The only thing I liked better about Skyrim was that it wasn't so linear. Witcher was pretty much the same story and experience for everyone. I like the variety of Skyrim better.
I dunno that I truly agree with that.
I mean.... Skyrim had so much that you could kinda "elect" to partake in, or not. There was the main story, and then one-off side quests that you found along the way. Then it had "guilds" you could join or not that all had their own main questlines. There was enough stuff to do in that game that you could just ignore the main story and still have 100 hours of fun.
The Witcher had just one main storyline and then it's one-off side quests. And so many of the side quests feel tied to the main quest, ie, receiving them doesn't unlock or does not feel right until the main quest is advanced. It doesn't feel like you could do much of anything in the Witcher without first substantially advancing the main plot consistently.
BUT the Witcher 3's quests had much more variance and non-linearity in outcome, I think, or at least way more meaningful in how it impacted other areas of the story and world.
Yeah, I could ignore half the map in Skyrim, but did doing anything or not doing anything truly change any of the other quests? Everything was self contained. The main quest was just as linear as anything the Witcher had it terms of plot, probably moreso. The only thing it had more of was open space between quest assigner's physical locations on the map (though, the Witcher 3 is hardly SMALL, as an open world.... just not as big as Skyrim).
Where Skyrim had more non-linearity was it's character creation/progression. With Geralt, the leveling up and variety of skills was more or less limited. Fast or strong attack, five different magic trees, and the weird alchemy skill tree thing that no one quite figured out how to make maximum use of.
Skyrim presented a way more limitless set of skills and mixes and matches of those skills. But that is in line with their "you make your own character" motto, right down to selection from 9 races.
But I don't think Skyrim's quests were that much less linear.
I think the size of the world just made it feel that way.
Don't get me wrong.... I loved Skyrim, I put 500 hours into it (more than I've put into the Witcher, to date, though I'm catching up). And for it's time it was the pinnacle of fantasy RPG.
But they cannot release Elder Scrolls 6 with the same improvement from Skyrim to Fallout 4. I liked Fallout 4, but even with it's graphical improvements, it was beginning to feel mega stale coming after Skyrim. Way too similar, and way too many of the same complaints (bad story, wooden characters, bad models, stupid movements, robotic AI, etc).
They need to revolutionize whatever engine they are using before releasing a next game in Elder Scrolls, IMO.
Another thing is, they need to invest in their dialogue reading and direction. One of the worst sins for these games is when an actor mispronounces a sentence, puts the stress on the wrong word, etc. It's because they are reading off a sheet and don't know the context of how they are supposed to be replying. Completely immersion breaking.... Bethesda is one of the worst offenders for that. It's like.... did the actor even read the scene that they are doing lines for?