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?

[Destri Melarg]

My two cents:

It has been years since I considered ES a role play game. Can I play a pirate and raid ships off the coast of Anvil? Or perhaps a guard that uses corruption to work my way up the Imperial ladder? Or join the fishing guild the works off the northern coast of Skyrim? Or join the Talon Merc or Enclave?

Yet it remains a 'role play' game. It may not be the role you want, but Bethesda does give you a role to play. Hell, they even force the role upon you. You are Dovahkiin, and it is up to you, as the role-player, to decide what that means in your particular play through.

'Rosa mentioned Mass Effect earlier and I think that's a perfect example of a game that is basically on rails in the sense that you have no freedom at all in the ways in which you proceed, yet it still provides a deeply satisfying (well, to me at least) role-playing experience.

The whole rule book for role play has been thrown out the window in this new era of fantasy games.

How can you argue for more freedom while lamenting the fact that the game doesn't follow a rule book?

It is the character design at the start of each ES game that is the most worrying trend of all. Beast race, Human, Mer, there is no difference now...

That, along with the elimination of attributes, is the biggest reason that I decided long ago that I simply was not going to give Beth any of my money in exchange for that product.

To each his own. Personally, I find this to be a trend worthy of applause. Taking attributes out of the game works when those attributes become a hinderance. gpstr's argument that the strongest Altmer should never be as strong as the strongest Orc insinuates that the argument works for the other attributes as well. To say that my Orc can't be as charming as an Imperial or my Redguard can never be as smart as a Breton is simply ridiculous (not to mention the fact that it comes close to being insulting). Such constraints on character are exactly the opposite to the freedom we all claim to want. I would love to see attributes return, but only if those attributes can be chosen as they are in the Fallout series. Then one of the previous mentioned constraints can serve your role-play by giving your Orc/Redguard something to perpetually fight to overcome. However, that decision should come from the player. It should not be a mechanic built within the game.

I would prefer to see the "MQ" actually be relegated to the same status as the "side quests." Yes, the MQ would give us the primary reason for buying or playing the game, but it should not start until we are ready to start it.

I second this whole-heartedly (as does Acadian, I suspect)!

Speaking of our esteemed GM… it behooves all of us to take as example what Acadian has managed to do with Buffy. Sure, there are mental gymnastics required to achieve it, but he has managed to create a character who would be any role-players dream within the so-called limitations of Skyrim’s character/leveling system.

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 my 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?

This is exactly the problem I had with the old class system!

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 seems like an empty gripe when you consider that the game does give each race a starting bonus to half a dozen skills, and everything else you want can be addressed within a few minutes/hours of leaving Helgen Keep. In a game that encompasses as many hours as Skyrim that isn't a deal breaker IMHO.

I can't believe that I (of all people) am the devil's advocate in this thread.

[SubRosa]

This seems like an empty gripe when you consider that the game does give each race a starting bonus to half a dozen skills, and everything else you want can be addressed within a few minutes/hours of leaving Helgen Keep. In a game that encompasses as many hours as Skyrim that isn't a deal breaker IMHO.

The trouble there is that every member of each race is an exact duplicate. Apparently there are factories out there rolling out elves, humans, orcs, etc..., since we all start out with the factory-standard model. That would explain why the children all look the same... I find it very un-i... (sorry Renee, but here comes the 'I' word) immersive.

But more than that, the bonuses they give the races rarely match up with who my character is at the start of the game. The characters I create are people, with their own personalities, histories, and stories. Not toons I roll to beat the game with (Ph3R M3 n00Bs!). Because of that I could work past the inability to customize my stats at the start of the game. I play a person, not a bunch of statistics. However, it makes it difficult to do that working past, precisely because what my character can or cannot do from the very first moment in the game does not match who that character is in my head. For example, one of my earlier characters was Hera, who was an Altmer barbarian. She was raised from childhood in the wilds by a Nord mountain man named Alp, and was a truer True Nord™ than any Nord could be. So she was supposed to be practiced with two-handed weapons, armor, and so forth. The things her 'uncle' Alp taught her from childhood. She wasn't supposed to know the first thing about Illusion, or Enchanting, or Alteration, and so on. Yet she started with Two-Handed at 15, and Illusion at 25. WTF? The Illusion I could ignore, since I would never use that. But the 15 in her main weapon skill made those earlier levels more difficult than they should have been for someone with her proclivities and background. Because of experiences like that, I now use the console and creation kit to tailor make every one of my characters.

So I really don't want a blank slate to begin the game with. Nor one that is exactly like what some guy sitting in the DC suburbs thinks every elf is supposed to be like. I want to think about who my characters are as people, what they like, don't like, can do, don't want to do, and so forth. I spend days, sometimes weeks, just figuring out what they will wear (take a look at some of my character cosplay topics in the Fan Art forum, I have three separate topic for just one character's outfits). In the end (or should I say at the start?) I want the character I play to fit that vision in my head, right from the get go. I shouldn't have to wait until 5 hours into the game to be able to play the character the way I envisioned them being at the start of the game.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 8 2015, 06:21 PM