1. Creative Mode
I grew up with games that had built-in cheat codes, glitches that you could expliot, and save state hacking tools like game shark. Pen and Paper RPGs let you Homebrew. This adds to the fun that you could get out of a game. Skyrim has console commands. Minecraft has a creative mode in which the player gets the ability to play the game normally, but they have special controls that allow the to spawn anything. I think I should be able to pick make custom spells and equipment too. Let players choose a model for a weapon then pick stats and abilities for it, then name it. This is something you could do at a D&D table. I would like to start a new game of Skyrim with a Mjolnir or a Firebrand or Excalibur.
2. Alternative to Essential NPCs
Ultimately, the reason why you have essential NPCs is so that the developers have less work to do. I don't expect the developers to try to anticipate all of the "Else" scenarios that players can possibly cause and I'm sure that would add the the time and money spent developing a game. The problem with Essential NPCs is that it breaks suspension of disbelief / immersion, and it's just plain disappointing. Some NPCs like Mercer Frey are absolutely essential because his role in the thief guild story is an interpersonal conflict with Karliah and who the hell else would become a Nightengale? There is not a line of successors who could replace Mercer, however, Jarl Ulfric Stromcloak is technically not essential. Ulfic can be replaced infinitely by randomly generated successors that spawn into the game after X in-game days, presumably by anyone of rank in the stormcloak army. The replacement NPC is a randomly generated NPC who may or may not take on a new name (or he can be Ulric II) and character model, but all his lines can be exactly the same spoken by Voice Actor B. The only problem is with the name. All successors to Essential NPCs will have the same name with a new number, or they will have different names and every NPCs will never be spoke like Tidus in FFX. Alternatively, create a library of 100 names, have the successor NPC assigned a random name, and every voice actor record themselves speaking all 100 names in various emotional expressions. I shudder at how tedious the scripting must be. I think players should be able to kill any NPC though. Otherwise, it's a restriction on play-style. Players can anticipate that Mercer Frey is the villain and then try to kill him, but Mercer Frey would have some kind of teleport ring and escape with 1 hit point. Then you would have "Thief Guild Questline B" where alternative missions or alternative versions of the same missions are provided to account for Mercer disappearing mysteriously or after "the" or "that" incident.
3. Long Intros Suck! Where are the Alternate Starts?
Why do I always begin as potentially some criminal in Bethesda Elder Scrolls games? Not cool. There is literally 3 and 1/2 minutes of no player input in Skyrim after clicking new game. You make your character, then there's another 3 minute long period of no player input. The opening makes you feel like you have to wait on the game to play the game on a repeat playthrough. That kind of thing was cool once upon a time, but I have started like 30 new games in Skyrim and I don't care to to wait that long. Either option A. let me automatically skip to the exit of the cave at the end of the Helgen Dragon Attack scene or B. provide the option to have an alternate start.
There is a mod called "Alternative Life" or something like that where you get to choose your own starting point in the game. Can't be that hard to write the game in a way where the dragonborn starts anywhere else and the hot rumors on everyone's lips are "Dragon Attack in Helgen," then provide one or more plot hooks that would send the player to Whiterun. Let me pick a quest that my new character gets immediately assigned at the beginning too; One of my favorite quests that I would like to start with is Meridia's Beacon where a god gives you a magic fire sword and a vague, long-term quest to expel the evils of the world. By the way, I made a hard save right before you get to make your character so I can skip the cart ride if I want to start a new game.
4. Radiant Quests Potentially Don't Suck
I'm not going to be the guy who knocks radiant quests but I am. The guy who invented radiant quests is really just some guy who's good with Microsoft Excel, but Kudos to him anyway because it's a really good idea to put never-ending quests in your game. The only flaws are that radiant quests are boring and unfulfilling. They are basically fetch quests that become stale and predictable after only two and they're not very rewarding. Radiant quests are a good idea but it's missing something. Radiant Quests need some depth and sometimes the rewards need to be really good.
5. Fast Favorites
You've already got a favorites menu in Skyrim that lets you open up a pause menu and choose from a list of favorites spells, gear, etc. What if you could save a favorite "Set" or "setup" of items, spells, gear, etc. to swap in and out of on the fly or whenever?
6. Custom Clothier
In Skyrim, there's a very limited number of outfits. How about an option where you could visit a clothier and place a special order, basically, you choose the colors or palettes of wearable items. I really wish capes, cloaks, coats, scarfs, more hats, and a few other things were available in Skyrim. This is a simple customization ability that I think is just plain lacking in Skyrim perhaps due to budget or because the creators wanted to give Skyrim its own identity.
7. Import Player Characters from Other Saves
Some games have a New Game Plus mode where you can start a game from the beginning but you can retain something from a previous save, like money, levels, or equipment. How about letting me insert a player character from a previous playthrough into a new game as a follower for a new player character? I just made a character the other day and became the arch mage if the mage's college. Now, I'm done with that character *shrug*. I think it's a shame how fast I got over them and I never get to see them again because let's face it, I won't tough that save again. I still like that character even though I'm not interested in playing as them again. I think there's potential untapped nostalgia in allowing me to import them as a follower.
8. Player Faction and Player Faction Questline
I think having the option to create my own faction, build my own town or stronghold, and recruit followers is not important, but I think one of the Fallouts did it, so why not every other RPG ever. Please note that I sentence ended with a period. Sometimes, games become boring when you run out of things to spend your in-game money on, and when you run out of things you want to earn, or when you run out of things you feel invested in. I'd like to start my own "Guild" as a level 1 character and have a unique Player Faction questline based on the type of guild I create and the types of factions I ally with, compete with, or make enemies with.
9. Custom Followers
Suppose I wanted to create my own Non-player follower? Sounds like giving the player too many options and it'll be a programming nightmare, right? OK, simplify it like this: I can visit a mercenary barracks, temple, thieves group, etc. and recruit a generic level 1 adventurer who I customize just like my player character. Not a big deal, many an RPG let you customize your own party members (like Final Fantasy). I could round out my character's weaknesses more precisely this way. Some people would like it, some people would prefer to interact with the standard NPCs. I think players who would like this option would appreciate being able to choose a face and name too. How about this though: Let's say when you hire one of these followers, they come with their own randomly determined questline. They might be good, they might be evil, they might be the illegitimate son of a noble, or someone with amnesia trying to get their memory back, someone with a religious quest, whatever. Create 3 or 4 different Generic NPC questlines and surprise the player. It could be a short quest line with 5 quests: A beginning and inciting incident, rising action part 1, 2, 3, and a climax / resolution. Gate the next quest in the questline behind the player's levels to build suspense so that players are incentivized to keep the NPC around for at least 15 or 20 levels and get good and attached.
10. Challenge Mode
I like watch videos of gamers who beat games with strict restrictions. How about a new game "Challenge Mode" where you choose types of restrictions like Survival Mode that has survival mechanics turned on, Hardcore Mode where NPC followers can die, or a Specialization Mode where the player chooses a style of play at the start of the run and they are restricted by this for the entire game. The specialization could be choosing a list of "Mage Only," "Thief Only," "Ranged Only," "No Magic," "Level Cap X" etc., or you can just manually lock certain skills or features from a master list or manual inputs.
11. More enemy variety
Skyrim does not have that many different enemies. It kind of sucks. Greater enemy variety creates a less predictable and more mysterious world where the player might not be prepared for the next thing they might encounter. Skyrim is also missing more enemies that can be a brick will.
12. More Factions, More Generic Factions, More Questlines, Branching Questlines
I've recently realized that I can actually start a new game and end any single questline and feel satisfied with that character before they reach level 20 and without beating the game. Actually, I've never beaten Skyrim but I've probably put 300 hours into it. The game offers some quests I like and some I don't, some factions I'm interested in, and some I'm not. Some questlines I don't like because there is only one path and I crave another option. If I want to complete the Thieves Guild quest, I have to sell my soul to a daedra. If I want to complete the companions quest, I have to become a werewolf. I want the ability to say "My character wouldn't do that. Pass." and be offered an alternative route to the end of the questline. Also, I think all quest lines should have a good ending, neutral ending, and a bad ending, or at least two possible endings. I think the factions should be more generic for broader appeal. Instead of the Companions, I want a Fighter's Guild. Instead of the College of Winterhold, I want a Mage's Guild. What's the different? The Companions and the College put me in a faction with a more fleshed out identity. If I don't like the identity, I lose interested in the faction. A Fighter's Guild and a Mage's Guild is just a group I sign up for that offers training, work, and makes me feel like I'm making progress. They still have story quests to them. The guilds in Morrowind also had an advantage of offering Ranks. Prestige and a feelings of satisfaction come from Ranks. You improve your rank based on the time and effort you put into the game. Once upon a time, satisfaction from games came from you the player making choices and an investment, and I'm sure there's gamers who crave this today. This form of ranking also gives you milestones and long-term goals. I miss this aspect of games. I suppose it's a design tha doesn't mix well with a game that scales all challenges to the player's level. In case you think this restricts part of the game from casual players, why not make a Casual Mode? Casual mode would allow you to rank up after completing quests only. I fell that Skyrim is missing a faction for players wanting to approach the game as a Cleric build. Your choice of factions are basically Fighter, Thief, Wizard, and Assassin, then Colonist or Imperialist. You'd think an Elder Scrolls game with a big ass pantheon would offer a religion faction? I suspect a Talos Worshiper faction got cut. It's sounds obvious in hindsight. Try to create factions that suit potential play-styles. There's no bandit outlaw faction I can join and I can't be a guard who serves a city or get special Thane questlines for each hold. There could be a questline for each skill and race; The different categories of magic have their own quests I think.
12. Bring Back Custom Spells
At the very least, just let me name them! How about some built-in spells with standard spell animations and a library of animation for player created spells? What if spells had a spell tree the same as skills? I have Fireball, but I can invest points into improving it's damage, duration, range, AOE, magicka cost, accuracy, or additional effects.
13. Design a More Dynamic Game
Are there too many things in fixed locations that don't have to be? Not really, but maybe the game could stand to be a bit more dynamic. I suppose what I'm complaining about is that every playthrough will always have some stuff in the same place and some stuff that always happens in the same way, what if there was even less of it? Resident Evil 1 allowed players to unlock a new game mode called Arrange Mode where enemies and items were assigned alternate spawn points. Resident Evil 2 had an alternate starting point and alternate path for each character. Resident Evil 3 provided one of two versions of each room, Room A or Room B, to keep you guessing. This changed the game up somewhat making them less predictable, adding replay-ability. Note, they did not rely on RNG to make things wildly random, just A or B.
14. Secret End-Game / Post Game Dungeons
One thing I definitely miss about older games is a secret dungeon available only later in the game or at the end of the game. I think a game should definitely lock some specific content behind progress. I think the game should consider offering a game-play reward for beating the main story. May I remind you, I've never beaten Skyrim, but I've played more Skyrim than I should have. Earning an achievement is stupid; It's like a merit badge for a scout. I want an actual gameplay reward for playing the game that incentivizes me to actually play the game. A disappointing Post Game is just "Oh, you can keep playing as your character to continue to resolve unresolved quests and stuff. Have you ever thought about making a post-game questline and boss? You
defeated Alduin using by essentially using Time Travel. Time Travel
always causes something horrible to happen. You looked into an Elder
Scroll and gained forbidden knowledge. Some daedra or elder god might be
really pissed. Why wouldn't there be some secret ultimate villain behind
the main story's major villain who has to react to the hero defeating
the major villain? And yes, the secret ultimate villain is so powerful that they make the major villain look like a chump.
15. The Ending Sucks, Do This
Endings suck and I think know why. You need multiple climaxes to take you steadily down the falling action side of the plot. You can't just go from the climax to the end. If you have only one climax and then watch the final cut scene before the "The End" and credits, it's like going from from 60 to zero. It's like when you're at the bumper car ride and they just turn it off. It's like having all this dopamine in your head and then the game gives you the signal that it's about to be cut off. I think that's what happens when you release all the tension and solve all the mystery at once. I should get to the ending and know something is resolving but I should still feel I'm not out of the woods yet. Once you kill the villain, that's the perfect time for an NPC to say "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Then, give me something to do like escape the self-destruct sequence or race to some goal with a macguffin to do the thing then some minor villain shows up to inconvenience you one last time. Whatever. You want to be careful that the ending doesn't drag, however.
16. All The Dungeons Are The Same
I can appreciate more dungeons, but they all start to look the same after a while. Many of them are straight lines too with. Maybe it's just the way the dungeons tend to me designed? You've got radiant quests, but you don't have a random dungeon generator? Tell the game to make Dungeon Q. Specify that it has between 20 and 25 rooms. The rooms are between this size and that size. They are connected by halls and/or they are touching. They have no doors, doors, locked doors, secret doors, puzzle doors, etc. There are traps of this and this and this type. They occur at this and that frequency. There are monsters x, y, z, in etc., treasures, textures, random objects, features, etc. I'm pretty sure Daggerfall did that! Oh, and let me "Fast Exit" a dungeon that I clear or if I do not have dangers or obstacles blocking me from the entrance. That way, you don't have to worry about creating a convenient path out or from the ending to the beginning.
17. Bring Back Bosses and Mini-Bosses
A mini-boss was a boss before the boss, or some kind of mid-point boss or a secret boss behind a hidden door. It was usually weaker than the main boss of a dungeon, but tougher than the standard enemies, and there was a bit of a story to it. The mini-boss could be a warm-up for the main boss and it could be a servant, lieutenant, or champion or the main boss. You know what Skyrim is missing in general? Boss fights. They just have one Bandit Chief in some areas. I don't count dragons anymore. They're big bags of hit points, not bosses. I dunno man, reflecting on boss fights in Skyrim makes me think the only boss fight in Skyrim is Mercer Frey, but it was probably just the way the game decided to scale him to my character's level. Most of my level was from speech, sneaking, lockpicking, and pickpocketing, not fighting, so I died a lot.
18. Monster Hoards
A hoard of enemies is not a boss fight and should not be presumed to be one ever (Dark Souls 2, you bastard!). That said, a hoard can still be a fun encounter. I think Skyrim is too concerned with scaling enemies to be equal to the player that they didn't think to halve or quarter it for "Hoard Scaling." Speaking of scaling, Resident Evil 4 would adjust the difficulty dynamically based on how well the player was doing, that way the game was never too easy or too difficult. Capcom has some clever bastards.
19. Award Treasure as You Go; Looting Bodies is not Treasure
If I go into a dungeon and don't get any loot until one big fancy box as the end, that's lame. Also, looting Randos is not treasure. I would like to state for the record that I think looting bodies is an unheroic way to play a game and is not the only style of play that should be incentivized. Seriously, I can make a bunch of money by exploits or I can kill 10 random people, strip them, and sell 10 sets of armor and weapons to a merchant who should really be asking some fucking questions about where this shit comes from. The RPG formula of primarily providing rewards as dropped loot makes me feel like I have to loot the shit out of everyone and everything and it's tedious and it slows the game down. I know, looting bodies is optional, but I just don't get other satisfying rewards as a good haul to make me feel like I can ignore it. It's a horribly programmed impulse now. You kill something, you search it's pockets. How very heroic. It's not what Luke Skywalker would do.
What is treasure? It's silver and gold stuff, money, gems, finery and trade goods, art objects, magic stuff, better equipment. Treasure is not a +0 Noobie hide armor of plainness or apples, potatoes, tomatoes. I check all the sacks, barrels, and urns out of a compulsion to be thorough and I think it sucks. I also think it sucks to find potatoes or 3 septums at a time.
20. Voice Acting is Overrated
I understand why you would have a ton of voice overs, but industry Standards be damned. I'm sure it adds a lot more to the production cost and time of a game. One of the advantages that books have over the movies is that the reader can choose their own voice and even the tone and emphasis for each character. You can even interpret the character differently. Written dialogue is therefore more adaptable to different interpretations. You can also instantly populate a dialogue box with an entire conversation and skip it with two button presses if you've already played this part of the game. To me, the cinematic quality of video games is completely unnecessary. Video Games do not have to have a presentation like a film. Video games are interactive and so have the ability to be their own thing. Also, if all the voice actors start to sound the same, well it's not distracting but I think it's lame. Seriously though, the scripting of all the models in each scene to resemble a move scene in must be arduous and cumbersome for development; fuck it.
21. Secrets Are Fun, Assholes!
There should be more secret shit (treasure, bonus content) in each dungeon. I don't think Skyrim has any secret shit in any dungeon that you can miss. The skill of the player is controlled for by the design of the dungeon and the build of the character. Unless there's a character build restriction, all players can find all the same shit in every dungeon as long as they're kinda thorough. A character build should not be a universal gatekeeper from secret shit either, like in Fallout where I need a minimum skill to do certain things; that's annoying. Secrets are fun. Figuring the game out is fun. That's part of the appeal of Zelda games.
22. Casual Mode and Hardcore Mode
I like the idea of being able to play a game casually where the game literally guides me with a radar and map markers and stuff. However, I think disabling these and other quality of life features would make the player have to actually pay attention, keep track of their own shit, and explore without a safety net. Can I at least disable some of these options if I wanted? I don't actually explore, I follow hand-holding directions. Actually, one of my favorite spells in Skyrim is Clairvoyance. It at least makes me feel like I can explore if I want to or I can psychically find what I'm looking for. Maybe make a lot more things work like a magic or psychic power. Teleportation has already been replaced by fast travel; just saying. If you're going to give me a compass with markers that guide me around, maybe you could at least disguise it as a magic item my character gets that I can choose not to use.
23. Character Involvement is One Dimensional
I don't care about most NPCs and I feel that this is due in part to the developers failing to give me NPCs to care about. My character doesn't really get any sort of personal relationship with any either. There are no mentors like Doctor Emit Brown or villains like Darth Vadar who are consistently a part of the story. NPCs aren't written with drama in mind, they're written to be things that give players quests and items. For most NPCs, once you do your good deed, the developers flip a switch so that the NPC likes you now, and you never get anything new out of that NPC. Maybe take a few pointers from dating sims where your relationship with characters grows over time and new options become available as you make progress. This makes game design more complicated and many players probably still won't care about some NPCs, but I think it's disappointing that once the game flips that "Does the NPC like you?" switch from off to on, that's the end of that NPC. After that, the player doesn't have to work to earn anything from that NPC, and the NPCs usually don't have anything else to offer. If an NPC does have something else to offer later, they're an exception and so the player doesn't expect it and won't seek that exceptional NPC.
