The Elder Scrolls: The XVII Princes of Oblivion

[Aeson]

Some indication for ‘you already know this spell’ ... I’m tired of buying spellbooks only to find it was for a spell I started the game with

I'd honestly rather that they dropped spell tomes as the mechanic for learning spells from merchants and just used the system that they used for Morrowind and Oblivion - the merchant shows you a list of the spells which they can sell you that you don't already know, and you learn the spell when you buy it rather than having to take the extra step of going into your inventory and reading a spell tome. Spell tomes are okay as a way to obtain spells from loot, but there's not really any gameplay value in using them to obtain spells from merchants - it's not like opening your inventory to read a spell tome or three makes for interesting or engaging gameplay, and there's not even a trade-off between spells known and carry capacity such as would result from needing to carry a tome for every spell that you want to be able to use - and I can't say I see any reason to want to buy a spell tome rather than the spell itself unless you're trying to build a library with as many unique books as possible or something like that.

Poison is clunky and ESO does it better. Don’t make me hand select a poison out of my hoard of bottles every time I want to use one, at least give me a handful of hits per bottle.

I don't really agree with this one; the only poisons in Skyrim that I'd really want to apply to my next N hits are the direct-damage poisons - all the Aversion to X and the stronger no-Magicka/Stamina-regen poisons last long enough that I shouldn't really need to re-apply it to a given target within the next N strikes for reasonable values of N, Paralysis and the weaker no-Magicka/Stamina-regen poisons probably wouldn't be useful unless I change targets with each hit, tagging one enemy with Fear or Frenzy is usually good enough (and tagging multiple enemies with Fear can start to get counterproductive since you end up having to chase after them and most of the point of making an enemy run away is to gain time/space to deal with another enemy without the first enemy's interference), and for reasonable values of N a poison that applies an effect to my next N strikes will probably have worn off before any of these need to be re-applied anyways.

Beyond that, generally speaking my feeling is that if an effect is weak enough that it's reasonable to allow it to apply to the next N>1 hits then it probably ought to come from a (semi-)permanent enchantment or a buff spell rather than a poison, and a poison that has such a weak effect is probably too weak, at least for my current level - especially if it's that weak even in comparison to common level-appropriate (or, worse, weaker-than-level-appropriate) enemies. I would far rather have instant-damage poisons whose magnitudes read "drop dead" to most common enemies, DoT poisons strong enough to do the same for most elite/boss enemies given time to run their course, and crowd-control/debuff/damage-amplifying poisons strong enough and common enemies weak enough that I don't feel the need to poison every enemy I encounter than have a poison whose effect is +30 damage to my next 5 attacks. Especially if there are spells, non-poison consumables, or enchantments that do basically the same thing, because if you're going to give me temporary ways to amplify my damage (or, really, to do anything else) then I'd rather have a system that gives me meaningfully distinct options - e.g. a poison that adds 500 damage to my next hit and a buff spell that increases my attack damage by 50 for the next 30 seconds - than one where all the different options give me the same end result (e.g. 50 more damage on each attack for the next 30 seconds regardless of whether I apply a poison, cast a spell, burn a scroll, or whatever), because if it's done well then the former will allow for one option to be better in some cases and another option to be better in other cases whereas the latter gives the exact same result regardless of approach.