Stuff like Karma, speech checks for more complex quests, hardcoe mode (new vegas).

It seems like as you add these features you should try to implement them into subsequent games, right?

Those are all Fallout mechanics, and Bethesda didn't make New Vegas.

A lot of people dislike the Karma thing because very few actions are just good or evil. I do wish they had more of a town/faction based rep system though.

But I agree about the speech checks, one of the best parts of Fallout 3 (while not TES, still a decent RPG) is being able to solve many things diplomatically.

Resources, time and balance.

That's pretty much it.

Yeah, NV is made by Obsidian. Besides that, Fallout itself was an older (great Franchise) that Bethesda purchased and continued with FO3. They tried to bring some of their sensitibities to it, while keeping true to what Fallout already was. TES is the only RPG they've done "in house" from the ground up. Karma on the other hand is specifically Obsidian.. they're repeating a lot of things they've done in other games (much of their RPG stuff is D&D based.. NWN2, KoToR2,etc).

I think there are many faults, but you're being dramatic (again). I think they can make good games. And they don't gut everything out. It'd be a completely different game, unlike anything we've ever seen from TES, if that was the case.

I do wish Skyrim had a reputation system like in Oblivion.

Then I'm sure you can show us how it's done. Beth games get better and better.

May I ask what games you do enjoy?

You should be able to infer that he liked at least one of the previous ES games - probably Morrowind, I'd guess.

Ah, yes but I meant other than the TES-series

He enjoys Morrowind and Daggerfall, and believes any game with some innovative ideas are rubbish, that only old games are any good.
I guess it's stating the obvious when I say that I've had a 'difference of opinion' with him before?

The idea behind TES that "you can play any way you, there is no right or wrong way to play TES". Karma steers characters towards moral choices based on the designer's perception of morality, but in TES you are supposed to make your own view on what is moral. Besides, the system in Skyrim is based on what people in the world will 'know' about, if you kill an innocent person without anyone seeing it, people will not suddenly start regarding you as evil. Do someone a favour and they will regard you as a friend, doing favours for people they don't know or care about won't make them any more inclined to like you.

Other mechanics such as the disposition system of Morrowind or Oblivion where simply annoying and out-of-character.

1. There are speech checks, it just doesn't read like [15% chance to succeed] it just has the check there and does the roll behind the scenes

2. Those are Fallout elements. Fallout specific, and hardcoe mode would be by Obsidian, not Bethesda.

A couple of comments, first being that perhaps Beth 'just chose not to...', and second, the funny thing about skyrim, with no morality system, is that we don't have people coming onto the forums declaring that they have wiped out entire towns or cleared the map of people. Fallout 3, and FNV, both had the psychotics...

I find it interesting that we haven't had much (if any) of that here.

This has been happening with every TES release. We lost the most features from Daggerfall to Morrowind and from Morrowind to Oblivion.

I still miss Mark, Recall, Levitation, Throwing Stars/Knives/Darts, Crossbows, Spears, Climbing, and Divine Intervention, among other spells and features cut out of the series. Also, during Daggerfall character creation when you can choose character traits such as acute hearing, skill with a particular item, and severe weaknesses.

Your argument is one sided as you have left out what we have gained (or made a return) since those titles.

To name a few,

Dual Wield anything including spells
Raising the dead
Perks (imo, the best thing)
Radiant story (although not massive impact, just the introduction of this is wetting my appitite for the future)

I could go on but no real need.

There are no perks, radiant story, dual wielding, or raising of the dead (without the Staff of Worms or powers) in Oblivion, which was what I was addressing (the fact that they've removed many features and most of that removal happened in Morrowind and Oblivion). I don't care about the content they've added that adds more gameplay features, I want more roleplaying features. Taking away roleplaying features and adding repeatable quests is not what I want in TES. I like the repeatable quests, but I'd rather have a finite amount of quests and a huge assortment of weaponry to choose from, as well as being able to make my character leave the sewer with 4 overpowered character traits, or an entire list of weaknesses that makes it difficult in many situations. Those fine details bring my character to life, and removing them and saying "You can further characterize your character since you can dual wield swords!" does not do it for me.

I'm very glad you can't get crippled in Skyrim, that would have just ruined the game for me.

That's why you re~work them rather than just flatly remove them.

There is no real disposition system in Skyrim at all.

Perks are absolutely NOT a gain, perks are practically a loss the way they were done in Skyrim.

I'm all for Fallout style perks, but when you have perk trees replacing the actual skill as far as effectiveness goes, I'm out. Do you know what a perk is? It's a bonus, an extra. So why should I have to take increased damage perks just so that the combat scales correctly as I level up?

Many perks completely negate the character of the skill as well (perks that make heavy or light armor have no weight or that make it impossible to break lockpicks for example), and other perks are almost entirely useless.

Overall the entire skill/perk system was a disappointment, here I was hoping for Oblivion style skills with Fallout style perks before Skyrim's release but I guess that was too good to be true.

A Perk to make Lockpicks unbreakable.

Instant Skeleton Key.

I don't think Karma really applies to TES as much as behaving by the Divines/Daedric standards. But, to do that, you'd have way too many variables to make it worthwhile. I get why people want it though, because there's not much of a judge of your character besides your own anolysis. Personally, I wish there was more response from the cities/holds for your actions besides just greetings. You know, if you do certain things people should remain loving/hating of you.

But, it's all good. Bethesda tries to make a new TES game with each one, so I'm sure they'll make TES VI with a lot of changes in mind. Unless they go mainstream and the world explodes.

I miss Spears, throwing weapons, crossbows, house factions, the ranking system in factions along with the things you need in order to rank up, miss a ton of artifacts, miss the more in-depth stuff instead of just a watered down go here and there with no clues just an arrow. a ton of other stuff too but i'm not going to type that all out.

I think this shows how hard it is to make a game that appeals to everyone. Without crippling, attacks that bypass armor, stealthed opponents, etc. Skyrim's creatures are weak and frankly boring to fight. (Even dragons are easy. Use a potion of the relevant energy resistance and just wait for them to land, then beat them to death.) But add any or all of those things and other people who want to explore rather than be challenged in combat get angry.

Someone who designs AI and difficulty settings in games once told me that 98+% of people play games below the difficulty level their playskill would warrant (this was for chess and strategy games rather than RPG's.) Adding a monster like Lonesome Road's Deathclaws would make Skyrim a good challenge, but it would enrage the 98% of people who don't want to be challenged.