ok. lets start at oblivion's amount of skills

yes, mysticism was redundant. but it was the only thing (aside from arguably barter)


so i think mysticism and barter should be removed (making 19) and then polearm (spear) and enchant should be added. - that would be the ideal skill thing right? with lots of perks to differentiate stuff even more.

only other thing i would change is getting rid of armour skills and have perks cover light,medium and heavy and unarmoured- that would make 19.\



anyone have any thoughts on what should be removed/replaced?

I see no problem with combining athletics and acrobatics, or getting rid of armor skills altogether - well made armor(from what I've read) doesn't and shouldn't require any real skill to use.

Enchant is back in the game and yes spears MUST!!! be in the game.

To be honest I think the less skills the better. This is the pen and paper gamer inside of me , but I think that if your able to consolidate than consolidate I don't like to micromanage stats I feel it takes away from the experience. I really prefer straight up attribute, strategy and luck.

To be honest I thought both mercantile and mysticism made sense. Scrapping armour (figuratively lol) seems somewhat more logical. I still don't see why axes and maces have to be governed by the same skill and now even the blunt skill won't exist no longer.

I've already gone from Daggerfall to Oblivion without missing the ability to speak Spriggan one little bit, so I am not one of those people who equate less skills with dumbing down as some do. One thing that OB got right was the inclusion of mastery perks for each skill, I mean who can argue that a small chance to paralyse your opponent when you are a master of your weapon is a bad thing. Would rather have less skills with a well thought out perk system, than more skills that do nothing but alter in-game dice rolls. I can well understand the concern, less skills means something missing, but hopefully the perks system will add so much more than removing three skills takes away.

I'm fine with 18 skills. If Bethesda think that works, I trust them.

And I'm glad classes were discarded. BTW, who took security, speechcraft or mercantile as major skills anyway? If you did, you wasted space for a more important skill (Armor skills, weapons skills, magic skills) since 100 speechcraft is completely worthless when you're up against the big bad boss. Now you can always practice speechcraft to gain level and get stronger. (Assuming attributes are gone and you don't receive only a +5 in Personality on level-up...)

I don't see a problem with how they're doing it. It's more realistic this way as well. By the looks of it the weapon skills are now "one handed" "two handed" "marksman" and maybe another weapon but that one doesn't have enough evidence to even speak of it. But anyway, regarding "one handed" weapons. It's much more realistic to place these in one class. Why? Because if I am skilled at using longswords I'm certain I would be also be very skilled at mace wielding. Of course there is a difference between a master swordsman and a master mace wielder but that's where perks come in. So specialization is still a strong factor. But it's realistic because the system understands if I have great ability with a sword, I can pick up a mace and also do considerable damage.

And that's why it makes sense to break things up in to the different categories based on similar attributes: one-handed, two-handed, marksman, and the unconfirmed/unmentioned but possible skill "polearm" the reason I broke this away from the two-handed skill is because there is a difference between wielding a claymore and a staff(even though they're both two-handed) Although that's not saying, if there were polearms that they could be considered two-handed. It depends how the devs see it.

Mysticism was not redundant. It was the only school that accounted for things beyond the physical world. There weren't that many spells in them, but it is a magic school that's part of the lore, as the Psijics studied it heavily.

But apart from that, they should give us the OPTION to add more skills via the Creation Kit (or whatever goofy name they've given it this time). That way, if someone wants to have a skill for every mundane action there is, then so be it; they'll have 300 miscellaneous skills. But not the option to delete default skills; just option to add more, and assign them their own calculations and animations.

You can't look at skills alone. Skills are only one part of the system. You must include the other part, which is the perks. While there may be fewer skills, it's the perks that will add variety and quite possibly allow for even more specialization than Oblivion ever did.

I agree. Also, have athletics and acrobatics been merged or something? I don't think there was any need for those to be separate.

Daggerfall, with some tweaking.

I don't "want" 18 skills I just couldn't care less. I trust that they will do it fine. Many of the skills were redundant in my opinion. More isn't always better in my opinion.

It's not really about use, but the conditioning from moving around in the armor. IMO they should keep armor skills, allow you to get a protection bonus from armor you are skilled in and/or reduce the speed penalty for armor you are skilled in. From what you can read in a few in-game books, that's generally how it's always worked.

you again. i think im gonna like the new system. less, more important skills. way to go beth

As nice as the old system of birthsign/class/skills was, reducing it down to slightly fewer, better distributed skills is a good move. The old system was too static, a mage was a mage even if they never cast a spell and stabbed people to death for fun. It was also reasonably limiting, you still had to choose specific skills to major in, wheras a 'perk' or 'skill tree' based model allows you to sculpt your character more exactly to their playstyle, whether that be flashy, showy magic, slow but unstoppable swording, or whatever.

I wish athletics and acrobatics were not combined.

Honestly I wouldnt mind having Oblivion's amount of skills but Bethesda probably looked at what people liked and didnt use and took those skills out

I wish it wasn't Mysticism going. It has a place in the games lore kind of with the Altmer Psjiics on Artaeum..

Speechcraft merged with Mercantile I'd be more comfortable with.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1158511-pollskyrim-18-total-skills/page__st__40__p__16983895#entry16983895
OP already participated in discussing this elsewhere, where pretty much everything was said, and voted on.
I understand newcomers doing it, but not seasoned and very active forumers. No wonder the forum is overloading from time to time...

Isn't 18 fine? Any more and we'd have to wait to december if they're all as detailed.

Having both Athletics and Speed was also redundent.

Without knowing what all the skills are, it's hard to say how many is a good number. Mysticism is gone, and I don't think mercantile or athletics deserve being separate skills on their own and should be merged*; that'd bring it down to 18, but ignores what skills could be added.

*Merged with speechraft and acrobactics, I mean, not each other. We don't need a "travelling salesperson" skill.

There is no classes anymore so it will not matter as much. Also I might add that they are mixing skills that should go together to make it more simple in a good way. Pluse they are adding new skills too.

I really want to see that skill set. We already know that some weapons are combined into 1-handed, 2-handed. What about armors? Or mercantile/speechcraft?