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]

CLICKY

I am curious though, how do you decide majors/minors if you have no idea what your character will become? Do you just take anything and then fix the character as you go with console command and mods? I have never had to do that as I theme everything around the character, majors, leveling, quests, equipment, you name it.

For me role-playing is storytelling. I take a character with some basic attributes (such as my female Redguard character, Julian of Anvil). She's weak in magic, but strong in athletics and combat. The story that unfolded as I played her built up her stealth traits, and finally her magicka to the point where she could cast a flame atronach. Can she summon Volanaro's Dremora Lord? Not without some help from the console, so she doesn't use it much. But she has built up her magic skills considerably through the course of her story, to the point where she actually leaves combat behind to take up study at the Mages University.

Alise Sudmeri has done the same in Skyrim. She is a lonely character who is a bit of an outcast, unable to find a place where she feels safe and loved. So she shivers her way through the northern province in search of a home. All the decisions she makes reflects this. How have her attributes grown and changed? I'm not really sure at this point. The only thing I'm sure about is that she loves her adopted children and will do anything for them. They bring out the mother in her that has been repressed for too long.

To piggy back on hautee's point:

Just because I don’t yet know who my character will become doesn’t mean that I don’t know how he/she starts out. Like you I have a very clear image in my head of who my character is to start the game. I just go in knowing that the events of the game are going to change my character in ways that I can’t yet foresee.

The best characters change over the course of time. They take on new skills and discard old ones. Their attitudes evolve (or devolve, as the case may be) based on their experience. Look at the fan fics we all love on this forum. Buffy, Julian, Teresa, Maxical, Athlain, Jerric... they all have changed considerably over the course of their various stories. The character arc is one of the key elements of effective storytelling and, when you get right down to it, isn’t that what ‘role-playing’ is all about?

Well... actually, to some notable degree, for me, it does.

It's not a coincidence that I've played so many unusual characters - Altmer barbarians, Orc mages, Orc thieves, Breton tanks... I like playing against the grain, and specifically because I like the challenge of working out how to get this Orc to be a powerful mage in spite of the fact that he's less well-equipped to be a powerful mage than the Bretons and Altmer around him. I love the fact that my Altmer barbarian started out fragile and weak - that meant that he had to REALLY want to be a barbarian and had to REALLY work at it to succeed, while a Nord or an Orc could've just effortlessly cruised to the same end. His shortcomings, and his struggles to overcome them, are a huge part of his story and of his personality.

It's a basic rule of storytelling - the way you create an interesting story is to create a character, give him a goal, then put an obstacle in his way. The drama of the story comes from the things that need to be done in order to overcome the obstacle. With no obstacles, it's just a boringly straight path.

Believe me when I say that I know the basic rules of storytelling. And I like to play against type too. I love playing Redguard mages, Orc spies and Bosmer tanks. Nothing in Skyrim (which I assume we’re talking about because it’s the only game that starts you as a blank slate) prevents you from doing this. I find it interesting that you oppose restrictions while simultaneously calling for them. You decided the nature of the obstacles your characters had to overcome. The game was incidental in that decision... in fact, the game is merely the setting for the story you want to tell. If you want your Altmer barbarian to start off weak, then make him/her so. But you have no right to decide that my Altmer barbarian has to start off the same way.

Now personally, I have no idea why anyone prefers complete blank slate characters. To me, that just means that there's no reason to even care about picking a race. With racial differences, I get to choose whether I want to play a mage from a race that's predisposed to magic and thus has an advantage and will become extremely powerful or a mage from a race that's not predisposed to magic and thus has to work that much harder to succeed. Without those differences, I get to choose whether my mage is yellow or green. That's it. The former pair of choices goes some considerable way toward defining the character and laying a foundation for his story. The latter pair of choices is ultimately meaningless trivia - there might as well just be one race and a skin tint slider.

And see I come at it from the exact opposite point of view. Every character starts as a blank slate, regardless of what starting skills or attributes the game determines you possess. Nothing that makes your character special or unique comes from within those starting attributes. Remember, all the values for those skills and attributes are going to change based on where you decide to take the character. I personally don’t need the game to determine something for me that I am comfortable determining for myself. I still come into the game knowing that Altmer are considered the best mages, Bosmer the best archers, and so forth. None of the racial norms/stereotypes have changed. My choice of race is still made acknowledging those differences, but I like being in control of determining for myself how successful/unsuccessful my Altmer barbarian can be without the game forcing it upon me.

I should note at this point that I think a whole lot of the problem (broadly - I make no claims about you personally) isn't really about the game at all - it's that the distinction is made in the context of "race," which triggers a basic gut-level reaction in people. I don't think it actually has anything at all to do with how the concept of racial differences affects the game, but is primarily just a fundamental discomfort with the notion that there might even be any notable differences between "races." And I can't help but wonder if this controversy would even exist if they were referred to as different species instead.

First of all I thank you for making this distinction, even if it was unnecessary. I think we all on this forum have devoted an appropriate level of thought to this subject. Your arguments so far have been eloquent and extremely engaging to read. I don't believe you have to worry about offending, and I don't believe that you think my comments are some knee-jerk reaction based on the fact that some game developer thinks that black people are dumb.

If you only see the various races as a predetermined set of attributes and skills then I can see how you think there’s no reason to choose a race if all those attributes/skills start the same. But I think that misses the bigger picture. When I decide to play an Altmer the starting attributes, skills, and racial specials are completely irrelevant to me. I am choosing to play as a member of the first race to navigate the oceans and seas of Tamriel. I am choosing to play as a member of the race that gave all of Tamriel its language and science (not to mention its religion and magic). When I choose an Orc I keep in mind the founding of Orsinium and Boethiah’s harsh treatment of Trinimac. When I play a Bosmer I try to hold to the Green Pact and a healthy fear/respect for Y’ffre if my character hails from Valenwood. As a Redguard I wrestle with the conflict of Crowns versus Forebears and, now with Skyrim, the betrayal by the Empire when they signed the White-Gold Concordant. Race is more about viewpoint based on shared cultural experience than it is about pointy ears and yellow or green skin. That viewpoint doesn’t waver, even when everyone starts with the same attributes.

So that means that my ultimate RPG (I can't even say ultimate TES game, because that's so thoroughly inconceivable - Beth WILL NOT make any game even vaguely like that) includes attributes and includes racial/character presets that can be toggled/adjusted to the player's preferences, so those who want diversity and advantages and disadvantages can have them and those who want a broad sea of undifferentiated blank slates can have them.

This is the first thing you have written so far that comes across as condescending and it is, quite frankly, beneath you.

I'm not wholly comfortable with that, just because it would seem to invite balance problems to have to build a world around some potentially relatively broad range of choices there, but that's the best I can do.

And that is exactly what Bethesda did in Fallout 3. S.P.E.C.I.A.L are attributes that each player can tailor to his/her liking right before the player is given the option to select 3 skills to 'tag.'