Indeed, it was the attributes (although a few signs and classes as well) that could potentially pigeonhole you, depending on what you did with them.

But I have to slightly amend something that I said in the "Is the Community Finally Fully Accepting Skyrim" thread. You could become somewhat of a jack of all trades depending on your choices at the beginning of the game and in leveling attributes, but it was often still too restrictive in what you could do. For many builds it can still be too constraining for players if they decide to make a change in "careers" because they poured the vast majority of their points into only a couple of their attributes or focused too much on a few skills.

I think Morrowind wasn't as harsh in this regard, but it still could be an issue. My warrior character in Morrowind didn't have as much of an issue because I spread my attribute points out more (although I still primarily put them into strength). But since I raised my respective attributes and skills for magic to pretty respectable levels for a warrior, I think I should be able to reap a bit more benefits from it (a little more maximum magicka would be nice for example, but to be fair some equipment like Aesliip's Ring help). Overall, I don't think Morrowind was too bad about it. Oblivion, on the other hand, makes it a much bigger issue with its garbage level scaling. Skyrim had more of the opposite problem: it was a bit too easy to change "careers."

Simply put, I think there should be a reasonable amount of restriction in changing between being a melee, magic, and ranged user, but not so restrictive where you can't become really good at it later on. In real life, your choices early on in life (and your biology) would make you naturally better at some skills, but if you work hard enough you can be proficient at other things. Talent is not everything.

Naturally. One-Handed/Two-Handed still doesn't cut it at the end of the day, because they're the same thing with a different name. Skyrim's number one killer is monotony, and given how melee worked through those Trees, that was THE issue the game had, bar none.

If I had it my way, Techniques would cover some passive elements, like applying special status effects when preforming certain moves, but for the most part would rely on how the player is actively fighting, or emphasize a lot of strategies to "set up" the target and go in for the kill. If say the Ax skill had a focus on Techniques that maximize damage and generally being pragmatic in battle, a lot of your battle would involve you trying to single out targets that were already injured for bonus damage, "Marking" them so that you can score a much higher crit rate against a single target, or when using a battleaxe against a foe who's wearing armor that Ax's don't preform as well against, getting them to be off balanced long enough to set up an attack to sunder their armor. Different Skills cover different strengths of their particular weapons with Blades trending more toward weapon specific techniques, and Blunt emphasizing more on crushing enemies with a lot of defenses outright and beating them back.

Perks meanwhile can very from active abilities like powers, like Berserk, Adrenaline Rush, Mark Target (Think like Fallout 4's Recon scope effect) that the player can use, or passive abilities that are engaged depending on the situation. Like spells costing less magicka at night, or magicka regenerates faster during the day, a portion of your Stamina being restored upon killing an enemy, so on and so forth. There would be perks that do effect weapons to some degree, though they would be broader, more useful things that apply to an entire archetype as opposed to a single weapon, like what the Skill Trees do. Two-Handed weapons sort of stand out on this, since they don't have enough unique facets to warrant a dedicated Skill Tree on their own, but through the Strength Attribute, could still have a variety of perks that can enhance their impact on the battle, like Sweep and...well, sweep. Dual Wielding is in the same boat.

As an aside regarding the Blade/Blunt/Axe division, I still don't like daggers being under the same skill as greatswords; it's one of my peeves about Oblivion. Perhaps there could be a separate Knives skill including both daggers and throwing knives?

That's one of the reasons i've become more and more interested in trying to figure out the 1-Handed and 2-Handed skills, rather than breaking thing sup into Blade, Axe, Blunt and Spear (Pole Arm) again. Either way, you're going to run face first into some distinction problems, and it's just a matter of figuring out which is the least absurd, without requiring a massive web of Perks/Techniques/Skill Trees to resolve.

Oh, i agree. Generally speaking, i think that the primary defense against Magic should be either getting the hell out of the way, or Magic its self... But the Armour issue then runs into the fact that, unless you use Magic Defense as a counter balance, you just end up heavily favouring more advanced forms of Armour, like Plate. By tying at least some Magical defense into the Armour its self, you can balance out some of the inherent physical superiority of heavier armour, without resorting to weird mobility and stealth associations which should, ultimately, be governed by their own thing.

The issue basically is non-existent so long as the Blade Skill leans towards focusing weapon specialization via its Tree more so then applying buffs for every weapon across the board for the actual skill level. Factor into how Attributes can influence things, the mighty great cleaving warrior being equally efficient when using short-swords or knives is not an issue in any capacity, unless you specifically build your character to accommodate for that. Its literally the one good thing that Skill Trees have to offer, as you can in a way bring back concepts from older games that don't really warrant their own Skills on their own, but do deserve a focus in gameplay.

I mean, if you see the chance to bring back things like Streetwise or Etiquette through a Speech Tree, or Hand to Hand and Climbing in a Athletics Tree, it'd be kind of silly not to take that chance with them. Naturally with the content to support them, of course. One/Two-Handed skills really don't have the ability to accommodate much of anything but the basics (again, like Skyrim) without becoming bloated in comparison, and thus are frankly uninteresting ways to divvy up the gameplay and expand on what all of the other games have done in the past, and trying to make your weapon selection meaningful. If anything, it does more harm then good to that thought process. It was a novel idea, but not a particularly good one, especially since they're just copy/pastes of the same skill when you get down to it. Attributes should take over the distinction between focusing on a character that prefers lighter weaponry over heavier ones.

Well, mobility does actually play a pretty decisive factor in how well you can actually fight a mage. Closing distance is naturally top priority, as is avoiding the spells that's being slung at you. Heavy armors tend to preform very poorly in that department, meaning they are theoretically more vulnerable to it then light by virtue of being unable to dodge and tank it. Mobility should very well be a big concerned due ranged enemies, and naturally make a decision against using that particular piece of equipment. Not everything needs to have a stat associated with it to be a valid choice to go up against something.

But that same benefit still exists, even with the 1-Handed and 2-Handed dynamic, it's just a matter of establishing what threshold there is for size. 1-Handed Weapon could consist of as few as 4 trees, or more than a hundred (mostly relating to swords, frankly)... But the same issue can arise from a singular Blade Skill. Figuring out how many is too many, and what kind of balance should exist between the options (there are a lot more varieties of Sword than there are Axes) is going to ultimately determine which is the most useful distinction.

It's something i'm on the fence about, and i think where i fall is going to depend on other things.

The problem is the fact that going by terms of One handed or two handed is too broad a topic to focus anything on, even before attempting to add additional functionality towards weapon specialization. You can focus in on parrying and doing bonus damage for riposting with a rapier, or having a shortsword open a vein with a power attack, but how can you focus on the concept of making using a one handed weapon meaningful? Two handed you...well, even then you can't, because really the one good thing you can really do with it is the Sweep perk hitting multiple enemies. Dual wielding is an option, sure, but does it really warrant its own branch any more then two handed weapons do? Frankly, I say they don't, and don't have enough content conceptually or mechanically to back up anything unique they can bring to the table, which is why I'm of the notion that they should be regulated to Attribute based perks. There just isn't enough stuff to do with them otherwise.

It also makes the idea of being able to use both one and two hands on a single weapon mechanically awkward. Been toying with the idea of weapons like Katanas or long swords being used while having nothing in the off hand, and switching between one handed attacks when when using light attacks, and two hands when using strong ones. Sort of spices those two particular weapons up quite a bit, I think.

I think something that's particularly important to consider for weapon skills is the ability to have a reasonably diverse range of weapon types and variations of those weapon types. Oblivion's Blade and Blunt skills didn't make any sense at all (which goes for much of anything related to skills and attributes in Oblivion for that matter) as Blade covered everything that is a sword (including both one-handed and two-handed swords) plus daggers, and Blunt grouped axes with maces and hammers, presumably because even though axes are logically bladed weapons, they decided to put them in Blunt to avoid having Blade be too bloated and Blunt too bare-bones.

Skyrim's One-Handed and Two-Handed skills are an improvement over Oblivion, but it's still a flawed system. As the skills use branches to cover individual weapon types, it also means they don't have a lot of room for different weapon types, like longswords and shortswords were merged into plain "sword" and lost variations of blade length, and spears may have been left out partly because there wasn't room for them in the skills they did.

There's also the flaws in the progression system they have in place, too, where they have near-100% linearity in weapons where almost everything is always a straightforward damage increase improvement so that an Orcish-style sword is always 100% inferior to an Altmeri Elven-style sword, even though it probably shouldn't make sense (unless the real reason the Orcs keep losing Orsinium is because their weapons and armor are too low-level and weak ). With the way they have their progression system combined with the setup of their skills, EVERY weapon pretty much has to be available in every one of these tiers they have in place (with the exception of special weapons like Daedric artifacts and Blades katanas), which means there's already a lot of strain on the art side of things. That's probably why there are only two silver weapons in Skyrim because they didn't have enough time to make a whole material/style tier dedicated to silver weapons.

I think it would make sense to separate styles from materials (where styles contain a range of weapon types that perhaps have certain traits and materials are the primary progression tiers similar to ESO) as that can open up possibilities for more weapon types and variations on those weapon types (like blade length, for instance). Some styles would still be tiered to a degree, (like the Daedric style gear cannot be made by materials other than Daedric, for example), but generally styles would be established in ranges with a minimum material quality assigned to certain styles and some kind of requirements in place for being able to craft in many of the different styles.

As for the skills, I think a good combination of Attributes and Skills can do a lot of interesting things with weapon-based combat (and even Hand-to-Hand combat, which really should return as a skill and not be something tied foolishly to Warrior stuff like Heavy Armor perks for some reason like in Skyrim). Strength, Endurance and Agility could do a lot of interesting things for individual weapons and ways of using them, and a smart combination of classic Attributes and skills can keep the number of combat skills reasonable with sensible governance of mechanics.

I wonder sometimes if we aren't thinking outside the box enough. For example, I think weapons should each occupy their own skill and be filled with perks that are level locked. Roll all damage into attributes and skill level. Perks should be reserved for unique effects that will greatly impact if not outright change how combat is engaged in. Or maybe I should say perks should be effects or alterations that open up more options (I liked an example above about axes, I think Dargor wrote about it... like the new avatar btw). I think we would just have to accept the fact that talent trees might be more sparse in terms of our skills, but I would really, REALLY like to see attributes make a return. And I would kind of like to see them handle them like they did in Fallout 4.

Make them static, make them dictate certain player parameters, and fill them with their own perks. A lot of boosts can be thrown in here (health, stamina, magicka, resistances, etc.) along with some interesting stuff. It would be interesting to have a main quest specific perk tree as well, assuming we end up being the chosen one from some prophecy. I always thought Skyrim would have been vastly improved with a dragonborn tree that we used dragon souls on to unlock more perks.

Finally, if there would be only one thing I would advocate for, it would be crafting skills being side quest driven. I still believe we should have to use the skill and "pay our dues", but we should never spend a hard earned skill point on a crafting skill. Our crafting skills should be improved by seeking out trainers and completing tasks for them to prove our proficiency and move us up to the next tier. I want the game world to feel more vibrant and alive and I think increasing our interaction with it is a great positive step. Additionally, it always seems like trying to time a bad event when it comes to selecting a crafting perk. On the one hand, you gain access to more powerful potions, armor, and weapons, but on the other, it is usually difficult to craft a completely new set of gear if you are ahead of the curve. If you fall behind, it is often the case that the gear you can craft is no longer worth the effort and so you are just flushing points to get to the endgame goodies. Furthermore, every point put into a crafting skill tends to be a point that could have gone to a more directly survival oriented perk.

I think a lot of the woes of using perk points for crafting stemmed from the options present in Skyrim and the balancing of when things were available, so I think they could do a much better job given the chance, but I'd prefer to not have crafting skills using any perk points.

Did you play Dragon Age Inquisition? The crafting system in that game separated style and material a little bit like what you are talking about. So I could get a schematic for a sword and then choose the material I wanted it to be made out of. In that game the materials were distributed into tiers and then higher tier materials allowed the weapon to do more damage AND different materials led to different colorations. Eventually they added a transmog-esque system for their crafting so you could get creative with color schemes and looks (and so you wouldn't look like a clown).

Granted, I think what you are talking about is different, but I just brought up DA:I because for those of us that played it, that crafting system where you got to choose your material also lost its appeal pretty quickly. I would definitely prefer a game where material did not so heavily impact usefulness of a weapon or piece of armor. Even in a fantasy universe, with rare exception, gear shouldn't be such a deciding factor. I think ultimately aesthetic choice should also impact how a player chooses to outfit him/herself. Having said that, I do think DA:I showcased how useful modularity would be to a crafting system (even Fable 3 showed this to an extent). So, if I could choose the blade of my sword and the material for that, then the hilt of my sword and the material for that, and possibly the leather wrapping for my hilt and the material for that; THAT gives me a lot of choice and simple palette swaps can showcase the change in materials with small increases in performance (and durabilty if they decide to try and bring that back).

Whatever they do, they need to get their ducks in a row where smithing is concerned for the next game. There were all kinds of items that were unimprovable (and thus practically useless for a smith) for no reason and I thought the smithing tree was an uninspired mess (but hopefully if they take my advice on crafting above, we won't have that issue in the future). Ultimately, they just need more. Crafting systems are great but they are practically useless if you only have a few things to change. Take FO4 for example. There really wasn't a whole lot to switch up. Most guns had auto and semi-auto receivers, a few stock options, and then a selection of standardized scopes. And that was it. I know the art team probably has a stressful job, but they need to keep hiring people and just crank out assets that can be tweaked to give a broader selection or, again, make everything modular and just leverage the exponential growth in combinations as a way to keep things interesting. I'm rattling on, exhausted, but I had to get this thought off my head. Hopefully it makes sense.

I think having a skill for each weapon is excessive. Having rapier, longsword, shortsword skills, for example, seems unnecessary when you can just keep them under a consistent weapon type like blade. From there, it would be better to have some specific perks tied to each weapon, such as a rapier having a higher chance of piercing weaknesses in armor or a claymore having a higher chance to stagger and opponent, along with more general perks.

Most of, if not all of us want to see a return of attributes. We seem to just have different views on how to fix them. I think the idea of also having some perks in attributes has some promise too, but as I stated earlier I personally believe the bigger issue was how the attributes leveled up instead of what they did (although I'd like some tweaks in that department too).

The problem is determining Hand to Hands place in combat in compairson to any of the other skills, in one of the biggest problems is that is...very, very niche. You can make focus the Blade skill about being active during the fight, choosing the right blade to accomplish whatever task it is you want to specialize in, the Ax skill about dealing a lot of damage and getting bonuses for exploiting the enemy when their weakened, or the Blunt skill about breaking down an enemies ludicrous amount of armor, but H2H is...just kind of sitting there. You could make it about self defense and totally not killing the enemy, which depending on how the game tracks crime and city life, can be hugely important, but can you center it around an entire Skill line? I'm not so sure.

Having its own dedicated branch within a separate Skill Tree that makes its inclusion seem organic would help out a great deal, certainly more then what Skyrim did.

I'm not entirely sure Fallout's model of Attributes is the way to go. Not only does that sort of blur the line between the franchises in a sense (Oblivion with Guns, Fallout with Swords), it also sort of strikes me as being the opposite of what the series is about. Fallout regardless if you can raise them within a long stretch of time, is more about your character ultimately being defined by his or her Attributes right out of the box. The game more rewards you for sort of sticking to that same formula for the entire game. TES meanwhile is more about progression, and in some instances, your character being able to grow and change throughout the course of the game. It also allows you to look at certain perks that exist at the high end of the Attribute spectrum, and decide if you want to persue them or not in a slightly more organic fashion then what Fallout 4 presented.

Wasteland 2 would be a compromise between the two systems I guess, with it starting out like Fallout, but upon reaching a certain level, being able to raise your Attributes along side your skills. I still think its a little on the Fallout side of things, but it is an option to think about.

I think this is more of an issue of the Smithing skill, since as I see it, the Enchanting and Alchemy Skill Trees are one of the more salvageable aspects of Skyrim. I actually do like what the Witcher 3 did here (for once), being able to find and purchase equipment diagrams in order to learn how to forge certain things. They can be anything from a specific part of a set (Ebony Pauldrons being a single part of the set you get access to, for example), or full, actual set. I still think needing a certain Skill level in order to create certain materials is something that is needed, but by needing certain crafting diagrams or tutors that can teach us these things, it frees up a lot of space within the Smithing Tree.

The problem then is what should the Smithing tree be about, which frankly sort of has me stumped at the moment.

i want full martial arts. kick as well....a monk class

My biggest issue with that is the same as my issue with Morrowind's weapon skills... A Master Swordsman isn't suddenly going to become a fumbling drube if he picks up an axe. The vast majority of combat skills are applicable across the board, with specialisation in a particular weapon being a very minor element. Creating the same problem when one skilled with a Rapier picks up a Sabre feels very arbitrary and overly artificial to me.

Oddly enough, this is one thing that D&D has done increasingly well over the years. Your basic combat modifiers are determined by your base stats and level, and has next to nothing to do with the weapons in particular. Feats like Finesse can allow you to really focus on particular weapons, but so long as you know how to use a particular class of weapon, you're pretty much good to go.

Even their weapon classes make far more sense, with Simple, Martial and Exotic (which, in a bit of a step backwards, does not exist in 5th edition) distinctions basically representing how obscure or complicated a weapon is to use. Simple weapons are just that, simple. You hit things and it hurts. Martial weapons tend to be more refined, and require more dedicated training to use well, because getting the best out of them isn't as simple as just smacking things. Exotic weapons, in comparison, are rare, weird or difficult to use weapons such as Double Swords (which would, frankly, be pretty useless...) Urumi, Spiked Chains and other weirdness.

I do think there is room for some weapon-specific micro-progression, but i think it should be more based on the specific weapon, not a type. I've been calling it Familiarity, and using it sort of as a soft-buffer to the loot-progression, slowing down the upgrade process a bit...

Technically, ever weapon skill is Martial Arts. There are very few weapon-free martial arts out there, because, well... Punching someone in plate armour isn't going to get you anywhere. You can play around with it a bit because it's a fantasy setting, but unless you go full-on Magic, there's no reasonable way to make Unarmed combat that competitive.

monk has their weapon..

not just using bare hand..

some use claw...some use some kind of steel glove

I hope BGS brings back Medium Armor. I was glad that it was in ESO, but since that's ZOS not BGS it might not come back for future single-player TES games. Spellcrafting would be good too, polearms/spears, and Hand-to-Hand/Unarmed.

Also for cities to be bigger than 4-5 huts (looking at you, Winterhold).

Apart from that, I can't really think of any improvements from Skyrim, I liked it just the way it was.

That's something we've been talking about, and i personally hope they drop Light and Heavy and just call it Armour. You can accomplish far more interesting things across the board without clinging to outdated classifications like Light, Medium and Heavy.