Anyone else miss the D&D 1st/2nd ed. worlds where the possible varieties of monsters and treasure were limitless but you knew you would only aquire a fraction of the possible loot in your adventures? Skyrim burned me out simply because of the lack of variety though the world itself and this amazing game are, to date, the best game ever. Storylines are actually secondary to me as I tend to make up my own story in my mind as I play through my character as well as following main game questline (if they are good). Usually, my mini-story is along the lines of me being a super-being who, while limited in power like the rest of the sentient beings, can reset time upon dying and relive the event, thus being unstoppable. But still, the game questline itself, for me at least, is also important. However, when I am simply wanting a 80+ hour grindfest, I will provide the story details myself as I encounter a beholder type creature which only had 1 in 1000 chance of appearing in a certain place in my game and do not have a clan of cousins floating all over the gameworld.

What I want is variety, not so much in land space as long as the same area resets slowly over time with different possible content and hopefully some logic as to how a wiped cave of goblins would then be taken over by a troop of refugee vampyres. Slight variations on the same skin with just colors would work with powers mixed up works and seems to be a priority by many, so that seems like what I have been hoping for is being fufilled as far as enemy variety. This alone will go a huge way to keeping the game fun to grind in.

The other major difference in my mind between pen and paper game and every computer game out there is the way magic is handled, especially items. Pen and papers have multiple books of items and lore for them and shares this with most computer games, including skyrim. However, computer games make these items eventually a dime a dozen and eventually the whole term of +5 vopal blade is a joke instead of something to be drooled over. Someone bring back the days when +5 vorpals were possible but unlikely, but you were more then happy with you +3 spider bane and felt lucky to have it. A randomize, very low drop rate loot system where enchants and weaponsmithing can only slighly improve looted relics and only with high skill that can't be simply spammed up would be perfect. In such a system, side quests for named low power items, but of specific weapon or armor types needed by characters, would have meaning. Alchemy would be limited to adrenaline surge and mana replenishment type benefits, not free total healing, again at high skills. Everyone has restoration school and would need to use it to survive unless intentionally playing no magic, then things should be almost impossible, as most people intentionally RPing no magic would want it. Most survival should be based more upon skills rather then gear once past common base gear like iron plate. Most merchants shouldn't want to buy your looted beat up iron plate at face value except as scrap for the foundry, meaning money should also be hard to come by so it has some meaning.

Seems easy to do if anyone else even shares this view, which seems uncommon now as everyone wants constant loot drops of the best stuff possible to totally dominate everything challenging in the game. But really, what I am asking is if the creation kit gives enough tools to totaly change the loot and crafting system and other major core aspects of the game or to neuter certain aspects?

What you are asking for would fall under the umbrella of Leveled Lists, which is easily possible (though monumentally time consuming). Modifying enchantments and ingredient effects (to alter potion recipes) is also easily doable (but again, takes a huge amount of time).

Economic changes are harder, as those need scripting and Papyrus doesn't quite have the functionality needed to pull that off yet. Condition-based sales are also not possible yet as there is no actual equipment condition system in place (upgrades don't count because they never wear off).

So yes, it could be done. Just don't expect it released until a year or two passes.

^ what he said. That sums up your final question. I hear you though. Skyrim is a game trying to make money. You could put that more kindly as a game trying to appeal to a wider audience. Time spent on making vast lists of monster and item types is all but wasted on 95%+ of people that will pick up Skyrim. It's a fact we just have to live with that the game, unlike previous versions, isn't built with people who plan to play over 100 hours very much in mind.

IMO in Skyrim, as in past versions of TES, not taking dmg has far less to do with skill than it has to do with if you can take it, and if you can chug health pots enough. Especially on 'hard' encounters. Where you do the exact same thing to get away a few times, and the last time, due to an animation lag or something unpredictable, the enemy lands a hit that does 80% of your health. That's just generic video game rambling though.

Equipment you acquire being so valuable, is largely a factor of how fast you increase in power, and make them obsolete. There are several mods that slow your leveling speed. I don't think it's difficut to do yourself either.

Variety of equipment is a matter of ... getting a variety of equipment mods. There are hundreds.

The armor condtion thing is a little silly, but some people are working on that too. There might have been a release on the nexus I forget.

If you're mostly doing it for yourself, you could have a story manager on additem event quest that checks if it's a potion, and gives you one of your new, two types of potions instead. This way you wouldn't have to change a bunch of things and risk a bajillion conflicts with other mods. not a good solution, but one that came to mind.

New spells are being developed and released everyday. Some more creative than others, but still.... Get a collection of these.

TL;DR: Deep levels of variety is not a Skyrim strong point. That's up to the modders thesedays, we're workin on it Check out what's been done already.

Somewhere along the way, someone told games developers that they were the new movie-makers. Everyone of them (it seems) has a story to tell you and will tell it to you, whether you like it or not

The belief in the game-dev community is that there aren't enough people who will pay $60+ to make up their own game, once the tools are released to do it. That's the opposite of the days when pen & paper was king and you needed a space large enough to house an aircraft in which to use a computer.

To an extent, a lot of developers do provide such a game; like Beth does with the CK. To an extent the game you want does exist; you can build and alter the world yourself. Make up stories (Quests and Scenes) and what not. Many people are doing just that right now; from Lydia with no clothes to flying ships, new stories, new spells and weapons, new clothes, new cities and even completely new lands.

If making up your own stories - or your own completely new world - is what you want to do, get into modding


Financial System
My pet if-only-I-could thing. When the CK first came out I spent a week thinking how the scant system that exists in the Vanilla game could be improved. NPC's that needed food, water and shelter and went shopping/hunting/stealing to get them. Businesses that grew and/or manufactured things and others that bought and sold the goods they made. Competition between those businesses. And ways for the PC to have an effect - if the player wanted it - on how it all interacted.

It's probably possible ... I keep getting side-tracked from my Khajiit Questline and going back to think about how the finance system could be done.

Everyone of us here has some unqiue and crazy idea about what we would like to see made possible. Everyone of us here is just like Beth (without the budget)