The next Elder Scrolls game

[Kendo 2]

After FO4 I lost interest in Bethesda games, but honestly I started wondering 'Why am I bothering?' with Skyrim.  Bethesda is rapidly edging towards action shooters with minimal RPG elements.  There are better games made by better companies in that genre.  Bethesda wants to do something they're not capable of doing but they're building their games like they can, and cutting the content that made their games interesting in the process.  In their shoes I'd double down on the RPG elements and offer something other game companies don't.

 

Bethesda did the survival pvp/pve thing with redacted and they're late to the party.  Everyone is doing battle royal mode now and when Bethesda catches up to that people will be doing something else.  Bethesda is like 'the cool kid' in a small town who's 5 years behind the times, but still thinks he's hot shit.  They should go back to their RPG roots but that ain't gonna happen.

[FauxFurry]

On 12/21/2018 at 4:55 PM, roger11 said:

one of wishlists for the next Elder Scrolls,

 

Being a Jarl or a leader of a city. Build a city. Some type of settlement system that can be automated or controlled. 

 

Use the bandits for labor work or other uses

 

More Vampire lore, skills and other features

 

 

Let's see how they performance after the fallout 76 issues. 

 

There won't be any Jarls since it won't be taking place in Skyrim. If the next game is set in Summerset Isles or Valenwood, then the player might be able to become a matriarch or possibly The Silvenar.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Keep in mind that actual development on TES VI likely isn't even happening yet. If they're really intent on releasing Starfield first, that will be an excellent litmus test of whether we should be hopeful or get those pitchforks ready. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sharpen my pitchfork just in case I get a chance at any exec in BS or Zeni.

[FauxFurry]

1 hour ago, Kendo 2 said:

After FO4 I lost interest in Bethesda games, but honestly I started wondering 'Why am I bothering?' with Skyrim.  Bethesda is rapidly edging towards action shooters with minimal RPG elements.  There are better games made by better companies in that genre.  Bethesda wants to do something they're not capable of doing but they're building their games like they can, and cutting the content that made their games interesting in the process.  In their shoes I'd double down on the RPG elements and offer something other game companies don't.

 

Bethesda did the survival pvp/pve thing with redacted and they're late to the party.  Everyone is doing battle royal mode now and when Bethesda catches up to that people will be doing something else.  Bethesda is like 'the cool kid' in a small town who's 5 years behind the times, but still thinks he's hot shit.  They should go back to their RPG roots but that ain't gonna happen.

If they knew what they were doing anymore, they'd have scooped up some of the writers from TellTale to make an open world game with an emphasis on storytelling rather than combat. The best mods show how much potential there is in the Creation Engine for that kind of game.

Interesting NPCs, for example, show just how many flags there can be set to trigger NPC 'barks' let alone dialogue choices based upon gender, race and even character weight and clothing choices. It seems that each slider choice could potentially act as a trigger for a new set of dialogue responses. Every choice in player customization could affect NPC reactions if the developer so chooses. Each choice could be a new modifier for one's interactions with the world's populace. 

 

They have everything that they need to produce RPGs of paralleled depth right now but they are concerned with chasing trends.

[thelordofroses]

20 hours ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

Keep in mind that actual development on TES VI likely isn't even happening yet. If they're really intent on releasing Starfield first, that will be an excellent litmus test of whether we should be hopeful or get those pitchforks ready. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sharpen my pitchfork just in case I get a chance at any exec in BS or Zeni.

Yep starfield first then gameplay video then maybe or maybe not pitchforks and torches and an inevitable spongebob reference

[Outlast1]

On 12/24/2018 at 3:34 PM, thelordofroses said:

Yes, from this teaser we can gather that we will have 4 new races, we will get back skills form oblivion, the mist tells us the Chameleon Effect from oblivion will make a return. Cliff racers will repopulate again terrorizing everyone. also everyone will be wearing bikinis from the start. on a more serious note its expected to be released after starfield. so 2022/4 placing my bet on 02/22/22

Oh I am not using a pitch fork anymore I got me a brand new shiny CC created horse armor save-player 1 dont you guys have phones pitch fork limited edition marked down at Christmas for 5000 Atoms from 8000 atoms including nuka dark Molotov plastic bottle included platinum edition. I also bought me a limited edition it just never works privliedged gamers torch for only the 1/2 of 2500. I am also baking me some Gamers got woke ginger bread nades as well. :3 but seriously I am not honestly expecting Beth/Zen to utilize a new engine cause why would they? they are making a killing now why stop.

[D_ManXX2]

I wonder how long this thread will remain open once bethesda start doing a fallout 76 on the new elderscrolls. 

[patches13]

I'm not super interested in a Bethesda game set in high fantasy space. But hopefully they will take the good and bad from Fallout 4/76/Skyrim and apply that to make the game better than the last 3. I could see myself playing it if they brought the storytelling back, environmental storytelling, better graphics, full mod support, and no micro-transactions.

[phillout]

On 12/28/2018 at 9:13 PM, patches13 said:

I'm not super interested in a Bethesda game set in high fantasy space. But hopefully they will take the good and bad from Fallout 4/76/Skyrim and apply that to make the game better than the last 3.

You mean better settlement building?

/s

[NickNozownik]

In my opinion the next TES game will be like this:
 

Spoiler

 

1. ATTRIBUTES

lol no

 

2. SPEARS, CROSSBOWS, THROWING WEAPONS

Buy DLC plz/lol no

 

3. SPELLMAKING

Pffff. Sure

 

4. CRIME

Basically Skyrim

 

5. COMBAT SYSTEM

Slightly improved Skyrim because polishing the same turd over and over again will eventually work

 

6. PERSUASION

Nah

 

7. DIALOGUE CHOICES

B) HATE BANDITS

 

8. QUESTS

Kill the badmen, get 50 gold

 

9. MODS

Paid because modders deserve more recognition for their work, so here, have a penny

jk lol give it back

 

10. RETURN OF THE DWEMER

They are now evil and for some reason they want to destroy the entire world so you must stop them/lol no that's effort

 

11. DLC

YES.  VERY YES. Give me $$$

 

 

[Content Consumer]

 

https://www.criticalhit.net/gaming/heres-a-meaty-list-of-wild-new-rumours-for-the-elder-scrolls-vi/

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Well, I saw a video stating 2025 was TES VI's release year. Not sure I believe it's real. But if it is, we have five years to convince them to do better or do nothing and likely receive an even more "streamlined" game than FO4/76. Maybe even have them pull an Activision and auto-claim any and all mods.

 

Because my confidence in Bugthesda has been shot to hell, I'll go on record and say it now: it was nice while it lasted. I still have Morrowind, Oblivion, and a heavily patched Skyrim; they can't take those away (because I own physical copies/backups of them).

[Content Consumer]

So what will the next Elder Scrolls game contain? Judging by Bethesda's behavior so far, we can certainly anticipate some things.

First, some background.

 

Spoiler

Fallout 2 had super mutants, so Fallout 3 must have super mutants. Despite the fact that super mutants were created by the Master in FO1 using a gengineered virus that is now eliminated. There must be a new special subtype of super mutant. There must be a character from a previous game who is present or at least referenced.
Fallout 3 had super mutants, so Fallout 4 must have super mutants. Yes, the virus has been eliminated TWICE now, but we're bringing it back for nonsensical reasons because its a fallout game and it must have super mutants. Creativity? What a funny word, what does it mean?

Fallout 2 had Nuka Cola, so Fallout 3 must have Nuka Cola. There must be a new rare subtype of nuka cola, and an associated quest.
Fallout 3 had Nuka Cola and a rare subtype, so in Fallout 4 the rare subtype must now be very common. There must be several new rare subtypes of nuka cola. There may be a quest, or an entire large DLC based around nuka cola.

Fallout 2 had a drug called Jet, so Fallout 3 must have Jet, despite the fact that Jet was created by a guy who died not but a few years after he made it. There may be a new rare subtype of Jet, and an associated quest.
Fallout 3 had a drug called Jet, so Fallout 4 must have Jet, including in pre-war stockpiles that could not have had jet because it was not invented until after the war. The previously rare subtype of jet is now common and there may be multiple new subtypes of Jet.

Fallout 2 had the Enclave, so Fallout 3 must have the Enclave, despite the fact that the Enclave was completely destroyed in Fallout 2 and left no remnants.
Shockingly, Fallout 4 does not have the Enclave. Based on past Bethesda behaviors, someone must have had a stroke to leave this out.

Fallout 2 had the Brotherhood of Steel, a small paramilitary group dedicated to the preservation of technology. Therefore, Fallout 3 must have the Brotherhood of Steel, a large world-spanning organization with multiple offshoots dedicated to doing whatever the hell they want.
Fallout 3 had the Brotherhood of Steel, so Fallout 4 must have the Brotherhood of Steel, who consume a large amount of the plot. Their leader must be a character from the previous game, and there must be several mentions of other characters from the previous game.

Fallout 2 had vertibirds, so Fallout 3 must have vertibirds. Fallout 3 had vertibirds, so Fallout 4 must have vertibirds.
Fallout 2 had radscorpions, so Fallout 3 must have radscorpions, despite the fact that radscorpions were an entirely western thing. Similarly, Fallout 4 must have radscorpions. There must now be unique subtypes, which are then turned into common subtypes.
Fallout 2 had giant ants - bloatflies - ghouls - molerats - Mr. Handys - So FO3/4 must have them, with unique subtypes that become common subtypes etcetera etcetera.

Fallout 2 had power armor, which was super rare and very powerful. So Fallout 3 must have power armor, which is common and easy to obtain, but requires a special skill to use properly.
Fallout 3 had power armor, which means Fallout 4 must have power armor, even more common and now lacking a special skill, and far less effective.

I'm not going to continue the list. Bethesda saw Fallout 2 and said "let's hamfistedly jam in as many elements as we can despite the fact that most of it makes no sense and goes against canon."
I'm not going to go into the sheer massive stupidity that was the story and writing of Fallout 3. That shit is bonkers and deserves to be drowned in shit and lit on fire.

Oblivion had Nirnroot. It was a special item, very rare, with an associated quest.
Therefore, Skyrim must have Nirnroots, respawning, and lots of them. The associated quest must at least mention someone from the nirnroot quest in Oblivion. There may be multiple nirnroot quests. There should be a new special subtype of nirnroot.

Oh god I'll never complete this list. Shivering Isles, varla and welkynd stones, solstheim, the goddamn daedric artifacts that somehow managed to all appear in whatever area the player is in for each game, etc.
There are differences! The Dwemer in Morrowind were very different from the Dwemer in Skyrim, architecturally speaking. Of course, it turns out that the current political boundaries of Skyrim were in place for the entirety of history and prehistory, because this is explained away by saying the Dwemer in Skyrim were a different clan or something like that.
Goddamnit - even their creative side must contain idiocies. The Elder Scrolls does a much better job than the Fallout series in that regard, but it's still a bit fucked up.
I'm not saying everything has to be different. For one thing, most of it makes more sense to have in all games. It does no good to have Orcish armor in Oblivion but not in Skyrim, for example. Same with the enemies for the most part. But any new things added in Skyrim will undoubtedly be brought back in the next game.
 

 

 

So, the list.

 

Spoiler

• Nirnroot. Probably with a dozen different subtypes and a quest to collect one of each. Every dungeon in the game will have Crimson Nirnroot in it.
• Thalmor, with a unique subtype or subtypes and a couple of named characters from Skyrim. There will be a sub-faction of Thalmor with a special name that supposedly does a special thing. A Thalmor Special Forces of some kind.
• Chaurus, either everywhere underground or possibly as a unique enemy type found only in one place.
• A dragon. Or two. Possibly several, but definitely not a large number. If only one dragon, it may be nonhostile and a quest giver.
• Either Dwemer ruins or Aldmer ruins or both, but at least one must be present in large quantities.
• Probably not nord ruins, dragon shouts, draugr, or dragon priests. Possibly just one ruin.
• Two or three named characters from Skyrim, Oblivion, or Morrowind will either be present or at least be mentioned. Rumors will contain information about the happenings of Skyrim.
• Undoubtedly the same for ESO - some unique named characters will make a cameo appearance while Todd Howard dry-humps the front door of Bethesda's corporate offices.
• The above two points are dependent on the game taking place at around the same time or slightly after Skyrim. If it takes place before Skyrim, probably just references from Oblivion, Morrowind, and ESO.
• By the way - the game will probably take place around the same time as Skyrim. Possibly slightly before, possibly slightly after. And by "slightly" I mean within a few years, maybe a decade - nothing like the gap between Skyrim and Oblivion, which quite frankly surprised and impressed me.
• Most of the gameplay elements found in Skyrim and Fallout 4 will be present, if slightly altered. Some will be simplified or dumbed down and many idiots will state with absolute conviction that this is much better. Some mechanics will be improved and many idiots will state with absolute conviction that this is much worse. Bears will continue to poop in the woods.
• ^Sometimes it'll be the same idiot on different days, or making self-contradictory posts. Kinda like the idiot writing this list.^
• Speaking of bears, predator animals will continue to significantly outnumber prey animals.
• Attributes will undoubtedly be limited to Health, Magicka, and Stamina.
• Standing stones will give one-shot permanent buffs and there will be a quest to collect them all.
• Skills will be entirely missing or renamed and used as perks. There will be no skill trees, but a perk tree is possible. Some mutation may take place and it may become a badge system or something equally... not dumb, but definitely not in line with what the series used to have.
• Leveling will be XP-based.
• Vampires and werewolves will be present. They may or may not be something you can become.
• Races will probably be relatively unchanged from what they are now. Expect minor differences in racial powers and abilities, but not stats.
• Player Characters will be mechanically indistinguishable from game to game. Specialization will be minimal and greatly overshadowed by generalization in play styles.
• Player character appearance customization will include two hairstyles per gender and seven thousand beards for males. It will used a 2d weight-height-muscle system ala Fallout 4.
• There may be a unique item Ancient Dwemer Fire-Tube that shoots pieces of metal with a loud bang. The next ES game after that will include several of them and a unique subtype, and the one after that will include dozens or hundreds and several unique subtypes. And yea, there will be quests, unto the ninth generation thereunto. DLC may introduce rapid-fire versions.
• Frankly, I'm kinda surprised there hasn't already been an Ancient Dwemer Fire-Tube.
• Cover-based shooting mechanics will be present in some fashion.
• There will be an arena and gladitorial fights, just as there was in Fallout 3 and Oblivion and would have been in Skyrim if time and budget had allowed.
• All the daedric artifacts will make a comeback. Who knows - there may be more.
• Sheogorath will return and make a personal appearance, because apparently he's very popular. Or maybe they just like the voice actor, I dunno. He'll have lines dealing with cheese and beards.
• There will be settlement building, and crafting out the ass. There will be several unique subtypes of forge/alchemy lab/enchanting table, each one dealing with a different kind of magical theme.
• There probably won't be a battle royale mode, but there will undoubtedly be a DLC with an AI equivalent. And here I'm obviously assuming this will be a single-player game.
• There will be several more minigames based around gathering resources, including wood chopping, mining, gathering crops, milling, cutting down trees, etcetera.
• There will be several quest chains and factions. These factions will all have you as their leader by the end, or possibly after the first or second mission.
• There will be radiant quests out the ass. These radiant quests will be superior to the system used in Skyrim, but not by much. Each will contain twenty or thirty lines of dialogue that will play randomly. These radiant quests may include more objectives than "go kill this dude" or "go retrieve this item" but the differences will be based around minigames or settlement building.
• There will be some idiotic attempt at lampshading horse armor, but will in execution merely be a reference to horse armor. It will be sad and pathetic but dipshits will post eight hundred memes of it and other dipshits will LOL. Various games journalists will cream their pants with how funny and self-aware Bethesda is.
• The game will run like shit on existing hardware. Recommended requirements will include the new 27-core processor and a graphics card with fifty gigs of vram, and one terabyte of hard drive space.
• It will be massively buggy at launch, and several (but not all) of the more obvious or problematic bugs will be fixed in a patch that comes out three months later. The game will be "supported" after launch by three to four major patches over the next year, then a dozen or so smaller patches that don't fix any bugs or do anything major specifically to add in DLC and paid mod support (or whatever they're going to end up calling paid mods to make it seem like they're not paid mods). Each patch, regardless of what it contains, even if it is a patch that only changes the font size of the credits screen from 11 to 12 points, will have patch notes that include the phrase "general stability improvements" or an equivalent.
• The previous line is my entry for the National Obvious Statement Award competition.
• Elements from previous games, Skyrim's DLC, and two or three of the most popular mods will be included.
• The leveling system will be stupidly broken and include something that people can make heat-maps for.
• It will cost $69.99 USD for the base game and $110 for the season pass which will include 2 medium-sized DLC on par with Nuka World, and four minor DLC that includes a single smallish dungeon that is fundamentally identical to the already existing smallish dungeons, or two new swords that are fundamentally identical to existing swords and severely underpowered compared to the custom items you can make at a forge or enchanting table.
• A plethora of dolls, statues, toys, or other anthropomorphic objects placed into "amusing" poses or vignettes.
• If there are troll creatures or troll-equivalents, and if there are goat creatures or goat-equivalents, there will be a three billy goats gruff reference. Maybe more than one.
• At some point up to ten years after the game comes out, there will be a youtube video: Top Ten Hilarious Things You Didn't Know Were In The Latest Elder Scrolls Game. This top-ten list will include the three-billy-goats-gruff reference, the horse armor reference, and a variety of other references, many of them from this list, that only the truly mentally challenged would consider "hilarious." By the way - "a youtube video" should probably be "several youtube videos."
• The AI will be... you know, at this point all I'm doing is just making absurdly obvious observations. I'm also turning into a real grouch and basically just throwing passive-aggressive bitches at Skyrim. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.
• By the way - several things on this list are features I'm not actually griping about. Quite frankly, a lot of this list wouldn't displease me necessarily.
   

 

[winny257]

The Elder Scroll rolls downward,

what remains is a bunch of garbage 

[Content Consumer]

DBF just made a post on his blog that made me write this up. https://itsbluefrog.tumblr.com/

 

It's one of my pet peeves about the Elder Scrolls.

• ES2: Daggerfall City had a population of 110,000.
• ES3: Vivec had a population of 417.
• ES4: The Imperial City had a population of 194.
• ES5: Solitude had a population of 62.

That's just population though, but it is representative of size.

• Daggerfall had slums, high-class areas, two (or three depending on your point of view) market districts, a main castle, gardens, a banking district, etc, and literally thousands of civilians walking the streets during the day, going about their business.
• Vivec had several different Cantons, each with a different sort of theme, but there weren't any people walking around, really. Just a small handful. The rest were all standing in their places of business doing their jobs. Made it seem smaller.
• Imperial City had plenty of people walking around, to make the city seem larger, but this paper-thin veneer went away if you spent a lot of time there. Still, at least it had several different regions in the city, such as a poor docks area, the wealthy district, market, etc.
• Solitude has a sort of market district, a docks, and two castles, but beyond that it's... not a lot.

Part of the problem is customized NPCs take more effort.

• While Daggerfall city had 110,000 citizens, they were all randomly generated, save maybe 10-20 NPCs up in the castle. That holds true for all of the major castles in ES2 - the game has 15,000 cities but all but maybe 40 of them are based on the RNG.
• In Morrowind, I really have no idea whether all NPCs were customized or just randomized, but even if they were custom NPCs, there wasn't much customization to do. A weaponsmith in one town is pretty much identical to the weaponsmith of another.
• Oblivion went a lot further. Aside from bandits and their ilk, every NPC in the game is unique.
• Skyrim didn't make much of a jump though. Considering the sheer drop in numbers of population inversely echoing the increase in uniqueness from game to game, you'd expect the NPCs in Skyrim to be far more fleshed out than in Oblivion, but they're basically the same.

It's a lot easier to make populated cities if you don't worry so damn much about voice acting too.

• Daggerfall had no voice acting. At least, none that I can remember. There were voices, but all generic except for a small handful of Truly Unique Characters.
• In Morrowind, if you play a drinking game for every time some idiot guard says "Mournhold! City of Light! City of Magic!" in the exact same gravely voice, your liver will quickly explode. There were more voice actors, but about the same numberof Truly Unique Characters. And none of the actual dialogue was ever voiced.
• Oblivion went all-in on the voice acting, which by necessity meant that there were fewer lines overall. While in Morrowind you could spend pages giving someone's backstory or the highlights of the local area, basically all you had in Oblivion were one voice actor per race/gender, more or less.
• Skyrim expands on Oblivion's voice acting too, but only about as much as the difference between unique NPCs in Oblivion-Skyrim. So their faces look different, but you've still got the entire province populated by half a dozen danes and swedes.

Of course, technology limits it too. And development time. And imagination.

 

So let's project this into the future. Elder Scrolls Six will have a major city with:

• A major city with 20 named characters.
• One castle, one market district, and one housing district.
• Each NPC will have a unique appearance.
• Each NPC will have a unique voice actor.

 

I hope they start moving backwards, actually. I'd love to see 20 unique characters and 500 randos in a city. Give the randos -unvoiced- dialogue ala Morrowind and you won't have to spend your entire budget on voice acting, which will mean you can actually do this. Non-player-interactive catcalls, NPC-NPC chatting, and that sort of thing can be voiced, but I really wouldn't mind hearing the same talk about the local shops or mudcrabs every few minutes. Arrow-to-the-knee is a meme, sure, but I don't think anyone simply couldn't play Skyrim because of it.

[Wolfstorm321]

A date was leaked, the game will come out in 2024. It will have, initially, Highrock and Hammerfell. They already made 70% of Hammerfell. I saw the news in YouTube.

 

They are using procedurally-generated terrain, like in Oblivion, but with a new technology. The game will also feature ship battles.

 

If they deliver the entire continent, and provide modding tools, and we have a bodyslide and a racemenu, it could get better than Skyrim, but I doubt it. Most gaming companies are going in the wrong direction, releasing easy games with horrible graphics, with chromatic aberration and washed-out colors, with that horrible yellow-purple "retro" filter. I cant imagine they delivering something like Skyrim, graphic-wise. As for the combat, Elder Snares Online practically buried the series for me, so bad the combat is. Then you have the content suppression for Skyrim in the Nexus, which points to restrictions for modding tools in the future. Who knows, maybe we will not be able to mod it and they will release one DLC each month.

[Content Consumer]

I wanna link something topical Kimy said...

 

[Sylandras]

Weapon type:

Melee, Ranged (non-magic)

Magic:
Light magic, heavy magic (combining all current trees to these two)

Craft:
blacksmith, alchemy+enchanting, harvest* (maybe they'll add a tree for harvesting, maybe include cooking too into the harvest tree)

 

So craft would likely be same amount, with two skills combined, and maybe harvest but otherwise if that isnt a thing, it be down one.

Seeing the "evolution" from morrowind, to oblivion, to skyrim and fallout 1/2 to fallout 3 (yeah not bethesda for fallout 1/2 but fallout 3 had a ton less than fallout 2 did) to fallout 4 to fallout 76...

 

This is probably really accurate for skill trees seeing that bethesda will almost for sure want to downsize the skills more.

[winny257]

On 7/2/2020 at 5:25 AM, Sylandras said:

Weapon type:

Melee, Ranged (non-magic)

Magic:
Light magic, heavy magic (combining all current trees to these two)

Craft:
blacksmith, alchemy+enchanting, harvest* (maybe they'll add a tree for harvesting, maybe include cooking too into the harvest tree)

 

So craft would likely be same amount, with two skills combined, and maybe harvest but otherwise if that isnt a thing, it be down one.

Seeing the "evolution" from morrowind, to oblivion, to skyrim and fallout 1/2 to fallout 3 (yeah not bethesda for fallout 1/2 but fallout 3 had a ton less than fallout 2 did) to fallout 4 to fallout 76...

 

This is probably really accurate for skill trees seeing that bethesda will almost for sure want to downsize the skills more.

Skyrim my opinion too much skill trees!
Assassin's Creed Odyssey was three, from level 50 a few additional enhancement trees. 

completely sufficient for me.