The Ultimate TES game, What would you like to see Bethesda do? Options

[Vital]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but it's not directly related to Skyrim, Oblivion or any of the older games and is a general discussion about an RPG series (The Elder Scrolls) so it seemed the best fit

Just to clarify: This is not a "Which TES game is the best" thread. It is a thread to discuss the various features seen in any of the TES games, whether you liked them or not, how they could've been done better, why they should've left them out, what they should've had instead/as well, etc etc...

Ultimately it is a discussion about what would be the ideal Elder Scrolls Game in your opinion and how Bethesda could combine all the failures and successes of the previous games in order to create this. If you're already happy with one game, how could it be made better? (It can't be perfect )

Feel free to talk about different mods and games other than TES and how these could be implemented into the game as well.


To start:

I personally would love to see a combination of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim (these being the only TES games I've played in depth) put into one game. The alien environment, number of factions, lack of hand-holding and so on from Morrowind, combined with the brilliant questlines and general feel (I can't explain this one but it just.... is) of Oblivion and the better combat, crafting and mechanical superiority of Skyrim.

This is just a brief description of some of the things I would like to see. I could write a 30 page essay on this and if this thread gets response I will put more stuff up. Anyway, what are you guy's thoughts?

[SubRosa]

Like Grits, I would most like to see consequences for your actions return to the series. The only one Aedric/Daedric artifact that Vital pointed out sounds like an excellent idea.

I would like to extend that to only being able to be in one Guild at a time, as well as making joining a Guild something that takes both effort and aptitude. Back in Morrowind there were minimum skill values you had to possess to join and advance in Guilds, that would be a good start. I think the Guild quests ought be built in such a way that you need the appropriate skills to finish them as well. For example a Thieves Guild quest should have locks you need to pick to complete it, a Mages Guild quest should require certain spells, a Fighters Guild quest should have challenges that involve defeating opponents without using spells, and so on. If you can't hack it, then you have to leave and learn that spell, get your lockpicking skill up, and so on.

I would also like to see Guild rivalries return, at least making people from diametrically opposing Guilds such as the Fighters and Thieves Guilds dislike each other. It would probably cause too much chaos if the "official" guilds like Fighters and Mages attacked one another on sight. Though Skyrim does have members of the Assassins Guild attacking your character on sight... But Grit's suggestion of a vampire having Boeithah cultists attacking them sounds great. Or a priest of Akray having necromancers come after them.

That folds into having religions that you can choose. The thing there however is that Tamriel is presented as a polytheistic place, so a person following only one deity would seem odd to me. Following the Nine however sounds perfect though, and being able to invest most of your time with one of the Divines sounds good - not the total exclusion of the other eight - just a focus on one. Since the Daedra don't seem to play that well with one another, that might work as an only one Daedric Lord. Or perhaps only a certain number (like three if you are a 4th Age Dunmer believing in the Reclamations) of non-opposing Daedra. I also think you should be able to choose an agnostic or undecided yet religion, as well as plain old atheism (its all just some magic-using clerics faking it in order to gain power and wealth after all...)

Interacting with things like altars of your religion might give you a larger bonus than undecided people. Interacting with opposing religion's altars might cause damage or curses. Likewise with interacting with people belonging to the same or other religions. There might even be a few unique spells that can only be learned by members of the same religion, like an Arkay's Wrath spell that damages only undead.

Basically I would like to see truly unique opportunities and penalties open up in the game depending upon the choices you make for your character. So no two games are the same, and you cannot do everything with a single character. Unfortunately that latter is exactly what Bethesda wants.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 27 2014, 11:06 PM