TES V Ideas and Suggestions # 147 : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:40 am

In the Vvardenfell thread I was reminded of the water radiation and thought, why not have water do simillar things, but if it's in skyrim water that was too cold (or magically cold) could give you hypothermia, or river water could be tainted by dead things (or sorceries) higher in the mountains, and in the far east the residual ash from red year makes the water bad?

I like the idea, and its something that I've considered modding into MW (hypothermia, frostbite, and stuff like that), but I can't help but wonder how many people will complain about it.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:51 am

I like the idea, and its something that I've considered modding into MW (hypothermia, frostbite, and stuff like that), but I can't help but wonder how many people will complain about it.

I like the idea too, hopefully Bethesda would put that in despite the potential for people complaining. People complained about Rads in Fallout 3, but not all that much. I assume they wouldn't complain much about freezing cold water in northern Skyrim. :shrug:

Also, in Fallout 3, you could drink water. I'd like to see that feature in TESV. For the life of me I can't remember if it was also in Oblivion or Morrowind, so if it was, please correct me.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:44 am

Also, in Fallout 3, you could drink water. I'd like to see that feature in TESV. For the life of me I can't remember if it was also in Oblivion or Morrowind, so if it was, please correct me.

It wasn't in them.

However, water should not restore HP. It should restore fatigue and daily fatigue and maybe restore a small amount of attributes, but you can't drink too much water or you get waterlogged. That'd prevent people sitting there drinking up gallons of water to heal constantly.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:53 am

It wasn't in them.

However, water should not restore HP. It should restore fatigue and daily fatigue and maybe restore a small amount of attributes, but you can't drink too much water or you get waterlogged. That'd prevent people sitting there drinking up gallons of water to heal constantly.

Good point. Unlike in TES, clean water in Fallout 3 is rare, so the gained HP also came with increased radiation levels. But in TES, there is no such drawback, and water is everywhere.

Of course, gaining fatigue from water would only be helpful if it didn't naturally regenerate, like in Oblivion.

Speaking of which, please Bethesda, no regenerating magicka or fatigue. Pretty please?

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:52 pm

Good point. Unlike in TES, clean water in Fallout 3 is rare, so the gained HP also came with increased radiation levels. But in TES, there is no such drawback, and water is everywhere.

Of course, gaining fatigue from water would only be helpful if it didn't naturally regenerate, like in Oblivion.

Speaking of which, please Bethesda, no regenerating magicka or fatigue. Pretty please?

No, fatigue should regenerate, daily fatigue should not. I can lift a really heavy object and be tired afterward and rest for a bit and be ready to life the same thing again. But if I do that several times I'll just get all around tired and not want to do it, nor really be able to anyways. That is what daily fatigue would stand for. Eating and drinking would restore fatigue and daily fatigue, but would have diminished returns for daily fatigue. After eating, I'm ready to go and feel a lot better, but I can only eat and drink so much before I'm still really tired and have to go to sleep.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:34 pm

It wasn't in them.

However, water should not restore HP. It should restore fatigue and daily fatigue and maybe restore a small amount of attributes, but you can't drink too much water or you get waterlogged. That'd prevent people sitting there drinking up gallons of water to heal constantly.

Hell yeah fatigue and daily fatigue! Makes way more sense than water recovering help.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:13 am

I'd really like it if Bethesda set up a website for us to upload our characters, such as the http://social.bioware.com/playerprofile.php?char_id=76014&nid=2256642559&game=dragonage&display=character. (I used Suffca's profile as an example because his was the first one in the DA: O thread). I know about elder stats, but something like the persona page would be update automatically.

No, fatigue should regenerate, daily fatigue should not. I can lift a really heavy object and be tired afterward and rest for a bit and be ready to life the same thing again. But if I do that several times I'll just get all around tired and not want to do it, nor really be able to anyways. That is what daily fatigue would stand for. Eating and drinking would restore fatigue and daily fatigue, but would have diminished returns for daily fatigue. After eating, I'm ready to go and feel a lot better, but I can only eat and drink so much before I'm still really tired and have to go to sleep.

So you mean a cap for how much fatigue you can spend in a day? It sounds like a good idea, but I think people would complain about it. If they include any sort of natural fatigue regeneration, I want it to be really slow. I recall actually regenerating fatigue in Oblivion while running, that shouldn't happen.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:03 pm

My Idea for TES 5 would be to have abilities for melee based characters i.e Warriors, Rogues

These abilities would add extra damage to your weapon. Say you have a Steel Claymore it does 5 damage on hit, useing Death Strike would add a extra 5 points of damage adding to a total of 10 damage points.

These abilities would use Fatigue rather than Magicka, example: Death Strike deals an additional 5 damage for 10% of the characters Fatigue.
These abilities would have unique animations: When using Death Strike the character would leap in the air and swing downwards.
Another example could be. Whirlwind: A character spins a whole 360 degrees dealing weapon damage to all nearby targets.

These abilities would be usable for certain weapons (Two-handed, One-handed) to define how your characters play. A Rogue uses one-handed weapons, he/she could learn the abilite to do a Precision Strike, the character does a precise attack ignoring the enemys armor thus dealing extra damage to the target only usable with one-handed weapons.

In order to learn these abilities you would have to reach a certain level and skill i.e 30 skill in Blade/Blunt. A character reaches level 5 and has 30 skill in Blade/Blunt, he/she can then go to a trainer and learn this ability (much like a mage would learing new spells) for a price or even have to complete a quest in order to learn these abilities from the trainer, And when the character reaches level 10 he/she can the aquire the next rank of the ability from the same trainer: Death Strike Rank 2 Deals 10 additional damge for 10% of the characters fatigue and so on.

Also these abilities would have a timer after use to stop it from being overpowered and spamming of the ability and to use more strategically, Death Strike would have a 10 sec timer after use same as Whirlwind and so on.

Thoughts and opinions much apreciated.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:17 am

So you mean a cap for how much fatigue you can spend in a day? It sounds like a good idea, but I think people would complain about it. If they include any sort of natural fatigue regeneration, I want it to be really slow. I recall actually regenerating fatigue in Oblivion while running, that shouldn't happen.

This is from Rhekarid's list that he so kindly sent to me many months ago:

A character's general energy would be split into two parts: stamina, or daily fatigue, and "normal" fatigue. Normal fatigue would function much like it does now, gradually recovering naturally and being reduced by actions. Willpower would lengthen the bar and how much you can take at once, but not its recovery rate, as determination does not increase actual durability. Fatigue's recovery rate would mostly rely on endurance, while strength would reduce the amount lost at once by actions to some degree. In many cases, relevant skill level would also reduce fatigue loss. The efficiency of fatigue loss/recovery is reflected by the stamina meter; the lower it is, the poorer your fatigue. Almost all actions would be in some way affected by your fatigue, giving the best performance when it's full. Low fatigue would result in lower spell success, slower or weaker attacks, and the like.

Stamina represents total, long-term endurance, instead of fatigue's energy of the moment. Stamina is reduced at the same time fatigue is, but in much smaller amounts. The amount of stamina lost is tied to the amount of fatigue lost; if you easily and efficiently deal with obstacles using little fatigue, only tiny amounts of stamina are lost, and you can continue on for a long time. If your fatigue is frequently being dropped to almost nothing, stamina will also fall quickly. Completely draining yourself over and over seriously hamper your ability to produce the same results again without rest. The lower the stamina meter, the poorer your fatigue meter performs, with exhausted characters scarcely able to handle challenges that should be easy for them. If it falls particularly low characters may face additional hindrances, such as temporarily reduced stats and skills and reduced move speed. Stamina does not actively refill itself like fatigue, and is primarily restored by rest. Food does not refill the meter, but if eaten regularly (i.e. once a day) considerably slows the rate at which it falls.

The stamina/daily fatigue meter would also be used as a quick means of warning the player of environmental danger, changing color depending on the threat. Red, for example, may warn that intense heat is causing the stamina meter to fall more rapidly than normal, while purple could mean toxic fumes. If more than one environmental hazard is affecting the character, colors will be ordered with the most severe on the far right of the bar, where it gradually reduces from. Wounding removes large portions of the stamina bar without draining it by "claiming" portions of it, causing injured creatures to be quickly crippled. As the damage is healed the bar gradually recovers to its previous state, doing so much more quickly with applied medical skills. Creatures that lack vitals, such as undead, golems, or non-corporeal enemies, are highly resistant or immune to this effect.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 2:10 am

Edit: Well, dang. Orzorn ninja'ed my own files on me.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:35 pm

Elder Scrolls 5 Questionare:
If you got the game and played it what would you expect in it?

for me it would be:
-Being able to Attack people while on horse back.
-Being able to go through the territories from previous Elder Scrolls games.
-Being able to have you own kingdom, your own army, your own villagers, etc.

if you can answer this question that would be great.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:46 am

Elder Scrolls 5 Questionare:
If you got the game and played it what would you expect in it?

for me it would be:
-Being able to Attack people while on horse back.
-Being able to go through the territories from previous Elder Scrolls games.
-Being able to have you own kingdom, your own army, your own villagers, etc.

if you can answer this question that would be great.

I like your ideas although the second one is not very likely.

And I think:

Every faction should be joinable, from necromancers to bandits.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:36 pm

Admittedly I'm biased, but if only one original idea is taken from this thread (so discounting stuff like dual wielding, better animations and mounted combat) I'd like it to be the reformation of the fatigue bars to have one that acts like Morrowinds and then one that is daily or long-term fatigue. Of course, that's only if they HAD to pick just one. These threads are chock-full of great ideas.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:00 pm

Also, to respond to my own file segment there with some edits:

I think food could restore stamina a small amount. However, this would depend on general satiation. An easy way to keep track is to have this info pop up when you hover the cursor over the stamina bar, like how some games will show health as a red meter and then display the specific numbers when you hover over it. Highlighting the stamina bar could show you the various factors effecting it at the moment, giving people a pretty easy way to keep track without burying them in status bars. If your satiation is full, food won't do you any good. The lower it is, the more it will penalize stamina, and the more eating will refill it. However, the drain remains just a bit more than the restoration, so you can't refill your stamina indefinitely with food alone and never sleeping. Going from 100% to 0% would take several days (and 0% would not be fatal, but would be quite bad for your fatigue, likely getting you killed elsewhere), so you'd generally be fine eating once a day, and there would be an auto-eat checkbox on the rest screen. Fast enough to be a strategic issue for long treks into the wilderness, slow enough not to drive people crazy.

In terms of resting to refill the stamina bar, the better your situation, the more you get. So if you go to sleep with full satiation and no wounds and such, stamina will be completely refilled. If you're in bad shape you'll only get a little, and just trying to sleep again for more will probably only make those situations worse at the same time. Severe problems (like 0% satiation) may even drop your maximum stamina until they're fixed.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:11 am

Every faction joinable leads to every faction being as deep as the Fighter's Guild. WORST. FACTION. EVER.
I play as a freaking swordsman, and I can't stand them.

Morrowind's? corrupt jerks who treat you like crap, even when you're a master swordsman. Not exactly inspiring me to believe they are worth my time (except I get rewarded for killing off criminal scum who aren't paying *me*)
Oblivion's? Happy as a lark, and they're getting their butts kicked by a bunch of rejects high on some bad homeopathic meds. Pathetic, FG, Pathetic.

I'd rather have only a slight increase in joinable factions, but have them all be as good as Oblivion's DB, or both TG lines. Or KotN. Not terribly impressed with the religious factions in Morrowind, personally. They don't give me the sense that KotN does of actually serving something larger than myself. I kind of expect that in religion...

Anyway, if we need more factions, I propose an actual Daedric cult questline, where we actually serve (insert random non-Sheogorath Prince here*) and do more than one quest before we get juicy rewards. In fact, let's put the crimp on them juicy rewards in factions.

Factions should work like this:

1. you try to join
2. you prove your worth**
3. you have no respect, and get to do the crap jobs for little reward.
4. You prove yourself.
5. You get mildly rewarding jobs.
6. They accept you as "truly one of ours".
7. You get rewarding work.
8. You're so damn good that you get the juicy rewards.
9. You become "The Gold Standard" of the Guild, whether as an active leader, or as a figurehead.

* We already served him. and are him. or something.
** exceptions can be made: Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion worked. You proved yourself before you could join. The first killing was merely "the signing of a contract".

So instead of having dozens of factions, how about we hope for 6-7 really STRONG factions, backed by CONTENT?

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:03 pm

About the stamina and fatigue, maybe we could have orcs and redguards to have more stamina than other races, because they are "suited" for being tought warriors?

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:09 am

Every faction joinable leads to every faction being as deep as the Fighter's Guild. WORST. FACTION. EVER.
I play as a freaking swordsman, and I can't stand them.

Morrowind's? corrupt jerks who treat you like crap, even when you're a master swordsman. Not exactly inspiring me to believe they are worth my time (except I get rewarded for killing off criminal scum who aren't paying *me*)
Oblivion's? Happy as a lark, and they're getting their butts kicked by a bunch of rejects high on some bad homeopathic meds. Pathetic, FG, Pathetic.

I'd rather have only a slight increase in joinable factions, but have them all be as good as Oblivion's DB, or both TG lines. Or KotN. Not terribly impressed with the religious factions in Morrowind, personally. They don't give me the sense that KotN does of actually serving something larger than myself. I kind of expect that in religion...

Anyway, if we need more factions, I propose an actual Daedric cult questline, where we actually serve (insert random non-Sheogorath Prince here*) and do more than one quest before we get juicy rewards. In fact, let's put the crimp on them juicy rewards in factions.

Factions should work like this:

1. you try to join
2. you prove your worth**
3. you have no respect, and get to do the crap jobs for little reward.
4. You prove yourself.
5. You get mildly rewarding jobs.
6. They accept you as "truly one of ours".
7. You get rewarding work.
8. You're so damn good that you get the juicy rewards.
9. You become "The Gold Standard" of the Guild, whether as an active leader, or as a figurehead.

* We already served him. and are him. or something.
** exceptions can be made: Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion worked. You proved yourself before you could join. The first killing was merely "the signing of a contract".

So instead of having dozens of factions, how about we hope for 6-7 really STRONG factions, backed by CONTENT?

Ah well.

A man can dream.

But yeah quality > quantity.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:44 am

I want factions to take at least 20 hours to get through, I can run through the DB in under 3 hours....

Also, I want more conflicts in factions, so I can't be the most important person in Tamriel ten times over.......

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:21 pm

But yeah quality > quantity.

That very much depends on what form quality may take.

For example, IIRC, one of the developers did a quality versus quantity comparison using marksmanship weapons in Oblivion. It was argued that, though more exotic weapons were removed (like crossbows, throwing stars, throwing knives, etc), and the remaining bows were significantly reduced in varying types, that was all compensated by the smoothness of the bow mechanics, the skill perks that bows now had, the visual detail of the bow meshes and textures, and the animation detail of drawing, moving with, and firing a bow.

However, in that particular scenario, I would very much rather have the quantity over watching my character smoothly fire an arrow.

With factions, Oblivion tried hard to to go beyond fetch quests with their factions. The problem with that, though, is twofold.

Firstly, despite Oblivion's attempt, its faction quests were the exact same fetch quests with see-through pretentious-brand dressing. Honestly. Take the Thieves' Guild for example. At every stage: I need this, or We need this. Or the Mages Guild: Go do this. Now go get this. Or the Fighters Guild or Arena. Go kill this. Go look into that. Other than somewhat pointless dialogue permutations, there wasn't much beyond it. Yet, that's not entirely a bad thing for reasons given below.

Secondly, for all its attempts to get away from fetch quests, Oblivion failed to recognize that, for the most part, that's what quests are. Are back-stories and motivations given? Of course. So they were in Morrowind, too. But you're still going to location X to attain/speak-to thing/person Y, for person or for motivation Z. But when it comes to the majority of factions, they are work organizations that don't make sense in having an epic building plot. As such, most (if not all) of the tasks undertaken for that organization are disconnected seemingly-random jobs that come up. Are there power struggles and stories to be told via the motivations? Yes, but even if the organizational quest-line takes those motivations to build a broad theme out of them, it doesn't come into play until much later on.

I see no point to shy away from Morrowind's model, which had no less than 10 major joinable factions, with an average of 28.3 quests each. If there is quality to be earned in culling the number of factions or quest per faction, I am disinclined to care much for that quality.

» Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:14 pm

About the stamina and fatigue, maybe we could have orcs and redguards to have more stamina than other races, because they are "suited" for being tought warriors?

On that note, I've suggested for a while now that stat/skill raising be slower in general, and instead of any sort of hard minimum/maximums for different stats with different races, they would raise them at different rates. So, an orc and bosmer would have the same potential for powergamers, but the orc gains strength more quickly. That in mind, the "physical" races would almost always have higher physical stats, and by extension higher stamina, than others.

Of course, I'd also like a rebalancing of race perks, to be more unique (instead of current ones that can be almost instantly copied with a spell) but also more balanced in general. For example, in the past couple games the power of spells you could cast was very heavily dependent on maximum magicka, which practically forced mages to shoot for altmer. Argonians, meanwhile, got permanent water breathing, something that's already one of the easiest spells in the game to cast. Stamina could play into this same idea. If you think of it as being reduced a tiny bit by every action, you could give some advantages to those races; redguard get less stamina drain from running, orcs less from attacking, nords less from injury, whatever. It could give some unique abilities that other races can't copy, without them being hard caps that pigeonhole character types into certain roles.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:36 am

About the stamina and fatigue, maybe we could have orcs and redguards to have more stamina than other races, because they are "suited" for being tought warriors?

Yes, Rhekarid's list covers racial bonuses, which are far more than just +stats.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:42 am

I know this has been suggested before, but if there's one thing I'm most paranoid about Bethesda putting in TESV, it's respawning containers. In Morrowind, containers didn't respawn, but in Oblivion, they did. In Fallout 3 they didn't, which is good. But I just want to remind the developers about that. If TESV had respawning containers, I'd be really disappointed.

Also, like in Morrowind, you should be able to own all of the containers in a house after you kill the house's owner. Fallout 3 didn't have this, which worries me, but I hope TESV does.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:24 am

All I'm telling you is that it's very, very unlikely that TESV will have more than one province. Furthermore, there are some suggestions that are just plain bad. Bethesda isn't a super big, super powerful developer yet, and as much as I love them, they simply couldn't make a quality game featuring 2 provinces, with both being as detailed and diverse as they should be, in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe in a decade or so when TESVI comes out, but for now, it's just not possible.

Fair enough, and thankyou for being thoughtful with your reply. I already know they aren't going to put more than one province into the game based on certain facts such as graphics, development time, etc. but that still doesn't change the fact that I want to see more than one province.

Stephen.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 7:18 am

As I mentioned earlier, Fallout 3 is basically Oblivion+ in a setting I'm not as attatched to (However ironically, unlike Oblivion Fallout 3s story really only works in its setting) one other feature, aside from locational damage and its attendant animations that shopuld be transferred to TES is this sense of struggling to survive, particularly when adventuring. In the Vvardenfell thread I was reminded of the water radiation and thought, why not have water do simillar things, but if it's in skyrim water that was too cold (or magically cold) could give you hypothermia, or river water could be tainted by dead things (or sorceries) higher in the mountains, and in the far east the residual ash from red year makes the water bad?

Supposing it is set in Skyrim (such a bad idea), when you go in the water with a full suit of fur, or in clothes and robes, you get cold damage, then when you leave the water your cold damage increases by a factor of 2 or more until you remove your clothing and start a fire.

Stephen.

EDIT: Sorry repeat post.

2ND EDIT: Ok, I've finished reading The Infernal City, and while it does say at the back of the book that it is a work of fiction and all the things in the book are either fictions of the author or are used fictitiously, if it is to be canon then there are certain things I will point out. There are creatures in that book of all shapes and sizes, talking frog men, daemon ladies with horns, and all manner of beast and mer with any form of sentience including Hobs. So, given this I see no reason not to have these races incorporated into TESV and be able to play as a frog person, cow person, horse person, daemon person, ant person, etc, or simply to be able to talk to them and find their homelands.

Supposing you ended up in the Infernal City in TESV, (something I hope doesn't happen) you might find a room where people of those races who had been stolen from their worlds have left writings in their languages that you need to translate in order to find a way back to each of their homeworlds to find the key to destroying Umbriel, and not only that you'd still need to read their writing when you got to each of their worlds as most of their people were eaten by Umbriel. As you return from each world you find yourself in a different part of Tamriel and have to make your way back up to Umbriel and to that room with the next key which will let you translate the next language. And by translating language I really mean that, have certain key letters which are translated into english/tamrielic for you in a book somewhere so that you need to decipher the rest of the letters yourself, I loved doing that in Ultima7 and in Morrowind and Oblivion, it's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to TESV.

Ok, most if not all of this could just be rambling nonsense, but if my assumption is correct, The Infernal City book sets the scene for the opening of TESV as the story was never really finished.

Stephen.

» Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:36 am

Supposing it is set in Skyrim (such a bad idea), when you go in the water with a full suit of fur, or in clothes and robes, you get cold damage, then when you leave the water your cold damage increases by a factor of 2 or more until you remove your clothing and start a fire.

Stephen.

I like that idea. See, every province has a major strength as to why it should be picked, Skyrims is the sheer struggle to survive in cold and high elavation. Hammerfell is surviving in deserts, High rock is mass political intrigue, etc. Personally, I want a human province. After all, Morrowind is as elven as it gets and as far as lore goes the Empire (at least the Nibeneans) try to be high-elf lite.

2ND EDIT: Ok, I've finished reading The Infernal City, and while it does say at the back of the book that it is a work of fiction and all the things in the book are either fictions of the author or are used fictitiously, if it is to be canon then there are certain things I will point out. There are creatures in that book of all shapes and sizes, talking frog men, daemon ladies with horns, and all manner of beast and mer with any form of sentience including Hobs. So, given this I see no reason not to have these races incorporated into TESV and be able to play as a frog person, cow person, horse person, daemon person, ant person, etc, or simply to be able to talk to them and find their homelands.

Supposing you ended up in the Infernal City in TESV, (something I hope doesn't happen) you might find a room where people of those races who had been stolen from their worlds have left writings in their languages that you need to translate in order to find a way back to each of their homeworlds to find the key to destroying Umbriel, and not only that you'd still need to read their writing when you got to each of their worlds as most of their people were eaten by Umbriel. As you return from each world you find yourself in a different part of Tamriel and have to make your way back up to Umbriel and to that room with the next key which will let you translate the next language. And by translating language I really mean that, have certain key letters which are translated into english/tamrielic for you in a book somewhere so that you need to decipher the rest of the letters yourself, I loved doing that in Ultima7 and in Morrowind and Oblivion, it's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to TESV.

Ok, most if not all of this could just be rambling nonsense, but if my assumption is correct, The Infernal City book sets the scene for the opening of TESV as the story was never really finished.

Stephen.

I guess it depends on what happens to Umbriel. If the peoples of the city are stranded on Mundus after the events (or if Umbriel becomes part of Mundus, or becomes a Daedric realm on its own and not an offshoot of Viles and we go there in a SI type thing) I think we should definitely be able to meet and interact with the otherworldy denizens of it, although maybe not play as them. That also depends, mostly on how the second book ends things and how many there are.