Firstly, Skyrim is amazing. Best RPG ever. But as a long time gamer we always see ways to go beyond even that! So take my list more as a tongue-in-cheek gesture than anything else. These are in no particular order.

1. Smarter AI
When I walk around I see bears and skeevers attacking dragons. It shouldn't be! Mobs should be able to "size the competition". Another example. 3 bandits come running at me. one is their Chief. I one-shot him. The other two should smartly flee. My horse loves to attack dragons as well. Horses are skiddish they run from mice.

2. Quicker Access to Map
A map is a constantly used feature in RPG. It should be not 1 button, and a joystick gesture to reach. It should be "one click away". Same goes for inventory etc. The intermediate menu off the "B" button (yes, I'm xbox here) is not needed. Also, an optional minimap heads up would be great.

3. A Character Portrait View
Either I can't find where this is or its been removed since Oblivion. Ok, yes, I understand the whole immersion thing, but I am still a man playing a game and I want to admire my avatar in his gear. There's really no practical way to do this in the current game.

4. More Dynamic Music
Currently, the music in skyrim is mostly generic ambient, in my opinion. Its great, don't get me wrong, but it goes from generic walking around music, to generic fighting music. It should be more like a complete score - such as from movies like LOTR and SW. It should get my heart pounding. Also, it should changes crescendo as the battle nears a victor and play a finale segment after a battle is won. Now that would be an improvement to me. But its still good as is. Just not breathtaking.

5. More Bosses
There aren't many boss types in Skyrim for some reason. Yes, the enemies have some scale to them (e.g. Bandit Thug, Bandit Chief), but it would be even better if, by chance, some dungeons would spawn a powerful boss type (with unique name) from a pool of bosses or a schema for them. That would add to replay value and also generate random loot scaled to the boss.

6. A Horse Indicator
The compass icons are great for navigating around. But sometimes my silly horse runs off and I can't find him. It would be nice to have a horse icon in the compass letting me know where he headed. Easy. Useful.

7. Easier Switch Sets
It would be nice to define sets of apparel and weapons and then switch between them easier. The current system is rather limited and makes switching sets cumbersome. Also, I can no longer put other actions into fast buttons like drinking potions.

8. A First Person Camera for Horse Riding
Not so hard, yet a good option to have. While I'm on horses again, let me shoot bows from my horse in first-person mode.

9. Climbing
It would be fun to actually climb on things. Perhaps some obstacles require climbing or repelling.

10. More Interesting Puzzles
The whale,hawk,snake wheel of fortune puzzles get old real quick. More interesting puzzles my require more environment interactions too, like pushing or picking things up.

I can add more, but will leave it there for now. Thoughts welcome!!!

Waiting for the knuclehead that's going to add multiplayer to this list.

For me, I'd say this game needs more decisions and consequences. This is an RPG, but it's a glass half-full RPG.

More race-specific quests, quest outcomes, dialogue and all-round recognition of your race

Agreed on all points except the climbing one.

It needs some magic creation too, oh and some writers who can, you know, actually write interesting guildquests that last longer then six quests.

11. More spell tomes.

12. More marriageable 'other' races.

13. Hotkeys equip both hands.

I'm traveling down the road on my war horse, my heavy ebony armor glimmering with magical enchantments, a gigantic warhammer slung across my back, seemingly on fire.

An emaciated figure wearing rags and armed with a dagger accosts me, attempting to mug me. I can't get no respect!


I don't mind being attacked by random animals, as they don't know better. But NPCs should be better equipped to tell if they are completely outclassed or not.

So true. And so very funny.....

The one I remember similar to this is when I saved a poor sap from a cage. I snuck around and one-shotted a den of hagravens and this idiot in a loin cloth, who I just set free thinks he's going to off me with a rusty knife. Bam! Gave him a dirt nap. Good times.

Hi there. I agree with your list, and I have a question with #4.


Can you elaborate further, please? Isn't the current soundtrack a complete score? Also, when you say dynamic, I immediately think of improvisation. Like in jazz. Is that (obviously not jazz music itself, but more improvised instruments/pieces) what you mean?

11. Massively improve the really really bad LOD pop-up system. The LOD-line can be just jarring to look at quite often. The constant pop-ups can be quite annoying to watch instantly change right just like 50 meter in front of the player... and it never, ever stops. (I personally think this is one of the most annoying things in Skyrim - since it's ALWAYS there and it NEVER stops... like the mail (reference for Seinfeld fans))
12. Massively improve the lighting in the game. The sky should not change from super-nova white to clear blue by looking down and up.
13. Add not-outdated texture depth methods to the game. The rocky wall surfaces could look so much better if Bethesda had used more up-to-date methods.
14. Less frequent dragon attacks, but more powerful dragon attacks. Make you really fear them.
15. Much better directions in the game's quests. Many quests don't even have any directions at all.
16. More varied generic dialouge. I don't wanna hear the same lines again and again when I walk by someone.

The game is fine as is... we'd always be able to find fault and armchair any game they made. We don't know the ins and outs of 100 people working on a game for years. They made choices that don't necessarily make sense to us, nor are they obligated to justify them to us. Play the game and enjoy it, rather than trying to decide how it could be made better.

Hi,
Yeah, Skyrim has a complete score. But think back to when you watched lord of the rings or star wars movies and notice how the music was always shifting to what was happening on the screen. In sync. Skyrim is a lot like an interactive movie. So rather than just playing the "walking around" music or the "fighting" music, make it more intense.

As for dynamic, there are games where the music will change tempo as the battle nears an end. Say you are almost dead and the music gets more intense and builds up and when you hit your final blow to win the battle, the music rewards you with a climix and finish! Orchestra style. Now many will claim this breaks immersion, but to me, it should be like great movies and get your heart pounding. That's all.

These are good. I noticed early on, that I feared bears more than I did dragons. Someone told me that's because I'm a Dragonborn. Ok, maybe I buy that, but I still fear bears and I'm lvl 37. Something not balanced there...

The overly used generic dialogue breaks immersion quite a bit for me. The algorithm should be rather simple to avoid lots of repetition that sounds silly.

I bet if you asked the developers they would disagree with you. They will want to improve this game over and over and they already have 100's of ideas to do it. We offer them ours and our feedback is useful for future versions! Its a win-win!

11 - I've noticed this as well, but assumed it was because my laptop requires running the game on the lowest possible gfx settings. What settings level do you run?
12 - I just thank God IRL isn't like this. You couldn't look at a white car without going blind. Crossing the street would take on a whole new level of caution.
15 - Oh goodness yes. Yes, yes, and yes.
16 - I'd settle for NPCs simply recognizing me and not asking me the same question every time I walk past. I'm Thane of your city and have spent hours upon hours at your forge! Yes I know your stupid father is the stupid avisor to the jarl! hahaha

Methinks you haven't actually seen a bear in a while? I'm around L.23 and was thinking the same way until I randomly came across a bear again and cut through him like butter. Maybe he could have still done some decent dmg to me, but my dmg output is so much higher now he didn't get the chance. For the record, I haven't powerleveled any profession. I'm rocking a dwemer axe and the skyforge sword with 1h skill at around 65 (and perked).

I absolutely agree with all of these. I would also like to add:

11.) Better progression system
There is nothing worse than coming to the end of your journey in an RPG. Unfortunately in Skyrim this does not come with closing credits or a glorious boss fight. No, it isn't the story or content that ends quickly, it is the character progression. The itemization in Skyrim is extremely shallow. For all intents and purposes, there are only 11 weapons for you to choose from. However, those are not all lateral choices with advantages and disadvantages of each - no - those are "tiers" of gear. Meaning, you really only have 1 weapon to choose from. Once you acquire the 11th weapon (Daedric) there are no more upgrades. That is it. No matter how difficult of a boss you just killed was, or if you find a weapon 30+ levels later, that is the same item. So, your item progression effectively ends.

The way leveling works in Skyrim further is a bit backwards. Using skills advances character level. Once you reach a skill cap, using that skill no longer advances character level. Once you have capped out your Primary skills all to 100, you effectively stop leveling, unless you break character and use an entirely different style of play you intended your character to use, or enjoy playing. That's fine that Skyrim does not use a traditional XP model, however, the sense of progression still needs to continue.

Solutions:

For itemization, the best solution is to have items scale. The tiers of items need to be reevaluated and improved upon. Values need to scale and there needs to be a LOT more unique items and items with randomized stats, making dungeon crawling, exploring, and questing have a purpose outside of just advancing the storyline. For players like me that means, there is always hope for an upgrade despite the fact at lvl 24 you have an enchanted Daedric Weapon, and full Enchanted set of Dragonscale and ring/amulet.

For levels the solution is pretty easy. The skill hard cap of 100 becomes a soft cap. After you hit 100, you can still raise your skills through using them, however, the pace in which you gain levels and skill ups decreases significantly. Further, a Perk Mastery system (Alternate Advancement) would be fantastic. This would allow you to further increase your perks' effectiveness and grant you unique abilities or modifications of existing ones. For example: For archery, you could add in effects to arrows that are headshots, leg shots, and arms. A headshot might deal 2x damage, a leg shot might slow your target and an arrow to the arm might have a chance of disarming your opponent. (These are arbitrary examples)

you lack examples on how to do these changes I'm looking at change #2

also to #3 there is a third-person view option

We could expand this list to well over 100 suggestions, ranging from the critical to the nit-picky, but since they can't really do much to change the 'thing' the released, it's pretty much useless.

What really makes me lose it are stupid/obvious things like:
- I can only wear 1 ring. What?
- Arrow-smithing.
- Crafting skills need to be balanced (every one knows it).
- Less Generic NPCs (impossible by now I guess except on PC)
- Fighting while riding a horse.
- Improve UI (menus just don't cut it but I think it's also impossible by now)
- Follower/Horse markers
...and many, many, many more.

1. Let us bind sets of spells/weapons to any key
2. Replace fortify skill with more balanced effects
3. Put a cooldown on instant potions/poisons to prevent spam (IE make them useable for those who don't want to exploit)
4. More sensible mana costs and durations for spells, destruction in particular
5. More faction content
6. Slower strafing and backwards movement
7. Revamp perks: remove perk trees and use a more open prerequisite system instead + balance things better
8. Allow NPCs to use more spells, potions, etc. as well as line of sight or retreat (better AI)
9. Fix the interface
10. Real lighting instead of the weird static lights + allow us to use and move candles, lanterns





Those are the main things I've noticed need doing so far.

Good suggestions. But its definitely not useless to offer these ideas to the developers by now. There will certainly be DLC, expansion packs, etc and they want to entice people to buy those by adding things "people want"! Its a win-win!

Ok I get your point but I'm NOT paying more for features that should have been in the game in the first place.

DLC is cool, ohhh~ new content, new areas, thingies and shinies.

How about you make sure vanilla is playable, balanced and corrects errors/bugs your previous installments/games have made obvious?

Nope, I'm just gonna go to another company, buy their game and see if they can do a better job because this game's lack of diversity, gameplay and options encourages me to do so.

If there's so much of a you-choose-who-you-want-to-be hype about this game, how come I can't deny becoming Harbringer or the leader of the mages' guild or DB? I mean, I'm a brute and I get to be titled, what... Arch-Mage? Can't I do the quests and then just say no, thanks, you'll never hear from me again if you do? There ain't really much choices. Not enough features either, and the ones that made it, are useless or break the game.

Object popping is very noticeable for me, maxed settings.



This is kind of a bad attitude to have about it. Just because the game isn't perfect, or even has serious flaws, doesn't mean things "should have been in the game in the first place". They worked a long time on the game regardless, it wouldn't be unreasonable to charge for improvements to it. I'd buy a 20$ DLC in a heartbeat if it fixed the UI and controls, made a lot of solid changes to balance combat, improved AI, etc. etc.

Content DLC is nice, but more general game improvements would give far more extra hours of gameplay just by making the loads of content it already has more fun to replay. Combat especially, since it's so much of the game.

Fallout new vegas type decisions. Hell in Fallout 3 you could decide whether to blow up an entire town with a nuke or not.

Those $20 could be put to much better use, really.

Read between lines, I'm not perfect, nothing is. I don't mind a couple of flaws, bugs, glitches, some may even be funny or considered easter eggs. It's ok, really.

But how about not being able to play at all because of bugs and glitches that are pretty much unavoidable? Look at the PS3 guys, is that fair?
Look at the PC guys, if not for modders they would have the worst of it. Xbox was a bit better off the bat, but then v1.2 came out.

IMHO, which may or may not differ with yours, and respectfully so I would like to hear it: yes, I'll admit this game is good. The graphics kick ass big time, it's simple, made for FPS players and those with barbaric level IQs to actually enjoy the game (remember Morrowind? Always funny to watch someone new play it). But what they improved in graphics, they went backwards in gameplay.

I fully agree with magic creation. IMHO I think they just dumped spell making because they screwed it up in Oblivion and didn't put in how to delete old spells. For some odd reason out of laziness or it just plain slipped their minds. So in Skyrim they just became more lazy and dropped it altogether.