uncanny valley" problem and infuriates off a legion of gamers.

I'd agree there. They could do with the people speaking a bit more quickly too.

And working out a better fast travel system would be nice.

How about carriages? You could even have a small chance of bandits attacking one--that would add an element of risk. (In Morrowind, nobody attacks a silt strider because they're really tall. See, I even have the retcon worked out!)

It would be cool if they implemented a system similar to Morrowind's for the next release. I didn't really like the fast travel but I suppose it had its uses. Still, it kind of broke the game's atmosphere, making it seem more like sending an email than actually traveling somewhere. I mean, you click on a point on the map and then Poof! You're already there.

Having a system of carriages available at every major city and at some of the smaller outlying villages would really be useful. Also, ships providing transport to coastal towns would also be nice. I mean, we see a ship in motion on the Niben in Oblivion's intro movie. To give an example in Cyrodiil's case, you could have had ships going back and forth between Leyawiin, Bravil and the Imperial City itself, since they were all cities with access to water and transportation.

Alas, the devs chose the easy way out and used instantaneous fast travel, forsaking the atmosphere and feel that carriages could have provided in favour of a quicker method of travel. Let's hope that for the next release they will pay more attention to what made Morrowind so great and appreciated and what made Oblivion to be detested by some fans. To be honest, we can't blame them since they did pretty much what the fans asked. Some of the simpletons wanted a quest compass that would remove all the difficulty from exploration quests, they got. Some fans wanted a leveling system so the game would be ever-challenging, they got that as well. If I were in the situation of the devs I'd be really confused right now.