The Elder Scrolls: The XVII Princes of Oblivion

[Anteros]

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.

Or just hand wave it away. A magical fog has begun to form around population centers and you've been tasked to find out why. Clumsy, but it solves the problem. A good writer could easily flesh it out.

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.

Absolutely. Anything I do with dyes or other cosmetic items is always for my own satisfaction anyway. I couldn't care less what some random person thinks.

[Vinyadan]

I think Skyrim cities may have taken a hit because of the lack of guild chapters. If I think of Morrowind, the cities were generally made up of distinct zones:

• Faction areas, with the three imperial guilds, the local Great House, the Camonna Tong, and the Temple
• Service areas, with shops
• A residential area with the homes and manors, more or less surrounding the other two areas.
• An often separate Imperial stronghold with services, beds, and chapters of the Legion and the Imperial Temple.

That's a lot of buildings, generally placed in different clusters. Oblivion had fewer factions, but in general its cities felt larger and very alive (and overall more believable, although the setting lacked the crazy genius of Morrowind). They still had local Guild chapters, although they were less important. This is probably why rebuilding Kvatch was such a common wish. Oblivion also had cathedrals, which were massive and showy. You actually rescued Martin from one, and part of his story was grappling with his relationship with the gods. In general, both Morrowind and Oblivion were better at mixing lore, story, and settlements.
In Skyrim, each city generally gets no more than one faction house, and may actually get none, if it's unlucky. Even a place of worship isn't a certainty. The Dark Brotherhood moved to the middle of nowhere. And, of course, Skyrim doesn't have Vivec or the Imperial City. Beside the size, to me it feels like the cities are generally just there. "Yes, this city sunk. So what?"

[Keltest]

Yeah. Morthal, Falkreath and Winterhold... what is even the point of them? They serve as fast travel points to their areas of Skyrim, but thats about all theyre actually good for IMO.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

In Skyrim, each city generally gets no more than one faction house, and may actually get none, if it's unlucky. Even a place of worship isn't a certainty. The Dark Brotherhood moved to the middle of nowhere. And, of course, Skyrim doesn't have Vivec or the Imperial City. Beside the size, to me it feels like the cities are generally just there. "Yes, this city sunk. So what?"

This is a good point. Even just adding a barracks and a couple more in-city shrines could have helped. And there is no reason that the Companions couldn’t have an outpost or two outside Jorrvaskr. Add hidey-holes for the Thieves’ Guild to a couple cities that open up as you progress that questline.

[DigoDragon]

And buggy as a swamp.

Ha! XD
You win comment of the day.

Yeah. Morthal, Falkreath and Winterhold... what is even the point of them? They serve as fast travel points to their areas of Skyrim, but thats about all theyre actually good for IMO.

The college at Winterhold is probably the only reason I even pass through Winterhold. The other two? Well I guess Falkreath has two quest starts if you're collecting daedric artifacts.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Ha! XD
You win comment of the day.

Thanks!

The college at Winterhold is probably the only reason I even pass through Winterhold. The other two? Well I guess Falkreath has two quest starts if you're collecting daedric artifacts.

I do like Morthal for the crazy seer lady running it. But it’s very true there isn’t much to actually do there.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah. Morthal, Falkreath and Winterhold... what is even the point of them? They serve as fast travel points to their areas of Skyrim, but thats about all theyre actually good for IMO.

Dawnstar is so forgettable, it didn't even make it to your list.

---

Since we're talking about this kind of stuff, digging around in r/teslore, I had found a post about an idea that was scrapped for the Nordic Pantheon, with a distinction between dead gods, evil gods, hearth gods and even future gods. That last one was just Talos who would have been understood as the future Shor of the next kalpa that the Nords pray to more or less just in case and who they'd have thought was the one who showed up at the end of Oblivion rather than Alduin/Akatosh.

I really would have liked this to make it to the final cut, we could have had on the Imperial side the Cult of the Eight Divines with secret Talos worshippers and on the Stormcloak side Ulfric heading a revivalist movement trying to reinstall the old Nordic Pantheon to rid Skyrim of Imperial influence which would be opposed by devouts followers of the Nine who don't want to stop praying to Akatosh and Arkay and don't really care about that "Shor" fellow. Would have fleshed out the divide a bit.

[factotum]

And, of course, Skyrim doesn't have Vivec or the Imperial City. Beside the size, to me it feels like the cities are generally just there. "Yes, this city sunk. So what?"

You really feel like Solitude and Windhelm should be bigger than they are given their importance. Part of the problem there is that both cities have their docks area separate from the main city, partly because the dock area is "open to te world" so can't be mixed in with the main city, so I'd blame that on a limitation of the game engine. In Morrowind all the cities were open, but that meant they either had to be hella small or else occupy a massive chunk of the map (Vivec City, looking at you here), neither of which was ideal.

I guess what annoys me a bit is that Skyrim has all the disadvantages of isolating the city interiors from the world at large without the benefits of the larger city interiors.

[Caelestion]

Falkreath is the drop-off point for living at Lakeview Manor. A clear positive in my book. :)

[veti]

Falkreath is the drop-off point for living at Lakeview Manor. A clear positive in my book. :)

I just get the carriage driver to drop me off at Lakeview Manor...

I get the feeling that Falkreath and the Pale both exist chiefly for the purpose of giving modders suitably big empty spaces to play with. They're certainly both popular venues for mods.

[Lurkmoar]

Since Daggerfall, it's been fairly common to receive Daedric Quests in TES. Occasionally, a Prince will have a significant part of the games even. Azura in Morrowind, Hircine in the Bloodmoon DLC. Then Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion and Sheggorath in the Shivering Islands. Hermaeus Mora was tangentially involved in the main quest of Skyrim, Discerning the Transmundane(you have to talk to Septimus to get the cube to let you into Blackreach, right?) and a spotlight in Dragonborn.

Any Prince you'd like to see more details/shenanigans/horrors from?

*alright, now I'm kinda bugged and want to see if it's possible to go through the main quest and not trigger Discerning the Transmundane. Would phasing through a Dwemer gate with a plate + Whirlwind Shout to go to Blackreach and grabbing the Elder Scroll(Dragon) avoid having it pop up?

[Keltest]

Since Daggerfall, it's been fairly common to receive Daedric Quests in TES. Occasionally, a Prince will have a significant part of the games even. Azura in Morrowind, Hircine in the Bloodmoon DLC. Then Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion and Sheggorath in the Shivering Islands. Hermaeus Mora was tangentially involved in the main quest of Skyrim, Discerning the Transmundane(you have to talk to Septimus to get the cube to let you into Blackreach, right?) and a spotlight in Dragonborn.

Any Prince you'd like to see more details/shenanigans/horrors from?

*alright, now I'm kinda bugged and want to see if it's possible to go through the main quest and not trigger Discerning the Transmundane. Would phasing through a Dwemer gate with a plate + Whirlwind Shout to go to Blackreach and grabbing the Elder Scroll(Dragon) avoid having it pop up?

I dont think you can get the scroll without the cube short of using the console.

[Eldan]

Since Daggerfall, it's been fairly common to receive Daedric Quests in TES. Occasionally, a Prince will have a significant part of the games even. Azura in Morrowind, Hircine in the Bloodmoon DLC. Then Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion and Sheggorath in the Shivering Islands. Hermaeus Mora was tangentially involved in the main quest of Skyrim, Discerning the Transmundane(you have to talk to Septimus to get the cube to let you into Blackreach, right?) and a spotlight in Dragonborn.

Any Prince you'd like to see more details/shenanigans/horrors from?

*alright, now I'm kinda bugged and want to see if it's possible to go through the main quest and not trigger Discerning the Transmundane. Would phasing through a Dwemer gate with a plate + Whirlwind Shout to go to Blackreach and grabbing the Elder Scroll(Dragon) avoid having it pop up?

I kinda want to see someone do something interesting with Peryite.

[Keltest]

I kinda want to see someone do something interesting with Peryite.

The dwarves didnt disappear, he just took them all as part of a power play so people will stop ignoring him.

[Thomas Cardew]

Since Daggerfall, it's been fairly common to receive Daedric Quests in TES. Occasionally, a Prince will have a significant part of the games even. Azura in Morrowind, Hircine in the Bloodmoon DLC. Then Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion and Sheggorath in the Shivering Islands. Hermaeus Mora was tangentially involved in the main quest of Skyrim, Discerning the Transmundane(you have to talk to Septimus to get the cube to let you into Blackreach, right?) and a spotlight in Dragonborn.

Any Prince you'd like to see more details/shenanigans/horrors from?

*alright, now I'm kinda bugged and want to see if it's possible to go through the main quest and not trigger Discerning the Transmundane. Would phasing through a Dwemer gate with a plate + Whirlwind Shout to go to Blackreach and grabbing the Elder Scroll(Dragon) avoid having it pop up?

I'd love to a see a Boethiath DLC or questline. The Oblivion quest was nominally an 'intra-planar tournament', but was functionally just a ring of fights in an Oblivion gate. A proper questline having to fight your way through and out of Boethiath's twisted maze of a realm could be a lot of fun.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Any Prince you'd like to see more details/shenanigans/horrors from?

Vaermina, Malacath or Meridia. Nightmares have a lot of potential as far as weird monsters and locals. I’d like them to cover the Trinimac-to-Malacath history better than they have. And Meri already got a bit of focus in vanilla ESO, but we didn’t really get to explore her realm.

I kinda want to see someone do something interesting with Peryite.

Ooo, he’s a good one too. There is a lot they could do with plagues and disease. I want to know what he did to irritate the other Princes too.

[Fyraltari]

Any Prince you'd like to see more details/shenanigans/horrors from?

Jyggalag*, Peryite, Namira, Malacath.

Ooo, he’s a good one too. There is a lot they could do with plagues and disease. I want to know what he did to irritate the other Princes too.

I think it's just that he's the weakest of the bunch. But yeah, he's severely underused.

I'd like to see some more of the Aedra too.


*Not necessarily a focus, but at least a quest with assorted artifact.

[Eldan]

Oh, also just in general, weird cultural aspects of the Princes, like the entire Khajiit Religion, or the norse Woodland Man.

Edit: while going through UESP, I just noticed that Azura has probably the worst title of any Daedric prince, "Rim of all Holes". Which… yeah.

[Grim Portent]

Oh, also just in general, weird cultural aspects of the Princes, like the entire Khajiit Religion, or the norse Woodland Man.

Edit: while going through UESP, I just noticed that Azura has probably the worst title of any Daedric prince, "Rim of all Holes". Which… yeah.

What Azura does in her own time is none of our business.

I'll throw in another vote for Peryite, part of it is that he has a vaguely dragony appearance and I like dragons, but also his domain of pestilence and order intrigues me. I'd like to see some stuff involving his machinations on a grander scale.

[Fyraltari]

Oh, also just in general, weird cultural aspects of the Princes, like the entire Khajiit Religion, or the norse Woodland Man.

Edit: while going through UESP, I just noticed that Azura has probably the worst title of any Daedric prince, "Rim of all Holes". Which… yeah.

And in Daggerfall she was said to be an ally of Molag "the king of rape" Bal.

I'll throw in another vote for Peryite, part of it is that he has a vaguely dragony appearance

Not vaguely. His appearance is noted in-universe as being that of a quadrupedal dragon and is some sort of "cosmic joke" on Akatosh. As far as I'm concerned it's another data point for "the gods are aware they are in a video game universe".

and I like dragons, but also his domain of pestilence and order intrigues me. I'd like to see some stuff involving his machinations on a grander scale.

He's probably responsible for the Thrassian Plague and/or the Knathian Flu both of which killed a lot of people.

[Triaxx]

I thought Discerning was only the second part of the quest? So if you never went back to what his face you neved got bothered about it?

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I think it's just that he's the weakest of the bunch. But yeah, he's severely underused.

Per one of the Answers-Your-Questions articles, he did something.

"Y ou [sic] mortals—so good at acquiring knowledge, and so quick to learn the wrong lessons from it! Allow me to misinterpret: particles of chaotic creatia, when flowing in reaction to the exertion of will, become daedrons that, though injurious to the mortal form, can nonetheless perform work. Underutilized daedrons usually return to quiescence—but if imbued with sufficient purpose, they may escape and coalesce to form potentia vortices. These are dangerous if allowed to self-optimize into realm-rips, so it's best to damp them out early. Trying to keep ahead of it all keeps Peryite mighty busy, but nobody's really sorry for him—after all, he earned it."

If they do something with it, it could be fun.

[veti]

*alright, now I'm kinda bugged and want to see if it's possible to go through the main quest and not trigger Discerning the Transmundane. Would phasing through a Dwemer gate with a plate + Whirlwind Shout to go to Blackreach and grabbing the Elder Scroll(Dragon) avoid having it pop up?

It may be possible to glitch yourself into Blackreach, but it's not designed to be. So yeah, by design at least you do have to start the quest.

But you don't have to talk to Hermaeus Mora, or even be aware of his involvement. If you just never go back to Septimus, you'll never encounter him.

And in Daggerfall she was said to be an ally of Molag "the king of rape" Bal.

"Ally" doesn't mean much, even if that was true. Powers form and break "alliances" all the time, all it means is "we both hate/fear that guy even more than we detest each other".

Didn't all the princes ally against Jyggalag at one point?

[Morty]

I'm very sceptical towards the idea of bringing back attributes. They would need a new, clear purpose to be a good addition. Before Skyrim got rid of them, they were mostly there to make character creation and advancement even more of a counter-intuitive minefield.

The same goes for removed skills. While the series has undoubtedly been simplified over time, many of the removed skills were treated this way for a good reason. Athletics and Acrobatics never served a useful purpose. Daggerfall's Climbing skill relied on the majority of obstacles in the game being vertical and placed in dungeons. More vertical mobility is a reasonable thing to ask for, but the climbing skill isn't.

What I would personally like to see is shedding the last vestiges of the combat/stealth/magic split and organizing skills along the lines of what's needed to make a well-rounded character. And maybe redoing the combat skills so it's possible to use more than one of them with the same character.

[Eldan]

Maybe not a climbing skill, but I'd really want them to just make characters more mobile in General. I mean, how long have we had vaulting over fences now, 20 years? More? Some climbing would be nice too. At least the ability to pull yourself up on a ledge.

[Morty]

Maybe not a climbing skill, but I'd really want them to just make characters more mobile in General. I mean, how long have we had vaulting over fences now, 20 years? More? Some climbing would be nice too. At least the ability to pull yourself up on a ledge.

That's what I meant, yes. More mobility would be good, but I can't see how a skill responsible for it would fit into the TES system.

[Vinyadan]

I think that people at Bethesda do wonder how to improve that sort of mobility without turning into an Ubisoft game.

I think it also has something to do with TES PC roots, compared to console games with a mascot character in third-person view and "lean against wall", "climb" and "vault" commands.

[The_Jackal]

I'm very sceptical towards the idea of bringing back attributes. They would need a new, clear purpose to be a good addition. Before Skyrim got rid of them, they were mostly there to make character creation and advancement even more of a counter-intuitive minefield.

The same goes for removed skills. While the series has undoubtedly been simplified over time, many of the removed skills were treated this way for a good reason. Athletics and Acrobatics never served a useful purpose. Daggerfall's Climbing skill relied on the majority of obstacles in the game being vertical and placed in dungeons. More vertical mobility is a reasonable thing to ask for, but the climbing skill isn't.

I agree insofar as long as your choices are both meaningful and balanced. A meaningful choice has consequences, while a unbalanced choice, while meaningful, isn't really a choice, when you think about it, at least, no more of a choice than "Your money or your life".

Do I think they need to use Dungeons and Dragons-style attributes with numbers a tables and formulae? Not necessarily, but here's the thing: No matter what they do, the game mechanics will be implemented as math, because that's how computers work. So I don't think there's any particular merit in obfuscating the math, but I also don't think it's virtuous just to deprive players of choices and agency with regards to the type of character they want to make.

The big flaw with Skryim is that they didn't even pay *lip-service* to play balance. Thirty minutes and a spreadsheet would have shown them just how broken their system actually was.

[Triaxx]

For one thing, I'd be very interested in seeing that spreadsheet.

For another, I have learned that balance is at best a moving target, and at worst something that ends up not mattering because no matter how hard you try to balance things, the sheer manpower of players means they'll still find that one combination that's totally busted. Would you, as a dev, have thought... hey, what happens if you boost enchanting via a potion, and then use that to enchant a stronger piece of gear to make your alchemy better to increase your enchanting?

[Morty]

I agree insofar as long as your choices are both meaningful and balanced. A meaningful choice has consequences, while a unbalanced choice, while meaningful, isn't really a choice, when you think about it, at least, no more of a choice than "Your money or your life".

Do I think they need to use Dungeons and Dragons-style attributes with numbers a tables and formulae? Not necessarily, but here's the thing: No matter what they do, the game mechanics will be implemented as math, because that's how computers work. So I don't think there's any particular merit in obfuscating the math, but I also don't think it's virtuous just to deprive players of choices and agency with regards to the type of character they want to make.

The big flaw with Skryim is that they didn't even pay *lip-service* to play balance. Thirty minutes and a spreadsheet would have shown them just how broken their system actually was.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time defending Skyrim's mechanics, but I don't see how pre-Morrowind attributes provided choice and agency. They were mostly a function of which skills you used, frequently in counter-intuitive ways. If I'm raising my speed because I happen to be using spears, I don't see that as much of a choice.