Becoming even more simplified is never a good thing...

Why so negative? The first fallout had something like 16 skills which it combined with perks. Fallout 2 had as many skills as Skyrim will have. Were these games that shallow?

They already cut some of the skills I did not consider "useless" in Morrowind - unarmored for example, and did not add or combine them anywhere, that made me quite unhappy, my mages always went unarmored... Now they removed Mysticism, which is a crime against lore in my opinion, and another kick to the mages. Warrior weapon skills system is downright primitive - master one weapon and you can use half the weapon in the game... So no, I don't think that 18 skills is logically enough for a game like Skyrim. I have nothing against combining athletic and acrobatic, if they are not going to improve the acrobatic system anyway, but that's about how fare it goes... I'd rather see them live the skills separated and make acrobatic awesome, than just essentially cut it out.

OMG MYSTICISM WAS THE MOST USEFUL SKILL EVAR!!!!!!111!!! WHY DID THEY REMOVE IT? DAT STOOPID!!!!1
OMG DUEL WEELDING IS T3H AWESOMEST!!!11 I KNOW NOTHING ABOOT IT!!!! JUST SAYIN YO!!!!

Take a hint. It's too early to call.
If you really must judge now, go ahead and say that it's TOO complex compared to Morrowind/Oblivion. The perks (1 per level, intended max 50) make it by far more specialized. We already know that maces will be able to hit through armor with one perk. Imagine picking all mace perks and trying to attack with a sword. More is better according to you people, and you're getting more. Much more than you bargained for. (Did you catch that rhyme?)


One-handed is confirmed, two-handed is assumed.

I don't get how less skills = more simplified. Even more so with all the perks they're adding. And its not like you'll be able to become a jack of all trades either.


As for Mysticism, why do you all think they're omitting it from the lore. There is 200 years between Oblivion and Skyrim. For all we know do to the chaos of those years and the schism with in the Mages Guild that something happened to cause those of the Mysticism School to merge with other Schools.

I REALLY hope it's not a skill tree that would be horrible.

As an extensive player of TES I do not mind the loss of 3 more skills, Mysticism was to me a useless section (obviously it wasn't to some others) but I am sure they have integrated it with other skills along with I hope they have combined Athletics and Acrobatics and call it Physic or something or rather

18? What a pity. Technology goes forward but we just get less and less. :unsure2:

When was that confirmed?

Honestly, this reminds me of the outcry during the release of DnD's 4th Edition. It was the same thing when 3rd came out, apparently "stomping" on AD&D's so-called apex of gaming. You know what happened? Nothing. Everybody still bought the newest, shiniest toy to add to their well-worn, beloved collection. There are still individual preferences, but just about everybody is still loyal and absolutely enjoys playing.

So why all the melodramatic prose? It's not the end of the world, they haven't "ruined t3h gamez FOR-EVAAAHRRR!" The game just keeps evolving, trying to improve upon itself. And the developers certainly have a reason for making changes, even though we don't know what that might be just yet. Why don't we at least see the reasoning behind the changes first, before we burn bridges, drive a tank through the town square, and jaywalk? Hell, maybe you'll even like the idea you're railing against by then.

In short, I'm willing to reserve my judgement until I can get more information. And we're still going to buy Skyrim.

How the heck am I supposed to decide whether or not 18 skills is too few without seeing how the game implements them? Not enough info to decide.

This!

Going from 4 armor skills to just 2 in oblivion was a horrible decision imo. In morrowind you were able to play an unarmored mage wearing a robe and equipped with a staff. Oblivion basically forced mages to wear glass armor and fight with a sword.

Less skills and less weapons result in less options for custumization, to an extent where it even works against core RPG elements.

As I see it, the series clearly develops from an RPG to an Action-Adventure-RPG hybrid thing. And the sad part is, for a lot of people that's a good thing. Just look at Fable, a really boring "dumbed down" game imo but critics and a lot of people like it.

I don't have a problem with 18 total skills but I need to find out what those skills are before I can pick a side. If BGS can do it correctly then yeah I think it could work but I'll answer this question in 3 months.

In Oblivion, my mages never wore armor so, no, glass armor was not required.

How so?

Athletics and Acrobatics could easily be merged into Body Development, which then splits with perks:
Athletics and Acrobatics, which then splits with additional perks:
Running and Swimming, and Jumping and Falling, which then splits with additional perks:
Sprint Running and Marathon Running, Holding Breath and Speed Swimming, High Jumps and Long Jumps, Air Control and Combat Falls.

Your overall skill feeds into each of the perks you went for. You still get the possibility to be a complete master of Body Development by going for all it's perks. But from what I read it pays to specialize, maybe you only go for Long Jumps and ignore the rest, letting you put perks into other skills instead. With schools of magic, maybe you get access to different spell effects with different perks? Maybe Light is a low perk effect you get early in Illusion, but your overall skill in Illusion just keeps making it better and better.

So, do you generalize perks and choose a few important (to you) in Body Development and a few in Illusion, or do you go all in in Body Development or Illusion? It's the choice the player has to make. That's role playing for me. Not ending up as a master of everything. Being highly skilled and leveled makes me awesome in what I do, but I am still the character I set out to become.

At least I wish every perk allowed further specialization within that perk. Then again, who knows what the BGS actually have in mind for us, right? Could be anything.

I don't think skils are being cut out, they're only being grouped together and such. Mysticism is being spread across all schools of magic. Acrobatics might be melded with athletics.

lol yeah, try thinking of 10 perks for mysticism. Its tough and they seem completely disjointed..only helping 1 spell at a time.

Exaggerating to the point of inanity does not prove your point.

Removing mysticism was correct game design for the elements they are changing and I am confident the other removed skills were justified too. I am sorry these terrifying changes have upset you and hopefully next time they will learn and bring back mysticism with 3 spells, a worthwhile school that EVERYONE will invest enough points in to use.

Hopefully they will also bring back 3 types of armor and add a skill for fighting with only a shield, along with axe, long blade, short blade, blunt, spear, hand to hand, and flying kites. That would definitely increase the options available to your character throughout the game in an entirely authentic and legitimate way, right? :brokencomputer:

There are going to be 85 spells. Spells, not spell effects. There's a significant difference if you consider what that means. I think this definitely outdoes the number of actual UNIQUE spell effects found in Oblivion. Essentially, there were 3 spells in Conjuration: summon a monster, summon an armor, summon a weapon. This time, I expect a few more, with far different effects. And perks would handle the revisions of those spells (instead of giving you false, costly replications like multiple atronarchs that do the same thing w/different stats), like WHAT monster you summon in the same way each time, certain bonuses to how powerful they are, what they can do, how long they last, or how many are summoned.

Based on the sound video, they are as unique as metal skin armor covering the body, with unique animations and sounds. Is that better than trying to cast 7 bound armor skills right in a row (using more than 1 bar of mp) that all have the same animations and only boosted stats? I think yes. And I'd be inclined to think that most would agree that a change like that is far better for role playing as well as gameplay.

Greater granularity is better for building an immersive RPG experience. It's not enough to just say, "Speechcraft and Mercantile? BASICALLY THE SAME THING." They may be similar in function, but in crafting and defining a character their is a definite distinction. An example: I fire up a New Game and decide I am going to play as a ruthless Merchant Baron. My goal is to start up trading routes, demkolish the local competition, and generally make a BUTTLOAD of money. I am one rich dude, but I shouldn't waltz into the local pub and expect everyone to cheer my name. That's because I'm not very likable, and while I could sell you a junked sword for double it's value, I couldn't for the life of me convince you to spill your heart out to me. I lack empathy, unless you owe me money or I have some way of financially indebting you to me, I have no chance here.

This is why Mercantile and Speechcraft ought to be different skills. Not because functionally, in game-terms, they are as distinct as Security and Blunt Weapons, but because it is a means of further defining your character without simply pretending they are poor in social situations. Keeping this in mind, other arguments ("A Claymore is way different from a broad sword is way different from a dagger, but they are still in the same skill!") is not an argument in favor of reduction, but one that favors greater granularity.

Perks are a good idea, they offer the opportunity to further specialize and define your character. But they should act in conjunction with a large Skill list, rather than as a replacement. It should give me better piercing or slashing or chopping damage with a weapon, but I should still need to be skilled in that weapon. I should have a wealth of knowledge on particular items, allowing me to sell them for that much more, but I still need experience in bartering to employ that wisdom.

I don't want a game that is built on simulating a realistic world to subtract options at my disposal. That erodes the world and the experience. I want The Elder Scrolls to take what it does best and multiply it. I want more skills than before. I want to encounter more factions. Instead, things just become broader and less defined.

Ok, so you need a lot of skills to help you remember who your character is? You could just write it down...

What about taking your character and becoming something via the actions you take, the choices you make, the memories you have? What about character development? What about the story?

You don't start off the story as a merchant baron. You become one over the game through your choices. If you start off as one, you may as well just name your character merchant baron and call it a day. A title and intent do not make a story.

I don't think combining those skills do anything to prevent you from being a merchant baron. The only barrier is you needing to see a 100 pts next to mercantile to believe it. What if there is a merchant baron perk, which gives you bonus income for owning multiple shops, or something like that? Isn't that better than a number?

I really think this skill argument is distracting and not really a fair picture because it's ignoring where gaming is going. What is the point of a number when it is the gameplay that builds the experience? Why would you want a separate stat when you could gain the ability to operate stores or intimidate competitors? Why would you want to limit the options for a character you will spend 100+ hours with them when a skill # doesn't make a story. The point is interactivity and more choice in a story, not picking a static character role and playing it out ad hominem.

more options aren't better when those options are illusions. The design principles evident in Skyrim are those of enhancing the immersion, variation, and choices available. If that means streamlining archaic game systems, so be it.

On the other hand, I totally want more factions, more spells, more game systems like enchanting, alchemy, and smithing, or jobs like cooking and mining, more major plotlines, more weapon types, more perks, more weapons and armor, more clothing slots, more unique enchantments, more settlements, quests, NPCs, storylines, tasks, main characters, and for all of those things to be both more numerous, more unique, and more interactive. Complexify the world and the experience is more immersive. No numbers needed.

In other words, you want to fantasize about your character sheet instead of play a game.

I think they should add a skill for "Dwemer Lore" so that I can fantasize that my character is a scholar with great interest in the Dwemer. Of course, the skill doesn't need to do anything, it would just define my character. [/snark]

Well console games are considers well to be simple and easy. This is understandable as they try to cater to the masses as much as possible in this way they get more sales, THE simpler a game is the more people can play it.

While PC games on the other hand (at least the pinnacles) have a history of depth and complexity to cater to niche groups; Eve, Arma2, Simulators ect and so on. Or even if they are "easy to learn" they have a high skill ceiling in comparison.

Of course there are exceptions and so on but you'll never get PC simulators and games like Arma2 and EVE online on to a console, this probably has to do with the age difference of the users of each system.

Of course this game could just do; stealth, magic, combat but then it looses depth BUT HEY it sales a load because anyone can play it, but then it looses the core fan base which is ultra important when the casual players go on to the next big thing. So it comes down to balance between accessibility and depth normally to get more of one you have to take from another.

This is probably the biggest load of crap I have seen today.

the games you mention are made by independent developer and are therefore obviously made for the PC because it's cheaper and easier. The rest of "deep" PC games are usually just as deep on console if multi if made. Games made only for the PC are rarely deeper than console games.

I'm not sure what to vote here because I actually think that the arguments for removing the skills they did from Oblivion to Skyrim are pretty good. Mysticism is expendable, uhm can't remember the other ones they revealed, but I remember thinking "oh that actually sounds fair"

I do however miss some that were removed already from Morrowind to Oblivion. The most immediate ones are differing between long blade and short blade, and also having a separate skill for axe and blunt.

If you, like me, liked to do stealthy characters, the short blades really weren't ever that useful in Oblivion. Sure, the claymore is heavier, but seeing as you didn't carry much anyway (at least I didn't) and all your armor was light, that wasn't really the problem, and the claymore did waaaay more brain-damage-amage-amage-amage. But it was stupid sneaking around doing stealth kills with a huge blade...

Blunt and axe are mainly because, obviously a warhammer or a battle axe is not that much different to the character, but if you have a mage class character and want them using for instance maces (which is quite common for clerics and what not), you would actually end up being a mage who is as skilled using a battle axe as a mace, only problem would be the inventory weight...

So I hope they bring some of the differentiating skills back, but I think the ones from Oblivion to Skyrim sounded cool

Wanted to make my own topic about this but it got locked - Despite this not REALLY being the topic to do this in, I thought I'd do a little anolysis of the progression of ES games since Daggerfall and how the skills have been streamlined, then use that to try and predict how they will present the 18 skills in Skyrim.

Information gathered from UESP.
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DAGGERFALL = 35 Skills

STRENGTH = Axe, Blunt Weapon, Climbing, Jumping, Long Blade
AGILITY = Archery, Backstabbing, Critical Strike, Hand-to-Hand, Pickpocket, Short Blade, Stealth
SPEED = (none)
ENDURANCE = Swimming
INTELLIGENCE = Centauian, Daedric, Dragonish, Giantish, Harpy, Impish, Lockpicking, Medical, Nymph, Orcish, Spriggan
WILLPOWER = Alteration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration, Thaumaturgy
PERSONALITY = Etiquette, Mercantile, Streetwise
LUCK = (none)

________________________________________________

MORROWIND = 27 Skills

STRENGTH = Acrobatics, Armorer, Axe, Blunt Weapon, Long Blade
AGILITY = Block, Light Armor, Marksman, Sneak
SPEED = Athletics, hand-to-hand, Short Blade, Unarmored
ENDURANCE = Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, Spear
INTELLIGENCE = Alchemy, Conjuration, Enchant, Security
WILLPOWER = Alteration, Destruction, Mysticism, Restoration
PERSONALITY = Illusion, Mercantile, Speechcraft
LUCK = (none)

WHAT CHANGED?

In addition to some major streamlining of the more specific skills and the total elimination of languages, some expansion also occurred. We got the Armorer skill as well as armor-wearing skills that weren't there before. It seems that there was an effort to spread skills logically and more evenly between the attributes. We also had the addition of spears and the spear skill. Also, we lost a lot of ancillary stealth and combat skills like critical strike and pickpocket, and they were incorporated into more all-encompassing skills. Climbing was gone completely, sadly, and could have easily been part of the acrobatics skill but was not a feature. We also lost Thaumaturgy, Medical, Streetwise and Etiquette that all either disappeared completely or were just now part of game mechanics. If you tried to heal yourself you just would, there was no skill associated with it. Etiquette was now persuading people with bribes or tone-of-voice and streetwise was, ultimately, made obsolete with the new systems in place. All in all this was a lot of major improvements and logical combining of skills.

________________________________________________

OBLIVION = 21 Skills

STRENGTH = Blade, Blunt, Hand-to-Hand
AGILITY = Security, Sneak, Marksman
SPEED = Athletics, Acrobatics, Light Armor
ENDURANCE = Armorer, Block, Heavy Armor
INTELLIGENCE = Alchemy, Conjuration, Mysticism
WILLPOWER = Alteration, Destruction, Restoration
PERSONALITY = Illusion, Mercantile, Speechcraft
LUCK = (none)

WHAT CHANGED?

It seems with this new skillset that effort was put into relegating skills that fall under one of the three archetypes (Warrior, Mage, Rogue) into similar Attribute sets. By this I mean that if you were to want to be a stealth character, you would focus on Speed, Agility and Personality in order to maximize those skills. They overlap of course, but that's to be expected. Also, there are an even number of skills per archetype, 7 each, further simplifying things for players wishing to focus on one particular archetype. This chart helps to see what I'm talking about: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Skills

So, we lost Medium armor, because it was no longer in the game, as well as Spears, Unarmored and the difference between long and short blades. We also sadly lost enchanting because, as with many things from Daggerfall to Morrowind, it seemed that the mechanics took over from what the skill numbers were doing in the previous iteration. Also, it is good to note that because of the radical change in combat system (from a dice roll to a physics based to-hit system) a lot of the skill-based stuff became part of the physics and mechanics (e.g: sneak attack.

________________________________________________

SKYRIM = 18 Skills

The possibilities are fairly open here, so I'll offer a simple solution, and then a radical solution. First, the simple one, where we simply remove one skill from each of the three archetypes (what we know about mysticism and enchanting complicates this a bit), and combine the effects across the rest of the skills.

NOTE: Skyrim has no attributes and that opens up a lot of possibilities with the perks and the supposed 'constellation system' that could add even more depth, but for simplicity's sake we'll look at them for what the skills used to represent.

SIMPLE:

STRENGTH = Blade, Blunt, Hand-to-Hand
AGILITY = Security, Sneak, Marksman
SPEED = Athletics (INCORPORATES ACROBATICS), Light Armor
ENDURANCE = Smithing, Heavy Armor (BLOCK REMOVED, PURELY REFLEX AND BLOCKING ITEM ATTRIBUTE BASED)
INTELLIGENCE = Alchemy, Conjuration, Enchanting (MYSTICISM GONE)
WILLPOWER = Alteration, Destruction, Restoration
PERSONALITY = Illusion, Speechcraft (MERCANTILE GONE, INCORPORATED INTO SPEECHCRAFT)
LUCK = (none)

RADICAL:

STRENGTH = Two-handers, Weapon-and-Shield, Hand-to-Hand
AGILITY = Stealth (INCORPORATES SECURITY AND SNEAK), Marksman
SPEED = Athletics (INCORPORATES ACROBATICS), One-handers (includes dual-wielding), Light Armor
ENDURANCE = Crafting, Heavy Armor (BLOCK GONE, PURELY REFLEX AND BLOCKING ITEM ATTRIBUTE BASED)
INTELLIGENCE = Alchemy, Conjuration, Enchanting(MYSTICISM GONE)
WILLPOWER = Alteration, Destruction, Restoration
PERSONALITY = Illusion, Speechcraft (MERCANTILE GONE, INCORPORATED INTO SPEECHCRAFT)
LUCK = (none)

Tell me what you guys think and what your predictions for the skills are!