My Ideas for Elder Scrolls 6

0. The following is a list of features I'd like to see in TES6.
1. 
 
 
 

   A. Radiant Quests

   I would really like Bethesda to overhaul the way radiant quests are done.

   

   Here are a few suggestions

   

   -1 Take notes from Assassin's Creed Origins and Shadow of War

   

   In AC:O there are 2 kinds of Radiant Quests (well technically they are same one reskinned).
 

   You can talk to a particular merchant and he will give you a daily quest to kill some bandits. Doing so awards with a legendary weapon.

   

   

The second is when another player dies in their game, you can find their body in your game and avenge them by killing their killers. You both get XP.





It's also important that OR tells how these are radiant quests, marks them in blue and makes the reward for it pretty good.





In Shadow of War, there are many quests that spring up as a result of the Nemesis System, but there are many different kinds of events and you can influence them in many different ways.



I think TES6 could take that idea. Imagine There are many different kinds of events. Like there is a kidnapping and you are tasked with getting the hostage out from a bandit camp. However, if you are detected, the Hostage is killed. Or a Fighter challenges you to a fight with a unique modifier like you have to fight with only one hand or something. Or you have to hide some evidence prior to an inspection on a citizen's house and you can choose how you want to hide it using Bethesda's physics engine like putting behind a bed. Or you need to pretend to fight someone to impress another person and you are tasked by making it seem as real without killing them and actually losing in the end (I like this one because maybe you can ask the mission giver what they person they are trying to impress knows. So you can use a restoration spell on the fighter and the target might think it's a dangerous spell or something. Or you can hit them with a dagger of healing and it appears as they are powering through the attack).



If there are enough different kinds of events and they switch often and offer interesting rewards, I think the game can get away with more radiant quests to mix up the experience from time to time rather than the same "clear out Bandit camps". Because if these quests are even somewhat replayable, they are helped immensely by the fact they will be repeated.
 


B. Photo Mode
 

I'd really like a mix of Assassin's Creed Origins and Fallout 76's Photo Modes in that, photos other people take can be seen on the overworld map and can show up in loading screens.





C. Combat
 

I'd love TES6's combat to be more involving, maybe even taking cues from Dark Messiah.
 



I think you can choose to enter "combat mode" when you draw your weapon. Here, your controls change so the face buttons and triggers perform combat actions rather than the normal actions when exploring. This would allow players in a fight to do things like kick to stagger enemies, use combos, use different kinds of strikes that do different things, roll and dodge and shuffle, parry etc.



I would like a system where in a fight, enemies you face have simple weakness and strengths so switching your tactics is the best way to win while not being to crazy. For example, you pickpocket city guards so you end up in a fight against 2 normal guards and

one heavy and 1 agile. You can fight the regular guards normally but the optimal way to take down the heavy is to dodge their attacks and kick his sides to stun him so you can attack. The agile is best beaten with parrying. Even hitting different limbs and body parts have different results



The hope being that even though players can brute force through fights, these ideas allow for combat to vary itself more in little ways. And becomes especially interesting when fighting tougher or groups of different enemies





I also think having more varied weapon types like throwing daggers and spears would be great to have.





Even Magic could be tweaked like this. I wouldn’t mind if Magic is reduced in what kinds of spells you can have if the spells that are left can do more. For example, In a fight, I can wield a sword in my right hand complete with all the suggestions above. I have lightning selected in my left hand. I can shoot balls normally, but I also have access to a lightning punch and Lighting AOE attacks that have different strengths and benefits and drawbacks. Now mixing and matching different weapons and spells is more interesting.



Another suggestion but maybe the game could cue one of the buttons as a heal button that automatically pulls resources or spells you have marked in your inventory to use for healing. So instead of going into a menu to heal, you can tap left or something and your character will stand still for a sec and regenerate the amount of health.



To balance that, I think maybe have a “you can only heal x much in 10 minutes”.



Unarmed combat could let you use grabs or throw dirt at enemies. I want this to have enough options so playing with at least 1 hand free could become viable. Shields could let you bash enemies at a huge cost to stamina. (It would be cool to fight with one hand free and the other with a sword or spell so you can grab an enemy and slash at them or shoot lightning point blank at their heads).



Speaking of which, I would like if managing stamina during fights was a factor. Like with low stamina you lose access to many of your cooler attacks and have to play defensively in order to restore it quickly. Hell maybe even a Dark Souls system when you can lower all your weapons and shields and be unable to attack or defend before needing to press a button to boost stamina recovery. This would reward players with skill and taking risks.





C. Stealth



I would love if Stealth was made more varied. Maybe like with combat above, when crouching you can choose to enter "stealth mode" where face and trigger buttons are replaced with other commands.



Maybe the game can use this to give the player moves like using walls for cover, dashing past gaps, vaulting and more.




The player can later unlock Stealth magic and perk upgrades like being able to make a decoy or luring enemies away, smoke bombs etc.



Suffice it to say but NPC AI should improve a lot more.



D. Movement



I think TES6 should implement more varied and vertical movement options like climbing, scaling etc. Maybe this could tie with stealth as you can climb a building to enter a window. There could even be boats to quickly move across large bodies of water. I would also like if there were a network of underground caves or sewers that you could navigate to enter buildings and areas



E. Weapon Wheel



I think that in order to make menu navigation less clunky, especially in fights, the player can hotkey several items and access them all in 1 weapon wheel. This would allow players to quickly switch items that they need without needing to navigate through a 1-way menu. Assassin’s Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man and Deus Ex all show ways of pulling it off.





Also, please redesign the UI for PC and (if it is in the works) VR version. The default Skyrim version does not work well.





F. Trading



I liked how in Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation, you come to own your own shipping company somewhat early in the game. You can buy raw goods from the new world and sell them to other places in the New World and Europe. If managed right, the player would earn lots of cash from it. GTA Chinatown Wars had a version of that but for drugs and you'd have to manually go to buy and sell in places.



I think TES6 could benefit from a quest where you gain access to a shipping company and how well you run it means it grows bigger and can start serving more of Tamriel. It could be this little thing you can occasionally come back to every now and again.



The system could let you manage a small fleet of ships and caravans from a menu. You can choose where to serve and when to deploy. You may also have a bunch of choices that pop up occasionally like supporting group x, or taking money from group y to increase prices to hurt group Z. The system could have consequences where your choices mean one group could get stronger and take over other groups and either charge you extra in taxes, or give you a monopoly in the area or force you to sign a contract etc. It would be interesting to play multiple groups off each other and reap the rewards of it while competing with other shipping companies. Maybe the player may even be given radiant quests to go out and gather supplies or disrupt rival company's operations from time to time.



If we are allowed to get extreme, why not add a story that progresses in this mode (I know, This is already pushing it).




The point being trading could be a nice side thing to let you earn lots of cash throughout the game while getting a bit of a nice minigame to play.



G. More customization.



In addition to lots of cool armours and weapons. I think TES6 would benefit from having shaders you can apply to weapons and armour to make them look a certain colour. I wouldn't even mind if Fallout 4's Base building returned to let you build some houses and 1 or 2 settlements.



H. Minigames



TES6 could have a bunch of replayable minigames. Assassin's Creed, Dragon Quest and GTA have had things like fight club, checkers, A club where in game monsters would be controlled to fight etc. TES6 having some interactivity in taverns would be cool.



I. Factions



Obviously, everyone thinks that TES should have better factions that have actual requirements, don't make you a leader instantly etc. But I think TES6 could go one step further.



Imagine if each faction had a small group that was looking to take control and change the faction.



So in my ideal TES6, the player would say, go to the fighters guild and because they are a newbie, be assigned small tasks for a while like stopping bar fights. After rising through the ranks by doing things and making contacts, the player learns that group B in the guild want to change the guild to become more mercenary-like. The player can choose to help them out directly if they are highly ranked or more covertly like sneaking into opposing members and planting things to get them kicked out.





The hope being that even if the player isn't a leader, they have enough agency that they can affect things in a cool and satisfying way. I know I would love to have a scenario where I choose to blackmail an evil member into basically being a puppet for me while I sit back as a "middle of the pack" and watch them do a 180 and push for things I want. That sounds much better than being a leader in Skyrim or Fallout 4.



I would like a system like this for the fighters, Mage and Thief Guilds. Or maybe even 2 of them as fighters and thieves can be combined or something to keep it manageable.





J. Bigger Battles



Skyrim’s Civil War stuff wasn’t exactly the most fleshed out (Apparently it was originally much bigger at first before being cut. Mods Restored it). But I’d love if TES6 took a few cues from Shadow of War and made its big battles more cool.




I’d love if you could plan with your army where to attack and how to do it. I’d love if you had stages to pass through to conquer a siege, but you could bypass that if you can (like the default plan is to open the game by battering it. If you can use your climb skills to get around to open the walls and open the game from the other side, or take out towers and archers etc the siege acknowledges that and proceeds accordingly. Like I want a siege to be more siege-y).


 

K. Diseases and Forms
 

TES6 would feel much cooler if during the player’s adventures they could contract big number of illnesses. Some with a random chance, others guaranteed through an optional mushroom or something or enemy attack. So the player may get hit by goblins and come down with an illnesses. Some of the illnesses should be joke ones like one where you smell so bad people think you’re a corpse, or when if an enemy hits you hard enough you vomit onto them or something.


 

I’d also love if the forms were expanded. I wouldn’t mind if only Werewolf and Vampirism stuck around as long as they were expanded. Maybe you get actual combos and fighting moves for both (my fighting suggestions could be applied here). I’d also love for there to be more movement options. Like you can run on all fours as a wolf really fast, jump and pounce long distances, climb etc. Vampires can glide etc.


 

L. Voices
 

While it would be amazing if Bethesda could record every line of dialogue with at least 10 different voices per race and gender for your character, I imagine storing that much audio as well as the expense and limitations placed by that would be pretty great. As such, I’m cool if the main character has no voice. However, TES6 should make an extra effort to make all the NPCs sound more varied and distinct. Maybe hire a lot more voice actors.



M. Codex



While I like the idea of reading Books in an TES game, I think it would be better if they were supplemented with a codex or database system like how Bioware, Witcher and Assassin’s Creed do it. So as I’m exploring, if I come across a cool monster, I can open the codex and instantly read about it. Even books and letters the player comes across can be stored here.
 

The positives are -1 An easy access to all the lore and others in the game (which is good because many TES games don’t present a lot of their lore).



-2 A way to let players recap on things they missed or have forgotten









N. Audiobooks




This more of "I think this would be nice" rather than I think this might be important to consider but since there exists a Podcast that reads Skyrim's books and codex to you, it might be nice if TES6's books can be played in audio format. Too often when I get in a book in Skyrim, I just pick it up and at most skim through it. An Audiobook version is something I can listen to while I play the game. And I since I was willing to listen to all the tapes in MGSV when I normally skip the codec in MG games, I think this might get more of the audience into TES6's books.



This might not be practical for Bethesda given the amount of writing in these books to also have to convert to audio. 













And as a final thing, I’d love a cheat or option that flips the world so it becomes the opposite (Like a door on the east side is now on the west). This would make replays feel much different.




Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and War. My thoughts

The following are my thoughts of Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and its sequel. It assumes you’re familiar with the games. I won't be as formal and as analytical as I was with my AC2 post.

I’ve recently finished Shadow of War, after finishing Red Dead Redemption 2. My short summary of these games is that SOW is really good, its Nemesis System carries it far and makes it worth experiencing. It’s let down by being so limited in its story. And War makes SOM redundant. It feels that Monolith put the Lion’s share of resources into the Nemesis System, for better and worse.



Lets start with the story. In both the best and worst ways, it feels that the lion’s share of development went to the Nemesis System, because it feels the story got the leftovers.

With Regards to SOM, I always felt the premise and set up was really well done. I bought into Talion's struggle and the precence of Celebrimbor. I was sold on this when I saw that cutscene where Talion was shocked at how the slaves were treated while Celebrimbor encouraging him to ignore it and focus on his mission. Seeing this difference between the heroes would have been cool. I recall Prince of Persia The Two Thrones did a similar thing and it was great. The problem here is that SOM doesn’t do much with its story. It feels more like an excuse to dabble in the nemesis system until the final missions. Only Ratbag’s missions broke the monotony. It’s a shame given the premise and Tolkien’s universe. It's telling that it takes until SOW for someone to bring up that how Talion is feeling after dying.

Speaking of which, I know Monolith takes a lot of liberties with the source material. Frankly, I don’t mind. Games are a medium that what works for the gameplay may not often fit 100% with the source material so tweaks need to be made. I'm cool if a game based on something needs to tweak a lot to work. Case in point, Tolkien wasn't fond of brutality, misuse of power, and the way Shelob was used. Yet, SOM couldn't exist without opposing these. 

Besides, I've seen comic books and their adaptations play loose and fast with continuity and put their own spin on things. If SOM wants to be like an alternate timeline to the Hobbit/LOTR like how the Arkham Games were to the comics, I'm fine with that. If anything, I'd argue that's often the best course of action for games like this. They can pick and choose what bits of the world they want and make their own story without being restricted by the Canon. 

Both SOM and SOW are all over the place in this regard but I feel they did make something that feels unique while playing reasonably well with what's established.

Now onto SOW.

For what it's worth, the game attempts to step up in this regard. It has multiple threads all while the main quest of building up an army to take down Sauron keeps you occupied.

Let's talk our main characters. Firstly, Talion and Celebrimbor have lot more lines that explore their reletionships and views. I loved the Gondorian Artifacts because the 2 would talk about it (Celebrimbor's personality and outlook are interesting). I loved dying as they'd talk about it, the one-liners from Talion when he's fighting an overlord or his "I miss Celebrimbor line". The problem is that the format is rarely more than 1 sentence each outside of main missions.  It's a shame given the perspectives and outlooks of these characters. I'd love a way to get these 2 to talk and react more. Like a button from Prince of Persia 08 or the radio from MGSV. As it currently stands, it's a missed opportunity. What's more is this could have been used to great effect to haunt players once Act 3 starts (Worked for RDR2). Keeping it so minimal hurts when characters do interact as it limits the quality of the story. 

Let's move onto Act 1. I feel this is pretty good. It's different from SOM even for returning players by giving our vulnerable duo with a human rather than Orc locale to fight in. The various characters of Idril ,  Baranor, Shelob and Eladrial are introduced,  future threads are forshadowed , the gameplay is shown, the set pieces are interesting. It's pretty good.

Act 2 splits so I'll talk about each thread on its own. Starting with Idril. I haven't looked much at others opinions, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being disliked. Not a lot happens on her path aside from rescuing trapped Gondorians and her deciding to stay in Mordor with Baranor who is concerned for. I kinda get what they were going for with her looking to make up for her father's cowardice but it feels bland and uninteresting. So if I could rewrite it to be better, here's what I would do. Firstly, Idril is someone training to be fighter but typically restricted to do so by Castamir. So she's using soldiers loyal to her to help defend specific things in Mines Ithil. She and Talion work together over their common goals. What the game already does can stay. After the city falls, Baranor takes Talion to a Lair where some surviving Gondorians have taken refuge. We learn that Idril has changed as a result. She's burdened with guilt for being used to sacrifice Minas Ithil so she's started an underground movement to help the remaining people in Mordor escape even if it puts her in danger. Talion can be asked to use his powers to recruit Orcs that are more friendly to assist with this effort. Throughout this, we see how battle hardened Idril has gotten and how worried Baranor is. The final mission ends with a more mature Idril sacrificing herself to save people and Talion and encourages him to not get too wrapped up in killing no matter how necessary it is.

I feel my outline is a better fit because it has its own progression and climax that feels built up to, gives her an arc and ties into Talion's main quest which ends up supporting the new future Shelob envisioned instead of being straightforward and just rescuing soldiers.

Carnan's story is fine. The setpieces, fights and Zog's resurrection sequences are chilling and intense. Really well done. My only real complaints are the sudden recklessness from Talion at first despite Celebrimbor's warning, how unconnected it feels from the main quest, and the oddity in the end where it's suggested the immortal spirit sacrificed herself yet is still around.

Bruz's works well in teaching and is interesting. Also shows how destructive and evil our heroes can be.

Now let's move onto Act 3. When I first got to this point  I felt the story hadn't really justified Talion and Celebrimbor becoming evil while the gameplay had through how I'd treated the Orcs. The twist of what Shelob did then worked out I guess. But a part of me would have loved the original timeline. I bought the game expecting that to happen. Regardless it was a cool way to cap off the story and actually took me off my guard. 

The Shadow Wars wasn't really fun due to the grinding. Thankfully a patch did make very short (it's one of those rare times where the gameplay matches perfectly with the story and it suffers as a result. Obviously Talion's final decades would have been repetitive and arduous ). I do like this ending for how fitting, tragic and intense it feels. As well as how it ties into LOTR in an interesting way. Looking back, I don't think there was a better way they could have ended the story while still fitting in. Had Talion and Celebrimbor simply failed, it would have been a repeat of the Bright Lord DLC. Had they been delayed or won, it wouldn't have fit with LOTR. It also leaves a door open for a 3rd game. Consider me intrigued. 

I want to talk about Isildur, Minas Morgul and Hammerhand. Obviously, Ithil Fell millennia before this game. I'm fine with that. The game creates an interesting scenario, set piece and association with the town that it uses. It wouldn't even be remotely as engaging if you just started with Morgal already active and told a quick history lesson. As for Isildur, I know Nazgul aren't replaced in Tolkien's lore and they were active millennia before Isildur (and Hammerhand) even entered the scene. But I'd argue the game makes good use of it. It establishes that Nagul work differently in that they can be killed by a few ways and that's how replacements come in (severing the connection of Nazgul to Sauron worked to kill the Witch King in LOTR). Making Isildur a Nazgul has its benefits. Note that Talion's past has never been a point in the ongoing narrative. So suddenly having to develop a new Nazgul that both Talion and the Audience would be in awe off in the span of a few missions is not ideal or impactful. Using Isildur accomplishes that and also creates tension of Talion (and the audience) seeing such a mythical figure be Sauron's puppet. And as a result, Isildur becomes the catalyst to show Talion the truth of the situation when Celebrimbor brainwashes him. Again, it would be hard to do that or be as invested if it were anyone else. As for Hammerhand, he foreshadows this by being someone that Celebrimbor was around and saw what the rings did.

-Gameplay 

Obviously, the main selling point of these games is the Nemesis System. That system that generates many different Orcs and thrives on unscripted interactions between each other and the player. War's version with more Orcs, interactions etc makes SOM look like a demo.

Speaking of SOM, partway through my playthrough I found I got bored Of the system. I'd seen all the ways it could have played out so even new lines of dialogue or different Orcs just felt like window dressing. It wasn't until the Beast master DLC the game surprised me with new scenarios and it did by scripting some interactions. It's kinda funny the game was able to surprise me by getting rid of the one thing that made it unique. SOW obviously got a lot more mileage but there were cracks in the experience. Many of the procedural missions to summon a particular Orc got repetitive after a while. I'd prefer if these was better integrated into the world rather than being these missions. The sieges got repetitive as well due to the same goals every time. I'd love if they were more open-ended as what's there is pretty solid and open already.

I'm not fond of how you have no control in the fight pits. You could make the case for the online fights to keep it balanced, but in solo play, it is kinda frustrating to spend time building up a recruit, sending him in to become a bodyguard/warchief and he gets killed by a skinny twig of an orc causing you to have to repeat the process.

I find the way stealth and combat is done in these games to be interesting as they feed into the Nemesis System quite well.

Stealth is very lenient in the world outside of forts and captains. Letting you kill and interrogate with ease and work upto forts and captains. Letting it feel like a personal hunt at times as you move through the map to take down an enemy that killed you. But there is no real danger or need to stealth unless you're in a fort which may make stealth kinda shallow but it keeps up the pace of navigating the world.

Combat is interesting because of how the Arkham like combat is used. Now this type of combat system isn't technically new. Spider-Man 2, Prince of Persia Warriour Within, and even Assassin's Creed 1 all used many of the pieces of a free form combat system that allowed for quick counters and crowd control with minimal inputs. But Arkham popularized a particular application of it. The goal here isn't survival. That's a given. It's efficiency/style. It's about taking down crowds quickly and effectively while maintaining a high combo and variety. The challenge comes from maintaining that as enemy groups vary in composition with their own unique resistances, requiring the player to juggle how they move, fight and build up their combos to perform special moves. For example, instead of using the beat down move against an armoured target, a player may opt to beat on normal targets around him to build up the ability to perform an instant takedown and use that on the armoured target. 

A limitation of this kind of combat system is its reliance on the presence of fodder enemies during regular fights to function. It can't really work during one on one duels.

For example, consider the first Titan in Arkham Asylum. You fight him in a regular fight one on one. And you can easily strike and jump over his attacks so he can't even touch you. That's the downside. You're too versatile against 1 opponent. That's why many boss fights in the series throw regular thugs at you. It's the only way to add a reasonable challenge to the fight. Otherwise, you'd dodge every charging Titan and Ivy plants with ease. The only times Arkham has had truly great boss fights are by changing the context  (Deathstroke by incorporating the QTE counter based fighting ) or by ignoring the combat system altogether  (Mr. Freeze).

Here's where you can see games inspired by Arkham stumble. The Amazing Spider-Man games, for example, kept the counter and movement systems but didn't have the enemies or scenarios able to vary to allow maintaining a combo to be a challenge.

Here's where we loop this around to SOW. It's cool that they made this work for survival simply because it wasn't the best fit.

Let me explain, you'll find Orcs with immunities to you being able to fight them straight up. So you'll end up attacking grunts to try and build up the ability to perform special moves like executions, explosions etc to damage them. Even if this doesn't work out and you end up dying, it's ok because the Nemesis System kicks in and continues. It depends a fair bit on players dying and the inadequate for fights like this Arkham combat ends up assisting this without feeling too bad. The system also encourages more dirty tactics as well so the commitment to combos isn't required. SOM ends up subverting this later on due to how OP Talion gets so only the flaws remain without the positives. SOW is closer to getting the balance right.

A combat system like AC Odyessy's might be a better fit mechanically (because of how you can deal with multiple enemies) but it may allow players to bypass parts of the Nemesis System by not dying as much.

- Misc

In this section, I usually talk about things that are tangentially related to the games, or don't fit in as well etc. You are free to skip over this as this is more of a bonus that a main part of my article. 

I wish to discuss 2 things here, microtransactions and an Orcs as Slavery article.

About Microtransactions, SOW lets you buy Uruks through Lootcrates. This feature was removed later in an update. You can still get Uruk lootcrates but those are now only in-game. Their mere inclusion got a lot of negative controversy.

Personally, I do not care that much. If a game wants to include this stuff, Let them as long as I am not forced into it or am really pushed into it. If someone else wants to spend money to buy all the Uruks right away, I don't mind. It does feel like they are paying to pay less of the game but that's their choice. If I'm cool with people spending their money on expensive cars, knick-knacks, fashion clothing or any expensive luxury, then I can't complain about people wanting to spend money in a single player game.

As for the other thing, Vice who wrote an article in 2017 titled 

"Orc Slavery Made Me Quit ‘Middle-earth: Shadow of War’"

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjve9q/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-orc-slavery-lord-of-the-rings

I have seen various Reddit posts and Forums overreact and go all terrible by the mere mention of this article with vitriol comparable to comment sections of those anti-SJW types on Youtube. And I want to set the record straight because upon reading it, it was hardly apocalyptic. I encourage everyone reading this to actually read this and not just go off the title.

The article actually praises SOW a lot. Quote: "Shadow of War has gone to pains to make the player care about the orcs. The advertising tagline is "Nothing Will Be Forgotten," live action commercials depict orcs lovingly caring for players years after they've stopped playing, and holding grudges for decades."

And raises interesting comparisons to games like X-Com and how one would get attached to soldiers or in this case, Uruks. These are cool things to discuss. This is a game where people can recruit sentient beings with blood brothers they care for and you can torture their minds into insanity worse than death. Now, I love this game, but to see people dismiss this article and be so unwilling to even lower any hostility is absurd. Like, the same forums and Subreddits that talk about how they regretted killing Uruks they got attached to can't see a side where people really regret that. 

Also, Tolkien himself grappled with the nature of Orcs and their morality, so at the very least, don't immediately dismiss stuff like some angry manchild.

The case for Audio Logs and conversations

I remember back on the internet from 2011 to 2014 that audio logs (and to a lesser extent conversations) were made fun of a lot in forum posts, memes and webcomics. South Park Stick of Truth even had an entire sequence poking fun at the idea. After recently playing The Elder Scrolls Blades while listening to The Elder Scrolls Lore Podcast, I started thinking about this and the nature of audio logs and conversations in games.

Firstly, audio logs and conversations may be one of the few if only ways for the player to gain information while still being able to relatively play the game normally. Like cutscenes, textboxes and the like require you to slow down and not play in order to take in the information presented. But you can still listen to say, MGSV's cassette tapes while still sneaking around and playing the game. Allowing for story, plot and character development to happen while the player is simultaneously playing the game and improving Mother Base (it also helped me to recall what was going when I couldn't play the game for a month). I recall I find it not as interesting to read say, the Books in Skyrim by comparison or listen to the codec in prior Metal Gear Games.

It also allows characters in isolated environments to still express more of their character. Take the Arkham Series. Batman isn't Spider-Man where he is really chatty to himself but his conversations with Oracle and Alfred show off the intentions, motives, desperation etc of all parties involved. Bioshock uses it to explore more of the story even when nothing intense is going on. Borderlands and Warframe use it to keep the co-op stuff continue to feel seamless and not be interrupted. God of War 2018 has Kratos and Mimir's stories to keep the admittedly pretty boring travel segments more interesting. GTA has radio conversations that recount what you did, give you stock advice or just have a laugh. Need for Speed uses calls to tell it's story while you're still on the road.

Secondly, audio lets the game open a window into a past life while still allowing the player to imagine the rest. I remember the audio tape in Fallout 3 about the family that saw the bombs drop and still feels haunting, or Clementine's Family's message in The Walking Dead Season 1 The Game. I feel it's harder but still possible for just scraps of text to convey the same meaning.

Thirdly, I feel if more games had implemented versions of it, it would enrich the experience. Take The Assassin's Creed Games for example. Most of the time, the modern day is pretty separated from the past except for the odd story segment, when your crew occasionally chimes in, or the nice bit of commentary in the database. If the games had a real time codec like conversation system where Desmond/Layla/Numbskull/Player/PS Vita Entertainment System could talk with their support crew/Erudito about what's currently happening, how they feel and even how they circumvent the animus/Helix/game, it would go a long way towards making the modern day feel more integrated and making me feel more invested like how Metal Gear and Arkham did (as an aside, the novelizations do something similar but for the past protagonists as we can see their thoughts so it's much easier to relate to their struggle and what's going on). I'd also find it easier and be more willing to listen to Skyrim and Witcher's books.

But it's not all good though and this can be difficult or even inappropriate to use at times.

Firstly, it can break the immersion to have people leaving their recordings everywhere (To this I say, it's not much more than reading journals and emails that are lying around everywhere).

Secondly, it can interrupt other things, especially in more linear environments. Bioshock Infinite had audio logs in the same spot where Elizabeth would start talking.

Thirdly, you risk rubbing players who don't prefer this system the wrong way. Especially when important info may not be immediately present but in an audio log somwhere (perhaps transcripts of the log can be added to the database when you listen to them. I think GTA and a few other franchises do something like that)

Fourthly, Audio files can increase the file size and budget of the game, especially if you've hired big name voice actors. The former may not be much of a problem on modern consoles and PCs but is a concern for Switch and mobile where a game above 1.5 GB is considered massive (I recall ports of games like Dragon Quest 8 removed voices and it's still over 2GB). The budget is likely a problem for those big Console and PC games.

A Critique of AC4: Black Flag's sailing system and how to improve it.

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is pretty much the best pirate game out there (arguably Rogue is better from a gameplay perspective). It gives you that pirate vibe in its story, and its gameplay lets you do all the pirate things. You have a sailing system that lets you explore an open sea, you can leave your ship at any point to go out to the sea or on lands, fight other ships and board and capture them and more.

But I feel that, despite all these praises, the sailing side of the game is too mechanically and gameplay-wise shallow. The result is that the sailing gets stale long before the game ends, especially if you decide to do lots of side content.

Sailing takes less effort than parkour and most of the seas look the same. It's not like a survival game where the lull between encounters can be used for tension or breathing. There are no random encounters or events or stories you can stumble across that mix up the sailing. You can't leave the ship on autopilot while you walk across the deck and engage in events on the ship. Combat and interactions between ships is the same every time with very few variations. As a result, the whole ship aspect feels undercooked. I didn't feel this in AC3 because in that game, the navel aspects were their own missions and focused on just the important set pieces to make up for the lack of depth. They were quick and cool enough and used sparingly enough that they stayed fresh throughout the experience. With AC4, it feels Ubisoft just took the navel stuff in AC3, plopped them down into an open world ocean and called it a day without really taking the time to fully flesh out that feature enough so it can stand in an open world environment (just to be clear, I don't mean Ubi literally did that. Obviously they added things like scoping, guns, boarding, being able to leave your ship, legendary ships etc that. But that isn't enough,). When Ubisoft released the iOS game; Assassin's Creed Pirates. while they still kept it open world, they made more mission based like AC3 was and that kept it fresher to me longer than AC4's version. Future games like Origins made it even more reaction based with counter-attacks you can do by bracing at the right time.

It kinda reminded me of Need for Speed Rivals. Like, once the initial high of the cool world wore off, I realized there was nothing new in the world to see. After the first few hours, I saw pretty much everything the game and its map had in store. BF has that same feeling to me. After being 25 hours in, I found I was hunting the same, I was fighting ships the same, I was navigating the same, I was doing the same as I was back when I was say 6 hours in. What really changed was my co-ordinates on the map and the stats telling me my ship was this good. There were very few twists, surprises and shakeups to the formula throughout the entire playthrough given the length of the game.

If it weren't for the Foot sections and the story, I feel AC4 would be the worst in the series as soon as the pirate novelty started wearing off. Because that novelty was designed for quick missions, not as the basis for an entire open world game.

On the other hand, it is kinda serene and cool and I still found it enjoyable to kick back and put on a podcast and just take it all in. I suspect many people that love BF were really into that aspect. Personally, I felt I needed more than just that to ever consider replaying the game, especially now that I've played Rogue to 100% completion and had my fill of this type of gameplay.

So if Ubisoft or any other company ever wants to make a new pirate game and use BF as an inspiration, I have a few requests or advice that I want to see;

-1- Make land-based gameplay important and a consistent part. Black Flag had the usual AC gameplay on land. This kept the game fresh for much longer. Sea of Thieves and AC: Pirates didn't have much luck there. Have an interesting story in there to keep people engaged.

-2- Give me a reason to explore using sailing.
As it is in BF, sailing doesn't really feel like exploring. The islands you find have no story or side missions on them (collectibles don't count). You don't find random shipwrecked sailors that you can interact with as people rather than as a number on your crew meter. You can't interact with your crew. You can't hear of a rumoured area and have to use your on board tools to travel into a foggy area to find it with your crew about to stage a mutiny.

Basically, imagine Red Dead 2, but you can only ride around a desert only map on horseback. There are no towns, houses or friendly NPCs with cool stories and you get the ocean stuff in AC4.

-3- More varied options in combat.

One of the first things I did when I was playing AC4 was to try and hijack a ship by swimming up to it. I was killed automatically by invisible means.

This highlights a problem with Ship combat in AC4. You have to fight using your ship. And you can only fight the same way. You steer around, you fire cannons, maybe use some of your other weapons. repeat the process until the ship is damaged, then choose to board it or sink it there. Boarding consists of the same "get in and kill x people and remove their flag" every time. You can change how you board the ship as you can swing in, use the guns, swim etc. But these options are limited and before long, you'd have done everything loads of time over.

So change up how fights are done. I know realism can limit what you can do but I play AAA Blockbuster video games for fun. If I want realism, I'll go play a simulator instead. Rogue improved a bit with puckle guns, icebergs you can shoot and you can be boarded. AC: Pirates had minigames that required different inputs.

I'd like things to be a step further. How about during ship combat, enemies can launch projectiles you have to intercept like in AC Pirates. You do this while managing your supplies and getting your crew to counterattack. The different responses can keep defence more fun than occasionally pressing square when you're in the line of fire of enemy cannons.

Have your crew also play a part. Maybe you have to manage your crew as they make repairs, put out fires, get supplies and fight back. Maybe you can choose to send some of your crew on a boat to attack the enemy ship to take pressure of your ship but limit what you can do as you have fewer hands on deck. Hell, let me send spies on board a ship beforehand and a percent chance of a random event happening like a mutiny, betrayal, a fight, a fire etc.

Maybe let me hand the ship over to my crew while I jump across and attempt to fight with my raiding party.

Let the environment play a bigger role. Expand Rogue's iceberg mechanic. Maybe, make it so I can shoot the sides of cliffs to trigger a rockslide to a greater effect. Maybe I can feign a surrender to lure in ships. Maybe I can leave an abandoned ship for a portion of my crew to use as a bait (I once stumbled across a burning ship that had some loot on it. Didn't really have much).

-4- Keep the game shorter than average.

Like, maybe make the world smaller, or have fewer missions needed to complete the game. This limits the fatigue that comes from having to do all these things with such a 1 trick pony kind of gameplay. Don't have lots of collectibles everywhere on your map shown. Make the rewards cool and interesting.