As in previous games I am playing a Khajit Assassin.
In the last 2 games at a high lvl I could jump from roof to roof in the night, hiding there, taking out targets and be off in the night again.
When guards were after me I was able to jump over fences, outrun them and quickly vanish somewhere where they couldn't reach or find me.

Skyrim has completely destroyed my playstile.
I do like the Assassination animations, allthough I can't seem to get any for sleeping targets or when they are sitting, which i find very odd.
Since when is it easier to slit ones throat while he is moving, than sitting still or even sleeping.
However the jumping abilities are just crippled in Skyrim. I can jump higher and further in real life than my well trained Khajit Assassin.
If I ever manage to get on any roof, I just keep sliding down from it. Ok ok the roofs aren't as flat as in morrowind, so what?
I haven't got a flat roof on my own house and can walk on it easily without sliding down.
Also I can ride up nearly every mountain on my horse. When I am on foot however even a 45 degree angle nearly kills me.
Assassins are supposed to be quick, lightfooted, and hard to catch.
Not getting that feeling at all in Skyrim..

I know that probably there wont be anything to change this in Skyrim.
But please consider an Acrobatics Skill tree in your next game.
Give us running, jumping and climbing and the game will get a lot more depth.

No. Thank Talos for those grinding skills removed. If you cannot reach anything, use a horse. Those buggers can reach everywhere, regardless the angle.

No thanks.

I definitely want a Climbing skill. I miss it from Daggerfall. However I don't miss and never liked Acrobatics/Athletics. They leveled you which to me was [censored] and they were very other-worldly. As IGN writers put it 'moon-hopping'.

I don't miss them and don't want them back. I am definitely hoping though that some clever scripter makes a nice Thief mod for Skyrim. Rope arrows, climbing, improved humanoid AI. That would be swell.

Could you please explain yourselves instead of just saying no?
Yes in former games those skills could be improved very quickly by running all the time.
But than the improvement of those skills have to be changed, not the skills removed.

And yes I know, that you can reach nearly everything on a horse.
But thats neither realistic nor fun.

What is wrong, with being able to jump from rooftop to rooftop?
Or even a movement system like Assassins creed has got?
If you dont want to be that kind of player just don't use it.
I don't use heavy armor. That doesn't mean I want it removed from the game...

You just gave the reasons they took this out, being able to jump like a halo game had no place. you could just run and jump on somthing high and peg your enemy's with arrows or magic. it was cheap and needed t be gone.

Definitely want to see Acrobatics back. Athletics is not quite so big a deal for me, but still adds to immersion. I mean you'd think a slender, athletic Khajiit thief wearing rags would be able to outrun and outjump a big burly Imperial in heavy armour. Yet Skyrim doesn't reflect that. It's just another example of the RPG elements of the game being dumbed down. Some things have been improved, like the introduction of Smithing, but genrally Skyrim has taken out a lot of popular and successful mechanics from Oblivion.

Yes, they were maybe a little too strong. But that also depends very much on the character you played.
In Oblivion I played a Khajit Vampire, and the nearly-flying or floating feeling of those jumps really added to the atmosphere in my opinion.
Now all I can do is hop a little up and down...

NB for those complaining about the fact that Athletics/Acrobatics levelled you in Oblivion, there ws always the option to make thm minor skills, another aspect of gameplay which I miss from Skyrim snce everything is basically a major skill.

YES! becuz juming up and down for 2 hours is fun .....


no, just no

How many of the hard fights took place in Citys?
And YES you could climb on a roof and take your enemies out with a bow. That's not gamebreaking, thats realistic!

What you just wrote is highly contradictory. Horse climbing steep slopes is unrealistic and non-fun but jumping 30-50 feet with upward sail defying gravity from rooftop to rooftop isn't?

So then your real argument is that your perception and bias is more important then what was intended and designed? Well isn't that sweet. How cute and how rare that some stranger comes along with what they think is a better idea and levels their self-important angst higher then a creators already inventive product.

Wait for the CK to get your vampire moves on. If you're on a console then by Zeus let it die.

They should make it a racial ability for the cats.

Its realistic to be able to have 3-4sec of hang time off a flat jump and to hop skip and jump to a roof where NO ENEMY can follow you is realistic to you? . ... just stop lol

A very good argument.... NOT

First of all the leveling problem has allready been adressed.
Secondly why is everybody harking on about the unfair improvement of this skill.
It's a singleplayer game, you don't have to powergame and compete with everybody.
It is also no fun to brew potions for endless hours that have positive AND negative effects just so their price goes up and therefore u lvl faster.
It is also no fun to smith 1000 iron daggers to get your smithing up.
If you don't want it don't use it. But I think many people want to be able to play an agile character, which is very hard to get a feeling for in Skyrim, when he runs the same speed and jumps as high as someone in a thick iron briastplate...

this^...give them permanent see in the dark vision and make jumping like 30% higher for khajit

I agree with the OP.

While I agree with most people that acrobatics and athletics were the least well-developed and most grind-worthy skills in Oblivion (and I don't miss those) I think that Bethesda has a great opportunity for pushing their franchise to the next level in their next Elder Scrolls by implementing a robust acrobatics/parkour system. Wall climbing has always been conspicuously absent in this game (for technical reasons) but assuming those barriers can be overcome in the next game this is the one area of gameplay that stands to gain the most for the series.

Combine Skyrim with Assassins Creed-style movement and you'll have significantly increased the amount of gameplay variety.

And after that, they can implement mounted combat.

Edit: Not sure why people are assuming that this feature would be added without making the AI smart enough to counter it. That seems really illogical.

Going to throw in my two cents for the players who think acrobatics shouldn't be in because it could be "overpowered" or that it's a "grind skill".

Don't use it.

I honestly don't understand how someone could possibly think that something potentially being overpowered in a single player game is a bad thing. If it makes things too easy and unfun for you, don't use it, but let those of us who think that being able to jump around from rooftop to rooftop is fun do so.

They could even make it so that jump could be either pressed (and do a normal height jump as it is now) or held down to charge the height, which would be dependant on your acrobatics skill. Go a step further and make it so you only gain acrobatics skill when you do the power jump and suddenly the people who want acrobatics are happy and those who don't want it back have a virtually unchanged game.

Actually it's not contradictory at all. I said it was a little too much in Morrowind and Oblivion.
My real argument is: Make it realistic.
A Khajit (=agile Cat-Race) if wearing light armor and playing a thief or assassin, can jump as high and far as an Orc or Nord in full Plate armor sets?
Can't even stand on a roof that has just a slight angle?
Isn't able to jump over obstacles which I wouldn't have any problems getting across in real life?
As I said, give us a climbing and jumping system as in Assassins Creed, or are u arguing that would be unrealistic too?

Just to comment on you edit, The AI has barley changed from morrowind. all the problems with the AI in past games are still present. so why would you think if they added more features that magically the AI will adjust.

/signed, fully agree with you mate.

Don't worry about people against this just for the sake to be against! It's fashion this days...lool. Waiste of time any debate with them.

In order to have Assassins Creed movement in Skyrim you have to do a LOT of new scripting. Even then I doubt very much it could be properly animated. Good luck with that.

I really don't get theory-crafting something created by someone else. Do what you want when you get the CK.

Nobody forced you to jump up and down for 2 hours to level your acrobatics. You didn't have to jump at all. Ever.
Skyrim has its own exploits. You can't avoid leveling speech if you want to sell or buy things, you can easily level your armor skills by playing a punching bag for low level enemies, you can level your restoration skill by spaming Circle of Protection, etc.

Athletics and Acrobatics could have been changed so you have to perform a certain action to level them - such as sprinting. There's really no reason not to have them, except for normalizing the player's movement so you can tunnel him through the world. Which is exactly the opposite of what TES should be.

^this

I miss it too OP. I didn't think I would until I saw some ledges that I realised I would never be able to jump up to.

Athletics not so much, but Acrobatics really added a lot to my playstyle, especially as a thief/assassin character.

Why do people think if Acrobatics and Athletics were to be add back, they must add back the exact same system from before? Oh its stupid hopping for 3 hours just to level the skill. Seriously, these things can be changed. When I heard Bethesda removed these 2 skills because of the way they are leveled, I thought it was just pure lazyness more than anything. It is the same as Bioware with inventory in Mass Effect. Oh its too clunky, just remove it all together.

Acrobatics can add more depth to the combat by allow evasion moves. Perfect for light armour class. Outside of combat, you can jump higher to reach places others can. Reducing fall damage is also a nice benefit. You level it up by doing evasions in combat. It is balanced, it is useful, it is not even hard to put into the game. Just a few new animations and add a few perks, and you're done.

Athletics works perfectly with the new sprint system. You can sprint longer without draining as much stamina, you can sprint faster, you have a lesser chance to stagger. You can even add a kick ability to the game and Athletics will improve that. Athletics can be leveled up by sprinting (since it drains stamina much faster than Oblivion, you can't just permanently be sprinting), or doing kicks if its added to the game.