Basically it boils down to this: you level up and of course want to pick what is most beneficial to your character. Generally, at least for the first ~20 levels, that means combat skills.

But what if you really like to craft goods, or barter, or pickpocket? These have little affect on much of the game, at least until higher levels.

I personally think it would be good to get a combat and a non combat perk each level.

Maybe that would be too overpowered for some people, but I find the soft skills so to speak make the game more fun and "immersive" while the combat skills, well, make combat a little easier which is generally fun too (dying svcks).

I'm not trying to get the skill trees changed. I'm not complaining. I'm just stating an opinion on what I think will make the game more enjoyable for me. In fact, I might just do this for myself anyway with console commands. Haven't decided yet.

I would like to hear what others think of this, though. I'm sure a mod for this will come along sometime too - well I hope so anyway

Honestly, its a bit of a mixed bag. While factoring out noncombat skills would keep your level from skyrocketing just because you decided to take a break from UG SMASH, the game is designed with PC scaling in mind. Artifically keeping your level low means you miss out on the higher end madness (for better or worse).

Personally, I installed a mod that slows down level progression. This allows me to focus on building more skills while being able to enjoy a more natural progression through lower end content (it annoyed me that I was usually well over level 10 before hitting the Barows in vanilla gameplay). Some may appreciate the chance to stretch out the lower levels, others gun for 50 without thinking twice or looking back. Using the slower progression mod works for me; it might work for you. Food for thought.

A game where you don't want to level up... No, a game where you don't need to level up. Remove level scaling, take the importance of level number and it will be only your skills vs. the world, whatever those skills are.

A possibility would be to keep level scaling for the PC as it is, but enemy scaling depends solely on the PC's combat skills. That way, you can become a Master-Thief at level X, but still be able ot survive a dungeon...

Honestly I'm not in the least talking about how fast you level, or level scaling. It's a factor no doubt, but mostly I just regret that I can't make a good archer/sneak/pickpocket with light armour and a few 1h perks plus some crafting =P. Just not enough perks at 50.

Slowing down leveling doesn't really address this issue at all, in fact it would exacerbate it because you'd have much higher skill level than you can properly use with the few perks you've unlocked.

Solutions and their problems. (Note: there is no perfect solution)

1. Level things with the PC's character (current system).
Problem: If someone CHOOSES to level their noncombat skills, they may have to actually USE those non-combat skills in order to create weapons and armor that will allow them to kill the leveled enemies.

2. Level things with the PC's combat skills only.
Problem: There are now 0 consequences for getting to Whiterun and maxing every non-combat skill you have. You will have the best gear in the game with broken enchantments and run around one-shotting EVERYTHING. Then people complain that the game is too easy, or simply get bored, take their ball and go home.

3. Create a static world where all the monsters in a given area are always the same level independent of the level of the PC.
Problem: If you walk into a level 40 area and you're only level 12, you will die to absolutely everything.
Problem 2: If you walk into a level 12 area that you missed earlier and you're currently level 40 then the content is too easy and we go back to threads complaining about how easy the content is.

I personally think Bethesda has chosen the only viable solution. You have made the CHOICE to level your non-combat skills. Usually this will involve grinding those skills. You have made a CHOICE and must now live with the CONSEQUENCES. Something I think society in general could do with re-learning.

What doesn't make sense to me is that half the topics about smithing and enchanting say they're insanely overpowered, and the other half say they should be left out of experience because you fall behind in the scaling by using them.

Well, which is it? If they're overpowered wouldn't they be meaningfully helping you in battle?

All of the non-combat skills are extremely beneficial if you put them to use.

Smithing gives you better gear than you will find. Combine that with enchanting and it is vastly more powerful.
Picpocketing/lockpicking/speech help make you rich, which means you can buy lots of potions, or enchanted gear, or filled soul gems.
Alchemy provides the potential for spamming potions and poisons, which is rather tedious but arguably increases survivability more than armor.

In conclusion, there is really no such thing as a non-combat perk, if used properly all skills contribute to combat prowess.

^ This. Excluding smithing from levelling would only make an arguably overpowered skill more powerful. While I agree that early development of non-combat skills like lockpicking and speech can disadvantage your character, I don't think the same holds true for smithing. I've played a character on master difficulty who concentrated exclusively on smithing until it hit 100 (aside from occassional, unavoidable combat skill levels while collecting ore/leather), and he remained viable due to smithing's damage and armor bonuses.

All said, from an RP perspective, I actually like that a non-combat focus can result in disadvantage in combat.

They should be completely separate and crafting skills should not be combat skills. NPCs should be able to craft anything you can, it's kind of stupid that you can't have an NPC improve your armor or enchant something for you.

This way the "non combat" skills are -
Speech
Pickpocket
Lockpicking - Security ideally if they ever let us use traps
Alchemy
Enchanting
Smithing

All would basically be monetary / convenience related. You save and make gold by making your own gear, potions, enchants, and so on just like lockpick gives access to more loot, pickpocket is obvious, speech/barter lowers prices and gets you more rewards. You'd get 1 non-combat perk every X levels, separate from combat perks. Non-combat skills would have no effect on level scaling.

Currently, there's little reason to put perks into speech, pickpocket, or lockpicking.


They also need to make vendors actually sell good gear if they want gold to matter. Although having NPCs craft/enchant things would help with that as well.

Hmm, I guess it depends on how you play. Personally, 50 perks to spend on six skills (Archery, Sneak, Pickpocket, Lt Armor, 1-Hand, Smith) seems like alot to me. But that's because my first character has (last time I checked) perks spread among 10 skills. Because it didn't seem particularly important to "max out" most of them. Primary combat skill is 1-handed, I've got 6 perks in that one. Yeah, I could have put more into it, but perks in other skills seemed more important and/or interesting at the time.





^
And then there's this.

I would want smithing, enchanting, and alchemy to be a third group on their own. They have a lot more impact on combat that speech, pickpocket, or lockpicking - in fact, you can get a bigger damage boost from enchanting than from your one handed skill.

That's easy:

Underpowered (valid complaint): Use the iron/leather you accrue naturally (rather than storing or selling it), discover your smithing exceeds combat skills but you can't find materials to make equipment that matches your skill and you don't like to run around purchasing materials from merchants. You are now fighting stronger enemies with subpar gear and subpar combat skills.

Overpowered Method #1 (valid complaint): Store ore/leather and use sparingly to avoid leveling smithing quickly. Equip the +smithing gear you found (or enchant it), make a full set of gear, drink the +30% Potion of the Blacksmith you found and improve the gear, then enchant it.

Overpowered Method #2 (don't complain if you do this): Buy iron/leather to power-level smithing/enchanting, purchase high-level materials to make high-level weapons armors, purchase filled grand soul gems (or unfilled black soul gems to save money), make really powerful equipment.

Superoverpowered: Alchemy/Enchanting/Smithing loop.

All of the passive skills lead to ways of getting better items which would help you in battle.

Leveling non-combat skills gives you perk points that can be used to increase combat skills. So I suppose it isn't that big of a problem. Never have I felt like the enemy really out powered me.

4. Create a dynamic world without level scaling, scale chances through common to rare just like real world on the location and population.

No problem 1: There is no level 40 area in this system, you have a low chance to encounter level 40s. Level 40s are rare but everywhere.
No problem 2: See above. Content is what it is, easy, hard depends on your power. Why get power first then complain about that power? Choice, consequence and most importantly, it is fair.

not really because a lot of those skills you can use for combat
like with speech you can buy good weapons and armor
or with pickpocketing you could easily kill a briarheart or leave an enemy defenseless

Really, Speech should have a leadership tree to strengthen companions. Lockpick should have traps and the ability to relock doors. Pickpocket should have been given more emphasis on reverse pickpocket; incendiary volatile potions, perhaps?

Unless you already have super awesome special gear.

The thing is, obviously having level scaling based only on Combat or Non Combat doesn't make sense.

What I'm saying is you get 1 perk every level for combat skills. You ALSO get 1 perk for non combat skills every level/every OTHER level. That way you can level up your combat skills normally, and you can't just power level your blacksmithing/enchanting and get uber leet gear super fast. At every other level it would take until level 12 to get max BS and then until lvl 28 to be maxed in enchanting as well. And of course that's as fast as possible, assuming you ignore pickpocket, speech, alchemy.

This idea looks http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1293578-how-about-leveling-only-when-combat-skills-are-used/page__p__19493059__fromsearch__1#entry19493059. If you agreed you could have just posted there to ward of all the idiots who didn't even read the op but were in such a hurry to shout it down.

It's a tough call, do you want to go with a system where you put a point into a skill every level up or the current system which is fine if done correctly. I would go with the latter, although the former isn't a terrible idea, that's what Reckoning is doing.

I prefer everything levelling together. IRL, if you gain experience in one thing, it often has a knock-on effect on other abilities. Separating perks into combat and non-combat would just make me feel like I'm playing a character with DID. No thanks ...