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]

Long before my days of computer gaming, I played pen and paper RPGs, Dungeons and Dragons included. That was back when it came in two flavors, Basic and Advanced. TBH, I think it is one of the poorest RPGs ever made. It was just the most well known RPG, and so I think it acted like a gateway drug for many gamers like myself, who moved on to better games, like Shadowrun, or the Champions/Fuzion/Hero system, Call of Cthulhu, or Marvel Superheros. The 3rd edition ruleset of D&D is a big improvement over how it was in the past. But it still lags far behind the other games out there, especially with magicians.

One of the things I always disliked about D&D was the class system. Because real people don't always fall into narrow little boxes, especially ones made by someone else. Even with multi/dual classing it could be difficult to shoehorn a character idea into what classes a game provides. Knights of the Old Republic was like that. Why couldn't a play a Jedi who was good with a lightsaber and at using computers? Nope, only a Jedi Consular can fix machines. I have always found games that allow you to define your character how you want - by picking your attributes, skills, and so forth - were much better. Because it is my character after all. Why should some guy sitting in an office dictate to me what she can or cannot do?

However, some games that have classes allow people to create their own, which I never had a problem with. Because you could define your character however you wanted. Shadowrun was like that with its templates. Basically it was a set of stats, skills, gear, and so forth you started with. When you created a character you could use a ready made template like a Street Samurai (who was all into combat skills, physical attributes, and cyberware), or you could make your own template using the rules they provided for how to assign skill points, attributes, and so on. Once you started playing the templates no longer mattered, as you could invest your experience points in raising any skill or attribute you wanted. But just as gpstr noted, you could not raise everything with the limited points you had. You had to pick and choose what your character's strong suits would be. That kind of game I love. Like the Fallout games, where you choose your attribute points, and then pick 3 tag skills. Then you take whatever perks and raise whatever skills you want every time you level up.

One of Skyrim's biggest weaknesses is not the lack of classes. It is the lack of ways it offers to define your character at the start of the game. The lack of attributes is far more glaring here. But even working within the game as it is, they could have allowed you to give your starting character extra points to either Health, Stamina, or Magicka. They could have given the option to start with one or more Perks. They could have allowed you to have a 5 or 10 point bonus to half a dozen skills. They could have allowed you to start with a Standing Stone Power, or choose from a list of Novice spells. All of these things would have gone a huge way to defining a unique character at the start of the game. Coincidentally, these are all of the things I do when I create a character for Skyrim, using the console and my own modded starting room. None of my characters in Skyrim ever start the game alike.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 8 2015, 08:14 PM