SNIP
-Lousy DLC
SNIP
-Skills being fused together to create new named skills(ex short swords skill and long sword skill to create the "swords" skill)
SNIP
1.
Dragonborn wasn't too bad. Not SI levels of good, but fairly decent in it's own right.
2. That would be a massive improvement over the "One Handed," "Two Handed," and "Marksman" skills we got in
Skyrim. Honestly, putting "swords" as one skill always made sense to me.
Since pretty much everyone has put pretty plausible predictions, I'll instead put up my wishlist for the game.
1. A soft reboot. Go back to before
Oblivion but after
Morrowind and branch off into an alternate universe. The Fourth Era wasn't well executed, IMHO.
2. Either a). a return to Morrowind, with Vvardenfell being the same size as it was in
Morrowind and the rest of the province being modeled on that, or b). a game taking place in all of Tamriel, using Cyrodiil from
Oblivion as the scale.
3. Two game modes, one based on
Skyrim for the "dirty casuals," and one based on (but improved from)
Morrowind for everyone else. The
Skyrim mode would use all the same gameplay mechanics, while the
Morrowind mode would have tweaked and fixed mechanics from
Morrowind alongside a quest marker and fast travel that can be toggled on or off.
4. Different styles of weapons and armor for different races. A Nord wouldn't craft steel armor the same way as an Imperial, and an Altmer would craft it different from either of them. Each armor and weapon would have a racial style, and perhaps a few extras for funsies (the differences would be pretty much aesthetic, and perhaps a minor disposition bonus.)
5. Expanded weapon types. Divide weapon skills into Blades, Axes, Blunt Weapons, Spears, Archery, and perhaps the addition of muskets and flintlocks into something like Firearms (nothing really more advanced than that, unless you want the Dwemer to get in onto it.)
6. More people. IIRC, the township of Gnisis has more unique NPCs in it than the city of Solitude. There definitely needs to be more people in the cities.
7. Less dialogue per character, compared to Morrowind. Actually, I should say less "repeated" dialogue per character. I would much rather have unique and interesting characters compared to the boring mess that is
Morrowind's dialogue.
8a. More voice actors. Bring in more than one voice actor, per race. Ideally, get many voice actors with distinctive voices, or get a few voice actors with great range.
8b. Use the popular voice actors more or not at all. If you hire Patrick Stewart, he better damn well be playing a really important character with a lot of dialogue and screentime. Otherwise, don't bother.
9. Make certain things more lore-friendly. For example, in "The Ruins of Kemel-Ze," dwarven constructs are said to be vulnerable to frost magic, and yet it's never really mattered in any of the games. The little things sometimes matter the most.
10a. No radiant quests.
10b. Give us quests that don't involve killing everything or give us a good reason to kill things/fetch things/deliver things. The former has an example in the second quest of
Morrowind's Imperial Legion questline, where you have to cure a Kwama Queen. It's very simple, no need to gather ingredients or perform a complex ritual, you just find a scroll or spell of Cure Blight and cure the queen. The thing is, it feels like you're making a difference and you don't feel bogged down.
11. Hire a few really good writers. If at all possible, get people like JE Sawyer and Chris Avellone. I'm not even kidding here, those would be awesome to have on the staff.
12. Fire a few really bad writers. Looking at you, Emil.