elder-scrolls-general-chat

[last vessel]

I build a character who focusses on the skills I'll actually use, and I get "negative" levelling experiences. The world seems to become more powerful quickly than my character does.

[left seal]

Oblivion was a rough one, the improvements over Morrowind's gameplay were offset by the terrible scaling mechanics, it's setting and story were incredibly generic by comparison, the art style is not great to say the least, just not a great time all around,

Also it had the absolute worst in terms of how bad gendered armor has been in the series,

[magic tundra]

it had some great quests, though

[left seal]

Yeah it wasn't terrible but it's in between the game with the best setting and most interesting main/faction quests and the best overall game in the franchise in terms of design and gameplay, it's got the worst possible spot following up the series first massive super hit, and being followed by the most impactful game in the series on popular culture,

[dim reef]

dice roll combat in an action RPG is terrible, in terms of gameplay

one of the reasons Morrowind is just intolerable without mods for me

[cinder idol]

True, though I do wonder how you could really solve the disparriagement between a character's inability and players ability and vice versa. It's annoying to miss. Even if you've done everything right, your character hasn't swung a sword before and outright missing due to that is just painful. It might work if the character swings their weapon in a slower, less damaging and more predictable manner than one who's good with a blade as even then the character is less effective even if the player can pick up the slack and get the attack to land regardless.

[dim reef]

that would be better than outright missing

because if i swing a sword at you, no matter how bad i am with it, it will hit you in some manner

unless i'm cartoonishly bad with it lmao

[cinder idol]

Exactly, it might be a weedy hit or the edge alignment may be off but it'll still land if you're not parried or too far away.

[weak sapphire]

Slower attack speed, lower damage modifiers, chances for 'Anti-Criticals', less effective parries, increased durability loss, etc.

Lots of ways to make it feel less skilled, without resorting to Miss Chance.

[dim reef]

exactly

though i have my own opinions about "weapon/armor durability" but that's another topic

[weak sapphire]

I'm keen on the idea, but every implementation of it in gaming has been rubbish

[magic tundra]

If you were swinging a weapon at me, I'd do my best to get out of the way
And if you swing it really bad, i might even succeed
-> no damage

[weak sapphire]

But that's all basically behavioural on the other parties part. Just make the AI dodge

Which makes your attack speed even more important

[left seal]

The issue here is that Morrowind is in first person 90% of the time so abstract stuff like that doesn't work with the visual representation, much as i hate to admit it given Morrowind was my introduction to the franchise and i love it to pieces, much like Demon/Dark Souls it's a game that owes much of it's reputation to the people who put up with it's terrible design browbeating others into agreeing it's better than it is, probably why Skyrim took off so much better then the others, it's the first one thjat was actually as good as we fans thought it was,

[cinder idol]

Other than the whole "You gotta git gud to play it" thing, I don't see how anyone browbeats others into agreeing the Souls games're better than they are, people who like the first game gripe about things like the Chaos Ruins looking like trash and how a fair bit of Demon's Souls falls flat as nobody had made a game like that before and people were just winging it on a product expected to make a loss. I absolutely despise how much wasted potential was in 2.

But yeah, I do see what you mean with people going on about true RPG mechanics which I think don't think justifies the whole hit chance thing being good, it's only an archaic product of experimentation that should be surpassed as we slowly make better RPGs/games in general.

[dim reef]

preach

[weak sapphire]

The biggest problem with Durability has, traditionally, been the fact it's just a tax on activity. You do something, your gear loses durability. That's it.

No thought about it, no way around it, it's just literally taxing you to play the game. That's not a very interesting or engaging gameplay mechanic, any more than it's really realistic.

In a realistic sense, if you use a tool PROPERLY, it'll practically last forever.

[left seal]

Durability is fine in certain genres where resource management is a key feature, but realistically it's never really added much to the elder scrolls just like enchantment charge it just wastes a little bit of extra time,

[weak sapphire]

To be relevant, Durability needs to contain some strategic element which gives the player direct influence over its rate, contain variables which can he easily relayed and controlled, and be streamlined so its engaging but not a burden.

For instance, Durability loss to a weapon equals the amount of damage stopped by armour. So, if your attack does 15 damage, and the target has 10 armour, your weapon loses 10 durability. That way, you have to optimally select the best weapon you have, for the enemy you're fighting, to minimise loss.

Beyond that, make Durability affect Tempering tiers. So, you have a full durability bar for each level of temper. If Durability drops to 0, the iten drops a tepering level. And have all durability in that tempering level recover when resting (cause, i mean, its not like you just pass out cold for 6 hours)

This way you inject a degree of strategic decision making on the part of the player into Durability, but make its management simple enough that you're not burdening the gameplay loop with unnecessary repairs. Tempering and Resting are things you're doing throughout gameplay anyway, you're just using them to create a more dynamic system

[dim reef]

@shell hedge I just saw all that you posted that looks amazing so much more to do

[nimble pond]

It just made me think, it'd be kinda cool if you could break weapons during like sword fights in the sense of durability.
At least they had weapon sharpening in Skyrim tho

[last vessel]

It'd be terrible.
You've got a high end smithed and enchanted weapon - or even a unique artifact - and it breaks. That would be awful.
And the sword sharpening? Do you mean the animation for when you're improving a weapon - that's always a sword on a grindstone regardless of what you're improving?

[gloomy basalt]

The only reason that system works in other games is that they generally rely on the world being full of weapons, and the lack of crafting

[last vessel]

I also remember back in Baldur's Gate when they had a quest where weapons would just randomly break because the iron was bad in the local mines. It was so frustrating having to carry multiple spare weapons to replace breakages.

And remember that if you're at steel tier and using two handed weapons, each spare you're carrying would be about 20 weight units.

[weak sapphire]

In general use, i don't think they should break. However, if you're going up against someone using Degrade Magic, well...

[last vessel]

Then that implies that we should also get a "repair" spell. 😛

At which point the maintenance thing just goes out the window,.

[magic tundra]

I'm not a fan of gear degradation in general

[last vessel]

I think part of my problem is that it just doesn't fit "high fantasy" with named unique artifact swords.

[magic tundra]

Neither am i especially fond of an improvement system that makes it hard to see at first glance wether a certain item you just found is better than your current, improved one, or not

[last vessel]

If you're doing "low fantasy" Conan-esque shenanigans where you can just reach out and grab a new one, and no individual sword is inherently special, it might be different.

I'll admit I'd love to have a "base stat" / "advanced stat" note on items.

[magic tundra]

I still remember, in my first Daggerfall playthrough, i want fully aware of how the degradation worked, and enchanted my katana (i think it was daedric)
It broke soon after, and i was in the middle of the adamantine tower without any weapon...

[last vessel]

So "Daedric Sword - damage 27 (base 14)" would be useful information.

[magic tundra]

Yep

[nimble pond]

Perhaps an optional survival toggle then. Personally I enjoy the challenge of going up against tougher enemies who could break my weapons, but the risk being worth the reward. That and I would just enjoy snapping weaker enemy swords in half with a warhammer or something, maybe even freeze one till it shatters or fire till it melts. Etc. Etc.. but I mean it's not like something that has to happen often.. could take a great deal of effort to cause it or even as a bonus effect on a perk. And you could prob have some enchantments that won't allow certain gear to break or if it's a special item it simply wont, but still degrade ofc. But generally there are so many weapons laying around in Skyrim anyway, I really wouldn't mind if they degraded. Furthermore, just because something breaks shouldn't mean it just disappears forever. I think you should be able to keep it and bring it to a blacksmith to repair it good as new.

[last vessel]

I really would because some weapons just aren't disposable.

"Snapping weaker swords in half" in combat isn't really a thing either. You're trying to kill the enemy, not break his stuff.

[nimble pond]

True, but a lot of different things occur during combat. It isn't simply kill target.

[last vessel]

Looking at the rest, I'd also not want to have to take up an enchantment slot to make an item immune to breaking. They're very limited.

[nimble pond]

This is why I was saying as an optional feature for different difficulty/survival.

[last vessel]

Sure. But deliberately breaking someone's weapons isn't usually a practical aim.

It's already bad enough being disarmed and having to scramble for spare weapons without having them break as well.

[nimble pond]

So if it's something one person likes and another dislikes, both can be happy.

[last vessel]

Remember that a spare weapon for some builds is 20 pounds of extra carry capacity that you effectively don't have in survival mode.

[nimble pond]

Maybe you misunderstood what I was thinking. I wasn't meaning straight up trying to break weapons. It's more math-based thru combat.

But having "invincible" weapons for me is just boring, thats all

[last vessel]

Have you ever practiced with weapons, or done any training with medieval weapons?

[nimble pond]

No, but it's a fictional fantasy, and a video game at that.

[last vessel]

They're not exactly fragile if given even minimal maintenance.

[nimble pond]

If I wanted pure strict medival simulator, I'd hit that up

[last vessel]

And yes, it's fantasy - it fits into High fantasy where the hero's weapons and armour don't keep breaking.

For it to be significant enough to impact game play they'd have to be breakiing at a ridiculously outrageous rate.

[nimble pond]

But anyway I've said my idea and this argument is going nowhere my friend, so I'll leave it at that, got things to do

Forget to mention, ppl were talking about durability. As an optional survival/difficulty mechanic, I kinda liked how they had weapon sharpeners spread out, even in dungeons. Just thought we could use those or other devices of repair. Not too much, but just enough to were you do kinda need to plan things out a bit. Otherwise yea, repair magic or items not so much, unless they are like temp buffs like potions for weapons.

[last vessel]

A lot of dungeons don't have them at all though.

[weak sapphire]

Breaking weapons is likely to be far less common than breaking armour. But...

Destroyed forever breakage? No. While realistic under extreme circumstances, i don't feel like that really adds anything to gameplay.

Breaking as in reversing Tempering? You can play around with that a bit

[last vessel]

You know, I could probably live with tempering degrading to "vanilla" stats provided a couple of recipes are checked to make sure they're not silly and too expensive (possibly mostly a mod concern).

Then being able to retemper things back to their "maximum" values.

That way I don't lose an artifact or unique non-artifact if the fighting takes longer than expected, and I don't have to carry multiple changes of my chosen style/tier of weapon.

[weak sapphire]

Yeah, basically what i would propose is, you Temper an item to a particular level based on your Perks. Each level is an incremental increase, so Improved-Superior-Masterwork come one after another

Each level has a full durability bar. If durability hits 0, the item reverts to the previous quality, again with full durability.

When you rest, you recover all the durability, but actual Tempering can only be done at stations. So, if you take your time and rest often, won't be a problem. But if you like to really push how long you can go, you may find you have to improve your gear again after a long crawl

[last vessel]

The only problem that would have is that it's going to be quite stepped. It might be better to link it directly to the numbers (damage or armour rating), and call out the level based on the current number compared to the base value.

It's not terriible as the basis though.

[left seal]

I hope Goblins make the jump to playable race in 6 given how popular they have become in fantasy circles, also don't even have to be to extreme in size differences given that they appear to overall be about Bosmer size most of the time

[magic tundra]

I'm pretty sure it would be fun to be attacked by everyone who sees you and not being able to communicate with most of the people /s

[weak sapphire]

I mean... Orcs...

[left seal]

Goblins are clearly capable of speech and if you feel the need to explain away them being treated different when they are the player character a thing the games rarely ever do, just say that a bunch of the Dominion's slaves switched sides during the war and the Redguards are letting them chill out as allies,

[weak sapphire]

I don't expect to see any new playable races.

That said, more non-hostile encounters with other races? Absolutely.

[left seal]

My reasoning here is both that Goblins have along with kobolds become darlings of the fantasy scene, and there is the fact that since Goblin slaves make up the canon fodder of the dominion and given the growing push back against sentient beings being treated as monsters making them playable makes sense to both capitalize on interest and avoid the push back,

[weak sapphire]

Absolutely (though Kobolds were always cool) though there's been pressure in TES to expand the race list for years, and nothing's really come of it.

While i can see encounters with them in the wolrd diversifying away from the usual "Eeew, monsters" approach, i don't expect to see them on a playable list anytime soon

[last vessel]

They're kind of painted into a corner with what they've got listed as existing as "thinking" races that are numerous enough to be more than a statistical anomaly.

[weak sapphire]

I think it's more of an issue with social integration in Tamriel. Goblins, Giants, Sload etc. are all relatively ostracized and viewed as inferior. Even if they aren't, in a literal sense

[last vessel]

More khajiit variants is easy, some Man/Man crosses and some Mer/Mer crosses would be handleable (although they'd have to move away a little from "children tend to be the same race as the mother) things), some argonian "types" might be possible if the Hist is cooperative.

Maybe the missing elves could come up?

[weak sapphire]

It took a long time for Orcs to get back into things

[last vessel]

Giants are impractical for obvious reasons. 😛 Sload are probably a problem.

Hm.

Are the other beastkin still sufficiently canon to reintroduce?

[left seal]

Again there is a easy explination for Goblins to be at least as accepted as Altmer Bosmer and Kahjit as playble races,

[weak sapphire]

Goblins, Ogres, Falmer, Lilmothiit (if there are any hiding anywhere) Rieklings

Satyr (if they still exist)

[left seal]

Minotaurs

[weak sapphire]

Minotaurs ae a big one

Heirs of Alessia and all that

[magic tundra]

I was just imagining how large they had to make helmets to fit their horns in them...

[last vessel]

I was thinking the fox ones in particular. So yeah, the Lilmothit.

[magic tundra]

pretty sure they're all dead

[last vessel]

Maybe the monkeys as well if they're still around.

[magic tundra]

but then again, so was I about the falmer

[left seal]

You could make helmets and boots have variants for races with inhuman head structures and digitigrade legs be less of a total time waste then gendered armors were,

[cinder idol]

Bring back the no closed helmet thing for them?

[magic tundra]

screams

[cinder idol]

Without Unarmoured

[magic tundra]

Screams even harder

[last vessel]

You'd have to do something clever with slots and hinged plates to get even open helms to work.

[cinder idol]

They need custom made armour and clothing like Super Mutants

[left seal]

Not really, they change the shapeof races every game, wouldn't be that hard to narrowthe skulls and put the horns in the same spots as the ones on argonians and khajit ears

[magic tundra]

Mutating clothing?

[cinder idol]

Not sure what that means but I guess? Strong the super mutant companion in Fallout 4 could only wear super mutant only gear found lying around in super mutant camps and from one vendor.

[magic tundra]

oh, you were talking about fallout
I had no clue what you were talking about
but that would mean that, as a minotaur, a lot of gear you find would be useless

[quartz nimbus]

If they actually get more restrictive with armor, they could take a DA Inquisition approach

[cinder idol]

True. I brought it up as a funny "how could I make the idea worse?" but I kinda like the idea of Minotaurs having to cobble together modified armour made from bits and pieces they find on less gigantic races... Endgame would pretty much be either making your own Daedric or getting some custom made for you by a smith.

It would be funny to see the clothing that usually adheres to your characters body as if by magic stretch almost to its breaking point or have a fur helmet partly torn open by the horns protruding from it though.

[dim reef]

Will I be able to buy all the anniversary edition content separate I own everything in creation club in Skyrim lol

[magic tundra]

They stated that you could

[dim reef]

Okay thank you so much I'm really slow when it comes to searching stuff up on the internet xD

[nimble pond]

I forgot they do have weapon durability in a sense, thru enchanted weapons needing recharge and I think there was a perk or something you use that actually replenishes some of the enchantment charge everytime you slay an enemy. Perhaps a similar use could be applied for non-enchanted gear as well 🤷‍♂️

[weak sapphire]

Charge and Durability are systems which, in most cases, you shouldn't really have to worry about. They should recover when you rest

That allows you to then create situations where you DO have to worry about them, allowing you to create interesting gameplay dynamics that change up the experience

[nimble pond]

I agree with the idea, just not using rest as the method, for various reasons

[weak sapphire]

Rest is your general 'Recovery' action. It's something you do to restore your general resources. Durability and Enchantment Charge are resources.

Secondary Resources, sure, but Resources none the less

[left seal]

You know what could be a neat spin off game? something akin to Vermintide but with the 6th house or oblivion crises or the Thalmore,

[weak sapphire]

For the sort of horde style gameplay, i think a group lost in oblivion would be the best option

Maybe the base of operations is a Vehk-ship, or a whatever the Reman Mananaught's used

[nimble pond]

Elder Scrolls horde?

[left seal]

I was leaning towards first 6th house where the group are hirelings broght on by Vivec to assault 6th house bases to help divert Dagoth Ur's efforts as he prepares to breach the ghost fence, this reputation get's you hired in Skyrim to deal with oblivion gates, and you all end up time displaced just in time to fight the Thalmore,

[weak sapphire]

My concern is, outside of Daedra, there aren;t really threats in Tamriel that match, like, Skaven or Rotbloods

They're more small parties of attackers, or formal armies. Not teeming throngs of barely organized rabble

Unless, maybe, you're fighting Undead and the Sload

[left seal]

6th house can use dreamers and corpus stalkers as their main swarms, with Ash beasts ect acting as their specials, and the Thalmore can be like the beast men smaller but farm more elite enemies,

[weak sapphire]

When i think Thalmor, i think smaller forces of elite troops, not hordes

Could do it with Goblins and slaves though, i suppose

[left seal]

I am picturing them not as swarming hordes but elite squads, you don't kill hundreds each in a missions but dozens,

[weak sapphire]

It would be a tweak to the formula

But it may work

[left seal]

Or maybe have the ones you fight be lead by a powerful necromancer who uses undead hordes to back up their army, could get a nice contrast out of that,

[clever falcon]

Wonder how many people remember who the original holder of the Bow of Shadows was, considering it's now in Skyrim

[sleek mountain]

I dont know where its come from? morrowind? oblivion?

[clever falcon]

Dram, a dunmer assassin in tes adventures: redguard

[sleek mountain]

that's quite obscure for new players

[clever falcon]

No more obscure than like, the ice blade of the monarch

[dim reef]

Raerlas Ghile would have had it before Dram, according to Yagrum Bagarn.

[toxic hamlet]

I don’t know if this is where I should put this but I’m desperate. Hey all! I have a question: I was using a mod called technicolor alchemy for Skyrim on my Xbox one. Then all of a sudden, Bethesda stopped supporting it or something and then I accidentally removed it from my load order and now it’s gone and I cant use it anymore. It was probably my most favorite mod I’ve ever played with. It added so many beautiful plants and so much color. I saw that it was still active on the nexus. Is there anyone here who could take over that mod and port it back to Xbox? There’s a note on the nexus about how the author who original ported it went blind and they were unable to continue working on the mod. I would literally pay someone whatever they think would be a fair price for getting this mod back on the Xbox. Thank you for reading if you read this whole novel lol

[gloomy basalt]

This is probably best fit for #skyrim-se-mods

[stuck latch]

Anyone got any idea when they’re announcing the winner of the Skyrim AE Instagram giveaway?

[left seal]

Time for some blasphemy but i hope 6 switches over to a more traditional XP based leveling system,

[prime marlin]

i hope they keep the learn as you do system they hve had since arena

[gloomy basalt]

BLASPHEMY

SACRILEGE

[left seal]

To the best of my knowledge morrowind was the first one to use the current system,

[eager remnant]

I think the skill-based leveling system used by the Elder Scrolls games is the best roleplaying system ever invented.

[left seal]

not really because in order for some skills to stay effective you have to engage in really wonky tedious griding,

To be clear i don't mind them keeping elements of the current system where skills go up from using them and doing so gives XP

[magic tundra]

Wasn't it first used in Daggerfall?

[prime marlin]

daggerfall definitely had a learn as you do system

arena had a more traditional levellign system

[weak sapphire]

That doesn't mean the system is bad, just that the balance is off, or the activities that feed into the system need work.

Alchemy, for instance, requires grinding because it's actually a pretty superficial and bare-bones system on its own.

[weak sapphire]

If Smithing and Alchemy were more engaging and interesting activities, they wouldn't feel so grind-y

For instance, expand Smithing ti general Crafting, you can expand the ranges of things you can make and break up the monotony. Suddenly, you're not just cranking ojt 1000 Iron Daggers, you're making Weapons, Armour, Storage Containers and Furniture.

That way, the only way it becomes Grind-y is if you're trying to master every perk branch

And if you REALLY want to master things, it SHOULD be grindy. That's how you encourage focused builds

[last vessel]

It feels a lot less grindy when you're making Hearthfire homes.

And with a mod that makes it so other smithing adjacent skills also grant smithing XP it becomes fine - although I still end up making an unexpected amount of gold jewellery (because I'm also levelling alteration by converting iron ore to gold)

[weak sapphire]

Alchemy, at the same time, could be diversified to include other types of potables, more control over variables, etc.

And Enchanting, really. The more Domestic Skills just need more variable primary activities to make them feel less grindy.

[last vessel]

Cross alchemy over a little with cooking. Let brewing give a little alchemy experience.

[weak sapphire]

Cooking, Brewing alcohols, and actual Alchemy all contributing to the same general skill could work

[gloomy basalt]

The concoction skill

[weak sapphire]

Could work

Though, in the model I've been playing with, Brewing Alcohol would be double dipping...

One of the mechanics I've tinkered with is using different Solvents to act as behaviour triggerd for various Potables. So, like, Water is for slow-release potions, while Spirits are for Quick-Action potions.

That way, there's a mechanical tradeoff for trying to chug 20 healing potions. Now yoh have to deal with drunk controls.

Slow-release potions, on the other hand, have much more gradual effects, but last much longer. So, you heal an additional 3hp a second for 5 minites, as opposed to recovering 100hp over 5 seconds.

Then Oils can be used to make explosives, Tars can be used for Poisons, and Eithers can be used for Elixers (stat buffs as opposed to Potions which are resource recovery).

So, if you include brewing Alcohol, them you're able to make one of the key components of a secondary pary of the process...

Though, if you can distill ingredients to create more powerful renders, which are then used in brewing, i suppose there's already double dipping, so shouldn't be a problem...

And really, what is Cooking, aside from very, very simple Alchemy?

[left seal]

see the issue is that almost everyone who will ever do multiple playthroughs without mods, will learn and or seek out tricks to quickly level skills, from draining them before interacting with a trainer to more tedious hop on a forge while casting heal, tying so much into such a wonky system just hinders the game, look at the massively immersion breaking Legendary system, to be clear i would be 100% fine with skyrim's system as being an adjacent part of the progression system, skills can have their own perk trees and everything, but the lionshare of player progress needs to be smoother, no more struggleing to get a magic skill high enough to buy the essential spells for dealing with certain gameplay elements, i.e needing to hurry up and get vampire's bane so you can deal with vampire attacks most effciently,

[eager remnant]

"Almost everyone" is a huge stretch. My experience is that folks who continue to play these games years later tend to be folks who are heavily invested in roleplaying. And roleplying prohibits using the exploits you describe.

[left seal]

game is to pushy for roleplaying like that without mods to clean up stuff like vampire attacks ect,

[weak sapphire]

You act like people don't find ways to exploit more traditonsl EXP systems as well.

Players are going to exploit the game. Thats just a fact.

[weak sapphire]

The goal should never be 'Make a system that can't be exploited'. Because that's not possible.

We literally invented levers and pulleys to exploit physics. Humans will find a way to exploit anything.

The goal should be to create a system that allows for multiple means of engagement, and gives meaningful reason to engage.

And, at least for me... a few EXP points for everything i do isn't really meaningful.

At least if its attached directly to a Skill, it feels like I'm naturally investing time in activities, rather than in magical knowledge points that come from 'somewhere'

[left seal]

No the issue isn't exploitation it's the need for and tedious nature of the exploitation, without mods to prevent vampire attacks you need to rush up restoration and get vampire's bane to reduce the chances of NPCs getting killed, the fact that instead of farming xp being going out and exploring it's do something silly like stare at a wall holding an object with telekenisis is not an improvement,

[magic tundra]

You know that vampire attacks are disabled in SSE by default?

[weak sapphire]

And probably won't be a thing in the next game

Like, i feel like this is trying to patch a leaky pipe woth a twist tie

It doesn't actually fix the problem.

Like, how does general EXP leveling make Vampire Attacks better?

[left seal]

Stop being deliberately obtuse, there will be new mechanics in future games that will likewise punish players for playing organically, traditional XP systems make it easier to avoid this kind of thing because you have general ideas about what the base line for a player is likely to be, as opposed to TES which is famous for players spending some time crafting only to have every enemy explode past their combat abilities, something it's sister series Fallout lacks,

[prime marlin]

that…

enemies only levelled like that in oblivion

have you played fallout 3? the end game enemies level with you forever and are massive damage sponges

[left seal]

No, you can still end up in a situation like that in skyrim,

[prime marlin]

except i literally never had

even when i spent the time to get all perks

[left seal]

Fallout 3 has a level cap

[prime marlin]

and at that cap

everything is a damage sponge

they have massive resistances

[left seal]

it's also much older then fallout 4 which doesn't have that issue,

[prime marlin]

except it does with the ghouls

later ghouls take a ton of punishment and appear in large numbers

[left seal]

yeah because by that point it's reasonable to assume you have a broken OP weapon and perks,

[prime marlin]

i vastly prefer the learn as you do system

and you can always mod it out if you dont

the elderscrolls isnt a traditional rpg system its different and i love it

[left seal]

Different is not better by default, also there are almost as many TES games with a normally XP system as the current one,

[prime marlin]

no there isnt

[left seal]

Arena Daggerfall TOS

[prime marlin]

arena had a normal exp system
daggerfall had a learn as you do system

all your levelling in daggerfall was controlled by your skills going up

[left seal]

Really? i mean it is the worst game in the franchise so that makes sense

[prime marlin]

your skills went up as you used them

no its not actually

[left seal]

yes it actually is,

[prime marlin]

maybe in your opinion but the only tes game i dont like playing is arena

daggerfall is quite an impressive game especially for its time

and it was well recieved

your putting your subjective opinion over it as if it was an objective fact

if it was objectively the worst why would a ton of people be playing it and making daggerfall unity to make it more accessable today

[left seal]

We are done, post your entire response at once don't keep adding on and changing the argument it's insanely annoying to have tom keep delating my posts to respond to the 3rd revision in your argument,

[prime marlin]

sorry im scatterbrained and it annoys you

just remmember your not the voice of everyone in the world so dont try to say anything objective
daggerfall isnt the worst objectively
in your subjective opinion it is the worst

[fast scroll]

Also kinda depends on how we define exploit. If this means we keep plugging these 'holes' until we're satisfied we might end up taking out legitimate features in the game
inb4 "it's not an exploit it's a feature!"

[weak sapphire]

I mean, Oblivion is objectively the worst in the franchise

Not only does it's Level Scaling make progression an absolute nightmare, but the games leveling system actively discourages you from playing to your class and requires Jack of All Trades playstyles to maximise Attribute increases

Not to mention it's story are full of silly and preventable plot holes, it's characters look absurdly silly, it's environments are generic and uninspiring...

[prime marlin]

thats still subjective

[weak sapphire]

Like, you can like poorly made games. i love Master of Orion 3, but it is a TERRIBLE game, built on a lick and a promise that utterly fails to execute on any of it's wider ideas.

But just because you like something doesn't make it well made. And Oblivion... Is not a well made game.

[prime marlin]

oblivion was praised when it released because people at the time thsught it looked good

its not objectively bad

infact its a higly praised game all around

even if it has alot of annoying choices

[weak sapphire]

So is Fallout New Vegas. And it's literal trash

[fast scroll]

I find that I had more fun when I just play normally in Obliv than micromanaging my every level. I don't have a problem with the level up system

[weak sapphire]

See, i think my problem is, i've never had fun playing Oblivion.

I had to dig for the fun in Morrowind, but it ultimately became my favorite. In Skyirm, the fun came naturally, but upon closer examination it's a lot more wasted potential than Morrowind.

Oblivion is just... The worst of both generations

[fast scroll]

I'd say New Vegas was bad at launch, you couldn't even holster your weapon and the gamebreaking bugs made it such a bad launch. But after they fixed it up a bit it turned into a pretty decent game

[weak sapphire]

Anyway, the overall point is, i don't think that traditional EXP systems do anything to address the problem of the basic character power curve, unless you carve up character options so much that you FORCE combat stats at every level up.

Even if you're playing in a traditional EXP model, if you choose to invest all your points in crafting and social skills, you're going to struggle against like-leveled enemies.

Because, at the end of the day, if you include anything outside strictly combat abilities in leveling, then Level it's self isn't a particularly accurate means of measuring power.

Now, what's a better option?

shrug dunno yet.

Maybe base the 'threat level' off the character or enemies highest combat skill?

[eager remnant]

I could almost ignore enemy scaling in Oblivion if I tried. But what I could not ignore was item leveling. Seeing every bandit everywhere in Cyrodiil suddenly wear Mithril at level 10, then Elven at level 15, then Glass at level 20 was absolutely horrible.

[weak sapphire]

Yeeeah...

[fast scroll]

Yeah I can't help but laugh at that. It's like an overnight change 😂

[weak sapphire]

I think, as far as enemy scaling and item scaling goes, making it totally detached from the player and dependent on independent, cycling systems is a better approach

Bandit camps, for instance, should start out weak, get stronger and better equipped the longer they last, and then eventually 'Rollover' as either the Guards clear them out, or they all go teir separate ways

The catch being you need some sort of reliable way to inform the player of just how dangerous an encounter may be, so they can decide if they want to commit or not

[cinder idol]

I'll be honest, I prefer it over a guy in fur armour tanking hits from daedric then smashing through your dragonscale armour with a steel battleaxe.

[left seal]

eh i say the solution is to narrow the power gap between high and lo levels and to rely on smarter design for more challenging areas instead of just raw stats,

[weak sapphire]

There's definitely something to be said for that

[fast scroll]

How's that, make each particular group of bandits that occupy a location be part of a particular 'gang' so to speak? That they're there semi-permenantly (til they're killed or something)?

[cinder idol]

You mean giving them proper AI? Nobody but Valve does that, the mainstream is upping enemy stats and lowering yours.

[weak sapphire]

I've played with a much more, dare i say, Imersive system? Basically, hostile locations around the map are handled through the Radiant system, and actively change over time, even generating new quests as needed and having direct impact on the local area.

Going into detail would be pretty long winded.

[prime marlin]

uh… valves ai isnt very complex atall

they just… randomly shout things

they seems smart because of their randomness and words

[left seal]

No i mean things like low level bandit camp is 3 guys sitting around with lots odf cover to apraoch them high level one is a fort with many of them and they have good patrols that will require the player to either bring enough allies or make good tactical decisions,

[left seal]

Having a pool of possible enemy types for each location would also be good

[prime marlin]

once again… they dont actually make any tactical decisions

[weak sapphire]

Indeed

[fast scroll]

Yeah I've never seen this sort of idea before, that's interesting

[weak sapphire]

I'm trying to see if i wrote it all in my thing on the Nexus...

[cinder idol]

It's still weak for an intergalactic empire, I can tell but at least there's something other than "Run at Freeman in a straight line and hope for the best".

[prime marlin]

enemies in fallout 4 make more tactical decisions then half life 2
they dont take formations they dont do anything they randomly run between things and shout combat barks and then shoot

its just all done in a way it seems smarter

enemies in halo have a set of pre defined tactics that are swapped out every few seconds that is likely a much better comparison to a “smarter” ai for combat

[cinder idol]

Debateable, I don't think Combine drop grenades at their feet unlike super mutants who fire a missile launcher point blank.

[prime marlin]

… they do

[weak sapphire]

Yes, i did. Second post, under World Scaling basically goes into detail

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/7898783-lachdonins-rpg-rambling/?hl=%2Blachdonin%26%2339%3Bs#entry87946713

[prime marlin]

most things in fallout 4 especially melee enemies do something different and have weakspots other then just the head

[cinder idol]

I'd mention Halo's AI but it's been so long I don't remember anything beside they jump out of the way of grenades/Ghosts and shoot accurately.

[prime marlin]

they have a 3 seconds of sction where every few seconds they change their current tsctics package

[weak sapphire]

As a technicality, i think FEAR has one of the better AI models

[cinder idol]

I think combat AI is lacking in pretty much anything that isn't an RTS. It's sad really.

[weak sapphire]

But it's actual gameplay loop makes most of their strategic planning usless when their enemy can slow time and drop kick them across a room

[prime marlin]

but yeah half lifes ai is actually really really simplistic

[weak sapphire]

AI needs to be able to do 3 basic things that it doesn't generally do these days. Threat Assessment, Group Coordination, and appropriate reaction

[cinder idol]

I haven't played it personally aside from a demo back in the day but from a couple AI showcases it seems at least above average with threat assessment and some co-ordination even if unintended.

[prime marlin]

i think a mixture of fallout 4s system and a system to swap their tactics every once in a while mid fight would do wonders for it

[weak sapphire]

halflife 2 wasn't bad back in the day, that's true

But it's not fantastic.

Alien Isolation probably has the best AI in a modern sense, but it's not really useful in the context of these games

[prime marlin]

ai in a bethesda game has to do a lot

[weak sapphire]

Yeah

So much that i don't think there's actually any game which you could just say "Do that"

part of the problem is, what we call AI in video games is not actually AI

[cinder idol]

It doesn't seem too mental for me, just go to certain places and do certain things at certain times or triggers. Not sure how the "Do that" system works though, I think it's the game interpreting what younwant from where your camera is pointing then once selected the charzcter carries it out. I'm not experienced in AI though and may have been spoiled by Bethesda games...

[weak sapphire]

It's Procedural Reaction. The game has a set number of pre-written behaviours, which it utilises based on a pre-set conditions

It's not Intelligence, it's basically jsut a complicated Turing Machine

If A, then B. if A and C, then D. If not A, but C, then E

[fast scroll]

This is one big post, I appreciate all this effort! This should be entertaining 😎

[cinder idol]

True, no thought, just prewritten behaviour. Do they think attacking the dragonborn is a good idea, or have an actual plan they can relay to their fellows? I think STALKER might have something like that, a voiceline to do with flanking said in a way to potentially not tip off the player to their plan but beyond that I dunno.

[left seal]

the AI doesn't need to be smart, they need to be placed and programmed to give the player tactical choices,

[cinder idol]

You mean "stand in the way of a pile of logs that can be pushed in a cave". That's old hat. Even if it could be seen as cool, it's ancient tech from over 10 years ago.

[left seal]

No, i mean they need to make stealth players look for a good opportunity and get casters to look for chances to use an AOE, traps should require set up from the player, and stealth in particular needs to have a very specific limit on how far it can take you, thus meaning you need to work to get the most out of it, using subtlety to thin the herd as much as possible before they realize a enemy is present and all form up into large groups and begin patrolling and woin't break off this until the camp resets,

[weak sapphire]

It is the product of many years on the Bethesda Forums, and may hundreds of pages of discission

Anyway, i think the AI needs to be ROBUST. Not necessarily smart.

[left seal]

yeah, they need to be able to create dynamic situations, not show of how much processing power they can waste,

[weak sapphire]

This is one of those situations where i know enough, conceptually, to understand what needs to be done... But i don't know enough coding to know HOW to do it.

[left seal]

yeah,

[cinder idol]

There isn't much opportunity for AOEs from memory, since the raiders in 4 tend to stick in one spot and never move while scrolls just take ages. Same.

[weak sapphire]

But basically, the AI needs to have a large enough store of behaviours that it can switch between based on pre-set criteria to create a range of NPC reactions that feels engaging and interesting.

A lot of these ranges can be handled by using variable modifiers that increase or decrease the likelyhood of certian reactions. Like, a Troll would have low Inteligence, High Agression, so it would be unlikely to run to allies, Block, or Flank, but also unlikely to retreat

[left seal]

like i want the AI to have some basic personality, like the enemies see you are at a place that they register as a dead end, but because you have really good acrobatics you are able to wall run jump and vault a window, these AIs now know to assume mroe of you and won't make mistakes like that again for the duration of the encounter

[weak sapphire]

A Wolf would have moderate Intelligence and Aggression, and would be prone to flanking with allies but unlikely to use complex maneuvers or actions like Blocking

[left seal]

yeah, also they would only attack if you are wounded or they have a numbers advantage and are hungry

[cinder idol]

One thing that's annoying is stealth since enemies either know instantly where you are, have no clue or are suspicious for enough time to just miss you. I wish they'd realise Ragnar's gone missing and try and deal with that in several ways instead of "I see no body but a lot of blood on this once clean floor, nothing out of the ordinary".

[weak sapphire]

Intelligence, scaling specific actions such as special moves, blocking and complex reactions...

Aggression, scaling willingness to commit to a fight and attack vs run away

Cooperation, scaling how likely an AI is to act independently or coordinate with allies

[weak sapphire]

Oh man, Stealth is a whole other problem.

[cinder idol]

It's a piece of the same puzzle.

[weak sapphire]

It definitely is.

That's fair.

Like, i give Bethesda hard time. I really do. Their games are basically a cobbled together collection of barely functional ideas.

But there's so much to them that the work required to polish each aspect is insane. So, i rag on the execution, but i repsect the work done regardless

[left seal]

I feel it should require more finesse and be more about bursting down the enemy, you will never stealth a full fortress but if you use traps to slow suspicion eleminate enmies who are out of the way first and then finally move on the largest body of enemies you can stealth kill one of them burst down some more while they are debuffed and unprepared and only then will you be forced into a more stand up fight against the remaining few,

[cinder idol]

Also Wolf AI is unbelivably stupid, running up to you in a straight line then biting once, pausing, then bite again. Don't you think they'd do things like, I dunno, use that bite strength to pull you around like police K9 units?

[left seal]

No, random animals with knock down is always super annoying in games

[weak sapphire]

Yeah, in general, i think things that knock the player down shouldbe very limited

Or follow specific rules you can react to, and build characters around

Like, if there was an integrated Stagger System, and Knockdownw as part of that? Sure, we can work with that and be something interesting.

[cinder idol]

Not necessarily knock down, but holding you in place so their comrades can come in and attack you while you're being gripped in their teeth.

[left seal]

eh that's to much for an anemy type that needs to fade out pretty hard, unless the same can be coppied over to several other enemy types,

[weak sapphire]

Hostile animals should be less common, i agree.

It's weird to see wolves attacking people.

[left seal]

yeah like i said, should mostly be a threat to you on return trips or in the wake of a brutal fight when they realize your wounded, or if they are super hungry,

[weak sapphire]

Or sick

But then, that would require Disease to be... You know... Something you even think about

[cinder idol]

True, they should have some degree of decision making, since wild animals are unpredictable and are opportunists.

[left seal]

I would overall prefer that random animals be treated less as enemy types and more as set dressing, that can turn dangerous if they realize your weak enough to attack,

[weak sapphire]

Yeah. In most cases, if you're fighting Animals, you should expect a spirggan to be around

[cinder idol]

True, maybe Spriggans can influence them but beyond that, it's their decision.

[left seal]

umm please stop talking about the AIs like they are characters, it's becoming mildly creepy,

[weak sapphire]

I for one welcome our robot overlords

[left seal]

it's not that, it just comes off as excessive humanization of a basic gameplay element,

[weak sapphire]

Well, part of the point is to make them FEEL like individuals, isn't it?

[left seal]

not really, that's a massive wastye of time and energy, the purpose is to create fun and challenging encounters for the player,

[fast scroll]

I think if we're making enemies a lot smarter there should still be room for a lot of deliberately stupid enemies as well. Not every bandit should be a genius master strategist and tactician

[weak sapphire]

Agreed. And the trick is going to be in making it so you can tell them appart, outside of just giving them better gear

[weak sapphire]

I think there's a line between the two. Encapsulating character in an NPC's actions, even in combat, makes things interesting and engaging.

The trick is not to take it too far, and waste time

[fast scroll]

It would be fun if you notice someone do something that they obviously think is a good idea in a shallow sense but actually isn't, in a way that you can tell it's deliberate and not a bug. It might take some creativity to achieve

[left seal]

I think personality is the art animation and sound departments jobs,

[weak sapphire]

It crosses lines between AI and Art, Animation and Sound

Because unless the AI can pick those things in a reasonable and natural way, those animations mean nothing

[fast scroll]

In fact, you bring more life to the game by making situations varied like that. Now I'm trying to think of good examples of an enemy doing something stupid that they think is smart that would apply to gameplay scenarios... 🤔

[weak sapphire]

A rookie Bandit flipping around his sword like a bad ass

And then you just stab him in the ribs

[fast scroll]

After finding lone dead bodies in a big area, saying that they need to SPLIT UP and look for them lol

[weak sapphire]

Ooh, that's a good one

High Intelligence characters will stick together and search in groups, low intelligence ones will split up and be easier to pick off

So, Guards or organised groups will feel different to approach than, say, some random bandits in the woods

[fast scroll]

Yes

[prime marlin]

this also needs to be balanced with still being fun

if the enemies are too smart it becomes annoying

[weak sapphire]

Yeah

[fast scroll]

It would also be really noticeable

(if everyone behaved like a seasoned master tactician)

[weak sapphire]

Yeah

It's also worth noting that... Outside maybe the main quest...

Not every situation should be solvable through every approach. There may be places where you can't sneak your way in.

[prime marlin]

which would partially invalidate sneaking builds

same reason why npcs dont ever use find humanoid spells

[weak sapphire]

If you're trying to create an open world game where every encounter is solvable with every approach, you're ultimately just setting yourself up for problems

It's a narrative and designed encounter? Sure, you can account for that. But if you're trying to create a persistent 'Radiant' experience, you're going to encounter situations and encounters which just won't work that way

[prime marlin]

you shouldnt invalidate someones sneaking build

that would make making one largely pointless

especially when in skyrim it is impossible to be 100% undetectable

[weak sapphire]

You know what a Thief would do if they can't figure out how to get past the guards of a house?

Not rob that house. It doesn't invalidate them being a theif, it just means they go rob someone else.

[prime marlin]

and that just makes it annoying

its a video game

[weak sapphire]

If you're creating a 'Radiant' experience, in other words one which activel generates new content and things to do, missing out on a random radiant mission or encounter isn't going to mean much.

[prime marlin]

a video game in a world where thieves have done insane things and a world with magic

[weak sapphire]

Or, if you're super dedicated to solving that problem and your raw Stealth doesn't cut it?

Act like a character instead of a trope, and expand your range. Get an Invisibility Spell, or some poison, or just kill someone

[prime marlin]

skyrim already prevents you from 100% undetectable

using magic you can eliminate your sound from moving

but you cant ever become 100% unseeable

and other things still make sounds

[weak sapphire]

I'm not sure how that's relevant?

[prime marlin]

you can only be as good as you are at sneaking with magic

because through just pure sneaking perks you can only eliminate 50% of your sound when moving

enchantments and spells are needed to go further

[left seal]

Like i said if you want to clear a camp of intelegint enemies stealth should only take you so far before you have to commit to a more open fight

[weak sapphire]

Yeah, which only reinforces the point. Sometimes you need to broaden your options to go further

[prime marlin]

*sigh

[weak sapphire]

I'm sorry, i'm not understanding the point.

[prime marlin]

i give up

[left seal]

I bvelive they are trying to claim stealth isn't completely broken

[weak sapphire]

Are you saying that every problem should be 100% solvable by mono-typing? Like, if you go hard into Sneak, you should be able to complete any challenge in the game?

Because we may be arguing entirely different points, and that's what's causing the problem

[prime marlin]

im sying let people have fun their own way and dont arbitrarily restrict them

[left seal]

The issue is stealth breaks the game and in doing so warps everything around it,

[weak sapphire]

And i'm just saying that, with a Radiant system, you may encounter combinations of parameters which make something nonviable for very specific approaches. Don't castrate the entire system for something you can never hope to balance for

Like, if the spawn group has 2 high-perception guards at a door, and there's no way you can approach in stealth without a fight? I guess this isn't a problem for your Pacifist Stealth Character. That doesn't mean you can't do a thousand other things, but this particular random encounter isn't for you. Best to wait it out, lets the Guards clear the bandits later, and see what moves in next

If you make it so everything is always solvable through every means, you're jsut going to strip any challenge out of things

[fast scroll]

Are these guards by the door inside or outside?

[weak sapphire]

That depends. If they're standing on the inside,it would be harder to get a shot.

And that's the issue. When dealing with Radiant systems, you can't really create things that are always going to be solvable through every means without heavily hamstringing the overall system.

The best you can really do is create a bunch of encounters, and a bunch of tools, and let Players figure it out themselves.

The alternative is to hand craft every single example with every toolset in mind. But then you're just abandoning the Radiant concept entirely.

[fast scroll]

Yeah every encounter would also be very formulaic if you make them all cater to everything. The best situations in stealth games for me are always 1.) I'm nearly discovered by a guard, nothing gives me more of a thrill than the moment I think the guard very close by is about to see me, and 2.) I have to think a lot about how to manage enemies because of their numbers and due to the layout of an area
And yeah choosing your targets is important. You would expect with a high stealth skill to very easily take apart a weak group of bandits, while a group of experienced mercenaries will demand more from you. Picking and choosing your battles is really the proper philosophy with stealth characters in general. And I'd be all for just hitting a wall and having to bail if you're not a match for the place. You could come back when you're better equipped and have more stuff to give you more options

[weak sapphire]

It's also a situation where... If a player with a stealth character finds a clever way around a problem?

They should be allowed to.

The dynamic swings both ways

[left seal]

another big thing to do is make it so the player can get more resilent faster, as it stand in most games in tes you spend most of the game as a non stealth archer going into your menu to chug potions because every enemy hits to hard and healing spells mostly suck, honestly if not for thematics i would argue light armor should be meant for mages and stealth characters should wear clothes

[weak sapphire]

Well, i think in general how Damage and Health is handled needs some serious changes

We've been using the same crappy systems for 30 years in RPGS

We've got a lot more context and sophistication behind us now 'Swing stick, subtract HP' doesn't really cut it anymore

[left seal]

eh the system is fine what we need is balance so we don't lose 2/3rds of our HP to a enemy who looks exactlt like an enemy who did no where near that much damage,

Also never do that terrible thing where the HP meter decreases from both sides ever again,

[gloomy basalt]

Yes

[weak sapphire]

Yeah, thats... Whose idea was that?

[cinder idol]

(Came back late to the convo but whatever) It's a balancing act and it's skewed toward the dumb side, I'd argue it's more annoying to die to a character that's incredibly dumb because their gear and stats are better than yours so you die to an instakill animation if you get close. From personal experience it sucks.

[gloomy basalt]

If I find that person I will pull their ear like a mom would

Because thats how you hurt someone

[wide garnet]

Here’s a video that talks about things to keep in mind with villains. It’s one I suggested to Watchmojo.com:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm7XaWrGJqI&t=616s

[weak sapphire]

The issue with Health and Damage is that it tries to cover too much in a single layer, and lacks any way to really gauge how hard something is going to hit withiht having a formula and spreadsheet

The first problem is basically... it tries to cover stubbing your toe and being stabbrd in the gut as a single scale.

And the second is... well, can you look at your AC and actually tell how much damage your armour is going to stop? Or loon at your weapon and actually tell how much damage it will do?

If you really want to fix combat and survival dynamics, you need to address these issues

[left seal]

Going for a more dynamic damage system in a TES game would invite disaster, the game's already require tons of skill and herculean effort from the team just to be stable, stuff like that is better left to smaller scale games where super specific management of things is a major focus, that said we do actually need more readable enemies and the armor ratings in most games are stupidly obtuse,

[weak sapphire]

Depends on the system you're going for. If you keep it simple, you can do everything quickly and easily.

For instance, Damage. You have Health and Injury. Health functions as in Skyrim, recovering quick-ish on its own, or almost instantly with healing items Injury functions as Radiation in Fallout, effectively limiting your max health, and requires active healing to deal with.

In this way, you've addressed the first issue, dividing damage up so lasting wounds can have long term impact on your decision making, but stubbing your toe isn't going to cripple you for 3 days.

You then simplify weapons and armour. Weapons do damage that instantly inflicts injuries. Armour converts that damage into Health. So, your armour has an AC of 13, and you know an Elven Longsword does 15 damage, you're going to take 2 Injury and 13 Health.

Which means, you can probably walk out of that fight without needing potions of healing.

[eager remnant]

Pillars of Eternity did something a bit similar to this with Vitality. I thought it was a very interesting approach. https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Vitality

[weak sapphire]

Yeah.

The basic idea is, you're creating a dynamic which allows for both easily shrugged off damage, and lasting impactful damage, without being overly complicated and difficult to follow

And it also allows you to make Armour function more transparently, so you can actually use your AC as a decision making tool in relation to Encumbrance, Noise etc.

[left seal]

eh that's not too different from the grey health mechanic in Dragon's Dogma that limits easy/limitless healing

another thing i hope they fix in 6 is camera movement, it's so annoying trying to line up attacks when they make your view move all over the place, also need to ditch directionly effects on attack al together, terrible mechanic,

[weak sapphire]

As they're implemented, absolutely

I am still a huge fan of Analogue Combat, but... I recognise that's not most people's jam

[wide garnet]

Well scoob a dee doo.

[dim reef]

"Welcome, Moon-and-Star. I have prepared a place for you."

[left seal]

has it come to us through fire and war?

[dim reef]

Ooooo what planet is that?

Usually if there’s a bright star at dusk next to the moon it’s a planet

[eager remnant]

My guess is Venus. And let's try to stay on the topic of Elder Scrolls, folks.

[weak sapphire]

Kinda relevant point of note...

Ever notice how massive Nirn's moons are in the sky?

They must be super close

[magic tundra]

Or super big 😉

[weak sapphire]

Also possible

[dim reef]

if they were big then they either have very little gravity or nirn is the one orbiting around them

[magic tundra]

or the whole cosmos follows different rules than the real life one does

(which it already does, with the sun being a three-dimensional hole, and the planets being infinite but percieved spherical)

[dim reef]

true

[weak sapphire]

Yeah. Its only where laws amd behaviours clearly overlap that you can really draw comparison

Perspectivr, for instance, seems to work the same

Gravity... we don't know

[magic tundra]

inside a plane, it seems to
but between planes... 🤷‍♂️

[weak sapphire]

In reality, we aren't even sure Nirn is a sphere

Gameplay limitations aside, does anyone mention curvature? The Altmer and Redguard would have to account for it with their sailing

[magic tundra]

there are globes and spherical representations of nirn

[weak sapphire]

There are, yeah. But, you know... there are spherical representations of the other planets too, and we know those are not absolitely accurate

When dealing with a setting where the limitations of mortal perceptupn can makr an infinite plane look like a sphere...

[left seal]

Be a necromancer, everytime one of your minions fall, give it the proper rights of Arkay confuse the gods

[prime marlin]

nirn is a sphear but travelling across it is screwy because of how time works on nirn

[left seal]

I honestly wonder if it wouldn't be better for the games to forgo a "main" quest, in favor of 1-2 major non faction quest lines, world ending threats aren't the only way to tell a compelling story, and letting the player fully commit to the open world without any need for pushing a main narrative that makes the player joining factions or doing random quests feel weird and kind of cretes a huge dissonence between the main quest and the open world,

[magic tundra]

I think the main quest should have less of a time preassure, so that it makes sense to do the side quests alongsiede it

kinda like morrowind, where you were repeatedly told to integrate yourself into the societies

[left seal]

yeah and with quest markers and the improved journals we have now days many of the issues raised with Morrowind's handling would be reduced, still i worry about the one upsmanship the team is doing on each big bad now, ad it feels liek we will need a nother big time skip soon to deal with it,

[eager remnant]

I've floated a similar idea a few times myself over the years. Instead of telling a story in a single main quest (and virtually ignoring that story everywhere else) Bethesda could tell the story episodically. Each faction would fill in more of the story. It would be more akin to a book of short stories that, together, form an over-arching plot (like Winesburg, Ohio) than a novel.

[last vessel]

It does feel weird to have the "you must go and speak to X immediately" prompts that you can then wander off and ignore.

Having a "main quest" though is something that's really needed to give an overall shape to the plot.

What I might find useful is to have the faction plots not be "become leader of the guild" so much as "gain the trust of the leader of the guild", with a view to getting their support to deal with the "crisis" in question.

[quartz nimbus]

Dragon Age 2 would like to know your location

[left seal]

I oppose this, factions should be independent, no good aligned mage wants to be forced to join the thieves guild and now proud barbarian warrior wants to pick up magic just to advance the main story,

[magic tundra]

I liked Dragon Age 2, but I wouldn't want a similar thing in a mian sereies Elder Scrolls game

[last vessel]

Thinking about it, the "series of short stories" would require a little more work so as not to have (say) completing the "fighter's guild" plot spoil the "thieves' guild" plot, or make the plot seem sequence breaking by having you go "backwards" in the overall plot when you do a different guild storyline.

[left seal]

To many games feel like they have to make you supreme leader for some stupid reason to appease the egos of morons, you should just reach a really high rank that comes with benifits, not actual leader,

[last vessel]

There's also that you don;t necessarily have to do all the guilds to get the plotline as a whole completed. Just to get all the perspectives, which might not make sense for a given character.

It's OK to only have the parts of the story your character would have seen.

Say there's a "core" storyline, and each guild has a side plot to it that expands on the core storyline and the guild's responses and thoughts.

Or each guild interacts with a non-identical 3/4 of the plotline, and any 3/4 gives you enough information and access to resolve it.

[left seal]

In all honesty Beth needs to make a call, if they continue on the current path then they need to remove early level areas, because it feels so stupid in a game like this to be facing down dragons on the regular but get stomped by random bears, so pick either do stories where escolation is reasonable or start us off with dwarven tier gear and high powered spells,

[last vessel]

Once I'm facing down (and beating) dragons regularly, bears are pretty much insignificant. I kind of get what you mean, but starting at dwarven gear and high powered spells would be uninteresting because you wouldn't get to build your character up to be what you want.

You'd automatically need to be a powerful warrior and a powerful mage and a powerful sneak thief build just to satisfy the basic approaches to the game.

[left seal]

You don't really get to do that anyway, the game tells you 3 quests in that you are the invincible hero of legend by birth and by nothing else,

[prime marlin]

dont insult people wjo like being the head of things please

that doesnt paint you in a good light

[last vessel]

I mean that if I want to build an unarmoured stealth mage, and the game automatically starts me as a powerful warrior in dwarven armour, that's not the character I want to be.

If I want to build a no-magic Orc warrior build, and I start with high tier spells, then that's not the character I want either.

[left seal]

Don't be obtuse, You would get gear based on your class ect,

[last vessel]

Class-based builds are largely a thing of the past.

[prime marlin]

elderscrolls is not the series for super strict classes

[left seal]

It would be your starting gear,

[prime marlin]

you have other games for that kinda thing

[last vessel]

Games as a whole have moved away from that towards skill and equipment based approaches rather than class based ones.

[prime marlin]

let elderscrolls be elderscrolls

i like having no set class at the start and building around how i play bwcause i learn as i do

[last vessel]

Not to mention that I dislike all the classes that Bethesda have implemented in previous games.

[left seal]

I am literally talking about something akin to Dark souls where you pick a starting set and can even customize it, but starting players off with iron armor then telling them they are already a god tier foe who conquers all before them is stupid,

[last vessel]

It also cuts out the "fun" of developing from a nobody into a powerful character, sculpted by my decisions in game.
Starting out as someone powerful and with lots of gear and lots of magic also denies the core conceit of being the Prisoner, and building up from no-one to a hero.

[prime marlin]

why would i start out with a full suit of armor with the prisoner concept

[last vessel]

Except it doesn't say you're already a god tier foe. It says you can become a god tier foe.

[left seal]

You don't get to do that anymnore! not since Morrowind,

[last vessel]

I certainly start as a nobody in Skyrim, then later discover I've got the potential to become the warrior who will defeat Alduin.

I'm some nameless, faceless commoner, albeit one with a destiny that I can fulfil.

[prime marlin]

most stuff curb stomps you in the beginning of skyrim if your not careful

[last vessel]

I'm not "Dave the legendary Archmage-Warrior King" at game start.

[prime marlin]

once you leave the first two dungeons

[left seal]

1 no the game's styory is jumbled up by player choices but you are meant to do the main quest from the start, you are also destined not a candidate to defgeat Alduin, this isn't Azura who realizes that if she just makes up a prophocy it will self fulfil, this is moidenr Bethesda and their lame brain Aedra so it's a strait up you are destined to win no matter what deal,

[last vessel]

Except you're not destined to win no matter what.
You can lose, simply by accepting that if you die, you're dead.

[prime marlin]

modern bethesda has alot of the same people who made morrowind

[dim reef]

Bethesda's level of employee retention is astounding, especially for a game development studio.

[left seal]

People can make mistakes over and over, anytime the Aedra come up it's almost always a mistake, Oblivion's main story knights of the nine, the civil war, the recruiting a little girl to become a memeber of a cult devoted largely to sex, the Aedra have tons of terrible writing around them,

[last vessel]

So you don't like the writing. That's fine.

But that's not going to be fixed by simply going "oh, here, start with mid-high level gear".

[prime marlin]

none of that is objective

literally none of it

[last vessel]

The civil war is bad. I'll admit that. But that's not an Aedra problem.

Oblivion's main story is a Daedra storyline.

I presume the sex cult thing is Dibella's plotline (which I've not done)?
If so, Dibella is far deeper than just a sex cult.

[weak sapphire]

Yeah. Dibella is also a patron of the Arts and Culture.

Just like Aphrodite was. I fact, she covers a lot of the same beats as Aphrodite.

[left seal]

My point if you would stop deliberately missing it, is that if the story is to insist that it skip over the early development of a character from narrtive then doing so for game play would be less jarring, to say it if we had the gear and power that it implies, if Bethesda wants us to always jump strait into godly affairs they need to adjust the games to match it, as it stands it's like when the DM declairs the party of level one adventures the champions of the gods and gives you a gimped Pit fiend as your first boss instead of starting them off at a higher level,

[dim reef]

People like to simplify Dibella as the "Goddess of Sex," but that's completely disingenuous.

[left seal]

The games do that,

[last vessel]

And if you'd stop deliberately ignoring my point, you'd see that I enjoy the process of earning that mid-high level gear and powers.

[spare anchor]

Let's keep it civil

[last vessel]

You only really get the jarring "go from nobody straight to powermonkey" thing if you rush the questline.

[dim reef]

Honestly, Haelga is edging closer to worship of Sanguine or Mephala than she is Dibella.

[left seal]

and there is zero reason the littlegirl couldn't have been the chosen one of any of the other 7 not affiliated with sex gods,

[left seal]

Then start structuring the story around that,

[last vessel]

She could have.
But there are problems with the other divines as well for that.

[weak sapphire]

I mean... Skyrim DID structure the story around that?

[dim reef]

Mephala's sphere encompasses sex. Sanguine's encompasses reveling in your passions (Haelga is into BDSM). Dibella encompasses beauty, love, affection, art, and music. What Haelga is doing is not Dibellan. She just thinks it is.

[last vessel]

"Why am I recruiting a little girl to lead the cult of slaughtering daedra?"

[weak sapphire]

You start off scavenging gear in a fortress under attack, after being totally helpless during the ride and escape.

[last vessel]

Let's see. My current game is level 30-ish. I'm in ebony, with ebony weapons, and my magic is... adequate in two fields.

[weak sapphire]

You then slog your way through mundane threats, from escaped prisoners or guards, to bandits, until you and an entire unit of soldiers kill a dragon, and you absorb its soul. From there, yoh have to go to yelling school, pass an exam, prove your worth by killing more Dragons...

[last vessel]

I wouldn't find it "fun" or interesting to start the game with that gear.

[weak sapphire]

Hell, Skyrim doesn't even tell you you have to vanquish Alduin until half way through the main quest

[last vessel]

I wouldn't really find it fun to start as an established character in dwarven armour either.

[left seal]

Zenithar, make her a thrifty street urchin who is clever but always fair in her dealings, Magnus hell Magnus would make tons fo sense why a coven of magic users want her, but the games love to point out that Deby's temples are effectively big brothals, so maybe don't involve a kid in quest involving her,

[last vessel]

I've not got that impression of Dibella's temples.

Admittedly, I only spend a little bit of time in them, but that's a different issue, with the temples being largely uninteresting.

And remember Dibella's other major function is as a healing temple.

Oh, and plus Magnus isn't a Divine.

[dim reef]

Stendarr himself would be pretty opposed to what the Vigilants of Stendarr are doing, haha.

Or I guess were doing. Hehe.

[last vessel]

I'll admit there are a lot fewer Vigilants than there were at the start of my game....

[weak sapphire]

Looking at the Gods as one dimensional is problematic at the best of times anyway...

[last vessel]

Now, some of Dibella's followers go a bit too heavily into the "love and sex" side of things, but she appears if you read into her background to be a god of enjoying life without descending into excess or using pleasure to control others.

[left seal]

Again it doesn't just plop you into a preestablished character, it would be part of character creation where after building during the escape you reclaim your confiscated loot, which would generate based on your seklected skill upgrades or be put together with a point buy system ect, or they could practice escalation, start you off dealing with something small that looks like it's maybe bigger than you thought but your told that it could be a long time before more info is found giving you an excuse to let it go while you do the usual TES stuff, and go with the classic, but throwing dragons and the deadric hordes at a shcmuck who get's one shotted by 2/3rds of the animal kingdom is just bad scale,

[last vessel]

If you're at the stage where you're facing dragons, then most of the wildlife should be reasonably easy - at least from my experience with the game.

[prime marlin]

you must not have played morrowind

try stabbing s scrib

animals in skyrim die easily i legitimately dont get how you have so much trouble with them

they also dont fully level with you

[last vessel]

And yes, it does give you a pre-established character to a certain extent. By giving you certain gear based on your choices it crystallises what choices the character has made in the past, and limits the variation in characters.

If you've got a certain skill level you always start with this tier of equipment isn't a good way around it.
Neither is a point buy system, since those can usually be abused terribly once people know the system.

I'm also not sure how start you off dealing with something small that looks like it's maybe bigger than you thought but your told that it could be a long time before more info is found giving you an excuse to let it go while you do the usual TES stuff, is manageable in a game where you're largely the one exploring and getting information on the main quest.

Even with that you'll be able to beeline the main quest rather than taking it easy and doing the "normal" adventuring stuff.

[weak sapphire]

It's also worth noting... classes are dumb, and 99.99% of character backgrounds aren't going to be remotely relevant to skills and gear

[left seal]

Facing dragon comes after 3 quests which are all structured to push you into doing them in rapid order, it's like having an enitre game built around the memes spawned by the broken nature of the Point lookout where random yokals with a shot gun are more dangerous then deth claws and super mutant behomoths or squads of Enclave troops,

[last vessel]

Eh. You don't have to go talk to the greybeards immediately.

[left seal]

Umm dragons start spawning after the first one dies

[dim reef]

The people of Riverwood ask you to go to Whiterun, but you can think of a million different reasons not to. One can be as simple as "I just don't care."

[last vessel]

How exactly do you intend to have the main quest be more extended then, without giving the player a chain to follow?

If the problem is that you're tackling dragon hunting too early, that's a legitimate complaint - but it's not an excuse to basically cut out half the levels in the game and start you in good armour, with good spells and blow off the concept of zero to hero.

Hell, now I think about it, going with a Helgen start it's often several levels before I get around to going to Whiterun with the news. I've usually done BFB first, which gives you a few levels, then I somehow get lost and end up in Falkreath.

[weak sapphire]

Eh, the game actively tells you not to go to Riverwood. It doesn't rush you anywhere

[dim reef]

Also yeah you don't have to do what Ralof and Hadvar say. Just... go your own way.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[left seal]

Huh? both people tell you to meet them in riverwood,

[last vessel]

If I did what they say I'd be on the Civil War questline almost immediately, so that's a thing to take into account.
It's a legitimate route to take, picking up on the "Join the Legion/Stormcloaks" and being pushed through it in rapid succession.

[weak sapphire]

No, they tell you that you should split up, and that if you ever find yourself in Riverwood you should visit X.

[last vessel]

On the other hand, are you seriously saying that a game shouldn't try to engage the player with the main plot from the start?

[weak sapphire]

They then head straight for Riverwood, so you have to ignkre the Split Up thing they tell you rkght out of the gate

Compare that with Morrowind, which literally tells you to report to your parole officer right out of the gate.

[dim reef]

Well... it is a parole officer. 🤣

[quartz nimbus]

as someone who takes great pleasure in being a magicky boy, i personally choose to escape helgen and then arduously drag my underleveled, underequipped corpse to winterhold

[weak sapphire]

Yeah, but that's the thing. Of the last 3 starts, Skyrim's is the least urge t

[last vessel]

I can't remember Oblivion's

Oh yeah. "Quick, take the amulet and get it to safety and the heir".

[prime marlin]

oblivion has you in a cell where the emperor (who btw did this for every single previous protag) tells you your important and lets you follow out of prison

[weak sapphire]

'You must take this super important amulet to Weynon Priory, the world depends on it!"

[prime marlin]

where you can get a unique set of broken iron armor or leather armor but the complete sets of either of the level 1 armors arent fully placed

rusted iron and rough leather

[last vessel]

...4 quests in and you're up to your elbows in Daedric portals. And that's including "escape the jail".

[prime marlin]

you dont even need to do the first quest in morrowind to start getting dagoth urs dreams

[weak sapphire]

Point being, not that these aren't problems, but that those poblems have always been there

[prime marlin]

hexk you only need a minimum of 201 health to skip the entirety of the main quest grab wraithguard keening and sunder and wreck ur

[weak sapphire]

Ideally, you want a main quest that has a solid hook to draw you in, and is obviously the 'Main Quest' but is paced slow enough that it doesn't feel forced

[last vessel]

Now, assuming we're in the Iliac Bay for ES VI, and assuming it's the Thalmor trying to "break" the Tower there, you could potentially get a situation where a main quest could let you know that early on, and that it's important to stop them... but then have the information about how they're going to do it, where they're going to do it, what they'll need, and how to stop it is spread over multiple questlines, with the information building up.

It'd also mean you were (mostly) facing "mortal" enemies in this "end of the world" scenario, rather than dragons or the invasion by an entire plane of Oblivion.

Maybe scatter the information in faction questlines, so that you can get the information you need from any one faction and several "secondary" quests, or from (say) any three factions.

[weak sapphire]

Weaving the faction questlines into the Main Questline is fine, if done along the peripherie

For instance, both the Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild in Morrowind deal with elements of the Comona Tong and their infiltration of the government. The Tong, you can also discover, is heavily involved in the 6th House cult

Which ties both the Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild into the main questline, their own interests serving to undermine Dagoth Ur in their own way. But they don't really do anything to address the Main Quest, they just help support it's role in the setting

[left seal]

I would like to see the big epic end of the world stuff built up to, possibly by having a smaller scope main quest that's still super important and feels good to follow act as the prelude, but you can also unlock it by reaching the top role in the factions, which would be a high but not leadership role to justify why you are free to go off on all this adventuring without the same tired "your the leader but that actually means nothing other then stroking testosterone fueled fragile egos" that way there is way less being treated l;ike some rookie noob while you are already 3 dead gods into the story,

[last vessel]

factions also don't have to be the Guilds of course.
Your factions could include (in Hammerfell) the Crowns and the Forebears.

You know, it sounds like you just hate the entire concept of the Elder Scrolls. Perhaps you'd be better with a different franchise?

[left seal]

Ehh the big shift in the world was that hammerfell finally stoped it's boring forever war and became the newest super power, i would prefer not to undermine the potential of that for a crappy rehash of the civil war questline,

[last vessel]

No, they don't have to be fighting.
It could just be that you can only really get influence with one party or the other - but that they're part of a functional government.

[left seal]

Ehh stuff like that is going to be boring without conflict which ruins the chance to fix some of the settings long standing issues by finally having non white people serving as the main leading faction of the setting,

[last vessel]

Oh sure. It's going to be boring, without even considering the possibilities.

And conflict doesn't have to be armed.

You can have political conflict without weapons coming out.

[weak sapphire]

Here's an example of how i'd like to see, say, a Valenwood Main Quest done.

You start off as a prisoner, per the norm. You're slave labour at a work camp for the Dominion, and you're all being put to work excavating ruins at Ooze. There is a rebel attack to break you out, and during the escape you and several others fall from a collapsing bridge into the ooze.

When you come to, the rebels are amazed that you're alive, because lately the Ooze kills anyone that touches it, which is why the Domiion is interest in it. Hook 1 engaged. You and the other survivors are told of a Spinner who has been studying the Ooze and may want to meet you, and your group is split on what to do.

At some point, should you decide to speak to the spinner, you find that the others have all made their way there as well. You then work with the Spinner to uncover your survival, and the rising problems with the Ooze and how it relates to the Bosmeri identity and history.

At some point, the group breaks up again, with some staying with the Spinner and others going off to join the Rebels.

The lines re-merge later, with a sense of urgency, and only now (2/3rds of the way through the questline) does it really become about saving the world and try to hurry you from plae to place.

[spare anchor]

Alright, move along

[weak sapphire]

The first third of the questline is dedicated just to establishing questions and getting you interested. The second third is about exploring those questions and setting up the major threat. And then the final third is dedicated to resolution and saving the wor.d

[last vessel]

Yeah, you know what? Just go find a different franchise if you're going to pre-emptively rubbish every proposal you don't agree with.

[weak sapphire]

I do think the Prisoner thing is kind of important, both structurally and thematically though.

It allows you to create a clean start where, whoever your character was before, you are able to be whoever you want NOW. Your past is only as important as you decide to make it

So, if you were a knight in your past life, but decide upon getting out of that cell you're going to dedicate yourself to Magic? Go for it.

[last vessel]

It also means that the game doesn't start assuming you're already a seasoned adventurer.

It allows for "I was a dock slave until..."

[weak sapphire]

Yeah. Or 'I was a farmer'

I feel like, if you got a chest full of your confiscated belongings, it would muddy that

'Here are your sword and shield back, impoverished street urchin who was thrown in jail for stealing bread*

[last vessel]

My "usual" assumed start in Skyrim is a trader or hunter, caught at the border - not necessarily crossing it, just wrong place, wrong time.

Of course, all the saleable goods got sent to the Imperial Stores on a different cart to the execution one,, so they're long gone.

[prime marlin]

i begrudgingly use aslal

[last vessel]

Yeah, I like ASLAL for the "normal" start largely to give a chance for the scripts to settle.
Other than that it's sometimes interesting to play the merchant or mercenary starts, or the "farmer" start.
But it at least freshens things up.

[left seal]

aslal is handy just because for some reason they didn't include the usual post tutorial remake your character option at the end of helgan,

[last vessel]

"Usual"? I remember it in Oblivion, but not the others.

And it was weirdly abusable in Oblivion.

[dim reef]

I use ASLAL for non-Dragonborn characters.

[left seal]

Fallout also has them

[last vessel]

Eh. Fallout is a different issue. I'd hardly count that in "usual" for ES games.

[left seal]

Eh the games are sisters so i like to see the best all around quality of life bits for the genre as a whole bleed over,

[last vessel]

I don't see it as a necessary thing. I've made my choice already, why should I have to make the choices again?

Plus it leads to people saving just before the "second choice" thing, installing mods and complaining their "new game" doesn't work, even though it's from that save.

It's bad enough with people saving just after the cart ride and doing it in Skyrim.

[prime marlin]

morrowind and oblivion are the ones that had the end of tutorial character confirmation

morrowinds is actually mid tutorial

[last vessel]

I'm a bit fuzzy, but I thought you only picked name/race once at the point you're off the boat and in the offices? I thought before that you were nameless/faceless/classless?

[prime marlin]

you get asked to confirm everything when talking to “ah yes the letter that proceeded you mentioned you were born under a certain sign and what might that be”

once you handle your race class and birthsign your able to make final changes and accept

[last vessel]

Perhaps it's because it's in such quick succession that I've forgotten.

[prime marlin]

yeah its literally in the same breath as choosing your classes

[left seal]

Also the tutorial was much shorter

[dim reef]

It was the first and only tutorial in the main franchise that did not take you through a "dungeon" of sorts.

[left seal]

it was 3 conversations, not long execution scene followed by long run through the town scene followed by 4-5 combat encounters

[last vessel]

The bureaucracy is a dungeon.

[left seal]

it's mainly the execution scene that bugs me, would have been OK putting the last chance save point right as Alduin knocks you out,

[last vessel]

What we need for ESVI is for the start not to involve a long scripted ride, so that scripts can settle without the world exploding if it goes wrong.

You're in a cell. You get a period of introductory taunting (like in Oblivion) from one of the other inmates.
Whilst that's happening any scripts that have to fire at the beginning of the game get a chance to do so.

[dim reef]

I don't want that exact scenario again, but something stationary would almost certainly be better.

[last vessel]

Oh sure, I'm just thinking of a conversation that could happen to fill up the script loading time.

Even something equivalent to the "Hey, you're awake" conversation with it going into being brought to an unknown location at night and you all being thrown into a cell to await execution" would work for that.

[weak sapphire]

Depends on the province and start

In the scenario i mentioned above, easy enough to have a Dominion Guard raging on you and the the other prisoners

For a Redguard game, easy enough to start in a cell on a ship ,talking with other inmates before breaking out during a storm.

For Elsweyr... dunno, maybe start near that city taken over by sugar merchants and have yoh awaiting being sold into slavery?

[left seal]

to the best of my knowledge Morrowind was the last province with a slave trade, and the only one that still traded in people acknowledged to be sentient by the general public, and as far as i know that was mostly left abolished even after the red year,

[weak sapphire]

The Altmer were said to keep Goblins as slaves, and if memory serves, there is talk in the novels of some Sugar Merchants who basically treat the lower classes as slaves

But when dealing with the Dominipn, we don't kniw whats legal or practices there right now

[left seal]

Yeah but as far as i understood Goblin slaves are more akin to historical slave armies, they aren't really sold and traded for private use, but owned and operated by the state as a military force, and they are generally seen in universe as submortals, like how the one dude was able to keep Ogres as slaves in Oblivion,

[weak sapphire]

Maybe. Still, Slavery and Racial Superiority go hamd in hand

[dim reef]

"Generally considered to be subservient" doesn't mean that they are, in fact, inferior.

[weak sapphire]

No, but based on Ondolemar's statements, there is a strong vein of general racial superiority there. Which has a tendency to drive mistreatment of percieved inferiors

[left seal]

if this is from a book then i wouldn't give it any weight, even the main games can be lose about canon,

[weak sapphire]

Anyway, my overall point was that there should be ample opportunity for a static prison start in each provinces.

And each have plenty of room for the reasons behind being in jail to be ambiguous enough that anyone could end up there

[last vessel]

"You got arrested because the local guard captain didn't like your face"

Hell "you got arrested because you were found in town without any coin on you - which means you're officially a vagrant. Never mind the trade goods you had that we seized..."

[weak sapphire]

Yeah

It's not hard to make your reason for being in jail difficult. It's when you create too structured a start, like "Prisoners of War", that you end up with problems

[wanton violet]

finding a reason to be stuck in jail is almost endless, now to make every prison escape fun and unique at same time may or may not be a challenge depending on who doing the writing

[left seal]

Ok here is a break down of how i would personally integrate character start up first you pick between quick start and a more in depth one quick start randomly customizes a character of the regions most prominent race and chooses a noob friendly/basic thematically acceptable class from a small list and get's going, in depth you pick race then sex then gender then animation set, then do the more in depth appearance stuff, then you choose to either customize your starting class, distributing your Attribute points major and minor skills and starting perks, or pick a prebuilt one that does all that for you, you can also opt to take a quiz to generate a starting class, you also get a choice to skip the tutorial if you want, which will take you strait from the character creation screen to the exit of the starting dungeon with all the major loot from it in your inventory,

[weak sapphire]

I played with a similar, though i think more streamlined concept.

You have Quckstart, and Advanced Start.

Quickstart; Choose Race, Choose Sex/Gender, Choose Birthsign, Choose Background, Customise your Look, and out the door.

Advanced Start; Choose Racial Appearance. Choose Sex/Gender. Customise Traits (Racials and Birthsign stuff). Customise Skills and Perks (Background stuff). Customise your look.

Race, Birthsign and Background are basically pre-packaged ideas and identities.

[left seal]

I try to account for other people's tastes/input, and to do what i think will work best for the most people, the simple fact is most players just hit confirm until they enter their name and go, the randomizing is done to avoid false presumptions in analytics,

[weak sapphire]

While i doubt it's most players (at least based on my experience and the memes about character creation in RPGs) that is a fair point. A pure Random button could work too

[left seal]

it's always important to remember to look outside the bubble, most people who picked up skyrim probably played 30-40 hours as a very minorly adjusted male nord and then stopped,

[weak sapphire]

Fair enough

[sleek mountain]

After watching todd howard IGN's interview, I expect TES VI have really fresh start. dragon crisis was just another event in the history, skyrim civil war's referenced on the book etc.

[last vessel]

No! Classes are a bad idea that were (rightfully) dropped.

And skipping the tutorial but getting the "major" loot is a complicated idea - firstly some of the loot is random. Secondly what loot is "major" will vary a lot by player and their approach.

Why do you keep wanting to go back to bad previous game design that was abandoned?

[weak sapphire]

Classes as a 'Background' that imfluence your starting stats are fine.

Anything deeper than that is where they start becoming problematic.

[sleek mountain]

Classes only good when its party based game. if Elder scrolls gonna be party based rpg, then its fine.

[last vessel]

Replacing the racial points with "background" points could work well, it's just when you're going back to attribute points, major and minor skills, starting perks... that's too much for a situation where you might not know what you even want, or what works for you.

It was crippling to start with the skills I wanted to use, only to find there's nothing good for that skillset in the starting area.

Far better to have something similar that isn't a class as such, but a "what did you do before being captured" thing that doesn't assign you an adventuring class out of the box.

Even "I was a soldier" - here, have heavy armour, block, one handed weapon could be a bit restrictive. Not all soldiers are necessarily heavy shield fighters. Some are archers or skirmishers.

Have the quick start be "race for province, bump in melee, bump in restoration, bump in one or both armours, bump in archery" might work, but not making a class as such.

[weak sapphire]

That's why we sorta created this concept of Traits, back on the Forums. Essentially, it covers most of the features of Major and Minor Skills, Racials, Birthsigns, and more, in a system more like Daggerfall's Advantages and Disadvantages.

Want to be naturally gifted with swords? Take Aptitude; Blade, which makes the Skill increase faster

As far as Perks go... While playing with Skills and such, i ultimately came to a conclusion. If you start sliding Skills up and down, its ultimately going to impact leveling. If you have the ability to start the game with 30 Blade, for instance, that's going to significantly impact your early game experience by making you much stronger than level 1 encounters.

So, the hell with it. level 1 is all Skills at 1. If you scale those skills up in creation, you level as normal. So if you want to start the game at level 100, freaking go for it. At least hte game recognises you as level 100 and can measure you against the world.

[left seal]

As i noted before, i would do away with the strict use of skills as the only means of leveling up, so not the end of the world if you get your main skills up to high, you will still gain XP from quests defeating enemies completing challenges ect,

[cinder idol]

United Cities in a shellnut.

[weak sapphire]

In contrast, i'd just strip the actual bonuses you get from Skill Levels out and treat them AS the EXP model in their own right. The actual bonuses come from the Perks you select instead

[left seal]

that would create way to many dead zones for actions,

[weak sapphire]

Then you can uncap the Skills entirely, and if someone wants to spend 300 hours grinding everything to reach level 500 and max out all their perks... Well, power to them.

[last vessel]

I would say that the Daggerfall advantages and disadvantages were handled badly.
Something in that vein where you can get bonuses to levelling things up is good, but the classic "I'm never going to use this, so I'll make it vastly more difficult to level, and dump the bonuses into skills I will use" was a problem.

[weak sapphire]

Oh yeah, the system was a good concept, not so good an execution

[left seal]

like non perk point levels in new vegas, and you can always just make it so that reaching 100 doesn't level it up further but still generates XP with use,

[last vessel]

Maybe you get 10 +ve traits that you can spend - but you can't sell things down - would work better.

(number adjusted of course by the number of skills/abilities/whatever you can buy)

[weak sapphire]

True. I think uncapping is probably the simplest solution, but it's definitely not the only one.

[last vessel]

Maybe allow you to spend two positives on one area to reflect a "+10 starting skill" race?

[weak sapphire]

Yeah. I've played around with limiting the number of Perks, or scaling EXP after a certian threshold, or just saying "The hell with it, do what you want".

Ad the end of the day, i think you;d need to actually test the options before deciding on one

Could also do a system like in some 4X games, where Advantages Cost Points, while Disadvantages Subtract Points, and you need to be at 0 to progress.

So, like, if you ahve one Advantage which costs 3 points, you need at least 3 points worth of Disadvantages to compensate.

But, it's something that would, again, need to be tested, because i'm not sure which would ultimately flow best.

[left seal]

those systems never work there is always a clear meta one that completely blows the others away, i prefer a strict you can in theory max out everything approach for a TES game,

[weak sapphire]

So do i, which is why i generally lean towards the "Who cares, Modders are going to remove the limitations anyway, why put them in?"

[last vessel]

That was the problem with Daggerfall. You could either take barely any disadvantage in multiple areas to get a moderate boost to a thing that was core to your build, or take a massive disadvantage you didn't care about to get moderate boosts to several things you did care about. 😛

[weak sapphire]

Yeah. And i think trying to balance it is part of the problem.

If i want to try playing an absolute cripple that is bad at everything, why shouldn't i be allowed to?

[last vessel]

You can do that by setting the balance to having to be 0 or less to start the game.

[left seal]

Because many players won't use mods and expect a fun challenging experience out of the game, designing around mods is terrible for games,

[weak sapphire]

Agreed, in general

But when it comes to something like this... Slap a disclaimer on it and let people have their fun

It the 'Budget' is in the Negative, have it say "the game is Balanced to a Trait Budget of 0, starting with an other value may impact your experience"

[left seal]

other changes i would make is that until a dungeon is cleared it's considered hostile territory which means you can't rest but can wait, (which won't restore your powers and other such things that would now require a good rest to reset) in it, and unless playing on a casual mode the game doesn't pause when accessing the inventory, to help mitigate potion spam s you would only have a fixed number of "belt" slots to use potions from in a timely manner,

[weak sapphire]

You know, i like the Rest/Wait thing

My idea had been "Let'm. If you Rest in a dangerous area, you get interepted and attacked" but i think the Wait thing fits better.

[last vessel]

I don't like that. Going to the menu to pause is very important to me because of health issues that can mean I have to break off from the game unexpectedly, sometimes mid fight.

[left seal]

it's born out of a belief that as it stands most powers may as well just be you can only use them once per combat encounter because you just rest 24 hours between fights anyway, this wy you can better balance a dungeon

[last vessel]

Plus if I get a phonecall I have to answer, I need to be able to pause.

[last vessel]

Except that not everyone does that.
You can't balance the game around a "cheese" strategy.

[left seal]

you can still pause the game, the map the settings ect would all be paused, hell the inventory could also pause untill you move the cursor, ect

I will never support a game with no pause option for those very reasons,

[last vessel]

Going into the inventory is my usual "pause" shortcut.

[left seal]

like i said could pause then need you to confirm before real time resumes,

[weak sapphire]

Admitedly, i play on PC, but my go-to Pause is hitting ESC

[last vessel]

Ah, PC + controller.

[left seal]

i just hit whatever, sometimes it's B some times it's start, some times it's up/down ont he dpad even,

[last vessel]

The other problem is that on a controller I don't have buttons free to use as "belt slots" for potions.

I'm pretty much full on button options, even with a mod that expands my available shortcut combos on the controller.

[weak sapphire]

Controllers in particuar have a.. Premium on buttons

[left seal]

Obviously a control scheme overahaul would be called for, left right on dpad would cycle through your belt slots down would consume something like that,

[last vessel]

They're already committed, and that's not very convenient if I've got different potions in different slots.

Isn't that the default "favourites" menu?

[left seal]

you would only have 3 slots

[weak sapphire]

Power Wheels are really the only way you're going to be able to expand the options much more

[last vessel]

Three slots isn't enough. Sorry, but if we've got quick access for potions, I want to have big heal, little heal, stamina, big magicka, little magicka, poison, cure poison, and probably at least one "combat skill" buff, maybe with a "spellcasting skill" buff as well.

It wouldn't hurt to have invisibility on there as well sometimes.

Especially if I can't go into my menu (with it paused) to access these.

[weak sapphire]

With Power Wheels, you could, conservatively, add 20 new 'slots' with just 2 buttons

[last vessel]

M. I don't think I've seen good implementation of power wheels without losing something else. But that might just be the controller schemes they were using not working for me.

I guess I wouldn't mind losing right-stick for entering 3rd person mode, and then when that's been clicked it pauses things and lets me use the sticks for a "favourites" menu.

[left seal]

each potion of the standard potions has multiple uses per bottle, special potions would be consumed more often from the menu prefight as their durations would be measured in in game hours, so you would need your reist potions on the belt since you can drink them in safty before starting a fight, or try to get so0meplace to chug them if you get caught off gaurd,

[last vessel]

So that's a complete rework of the alchemy durations, and doesn't even address the problem of me wanting multiple potions available for mid-fight.

[weak sapphire]

Even in the somewhat... Streamlined Alchemy system i've been playing with, you could still be looking at... 2 Potions, a Poison, and a Grenade relatively easily.

[last vessel]

I don't care if they've got multiple doses per bottle, I want a variety available if they're on (effectively) hot key.

If I can't pause when I go to the menu for a cure poison, I have to have that eating a slot.

[left seal]

the point is specialized potions are preparatory, not mid fight "I win" buttons, potions belong to the guile specialization which is about thinking planning an cunning, not spamming overpowered crap until you win,

[weak sapphire]

Some, sure. But you still need those in-the-moment options

[last vessel]

How is wanting to have cure poison available immediately contradictory to that?

Having that be incompatible with having a couple of healing options and a magicka refresh option as well doesn't make sense.

Also, you're starting to argue in bad faith by suggesting that wanting to have access to a reasonable range of potion options immediately (since you've taken pausing to find them in the menu away) is "spamming overpowered crap until you win">

[left seal]

because you should have been aware of the poison in advance and belted it, and it's meant to limit you to force a higher degree of skill for the more chalnge oriented game mode,

[last vessel]

How does taking a cure potion in advance solve the problem of being attacked by a poison?

Remember it's a cure poison potion, not a resist 100% potion.

And how am I necessarily supposed to be aware of the poison in advance if I get attacked by something by surprise, or a mage turns out to be using poison based spells instead of fire, frost, or lightning?

[left seal]

depends on the time frame, cure poison has a duration and then grants immunity to the poison in question for a extended period, so if you know thye poison in play you could apply it to yourself right after chugging the cure poison to improvise a very specific poison immunity,

[last vessel]

It's... instant as far as I've seen.

As in a potion that cures poison. Not a poison that cures injuries.

[left seal]

again we are discussing anerw game in the series, not skyrim oblivion morrowind ect,

[weak sapphire]

Well, if you change how Cure Poison works, then yeah

[last vessel]

So at that point you can just go "oh, it'll work differently, so I can just handwave everything you say".
Just don't do that.

[weak sapphire]

Still... I think 2 Power Wheels, each with 10 slots, gives you the most direct versatility while still making choice necessary

Between Potions, Gear and Spells, you can fill up those 20 slots pretty quick

[last vessel]

2 power wheels would help, but it's what buttons to give up to get them.

[left seal]

this entire conversation is about how we would change up the series formula,

[last vessel]

Yes, but you're basically going "oh, I'll fix that somehow" to every objection.

[weak sapphire]

On controllers? Bumpers.

[last vessel]

They;re already in use.

[weak sapphire]

For things that can be attached to the Power Wheels themselves anyway

[last vessel]

I think they're sprint and shout now?

We probably wouldn't need shout, since "other powers" could just be attached to the spell system.

[weak sapphire]

Is Sprint on a bumper? I assumed it was Clicking the Left Stick

[last vessel]

Left stick click is stealth/crouch.

[left seal]

Because your objections are all predicated on the system being forced into skyrim instead of being part of a new game with new combat balance new features ect,

[weak sapphire]

Man, show you how long it's been since i held a controller...

Still, solvable, but less of a simple solve than i initally thought

[last vessel]

My objections are based on not completely changing the system to be arbitrarily different without mentioning the changes at the time

You say switch to only three potion slots, but don't mention having the potions have multiple uses.
You don't mention that you'd change the durations on resists and buffs.
You don't mention that you'd completely change how cure poison effects work.

[left seal]

and? even in this magical world where you are faced with my elder scrolls game i pointed out this is all in one game mode geared towards a more challenging experience,

you can literally just not play this mode, it ain't dark souls, you got options

[last vessel]

You're also making statements that I should "know in advance" what poison is going to be used on me.

How exactly am I supposed to know that?

[left seal]

Recon? asking the quest giver, hell if the uest is go murder the giant spider odds are spiders are involved,

[last vessel]

And you suggested these were changes you'd make - not a separate mode. So it sounded like these were default setups.

[left seal]

other changes i would make is that until a dungeon is cleared it's considered hostile territory which means you can't rest but can wait, (which won't restore your powers and other such things that would now require a good rest to reset) in it, and unless playing on a casual mode the game doesn't pause when accessing the inventory, to help mitigate potion spam s you would only have a fixed number of "belt" slots to use potions from in a timely manner,

[last vessel]

Sure, if it's go murder spiders, that makes sense.
But I could be ambushed by someone using poison. I could be attacked by a spellcaster - at which point you're expecting me to "be prepared" for me to be hit with fire, frost, lightning, poison, or whatever other spell types there are all the time.

So it's the default mode then?

Because "on a casual mode" doesn't sound like the default setup.

That sounds like you've gone to an "easier than normal" mode.

[left seal]

No it would be more like a challenger mode or something i don't know what to call it because hardocre implies specific things about 1 save ect, so i felt distinguishing it from the more relaxed mode was the best way to convey the point,

[last vessel]

Even so.
If I'm going up against bandits or "an unknown threat" in a cave system (which there are a few quests like that), am I supposed to expect poison in that situation?

In that case, what two potions am I supposed to put in the other two slots? I presume one is meant to be my healing potion?

Or should I (instead of cure poison) be filling that slot with a different resist/cure in case they've got mages with a different attack form?

That's why three slots isn't enough. I can't prepare and use "planning and cunning" on that few slots with the effects list we've generally had available.

[left seal]

could research it, "hey random dude what radiant enemy type lives in this cave right now?" and again recon, besides poisons should be balanced as ticking timer not a instant death threat, so if you do get poisoned without it on your belt and you are in the challenge mode just kill the sucker faster then your health drains, heck maybe your really good at alchemy and your healing potions cure poison now,

[last vessel]

Research with whom?

And it doesn't address the question of "if it's bandits should I prepare for poison, or elemental spells"?

And how does recon help when to get that information I've effectively got to go in there in the first place?

Or to put it another way, what potions should I have on my belt whilst doing recon?

[left seal]

by using stealth to look around the corner? studying the area if you are heading off on a quest you should warned about what's up, if the enemy has a wizard it will be a big deal, people will mention it, because unlike skyrim any game i make will treat years of intense and difficult study as being slightly harder to find among random collections of criminals, and if not just look around, spider webs every where? spiders, undead and skulls galore? be ready for a necromancer or lich, are these criminals wearing ragged armor and talking about brawls? then it's about a numbers game worst case they got a couple of big armored palls, are they all wearing black and completely silent? watch the ceiling and shadows and keep the poison cures handy, if the game is even halfway well made anything that can just outright one shot you without preparation is going to be a mid boss at least, you will see what's coming, and be given a chance to think it through, or if you are super worried bring along the white magey companion,

[last vessel]

I still have to go into the area, whether stealthed or not.
Not all quests tell you what the opponents are.
Having a mage is not (currently at least) a big deal, because even a beginning mage can use some spells.

And again, I still have to go into the area to see the spider webs or whatever.

"Spiders, undead and skulls" - great, so is my preparation supposed to be for the spiders or the mages?
Just because the bandits are in rags doesn't mean they don't have someone who has poisoned their weapons.

And it's not necessarily about being outright oneshotted. Getting locked into a long combat doesn't need a midboss to kill you to even small damage over time.

Basically "recon" doesn't stop me being exposed to whatever is in there near the entrance.

There's also that if you're being consistent about needing years of intense and difficult study to get spells, you (logically) lock the player out of ever gaining any.

[left seal]

OK first you do know you can swap what's on your belt in this scenario right? if you get there and the cave entrance is covered in spider webs you can just open up the inventory from a safe spot and add the cure poison to it, the entrance like before you go in should indicate what is spawned there right now and no it means you are a prodigy, so win everyone talks about how insane it was that you passed a test that requires everyone else years to prepare for in such a short time it's being honest, by the time your using master spells you have through either insane dedication innate skill that has raised your raw combat ability with magic to a elvel on par with the likes of arch mages of legend, sure you may not have the scholarly understanding of magic they have but you are still a 1 in a million talent, which explains why you are suddenly the mage faction's go to muscle for problems, and why you are given all time in the world to finish writing that essay on the relative fluctuations in aethrius based on the position of the apprentice sign, it's still due but take your time,

[last vessel]

That still doesn't help.

I get to a cave entrance. It's blank stone with a few plants around it. The quest said "bandits", but didn't specify anything more.

Why should anything, particularly an intelligent opponent be advertising where they're based anyway?

And sorry, but the prodigy thing doesn't work as an explanation. Why couldn't the bandits have one, and it simply not have been reported because they weren't on the raid that triggered the bounty?

What if the bandits have items that can cast spells for them?

[left seal]

Have you met literally any bandits in any Bethesda game?

[last vessel]

Yes? And they've got a wide variety of different types with them.

Sure, not everyone is a mage, but having a couple that can cast "Apprentice" tier spells isn't unknown.

[left seal]

that was to the advertising post and wa a joke about their subtly and intelligence, don't take this all to seriously,

[last vessel]

Oh right. Well if it's to the advertising part, quote that message.

That way I know what you're responding to.

[left seal]

i tried it was jumping all over the pace for somereason,

i was going to delte the post and try again but you replied to fast,

[last vessel]

But OK, let's forget poison for a moment.

Say we've somehow established that the opponets are bandits who never use poison (for some reason they're too stupid to maintain an alchemist or just wipe their knives in spider and snake venom).

What potions am I expected to "prepare" to take in if I just know the cave has unspecified bandits?

[left seal]

bandits are one kind of outlaw, their members usually just rely on brute force or numbers, if someone deviates from that they will have some hints in the environment and banter, because they are ether the end or mid boss for this encounter, you see books that talk about the dark brotherhood ect they have an assassin sow watch for poison and ambush, if they have a mage you will see signs of them, burnt furniture ice crystals bottled electricity ect to warn you what element they are best with, and then you bring your healing potion and probably either stamina and magicka which ever you feel is more important to your fighting style, and probably your own poison, since if you are this fixated on potions you are doing some kind of alchemy based challenge run,

[weak sapphire]

I feel like the core danger here is creating a system that, while it may be more challenging at a higher level of play, is also cripplingly restrictive at a lower level of play.

And you don't want to be creating something which requires significantly different basic systems depending on what difficulty you're playing.

[left seal]

I don't think it really does, the onlyrealdifference here is that you have to be more careful because it's harder to fix mistakes, and you always can reload a save unl;ess you are playing with the actual hardcore mode on in which case i assume that you are very good at the game byt that point

[last vessel]

You're telegraphing far, far too much of the bandit's profile there though.
And you're also eliminating the possibility of them having both a mage and an assassin type - not that all poisoners/assassins have to be dark brotherhood.

[weak sapphire]

And if you just want to play a casual game?

Too much Dark Souls thinking, not enough TES thinking

Although, i'll admit, i'm biased. Because i think Dark Souls is absolute garbage

[left seal]

No but any assassin worth their salt would study them, and they won't be together unless it's some insane end game dungeon since both are boss level enemies and so are not usually crossed over,

[last vessel]

You're also kind of limiting it to the mages only being good at one type of magic.

And... no, they don't both have to be boss level enemies.

[left seal]

That's literally just normal mode, no challenge mode no hardcore mode, just normal mode,

[last vessel]

A moderately competent assassin working with a college renegade mage could well both be in the same area.

[weak sapphire]

And the Mage is indoors. What are you supposed to do, stake out the place for 3 days hoping he comes out to take a leak?

[last vessel]

There's also that "no assassin worth his salt" would be leaving their critical "how to assassin" manual on the other side of the dungeon complex to where he's based. He'd either have it with him, or in his private rooms which are probably either where he is, or on the other side of whatever room he's in.

[weak sapphire]

And what about Dungeons that aren't uni-type? For instance, a bandit lair that's blocked off a passage to a Draugr infested crypt. You wouldn't know until you're actually inside

[last vessel]

" you bring your healing potion and probably either stamina and magicka which ever you feel is more important to your fighting style, and probably your own poison,"
And what if I'm playing a hybrid who uses magic and stamina, depending on the situation?

A slightly different version of my current build for example - a summoner mage with poison, stealth, and close combat attacks.

[left seal]

then switch back and forth letting one resource recover while you use the other?

[last vessel]

He'd want health, magicka, poison, and probably stamina together.

[weak sapphire]

And that's assuming only one type of poison

[last vessel]

That's the thing. He doesn't necessarily switch between them one after the other. He uses them as is necessary in his encounters.

So in any given fight he could be needing to use either recovery potion.

Or both sometimes, if he's got to drop some spells and stab a fool personally.

[last vessel]

Yeah, I might want a silence/magicka burn poison for mage opponents and a stamina/health burn poison for combat monkeys.

I mean, there's a mage in here somewhere, so I could come round the corner and find him at any stage, assuming that he's not going to be locked up in his room unable to move about...

[weak sapphire]

And if there's a Capture-and-Bounty system, you may want a Paralytic Poison to boot

[last vessel]

Well, my current paralysis poisons wouldn't be very good for that. 😄
They're a bit toxic as well. 😁

[weak sapphire]

There are a lot of variables that could be at play with something like this, and i feel like a 3-slot cap is just going to unnecessarily restrict the options so much it's going to actively discourage developing any of those more interesting systems

[left seal]

and in this case the necessity may be to use enchantments to regulate the problem forgo the poison if you aren't on a special challenge run, also all poisons deal health damage, it's their base line feature to avoid the issue of highest damage always being the best, and again you can just play normal mode, go into the menu it will pause slect it and as soon as you confirm it will play the animation just like if it was on your belt,

[last vessel]

So you'd be completely removing the pure magicka burn poisons, the stamina burn poisons, the paralysis poisons, the fear poisons, and all that? So removing a lot of tactical options, and actually making the "highest damage is always best" problem worse, because now there's effectively only damage?

And what if I don't have relevant enchantments to regulate the need to switch (whatever those enchantments are meant to be in the first place)?

And having the solution to "I need to have more potion/poison slots" be "oh, just don't use the system" is bad.

[left seal]

No i mean all poisons do HP damage as a baseline feature regardless of other effects,

[last vessel]

Why?

[left seal]

Because in the end on most days, death is the onyl status effect that matters,

[last vessel]

Why are non-damaging poisons - like the paralysis poison Caledor mentioned for "capture for bounty" missions not possible?

[last vessel]

What if I'm doing a mission for the thieves' guild with a "don't kill the guards" rider (like they've tried in Skyrim).

[weak sapphire]

Because of lazy game design, sure. But by doubling down on that, you're stripping awya the ability to make it more interesting and more thoughtful

[last vessel]

What if "just put him to sleep/paralyse him for 10 minutes" is enough for the job I'm meant to be doing?

[weak sapphire]

Or you're in a situation like getting the rubbing from Calcelmo's Stone, and you decide you don't want to kill anyone?

[left seal]

if you are doing a thieves guild mission and damage anyone period you messed up, thieves guild is the pure guile faction, you need to be really good at fundamental stealth gameplay to do their missions at all,

[last vessel]

I'm pretty sure it's specifically "kill".

[weak sapphire]

Yeah, even in Thief i can still complete a mission and get my "No Deaths" bonus by knocing a few guards out

I shouldn't say "Even in Thief" since Thief and Thief 2 are the best stealth games ever made...

[left seal]

If you are playing it right as you are specifically your groups sneak then no you should never even be known to have been there except by what you took being gone,

[last vessel]

Yes, but if it goes slightly wrong, being able to knock an enemy out and salvage the mission without killing anyone might be advantageous.

[weak sapphire]

That honestly sounds like a pretty dumb Thieves Guild

They're the Mob, not ninjas

[last vessel]

And besides, "your groups sneak"? Single player game where you don't necessarily have followers.

[weak sapphire]

I've never understood this one dimensional Thieves Guild idea that they're all invisible second story-men who just whisp in and out, robbing a place blind

It's the Mafia. They run money laundering, pickpocketing, extortion rackets, mugging...

They aren't ghosts who never get seen

[last vessel]

At least one set of missions for the Skyrim thieves is "beat this guy bloody with your fists until he pays up".

[weak sapphire]

It's like the idea that the Fighters Guild are all physical warriors. They're mercenaries. They're going to ahve plenty of Mages who are just there to find work and get paid

[left seal]

No the thieves guild changes from game to game, here their a collection of crooks being lead in a farmer and the viper esque fashion by the guild master to keep them from causing to much trouble,

[weak sapphire]

And that's how they should always be. Oblivion's Thives Guild was one of the stupidest things i have ever seen in gaming

Even Robin Hood, the quintessential 'Thief' got into fights

Look at Pasha Pook's guild in the Drizzt books. That's what a Thieves Guild should be like.

[last vessel]

Most of the time the thieves are "steal by any means necessary, try not to get caught".

[weak sapphire]

Anyway, tangential to the point. Unless you're arbitrarily trying to limit the sorts of potions and effects that are available, 3 slots just isn't going to cut it.

[last vessel]

Having it be "don't ever be seen, don't leave even a trace or a whisper" is impractical unless they're also chameleon/invisibility and muffle mages with stealth skills out their ears.

Or running on invisibility and muffle potions, but then they need a belt slot as well.

[weak sapphire]

And if you restrict the effects to justify those 3 slots, then you're just cutting out options to justify a restrictive system, for the sake of that system. It's not adding anything, it's actively taking it away for it's own justification.

The basic systems and interfaces should help facilitate new ideas, new approaches and more versatile options, not restrict them for their own sake

[left seal]

thieves guild is about the guile specialization, you sneak you pick pocket you charm, and your brew up the tricks you need, if you hired on specifically to be the teams stealth expert recruited after being tested by being lured into "robbing" the guild master get caught, then you failed the mission, either retreat and fine a new avenue or reload and try again,

[last vessel]

What "team"?

It's a single player game.

[left seal]

The team of NPCs that make up your allies in the guild

[last vessel]

So in the thieves guild, I'm the only stealth guy?

WTF?

[weak sapphire]

Sort of. But monotyping them to the most extreme extent of that idea is overly limiting. Should there be a Ghost option? Sure. But forcing the entire organization into that tiny, extreme box only serves to make them a silly trope

[last vessel]

Also, great, I brew up the tricks I need - but then don't have the slots on my belt to use them?

With alchemy traditionally being a mage skill as well.

[weak sapphire]

And unless every single encounter telegraphs everything you could possibly know about it so you can prepare ahead of time...

[left seal]

again optional mode for additional challenge,

[weak sapphire]

But then that takes all the... you know... Adventure out of adventuring

[last vessel]

Doesn't matter that it's an optional mode. It has to still be functional.

It has to be playable and allow for different playstyles.

[weak sapphire]

I think youd find much more mileage out of simply making effects and interactions moreimportant as difficulty increases, rather than having entirely seperate modes

[left seal]

and if you don't turn up the difficulty beyond your skill level and play well it would be,

[last vessel]

🤦

[weak sapphire]

For instance, Limb Damage may mean jack squat on Easy, but on Master you better be careful how far that fall is, or you're hobbling home.

[last vessel]

Playing well involves using your resources to suit your character type.
But you're suggesting a mode that doesn't allow that for some fairly standard builds.

Or that requires you to have far too much knowledge about encounters ahead of time.

[weak sapphire]

Or Durability may not much of an issue against anyone not using a Corrode Spell on Novice, but on Master you better make sure you have the right tool for the right job or you may find yourself weaponless

Scaling systems and behaviors that are always present to make them more prominent, rather than totally changing the game, seems like a better option to me

[last vessel]

If I'm a non-mage thief/assassin build, I could well need health potions, stamina potions, stealth potions (which may be of more than one type), poisons (of more than one type, even if damage is the primary effect), cure poison potions, and resist element potions (x3) in case the resident mage wanders around the corner, does spot me, and decide to level the area with magic.

Remember it can go wrong and enemy characters should be reasonably free to roam, not sitting passively in their rooms waiting for me.

[left seal]

Challenge mode it's meant to be harder, it's meant to skew the balance and demand a higher level of skill, you need all 3 slots for stuff? be good enough to not take too much damage damage, and take the healing potion off, because you are playing the "see how good i am at the combat aspects of the game" mode

[weak sapphire]

I'll be honest. I would never touch Challenge Mode

[last vessel]

Sorry, but that's ridiculous.

[weak sapphire]

As far as i'd be concerned, it wouldn't even exist.

[last vessel]

Sometimes it's not possible to avoid taking damage.

[weak sapphire]

And i would probably be a little salty that they spent time working on something like that, instead of fleshing out other aspects of the game.

[last vessel]

Sometimes you won't reasonably have a way to know what effect a given character or group of characters will use.

[weak sapphire]

Like FO4s absolutely asinine Survival Mode. Total waste of development resources on a terrible system

[left seal]

that's why it's a mode, so challenge freaks can get their fix without chnaging the base game design to much, it's part of the big bragging rights of "I beat it on Challenging Survival Legendary Hardcore mode with a non meta build!"

[last vessel]

But it does change the base game design.
You've changed how the potions work for one thing.

[weak sapphire]

The problem is, i don't think it presents a meaningful challenge. I think it creates an overly obtuse, restrictive approach which fundamentally limits the things you can do, turning it from an RPG into a sloppy Action Game

[wanton violet]

i liked survival in fallout 4, made the first 15 level the best moment in entire game, then usually by lvl 15+ you got a build/gear setup rolling and can one shot everything

[left seal]

No potions are changed for weight and to avoid the too awesome to use problems,

[weak sapphire]

If you wanted to make it work, you'd have to totally change how game systems work, at which point you're basically be building an entirely different game

[last vessel]

Unless the game has two completely different alchemy systems, both of which have to be balanced, you've still got the "now this potion lasts for hours it's *awesome" problem.

[weak sapphire]

2 different Alchemy Systems, 2 different Spawn Systems, 2 different Combat Systems...

You'd need an entirely seperate game

[last vessel]

You've also made it so that you've taken the choices out of the poison system.
No longer do I have to weigh up if having a paralysis/silence poison is worth it not doing damage.

No longer do I have to consider if just draining a mage's magicka pool with poisons and then offing him whilst he tries to fight me in a nightshirt, armed only with a knife is a viable tactic.

[weak sapphire]

Which indicates it's a pointless system. It becomes irrelevant so quickly it might as well not even be there. Hell, even freaking Caps are relevantlonger than Survival mode.

[last vessel]

By making potions multi-dose you've also made them much, much more valuable, as potions now last longer.

[left seal]

no? it's meant to make a potion feel like it's OK to use earlier before you end up in a sunk cost loop over not using it, you use a resist fire potion at the begging of a difficult fire themed dungeon or when you know the enemy uses fire a lot, instead of "well if i use it now it will run out before i really need it!" which just keeps happening until you kill the final boss,

[wanton violet]

mostly because it goes both way, ennemy can one shot you, so can you. and vats giving a clear advantage couple that by the time it came out, (in my instance) i knew the map and every major ennemy location i didnt really need to panic finding a bed, i knew where enough bed lied around in the map and not a lot of dungeon or location could surprise me anymore. but if it was available at launch, oh boy the fun would have lasted longer

[weak sapphire]

The problem is, how do you know it's fire themed?

Your entire proposal requires that the ENTIRE DUNGEON be telegraphed up front

[last vessel]

Again, why are you telegraphing the themes of the dungeons ahead of time?

[weak sapphire]

You might as well stick a sign out front telling you all the enemies that are inside

[last vessel]

And you're removing the "neck a fire potion when the fire mage turns up" option as being practical, because it's no longer quick to access.

[left seal]

The giant scorch marks around the entrance and the fact that the quest is called trial by fire, i want you to know i have never typed anything more deadpan then that,

[last vessel]

WHY are the dungeons telegraphed so heavily though?

[weak sapphire]

So, every encounter group with Fire as a threat should be so glaringly obvious then?

[wanton violet]

dont that remove some part of the challenge having entire dungeon challenge told upfront before even, you know, exploring blindly and learning by yourself what in it?

[weak sapphire]

How many various dungeons in Skyrim start one way, and then transition into something else as you go deeper?

Guess those are a dead idea.

[last vessel]

I guess there goes the "accidentally walk into the necromancer/pyromancer lair" dungeons. Or the "funny noises and lights" quests.

[wanton violet]

or the basic cavern opening to a dwemer ruin that caved in

[weak sapphire]

Oh god, all of Blackreach is right out

[last vessel]

Or the draugr lair with unexpected fire/frost/lightning gem traps.

[left seal]

If it's challenging enough that any decently skilled player specifically needs to bring all their elemental resitences to bare then yes, it is probably an end game dungeon with a flipping named flame monarch as just the mid boss,

[last vessel]

But what about a low level dungeon with elemental damage traps?

[weak sapphire]

I mean, just think about Bleak Falls Barrow. It starts off with Bandits. It then has a middle section populated by spiders that the Bandits have closed off and avoided. Then, behind the Spider lair is the untouched Draugr crypts

And that's literally one of the first dungeons you're likely to encounter in Skyrim

[last vessel]

And of course, there are the cases where a mage has more than one type of elemental damage to hand.

Say a frost mage with a staff of lightning and a fire atronach scroll.

After all, it makes sense to get items that can cast the spells you can't, rather than having all your spells be the same element and be screwed if someone turns up who is resistant to one element.

[weak sapphire]

The rouge Mages who stole the books from the College of Winterhold Library, for instance.

You've got all 3 types of Destruction Mages, and Conjurers in that group

[last vessel]

Yup.

Now add to that the "poison" spells from nature or restoration magics...

[left seal]

... what if the enemy has swords? what if they have bows? what if there is a lock? what if their is a rock? what if there is a guy in a moldy sock? if you have managed to ignore the fact that you have wandered into someplace scaled so far above your level that a properly balanced mage enemy can one shot you with his secondary elements because you didn't have an extra 20% elemental resistance, then you clearly missed the memo bout how your not supposed to be here, go away and come back later when you have leveled up or prepared better,

[last vessel]

I never said anything about being one shotted.

So leave that out.

[weak sapphire]

Alright, well, it's almost midnight, so imma have to bow out here.

Have a good night everyone

[last vessel]

Also, "properly balanced" is very different depending on if you can only carry a couple of potion types ready to use, or if you've got a full selection on hand.

[left seal]

night

[last vessel]

"Properly balanced" also means vastly different things depending on the build you're using, and it's possible to have walked through all the melee and ranged fighters, only to have real difficulty with their mage boss - or vice versa.

And of course, not all mages have a "secondary" element - they're good at multiple, depending on their spell list. Unless you're proposing making them essentially mono-type mages?

[left seal]

That's true, but for real as long as you don't let anyone run back and warn them the boss and mid boss(es) shouldn't come out on their own and shouldn't be on alert, so you can check in on them see what robes he has to determine his tier then watch what elements he uses in his idles, most of a mages elemental power comes from perks not the destruction skill itself so multi elemntal skill tends to be rarer unless its a late game foe like a lich, and if you think he's going to be a problem you can drink your resist potions for any other things he may throw at you, does he have any armor on? is he carrying a staff? if no and yes he's squishy, a glass canon, likely to be baldly injured with a surprise attack which will nerf him hard until he can heal or recover from the surprise effect, if he's got armored robes and a melee weapon he's a battlemage, hits hard but limited mgicka pool, bait his spells then close in and out melee him, he's only going to have one handed un staffed spells unless he want to put away his weapon mid melee fight,

[dim reef]

Anybody here looking for and/or excited for The Elder Scrolls VI?

[last vessel]

So you're expecting your bosses to basically just sit idly in their rooms? Because that makes sense.

They're not, for example, going to be in the main room of the area with some followers?

Especially the midbosses.

And then there's that looking into a room and seeing someone in armour might not have you expecting a mage at all.

Or you might not be able to get a surprise attack on him if you're not a stealth build.

Some battlemages after all are in actual armour, not armoured robes.

[left seal]

Enemy readability is a major concern of mine, if someone is wearing heavy armor in a bandit group they are either pure warriors or crusaders or who only use healing and buffs knight who rely on their servants for back up, if their is a guy wearing a full set of heavy armor and is a very powerful mage, he's a end game boss with a name and every enemy in the place has been screaming about how much of a monster he is and why it's better to die out here fighting you, because you don't know where their family is,

[last vessel]

And what if they're in mid-late game light armour?
Or just a competent battlemage in heavy armour?

And why do all powerful mages have to be cartoon evil who only have minions because their families are being threatened? That's just bad writing.

Enemies shouldn't be completely readable. If you can be a battlemage build in heavy armour at mid tier so can enemies.

A (say) 20-25 level mage build in dwarven armour is plausible, and that's a long way from "end game" level.

[left seal]

Bandits have different armor styles then other groups, so it's the material you would be looking for, light armored bandits wearing the boss armor are usually assassins' who are also glass canons who try to land sneak attacks with poison and then try to rush you down if you survive that, if you see one wearing bandit leader light armor made from elven material you probably already won because all he's got now is trying to snipe you and then hope like heck he can burst you down, because he's not getting his sneak attack unless you let him out of sight long enough to hide,

[last vessel]

But the boss isn't necessarily wearing a different tier of gear.

Or at least not a completely different tier.

It's not unknown for them to be wearing mixed gear with an item that's a tier higher than the others.

And again, what if they're a combat mage build in light armour? Or would you be removing that possibility in the interests of "telegraphing" the traits of the boss.

What used to be the "Nightblade" class for example.

[left seal]

Again readability is important to me, bandits wear disctint armor types denoting rank, ONLY high ranking leaders wear certain styles, if a bandit is wearing anything other than the bandit gears their a named foe who you can research by asking around, so if you see a bandit wearing Dwarven style armor made out of Ebony, you have found a major named enemy,

[last vessel]

Perhaps it's just a fundamental design concept difference then.
I don't agree that the leaders necessarily have to wear completely different styles of equipment - nor that the mage necessarily has to be the leader, meaning that they might be in "normal" gear for the bandits anyway.

And of course, you don't necessarily know that a given named foe is in a dungeon until you get there, depending on the quests that have sent you there.

Whilst there might be a "go to X dungeon, kill 'Lord Darkheart the Battlemage' " type quests, it's also possible for that particular dungeon to be targetted by other quests that don't reference the bandits specifically being there, or who they're led by (especially if he's a radiant boss, and not a fixed one).

Also worth noting by the way that "Crusader" has classically been a heavy armour/destruction/restoration build, so they're perfectly fair game for heavy armour and big go boom.

[left seal]

Eh i put them as Major Skills Heavy Armor/Melee/Restoration Minor Skills Speech/Conjuration NPCs tend to stick to their major skills to help avoid every enemy devolving into magic knights,

[last vessel]

I'm going by how Bethesda have defined them previously.

And Destruction has been a major skill.

Restoration was a minor skill for them in Morrowind.

...weird as that seems.

Speech/Conjuration seems to be entirely missing as a combination, looking back at things. Weird.

[left seal]

I know but things change and to much overlap existed, between Battlemage Crusader and Sorcerer that's three classes who's big thing is heavy armor and magic, so i decided to make the Crusader a bit more paladiny, and yeah important note is that Conjuration has an entire subset of perks and spells devoted to anti deadrea effects hence why they have it,

[last vessel]

Eh. That's kind of important to mention when you're talking class roles to mention when you specifically mention one of the heavy armour/mage classes that's known for Destruction, and not conjuration.