if they put in a hardcoe mode it better have atleast minor-skill caps.

Like a couple of posters mentioned, my view is making abandoned skills decreasing.

+Class focus
+Jack of all trades, master of none(with hard work Master of everything)
+trainers are more important.
+natural weaknesses for different content.
+no loops, no limits, no caps, no slowdown, no level scaling for challenge needed

All comes free with a simple mechanic like decreasing skill points when unused for a long time.

Game/immersion breaker ways to keep the game challenging, like level scaling can go to hell. When adding new content, no need to add more and more hit points to enemies. Adding more caps, adding more slow downs and more caps and slowdowns and then some more... There is no end to this.

It is natural, it is even in the game. When one goes to prison in both Oblivion and Morrowind, he/she will lose some skill points because of this. Why not apply it to whole game?

And there is no need to bind it to time, bind it to overall progress. Keep the base numbers as bottom limit and make decrease rates extremely slow... You will exactly know what's going with your character. There is no way for it to go wrong. It can only enhance the gameplay and add longevity...

I like the idea of playing one role, as long as the roles are distinct enough and are fun to play, and the game gives appropriate solutions for each style of play at most if not all areas. Oblivion would have been horrendous if i limited myself to one style of gameplay, but fallout 3 and especially new vegas was much more fun for roleplaying purposes.

hahahaha, oblivion still has more freedom than say...mass effect or fable.

on topic - i think it should stay the same, maby a little refined, but you should still be able to be a healing mage that excels in smithing heavy armour and sweet talking officials.

i like being able to be great at everything. but i do agree that something needs to be done about the ease of which you can become great at everything. i still do not ever want to see a cap on minor skills. simply make them take more effort. and maybe make it so theres a way to get past 100 with majors like 125 so youll be like bruce lee with unarmed at 125 and a spartan with spears at 100.

While I think you should be able to level up all your skills without penalty it should be extremely difficult and require hundreds of hours to do.

Specilisation is what makes RPG's like TES fun. You should feel as though you are takng a path that is dependent on your skill set.

Having a large set of skills and making non primary skills harder to level up allows for specilisation.

The main think that tore me out of the immersion in Oblivion was when I could become the head of all the guilds, complete any mission requiring any skill, because I had leveled up everything and became a jack of every trade.
The thing about Oblivion was that I always felt this way, while in Morrowind and Daggerfall I felt as though I was good at one set of skills, and what was how I would complete every mission and task, this feeling is much more satisfying.

Indeed. That is my problem too. It's hard to restart when I already mastered everything.
So naturally I voted "Only able to advance on one path (warrior, mage, ect.)", although it should be a lot more complex than that.

First of all, two additional specializations, totaling at:
Combat & Arms, Nature & Body, Stealth & Thievery, Social & Lore, Magic & Spells

Beyond Master only in a single skill, through extreme devotion (slow).
Cap to Master (100) for Major skills in specialization, and only from master trainers.
Cap to Expert (75) for the rest of the Major skills.
Cap to Journeyman (50) for Minor skills.
Cap to Apprentice (25) for Misc skills (yes, bring back misc skills).

If we have a total of 56 skills to choose from (makes a good looking table), we can have something like:
6 Major skills
12 Minor skills
12 Misc skills
And the remaining 26 skills are not shown, but uses only their governing attribute, no added bonuses from skills.

Being able to master everything, especially when we only have a lousy 21 to choose from, is nuts.
I'm always mastering everything, and there is little I can do about it. Unless I level with care (go for the multipliers), my character becomes very weak.
In Infinite games like this it shouldn't be be possible. I'd much rather restart with another character focusing on different things, and also be given different opportunities. There should even be limits on available quests, depending on your speciality and chosen skill sets.

And btw, 56 skills are not a lot compared to dice based rule books. Skills are only additional bonuses, the attributes still count. It doesn't make you weak not having them, but having capped skills makes you a focused character. I also want to control the rate in which I level, independently of any combat difficulty. I've reached level 25 in just a few days play, and I hate that...

Freedom always have a cost. This is a role playing game, but there is nothing role about mastering everything. Even if you can't reacher higher than apprentice in certain skills because they are not your role, you'd still fall back on your basic stats. Let's take the security example that was mentioned earlier. If you're an expert in security, you can pick the lock easily. If you are a fighter, you can bash it, with the possibility of destroying the crate in the process. If you're a magic user you should have access to spells. But if you're into nature (see my earlier post), you may miss out on all of these because you can't reach the needed skill level. Now what? Since you know you can't reach the needed level, you have to think out of the box. Maybe back to town and grab a scroll? However, when being into nature, you stand a much better chance of enjoying those other skills and perks, like setting up a camp and be undisturbed, or living off herbs instead of eating at diners or buying bread etc. So your chosen skillset becomes you.

Unlike if I master everything. Ok, so I'm a hunter with nature speciality. Oh wait, if I just swing my sword enough, I'm suddenly no longer really a hunter. I now just go up close since the sword is much more efficient, and I got so much skills blocking mudcrabs I even excel with a shield. Does a hunter wield a shield? And being high level, I have already acquired the best possible armor. From now on I can just bash everything and I no longer have to think like a hunter.

It's also realistic that you can't excel in everything. You may excel in a few things and be lower in most others. Or you may choose the middleway and practice for a little of everything, but eventually master those few things. Naturally I can choose to be good both with a bow and a sword, but I will have to give up other userful skills to do it. It's a matter of having to choose, and this is how dice based games works too. If a character there happens to become overpowered, the GM arranges an accident There is no reload...

If I level up as far as I can reach, with capped skills, I will still face challenges if I choose to start the main quest at this point. If I get to max everything before I start, there will be no challenges, and the game just becomes a bore.

Could see this becoming a Trait, where your skill caps are ignored, but you level very slowly.

So yes, it ought to be possible. There are, what, 21 skills? And reading isn't one of them.

I want to be able to be a Battlemage, Spellsword, Warrior Priest, etc, etc. Jacks of all trades should be possible.

Besides: I dislike it if a RPG limits the development path choises for me as a player. I prefer limiting it myself, building a character with which I role play, rather then have the game put me on a one-directional paved path..

Jimis, a lot of people like the option (me included), but if you don't get a mod or play pure classes, never abiding from them? It's your choice, not all of us like being stuck to a class. I don't care if you don't like the option for other people, chances are it'll stay. There ar emods to make classes much more appealing, why don't you get one? TES as previously stated is about choice. Few characters ever master everything.

I could live with making it harder to raise skills outside your majors, but lets keep everything skill-focused. So no putting more emphasis on that fighter/mage/stealth specialization thing, please.

I'm really surprised at these poll results. Strengths and weakness are very important to fun and re-playability. I want to be able to hone my fighting skills to god-like, but my mage skills should, at the same time be, nil. (and vise-versa IMO) Rogue skills, on the other hand, should be learn-able among classes. Sorry if this has been stated already.

Why? Why can't I be a battle-mage or anything? Who made it LAW that you can't be a jack-of-all-trades?

Oblivion's flaws were that you could master every guild, while in Morrowind if you joined a guild, it'd cancel another basically. In Oblivion, you could do anything, you didn't have to make choices.

thats not a jack-of-all-trades. thats just a classic hybrid, I think the problem is this poll is missing the middle ground options inbetween Single-master and Everything-master.

I believe most people would choose custom-hybrid over both current poll options.

The whole jack of all trades is mainly a problem with every TES game accept maybe daggerfall, what it really should be is not a master of all, but an amateur of all, or master of few. A character that specializes in a given thing, should always be able to achieve greater things in that thing than someone who hasn't.

Now what would really be cool, is if they made content only available to people who specialized, like if you specialize in climbing, and build your character around being acrobatic, you could learn (through a Grand Master Trainer) the ability to cling to the cealing of a room, for a given amount of time.

Giving the freedom to be who you want to be has been a staple of this series. I would like to see some delineation between skills. IE, you can get your Major Skills to a certain point, maybe even over 100, Minor to 90 and then misc to 50 or something along those lines. It would make the skills you select actually important. As it stands now, you can get every skill to 100 and there is no impact for going with any set of skills. Any of the skills go towards attributes and your major/minor count the same for level up. I think the skills should have caps and should be more important to the overall evolution of your character. Otherwise, skills lose a lot of importance.

It should always be the choice of the player on what they want to do. If you want to play a mage, don't ever use a sword. If you want to play a rogue,d on't ever touch a suit of plate or a staff, if you want to play a fighter, never cast a spell. However, I think I should have the right to do whatever it is I please. Besides, people will mod it.

Jack of all trades isnt a bad idea at all... time spent to further other skills should still be rewarding.. not capped because you are supposed to be this or that.

Personally I like being able to master everything. Besides for those who don't want to, simply don't use a certain skill so much...

BTW I know one of the main complains with OB was the levelling system, but honestly I like it, it's simple and realistic in the way that you get better at something hough pratice.

I like that idea. As a mage you can pick up a sword but you'll never get very far with it because your talents lie in magic, not in combat. Just like in RL. Also it still allows some trickery, some mix-match.

Nothing wrong with you being a battle mage, as stated by another, the hybrid option is missing. To answer your question more generally though, the ability to master everything amounts to gluttony, but only gluttony, and that leaves out at least 6 other pleasures! It's my opinion that a good mixture of all the 'deadlies' is what adds up to satisfaction.

Haha. Everything good seems to be attributed to Morrowind, and everything bad to Oblivion. No, Oblivion had plenty of freedom.

A jack of all trades is a master of none. I think our chosen specialization should be significantly more effective than lesser abilities. It's fine for my barbarian to learn magic, but he should never be able to be as proficient with it as he is with his axe.