This thread is making me very mad. First thing's first, you know underwater combat and flight? Those were in the last two games. Being able to attack while jumping, sprinting, and flying? Last two games. Enchanted Arrows and Throwing Weapons? Last two- no wait, just Morrowind. Long and difficult guild quest-lines that required you to be powerful and specialized (or simply forced you into specialization themselves)? That was in the last two games too! As for starting out as a prisoner: Four of the five elder scrolls games start you out as a prisoner, although the terms of your release have been different each time, sot that's probably never gonna change. As for mounts . . .
If the game were set in the Summerset isles, we would most definitely have flying mounts, as the replacement for horses there are these biologically giant, less-annoying, majesticly colored cliff-racers. If it were set in Elsweyr, the pahmar would be ridable, although seeing as they are a khajiit subrace, you'd have to befriend one as a follower, not buy it as a mount. If it were set in Valenwood, you'd have a whole host of gigantic critters of all shapes and sizes (although most aren't airborne) to ride. I personally think that the next game will be set in the entire Aldmeri Dominion (Which is basically all three provinces above).
On Depth: Save in Arena and Daggerfall, the depth in an elder scrolls game has always been paper thin. It sometimes gives the illusion of depth, such as in Morrowind and Skyrim, but these facades are easily torn down. If Bethesda made the next elder scrolls game deep, I would forgive them for all the features they took out (most of which have been requested as New features in this forum).
Did you know that in the previous games, you could make your own spells? Now this feature is iffy, seeing as with the new locked down system (on the PC at least), spell mods have become absolutely brilliant because of the original spell effects added. If spell-making were returned, then these mods, and their crazysauce spells, would cease to exist. A way you could remedy this problem is if you do away with premade spells entirely, and have your character collect a series of pure Magical Effects which are pretty weak on their own unless refined and/or combined into a spell. Spells should also have separate equip slot, and the collection of each Magic Effect should be part of a small, profound radiant quest.
Also, introduce thieves tools (not just lockpicks), and make light important for sneaking. Sound has to be made more obviously important as well.
On the subject of big monsters: The reason skyrim doesn't have big monsters is because they simply don't exist in the same magnitude. Now if you were to go to, say, Valenwood or Elsweyr or the Summerset Isles (hint! hint!), Big monsters would be in abundance. Except close to cities, which are far more developed than Skyrim's.
Each weapon type needs custom attack animations, attacks need to be slower and have more impact force (think skyrim's fireball x10), the weapons from the previous games (yes they were all in the previous games) MUST be returned to the core game (i.e: Crossbows, Battle Staffs, Four different kinds of Katana, Spears, Halberds, Glaives throwing weapons), and the way you equip your weapons/spells must change again. Maybe something a little like the equipping system in Dark Souls or Amalur (I'M NOT TALKING DIFFICULTY, I'M TALKING EQUIPMENT SYSTEM. ELDER SCROLLS DIFFICULTY IS MORE OR LESS UNIMPORTANT). That way, arcane archers and two-handed spellswords will become viable again.
If the Elder scrolls wants to keep the Console community happy, they need to revamp these parts of the combat.
Third person needs to be finished this time around. No more disappearing left hand weapons and staves. Bugs are fine. Just not this.
You know the Civil War? Bethesda actually had a LOT of plans for it. It was going to be a dynamic campaign for holds, where you could actually battle for each hold individually. This didn't make it into the game for time reasons, as did a great many things (spears were supposed to return), so Bethesda just has to do one easy thing to implement these features into the next game: Don't Announce Elder Scrolls VI until it's almost completely finished ('cept for dem' bugs, we'll forgive it for being ridiculously buggy).
