The Official TES VI Wishlist thread

[Snail's Pace]

For me Skyrim seems to be much of a kill or be killed type of game when compared to Morrowind. If I were going to play against unleveled enemies I would have to build a tank every time to survive. Then again maybe that's why I prefer a glass cannon in Skyrim, enemies are pretty easy to kill but the room for error with most of my characters is usually close to zero, which is where I find the challenge in the game.

That reminded me of another item for my wishlist.

I'd like a better system for adjusting game difficulty. I want the combat to be quick and decisive, and I want my character to win if I play correctly, and to lose if I screw up. Win or lose, I hate long drawn-out fights. In my experience, it's hard to find that ever-shifting sweet spot, and it requires adjusting the difficulty slider and the character's build and equipment throughout the game (another argument for static characters and/or an unleveled world).

The solution might be as simple as having separate sliders* for the PC and for enemies. That way, you wouldn't have to nerf your own character to increase the damage output of the enemies, or vice versa.

*Does Morrowind have separate difficulty sliders? I can't remember, and I can't find the info on the wiki.

[Rook]

*Does Morrowind have separate difficulty sliders? I can't remember, and I can't find the info on the wiki.

Yeah, it does. It starts you off at 30 or 50 difficulty, if I remember correctly.

[OblivionDuruza]

1. Bring back the dwarves

Bethesda and ZeniMax Online have both practically confirmed that they don't intend to do anything of the sort at any stage in the foreseeable future. It might still be possible, but I kinda feel that losing some of the mystery attached to the Dwemer would spoil them a little.

Is the plot really as series ruining as some fans make it out to be? I highly doubt, whatever it is, that's it's that bad.

I haven't found it to be anything of the sort, really.

Number one thing I want is more immersive quests. For example, you actually have to read the journal to know what to do/where to go. The game is just so much funner when you have to figure stuff out. Quests should also have multiple paths to victory, with multiple different consequences and results. The main quest should not be evident to the player coming out of jail. My scenario would be a utopian/distopian Summerset Isles where you have to take the initiate to topple the Aldimeri dominion (or enforce its rule!). I'm thinking like 16 parallel routes you could take: A spy/espionage main quest, a violent civil war main quest, a diplomatic main quest.

Number two is size. While Skyrim is impressive, its cites are not. I want the land area to be 5 times larger, cities 5 times larger, with 10 times the NPC's (more crowded). The Skyrim just isn't balanced, with like 1000 bandits for 1000 NPCs. I also want more conversation options. (5 times more script).

Edit: Oh, ya, An online arena where you fight other players

and rudimentary guns!

or even build your own underground society to overthrow the government!

I imagine that would be fairly difficult for Bethesda to actually create, but it could be a nice return to a Daggerfall style main quest (mind you, almost everything about Daggerfall was both bigger than necessary and procedurally generated). I'm not sure that making a single particular playable race/major national government the main villain of a game in the main series would be the best idea, however, considering that this would undoubtedly have an impact on players who chose said race for their PC. Great House Dagoth, and even the Stormcloaks, represented only a very small segment of their respective communities.

[thegooseking]

My work is based on the premise that believability is not enough. You can (and we have) create characters that are really believable, but the trouble is that if you let a character always do what's believable, there's no guarantee that they'll do anything interesting.

This is kind of the same as what I feel is wrong with Skyrim's use of Radiant Story. It mostly doesn't ask you to do anything contradictory or inconsistent, and that's good and important, but it doesn't add much value in terms of interestingness. I was really psyched when I heard that Radiant Story would take into account who you've encountered, the choices you've made and where you've been, but I was quite disappointed when I found out that that's mainly just about making sure it's not inconsistent.

What I want Radiant Story to do is track my play, the way developers do when they want player metrics, but instead of sending that data back to be analysed by the developers, I want it to be fed back into the game so that the game can then extrapolate what parts are more or less significant to me. When Radiant generates a quest for me, I don't just want it to generate a quest that doesn't actively contradict something else; I want it to generate a quest that is meaningful to me in the context of my game. Because when variables are filled in at random, the value that's added by having them be variable rather than static is marginal. If the difference isn't meaningful, you don't notice the difference, and therefore you lose most of the advantage of having a difference in the first place.

In short, I want TES VI to generate stories, not obviously-templated quests that aren't supposed to be repetitive but really are. There are challenges to it, yes (how to reconcile it with voice acting, for one), but it's really not as difficult as it sounds.

[snapple]

Call me crazy, but I really don't want another EPIC story line. Or, just one (sticking with the main quest). It was "epic" overload in Skyrim with the Dark Brotherhood, College of Winterhold, Dragonborn, Main Quest and Dawnguard stories all having major world implications. Too much.

[Jacquelope]

Hello, this is my first post here!

I have a crazy storyline for the next Elder Scrolls game. Of course it's probably either hilariously (in a tragic sense?) lore-unfriendly or Bethsoft has already picked another path.

Warning: Teal Deer crossing ahead.

Spoiler:

I'd like to see it where an Altmer General... let's call her Andraril Jorbinder, has come back from an expedition she embarked on at the end of the Oblivion Crisis. She has found an island where the Akavir/Tsaesci AND the Maormer from Pyandonea have founded a major city to marshal forces to invade Tamriel... starting with the Somerset Isles.

General Jorbinder, having missed out on the entirety of the Aldmeri Dominion's rise, returns to see evidence of the Thalmor's oppression of their own land and the slaughter of many Bosmer and other dissidents, and other atrocities, and judges the Thalmor to be traitors and hypocrites. Jorbinder also discovers a more urgent problem - the final component for the Thalmor's plans. Then a Thalmor mage hands Jorbinder a journal with information warning that the Thalmor are building a replica of the Eye of Magnus. When it is complete and they try to use it, its imperfect design will lead to the annihilation of all Altmer almost like what happened to the Dwemer.

General Jorbinder sends an envoy to speak with the Jarl of Windhelm (Ulfric? Or a successor?), warning of the impending invasion and, in a bit of a lie, warning of the false Eye of Magnus and its power to wipe out all Men. General Jorbinder desires to see a Summerset Isles that is free from the Empire, but not the center of a new empire that terrorizes the land. Her own countrymen have died by Thalmor hands and she wants to see the Thalmor destroyed, but she also wants a strong Summerset Isles... because Tamriel will need them for the coming invasion.

General Jorbinder is the strongest Altmer leader the elves have seen in three eras, and has quite a loyal army that will follow her to Oblivion if needed, but only with the help of Hammerfell, Skyrim and Cyrodiil, can she quickly crush the Thalmor without a huge devastating war that will just leave them wide open to a combined Akavir and Maormer invasion.

Worse yet, unbeknownst to any of the major leaders, the Daedric Lord Peryite has given a disease formula to a Master Lich who first spread the devastating pestilence among vampires; when infected, they turn into uglier vampire Abominations (similar to Blade 2's "Reapers"), they're vicious bloodsuckers and they spread by biting or scratching vampires - and anyone else they find. Their first targets were the Volkihar clan in Skyrim. But the Dawnguard has been watching this problem unfold and are trying to gather forces to fight this plague on Vampire territory before it spreads to all of Tamriel, and they are faced with a dilemma: to win, they have to ally themselves with the Volkihar Vampire Lord Serana, whose people are up to their necks (pun, get it?) in fighting Peryite's abominations. There is a solution, though... a long-lost concoction documented by an Altmer named Vorian Direnni, which served to turn one's blood into a poison that kills vampires. The concoction was created by a one Asliel Direnni, and he was no longer around, as far as anyone knew: he'd joined the elusive Psijic Order.

Contact the Psijic Order, solve the Abomination plague and shut down the false Eye of Magnus. Right?

Little did anyone know that the Master Lich himself is but a disguise for a very NOT undead rogue and ludicrously powerful member of the Psijic Order who would have been Ritemaster but for things that went wrong for him in the Order... which might have something to do with them discovering his plot to destroy the Daedra, whom he sees as merely "powerful ancestor spirits, but not powerful enough." Oh and of course he also has a grudge against the Altmer for ditching ancestor worship and forcing his people to Artaeum. For them, the False Eye of Magnus is his "screw you" gift in the making. Worse yet? When it's complete, he will use it to give [&@%!] off Daedra a chance to physically get at each other's throats. After convincing one another to screw up the other's creations, the cold war between some Daedra Lords is destined to get hot - and he's looking forward to starting a chain reaction between Daedra. If he can kick off two Daedra going at each other it will prove his point that they are not really "gods". (See the trope "Did you just scam Cthulhu?")

Finally: this super mage also made it so the Order couldn't get off Artaeum: they're stuck and cannot intervene.

This plotline wouldn't actually bring the player into contact with the Akavir or Maormer, but it would merely prepare them for the coming conflict. (Justifiable, since TES V never did show an actual in-game war with the Dominion.) The player would learn more about Peryite, Molag Bal, the nature of the Daedra and Aedra from the Psijic perspective vs everyone else's, and history buffs won't fail to catch the "Kriesau Circle" theme surrounding General Jorbinder (although she would be more successful in that endeavor). Summerset / Altmer culture and politics and life in the Psijic Order would also be subjects the player would encounter.

Yeah, I know, the Daedra don't exactly have ways to cross realms and get at each other's throats, and they probably wouldn't even behave like that. It'd take a lot more work for anyone to get them to seriously fight each other. Probably. Perhaps there's a way?

So how's this for a storyline idea?

[Jacquelope]

Call me crazy, but I really don't want another EPIC story line. Or, just one (sticking with the main quest). It was "epic" overload in Skyrim with the Dark Brotherhood, College of Winterhold, Dragonborn, Main Quest and Dawnguard stories all having major world implications. Too much.

Odd. I don't think it was epic enough. As an alternative to my Teal Deer wishlist, I'd have liked to throw in a modern Hammerfell story as part of (or after) the MQ. I'd also have the Dragonborn go on another quest to check Ulfric Stormcloak's bigotry and ignorance toward the Dunmer in Windhelm's Gray Quarter, then use this turn of events to negotiate an alliance with the Great Houses (Redoran, etc), unless I did the Imperial conquest of Skyrim in which case the Empire would have fixed the Gray Quarter problem and allied with the Dunmer by default. Then it's off to the Summerset Isles to fix that Thalmor problem.

For what I paid, I wanted more epic, as much as could fit on, say, a Blu-Ray disc (or a bunch of DVD-DL's).

[Macabre]

Make everything in real time. For instance, if you are breaking into a person's house, you must pick the lock before the guard patrol comes by and sees you, or anybody else for that matter.

[Mattbott]

if you are breaking into a person's house, you must pick the lock before the guard patrol comes by and sees you, or anybody else for that matter.

like in thief: deadly shadows (for example)

yes, i agree

it would make the whole thiefing part of the game a bit more adrenalin filled

[Badgreeny]

I also agree, but I think they're heading in that direction anyway. If you look at the difference in NPC interaction between Oblivion and Skyrim, you'll notice it has become more "real-time"/realistic. Not perfect, but getting there.

[Leckan]

For me Skyrim seems to be much of a kill or be killed type of game when compared to Morrowind. If I were going to play against unleveled enemies I would have to build a tank every time to survive. Then again maybe that's why I prefer a glass cannon in Skyrim, enemies are pretty easy to kill but the room for error with most of my characters is usually close to zero, which is where I find the challenge in the game.

That reminded me of another item for my wishlist.

I'd like a better system for adjusting game difficulty. I want the combat to be quick and decisive, and I want my character to win if I play correctly, and to lose if I screw up. Win or lose, I hate long drawn-out fights. In my experience, it's hard to find that ever-shifting sweet spot, and it requires adjusting the difficulty slider and the character's build and equipment throughout the game (another argument for static characters and/or an unleveled world).

The solution might be as simple as having separate sliders* for the PC and for enemies. That way, you wouldn't have to nerf your own character to increase the damage output of the enemies, or vice versa.

*Does Morrowind have separate difficulty sliders? I can't remember, and I can't find the info on the wiki.

I'm actually the opposite, I like the fights to be drawn out a little; particularly against bosses.

At lower levels, there's the threat of losing and I have to use what I have wisely to win, and it gives me incentive to get better stuff; equipment, spells, potions, perks, etc. However, at higher levels, I kill everything fairly quickly so it makes all of my goodies worthless.

On that note, I just like the threat of losing, I hate it when the difficulty is so high that you just make it out by the skin of your teeth and then get shot in the back by an archer that you missed.

Here's a wish too; an option to re-fight bosses. And have them scale to my current level.

[Starfang]

I really really want TES VI to at least feature Stros M'kai, I'd love to see it in a console game someday since I doubt I will ever play ESO. I wouldn't going back to Daggerfall and seeing what it looks like in the Skyrim/ESO engine.

[MNvikingsfan1]

I don't have any fresh ideas at the moment so I'll ask everyone some question to try to get this thread going again. So first question is what, if any, new guilds do you all want to see in the next game?
What improvements to marriage should be made?
Should they expand on the idea of the Hearthfire DLC in TES VI?
What are some possible sporadic events that should be included to keep the game exciting?
Other than that just keep posting ideas cuz I want this thread to continue cuz its important to the future

[BetaB17]

The dlc was based off a popular mod; while to some it was enjoyable it was largely limited and minimal compared to it's origin. Personally I would prefer custom houses to be vanilla, and at most less stressed or forced. Maybe a run down cabin you find in the forest near a river, possible to fix up. Humble yes but from there it can grow. More themes, variants, and style. As per building... Damn all the useless nicknakes.. If anything use coin or raw material<_< lastly custom homes don't even need to numeral or even identical at that. Imagin being presented the option to turn a particular ruin\cave into your new lair.. Less external focus and more internal evidentially. I just like the thought of them being treated different than standard homes and rewarding to the more adventurous or determined bunch. You want a custom home? Go find it, build it, and gather supplies. Want a cook or guard? Gotta go find them too

As per guilds, I mainly want to see more like morrowind or oblivion to a lesser exten offered. Random bunch whom at first seem minor, or some political questing. More so I would love to see a return of ranks again, and for major guilds to keep a steady pace. No need for a fresh recruit to suddenly be involved in all sorts of important stuff that matter greatly.. It just seems foolish. Oblivion had this proper, you earned the trust and respect you deserved, not what was hand fed

[Starfang]

I don't have any fresh ideas at the moment so I'll ask everyone some question to try to get this thread going again. So first question is what, if any, new guilds do you all want to see in the next game?
What improvements to marriage should be made?
Should they expand on the idea of the Hearthfire DLC in TES VI?
What are some possible sporadic events that should be included to keep the game exciting?
Other than that just keep posting ideas cuz I want this thread to continue cuz its important to the future

Definitely more guilds, and I'd like them to be Morrowind/Oblivion quality, that is to say there should be GOOD rewards and not just cash/septims for completing random errands and quests.

I agree with Beta that house building should be vanilla in the next game, also if you can adopt kids -- there should be an option to have them sent to the orphanage ala Fable 3, you should also be able to divorce, remarry and marry multiple persons. Also more Bosmer, Altmer, Khajiit and Redguard spouses!

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I wanna be able to ride something that's not a horse. Doesn't matter what. I want more mount varieties. Bringing back more weapon types would be cool, too. I understand why they were taken out in Oblivion and Skyrim, and it's not game breaking for me, but I'd like 'em back.

[Badgreeny]

Modifying/upgrading mines, lairs, hide outs, ancient ruins and more. I outlined some of that in more detail on the previous page.

More guilds and more appropriate involvement/quest rewards, nothing no one else hasn't already mentioned.

Sure, why not ride a bear, or jump on the shoulders of a giant? Sounds alright.

Allow high leveled telekinesis to throw people/creatures like Jedi/Sith in Star Wars.

[Starfang]

I also want to add that I want number six to focus on a different/new Daedric prince like Vaermina, even if it's in DLC like Dragonborn.

[CreeperX]

It would be sweet if they added a Hardcore mode like in Fallout: New Vegas. Would enhance the re-play value plus please the ones who want a more punishing, old-school RPG, without dismissing those who prefer a more casual experience. Like, in Skyrim we already have all these possibilities to cook food, sleep, etc but there's really not much reason to do so. Adding a hardcore mode would make use of these elements which are already integrated in the game but not force it upon people who don't want to focus on these kind of things while playing the game.

[Macabre]

Different ways to enter houses/castles/cities. For example, you are able to infiltrate a house via window, underground sewer system, or maybe even a chimney flue if it's big enough. We saw a little bit of this in oblivion, and I'd like to see more of it.

Also, no loading screens when entering houses or shops. City loading screens I can understand.

[CreeperX]

Oh... and I also wish for a possibility to perform some freaking nonlethal take-downs. Now pretty much everything is solved with an axe/sword/maze and characters who don't focus on combat skills are at serious disadvantage (unless they just spam invisibility/paralysis/illusion and/or sneak everywhere). Would also love for the speech skill be less useless than it is now and actually be able to avoid more fights thanks to my honeyed words. Speech is one of the best skills in Fallout games but in Skyrim it's really not worth it at all. While TES offers plenty of ways to roleplay, it does very badly when one wants to play a more pacifist type of character.

[Daemos Avetorii]

I do not know if this has been covered before. But what I want to see in the next game is an option you choose before character creation. You can basically go "Story Mode" Which is MQ + everything else you might do, and "Non story mode" where there is no main quest and no reference to it and npc's related to it either do not spawn or are replaced. I love TES games but I've always loathed the MQ. I get sick and tired of having to start in prison or prison cart. XD

[Macabre]

I do not know if this has been covered before. But what I want to see in the next game is an option you choose before character creation. You can basically go "Story Mode" Which is MQ + everything else you might do, and "Non story mode" where there is no main quest and no reference to it and npc's related to it either do not spawn or are replaced. I love TES games but I've always loathed the MQ. I get sick and tired of having to start in prison or prison cart. XD

So almost like a sandbox mode? I don't see any other point considering you really don't have to do the main quest in any of the games anyway. Where do you suggest your character would start in non-story mode?

[Dark Spark]

I do not know if this has been covered before. But what I want to see in the next game is an option you choose before character creation. You can basically go "Story Mode" Which is MQ + everything else you might do, and "Non story mode" where there is no main quest and no reference to it and npc's related to it either do not spawn or are replaced. I love TES games but I've always loathed the MQ. I get sick and tired of having to start in prison or prison cart. XD

So almost like a sandbox mode? I don't see any other point considering you really don't have to do the main quest in any of the games anyway. Where do you suggest your character would start in non-story mode?

My idea for a game start would be to have your character wake up in a small cave and walk out only to find that a trading caravan stopped at the entranceway for an overnight camp. They try to strike up a conversation, but your character isn't really in an engaging mood.

The caravan is about to reach a nearby town, and they invite you to come along. If you agree to join them, there is a brief mission where you help defend the caravan from wildlife and possibly a bandit. Here, you get a tutorial on how to navigate, use items, even try some combat. You end up starting in the town they reach.

But if you decline the caravan's offer, you're free to leave and begin exploring the rest of the world. No hoops to jump, no end-of-the-world crisis unfolding within the first five minutes of the game, and you can avoid playing the tutorial for the 9th time over.

[Macabre]

I always liked how your character started off in captivity, its kind of an Elder Scrolls tradition. Would be interesting to randomize the starting positions for new characters, or at least have a different start position for every race.