Hey guys, don't know if this has been discussed yet, but I know lots of people consider the current Speechcraft skill useless. I'd have to agree to a point. I think it has a lot of potential to be incredibly powerful, but it needs some love (assuming of course it hasn't been dropped altogether).

My thoughts led me to think that maybe Speechcraft now includes an understanding of languages. Everyone knows Cyrodiilic, and Dragonshouts cover Dragonish, but what about the giants (confirmed) and other intelligent creatures (such as Daedra). It would make sense to me if the Speechcraft skill included perks to learn and advance your knowledge of languages, opening up deeper options when interacting with races that don't natively speak Cyrodiilic.

Also, could they included the Caste system again? Reintroduce upper and lower classes, playing off Daggerfall's Streetwise and Etiqette skills. These could all be included within the Speechcraft skill too.

I think if these (and potential other) ideas were reintroduced then Speechcraft would be worth investing into, and would open up role-playing options.

Any thoughts and ideas (again, assuming it's in, we don't know the Skills lists yet so this is all speculation)?

These sound like good things for perks and such.

NOOO. There is probaly a reason these were taken out after Daggerfall. To me it would be annoying if i can't interact with some NPC just because i haven't bothered to take some perks that are a LIMITED resource. And how would it work with fully voiced dialog, would they just talk gibberish at first and start speaking English once you got the perk?

I disagree, Didact. Having non-essential interactions with these species based upon language perks would be awesome. Being able to have meaningful conversations with these species would be an interesting usage of the mostly useless speechcraft skill. I'm not sure what a giant would have to say to me, but I'd at least like the chance to tell it to not eat me.

It could open up a whole new realm of side quests and new ways of getting stuff/info. And to Didact, Bethesda (if they did this) would probably like include some dialog choices you could use in the different language and then have the NPC speak the native language back at you but have English subs.

That would render the perks totally pointless. If there were a perk to understand giants, then only those with it should get to understand them.

Where that implemented, it think most should just be heard saying Hulk like lines of "SMASH" or "HUNGRY", and the player not have the option of actually stoping their attack with a cry of "parley", I just don't see most giants (or deadra, etc...) caring. But there could be maybe 2 or 3 unique giants (deadra, etc...) that would say a unique line when apporaching that signals they are more intelligent. Perhaps, "Well this little human look like a tastey morsel." And speaking to him will stop his attack and allow for a unique quest or two. Perhaps sneaking up on 2 dumb giants could give hints to where smarter giants are located, over hearing lines like, "Chief Mokuu say bring lots of meat back to Mount Kothu if we want stay with tribe." or "Narran a strange giant, he keep pet lizard man in cage under bridge to scary island."

These would be quests that could be partially done w/t the giantish perk. So a player who couldn't speak to giants could either kill Narran to save his pet, or sneak in and do it. But a player with the perk could talk to the giant, and complete a quest to free the aragonian and maybe even bargin with the giant to have him help with a quest on the island.

By this reasoning, every time a game is "streamlined" or dumb down, its a good decision. spears and throwing weapons shouldnt be in future beth games because there was a reason they were taken out of Morrowind?

Nice to see that some people see the use of this mechanic. To people like Didact, I would question why using a Language Perk would be "useless". It may be so for an upfront, gung-ho warrior type, in which case you wouldn't pick it. For those who prefer talking and bartering their way through the game it might be invaluable.

The whole point is to open up options, and make it worthwhile, hence the use to talk to certain NPC's. You could probably interact basically without the knowledge (using the NPC's disjointed Cyrodiilic) but with it you'd gain far more information, respect, and possibly reward. It's a tradeoff, just as all Perks should be. Just as with some skills you can open locks, but if you focus on other areas you can't as easily (if you discount Oblivions very easy mini-game).

Speechcraft is a pointless painful task. Please wipe it out of Skyrim and our collective memory. Let's keep speechcraft locked away in youtube videos.

In no sense of its definition is streamlining the same thing as dumbing down.

Not sure about the classes but knowing the languages sounds good IMO. Also you may be able to get information out of various races easier by speaking their language, and it also leads to another way to avoid combat. Some people would say that there is no point to playing if you are avoiding combat, but there are times when I don't want to get into a fight. At high levels you could even have a perk that could work similiar to the command creature/humanoid spells, where you can persuade someone to fight for you.

This post makes me a sad panda.

You could still get access to quests and such that require it, but maybe you would have to pay to enlist an NPC who had the skill's services instead, making getting the perk and advantage, while not completely excluding you if you don't have it.

Christ...

The point of languages was that it would sometimes make certain enemies non-hostile. For instance if you have a high daedric skill, then a lot of the daedra you encounter will be non-hostile towards you.

It would be a cool perk to be able to do something along those lines. I mean not EVERY enemy, but a lot of the general mass. Though I would want it to be balanced.

OK, I can agree with this. Thinking about it, interpreter NPCs would probably be kinda neat. I just don't want to be locked out of any content because I didn't want to use up any of my limited perks on something i will rarely use.

man alot of these ideas are really cool, but i doubt we'd ever see it.

1) not everything is hostile to you right off the bat anyway. most things ignore you unless you piss them off.

2) speechcraft is already made more useful by their merging it with mercantile.

3) polite/normal/blunt was a stupid mechanic and while i'm sure they could do it better now than they did in Daggerfall i don't really care enough to be yes or no for this.

i'd like to see more of the different languages that make up Tamriel, but i'm generally indifferent to this idea.