Any gamers around here?

[Blackleaf]

One thing they should probably remove from the next game is the ability to enchant an item to improve crafting skills. That stuff is easily abused is Skyrim. Down a potion to increase your enchanting skill, enchant your armor to boost your alchemy skill, repeat. You can use loops like this to create weapons that do thousands in damage, armor that practically makes you immune to damage. I'm not sure how you fix this, but something should be done.

While an unpopular opinion, I'm sure, I'd also like weapon and armor degregation to return. But I want both to last much longer than they did in Oblivion. I swear all my gear was broken every five minutes in Oblivion. I'd say you should be able to go through three full dungeons before your sword is even close to breaking.

It'd also be neat if they could take something from Fallout 4 and let you make modular changes to your weapons and armor. Even if just cosmetic, being able to add flair to your armor would increase variety. Maybe restrict this to generic gear, though. Wouldn't make sense to get the Wabbajack and paint it pink.

Racial styles from ESO would also be cool. That might be asking for too much, though. I like that each race has its own style when creating their armor. I imagine that's why the same armors always look different in each game.

[Blackleaf]

Mysticism itself is poorly defined, so it works.  (Though, magic manipulating magic is a good working definition)

Plus, it's an excellent dumping ground for experimental spells that don't fit cleanly in any of the other schools of magic.  And besides, as the most supernatural-oriented school, mysticism is like Marvel's soul infinity gem within the Elder Scrolls universe.  It's just not the same without it.

Eh. I could live without it. It's just one less skill I barely use to level up.

I think we might be shooting for the exact same thing here.

I loved Morrowind for that exact reason - through major and minor skills, you define your character to a large extent.  Sure, you can learn stuff outside of your specialty and get all those skills to 100 in time, but you're going to have a far different experience with one race/class/birthsign than with another race/class/birthsign.  I would very much like to have that sort of experience again.

Also, might it be possible to combine Morrowind's skill system with Skyrim's perk system somehow?

Hmm. I think trying to combine them might make things needlessly convoluted. Simplifying systems isn't always a bad thing. What I would like to return, however, are attributes. Keep Skyrim's style of skills and perks (modified for improvements, like how mods do it), and bring back the attributes. While skills represent what your character is good at, attributes describe what your character's physical and mental characteristics are. Simplifying things to three stats (HP, MP, and Stamina) is fine, but feels a bit too much on the simple side.

There's something that just popped into my head. Climbing. They tell you, "See that mountain? You can climb that mountain." More like you can spam the jump button while you try to awkwardly shimmy your way up that mountain. How about letting us climb a mountain like a normal person? Skyrim even has hidden map markers set on some of the mountains, to act as like an achievement, but getting up there is frustrating and immersion breaking.

[drunkenshoe]

You know what I just thought, why should they remove the Shouts at all? They can only remove the very specific ones and keep the others with more general purpose. It's unique. It's not actually power or magic, but something the hero has because who he/she is. After all the next hero (us) has fought and won Skyrim battles and it is kind of a connection to that character.

They could just scatter them in the map in dungeons, but I have no idea how should they be gained or unlocked. Because this should be done in an artful, subtle way so the player wouldn't feel they put an old feature in a new game to get away with anything. It should be an ornamental, but functional perk. For example the locations of shouts could change randomly every time you play the game and that it is totally random every time.

One of the reasons I'd like them to do it is that this game is going to be measured against Skyrim far MORE than any other usual game is compared to its prequel. And to be honest, they won't be able to make a game to give that fresh natural feeling of going 'outside alone on a quest in Norse atmosphere' as they did with Skyrim. Because they already did Skyrim. And imo, people love this game first because it can evoke that feeling better than others of its kind and then the LORE and the game.

So done right, keeping shouts could be a good idea.

I also love the idea of broken equipment. And agree with the Skyrim skill system.

[Baruch]

@drunkenshoe .... what do you think of Elif Shafak?

[drunkenshoe]

@drunkenshoe .... what do you think of Elif Shafak?

I've only managed to finish the Bastard of Ä°stanbul years ago. It wasn't bad as I expected and decided to go on to support her and picked a few of her other books, but didn't enjoy the language, I couldn't finish any other. Her Turkish gives a sense of forced, translation taste. I also later read that she is actually writing in English and then translate to her mother language or adapt is a better world maybe? It feels like she is trying to make things exotic - something probably makes the adaptation/translation issue worse - but at the same time trying to make it appealing to the Western reader. This is something general with NonWestern writers. It's fine, but that is something very difficult to do in a proper way in literature. While the world they want to create has a value in authenticity only, it becomes hybrid and lose the intended quality to begin with.

I think that is the dream of being some sort of a Turkish Amin Maalouf or in case of Orhan Pamuk, a Middle Eastern Umberto Eco.

Well, there is a reason why there are very few of them,lol. Because simply, a very few people can do it. It really takes an extraordinary talent, it is something more than the subject.

But as far as the themes go, honestly, there aren't many choices for M. Eastern writers who wants to write from their own culture and get published in the West. Because the West doesn't like anything genuinely different and out of their world. It's not just that they don't get, they are not interested. So what is it going to be? They will market themselves more than the product's value which the West would love in any case done right and thus they are promoted as some sort of 'champions'. A writer who can make unwanted political remarks - which as you know I support in any case - a so called truth sayer who is infact a conflated 'rebel', outcast with a gig. They are both previously high middle class, now very rich, media characters. It's business and this is how things work. And when they get death threats or sued for bullshit, well this works wonders. It sells.

That is a seperate issue, but when it comes to literature, art... They are both highly overrated.

[Blackleaf]

You know what I just thought, why should they remove the Shouts at all? They can only remove the very specific ones and keep the others with more general purpose. It's unique. It's not actually power or magic, but something the hero has because who he/she is. After all the next hero (us) has fought and won Skyrim battles and it is kind of a connection to that character.

They could just scatter them in the map in dungeons, but I have no idea how should they be gained or unlocked. Because this should be done in an artful, subtle way so the player wouldn't feel they put an old feature in a new game to get away with anything. It should be an ornamental, but functional perk. For example the locations of shouts could change randomly every time you play the game and that it is totally random every time.

One of the reasons I'd like them to do it is that this game is going to be measured against Skyrim far MORE than any other usual game is compared to its prequel. And to be honest, they won't be able to make a game to give that fresh natural feeling of going 'outside alone on a quest in Norse atmosphere' as they did with Skyrim. Because they already did Skyrim. And imo, people love this game first because it can evoke that feeling better than others of its kind and then the LORE and the game.

So done right, keeping shouts could be a good idea.

I also love the idea of broken equipment. And agree with the Skyrim skill system.

The player character of Skyrim is the Last Dragonborn, according to prophecy. Only the Dragonborn can learn shouts so easily. Others have to study for years at High Hrothgar just to access a single shout. Since your character won't likely be able to do that, no shouts. However, I do think that Sword Singing can be a good alternative.

[Baruch]

I've only managed to finish the Bastard of Ä°stanbul years ago. It wasn't bad as I expected and decided to go on to support her and picked a few of her other books, but didn't enjoy the language, I couldn't finish any other. Her Turkish gives a sense of forced, translation taste. I also later read that she is actually writing in English and then translate to her mother language or adapt is a better world maybe? It feels like she is trying to make things exotic - something probably makes the adaptation/translation issue worse - but at the same time trying to make it appealing to the Western reader. This is something general with NonWestern writers. It's fine, but that is something very difficult to do in a proper way in literature. While the world they want to create has a value in authenticity only, it becomes hybrid and lose the intended quality to begin with.

I think that is the dream of being some sort of a Turkish Amin Maalouf or in case of Orhan Pamuk, a Middle Eastern Umberto Eco.

Well, there is a reason why there are very few of them,lol. Because simply, a very few people can do it. It really takes an extraordinary talent, it is something more than the subject.

But as far as the themes go, honestly, there aren't many choices for M. Eastern writers who wants to write from their own culture and get published in the West. Because the West doesn't like anything genuinely different and out of their world. It's not just that they don't get, they are not interested. So what is it going to be? They will market themselves more than the product's value which the West would love in any case done right and thus they are promoted as some sort of 'champions'. A writer who can make unwanted political remarks - which as you know I support in any case - a so called truth sayer who is infact a conflated 'rebel', outcast with a gig. They are both previously high middle class, now very rich, media characters. It's business and this is how things work. And when they get death threats or sued for bullshit, well this works wonders. It sells.

That is a seperate issue, but when it comes to literature, art... They are both highly overrated.

PS - Orhan Pamuk is a Nobel winner in literature.  Impressive.

[drunkenshoe]

The player character of Skyrim is the Last Dragonborn, according to prophecy. Only the Dragonborn can learn shouts so easily. Others have to study for years at High Hrothgar just to access a single shout. Since your character won't likely be able to do that, no shouts. However, I do think that Sword Singing can be a good alternative.

Yes, I know and you are right. I am saying if they put a bit of it in a subtle, good way, it might be good for the game. I know it is a no-no silly idea.

[drunkenshoe]

PS - Orhan Pamuk is a Nobel winner in literature.  Impressive.

Yes, I know. The thing is, it is not impressive. Nobel is defined as 'impressive', products are not necessarily so. That's what I tried to tell up there^.

[Hydra009]

What I would like to return, however, are attributes. Keep Skyrim's style of skills and perks (modified for improvements, like how mods do it), and bring back the attributes. While skills represent what your character is good at, attributes describe what your character's physical and mental characteristics are.

This.  It's a travesty that attributes were ever removed in the first place.

Skills = what you've learned to do.  Attributes = your natural ability.

It really opens up tons of roleplaying opportunities, because the attribute system forces the player to describe, in no uncertain terms, where their natural talents lie (and equally useful, where their weak points are)

You can have someone who's a bumbling oaf become a skilled catburgler.  And someone who's a born mage eschew magic and become a stalwart battle commander.  Or vice versa.

That's storytelling gold right there.  Without that, the next game might as well be Elder Scrolls: Vice City.

[Hydra009]

I'll die on the mysticism hill for one simple reason:  mark/recall caused your player to have a hometown.  In the ash-blighted, cliffracer-infested hellhole that was the Black Isle, everyone had a place to escape to and a place to hang their hat; an oasis of safety in a perilous world.

[Blackleaf]

Here's an interesting Elder Scrolls theory. Sounds like it could have actually been what they were going for too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG2kV4EpG7c

[Hydra009]

Here's an interesting Elder Scrolls theory. Sounds like it could have actually been what they were going for too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG2kV4EpG7c

A couple wrinkles:

1) Lorkhan is specifically called the Missing God (though The Monomyth clarifies that "missing" in this context can mean Lorkhan's absence from the divine pantheon or the removal of his divine spark by the other immortals)

2) Lorkhan seemingly no longer physically exists:  his body is the twin moons and his heart was torn out and shot into the sea (it laid to rest in Red Mountain, then was placed in the Brass Golem, then disappeared as the Brass Golem was destroyed)

3) Talos mantled Lorkhan

(for the lurkers, "mantling" is the process of impersonating someone else so completely that there is no longer a functional difference between the two, which means... I'm a little unclear on that, but it's incredibly powerful, game-changing stuff, like pawn-becomes-queen level stuff)

I'm not quite certain about this, but Talos and other Shezarrines are incarnations of Lorkhan, implying that Lorkhan no longer physically exists except through them.

[Blackleaf]

A couple wrinkles:

1) Lorkhan is specifically called the Missing God (though The Monomyth clarifies that "missing" in this context can mean Lorkhan's absence from the divine pantheon or the removal of his divine spark by the other immortals)

2) Lorkhan seemingly no longer physically exists:  his body is the twin moons and his heart was torn out and shot into the sea (it laid to rest in Red Mountain, then was placed in the Brass Golem, then disappeared as the Brass Golem was destroyed)

3) Talos mantled Lorkhan

(for the lurkers, "mantling" is the process of impersonating someone else so completely that there is no longer a functional difference between the two, which means... I'm a little unclear on that, but it's incredibly powerful, game-changing stuff, like pawn-becomes-queen level stuff)

I'm not quite certain about this, but Talos and other Shezarrines are incarnations of Lorkhan, implying that Lorkhan no longer physically exists except through them.

Some of that is left to interpretation, especially since each race has its own different versions of the creation myth. In the video, it mentions that the Khajiit saw Lorkhan's heart as a separate being called Namira, which is the Daedric Prince of decay. They also mention Lorkhan (called "Lorkhaj" by the Khajiit) being forced to "wander," rather than being destroyed. Additionally, they see the two moons as their own individual entities separate from Lorkhan. The Nords also traditionally see Nirn as the body of Lorkhan, as you can often hear them use the phrase "Shor's Bones." Shor, of course, being the Nordic name for Lorkhan.

Mantling a god does not mean that the original god disappears, as Martin Septim also mantled Akatosh. The gods of the Elder Scrolls universe seem to have multiple, often conflicting personalities. Auriel and Akatosh are the same god, for example, but Auriel helped the elves to persecute the races of men, while Akatosh was very helpful to those races of men. When the Alessian Empire was founded, and the Temple of the Eight was established from a mishmash of traditions from man and elf, they refused to acknowledge that a being as antagonistic to their cause as Auriel could be the same god as Akatosh. It's been suggested that there may be different versions of the same god, sort of like how the Christian Trinity is three gods in one. Because of that, multiple avatars of the same god are also possible. Some even think that Alduin is a part of Akatosh, rather than just his firstborn. So it's possible for there to be multiple Lorkhans in the world.

There are also several theories about how Talos became a god. Some say he mantled Lorkhan, but others say he just achieved Chim and ascended. We don't really know for sure. Heck, we don't even know for certain what his race was, or where he was born. Sources conflict in many basic areas of Talos' life. We can't even use the other three notable examples of mortals ascending to godhood, the Tribunal, to establish a pattern since they seem to be completely different. Relying on the power of Lorkhan's Heart, their status as gods only lasted for as long as they had the heart to draw power from. In contrast, Talos seemed to leave behind his mortal form entirely. The only reason we know that he even became a god at all is that upon ascending to godhood, he apparently terraformed the entire province of Cyrodiil from an inhospitable jungle to a land of plains and forests. Although The Elder Scrolls Online seems to contradict that bit of lore...

[Hydra009]

They also mention Lorkhan (called "Lorkhaj" by the Khajiit) being forced to "wander," rather than being destroyed.

Right.  Hence, Pelinal Whitestrake, a frequent wanderer, champion of men against the mer, and even a rather fitting death.  A much more stronger candidate for Lorkhan than Maiq, imo.

Mantling a god does not mean that the original god disappears, as Martin Septim also mantled Akatosh.

But it does mean that they essentially merge.  You can't have Talos merge with Lorkhan and still have Lorkhan roam the world as Maiq.

So it's possible for there to be multiple Lorkhans in the world.

I mean...I suppose that maybe that's possible, given the multiple shezzarines in Talos.

But to be honest, I'm kinda leaning towards doubting that because that's such a huge can of worms for any writer to deal with.  As if tracking a single being wasn't bad enough, tracking multiples would make you tear your hair out.  Granted, Michael Kirkbride has done far stranger things than that...

There are also several theories about how Talos became a god. Some say he mantled Lorkhan, but others say he just achieved Chim and ascended. We don't really know for sure. Heck, we don't even know for certain what his race was, or where he was born.

Fair enough.

Although The Elder Scrolls Online seems to contradict that bit of lore...

Imho, ESO is a generic MMO with the words "Elder Scrolls" bolted on top of it.  Its lore is of scant concern to me.  Its lore may in a very technical sense be called canon, but its lore definitely does NOT supersede established lore.  It is granted a seat at the Council, but it does not have the rank of Master.