A lot of games have their fare share of mindless/storyless antagonists but one thing I think TES series lost in Oblivion and Skyrim was the sense of purpose enemies had.

When you entered a cave in Morrowind, sure, you'd find some pretty standard enemy types. But something about fighting smugglers in a cave full of smuggler goods(weapons and drugs) worked. Fighting bandits whose career seems to be what? In bandit locations, you'll find chests with loot some of the bandits probably should've been wearing over their hides and leather, along with potions they probably should've been using to try not to die. Presumably they do what? Take stuff of random travelers who wander into their bandit cave, and store it in big chests where it never gets used? Are they basically evil pack rats?

And traps, why can you lead bandits into their own traps? They trap the hell out of their little hideouts, manage to avoid triggering them on themselves until you show up. Then they'll suicidally rush at you with a total disregard for the traps that they should be aware of.


A bandit in Morrowind was generally a more a sensible character. They'd stop you on the road, at a bridge or something, and demand gold to let you pass and live. Okay, they've got something to actually gain here, something of use to them, and they'll take the easy way of getting it over the hard way. This provides a more plausible situation, a stronger illusion that there's a mind at work behind this digital character with motivations that lead it to conflict with your digital character.


It'd also be nice if bandits stayed at bandit level power. It just doesn't make sense for them to be high level enemies. They should create factions of more powerful enemies for higher level characters, and give some lore/story to them. Doesn't need to be a lot. Some very small things would go a long way towards making them fit better into the game, avoiding the immersion breaking issues we see with bandits being stronger than dragons and giants.



Bandits aren't the only example of this, just the most obvious. Having interesting enemies with more appropriate context really improves the sense of being in another world(main appeal of TES games for many people I'm sure) and makes the combat feel less like something they tossed in to make sure you've got something to do with your weapons and armor. The sixth house servants, the smugglers, the daedra worshipers, etc. etc. all fit in. Too many enemies in Skyrim feel like they're there to fill dungeons and caves with something to fight.

I've always thought that Scripted Bandit raids on holds in great numbers would make them more interesting. It always seems like that was more of their purpose, even finding them attacking a random held fort would be nice.

For raiders in FO3 it seemed plausible they were just wacko. But it's harder to understand why nearly the entire population (apparently) of Skyrim appears to be bandits yet there is commerce and wagon trips to other holds? Somewhat implausible.

I have had people attack me on the road for money though too.