Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

@Snaplocket But that place was the ending...? They're not going to kick you to the title screen, it's an explorative game.

@KirbyTheVampire I know 16 dungeon types in addition to the normal ruins, forts, and caves would probably be a bit impractical on the development end. I was just thinking it would be a nice way to up the ante after they found a good balance of factions, level design, combat, and progression in Skyrim. Honestly it would be difficult to incorporate all of the daedric realms into one setting just from a storytelling perspective — there's no real reason to go back to the Soul Cairn. And even Dawnguard only had a whole two daedric realms involved, one of which the dragonborn never even visited. Maybe we could just find portals hidden in dungeons like the Black Books in Dragonborn, I loved how they added extra little dungeons to the world so conveniently.

I think Skyrim's leveling system is really quite perfect, although maybe quests should reward generic XP that only counts toward level ups and extra perks, not specific skills. Having the legendary skill system that was patched in around the release of Dragonborn could keep characters that use few skills from getting stuck at low or mid levels. And then they could go back to sleeping to level up like in Oblivion to make it more diegetic, maybe even show the journal entries for the quests you had completed since last leveling up. I dunno, what do you want in the next game?

@Haru17 I can't think of a reason for it to happen, either. The Princes aren't exactly the types to work together or anything like that. I'm sure they could think up a reason, though.

I think having some extra skills would be neat as well. Maybe stuff like a whole revamped fishing system or something. It might just be a waste of time to add stuff like that, but it would be kinda cool for the people who like doing stuff like that in the game.

That's one thing I do like about Oblivion. It has always struck me as odd that the main character in Skyrim can play the entire game without sleeping once. They should bring that back.

Some other stuff that I'd like, aside from the obvious ones like improved combat and such, is more werecreatures. Aside from the wereboar in Daggerfall, Bethesda seems to only use the werewolf, which is a wasted opportunity IMO. They should add in some different vampire bloodlines as well, maybe, or just improve the vampire system in general.

And like @Ralizah has said several times, a climbing system would be nice. While I don't really mind the current one where you hop up mountains, it would be nice if they added something a little more graceful.

I also want them to add in some new guilds, as well as the ones that show up in a lot of the games. I guess they technically did by replacing the Fighters Guild with the Companions and the Mages guild with the College, but functionally they're basically the same.

New races would be cool, too. They don't all necessarily have to be playable.

@DarthNocturnal I've never tried that, so I have no idea what effects it has, lol. Is that in the Special Edition?

@DarthNocturnal Oh, nice. The Creation Club thing is the worst idea ever, though. I wish they would get rid of that.

@DarthNocturnal Yeah, it's dumb. If people on PC can get them for free, so should console owners. It's insane how much Bethesda has managed to milk Skyrim.

I don't really mind the club at all because it's all weird mod content anyway, none of it is canon or necessary. That said, I shelled out like $8 for survival mode and have been getting ready to try it out — I think I'll start on my warrior character. It's weird, I think Fallout 4 has better mechanics for survival (radiation lowering max health, drinking and purifying water, all the different types of traps) but Skyrim has a much better crafting progression for it (mining and smithing, chopping wood to make arrows, gathering herbs, and just how many sets of gear there are).

@KirbyTheVampire I would like the transformations to feel more like premade characters that fit into the combat system. It would be nice if animals were actually friendly to werewolves and you could do some illusion-type shenanigans with them.

In terms of new skills I want a climbing system so you can scale brick buildings and get on top of rooftops in cities. However, I want it to be like Naughty Dog games where you have to look for a ledge and reach for it, only in first person. And I don't want them to gate so much of the world behind climbing, jumping is fine for most mountainsides. Maybe they could have a universal athletics skill that includes climbing and a new long jump motion that replaces whirlwind sprint. I'd love if they could let you fall and pull your shield out to shield you like become ethereal, even if it would make literally no sense. I don't want to lose that ability.

Beast taming is a new skill that I definitely want, maybe it would fall under the sign of the warrior while athletics would be thief. I want the ability to walk up to any animal and, if my skill is high enough and if I approach them correctly, be able to tame them. Although maybe that could just fall under illusion? I'd want there to be a stable system too where you can store whatever beasts you want in cities. Imagine walking up to
city gates with a dragon trudging along behind you and having the stablemaster chain it up and put a giant wrought iron muzzle on the thing.

@Haru17 When you say premade characters, do you mean characters with a bunch of perks already picked and stuff? Also, I think wolves are friendly to them, but it only lasts as long as you're transformed. It would be cool if they kept going with that system, so that if they added werecrocodiles, reptiles would be friendly to them, weresharks with fish, etc.

First person climbing would be great. Kinda like Mirror's Edge. I agree that most mountains don't need it, but it would be kinda cool for some of them to have sheer cliffs that you need to climb up.

So basically the shield surfing in BoTW, minus the slide?

Taming would be cool, for sure. Although having flying creatures would kind of hurt the whole experience of exploring the world bit by bit on foot. Maybe a gliding dragon or something would be fine, though, especially if they made a map with a lot of verticality like mountains and valleys and such. Some water mounts would be cool as well, although they would have to add more to the underwater areas to bother with that. Currently, they're kinda lame.

Killed the dragon with the guards. Made it to Rifton. Doing the initiation to join Thieves Guild.

Wasn't really planning to go out of my way to join, but I kind of fell upon the guy by chance and was like sure, screw it. I'll join.

The hours are starting to add up. I've got over 4,000 gold (which seems a lot for just hitting level 10). Put a perk into smithing to craft steel armor and put a perk into Sneak to be 20% harder to detect. While these aren't stand out skills I would jump for right away they seem like necessary skills that I need to do at some point anyways.

@JaxonH I think you'll be glad you did. It's a fun questline. And now that you're level 10, you've unlocked another really fun questline as well, AKA Dawnguard. It won't be long before you get the first quest.

Smithing is good for getting the really high end armor and weapons, and sneak is really helpful too. Even if I'm not playing a stealth character, one or two points is often put into it anyway, to help make thievery a bit easier and whatnot.

@KirbyTheVampire No surfing involved, just using your shield to prevent lethal fall damage. You're thinking Legolas, I'm thinking Captain America. Basically I really like Become Ethereal, they had a version of it in Fallout 4, and I want the ability to cancel fall damage at will in every open world game because it's bloody tedious getting down from places otherwise.

I think Bethesda kinda have to make good on dragon riding now, they sure set it up for dragons to be in the future games. I wasn't thinking of it before you mentioned it, but of course larger tamed beasts should be able to be saddled and ridden. I think it would be fine if riding flying creatures was like a level 100 perk. After all this isn't Breath of the Wild, the end won't come if Bethesda give players the freedom to circumvent gameplay loops and create an actual different experience once in a while.

And underwater could definitely use some more, ahem, depth. I like that they let you explore underwater and find treasures, but they could definitely make those sections more fun by adding a few enemy types, enabling combat (didn't Oblivion have underwater combat?), and spending more time designing those environments.

@Haru17 Gotcha. Yeah, I use that Shout a lot on mountains and stuff. It's definitely useful for that. Not for much else, unfortunately.

Oh okay, I see. The third person only thing is kind of dumb, yeah. I don't see why they couldn't have included first person. Did they have that option in the Morrowind DLC?

It does seem that way, which is cool. I really like the dragons in Skyrim. I just wish the dragon riding we do have in Skyrim didn't suck so much. I was really excited about it, but once I did it, it was a big load of meh.

But yeah, having it be there for people who want it would be nice. I just prefer exploring the world on foot.

I have no idea if Oblivion has underwater combat. I probably only put like 15 hours into that game, which is dumb. I know it's a great game. Since I got the North American Special Edition though, I have that bug where you can't cure the vampirism, which got super annoying after a while. I thought it was fun to be a vampire in that game at first, but after a while I just got so tired of burning in the sun constantly. So I basically just quit. I should start a new character someday. It doesn't help that that game feels so cartoonish and non-serious, though. I hardly feel like anything's at stake in terms of the gates of Oblivion opening because everyone looks and talks so ridiculously, and everything seems all bright and almost creepily cheerful. Maybe that's just me.

@KirbyTheVampire @Haru17
Oblivion does have underwater combat.

I caved and got Skyrim today. Thought I could save my wallet since I have it on PS3 but no. I scanned the Wolf Link amiibo and got dog meat. That's disturbing.

One good thing I miss from Fallout 4 is survival mode. Skyrim turns out to be really easy, but I don't see the point of higher difficulties if all they do is change damage done and received. Combat just takes slightly longer that way. Survival mode forced you to sleep just to save, hunt in order to eat, cure diseases before they kill you and you couldn't take an unlimited amount of ammunition and stimpacks with you. It was tedious at some points but I loved it anyway.

@KirbyTheVampire Oblivion in my opinion feels a lot more serious than Skyrim. Despite the setting is more sunny and pleasant (which is a thing I prefer btw) the charactersa are more believable and the stories are more immersive and told in a more compelling way imho. In Oblivion I felt like anything was important, both serious and dramatic events and the less serious and more light hearted ones, because everything felt more realistic and believable. To me is Skyrim the game that feels less serious and a little bit fake in comparison, despite its setting is way more harsh, it looks more dark and could seem more mature at first.
Both are great game anyway. It's just that the former one was even greater imho.
I want it on Switch so bad

Kind of interested in picking this game up for a second shot, but after seeing some consistent gameplay of it, it seems rather janky and buggy. I don't know, but I feel kind of repelled by things like that. Based on what I've heard and played in the past that seems to be the case.

Perhaps it's just not my cup of tea. Although, there does seem to be some charming moments in it, and I've been told the modded version is much better.

Edit: Correction

@LuckyLand Well, I'll give it another go someday. I just didn't encounter anyone I felt I could take very seriously. Even the people from the Dark Brotherhood seemed really cheerful and not creepy at all.

@-Green- It's a bit janky, but it's really not that buggy anymore. Certainly not enough to determine whether you should buy the game or not.

If you can get past the jank, it's a fantastic game.

@KirbyTheVampire I mean, I've watched a few hours of the Switch version and I've seen things from flying mammoths to glitched characters and items. I'll probably just get it on my computer later on.

@-Green- Well, I don't get much on my PS3 aside from the odd audio glitch and stuff like that. Maybe other people have different experiences, but from what I've heard, it's much less buggy than it used to be.

@Sir_Anthony if you have it on PC try the MOd called frostfall. It enhances and modifies the weather and adds survival elements like, cold effects, heat sources, heat from clothing, camping mechanics, cooking etc

@KirbyTheVampire The biggest thing that affected me on the PS3 was the save/load issue about 100 hours into the game. The architecture of the PS3 just couldn't handle the doors I left open/the movement of hundreds of items etc... This led to massive save files and horrendous load times. I presume this isn't an issue for the Switch. I picked up the PS4 special edition at lunch today for £20 new. Looking forward to starting fresh!