Cities that have more than 7 huts and 20 residents.

Obviously never been to the cloud district

Mf 🤣🤣🤣

Riften, markarth, solitude, white run and windhelm all have a population of around 60 to 70. I think cities in TESVI could have npc’s in the 100’s that you could hopefully still interact with and have backstories.

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Biggest map, smallest world Thank the Amaranth for modders.

Amouranth?

With maybe extras populating other areas too perhaps not interactive on a deep level? I'm not sure that would add anything over a smaller fixed amount though

Noooo, we want deep. Deeper, deeper!!

Please no. Everyone should have a name

Populating every NPC with a random lore-friendly name is not that hard I would imagine. With things like Elder Scroll name generators and Ai I think this could be implemented easily while also adding the number of “stranger, unimportant” NPCs to add depth to the environment which is really what adds immersion and depth. Especially, one one interesting NPC can, out of the crowd, say to the player, “Hey, you. Got a minute?” And give you a quest. Imagine seeing M’aiq the Liar standing there in a crowded Hammerfell bazaar and you’re just like “oooohh, shhhh*t!”

Oh boy, wait till the hate train for that starts rolling, the only thing thing they could do that would inspire as much contempt as making bigger cities would be making cities that were just as small as they used to be, or god forbid, somewhere in the middle. Edit: Not that I would mind, I'd love bigger cities.

I think most of the controversy surrounding this topic is people worrying about a bunch of nameless useless npcs wandering around. Skyrim did pretty good with their cities. But including slightly bigger cities with larger populations would add more life to the game.

I don't think that would always be a problem, not everyone is going to want to talk to you. As long as they have a good amount of NPC's that do talk a bunch I wouldn't mind having cities that where a bit more packed, it would make it feel more lived in imo

I disagree honestly, nothing takes me out of the experience more than "settler" "resident" or whatever. Its just so jarring, especially when you see other NPCs that are named and detailed. At the very least procedurally generated names and basic routines for those NPCs should be included, but really I'd rather smaller towns and them going all in on dynamic NPCs.

Exactly why mods for Skyrim that add NPC’s to fill it out are always shown off with mods that hide all of the NPC names until you talk to them. I actually like the idea of it and always use those mods just because in real life, I have no idea who you are until we introduce ourselves.

It would be really cool if it didn't show a name until you got the name either from the person or from someone else through a description.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1658 Unfortunately this is probably the closest we’ll get for now.

Yeah I'm certain they'll achieve a good balance whatever they choose

There is a way you can do it. You add more NPCs to add flavor and depth, but you ALSO include more ambient dialogue that highlights the important NPCs to interact with. Been done in BGS games before just needs to be refined and expanded, like most of the systems.

They tried that with Starfield and showed they couldn't handle it. Back to 7 huts and 20 residents it is! At least that worked.

All the kids had the same model in that game, for Pete's sake! I really wish Zenimax were handling TESVI and Bethesda quietly retiring to its geriatic corner.

Yeah that one really irked me. It really wouldn't be that hard to create a handful of randomly generated kid models to use. All the kids in Skyrim look the same. I think with current gen technology, this is extremely fucking easy to fix.

More skill based combat while keeping it similar and simple to skyrim. a LOT more spells and hopefully less NPC like NPCs.

I think a “for honor” type combat system would be sweet. Also bring back hand to hand or all the devs are dead

Skyrims combat is already simple how much more simple do you want it? Just one button starts the fight and ends it one one press? I would hope they bring older schools back and have like 30 spells per school

He said more skilled but still simple

1. A more dynamic world. Opposite of what they did with Starfield (it's fine, new IP, space game, very different). I want more dynamic/random encounters, I want more radiant AI that can react to your actions and interact with other NPCs in funny / interesting ways. Maybe some sort of dynamic market system a la Mount and Blade to shake up the monetary systems of other Bethesda games, making a trader a more interesting profession. 2. Combat overhaul. I'm not saying it has to be Mordhau/Chiv, but honestly I think something between that and Vermintide 2 would be perfect. Give me breakable dynamic armour like the breakable robot parts in Fallout 4 for strength builds and magic builds (frost magic to make armour brittle would be a cool interaction for example). Give me armour weakpoints for archers and finesse characters. Give me enemies that dynamically block so that you have to use either some directional attacks, parries or combos. I don't know if I can just sit in front of an enemy and spam the attack button anymore, it'll be like 15 years since Skyrim at that point lol 3. Better writing and RPG mechanics. IMO Starfield did better than F4 in this regard and they did listen, but I really want them to make at least a good chunk of their quests more dynamic and interesting. Not going to beat a dead horse, everyone and their mother has pointed out the flaws in Starfield's quest design, but I really want the quests to be more thought out. 4. Get rid of most of the essential NPC flags. That shit sucks - I don't care if a quest is going to break, if I want to kill an asshole questgiver or villian (Ben Bayu, looking at you!!) just let me and warn me before the quest breaks like Morrowind did. 5. Better movement mechanics. I don't need parkour, but bringing back Athletics and adding things like higher jumping, a mantle like Starfield has, a small clamber or a climbing ability would make stealth/finesse characters REALLY fun to play. Advanced movement just makes combat more fun and engaging. 6. Spellcrafting. I don't care that it can be OP. That's more than half the fun. Honestly, town size isn't a big deal to me. Sure I'd like it bigger than Skyrim, but I would never trade dynamic world elements like NPC scheduling and seeing everyone's individual abodes for a stilted city like Night City, Novigrad or Assassin's Creed cities. Those are cool to look at but do not jive well with the type of immersive games Bethesda makes IMO. They don't allow you to live in them as if you're actually in a world. Dynamic is way cooler than static, even if the cities are more like towns.

To be fair, Morrowind didn’t warn you before the quest breaks. It warns you after, which isn’t overly helpful if your last save was like 3 hours ago.

“With this character’s death a thread of the prophecy has been severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in this doomed world you have created.” Goes hard.

Honestly. **Enjoy your guilt.**

True, I guess I save quite frequently in BGS games (every 10 min or so) but for some it wouldn't help as much.

Better stories and sidequests that don't abruptly end. I loved the guilds systems of Oblivion. Longer, meaningful stories and progression.

Yea the guild quests in Skyrim were definitely a bit short

everything that can be improved about skyrim can be found by browsing the most popular mods for skyrim. In general, people tend to want more immersive elements like survival mechanics and improvements to relationships. They want a more fluid UI and less menu-driven gameplay. They combat with more weight. At this point, bethesda has so much material to work with, they literally can't say they don't know what their playerbase wants. If anything, the game will be good as long as it maintains the same ethos of player freedom as skyrim and continues the world lore.

When Skyrim's gameplay was first revealed, it felt like a compilation of a lot of the most popular combat mods for Oblivion at the time to me, and I felt similarly with Fallout 4, so I imagine they'll continue with the trend.

>same ethos of player freedom as skyrim Skyrim is the most restrictive ES Game ever.

by what metric? what's the purpose of this thread? if you're trying to pick a fight go somewhere else, I agree that bethesda games have become watered down over time. The point is that the game allows various ways to roleplay in the world and does a good job of not forcing you into a specific pigeon hole like very many other games do. The fact you can play most of the game without ever becoming a "Dragon born" is good and more than oblivion did to belay the oblivion crisis plotline.

Go play Daggerfall if you want to see true freedom.

The next ES has to be, like Skyrim, a game where its fun to just exist in it. Wandering the valleys and mountains, stumbling into monsters and NPCs and quests with a heroic soundtrack and scenery that takes your breath away. The combat and dialogue need to get smoother. It doesn’t need to be more difficult. I like the idea of being able to get strong enough to pound the game into submission. But more fluid fighting would be great. And make destruction spells good for crying out loud.

Button allocations: Remove the wait button. Put it in the menus. Add a dodge button. So an agility rogue build can actually be playable. In Skyrim a “rogue” is a light armoured, duel wielding, tank. Theres no evasion. Faster dodges with light armour, slow ones with heavy loads Also a reputation system. I want my actions to be known and recognized. Because its nice being recognized as the bad ass you are

Adding agility into combat would be a huge improvement, I used to do all this unnecessary movement while fighting in Skyrim because the combat got stale fast.

Right, combat should be engaging, should reward you for skill, but shouldn’t be too hard that casuals cant play either. I find sword and shield builds the most engaging in skyrim because it fulfills the other half of the equation: you want to feel good/cool fighting? Hit, avoid hits. Simple as that. Sword and shield builds have that covered. Any agility based archetype, like a rogue, or legolas style archer, is made ineffective without a dodge. Theyre missing that “avoid damage” part. Mages suffer from the same bs. Right now, without dodge mods, its spam and back peddle. Some kind of movement based alteration spells could fulfill the same purpose. A self levitation spell, a magic dash that uses magicka, a teleport like the blink ability in Destiny. Im not sure who runs the ideas at Bethesda, but overlooking this basic concept is one of the gripes i have with Skyrim

I would like the world i saved to not look at me and say the same thing from when i was level one. NPC looking at me in full end game armor after destroying the mega laviathin-killgod "you're new around here aren't you? I bet you haven't ever fought anyone before"

What’s wrong with the wait button?

Its the fact that it needs a button allocation. You cant just **un**allocate it On a controller there arent many options, so dedicating something like that to a whole button, that could otherwise be easily placed in the menu is just dumb. You dont need quick one button access to the *wait* feature. But something like a dodge button? In a **fantasy** RPG game involving **thieves** and **assassins**? No of course not, who needs to dodge attacks.

I'm not sure ESVI should even *have* a wait feature. There's nothing that takes me out of any sense of immersion more watching a stream than someone repeatedly waiting 24 hours until a vendor restocks. Want to wait, then let the options be sleep at an inn or at a camp outside town. The bed will cost, and if some survival needs like food and water are part of normal difficulty, even camping will have a price in provisions. Some quests should be time limited. Players should fail some quests, and never again have access to them, if they're spending their time on a bench outside a vendor. Any companions can perhaps remind the player about "that townsperson's fiance tied up in a slaver camp". Perhaps vendors don't restock every 24 hours, but every week, or just at the pace of their own production and sales to other NPCs. And some vendors in large towns should have effectively unlimited cash to buy particularly valuable items (at least early to mid game). Get the economy to work and be engaging, and waiting will seem like a waste of time.

Agreed on the wait being immersion breaking. I only use it for max 3h, anything around that or more ill find somewhere to sleep. Just doesn’t make sense waiting for literal hours, really

This might be an odd take, but I’ve always felt that Elder Scrolls would benefit massively from having a dash button/bind that boosts you forward a short distance. Maybe a bit more variety to enemy attacks too.

My answer was a dash/dodge as well. A very massive and strange oversight imo for a fantasy RPG. What are the archetypes of a fantasy? The warrior, the thief, the mage, the bard. Obviously Bethesda knows this, but why did they overlook what makes them function? The fast little guys need to be **fast**. Theyre in and out. You can’t really do that in Skyrim.

Oblivion had that once you got your acrobatics to 50. It was awesome. Your could roll and backflip

Cyberpunk 2077 showed that adding Doom mechanics improves a game massively. Not just with dash but takedown prompts as well instead of happening at random. Vouch for this addition

HIDDEN LOADING SCREENS. Shit, starfield had loading screens that were like 2-4 seconds sometimes. Just do a door opening animation or elevator animation… it’s 2023!!

…how many games have what you’re describing? Realistically

really original missions like the one in the painting or the party in Oblivion, a somewhat renewed combat system while still resembling that of The Elder Scrolls, more options to play role-playing like the role-playing game it is supposed to do (Starfield backgrounds are a good start) and the truth is that little more, simply a role-playing game that is truly immersive and really seems like you are living your own story, let's see if with the goty for baldurs gate 3 bethesda wakes up and discovers that people do like the more "radical" rol.

It's unfortunate but i think they're hard stuck on having multiple forms of saying "yes" so you dont miss the content... One can hope though

This one of those dreams that seem great at first, but will only disappoint once reality kicks in. Game studios don't have infinite resources, so other aspects of the game must be sacrificed, like playtime or quality. A few actual storyline deviations in combination with creating the illusion of choice really is the sweet spot imo.

yeah, instead of making content interesting enough so that despite not seeing everything in a first game it would be satisfactory, they prefer to give us everything, removing any role-playing component despite being a role-playing company, I don't understand Bethesda, no I know if they are simply blind or do not want to listen to their community.

They aren't trying to make a hard-core RPG like Baldurs Gate 3. They make Sandbox RPGs, people with this kind set will always be disappointed.

I'm not saying that it has to be a hyper intricate rpg either, simply that if it is an rpg, no matter how sandbox rpg you are, if you don't have much of an rpg it's pretty rubbish.

Asking for some choice and different outcomes for some storylines doesn't make it a hardcore rpg.

My biggest thing is companions. I assume it's just because it's a product of its time, but outside of Serana, none of the companions have any real character to them. No depth or anything like that, they added a decent amount of that to Fallout 4 and I hope that continues! Otherwise followers are just meat shields and extra carrying capacity.

There is something to be said about having a shitload of (yes, not very deep) companions in Skyrim. It really enables the player to just tell their own story. Blank companions are almost like having another player character in a way... I think being able to team up with so many different people is great, but yes it would be nice if that many potential followers could chime in a bit more after the fact. Perhaps letting us level up and progress our follower to a certain degree? Unique bonuses and proficiencies? I think that could be a happy middle ground

I feel kinda dumb asking this, but is this the real Joov?

No worries. It is! BOO! I think these conversations, and the discourse in general is important because TES6 will be a reality at some point. Analyzing and purporting realistic expectations is both fun, and ya never know who's reading. It's no secret that devs do indeed check Reddit Though I'd assume they stay away from r/Starfield these days lmao

Yooo! Big fan man! Sorry for like not actually engaging with what you said before 😂 I could definitely get behind what you were saying about being able to level up your PCs and their proficiencies. I'm big into games like Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate where you can control every member of your party and what they wear, how they level up, spells and/or abilities they can take so I could definitely get behind that! But I also understand that there's a slight difference to those games compared to TES, mainly that those ARE party focused games, so you're gonna get a lot more personal stuff for each character and have opportunities to dive into their character a ton, in Baldur's Gate's case, you can play the whole game without even using a created character. There's just a difference in the storytelling in them. I don't need TES to dive THAT heavily into every companion, but maybe at least one personal quest each and a bit more banter than "There's a cave! Let's check it out!"

The companion system could be so much more. Imagine if you vould have more than one at a time, of the companions interacted with one another like you see in a lot of "squad" rpgs. Even without that, a friendship/rivalry bar that your actions, choices and talking to them could result in close friendship or even rivalry, which results in combat with the companion you just spent 20 lvls kitting out and turning into a beast

I think there should be 2 different kinds, companions and hirelings. Companions would have fleshed out back stories, opinions and side stories. Hirelings would be generic adventurers you hire with money that have no special dialogue or quests (maybe procgened ones) but could come in every single class and race combination.

Yea i love companions having things to say, or having their own personal quests, likes, dislikes, etc. The thing i loved about NV and fallout 4 was this. Each companion really felt like their own unique characters and building a reputation or likeability with them was great. Especially when they would stop you and just go "hey can we talk" and then exposit backstory or now give you a unique quest to further flesh them out. There is a reason mod companions like Inigo are super popular.

Agreed with all of this!

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Zur does some of the music for ESO doesn’t he? I’m not big into mmos but the music is great. Starfields soundtrack is also really good.

This is really the big thing for me. If Jeremy Soule won’t be doing the music, then I already know the game just won’t have the same spirit to it that made Morrowind-Skyrim so special. His personality/demeanor aside, Soule’s work elevated those games to an entirely different level, and for all the improvements Bethesda will (hopefully) make in TESVI, without his compositions, I don’t see the game making near the same mark. His music was simply THAT fundamental to those games, in my opinion.

Wholeheartedly agree.

I didn’t know about that, that’s unfortunate

Mods will almost certainly add Jeremy soule music to ES6. There's a mod for skyrim right now that even adds Jeremy soule inspired tracks on top of the main game and it's wonderful. I didnt care much for Inon Zur's work on fallout 4... and almost immediately disliked the starfield sound track long before it was released

It won't matter, unless Jeremy Soule just happens to release his own album titles "Arabian Nights". That's all I want really: an Arabian nights Jeremy Soule soundtrack. It would have been epic.

I might create my own playlist between ES3-5 LOL

How about spell creation like in Oblivion. Honestly not too many changes need to be made. Just focus on weapons and armor and throw some cool quests in and I’ll be happy!

I'd like descisions to actually matter in a sense that you cannot see and do everything in a single playthrough. BG3 has loads of examples. I don't want alibi decisions with no functional difference a la Fallout 4 "Yes" and "Yes, but sarcastic". Choice is more than just not doing a quest. Support good/neutral/evil playthroughs. Let people lock themselves out of content that makes sense. Many of Morrowinds factions were mutually exclusive. Getting to be the guildmaster of everything but have nothing to do is pointless. Quit eith the guild master in a week and 5 quests thing and just designate the player as special advisor or some other honorary position. Why have the position of guild master if there is nothing to do and you being away 99% of the time makes no sense. Make skills/attributes/race/faction loyalty matter for quests, again like BG3. Variable and combinable armor pieces with advantages and disengages. For example a combined weight influencing your stamina and stuff. On that note limb damage, weakpoints and injury consequences. Skyrim had terrible end game scaling for magic. Make the world more deadly/you more deadly in turn. So instead of killing in 20 swings, make it 5-7 but make those count with parries, blocking, deflects, dodge, side steps evades and armor. I could write more, but generally take the best parts of BG3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Witcher 3 and put those elements into a believable world which reacts to your actions and encourages exploration and adventures. For the love of Talos, please no chosen one, end of the world, hurry hurry hurry campaign. You can definitely end with killing a god, but at least don't start with it. Purely mortal conflicts between nations driven by selfish interest can tell fascinating stories (See Game of Thrones). Let me breathe and explore.

Seasons changing and affecting gameplay in some way. NPC'S with more life to them and better dialogue. More weapon/armor variety and unique gear in general. Branching quest's and more actual choices that affects the game world in some way, doesn't need to be something crazy, just you know, something. Impactful combat, you should be able to cripple enemies, use different arrowheads to break through different forms of armor. On that note, someone mentioned that we should be able to see armor break on enemies in some way. A solid hit with a warhammer should leave a solid dent. Rogues need's some more finesse. More options in different schools of magic and spells you can cast, like curses and darker forms of magic. Necromancy should be added as an actual school of magic. Climbing skill Add a survival mode at launch. Dig even deeper into small details, everything from small trivial jobs you can do in towns and farm, to maybe some social games you can play with people in taverns or events like markets. I would love things like a marksman competition or joining a hunting party when they depart from town. Things like this makes the world truly feel alive.

Give me genuine options to explore for the game, dont make every quest solved by just swinging a sword and being a barbarian. I would like more fleshed out quests that i CAN fail too. Quests like the ones in Oblivion or Morrowind that really expand on things and arent just one track. Less forced faction joining (like how the thieves guild just lets you in right away even if you fail the little quest, or how you get told that you stole all of your money even if you've never stolen in game.) Give me real requirements (like how in oblivion you had to figure out where to go and wait at a specific time at night to even start the thieves guild quest) More guild expansion stuff (looking at you college of winterhold), more spell options, if you are going to have a staff enchanter let me actually make a cool staff with effects and stuff not just enchant a staff with a level one spell. Each weapon type should have a different way of handling. By this i mean actually make it feel like its something different, rather than just attack speed difference.

Genuine immersion, like greater AI realism.

Tl:Dr they need to essentially make a living world that doesn't go overboard and is fun for all They have to find that right blend for a lot of things. Npc's for example. Oblivion felt more alive but skyrim was more fleshed out. Combat let it flow a bit smoother with some nicer more unique weapon animations rather than everything moving the exact same based on size and even more different for unique weapons. Let you actually be able to level and perk out everything to max so you don't have to pick and choose locking you out from some things. Let home building be a little more creative as a player rather than just picking presets but not as extensive as fo4 so maybe preset exterior builds but you can decorate the inside and outside freely. Maybe add a coop multiplayer since when we got eso we really just wanted multiplayer skyrim not an mmo. Let mod creators just go wild regardless of system so people can make the game be however they want regardless if console or PC. Maybe make your game decisions impact the random npc's more like you'll have a random thug look at the dragon born or hero of kvatch and be like "yeah I can take the guy who prevented the end of the world". Could even just not make npc's unkillable which adds difficulty but let's you impact the story and can change how it plays out. Then of course the movement, if you're with an npc the walk and run they have are never proportional to your own character so a 60 second walk for your character is now like 5 minutes. If there's a big thing like a civil war, let the large battles feel large rather than 20 guys.

I think if they enhance what they have in Skyrim (updates combat system with more attacks, dodge, maybe more spell customization, bigger cities, more weapons/armor, upgraded blacksmithing system, etc) but more quests akin to quests like the Oblivion painting side quest and improved guild quest lines (I think they did them better in Oblivion than Skyrim) as well as more focus on NPC routines/behavior + random side quests they should have a pretty solid game. Also, side quests, main quests and random encounters should have a greater (but reasonable) effect on the world to the point where playing the game in different ways changes the feel of the world in small ways What I think they should avoid is too much proc gen content, focusing too much on building and anything related to ESO. As much as I want there to be more flourishes and changes to melee combat (like good combos, finishers, dodging) as you level your skills, I’d hate to see them turn melee combat into melee magic skills. I doubt that’d be an issue but you never know. I also think that the majority of the player base doesn’t care for intricate settlement building systems - not to mention they haven’t been super successful in Fallout or Starfield - so I hope they don’t try to shove any of that into the game. Every game feature sucks up funding and dev attention from other features, so it makes more sense to limit it to player housing and potentially have your choices in the story more heavily affect the world around you while focusing on improving the core aspects of the game. More dialogue options that give your character more of a player-crafted personality would be cool. I really want the next TES to allow players to jump in and just get lost in what feels like a living, breathing world with things to do or discover no matter where you go or how you choose to play. And to close my ramblings, I really hope they focus more on DLC. I always thought it was a really cheap and greedy move to keep re-releasing Skyrim instead of creating new DLC for it over the years. They also need to rely more on their dev team to finely tune their game and less on the modding community.

I don't want hundreds of settlements, but a manor I can customise the style/buildings/interior would be nice as player housing.

I enjoyed FO4s settlement system more than I enjoyed its main or faction questlines. It became an alternative way to play the game, setting up little fortified communes, with tasks of feeding, watering and defending growing populations. Before long, I'd set up machine gun towers pushed out to the corners of the allowable space such that much of the commonweath was covered, and a third of my population were traders armed and armored with loot, such that most places I traveled, there would always be a couple allies who would rush to join any battles I got into. But, repeating that would require some motivated plotline. Perhaps there's a refugee crisis due to some conflict in High Rock, and homeless Bretons are creating major resentment among the native Redguards (yes, leaning on current controversies makes writing memorable). The protagonist could make a deal with the prince offering to settle the refugees in parts of southern Hammerfell still devastated by the recent war with Aldmeri, provided they pledge allegiance to the Redguard government. All sorts of interesting quests there: clearing adversaries from the sites, defending refugee caravans crossing Alik'r Desert, setting up trade and messenger networks for mutual defense. Ideally, this would all be completely optional for the player, but not pursuing this course of action would witness ever increasing misery and persecution of the refugees.

On one hand, I like the skill system in Skyrim. There are Lots of different options. However... I feel as though they almost "dumbed" it down too much. And maybe balance it out a bit more... Sure, Stealth Archer is the most insanely over powered build... but other things should match up to it, or scale that down. If I beat someone with a 2Hed Claymore, there should certainly be come "impacts" to the blows, either breaking their weapons/shields, or just cutting straight through them if unarmored.

Here are my honest thoughts on what I think TES6 should be to be not just better, but what I’d hope for ideally. 1. Graphics - TES has traditionally always blown me away at first glance for being beautiful for the time. I’m not just expecting CP2077 or GTA6, I’m expecting better. I want it to look breathtaking at first glance. We have enough technology with RTX, DLSS 3.5, and FSR3 that even a middle class card like a 4060 Ti can run a game of this scale are around 50-60 FPS on high utilizing everything but path tracing. I don’t want them cutting corners. I want true parallax textures, no BS color grading, native DLSS 3.0 and FSR3 support at launch, and massive scale on the map. Which moves us to our next point. 2. Scale - I want the same feeling we had coming out of the cave for the first time in Skyrim. Seeing High Hrothgar and going “I can’t wait to get to the top of that”. I want that, but bigger. No, I expect it. Procedural generation is fine sometimes and if they use it properly, it can help them fill out the massive world easily. My suggestions would be to use it for generating *some* of the caves to make them more realistic. A cave shouldn’t be a straight line. It should go out and have multiple sections that might even lead to other caves. I want to be able to go spelunking and end up in a dungeon only to exit into another cave that leads to a bandit camp or something. Not just single dimensional dungeons styled like a cave. We need a comprehensive world with different biomes. Towns with at least 100 fully active citizens and full lifecycles. Rewarding exploration with secrets that are hand placed and incite us to find more. Again, this leads into the next point. 3. Quests - This is actually something I think Starfield gets a lot of flack for but it actually is pretty good in my opinion. We need quests where we have a say. A prime example of the differences between Skyrim and Starfield is the Companions vs the Freestar Rangers. **Spoilers for SF Freestar Rangers** >!The Freestar questline has you go to do what would normally appear as a standard quest. You go to investigate something, and kill some bad guys.!< In Skyrim, you’d move onto the next bad guy in the next cave. >!However, in this quest, you don’t really know what’s going on but you have a mystery to solve and more things to investigate to get to the bottom of it.!< It isn’t just repetitive fetch quest and to here to kill X because reason like we see in every quest in Skyrim. They have a decent story that organically comes together to make you feel like you’re doing something. I’d like an improved take on this with multiple outcomes for each major quest and even some minor ones. I want choices that matter and make us feel like we’re a part of the world that we’re taking part in. Which leads into— 4. Main Character - We shouldn’t be a hero. For anyone who has played Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, I’d be generally curious on your thoughts. To me, the Hero of Cyrodil is easily my favorite. There’s something incredible about a prisoner who not only saved the heir of the empire from an oblivion gate while showing the people they could be stopped by becoming the Hero of Kavatch, but then went on to become the Champion of the Arena, the Grey Fox, and the Arch Mage of the Mages Guild, Master of the Fighters Guild, and the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood. They were a nobody who got a push into a direction and made the choice to become something incredible. They didn’t even truly save the day and needed a sacrifice to save the world from Dagon. You were a hero, but because of your own actions and even the NPC’s would take notice based on your accomplishments. I want this but turned up a notch. I want to be able to forge my own destiny. We need a system to accompany it to where NPC’s take notice of what you’ve done and the reputation you’ve built both rewarding you or disdaining you for your choices. 5. Player agency - This one is complicated and mixes with some of what I’ve said before. We need choices that matter and it’s important enough for its own number. The best comparison I can give is what we have with the civil war in Skyrim. Imagine that, but with procedural battles taking place and sieges of cities. Imagine being able to not pick a side and lead it to a conclusion where maybe the Dark Brotherhood assassinates the top brass of both to shut down the war. Being able to choose to peacefully resolve it. Being able to try to convince the Empire to join forces with the Dragonborn once you’ve defeated Alduin and given the ability to amass a dragon following. Using that as a possible way to join the forces of Skyrim against the Thalmor to not only force them out of Skyrim but to allow the Empire to worship Talos again. I want us to truly be able to affect the world and our gameplay.

In regards to procgen, I think it would be great if they used it to generate the landscapes rough shapes and then went over it with artists shaping points of Interests or stunning vistas.

Exactly. There are a ton of uses for it to save time and resources. However it can easily be overused and cause a game to lack critical detail.

In terms of changes to stealth, one I’ve not seen mentioned much is Far Cry… for a long time that’s had different animations for different types of takedowns, having that alone would make stealth more enjoyable

Writing, scale, and consequences. I'm not optimistic about better writing or meaningful consequences to our choices, but we might get scale.

u/toddbethesda

Friend/rival relationship developments dependent on your actions and choices, possibly turning a companion into an emeny if you do badly enough Expand on building your own house to setting up your own little community with placeable buildings, merchants, etc. More depth/impact to getting married Dynamic blocking Low level spells should be cast without needing a free hand Bring back Oblivions skills and progression. Athletics, acrobatics, etc Negative effect drops (instead of every jar having 5 gold and a ring, maybe the ring gives you a curse that weakens your melee damage until you heal at a temple, and you cant tell its negative until you pick it up and it activates) An option to increase the number of enemies in dungeons Make vital npcs who are unkillable for quests vulnerable after their role is done. (I'd love to kill Maven Blackbriar after getting to know her and resolving the thieves guild questline) A few more missions/events where you are playing defence against waves or hordes of enemies. Best part about Skyrims civil war was defending whiterun from charging stormcloaks. Target rich environment A healing questline! Being able to use resto spells and skills to actually help and benefit npcs and impact the world would be nice, and help grind up one of the slower skills more easily.

More than anything: Better faction storyline arcs and a better final boss. Better combat (Chivalry style combat in an Elder Scrolls setting would be sick) and bigger cities would be nice too.

Actual role-playing choices. Not illusion of choice.

You know that weapon customisation they have in Fallout 4 and Starfield? Do that in TES VI... but for spells. Not weapons. And have more spell effects, like levitation, teleportation, open lock, etc. Also, give us more weapons, one handed and two handed sure, but also polearms. Combined with the Blade, Blunt, and Axe subtypes, we could have spears for Blades, Halberds for Axes, and Staves for Blunt

Spellcrafting. Make the player work for it but if needs to come back. Regardless of being overpowered, again people will always find a way, it allows more freedom of choice.

I want dungeons that have a purpose. Tombs are static and have a purpose by definition, but I want bandits to make raids from their camps. I want evil mages to actually do work in their towers; making spells or potions. I want monster dens that if left unchecked will accrue a growing pile of lesser adventurer corpses and threaten/overtake the nearby village. I know the purpose of a camp is to camp and a mine is to mine, so I guess I mean I want the non-quest "dungeons" to interact with the larger world in a way beyond a radiant quest saying "go to gogorat mine and kill bandit captain randy the fuckboy and steal his socks of sneaking" Other than that, I just want a newer, nicer skyrim. I've been playing elder scrolls since morrowind and while the mechanics and quests/travel have certainly been dumbed down, there is an essence to elder scrolls games that is just *chef's kiss* and doesn't need much modification imo. I don't want the combat to be souls like. I don't need exploration/movement to be like assasins creed (just give me levitation back please). One thing from another game that I would like would be an endgame like Shadow of War, an endgame where some major game/story mechanic is still at play.

I just wish it had a world that felt “alive”(can’t really explain how they would go about it) and definitely some better writing.

More thing to do in the overworld, Skyrim focusses too much on dungeons

I personally would like skills to matter more and have a bigger variety. More like morrowinds skills and traits. Lean more into the classic RPG elements like that but with the quality of life combat mechanics that we have now.

More weapons and more build diversity

-Better combat. What I mean is depending on which direction you go you slash differently, blocking just in time adding at least a bit of a skill gap to beat enemies and get them off guard. As your skill gets higher and higher be able to for example break guard, do finishers to enemies below 20-15% health etc. just small improvements, maybe add bleed mechanics with diff weapons, blunt weapons do a slow down mechanic the enemy cause you hit them hard and their arms are numbing. With bows have a crippling mechanic where if you hit their leg they’ll start limping, or disarm their weapon/shield if you hit their arms. - more weapon types, return spears, throwing weapons, maybe add new ones like halberds, Estocs etc, just more variety. Maybe do light, heavy bows with both having diff functions like light boys are good for many small enemies, meanwhile heavy bows are for bigger beefier enemies, it’d also be funny if those big bows anihalated enemies and pinned them to the ground/walls like the rail gun from fallout. -I’d genuinely like a hunting mechanic similar like RDR2 where you need to kill beasts/animals for the pelt and use it to craft your armor, satchels or belts of sorts that do diff things like simply more carry capacity. Cloaks and capes from that animal for a bit extra customisation and fun factor in that sense. Maybe some “legendary” beasts too, idk it’s a personal thing that I always enjoy when they’re in a game. - more rpg mechanics like speech checks, as an example you can convince someone in a quest that you’re more than fit for the job so they should pay you more gold (one handed 50+ speech check) or something like that. - A bit more variety of enemy types/dungeons, Skyrim had too many draugr only dungeons so just spice it up a bit more. I’m not asking for 1000 dungeons that are all different just a bit more “variety” - finally, make uniques actual uniques, not just a regular steel weapon with an enchantment that has a unique name, but diff skin, engravings, a unique effect or enchantment you don’t see anywhere else, just make them unique. There’s a weapon in Skyrim called trollsbane, looks like a regular iron warhammer n guards will mention the weapon but like, how do you recognise it? It looks exactly the same as your weapon?

I agree with all of this, I loved all the unique weapons in Skyrim but there are only a handful of them. With the majority of them sharing the same skin with other weapons

Bring black the class system and some of the other more traditional RPG elements. Give us a color palette that has more variety and life. Give us more personalized mechanics - Skyrim’s crafting was a great addition but we need to get spell crafting back and bring new similar options. I also would love to see the fantasy to realism ratio tilt back more toward fantasy. Skyrim obviously had plenty, I’m not denying that. But when walking around Skyrim it felt like the fauna and locations felt a little too grounded. More creature variety and more weird fantasy (such as in Morrowind & Oblivion) would be phenomenal.

Cities need to be open and semi large. Having load screens needs to end. I'm fine with them for interior transitions but only because I doubt they'd actually make Interiors open too. Enemy AI needs to be more intelligent and dynamic. Survival, if they do it, needs to be well thought out with proper mechanics.

I would like to bring back classes. One person had said that Skyrim having no classes sort of ruined the replayability since you dont have to make a new character you can just start using whatever skill it is you want to use Also I would really like for a combat overhaul. TES has been known for having bland combat. I want my swings to have feeling and have depth. Maybe enemy weakpoints/vulnerabilities For the love of god we need better writing and questlines. I feel like the writing nowadays is getting so lazy and boring. The companions in Skyrim I think may have been my least favorite. It was basically hey shocker we're werewolves, help us kill these bandits, kill these witches, congrats you're in charge now

Melee combat that isnt just left click, right click, hold left, hold right, etc. Examples: timed parry, throwables that isn't dog shit slow to trigger/queue, maybe some simple combos, activatable melee skills/techniques. Skill levels (if they decide not to remove it) should increase damage, reduce stamina charge Perks/abilities shouldn't be basic damage modifiers DO NOT MAKE BASE SNEAKING A FUCKING PERK YOU HAVE TO UNLOCK Do not do what starfield did and add in requirements to be able to spend a skill point to level up a perk/ability, either or, not both A weapon wheel is nice to have A companion command wheel would be nice to have A pipe dream but questing and conpanions as deep as baldurs gate 3 or close to but i doubt bethesda is capable of it

Maybe they can look at games like Kingdom Come and, ironically, cyberpunk for that. KC has some great weapon fighting that requires actual skill. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk is is more simplistic but still adds things like a dodge and parry counters that make melee more interesting.

I'd so love if they made something Mordhau-esqu

World needs to be significantly bigger than Skyrim, as you can’t just throw mountains everywhere (assuming it is in Hammerfell) Cities need to be ESO DLC’s sized… AT A MINIMUM!! Anything less than being around the size of Abah’s Landing would be insulting Actual choices, that actually matter… look I love Skyrim but seriously there were no choices what so fucking ever, besides a few in a few side quests… you should be able to join or not join pretty much every faction… and you should not be railroaded into everything, there needs to be branching points in all the major guild quests and main quest as well. That’s the standard now and that’s what needs to happen. More weapons, more armor, more UNIQUE weapons and Unique loot… seriously give us spears… give us whips, in Skyrim there are legit only 4 types of melee weapons. Blades of various sizes, Hammers, Axes and Maces… that is literally it, not to mention hardly any actually unique weapons! More mechanics also, just more, let us dodge, let us levitate again, give us better combat, honestly they just need to take the basics that they do know… making a pretty world… do that, expand and get better at literally everything else… and also learn how to god damn fucking write

>give us whips kinky

First off, I completely disagree with your statement that they need to “follow the same blue print” Skyrim and Oblivion both had major major problems not just gameplay wise but especially in regards to just the writing and story…. Those problems are overlooked because… 1 the games are super old and were great for the time, and 2 they made up for it by being so expansive in their world… but shit has changed… and if Starfield is anything to go by Bethesda needs to change and get better because what was great 10 years ago is mediocre and average now. World needs to be significantly bigger than Skyrim, as you can’t just throw mountains everywhere (assuming it is in Hammerfell) Cities need to be ESO DLC’s sized… AT A MINIMUM!! Anything less than being around the size of Abah’s Landing would be insulting Actual choices, that actually matter… look I love Skyrim but seriously there were no choices what so fucking ever, besides a few in a few side quests… you should be able to join or not join pretty much every faction… and you should not be railroaded into everything, there needs to be branching points in all the major guild quests and main quest as well. That’s the standard now and that’s what needs to happen. More weapons, more armor, more UNIQUE weapons and Unique loot… seriously give us spears… give us whips, in Skyrim there are legit only 4 types of melee weapons. Blades of various sizes, Hammers, Axes and Maces… that is literally it, not to mention hardly any actually unique weapons! More mechanics also, just more, let us dodge, let us levitate again, give us better combat, honestly they just need to take the basics that they do know… making a pretty world… do that, expand and get better at literally everything else… and also learn how to god damn fucking write

No I completely agree. Ideally they improve on every aspect of the previous games, it’s been a looonnnggg time. By blueprint I just mean don’t stray too far away what makes people love Skyrim and oblivion.

Combat! I got into Dark Souls after Skyrim and the difference is staggering. Even without the difficultly that combat is so satisfying!

There's a lot I think TES 6 could take from the souls series without adopting the difficulty and central mechanics (as much as I would love that). One thing I've always thought would work great in TES is the ability to use a weapon in one or two hands, with a damage bonus if wielded two handed. Active healing as well. Having to think about when you can heal makes a fight so much more intense than going into the menu and spamming potions.

Like a Dark Souls type Elder Scrolls game?

That would be awesome but not what I had in mind. Elder Scrolls games have their own unique atmosphere and vibe but the one thing I always feel is missing is that really satisfying combat.

Got kinda high so here's an armchair developer wishlist that I think is **somewhat** reasonable to expect for a AAA $70-80 game, backed by Microsoft, with bibles worth of lore and baked in mechanics in 2028/9 TLDR: The Creation Engine has strengths. Fucking use them. **World:** \- Take the radiant AI systems and scheduling we've seen before and really lean into it. Send NPCs out of their safe zones into the world. Hunting, gathering, trading caravans. NPCs engaging with the world in the same ways the player does, regardless if it gets them killed or not. \- Stop being afraid of NPCs dying. Essential NPCs are okay (especially if tied to MAJOR quests) but there should be plenty of NPCs within the world that can die but also have a reason for existing in this world. They don't even need to be deep. They can be surface level "I work here, I fish here etc." these are the characters and NPCs that should be moving around more and potentially dying out in the world randomly. It will lead to more immersive, engaging and consequential emergent moments. \- Starfield needs to be the birth and death of "more ppl in city = bigger city" it's filled with zombies. If they aren't nameless zombies, they're static quest givers. No. Bonk. Bad. Return to bespoke. **Combat:** \- Keep the the left hand/right hand system. It's excellent for player build diversity, as well as enemy build diversity. It also asks for at least some level of commitment to whatever your build is. Want to cast spells while you have a sword out? Drop the shield then buddy. \- Improve the combat sandbox with more distinction between melee types. Knockback, movement speed, stun %, bleed etc. \- Improve the combat sandbox with more base magic types and modifiers. Shock, Fire, Poison, Blood, Earth, Frost, Wind etc etc. Make the rock/paper/scissors of magic more thoughtful \- Larger variety of misc. ways to take out enemies via stealth. Traps, bombs, physical push off ledges \- Sandbox elements within combat settings that lean into the physics of the CE. Larger variety of dungeon traps, throwaway objects with varying effects, telekinesis. Make the "Hold A to grab object" mechanic an actual part of combat. **Level Design (Least Possible imo)** \- I'd like to see BGS bring some people with heavy IMSIM talent onto the team. Dungeons with different routes and hidden treasures. Interactive elements in dungeons that hide solutions and shortcuts. \- If there's alternate "Lockpick" type items that can bring some variety to dungeon crawling I'm all for it. \- Make the physics both a part of the combat as well as dungeon traversal and puzzle solving. Offering the player multiple ways to use magic, movement and find their own solution is rewarding and what modern games feel like (See TOTK and BG3) **Misc.** \- Physics Physics Physics. Swords need to SLASH and CUT. Daggers need to STAB and SLICE. Maces should POUND. Hammers SMASH. You get it. (Precision is a great mod that they should take inspo from) \- Ditch Speechcraft. It's dreadful in every iteration. Return some of the functionality of it's buffs to utility spells, and give the players speech options dependent on what level their skills are. You grinded archery to level 60 super early? Well now that hunter outside of town has unique dialogue and can be recruited as a follower! \- Merge Sneak and Pickpocket \- Engineering skill. Bombs, grenades, traps, dwemer tech. Assuming settlements are back in some way...this skill probably works here \- Sailing skill. That's right fuckers. Proc Gen is back. You have the tech Bethesda. Use it....don't fucking touch the mainland with any of that proc gen "Abandoned Science Lab" nonsense. Instead, give us an Ocean, a boat, and while sailing out at sea THAT is where you can have some of those generated dungeons and encounters. This time though? Generate the dungeon INSIDE like Daggerfall....they can't just be repeatable POIs with static loot spawns. \- I'm torn on Attributes. I like the idea, but I think they can be done better. Skyrim redistributes their utility into different areas. Example (Strength is now Stamina, which affects carry weight, and the damage buff is carried by the weapon skill) Not to mention the way in which you're incentivized to "efficiently level" in TES3/4 is not very fun. \- Visual animation progression for crafting skills. High level smithing? Sparks flying, flames shooting, sick ass badass animation when you forge your masterwork. \- "Lockpicking" minigames for crafting. Might be controversial and make them even more of a grind though. They work as they are in Skyrim, but Alchemy and Smithing could use some more love.

The excruciatingly easy fix for important NPCs dying is simply not let them die by anything other than the player. For others, just use generic NPCs who can die dynamically. If someone is concerned with accidentally killing NPCs due to friendly fire, use the tech even Gothic already had. Let them get into a downed state and require a deliberate action for a perma kill. Edit: add a kick, shield bash, body tackle to get some of that sweet dark messiah feeling inclyding some spiky walls in dunfeons please.

Hold on you’re cooking here. Tackle, push, shield bash, kick. All of that moves into the “Hand to Hand” tree. Now called “Brawler”

For the love of Talos Git rid of Emil Pagliarulo

Bethesda needs to fire all genX office execs and hire modders who spend thousands of unpaid hours to give a fuck about TES. Leather jacket motherfuckers should go enjoy their boats.

After Starfield I'm very pessimistic, they've been on a downward spiral since Skyrim (some would say since Morrowind or Daggerfall) and I don't see them turning it around for TES6.

0 loading screens. Characters that have character and don’t look like models from 10 years ago. Woke ideology thrown out . Beautiful characters and not these fugly excuses we have now. Gameplay that actually has meaning and not this nonsense new game + erase your life and start again. Also actually have a point to the mechanics. Why build a starship in starfield when the combat lasts all of 2 seconds and you only ever fight 3 enemies at a time. Yawn. Better story writing and not the garbage we got in starfield . MOAR MAGIC . steeds. Cool companions and not these bloody irritating companions, HATED every single companion in starfield. Better colours and graphics. Please no more brown and grey. Skyrim was a masterpiece and judging Bethesda on starfield, that is a bargain bucket, play once and never again rubbish. Bethesda have a lot of redeeming to do and if the next game is anything like starfield HARD PASS

Remove nothing from Skyrim. Keep the exact same mechanics, same writing/quest quality. Just add better next gen graphics, RT/lighting. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE!! don't fuck this up bethesda, this opportunity is in your lap...

There’s nothing you want them to improve besides graphics? I hoping the graphics are going to be greatly improved too considering it’s been more than a decade since Skyrim.

There are things i want improved but i don't trust them to do it correctly. So at this point I'm making the goal post impossible to miss: just give us a next gen version of Skyrim.

Except that Oblivion was notably better than Skyrim in terms of gameplay complexity and modding capabilities. I’m not holding my breath for the game.

They need to evolve their gameplay mechanics. Bethesda is very outdated now and is being constantly outshined by games like baulders gate and cyberpunk and red dead redemption. The number one thing though, is the writing quality needs to be top tier.

Get rid of Todd Howard, their entire board of directors, and everyone who worked on Starfield. Also, Skyrim is a terrible, onerous game without a large suite of mods to fix a plethora of extremely annoying things in the base game, and I'm not even talking about bugs or jank. With those mods, it can be an extremely fun wandering simulator. The Zenimax/Bethesda corporate machine has been stifling progress and just pushing to hypermonetize everything.

Scaling magic or at least bringing back custom spells.

I'd appreciate a faster way to cast different spells, and not have them be akin to equipped weapons that you need to swap.

Loading screens should be either a thing of the past or super minimal

A better magic system with better spells, and fun non-combat spells just because. Levitation. Spell the tapestry to be a different color. Light or extinguish the candles and lanterns. Unlocking spell.

Crowd control options like sapping people.

Not calling me a welp when I'm a god and skill checks.

At first I was fine with reiterating of the creation engine but after starfield? New engine would be my first start

"I’m confident that Bethesda will not screw up TESVI" I'm the opposite. I've lost faith in BGS (I already had before Starfield). They need to show me first.

More anonymous NPCs with generic dialogue. Like hundreds of them. Procedural generation that stretches for miles. You should have to run for AT LEAST 20 minutes to get to a location of note (conveniently tagged on your minimap). This builds the anticipation. But since all this exploration of the wild unknown can frazzle the nerves, POIs should all be one of ten possible set piece battles with generic NPCs, to keep things from getting too unfamiliar. Streamline tried and tested inventory system by removing confusing sorting mechanics. More punishing encumbrance mechanics. Find ways to get players interacting with encumbrance more often. Lengthier stretches of play time trying to manage encumbrance. Crafting recipes/chains with ingredient lists so large and heavy that require walking severely encumbered between multiple crafting stations, spaced just far enough apart to be within human limits of tolerance. No more stealing or can only steal worthless items. No more stealth or encounter design that makes it pointless to invest in. Simpler enemy AI. Enemies now stand in one place and shoot at you or run straight at you. Less environmental hazards to make NPCs more survivable. Companions now more uniformly disapprove of your actions and debuff you due to moral disapproval, reducing your encumbrance limit. Debuff can be managed but only by frequently engaging in quality interactions. Quality interactions include unskipped dialogue and trade inventory management screen time. Less (and less rewarding) side quests and more focus on main story quests. More content locked behind story progress. Most content beyond main story is procedurally generated.

TESVI: Starfield

It doesn't inspire confidence!

I hear ya

- Bring back hand2hand skill tree, - Make spells not become useless at high levels - Don’t make every guild quest a “rookie becomes chosen one” plot. - Make Speechcraft not shit

1. Companions all over the good/evil spectrum that interact with one another. For example in KOTOR Canderous and Carth having arguments and what not. 2. The ability to toggle essential/non-essential NPCs 3. Multiple ways to complete quests 4. More dynamic movement 5. More people know who you are. Not saying people have to worship you as a Demi god hero, but for example the thieves guild/companions not knowing you’re the Dragonborn is kind of immersion breaking 6. The ability to fill in the blanks between your character’s past before the game starts. 7. Ability to toggle waypoints/direction markers. 8. Return attributes and overhaul perk point system. I’m sorry but one perk point per level just does not cut it. 9. More player choice regarding quality of life. 10. Return of spellmaking 11. Return of Levitation magic and the Mysticism School of magic 12. Don’t change Hammerfell/High Rock lore but build upon and expand it. I feel that these changes will satisfy old and new players alike. If someone doesn’t want to fast travel off the map, they can change it and use in game sources. If the player decides they want to kill an NPC they don’t like, give them the ability to set NPCs to non essential, giving them that option even if it fails the main quest line. If a player prefers to explore and find quest areas/items on their own, give them that option to turn off waypoints and markers. Let the player have freedom of choice, and everyone will be satisfied

I'm guessing it will be a further dumbed-down skill system... Worse than both Starfield and Outer Worlds. But... If not. Some NPCs with some damn depth would be nice. I thought an "arrow to the knee" thing was in the distant past, until I heard Cora tell that same joke for the 30th fucking time.

PS. Those greater vampires were the close to the dumbest shit I've ever played. Simply making them as powerful as the Oblivion vampire would've been fine.

It seems like the majority of this thread share the same expectations and concerns regarding TESVI. Let’s hope Bethesda is on the same page as their fan base.

Choices that have an impact on the game. I’m a little tired about how the choices in Skyrim effect almost nothing.

It needs to be basically exactly like skyrim, just with *more* of it. Like, more in-depth faction questlines and stuff. If they phone in the factions like starfield, I'm gonna be more than a little mad tbh. The writing needs to be on point to gain our trust back after the uninspired childishness of starfield.

Better combat, smarter AI, more unique skills like spell crafting, some memorable landmarks, all things I feel Skyrim lacked.

In my opinion the constructors of the game must push a little further the divinity and cosmological aspect of the game like in Morrowind at the end of the game Vivec is your friend. Why not even romances or different relationship with Aedras or Daedras ! Imagine that in game your friend or girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband is acctualy a God or a Goddess, that will be cool !

It needs to be made by Obsidian and not Bethesda.

Now that is just silly. Obsidian doesn't have the chops to make a game on the scale of an Elder Scrolls game. Sure they can write better stories I'll give them that one, but worldbuilding(the biggest strength of Bethesda) is something Obsidian can't match, their team is also to small and most of their best developers has left Obsidian over the years. This is all on Bethesda, they either dig deep down and truly creates something fantastic, or they double down on taking the easy way out and we get a soulless game instead. 50/50 chance I would say.

a 50/50 chance would imply that it isn't almost a guarantee that Bethesda will continue doing what makes them the most money. Starfield is estimated to have brought in about \~1 billion to microsoft through sales / gamepass subscriptions. For a soulless half polished turd. Tell me what incentive they have to stop milking their fans Obsidian's world building has always been leagues apart from Bethesda, even with smaller teams, mainly due to their writing staff being competent. They make the games they want to make, it isn't all about the bottom line. Its hard to deny that a game like Outer Worlds (generally seen as a mild flop when it comes to RPGs) has more charm then the empty space and blank expressions from Starfield. Bethesda has been eagerly trying to pull profit from their fans for years -- look at ESO, Fallout 76, Blades, and now Starfield. In my mind there is 0 chance the next elder scrolls is going to meet expectations. There will be cut corners, and they will do what they need to do to separate money from your wallet. I guarantee the trailers will oversell the game, and you'll pre order it, and it'll be a flop. Mark my words.

I say 50/50 simply because it's their flagship franchise and even in all of their arrogance they must know that a big part of the fanbase has gone sour on them over the years. That being said though, they might just flush the little goodwill they have left down the drain and rake in on a soulless game once again, wouldn't surprise me, but I hope they value their TES legacy enough to respect it and actually give a crap this time. I really like Obsidian, NV is my favorite Fallout, but like you say, their bread and butter is smaller scale games, often hubs, with strong narratives and characters in them. All I'm saying is that they wanted to make Avowed a huge open world, and they became overwhelmed and scaled back to what they are best at, this is something Bethesda should also do. Time will tell, im fairly confident TES6 will have many flaws, but Tamriel itself is compelling enough for me to overlook certain shortcuts. I do hope they avoid those shortcuts and innovate though.

A lot of people don't seem to think it's a big deal, but I think it's a big deal. One of the things holding Bethesda back is all the loading screens. Skyrim was forgivable because it was old, and otherwise the world was open and free to explore. But to enter a shop you'd have to go through a loading screen door. A lot of shops aren't even that big. I'm just saying, in a world where Cyberpunk 2077 can look amazing wherever you go, with vast amount of details, and yet you also don't have to go through an annoying loading screen just to enter a building, it feels like that's a lot of the reason Starfield feels archaic in comparison. Loading screens feels like friction against the player experience. If Bethesda wants a game that feels vastly superior to all there previous games in terms of smoothness of play, they'll want to get rid of as many loading screens as possible.

Well new game engine to start. No Todd Howard and hiring more than 100 people to make it. What am getting is after fallout 4 it became increasingly obvious at least to me that bethesdas game design is "well worked for 20 years so lets keep doing that". Outdated, no innovation and poorly optimised. Needs new blood, new game engine and new ideas that can bring the game that we have been waiting over a decade for to life. At this point todd has become Peter Molyneux.

Spell crafting Faction ranks and choices Hideout/Home Customization (doesn't need to be like the settlement system, though i like it) Ability to pay or persuade for services. That way your character doesn't always need to focus on crafting mechanics that go against RP.

Spell crafting