People are crying 'oh woe is me, 18 skills!', but fail to see what the devs are truly doing with the system.

I'd like to use New Vegas as a partial example. In New Vegas, there were many perks. Some had to do with different weapons UNDER THE SAME SKILL. I took commando. I took shotgun surgeon. I took all sorts of things related to using rifles or rifle-like weapons. My brother took all the perks related to one handed weapons. Eventually, I got to the point where if I tried to use a pistol, I would get totally creamed in combat. But why was this? My small arms skill was 100! Ah, but that's where the perks came in. I was so specialized that I pretty much HAD to use what I was specialized in if I wanted to be competitive. Sure, I could attempt to use one handed firearms, and could do so with some measure of effectiveness, but I was still going to have a very difficult time with some of the stronger enemies in the game.

That is what they are doing with the skills in skyrim. So what if they have only 2 weapon skills (one handed and two handed)? By having a multitude of perks that support and empower certain weapons (such as the mention "mace attacks ignore armor" perk in the magazine), they effectively create a skill for each of those weapons.

As for the loss of Mycsticism, that is okay as well ("GASP, Orzorn, the magic using ranter, is okay with the loss of a magic skill?!"). Why? Because even though we lost the skill, the spell effects remain and live on in the other skills. Hell, it wouldn't matter if we last all but one magic skill, as long as the spell effects lived on through that skill (of course, that would be madly excessive).

Another issue is one of depth. It seems many of the removed skills were ones that were "passive". By that, I mean the player did not actively have to attempt to use them. An example would be athletics. Its kind of ridiculous that running, something that every adventurer worth his or her salt, would be a skill. It is obvious that it would raise regardless. Same goes of any of the armor skills. "But if they remove armor skills, anyone can wear anything!" I say so what? Can we not already do that in real life? Besides, a thief would not want to wear heavy armors, as heavy armors would make noises and, well, be heavy (limiting their carrying capacity). A mage would not use any armor at all, because of the restrictions to their spell casting (unless they got perks for it, of course). A warrior would naturally use what gives them the most armor, so heavy would be an obvious choice, regardless of armor skills being in the game or not. In addition, perks skill provide for specialization. A warrior may end up with multiple heavy armor related perks, so attempting to use light (or no) armor would be almost suicidal, if not just uncomfortable.

18 skills is okay, so long as each skill feels unique, had depth, and gives us several actions to use and play around with.

Finally some rational thought amongst all the madness, paranoia and plain idiocy being put on display here today.

:thumbsup:

I agree with you. People will cry "dumbing-down", regardless, but I agree.

Good perspective.

A bit saddening, but I am still looking forward on how they went about this.

I really dont think I ever bothered with mysticism, so I dont really care it is gone, Skyrim sounds so good, but I have to wait till it is in a gamestop in order to get it

I got hope when you said that about armor skills, I actually suggested that . If the armor skills are perts of what is removed, and they add actual useful skills that make sense, it's awesome.

Oh I ruined the "star-streak"
But anyways I'm excited for what Bethesda has in store for game.
So far the games enviroments seemed to have improved!

I agree. People are jumping the gun, in my opinion.

Edit: and my little Morrowind mage heart is rejoicing from seeing Enchanting back among the living. It's finally reclaimed it's place as a skill. :wub:

Yeah, Mysticism I'm fine losing. I don't know what else they lost, but I'm sure they just redid the entire skill list.

I assume everything in mysticism is moved to alteration or something like that. It doesn't bother me. Being a mage actually feels worthwhile! I just wonder what spell effects look like.

Here's another one agreeing. If done right I think it could be really good for the game, I know I'd certainly preffer to specialise as I go along.

I agree with most of what you say, but I think I might prefer multiple different skill groups for armor, but I must wait to see the perks before I pass judgement now that I'm considering the point you brought up about how perks essentially make every little thing have it's own skill.

If Skyrim feels more complex than Oblivion, I'm OK with it.

Still, no Mysticism still saddens me...since MW it was one of my favourite schools.

It's interesting to note that Fallout New Vegas had less skills than Fallout 3, despite being unarguably the deeper game. Technically, less skills does not necessarily mean a weaker or simpler skill system.

On the other hand, people's reactions are totally understandable. We have no guarantee that the skills have been removed as part of a plan to create a deeper, better-thought-out skill system. All we can know for sure is that there are less skills than in Oblivion, just like there were less skills in Oblivion than Morrowind. It's entirely possible that this is actually an improvement in the skill system, but Bethesda is going to need to really sell the new skill system if they want us to accept it as an improvement.

That three "crafting" skills are visible in one of the screenshots (alchemy, enchanting, and what's generally agreed to be smithing) is a good sign. But we're going to have to know more about the combat skills.

Oh, and spears had definitely better be in. I mean it.

Completely agree. But there will always be trolls that bash aspects of the game.

I'm not too worried, but I would like to know what has been combined.

What did mysticism's abilities get moved to? Are light and heavy armor one skill now? Acrobatics and Agility combined?

I just hope the consolidation makes sense.

i think having perks every level and combining spells/weapons will no doubt make it more complex.

100% agree with you. To the point I've nothing to add.

Don't worry about combat. It looks like it's absolutely GREAT!

Acrobatics was honestly kind of silly to begin with anyway. The key to ultimate power should not be to bunny-hop everywhere.

And yeah, I hope they didn't just get rid of the Mysticism spells. Some of them would make sense in Alteration, at least.

Yeah, I'm more interested in what we can do than how it's classified. Perks sounds interesting.

You got good point.


But I still miss those day's in Daggerfall with so many (useless) skills

i certainly hope they kept the mysticism spells and just put them somewhere else, because if soul-trapping was gone, enchanting wouldnt even be possible...

also, if they did narrow down armor and weapon skills some more, i hope that doesnt mean LESS armor and weapons... i am dying for all the weapon types from morrowind to come back [plus more, maybe] i mean, spears are great weapons!

also, imagine if you could dual-wield smaller spears... that'd be kinda cool.

i just hope things arent as bad as they're sounding... i'll try keeping faith in bethesda, but they disappointed me with oblivion's horrible customization... entire outfits being a single item, three different pieces of armor being combined into one item... etc.

Combat (spells/weapons) will indeed be more complex, but I was talking specifically about skills/schools.

I was honestly afraid that perks would show up in Skyrim, but now that I think about it, it's not so bad and may actually be an excellent tool to individualize our characters. The problem is every time I thought of perks in the context of gaming I would either think about Fallout's tongue in cheek, silly perks, or Modern Warfare's ridiculous perks that make the game really unfair. I don't think Fallout esque silliness belongs in Skyrim, and the Modern Warfare perks are just a bad experience.

I do agree, the perks should be serious perks, suitable for the TES world. I think people are getting thrown off by perks because when they think of them, they think of FO's perks, which are tongue in cheek and meant to be comical.

I think the perk system will be completely different in Skyrim. Frankly, I'm excited to see what kind of perks are offered, and how they will enrich the RPing experience.