Ok, I admit, Winter Thanksmas may have come and passed, but it’s still not too late to throw in my wishlist, right? The reason I’m writing this article is because of my colleague Brian’s (amazing) post containing speculation on the location of the next TES single-player title. This got my mind racing. And so, in the same spirit of Mr. Armstrong’s article, I wish to respectfully expand upon it. What other features could be in TES VI? More specifically, what improvements do I want?
You guys know me pretty well by now (I hope). Therefore, it should be no surprise that I decide to tackle this very interesting topic with my usual itemized list. Keep in mind, these are the features I want most – meaning, they’re my opinion. You may disagree (in fact, I encourage it). Without further ado, here are my top 3, starting with the most important.
1. Better Graphics!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will be the first to admit, without hesitation, that graphics are more important to me than gameplay. A lot (if not all) of you will disagree with this. Hear me out. I first bought Skyrim on PS3. I loved it. I thought then (and still do now) that it looked amazing. To call this game ‘ugly’ is just wrong. However, that holiday season on vacation, I saw my friend’s unmodded PC version of the game. This was before Bethesda had released their own texture pack, mind you, and I was blown away. That following March, I bought myself an Alienware and haven’t looked back since. My game looks amazing now.
But crucially, here’s the point I want to make. Below are two screens from my game. One is the vanilla game and the other is a heavily modded version of the same scene:
The differences are staggering. The modded version clearly looks better, more realistic, more colorful, more of everything, really. And to be honest, this makes me sad. Why? It took the efforts of the amazing modding community to make the game look this good – and that’s both good and bad. It’s good because we know we can always count on the modding community to improve the game. But, more importantly, it’s sad to think that the game had this potential in it all along, and that the developers (for one reason or another) didn’t decide to realize it.
I’m not knocking on consoles here, but it baffles me that Bethesda didn’t take full advantage of the power of PC. So please, Bethesda, give us much improved visuals with the next title.
2. Larger Game World
Let’s not kid ourselves here. The world’s in the various TES games are massive. There is simply so much to do and not enough hours to do it. I have spent literal hours walking from one end of Cyrodiil to the other. But, for all their size and glory, they could (and should) be bigger.
Phillip G’s home
You can see a potential issue with this, however, simply by looking at a map of Tamriel. You’ll notice that the provinces aren’t the same size. For example, Elsweyr is noticeably smaller than Cyrodiil. For that matter, so is Skyrim. However, there is one very easy solution that Bethesda can implement.
Simply ignore the geographical limitations. What does this mean? Well, think about this. These are video games. The rules in video games are those set by the developers, thus giving them liberty to change them on will. What this means is that although Elsweyr is physically smaller than Cyrodiil, the game world of ‘TES VI: Elsweyr’ could (and should) be bigger. Make sense? No? Oh well.
2. Better AI
As my fellow co-host Mr. Olan is all too aware, the AI in this game sucks. Specifically, the AI of followers. Coding realistic human behavior into a computer controlled character using limited resources is difficult. I get that. I’m not suggesting it’s easy. But seriously, when I’m sneaking through a dungeon and Serana detects an enemy, by no means is this grounds for standing up and immediately aggro’ing every living being in sight. I mean, come on.
“I’m sworn to carry be your burden”
I realize there are mods that may fix this, but that’s not my point. The fixes that mods provide should be in the vanilla game in the first place. If I just saved a village from a dragon attack, I don’t want NPCs to look at me and say “keep your hands to yourself, sneak thief.” How destructive to your immersion is that?! You think they’d forgive my paltry theft of a sweetroll after I just saved their lives. So yes, AI improvement is a must.
In Conclusion…
This article may seem like a list of complaints. But really, I’m trying to address some very real issues that I (and many of you) would love to see improved for the next Bethesda epic. We all love these games so very much. By no means are they ‘bad games’. But as a huge die-hard fan, I can’t help but think about how the series can push forward and improve. As a fan, isn’t that our job?
Make sure to sound off below!
Shadow hide you
I’ll second the call for improved AI, but the thing I would most like to see is an improved difficulty curve. The Skyrim leveling system was, in many ways, a great improvement from the previous games, but it still suffers from the problem of high level characters becoming quite overpowered. I play on Master difficulty, have mods to make things more difficult, and still find that I stop fearing death by the mid to late 30s. But looking at a spider the wrong way at low level will get me killed before I can even open up the menu to use a potion. I’m guessing that a big part of the problem is the awesome freedom the game gives in character development, and I imagine that a haphazard build would probably fare poorly at high levels, but it seems to me there must be a way to even out the progression while still offering meaningful differences in the difficulty slider for those who want it.
I agree that Skyrim is much easier than past TES games, but I believe you nailed the cause – the free form nature of Skyrim makes it easier to do whatever you want. The classless system allows you to build your character any way you wish, so it’s much easier to become very good at a particular thing.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I must say that I disagree with the graphics, as you said many would. Arena has pretty poor graphics, but is still a great game. I played through it once, and it was great. However, on the other issues, I agree, and would like to add one of my own. Make it centered more around class and race. For instance, if you’re a thief, you shouldn’t be very good wearing heavy iron armor, because your class isn’t meant for it. Also, add some quests in the beginning based particularly on that races culture and what they can do. Right now it just seems that you only pick your race for the way they look, and class is just trivial.
Thanks for your input bud. Regarding your suggestion about race/class, the reason (I believe) these games are so fun is because you are given freedom to play however you want. If you are suddenly restricted from using a certain type of armor, then you wouldn’t be truly free to play as you choose.
However, I do agree with you that your race should have a greater influence on your character. Using your thief example, if I was playing that character as a Khajiit, I should naturally be better at sneaking that if I were a Nord. This effect should be more pronounced than it is currently.
Thanks for your thoughts
I agree that race should have somewhat more impact; races for purely cosmetic reasons seems a little lackluster. But I disagree about class; I really liked the way that Skyrim dealt with class; i.e. you create a pseudoclass by the skills you use most. I’m not completely sold on the way they dealt with perks, however. If you wait until level 50 to start using a particular skill, it is very hard to become very good at it because you simply won’t have access to enough perk points. I think that the next game needs to do a somewhat better job of balancing the power of a skill between its levels and its perk points (assuming they keep the perk point style in ESVI).
Yeah moding is great. Shank i think you told in last podcast that you would like to have “moth aura” from Dawnguard ;> I think i found something for you aura + SUPER Shank check this mod out http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15775
I’d disagree with the second shot looking that much better, it really just looks like you put way to much bloom on it. That being said, I kind of hate it when lights really pop out and everything seems to glow. It kills the immersion for me. Especially in that screenshot where they glow to the point of masking the minute details of the textures, like the scratches on the wood, or the flecks of different colored soil.
That’s why this article is an opinion piece and not a factual statement.
I’d love to see a little bit of multiplayer added to the Non-MMO version. A co-player option for up to 3-4 people would be most welcomed. I can’t think of anything better than taking down a dragon, exploring a cave, or hanging out at the local tavern with my online buddies.
I completely agree. I’d love to be able to wander around Skyrim with my buddy in a co-op mode. Problem is, we’d be running different mods, have different equipment, be at different parts in quests, etc. Logistically, it’s very difficult given the open ended nature of TES games.
We can always hope.
I concede your point about the quest line. But I feel the need to point out that those few things you’ve mentioned can be worked around. Steam and the online community as a whole offers great mods that are either free or are on the cheap. Easily downloaded and installed. Since it’s basically a sand box, going back to help a fellow during his quest line, would be a boon for both/all in the fact that you still gain experience. I’ve wandered around inside dungeons/caverns, running in circles, all because a spider died on a lever. How much easier would it be for me to have someone point out where said lever is because they’ve completed that part of the quest line. I think a simple work around on that key issue would be to do a check against the quest table and whoever is lower in the chain is where the party starts out. Equipment wise, I think that can also be worked around considering we all share the same equipment Id’s other than those who prefer mod’ed. Who hasn’t tried the pure caster aspect of the game only to be killed because they were wearing cloth? This game has great Role playing potential for those that really get immersed in their game play. No more “Raistlin” characters getting mauled by a sand crab at level 1 and then resorting to wearing plate armor.
I was remarking to a friend online about how the co-op could feasibly work. No need for a dedicated server, they could use the client server setup that Call of duty uses in a few of their games. Modern Warfare 2 and 3 for example. Where someone hosts and others join them Keeping the group small so there are no real bandwith issues such as lag. I’ve always liked the fact that as a warrior class I can simply dodge the ranged weapons/spells by side stepping and am disgruntled with the knowledge that I’ll most likely lose that ability in a MMO.
I’m sure from a coding/developer standpoint my ideas are a nightmare. But one can dream.
Personally I really want to see better quest lines. the quest lines are all the same even for different guilds and it’s really frustrating that I don’t even have to work hard to become the listener or the leader of the thieves guild. It’s always the same, go here, kill this, go through some boring dialogue, oh look your now the guild leader because the last one just died, yeah I know you’ve only just joined and only spent half an hour doing quests but YOUR THE LISTENER THE DRAGONBORN THE “CHOSEN ONE” for practically everything. I want to feel a sense of accomplishment as i get the archmage robes after working my way up to the top through hard journeys.
Also I completely agree with the larger map and what your saying really makes sense. Perhaps we could have two or three provinces in the same game. For example Summerset isles, valenwood and parts of cyrodil. This would work especially well if the main quest was based on the war between the empire and aldmeri dominion. Also the fast travel ruins the game. Perhaps just cut out the fast travel and replace it with more carriages and ships to fast travel to main destinations like cities and towns.
Also TES 6 needs better interactions with NPC’s. Its so annoying to find out that I missed an age of travellers that all got shot in the knee and now I’m all alone on the road.
I would love to see more customizable weapons and armour. One thing that really yanks me out of the amazing, immersive world of Skyrim, is when I’m sent on a quest to find a legendary magical sword that was supposedly used by X hero thousands of years ago, that looks and behaves exactly the same as something a random guy made yesterday. I mean, just imagine if you could take a blueprint of a Steel Sword, for example, and tweak and customize the shape, colour, texture etc. of it away from the baseline, to varying degrees, depending on your character’s level in Smithing (for example), to create something truly unique! Right now, it’s only those with a bit of know-how in the construction kit who are able to do this, and only very experienced modders are able to do it well. Surely it wouldn’t be too difficult to package it into the gameplay in a smooth and intuitive way.