The worst part is that it wouldn’t be that hard to “up” the level of Bethesda games. More focus on the writing, both story and characters would go a long way.
Dropping the whole “It’s one big world, no transitions.” goal. Make cities huge, with transitions and fill them with stuff and people. More “inhabited biomes” so to speak.
Choice & Consequence. Having different paths the players can go down. Locking players out of certain content and areas because of their choice, isn’t a bad thing. It just encourages multiple playthroughs. As well as adding multiple ways to dealing with a problem.
Not forcing motivation or character upon the player. The “chasing after a loved one” motivation in Fallout is terrible. And being a ‘shiny superman’ in both TES and Fallout is boring. We need more grey-area to move around in.
There’s clearly more that could be added to the list. But these four points alone would elevate their games to a more passable grade.