Have wanted to wait until i felt ive played the game enough to give an honest and informed impression of the game.

Lets cut the the endgame for the power readers....the games good. bethesda obviously went out on a limb in some areas to try something new (leveling system) and it works..but has some shortcomings as well.

Visuals-very pretty, with the plethora of visual enhancement mods out there...the games amazing. While nothing makes up for core gameplay, skyrim does show how such graphics can add to its immersive nature.

Combat- what to say about combat. its better then oblivion, every installment has been a step up. But the combat is still incredibly inprecise, with poor hit detection, poor depth of field, and floaty swings. Id like it if bethesdas next TES game they really focus on combat, because even with as much diaologue as there is in this game, combat is what youd o the majority of the time, and should be better. as for how to improve...besides teh basics i dont know. FP games have ALWAYS had barebones/shoddy melee. id suggest moving more towards third person, but i know that would bother many long time lovers of TES games as its one of its unique features. I do know when in things like werewolf form, less reliance on aoe fear and instant kill cutscenes would be nice. Perhaps just implementing ways that slows down the combat making it more manageable (bullet time), more reactive abilities and things to break up melee default button spam.

magic-I think any huge sandbox style world, freedom of choice and fun should supercede "balance", especially in first person. games like saints row (love it or hate it) and crackdown embraced this to absurdity. what im saying is....we need more/interesting/worthless spells in the game, and the ability to make custom spells back. TES spells were just about having a small set of useful spells, it was about having spells in general. plus you gotta think that there would be plenty of useless/strange spells in the world. and stationary spells that take several seconds to cast are no fun. maybe a channeled spell that requires you to be standing still isntead? at least that way you can more easily utilize it in combat.

stealth- somewhat tied to AI but where to begin, right now its pretty rediculous. rather then base your ability to not be seen strictly on the skill, make it more of a reward for proper gameplay. Think the splinter cell series, no not the scripted events, but the times where you addlibbed a awesome stealth moment/ambush. If you shoot someone and they dont die....they should not go back to idle after 5 minutes. they should take out torches/light spells and light up dark areas of the map. they should remain on a higher level of alert for 24 hours. and they should react to killed friends. even disposing of the body if left there long enough.

AI-probably the most humerous and most failing thing about the game is the AI. besides teh things i noted in the stealth comments, it just generally needs to be a bit more logical. if your on high ground they cant reach, they should find cover. certain npc's really should run at some point. never should a old lady take a dagger to a dragon! on higher difficulties we need more changes then merely increasing damage/health. instead on high difficulty make damage more realistic (people dont get up from a arrow in the forehead). npc's should have skills/perks and should USE THERE RACIALS. tho not all should automatically have there racial up all teh time, what if they had a fight earlier that day? would be reason enough so not everyone has it ready.

crafting-crafting needs to both be expanded upon and made harder/slower to level. Instead of magically getting the schematics of dwarven armor or miraculously being inspired to make a new poison. have them in the form of schematics/ingredient lists. These things you can buy, and the more rare/unique ones you have to find. chances are your run of hte mill smith isnt selling daedric schematics or armor pieces. you should be having to find those.

leveling system/perks-the new leveling system has seen much praise, and much hate. I think for a infant stage implementation, its unrefined, but promising. it makes sense that the more you lock pick the better you get at it, and you in turn level. however, it doesnt make sense from a balance perspective that because you are now a better lock picker, every bandit in the game is now a better archer/swordsman. This is a result of them doign a poor movement away from secondary skills. and perks, perks COULD have been great, but they fell to the same old dry adn boring mechanics of increase damage by x and ignore y% armor. perks should have been gamechangers, noticeable changes in how you play.

screw damage modifiers...let the skill in the chosen weapon and the type of weapon (iron, steel, dwarven, etc) determine damage.

what if i went towards perks in swords? how about the ability to cause bleeding? and no i dont means skyrims current bleeding. you cut a artery it should bleed out a % of the enemies hp depending on its size, how much damage you did to trigger the bleed and its relation to how much hp it has left. so your not gonna make a mammoth bleed to death exactly, but a person could be. a axe can cut off limbs, a hammer can be used to knock people unconcious.

on top of this, completly rewrite how certain skills work. for crafting, remove it from the skills tab, it no longer "levels up" rather you have to find/learn/buy the schematics to make the correct item.

newer/rarer weapons (daedric, elven, etc) should be more then a damage difference, rather they should have secondary traits like poison, or innate magical properties.

stealths ability to stay unseen should increase with skill, not perk points, rather you should get things like blend with shadows or silent roll from cover to cover. things that not only change how you play, but open up new possibilities whie you play.



weapons-quite simply, some weapons should behave differently then others weven when considered to be teh same class. for isntance a iron sword you should have a piercing attacka nd a slashing attack, meanwhiel a curved sword should just have slashing option but possibly do more damage since its optomized for it.

some good ideas in there

hey thanks.

No, it's not that pretty at all. You need the mods to make it pretty, that is not a positive reflection on the developers who gave us console textures.

I think the simplest thing is to put crafting and non-combat skills in their own category, and only have combat skills count toward leveling.

Normally when I see these threads I'm ready to argue. But this was a good read and I agree with pretty much everything.

Thank you.