Assume Bethesda went insane and hired you or I as the developer for Skyrim mark 2.0 or the Very Special Edition of Skyrim and you could make adjustments to the game. What exactly would you add/remove/change to the game to make it better. Assume that you have to keep the same basic game in place but you can add additional quests or territory or change the writing in specific stories.

I've seen threads like this before on other forums and personally love the sort of stuff people come up with.

Here's my thoughts (and I'm overall very happy with the game):

Blades

* The option to tell Delphine off about Paarthurnax. I'd furthermore add the option to smack her down with a dialogue option that reminds her that as the Dragonborn you're the leader and she's not.

* I would also add a Blades questline centered around attacking Thalmor camps and gathering intelligence.

* After the main quest, she and her partner would be much more deferential.

* The option to decorate the Sky Temple.

* The option to make money by sending off your Blades assassins for missions ala Assassins Creed or the Shadow Broke DLC for Mass Effect. You run the risk of losing a Follower, however, if you send them on too risky an assignment.

Companions

* You don't have to become a werewolf to join the Circle. You do, however, have to prove you're on their side by attacking the Silver Hand (proceed to next mission without werewolf bits).

* We'd find a book on the Silver Hand that tells them they're an offshoot of the Vigilants that went Ax Crazy even by their standards and exclusively follows Hircine.

* At higher levels, Aela could become a werewolf and fight alongside you in that form. Ditto the other werewolves.

* You don't get the "fetch the mead" dialogue after you become Harbinger.

College of Winterhold

* After becoming Archmage, all the court wizards have a new dialogue option honoring your status as one.

* You can investigate the Great Collapse and discover it was a natural phenomenon, which convinces the Jarl to be nicer to the Winterhold College.

Main Quest

* It's not long enough. After fighting Alduin in Sovengarde, you would be able to kill him but you'd then see him resurrect and fly off as a much more powerful thing.

* You'd then get a mission to hunt down Dragon Priests and other badies to chase down the new and improved Alduin somewhere else. Then you'd have to solo Alduin or fight him with a single follower.

* While inaccessible before you get your dragon, you'd be able to return on his back at any point via fast travel and eventually to Sovengarde.

* The option to talk to Alduin at one point.

Post-Main Quest

* You will get a new dialogue option from the Jarl of Winterhelm, Tullius, Ulfric, Rikke, and other important NPCs. It wouldn't be everybody but it would be a start.

Gameplay

* Attack from horseback.

* An unarmed skill and perk tree.

* Dictate how far your follower should stay behind.

* The option to turn follower immortality on or off.

There is very little I would change:

I want to use my bow from horseback.

I want my dogs to have some sort of up-gradable armor (maybe a perk in the smithing tree?) so they don't die in their first fight.

I want to change how aggro my follower is with basic commands like "stay back with me", or "go get those guys".

I really like this game, but have found myself leaving my dog and my follower behind where they won't get into trouble, or worse get me in trouble. Also, I have been dying to do a Mongol run-through, siding with the Forsworn against Markarth. A mongol would never dismount to fight though.....

Interesting thread idea!
I dont think bethesda would ever be stupid enough to let an idiot like me anywhere near any aspect of their creations.

I pretty much like these games as they are. I've not played many RPGS before , but since then I've fallen in love with them.
Generally I enjoyed the wacky, more degraded and dirty 'anything goes' atmoshpere of Fallout New Vegas. In Skyrim I'd like the option of enabling the equivalent of the 'wacky wasteland' perk, for a more lighthearted and deranged gameplay. It seems to me the people of skyrim take everything so damn seriously. They're focusing so much on staying alive they've forgotten why they're bothering. A little more fun and laughter in the world would give more motive to get up and fight horrible monsters every day.
Currently my charecter is going through an identity crisis and suffering a little depression. She finds it hard to get up, go out, slog around dungeons and fight dragons every day when the people back at home are so miserable and down all the time. What's the point in fighting so hard for such little fun to be had in return?


So:
1-A 'wacky wasteland' option for a lighter approach to the game. (Naturally this would be an optional choice and not forced onto more serious gamers'.
2-A more peaceable option, for those who want to attempt to be pacifists in the game. I remember some old RPGs having charecter builds like 'rangers' who could commune with animals. I'd like the opportunity to be able to take this further and have it as a levelable skill such as one armed or enchanting etc.
Can you imagine being able to pacify and communicate with animals, and the higher level you were, the more power you had over bigger and bigger animals? I'd like this to be a perk useable on enemy creatures, also.
Which leads me to point three..
3- to build on my 'ranger' skills, can you imagine being able to befriend a dragon and fly it over the skies of skyrim??
That would be most excellent.
4-More nudity. And more options for romance and friendships within the game, but again, only as an totally optional choice for those who may want it.

Bottom line:

EVERYTHING ONE DOES HAS A CONSEQUENCE.

The thing that annoys me the most is that you are the dragonborn and even after everyone figures it out, they still treat you like a little punk.

That's why I go around murdering people!

• Fix random CTD
  
• Fix persistent CTD related to large file sizes
  
• Optimize the game to make the most of CPU (tesval and sb are good starting points)
  
• Fix the horrible shadows

Everything else is unimportant as i can rpg my way out of even the most absurd of the game's plot lines.

Music and atmosphere:

Longer songs. The Dragonborn Comes gets verses added as you do deeds with local variations. If you walk into town people might recognized you and go "By the divines, it's him!" or such. The bard might spontaneously start singing a song in your honor in an inn. In general people not recognizing you are the Dragonborn (or not caring), but recognizing minor things like if you've pickpocketed one or two people over hours of gameplay or have illusion magic seems very odd.

Better Radiant Story AI:

Various groups have goals in the game world. Things to do on the map. They'll move troops/people/whatever to secure points, you can run across fighting over various points. This could add a lot to the civil war in general, imho, but I think even dragons could get involved in this. Certainly it could do wonders for bandits, cults, and the like, where they might take over more and more locations, becoming a large organization that you could take out. Fewer essential people and more replacement of people that die would be good as well.

Overhaul magic and combat:

I think the game's magic system should take a page from Magicka. Let you combine different spells together for different effects. Fire + Frost creates a steam attack that makes foes wet (making them extra vulnerable to lightning damage) for instance. A ward + a damage spell would make a wall of damage in that location. Hot-keys can be selected for a given hand. So if you have 8 spells hotkeyed that could give you a massive variety of effects depending on how you combined them. Some spells need to be completely overhauled, some sort of spell creation, and scaling for spells so that low level spells can remain useful at high levels.

Then of course, for spellswords you need to be able to combine magic with weapon attacks similar to the above, as well as the ability to do this with two-handed weapons (the limit here being that you couldn't use the spell independent of the weapon with two-handers).

I like the idea a mod had where Speechcraft improves Dragonshouts. That should be implemented with the right perks and could be used to make combos with magic or melee attacks (like a whirlwind sprint that also hits anyone you run by with your weapon).

Crafting Overhaul:

Crafting lacks balance and it needs it. Also, it doesn't work well with the artifacts in the game. It also makes it so that loot doesn't matter that much, because there's nothing to find that is better than what you make and nothing to find that helps you make better stuff. So there needs to be ways to improve artifacts, crafting parts of such quests can be done by you are by an NPC (which costs money), and there should be extremely rare components for crafting that you can find only in dungeons. Of course, all this then needs to be balanced so it doesn't make things that are too powerful.

Enemy overhaul:

Enemies are lacking in unique abilities and attacks to distinguish them, imho. Falmer aren't much different from Bandits who aren't much different from army troops. Bears, cats, and wolves differ pretty much only in health and damage dealt. This should really be redone with more unique attacks and abilities (wolves that actually have some members of the pack grab onto you and slow you down for instance while others hit your flanks). This is especially important with the more boss-like enemies. There are some that are a bit unique, but overall it is lacking, imho.

I'd like to see enemies come in larger groups at higher difficulties rather than just upping enemy health.

Questing:

There needs to be more branching options in a number of quests. And you need to be able to put quest items into containers if you plan on not finishing a quest (a confirm to remove dialogue box is all that is needed here). But I think some more ending options would take care of this quite well.

I'm sure there's some other stuff, but that's where I'd start.

That said, I do really enjoy the game as it is.

I like a lot of those suggestions, especially about the overhauling magic and containers.

I think i've said this one before but I'd like some more race specific interaction/quests. Become chief of orc stronghold if you're an orc, quest for the Khajiit caravans and become a partner for Khajiits, end racism and create some harmony in windhelm for dark elves, likewise for the argonians exiled down by the docks.. Gives people a reason to actually make more than 1 character and see what kind of experience it provides. Also might not have so many people on lvl 81 complaining they're over-powered and there's nothing left to do.

Also I would enjoy a proper questline for 'Destroy the dark brotherhood' that could involve spying on them, spoiling some of their assassination attemps, possibly infiltrating the ranks, eventually getting rid of them (possibly driving them out of skyrim, rather than just slaughtering them for the more righteous characters) and destroying or taking over the sanctuary.

And definitely the same for a 'Destroy the thieves guild/End corruption in Riften' questline. Team up with Mjoll and drive the thieves and Black-Briars out of Riften.

Lastly something to rectify the Armor perks that are "if wearing all light/heavy armor" .. Why let me customise my characters head/face and then force me to cover it with some horribly ugly helmet, especially considering I prefer the beast races and the helms make you look like every other generic humanoid. Magical disappearing horns and ears..

I think there definitely needs to be a "Destroy the Thieves Guild" adventure for Mjoll the Lioness. Basically, you need to go after Brynwulf and clear out the Drunken Flagon before heading into the Cistern.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with the "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood" quest but it was kind of underwhelming. I know both the Thieves Guild and DB are at their lower ends but they sort of undermine your heroism to smack them down at their weakest.

Also, I think you should have a chance to take down Maven Black-Briar.

Just annoyed me that instead of joining the DB and getting [censored]loads of Septims and loot, pretty useful and unique gear, your own sanctuary etc.. You talk to some snooty guy, do his dirty work for him and kill everyone, and he gives you a measly sum of coin and sends you on your way.. Cheers dude. It was not 'immersive' in the slightest for me, like you can just stroll up to the black door, say the password and carve through a bunch of skilled assassins like butter, and only get a few thousand coin.. Who would risk their life so easily for that..

An adventurer? I don't mind it being a short quest by comparison. I appreciate they bothered to put the option to destroy it in. I did, however, wonder how the hell you knew what the Dark Brotherhood's password was. At the very least you would need an adventure to find it out.

Things that I would do:

-- Rewrite many of the major faction / main quest / civil war questlines so the player has MORE options to complete the quests

-- I would try to rewrite as many quests [even minor] as I could so there would be more than one way to complete the quest. I.E. Sneaking or Diplomacy or Intimidation [etc] should often be viable options as opposed to "kill everyone". This would even cover some of the Daedric quests .. you could do the quest as given and become a champion or you could work against their interests to complete the quest.

-- I would make "marriage" more than ... hey look at my shiny amulet "do you wanna get hitched" ... more courtship a multi-step process.

-- More options for new houses, build-your-own-house, improved existing houses.

-- Be able to hire a someone to sell your "junk" for you. Note because of speechcraft and other issues you'd get a bad deal but if you don't want to have a "merchant simulator" this would be a good way to get around that piece of the puzzle.

-- I would implement some type of renown and reputation system. Based on this I would allow players to recruit followers and build their own "guild". If you don't like Delphine's Blades maybe you could create your own "Blades" or similar.

-- Based on your renonwn / reputation / etc. NPCs [including vendors] would react to you differently.

-- Allow you to "name" any of your equipment at any time you want

-- Replace "iron dagger" smithing grinds with a system that gives rewards / XP based on the "value" of the end product. Same with Enchanting. This way you get more XP by playing the game as opposed to having a system optimized for grinding.

-- I'd remove a lot of the "easy" ways to break your character by making equipment that is way too good. I would leave in at least one "bug" so if folks went out of their way to break their characters [become virtual gods] they could still do so.

Follower behavior
- Allow players to set follower combat behavior: melee, archery, casting (combat), casting (healing)
- Allow followers to level with you
- Align followers with different factions so they may become ideologically opposed to you, and leave if necessary.

Object placement
- Create an engine for object placement in player owned houses that doesn't require miraculous dexterity to outwit the physics engine. In real life I can stack metal ingots a few feet high. In Skyrim if I even look at them funny they'd topple over.
- Remove all those goofy dreamcatcher wall hangings and replace them with weapon plaques.

More efficient fast travel
- Allow fast travel to a select list of interior cells. Example: Clicking on the Dragonsreach icon would open a submenu to select "outside", Dragonsreach interior, or Jorvasker interior.

Spells
- Bring back Night Eye as a spell (along with making environments darker in general)
- Bring back Water Walking (handy enough for collecting dartwings and avoiding slaughterfish you can't fight with!)
- Add Cure Disease to the restoration school of magic.
- Add a Doppleganger spell to the Illusion school. It does no damage but it can draw aggro from enemies. Perks available to increase its hitpoints.

Vampirism (Total Overhaul)
- It doesn't make sense to me that abstention from feeding makes you a more powerful vampire, rather than a more dead one. No idea what I'd replace it with though.

Speechcraft (Perk Overhaul)
- Master trader allows you to barter with wealthier NPC's rather than adding gold to every vendor in the game. Instead of making a pawnbroker substantially wealthier, you are now dealing with noble trading houses... perhaps even the Jarls themselves, who have substantially(!) more gold at their disposal. If a costermonger suddenly had 1000 extra gold, why would they remain a costermonger!?

I thought of one more thing, but it's a really small detail. Wouldn't it be cool if you could throw your shield right before you switch from one-handed to something else? You throw it, cause knock-back or stun, and pull out your second weapon or a two-handed one. Just a thought....

Add an organization tree to the chests where I store all my stuff in my house. I spend way too much time holding [scroll down] to get to whatever item it is at the bottom of the list.

This seems so simple, yet it isn't in there. WTF??

what like captain america also more body sliders for um role playing yeah that's it i swear i don't mean anything perverted by that i have no idea what you're talking about i'll stop typing now

The main thing I would love to add to Skyrim is a virtual economy. You see these mines and mills, but they aren't really related to the world. Wouldn't it be nice if the Jarl of Whiterun asks for you to negotiate with a local mine to sell their ore exclusively to Whiterun? Once done, you would then see ore carts occasionally traveling to Whiterun from the mine. Whiterun would have a better economy (merchants have more money to buy items) and more guards for defense.

Along with this, it would have an impact on the civil war. Instead, of these battles where you are the central fighter and just complete a linear quest, how about if the strength of each city determines the result? Ideally you would see armies marching against a city with catapults, and the strength of both sides will determine whether the attack is successful or not. Along with this, the battles would happen without you (except for the final battle), so you may find that Whiterun changed sides since the last time that you were there. As a player, you would influence the civil war by getting the local mills/mines to support cities that favor your faction, along with doing special quests that help your faction

Skyrim is such a believable world, it makes the areas that are lacking so much more apparent. This would take Skyrim, imo, a step further into being a living/breathing world.

All of you should make your own game. These ideas are great. I think Todd and his team are too old to know what makes a good game. They are living in the past and killing its memory.

I would add some common sense to the AI, or at least tone down the suicidal urges. If a warrior in full daedric armor and wielding Volendrung walks into a bandit camp and slaughters half of them inside of ten seconds, the rest should run like hell. (To be honest, that should be the bandit's first response- saying "F- this, I'm out of here" when they see the Juggernaut at the door.)

Likewise, when a dragon appears, the common folk people run away. Fighting it is a job for people trained to fight- running up and punching it should never even occur to them.

Careful. Some of us are older than the dev team. Age has nothing to do with it.

I'm pretty sure I'm older that the vast majority of devs

I'm pretty sure I'm older than almost everyone who posts here. Likely there are people older who play the game, not much unusual about that. But.... I'm going on 65, so not only are most of you much younger than I am (some of you are even younger than my grandchildren....) but likely the OLDEST of the devs is younger than my daughter.

Fix these crashes, if i could.

The option to donate torches to Sky Temple to light that place up some.

Larger briasts (nothing crazy, but a little larger) on the female characters and $luttier outfits for them. They don't need to be on par with Warhammer Witch Elf or Sorceress, but show a little more.