Litany of Suggestions to Improve the game immersion and player satisfaction . . .

Messy1 · August 2014

I. Alter/change the way stamina is used in game to make it more balanced with magicka use
A. Consider changing class skill trees to reflect a choice in magicka, health, or stamina
1. i.e. Nightblade assassination uses magicka, stealth uses stamina, siphoning uses health
a. For health make a separate bar under health to reflect heart power that would be used to power siphoning skills (this would be the model for other skill line trees as well) so in effect allocating points in health will help with overall survivability but also be used for certain skill lines.

II. Improve the usefulness of interactive items
A. It was a great move to make items interactive in the world, but they almost seem pointless and have no real use other than cosmetic.
1. Consider mixing in very rare items in delves and dungeons and other locations that change place randomly and have good value and utility. Or perhaps there could be items that could be constructed by gathering all the parts with requirements like "can only be assembled by a blacksmith with skill greater than 40" and vice versa for clothing, enchanting etc.
2. Perhaps have very rare items that can be found in containers and shield racks and weapons lying around that could go towards achievements or be collectibles for player housing (when it happens) or have some sort of intrinsic value where people will want to trade or sell them

III. Improve conversations between players and NPCs
A. Consider having open ended conversation threads that can be followed in every major city and town with a speechcraft skill line that would grant you benefits like reduced prices at vendors or allow you to sell those 0 gold items for more gold

IV. More roleplaying and sandbox elements
A. Fore example lively inns and safe haven in Cyrodil to meet with players of other factions and challenge them to brawls drinking contests etc.
B. A bard class or guild with a skill line that would give tactical benefits and for entertainment value and to utilize those music vendor stations dotted all across tamriel

Moonscythe · August 2014

You lost me. I don't quite see how siphoning which gives some health would be usable if I had to pay for it with health. Maybe have assassination use health and siphoning use magic. Then, if I take your life I have to pay with some of my own. Seems a fair trade.

Messy1 · August 2014

So there would be a dual bar for health . . . one bar would represent how much life you have (i.e. how much damage you can take before you die) the other bar, like a bar under the health bar would represent the amount energy you have to use on your skills that require health graphically it might look like this
|

| Health bar
|

| Health energy for skills that require a"health"specialization
So when you spend points in health it has a dual effect . . . it increases your health (how much damage you can take) and it gives you more points that can be used towards skills requiring health (but it won't directly drain your health, i.e. how much damage you can take)
Cause let's be honest, the mage guild skill line that has abilities with direct costs to your health is not that useful. IMO

Caroloces · August 2014

Love these suggestions, particularly speechcraft. Extended conversation trees that would open up depending upon the level of skills in speechcraft would be a superb addition to the game. Can you imagine the access to lore, the links to hidden quests, and even the possible implementation with the Justice system in which you would have to interrogate NPCs to gather clues on murderers, thieves . . . And, if you were on the wrong side of the law and you were plotting to kill some individual, you could interrogate to find out their daily habits, where they like to take walks at night, etc. etc.

Messy1 · August 2014

Why thank you, the game needs a ton more details and nuances to it, I enjoy it immensely, but to me Elder Scrolls has always been more than just the great combat systems and cool loot. It must take away your breath with the world it puts you in.

Messy1 · August 2014

Inns need to be livlier and need more features in them to entice players to congregate in them. You know like maybe another gold sink where you can rent a room for the night (rested bonuses?). Updating the inns would be a great thing to roll out with ummm say a player housing update!!!

Rune_Relic · August 2014

Like the idea of more interactive items.
Perhaps relics that are made of multiple components that have to be collected from all over tamriel.
But what should such relics be/do that doesn't make someone OP in PVP or trials?

zgrssd · August 2014

To I:
A lot of sugestions regarding the slight weakness of Stamina Skills compared to Magika involve adding another resource (sometimes it is used for Dodge and breakout; sometimes it is using Magika for certain breakouts). I think that would create more issues then it solves. It's the wrong solution to a real issue.

The main issue was that Stamina Skills were not reserouce effective/strong enough. They could not deal with that until recently (1.3.3 patch), because they had to focus on getting the class skills more balanced first (as those affect PvE and PvP balance equally, and are needed as baseline to balance stam skills against).
They only just got the reworking Stam Skills. I am sure they figure everything important out.

To II:
The issues to making anything based purely on skilline expereince is that you can level everything to 50. In other games changing your profession would reset profession XP and potentailly even known Shematics/Recipes.
In ESO you keep it all.

Currently they are based on a Skill-Points-invested system. While leve is needed to unlock the skills, having the level brings you squat without actually investing skill points.
Hireling is perhaps the best example: It does not mater how high your Blacksmithing experience is, only how many points you invested in Hireling, Blacksmithing Tier unlock and the Tannin Skill.

If they added new skills you have to invest in for Conversation Actions/World interactions, they would have to be worth the investment on every level.
The first racial skill (skilline XP passive) is free, simply because it can't be usefull after you reach level 50 in that line. It is not worth investing a Skillpoint in and that is one of the racials we are talking about here.

To III:
A "bargaining" skill would simply become a Character tax: Something you have to have to be effective. So it would just reduce how many points you got for other, relevant things.
Or it would be next to worthless, not being worth the skill points.
Those skills tend to be one of the extremes. D&D games managed to somewaht do bargaining because you had to invest the rares skillpoints into it.

To IV:
I agree there needs to be some way for different factions to meet and interact. Even SWTOR has some neutral, non-automatic-pvp zones. And both factions could interact via the /say, /emote and /me channel if they happened to be in the same /zone.
Of course the question is how well the game could be adapted to such a design.

Regarding the Bard:
Basically a class designed around buffing? D&D and Lord of the Rings have both something like this. With the magic in the world of tamriel it would not be far fetched to have music with game effects.