The Elder Scrolls: The XVII Princes of Oblivion

[Vinyadan]

The thing I most miss from Oblivion is spellcasting. In Skyrim you need a free hand, and there's only one light spell which doesn't last long (there's that cast a ball of light thing, but it lasts about the same time, and you still need a free hand), so you are forever changing weapons to get a free hand, casting light, changing back to the bow (obviously), running out of light, swapping weapons and so on. In Oblivion, you had a cast spell key, it didn't matter whether you had a hand free, and there were five light spells, the first was awful, but the last really lit things up, lasted for a useful length of time and you didn't need to change weapons to cast it again. Changing weapons to heal yourself is also a big drag for me.

A problem with Oblivion spells I have noticed when trying to pick it up again was that you could spend fights just blocking with your shield while you waited for magicka to load, because spells were so effective that swords felt like a waste of time. It isn't a fun way of fighting.

Spells on self, however, could really use such a system. I think they didn't really remove it, as much as moved it to dragon shouts.

I actually modded the Skyrim on-self light spell to last something like 10 minutes. It costs much more magicka to cast, but I did it at high levels, so it's OK. It wasn't really a choice, I generally didn't bother with light sources, but they became necessary after installing a realistic lighting mod, and I really like the results.

[Resileaf]

I wouldn't say that. A character built as a stealth archer will play significantly differently from one built as a two-handed berserker even with the perk system as is. If there's an issue it's that combat in Skyrim really isn't complex enough to make a huge variety of characters--it comes down to archery, magery or swordery (yes, I know that's not a word!). That, plus things like the entire Lockpicking skill tree being largely useless, reduces the variety somewhat.

Until you start playing all your characters as a stealth archer because it's that effective.

[Caelestion]

Agreed. I could handle it being like Morrowind where you can switch between an active spell set and an active weapon set with a single button pretty handily. But the favorites menu is just too cumbersome i think to have weapons and shouts and spells all on it at once.

The Customised Favourites Menu mod was a godsend for that.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

TES 6 question:

Would you like to see Attributes back, keep it like the Perk system in Skyrim or Hybridize it?

I don't miss Speed from Oblivion for instance when I played a heavy Orc warrior...

I guess I don’t really have a strong opinion here one way or another, as long as they make it fairly intuitive and hard to screw oneself over by accident. (Screwing oneself over on purpose is fine. )

Something I’d like to see is the armor categories from ESO - so Light, Medium and Heavy instead of just Light and Heavy, and Light ‘armor’ is clothes, robes, or the equivalent. My inner min-maxer screams loudly when my character runs around Skyrim in robes, because I don’t get any XP for that. Also if I find some really cool clothes, I can’t improve them like I can armor. Or make them myself.

Can’t decide if dyes would be worth having in the single player or not. If ESO taught me anything it’s that dyes are inclined to be buggy and inconsistent, and probably won’t add enough to the game to balance that out.

Favourites? That reminds me, I hate it when the draguar (Deathlords?) disarm you and when you pick the weapon up again, it's gone from your favourites menu, and you have to set it up again.

I forgot this happened. Yes, this is terrible and I hope it goes away forever in Elder Scrolls 6.

[Rynjin]

Bring back stats, conglomerate them down so they're a bit more streamlined.

You could easily make the stats Strength, Endurance, Agility, and Magic without losing much. Str affects melee damage, Agi affects ranged damage, Endurance HP and Stamina, and Magic is the "master magic" stat with MP, MP recharge, and spell damage.

No more "your statups are based on what skills you leveled to hit this level", just give some raw stat boosts every level; maybe a pool of 5 points you can allocate however, or the ability to raise a score by 3, a score by 2, and a score by 1.

Keep perks, make them more interesting. You don't need 5 perks that make your spells cheaper. You don't need any dedicated perks that make your spells and weapons stronger, now that stats are back. Focus on new capabilities.

For the love of all I hold dear, please don't make it like Fallout 4, which has one of the worst leveling systems I've ever seen.

[veti]

Second this. And more detailed ones. They all look like Attack of the Dough-faced Oblivion NPCs as-is.

And while we’re on the subject, more variety for the monster models too. It’s weird that all the bandits have a variety of hair color, hair styles, and facial markings

There are a variety of children mods, but one thing they don't do is vary their ages. It's odd that all children in Skyrim are exactly the same age.

I've also got a mod to vary the bandits (purely cosmetically) a bit, after noticing how many of them shared the same face, with just variations in complexion and hair.

The thing I most miss from Oblivion is spellcasting.

Yep, spellcasting is the one area where I'll concede Skyrim was actually worse than Oblivion. I've tried any number of mods to fix it, but none seems very satisfactory. Anyone know of a mod for spellcasting while wielding a two handed weapon that actually works?

Something I’d like to see is the armor categories from ESO - so Light, Medium and Heavy instead of just Light and Heavy, and Light ‘armor’ is clothes, robes, or the equivalent. My inner min-maxer screams loudly when my character runs around Skyrim in robes, because I don’t get any XP for that.

Also known as "the armour categories from Morrowind, including unarmoured".

The trend from ESIII to ESV was relentless simplification, each one dropping a bunch of useful (or at least colourful) skills and spell effects and weapons and categories... But it's been such a long gap, now, that it's just possible (I think) that trend won't necessarily continue into ESVI.

For the love of all I hold dear, please don't make it like Fallout 4, which has one of the worst leveling systems I've ever seen.

Second this. FO4 has the distinction of being the only Bethesda game I've proactively deleted from my system.

[Triaxx]

The only thing I know of that does that is Apocalypse letting you convert a single spell into a power. But only one spell at a time. And not all spells work correctly as powers.

[LibraryOgre]

The trend from ESIII to ESV was relentless simplification, each one dropping a bunch of useful (or at least colourful) skills and spell effects and weapons and categories... But it's been such a long gap, now, that it's just possible (I think) that trend won't necessarily continue into ESVI.

From Daggerfall on, really. In addition to the language skills that got left in Daggerfall, Morrowind lost Backstabbing, Climbing, Critical Strike, Etiquette (mixed with Streetwise into Speechcraft), Jumping (mixed with Running and Swimming into Athletics), Medical, and Thaumaturgy... so down 11 skills, 20 if you count languages.

Oblivion lost Medium Armor, Spear, Axe, Enchant, and Unarmored. Long Blade and Short blade combined. Six skills down.

Skyrim lost Athletics, Acrobatics, Mercantile (combined with Speechcraft to make Speech), and Mysticism, but regained Enchanting. Net three skills down (not counting the change from Blade and Blunt to One-Handed and Two-Handed; net wash).

Of all of them? I miss Climbing. Run around Daggerfall for a while. You can CLIMB almost EVERYWHERE. I don't know if it's a Daggerfall Unity thing or not, but I got to where I could jump off something and grab onto a wall and start climbing. It was AMAZING.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

There are a variety of children mods, but one thing they don't do is vary their ages. It's odd that all children in Skyrim are exactly the same age.

Ooo, good point. There aren't any infants or (visibly) pregnant ladies.

Also known as "the armour categories from Morrowind, including unarmoured".

That reminds me: I'd like to see Hand-to-hand return. I want to be able to leave all my gear at the door, and still be able to rip my way out of whatever lousy situation I ended up in if I build my character right.

Also throwing items. We haven't had throwing stars since Morrowind.

Of all of them? I miss Climbing. Run around Daggerfall for a while. You can CLIMB almost EVERYWHERE. I don't know if it's a Daggerfall Unity thing or not, but I got to where I could jump off something and grab onto a wall and start climbing. It was AMAZING.

I haven't played Daggerfall, but I would like to see Climbing too. It opens up lots of possibilities for getting into and out of places, and seems like a very thiefy skill to have.

[Misery Esquire]

Jumping (mixed with Running and Swimming into Athletics)
...
Of all of them? I miss Climbing. Run around Daggerfall for a while. You can CLIMB almost EVERYWHERE. I don't know if it's a Daggerfall Unity thing or not, but I got to where I could jump off something and grab onto a wall and start climbing. It was AMAZING.

Well, sort of. Acrobatics determines jump height, Athletics influences movement speed and therefore impacts jump speed.

...
Climbing everywhere would be neat, but in terms of (unlikely) old features returning the one I'd like is open box cities.

No more loading doors to enter cities, please. And once you do so it returns the option for Levitation (and climbing) because people won't get/see into low res unloaded areas just by moving up and down.

[Vinyadan]

Casting while wielding weapons:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mod...ab=description

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mod...ab=description

[Rynjin]

SE also has The Wizard Warrior which is a significantly more advanced version of those older mods. It can take a bit of getting used to to make it work, because it's kind of complex, but it offers a ton of options.

[veti]

Casting while wielding weapons:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mod...ab=description

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mod...ab=description

Warrior Magic is an example of a mod that tries to do the right thing, but doesn't actually work that well. I've been trying it for the past couple of weeks - it's hit and miss whether a spell gets cast at all, and when it does, there's sometimes a significant delay before it takes effect. Particularly if cast during combat, which oddly enough is when the delay tends to matter most...

SE also has The Wizard Warrior which is a significantly more advanced version of those older mods.

Warrior Magic is pretty new - first uploaded Jan 2020, updated June 2021. I looked at The Wizard Warrior page and I couldn't really understand what it was trying to tell me, but maybe I should give the mod a try. Thanks.

[Aeson]

Personally, I would prefer for attributes and derived attributes to return, but for the attribute growth system I would rather have a system similar to the one in Dungeon Siege, where attributes essentially gain experience and level up based on what skills you use, or perhaps even a system where your attributes are set at character creation and don't change except as a result of magic or disease.

Also, speaking of derived attributes, it slightly bothers me that health is the only one where history matters. Fatigue and magicka only care about your current attribute scores, but health is determined by what your initial Strength and Endurance scores were as well as what your Endurance scores have been at every level since the first.

[veti]

I'd be quite happy to lose "attributes" entirely, including health, stamina and magicka. Replace them with a status system where you can be "fresh", "ready", "winded", "tired", "exhausted" etc., which determines what you can do, how well and for how long.

I guess what I'm saying is, I really don't miss the number-crunching and min-maxing of the older games and I don't want to see it back.

[The_Jackal]

I'd be quite happy to lose "attributes" entirely, including health, stamina and magicka. Replace them with a status system where you can be "fresh", "ready", "winded", "tired", "exhausted" etc., which determines what you can do, how well and for how long.

I guess what I'm saying is, I really don't miss the number-crunching and min-maxing of the older games and I don't want to see it back.

Well, I think the issue with Skyrim's stats is that too many of them are completely worthless. Stamina? Trash, since you just needed 1 stamina to start a power attack, and a Vegetable soup would get you functionally infinite stamina for 12 minutes. Magicka? Worthless, because any remotely min-maxed build would use cost reduction to reduce spell costs to near zero. In effect, the only actually relevant stat was health.

So, to my mind, the issue isn't that stats are bad, but specifically the stats created for Skyrim had no real utility to anyone who spent even a small amount of time researching the game mechanics. I like the idea of stats as a means for customizing your character, but Bethesda's complete lack of balance in their design makes those choices meaningless.

[Laughing Dog]

Magicka? Worthless, because any enchanter will reduce costs to zero.

Fixed that for you

[Rynjin]

Personally, I would prefer for attributes and derived attributes to return, but for the attribute growth system I would rather have a system similar to the one in Dungeon Siege, where attributes essentially gain experience and level up based on what skills you use,

There's a really good Oblivion mod that does this. This is a pretty fine middle ground too, I just like the idea of having a bit of choice, since there are some corner cases where taking a "detour" to level some less combat worthy skills can render the game more difficult than it needs to be due to level scaling.

Then again, they should probably tweak level scaling again so it's more satisfying anyway; Skyrim was a big step up from Oblivion, but it could still use improvement so it doesn't have this curve where the early game and endgame are trivial, but the midgame can be brutally hard in spots as enemy HP suddenly inflates to the point you do minimal damage at around level 30.

[factotum]

They really need to make it so only combat-related skills contribute toward your level when determining the level of the enemies. Enemies shouldn't get tougher because I just learned how to craft a ring or pick a lock more efficiently.

[DigoDragon]

The Customised Favourites Menu mod was a godsend for that.

Dear nine gods yes. It's a must-have mod for me along with SkyUI. It's those little quality of life things that really make my day.

No more loading doors to enter cities, please.

I can understand why they do that, but if they are going to put a city in its own world space, I'd like to see more effort into making the city huge and populated. I wanna be able to get lost the first time I explore it. :3

[Keltest]

Dear nine gods yes. It's a must-have mod for me along with SkyUI. It's those little quality of life things that really make my day.




I can understand why they do that, but if they are going to put a city in its own world space, I'd like to see more effort into making the city huge and populated. I wanna be able to get lost the first time I explore it. :3

Agreed. Im pretty sure some of the fort battles have more population than Whiterun or Solitude, so its not like youre gaining too much.

[Eldan]

Novigrad in Witcher 3 is open-ish to the world map and has hundreds of People.

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If a relatively small Studio managed that 6 years ago, surely Bethesda can do a bit better on their cities.

[Keltest]

Novigrad is open-ish to the world map and has hundreds of People.

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If a relatively small Studio managed that 6 years ago, surely Bethesda can do a bit better on their cities.

From my understanding, the problem is that each entity in Skyrim is considerably more complex than in the Witcher, each having their own dialogue, life story, skills, equipment, etc...

Which is not to say they couldnt do it, but its not quite as simple as "the technology is there, just do it Bethesda."

Having said that, i would be fine with filling the cities full of empty nameless NPCs who never stop and chat with us. Not every dockworker needs a deep personality.

[Eldan]

I mean, theoretically, yes, they are more complex, but in effect, how many randos on the street in Solitude actually had something to say?

[Keltest]

I mean, theoretically, yes, they are more complex, but in effect, how many randos on the street in Solitude actually had something to say?

Almost never, and im personally not attached to the gimmick at all, but thats what they decided they wanted to do.

[Rater202]

I will admit, now that I'm thinking about it, that the main cities in Oblivion felt more... Like cities.

I remember getting lost in Skingrad. More than once

[Keltest]

I will admit, now that I'm thinking about it, that the main cities in Oblivion felt more... Like cities.

I remember getting lost in Skingrad. More than once

Thats because Skingrad has probably the most obtuse layout i have ever seen in a city, with those bridges and that trench nonsense.

[Rater202]

Thats because Skingrad has probably the most obtuse layout i have ever seen in a city, with those bridges and that trench nonsense.

Yeah, that's fair, but in general... The Cities felt like cities. Or at least small towns.

the cities in Skyrim... Don't.

[Eldan]

I guess they also Need to downscale because every house has interiors.

But yeah, it's the Bethesda Problem. Wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

But yeah, it's the Bethesda Problem. Wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle.

And buggy as a swamp.