So, I have just joined this site and I have seen a lot of posts talking about how the new skills system seems dumbed down from previous games. Personally I think the new skills system is great for Skyrim. Although I have only played one other Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion, I think that by taking out unecessary skills such as athletics the game will be improved. I'm sure some people will miss the skills that are being taken out, and I'm sure some people used certain skills that are being taken out for specific character builds, but I honestly think removing certain skills will definitely improve the mechanics of Skyrim. For instance, in Oblivion you could have Blunt and Blade as major skills, but you could only use one of those major skills at one time. Now Bethesda has removed these skills and replaced them with One-handed and Two-handed. This, for me, is streamlining the game, not dumbing it down. Also, what do you think of the perks in Skyrim? Do you think they are better than the mastery perks from Oblivion or not? I think the perk trees will be much better than the mastery perks from Oblivion, because the mastery perks in Oblivion hardly ever worked for combat skills. So tell me what you guys think. Do you think the new skills system is smoother, or has the old skills system just been made easier?

I don't think all the removed skills were useless. Same with attributes. They cut too many at once.


The old could have been fixed to work better than in Oblivion and Morrowind. When it's broken, fix it don't kill it. They killed the patient.

Dumbed down beyond belief. Just because casual gamers can't read numbers doesn't mean that math shouldn't be involved in leveling up.

Old system

Skills raise as you use them, for instance Blades got stronger and had more damage as they increased all the way to 100


"New System"


Skills raise as you use them for instance one handers increase as you use them and they get stronger in damage, + PERKS :teehee:


Perks: consisting of Percentage increases and weapon traits tha SHOULD BE INHERENT in weapons already, for instance of what sense does it make for an axe to cause bleeding damage ONLY when you pick the perk? should that already be based on chance?

theres nothing new, just a whole lot of cutting out the "middlemen" Skills do nothing different and an entire Attribute system that could have been utilize better is axed and on top of NOT bringing back variance in weapons and Skills they made PICKPOCKETING a skill, which tells you boy they had to fill something up.


How is putting Mercantile into Speech NOT streamlining? its just a whole lot of wtf that leaves me less in anticipation of Gameplay and more hopeful in story and lore


oh but in not having time doing improvements and bringing back some diversity we can Marry NPC's :teehee:

In Skyrims announcement I honestly believed they were going to utilize all that money they raked in From Oblivion and Fallout 3 and get something that stands on its own two feet Past 3 months without Mods. I honestly believed they would not and Could not streamline further from Oblivion.



I was terribly wrong.

Edit - Looks like I was even MORE wrong, theres no spell making in Skyrim, confirmed today :facepalm:



Streamlining/Dumbing down mean the same thing, its just people getting hooked up and unreasonably offended by the words

Adding perks makes leveling up much better. Leveling up in OB for me was boring

Everyone seems to whine and complain about what's "wrong" with skyrim. Quite frankly the truth is everyone is going to freakin love it. It's going to be epic, it's going to feel huge, and really there's nothing to complain about since it's been 5 years since the last TES. at least there is another one! lol. anyway, my opinion is that while some things seem like they're "dumbing things down" they're actually doing a good thing. they're slowing backpedalling while improving so that when they get everything perfect they can then add add add! it's a very smart tactic that I personally would use while creating a series. things have to change, be improved, and redone before they can continue with having so much. Morrowind was a great game, but there was way too much in it. Oblivion can't even be really talked about cuz they had a whole bunch of budget and time cuts before they were ready. but if you look at both of them, they're made so that magic can literally make you invincible and dominate. 100% cameleon? wtf!?! yeah good idea except there was also invisibility! and invisibility svcked! why have both? because they were trying to put too much into the game! not that they can't make some awesome or even huge games because they do. but if everyone wants the ultimate TES game, first of all this is going to be the closest so far and second they have to perfect the basics which they clearly haven't done from the other games. and don't sit here and bad mouth me about my cameleon and invisibility comments they were simply to make a point. this game will be awesome, undoubtedly game of the year. let them take away some things, so that they can add better things later.

I've never understood what type of dumb person game developers dumb down for. I found Elder Scrolls games up to this point pretty straight forward. Though what Bethesda seem to be doing, rather than dumbing down, is trimming the fat from their games. I've never liked the athletics and acrobatics skills for example, it got to the ridiculous stage where your character runs stupidly fast and the running animation does not keep up with the speed and you get that strange impression that you're kind of hovering over terrain...

Like you say about trimming the fat, in one of the previews the player says it's only when you play you appreciate the fat trimming that's been done. I suppose to us (who haven't played it) it just seems like stuff is being merged/cut/dumbed down, but until we play we can't really say if it is for better or for worse.

What is so dumbed down in the "new" skill system? It's the same as before, we just don't have perks...


oooh, because they've removed/merged a couple and that's horrible...

That's what people blindly think lol.

No attributes or skills governing speed or strength.

Inb4 perks. A perk can't replace a 1-100 stat.

Why is that?

Isn't it obvious?

Upgrading a perk = suddenly get stronger or faster one level, no more progression in that field

Upgrading a 1-100 skill = gradually stronger or faster, needs several levels to max

Only streamlined as far as I'm concerned.

Strength is basically the weapon skills now.

I'm sure certain perks are tiered. Assigning a point to a run speed perk (say 5% increase) wouldn't turn you into a bullet train on one level up. You'll actually notice a difference upon level up though, unlike putting points into attributes.

not dumbed down, rather.....



smarted up

Todd howard specifically said that strength, intelligence, speed, etc. was still in there, that you just no longer had to focus on it like that. you only have to worry about the health, fatigue, and magic, portions. and you're still levelling you're skill up between 1-100 there are just perks in there as well.

streamlined. The new systen looks great to me I don't know why so many people complain