In OB and MW, skills went up based on how you used them, and only based on that. I think that difficulty (not the difficulty setting) should also play a part. For example, if I block an attack from a dragon, that should up my Block skill more than if I block an old lady swinging wooden spoon at me. Thoughts?

Sure, that makes sense to me. How big is this lady's spoon, though? :biggrin:

Hm. At the very least, for the spell skills, that doesn't sound like a half-bad idea, since there's an easy way (casting cost) to determine said difficulty. That would also get rid of the "make a really cheap spell for training and spam that" thing, though whether that's a good or bad thing is a different question as I tend to exploit that regularly. <_<

I agree. Take the sparring partner in the Fighter's Stronghold DLC for Oblivion for instance. If you were trying to use him to level block, there wasn't much point in telling him to use anything but the dagger since it attacked the fastest. Each hit with the dagger gave the same amount of experience as the hammer or axe you could also tell him to use.

Exactly. And, aside from that, it also provides a proper reward for taking down a really tough enemy.

I agree to a degree, and only if your block skill also drops accordingly when you try and block that languid old lady's lamentable ladle attack and fail miserably at it. :biggrin:

....but then I wouldn't be able to "train" my Armor skill by standing idle next to a mudcrab/rat!


(It always seems so hard to level Armor in OB, since if you're blocking attacks properly.... it's going toward Block skill. :shrug:)

Would've been nice in Oblivion, don't know if I'd even notice now that grinding is rewarded but its absence isn't punished.

Yeah, it seems a bit wrong that chain-casting low level spells is more effective at raising skills than casting one high level spell.

Actually, that was already implemented. Lower skills in Morrowind, which are harder to use, level up faster than higher skills, which are succesful more often.

Well, yes, skills get harder to increase the higher you get them. But I mean contextually to the situation, not what they already are.

Well some magic skills progression can based on used Magicka not just on number of spammed spells,
Mercantile (if it still skill and not merged) on received from deal profit and successful haggle attempt, not only by number of sold items.
Speechcraft on number books thats character read, number of dialogues spoken, not through pesky persuasion minigame again
Alchemy not on just dumb constant potion making from few ingredients thats must have lower experience gain then making potion from more ingredients and use more apparatus in process, so it will be actually like alchemy and yes more experience from wortcraft more then just 0.5.
Marksman can rise if we shoot from larger distance not just shoot frequently
Sneak skill must gain more experience from successful pickpocketing and undetected thieft and sneak attacks, not just from stain in sneak undetected near non hostile Actor
Security (if still here and not merged) gain from disabling traps as well as from lock-picking and then more complex lock or trap more experience will be received, lock-picking minigame must be harder then it was in Oblivion and character skills must have larger impact not only player skills.

Acrobatics\Athletics was removed because devs think they have to much grinding, does they think there others way to improve skill and fix it not just delete it from game? But others skills was also grind fest for munchkins does need to make wrong decision from their cries on forums?

For example acrobatics will gain more experience from jumping from high places (falling damage will be applied but leveling of acrobatics will give damage reduction perks, such perks can be racial for Khajiits) not just from from jumping around or from successful dodging of enemy strike in combat,
while Athletics can has experience gain not just from running around but from large fatigue usage, more then just fatigue regenerates overtime so so it will less grinding, since most of it will be used during normal player activity like in combat.

I'm kinda sat on the fence about this really. It's nice to get rewarded with something that's harder. But the fact that something is hard in the first place is a bonus to me,i like the challenge.
So,i think i'm going to have to say,maybe no to skilling faster. Like i said,the reward for me ,is that it's a challenge/hard to start with.

If they also make sure that old lady with a wooden spoon can't stagger-lock my fully armored and shielded hulking Nord warrior, sure. I'm all for it.

Sorry but you're wrong. Skills also went up from skill trainers and reading some books, and occasionally artifacts. After reading a few threads around here I've noticed a lot of people complain about the power gaming grind in Oblivion because you'd need 30 skill increases for +15 stats but could only use a trainer 5 times. In Morrowind you could use a trainer all you wanted and skip the power gaming if you were inclined to. Also quite useful if you had a bunch of skills that took forever to train so you wouldn't have to stick a rubber band on your joystick and let your character swim into a wall for 30 hours.

As for skill increases I think contextual stuff should only add a slight bonus from time to time for doing certain things otherwise it just increases the difficulty level of what you need to do to make the skill raise, not that I'm against difficulty or challenge just notoriously takes a while to gain skills in some of the past games.

That's all true, but I was talking about the regular skill increases that occur when you've used a certain skill enough. Sorry for my lack of clarity.