I would love to see a small patch to when NPC's talk to you.
It would be great if it could be toned down a bit, so they talk less.

Ooh the guard comments,

Some are just to silly ...

Like sneaking and using magic ...

I mean how can guards see that you are good in sneaking while you are wearing a 'casual outfit', and just walk ...

Many of the holes in the quests should be plugged. Too many times I've unwittingly picked up a quest item somewhere without realising what it was and broken the quest. The programmers should really have allowed for that eventuality in an open-end game where more than one quest sends you to the same dungeon. I've had to use the console to drop something from my inventory like an amulet of talos or a drum because I had it before the quest started and the only way to progress to the next quest stage was to pick it up again.

lolol

You know what's funny about these claims? Nobody seems to remember the first RPGs that were all dungeon crawling and fighting. There were no speech options. You could only kill monsters, not NPCs you hated. You, the player, didn't craft [censored] - somebody else did, if there was any crafting at all. Generic NPCs said the same line over and over again if they even spoke to you at all. There was no AI... AT ALL. There were no difficulty settings and eventually you got so powerful that you could steamroll everything in the game.

But, yeah, sure you're right, guy - Skyrim's not a RPG. lolol

Now, to stay on topic, I think it would be nice if the Radiant system checked for cleared dungeons before assigning you a quest there. That would be HUGE.

I'd like some better eye choices, personally. A good solid 60% of them are either heterochromia or pure white/black. I'd rather have variety than a 5 mixed and matched choices...

For Radiant quests, if you have to go to a cleared dungeon, it'll restore the people inside it (unless there were unique peoples, like in Ansulivund - then they get replaced with boss drauger or something).

I agree that smithing needs reworking. Also, variety is the spice of life, Bathesda! More armor designs! Also, it'd be cool, like the OP said, to have Good-equivalant armor to Daedra. Aedra Armor would be awesome! I'd also like light and heavy armor for each type - the material you'd learn how to use though other means, but the specialization of Light, Heavy, and Weapon smithing would be separate, and that's what you'd improve through the smthing tree.

There should be other ways to open locks than picking - Bashing success correlates to weapon skill, lockpicking would either be sneak, or would be combined with pickpocketing into Security, and then you'd have an alteration spell for mages. That way, you don't have to always carry around lockpicks.

Cut higher tier spell costs. No, don't yell, hear me out. Cut them by 20-30%, then cap cost reduction at 85%, and add more types of fortify magic school - one type for power/magnitude, another for duration. Furthermore, the spell level feats (novice, apprentice, etc) don't reduce 50% spell cost anymore (why we had the -20/30% initial cost), but instead 25% cost reduction +25% magnitude or duration increase (depending on school).

Greater variety in spells - for example, for destruction, you'd have a constant damage, a missile spell, as well as one additional spell becomes available per level. I don't think Flames should be the only flamethrower-style spell in the game, after all. It'd be nice to have more spells like that. Conjuration also needs more than just Atronochs and Undead. I'd love to summon a Spriggan, for example. It'd also be nice if spells scaled better with your level - not so much as to make higher tier spells moot, but enough so that they're still viable options in the end.

I agree that ally AI needs improving, too. How this would be done... dunno, not my area of expertise.

I'd like the faction quests to be extended by quite a bit. Furthermore, once we reach the top, I'd like to see duties we preform as the leader. For example, the leader of the Colledge would go on quests to repair relations with Skyrim, the companions would take on particularly hard jobs for the Jarls, etc...

Skyrim is a solid game. For me it's the least bug-ridden TES game I've played. And I've been playing ever since Arena.

Several things that should've been implemtented though:

- Attributes. I don't know what 200 Health and 200 Stamina stand for. Is that good or bad? Bring back the attribute system and let players choose which attributes to upgrade. And make certain perks unlockable until a certain attribute reaches the requirement. Bringing back attributes also makes magic items more interesting.

- Guild quests. Currently they kinda meh. I'm not asking for MORE quests, just that quests not only have consequences but that real choices be made. And that reaching the highest level in one guild bars you from joining another quest. And that you need certain attribute/skill level to advance. Here's something I don't understand though. I remember a lot of Daggerfall/Morrowind's guild quests, they weren't deep at all. There were a lot of fetch/kill quests in there. Especially if you hit a certain ceiling and couldn't advance anymore till you reached a certain skill level. So why is everyone saying it was so deep in the previous games? Because they really weren't. And that's why I don't more quests, I just want a few (long) quests that matter, in combination with a bunch of radiant ones.

- Factions. More of them. I want to join the Vigilants of Stendarr, others might want to join the Silver Hand.

- Tactical combat. I'm on the fence whether hitbox combat is a good idea. I personally think it isn't. Wouldn't be much fun if you kept dying by a stray iron arrow to the eye even though you're wearing ebony armour at level 25. What I want is that there should be a real difference between fighting in heavy armour and in light, in weilding a one handed weapon or two, that armour/weapons degrade and can potentially brake. That people are more vulnerable on the flank/rear (like in DA:O). That certain attacks work better on certain enemies. That lifting a heavy weapon in heavy armour is much slower (but more deadly if it connects) then someone weilding a dagger in light armour (again like DA:O). That dodging en rolling become important again.

- Weapons. More of them please. Polearms (halbard, spear, scythe, quaterstave, lance), Crossbows, Thrown weapons, Flails, Morningstars, Hand to Hand, Daggers. You can still keep the simple "One Handed", "Two Handed" and "Ranged" catagories. Just build LOTS more branches in their respective skill tress. Remove the power attack perks as a seperate line and integrate them into seperate weapon branches. Makes more sense too. Heavily investing in say longswords would make someone better at lobbing off heads during power attachs with swords then someone who invests in daggers. Make investing heavy in a certain weapon yeild unique rewards. Make more weapon varierty within a certain weapon branch (let people find broadswords, longswords, scimitars, sabres, katanas, rapiers etc). Implement that you can weild one-handed weapons with both hands if you choose to and that there will be different effects associated with such a stance. Same goes for two-handed weapons weilding in one hand.

- Consequence. Once you're in the twenties you're becoming a bad boy and people should start reacting to you differently. Bandits in hide armour should try to avoid your dragonborn in ebony/steel plat armours, unless they're in large numbers. Yes, build a "morale" system, so that bandits flee you unless there's lots of buddies around to swarm you. Or when you've killed a bunch of them the rest of them will flee. Or beg for mercy. Yes build a system where you can spare people and tell them to run. Implement a reputation system. Allies, Neutrals and Hostiles should be impressed/disgusted by your actions and respond to you accordingly. And a "faction flag". Some people might not like it that you're with the Companions. Others might well like you a whole lot more. Finishing major quests (from whatever source) should have big consequences depending on how you've solved them. And the whole world should react to it.

- Alignment system. TES never really had one which is part of its charm. But it would be nice to roleplay a Paladin or Necromancer character without everyone becoming a grey "Geralt of Rivera" of the Witcher series. Having to make morally dubious decisions in a grey, ambigious world is one thing. But there should always an option to decide things for good or for evil in the end. Basically give us a good/neutral/evil option for solving quests.

- Perks. They need an overhaul. How good you are at a certain skill should be driven by attributes and skill level again. Perks should only be extra's.

- Spellmaking. Don't understand why this wasn't implemented while for the rest you can craft everything and the kitchen sink.

- Merchants. Please make them more useful. Why can't I get Adrianne or Eorlund to forge me orcish armour?, or make my skyforge steel sword sharper? Maybe not all of us want to be a master craftsman. Would like to have a choice here.

- Followers. For one thing improve their AI. For another, let us set behaviour patterns please. Let us decide that they should hang back or charge in. Let us decide whether or not they use bows. I mean FO2 did this back in the '90s. Granted that game was bugged as hell (I still don't know which was buggier, FO2 or Daggerfall) so that Marcus simply overrided his set behaviour and charged straight into a gang of Super Mutants all by himself. Give followers more character, morality and quests please. You can easily solve this by making "mercenaries" less talky (and no quest lines, they're basically hired guns who care only for your gold) then full companions like the huscarls or certain other followers. Also, followers should agree or disagree with your actions, and either leave/attach you or become your staunch friend (and if you're into Bioware games, a romance option).

- Speachcraft. Please implement it again. The current skill is "barter" which is nice but I want to talk my way through situations. Implement speach in the game where you have dozens of options to influence/avoid/butter up allies, neutrals and hostiles with your silver tongue. Also make it important for quests please.

I think it's close, but it's not there. Have you played Baldur's Gate II? It came out in 2000 and I still think it is the best RPG ever made.

If Bathesda would make some changes to their approach, their next game could easily be the greatest game of all time. I believe that in they probably look at a lot of these suggestions and think "well obviously our approach is better, it's working - our games get more popular with every release." This line of reasoning is no good. Yes their games get better, and thus more popular every time. That doesn't mean that the things they do the same in every game are necessarily good, or the best that they could be.

Here are the two major things that I think could be changed, and make their next game the best of all time.

NUMBER ONE:

Revamp the character development, or "class" system. As it stands, I think that this is one of the weakest parts of their games. Their development system appears to be part of their theme of freedom of choice. I get it, but I don't think it's well executed. As it stands, there really aren't all that many choices to be made. While the perk system was a HUGE improvement, there is still a lot of ground to cover.

Firstly, there aren't that many different play styles available under the current system. You can be a spell caster, thief type, or warrior type. Of course there are a lot of variations within these three archetypes, and there are hybrid types possible, but unfortunately these variations and hybrid classes really don't offer much difference in play style. The three primary archetypes offer three different play styles, to be sure. But, there isn't much difference in play style between one thief and another, one caster type and another, one warrior type and another.

As a caster, for example, it's going to be pretty much the same every time. The only difference is you might shoot electricity instead of fire, or frost. The problem here, is two-fold. First, although going to a set spell system instead of a spellcrafting system was a HUGE improvement, there aren't really that many different types of spells. So, while playing a mage is easy, playing any other type of caster is impossible. You want to be a druid/ranger type character? Sorry, you can't shapeshift (absent catching a disease, but that doesn't count it's not a class ability), you can't summon animals/plants, you can't cast any nature oriented spells (like track animals, conjure food or whatever you can think of from the traditional druid canon). Want to play a cleric? Well the restoration school is pretty awesome for this class (despite the lack of any heal over time spells), BUT, you can only summon evil daedra, not very clericky, and there are no real combat buff spells available which is a big problem for a cleric (buffs that add damage, fortify abilities, stats, etcetera). Second, even if there were a lot of spells, you aren't ever locked into using any particular set of them over another. So, you'll just use the best destruction ones every time, and ignore the ones that aren't so great. The same is true for every school.

On paper this system makes it seem like you have tons of choices, and you do - you have tons of relatively trivial choices that have no major impact on play style. The only major choice you can make is to NOT take certain perks and gimp yourself. So, you get those perks every time, and end up with the same character every time. Now here come the people saying "it's your choice to take those perks every time!" Well yea, that's true, but why would I NOT take the perk that halves the magicka cost of the spells? That would just add arbitrary, boring difficulty (as contrasted with fun difficulty) to the game. It wouldn't change my play style it would just make it harder for me to kill things with the same spells.

So, suggestions? Go with a class system where you are locked into certain ability sets from the beginning. Give us a wide range of choices. People want real choices. I want to choose a race (where each race has a really good racial ability setting it apart from the others - like histskin or high born), a birth sign, and a class that offers a varied playstyle from the others. In D&D for example, if you went with a Cleric you then got to choose two domains that offerred various special abilities or spells. That was cool, and that's what people want to see. Interesting class features that make playing one class over another meaningful.

Give us a wide range of meaningful choices, not an infinite range of trivial choices ("Well on this character I had 250 stamina, but on this one I went 270 stamina, so it's totally different." No, it's not, it's the same thing).

NUMBER TWO:

Spend more time and money on the story, the dialogue writing, and most importantly VOICE ACTORS. Lots of them. They don't have to be famous. Instead of spending a huge chunk of cash on getting Captain Pricard and Agent 006 to do the voice acting, just hire cheap no-name actors instead. No point in spending the big bucks on a famous voice.

Not enough dialogue, Not enough meaningful dialogue, world interaction, economy, consequence, proper factions so on so on.

The biggest constructive criticism I can offer Bethesda is "don't try to take the fun from other games and stuff it into what you're making. Let Fallout be Fallout. Let TES be TES. Skyrim felt like it tried to be everything, and in doing so, felt like nothing long before I ran out of stuff to do".

oh just finished the main quest today after almost 2 months of playing

I have 10 characters now which is more than I had in MW and way more than OB

I would say skyrim is beyond successful since it managed to take thousands of hours from me...

the only gripes I have for this game are things bethesda could NOT have done in the time and money they had (I learned to keep my expectations realistic) and such things will be modded anyways

I just want to thank Todd and team AGAIN for all their hard work

ty u guys and ty u modders for all the already great mods we have even though CK is not out yet

Just was playing and thought of a couple minor items that would make Skyrim much more enjoyable:

1. Make chests sort like your inventory....PLEASE
2. Have a buyback function with vendors....I dont know how many times I have accidently sold or bought something, and took the huge price hit to buy it back/sell it back.
3. .... C'mon DLC - can't wait..