It maybe possible for encumberance and mobility to come under smithing. A smith not only makes and repairs weapons and armour...he also has to know how the would work/fit/feel etc.
Could be worth thinkng about. It's not to far of a stretch,to think about those things under smithing.

I don't know....try and think of perks that fit smithing,at least five or six,then from there it might give us a better indication of armour or armour skill/skills.
Like: is it just armour or heavy and light,smithing will play a part in what we think about skills regarding armour...if that makes sense.

No.. just no.

I make electric guitars but I'm not a godlike player. I make longbows but I'm not an amazing archer.


That would just make no sense for so many reasons, sorry. Don't give Bethesda any ideas

If anything, I think smithing could have a higher level perk to build armour that is less encumbering than normal when worn, but I don't see how it would work as a perk for when they are wearing the armour, regardless of how it was built.

Why wouldn't it make sense?

A smith knows how to use materials,he knows how to get the best out of them,he knows how armour should work,he knows how it should fit...there are also reasons for it to be in smithing,you can't just disregard that fact. Look at how different swords are made etc,like the samurai sword or broadsword or any other sword,it not just the material,it's also how good the smith/craftsman's knowledge is.
Smithing should play a part in how flexible and moveable the armour is,it's a smith/crafting skill to know such things.
A smith knows : for example...You have iron armour made from a smith,it's heavy and slow to move in....now you take that/or ask a better smith/craftsman to make you a new set of iron armour. Say, this smith is an expert or better than the last....he would be able to make your armour more flexible,tougher and lighter,because he has better knowledge. So now you have a lighter and more flexible type of iron armour.....makes sense to me.

Yeah, it's how they make them, not how good they are at moving about in them, that is a smiths skill. A smith doesn't even have to wear armour at all. Just needs to know the specs needed for them.

EDIT: Just like a computer programmer can still be crap at playing games.

No,it can be seen the other way too...look at my edited post above.

Yeah, well, I said that THAT part would work. Just not the smith wearing it. But I definitely wouldn't mind having different qualities of certain types of armour depending on the smith's skill.

A smith would wear armour,he would have to test what it felt like...be it weight,how flexible it is and so on. A smith has to know how armour works as whole,not just how to manipulate the materials. A knight wearing heavy iron amour say...he knows how to fight in it etc,but it's still going to be heavy...The weight won't change. Now if a skilled blacksmith made the same heavy iron armour,but made it lighter more flexible,while being as strong,that then allows the knight to move more freely,and not feel as bogged down.Thus the smith as changed the weight/encumberance,and the flexibilty of the armour. Another example: Samurai swords/or in oblivion katana's/dai katana's.....The dai katana in oblivion ( even though weaker compared to daedric etc ) was faster ,even has a two hander. Thats because how the weapon was made,Not just the fighters skill. Even though two handed weapons are slower overall....and the dai katana was two handed,it was faster than the other two handed weapons because of how it was made...So the maker = the smith made it faster and lighter,NOT the user.....Do you see where i'm coming from?

What the blacksmith does with techniques/skills and knowledge of materials,has an impact the the weight and many other things on the armour,it's not just how good the wearer is.
Smithing and armour,should go hand in hand with some things......But we'll see what bethesda has done with it.

I know a smith can make it easier to move in. But that doesn't mean the person would instantly have full freedom of movement, and they'd still have to get somewhat used to wearing the armour. It's both things.

Exactly it's both things,so the smith side of it should not be disregarded. Most people in the post was going by the wearer only,which is not right.
So because both the wearer and the smith play a part,it changes how we may see the armour skill or the perks,thats what i mean overall.
Rather than saying it's..Heavy and light or just armour skill. Smithing plays a part,so that should make us look at the armour skill a little more deeply.
Like i said we'll see how bethesda does it. But i was just stating that smithing as an impact on armour/or armour skills and perks. Most people was just looking at it from a wearer's point of view,it should be both.

so no light armour, heavy and unarmored? whats to stop my mage from jumping around with heavy armour?

Yes, well I agree. It's that in your original post, and I think the other guy had the same idea, it sounded like you were saying that smithing skill should be where the bonus is for moving more flexibly in armour, as in a smith has a perk that will make him move better in the same, unaltered armour that a non-smith would move awkwardly in.

Armour is better than robes for defense regardless of armour skill. So the same thing that always does, though hopefully better implemented. The limitations (such as higher magicka cost when wearing armour) that make magic easier to do well in robes than armour. It was actually bad strategy in Oblivion to use robes rather than armour, because this was underdone.

Yes...Even though it's both,what the smith does is more important....Thus he is the one/or the skill is the one that changes the encumberance and flexibilty of the Armour etc.
So should something like that come under smithing.....Yes it should.
They way samurai's make their swords requires great skill, everthing has to be exactly right or the whole process goes boob's up. It's the samurai himself that makes the weapon. Obviously not all samurai's do,but the crafter/smith who made the sword is a samurai. He has to have the weight,balance ,everything right. It has to feel right in is hands.
Look up on how samurai swords are made,it's a work of art. How the weapon was made,makes it what it is,then the skill of weilding it comes into it,but most of all its how it was made that makes it special.

okay let's do this for convenience:

COMBAT:
One-Handed
Two-Handed
Block
Smithing
Hand-to-Hand
Armor

STEALTH:
Sneak
Security
Marksman
Speechcraft
Acrobatics
Alchemy

MAGIC:
Restoration
Destruction
Alteration
Illusion
Conjuration
Enchanting

now then :3

What prevented your mage from jumping around with heavy armour in Oblivion?

I think that skill list looks fairly on the money, but I am wondering why people have given some skills new names rather then refer to them by there previous names in Oblivion, IE using speech instead speechcraft or ranged/archery instead of marksman.

I think Armor will be merged, this is not based off of anything said but rather off of fallout 3, I know it's a different series but it's still the same developer. In fallout 3 there was light/medium/heavy armour but the changes were based on wearing those kinds of armor rather then difference skills for the different weights. This in my opinion balanced light/heavy armor a bit better then Oblivion did since there times when the speed of light armour made it preferable or when the protection of heavy armour made you more inclined towards heavy armour. The only annoyance, and I know fallout 3 is more realistic then TES but the decreased speed of power armour was a bit too much, slowed the game down too much by that point.

Back in Oblivion there were advantages to both, but by 100 skill, heavy armor was better just due to sheer health/lower degrade speed but also the fact that to level either of light or heavy armor you had to get HIT, heavy armor toke damage so much better then light armor at low levels, add on the fact heavy armour leveled endurance (as did armourer) then you'd become a health point tank in no time at all... also I wonder if we will be losing/gaining an attribute or two, since in Oblivion it was 3 skills per attribute (excluding luck which had no skills), if they intend to keep it equal in Skyrim it will likely either be 2 or 3 skills per attribute, that'd be 6 or 9 attributes. And just as a piece of speculation, if armor is more like that of fallout 3 then Speed could very well be a victim, or maybe merged with agility but given a lesser effect (after all outrunning deer without even having cast a fortify speed spell or using any enchanted equipment was a bit much in oblivion).

Athletics I would be GLAD to see gone, since you want to run to move faster but to run levels Athletics, it was annoying in oblivion seeing what that did too speed. Now if all skills will level you in skyrim, I can see potential issues if you go and get yourself too many semi-combat or non-combat skills rather then focusing on more dedicated combat skills early on. This would also mean the same to mercentile, more so when considered already what would happen if you levelled mercentile and speechcraft too early in Oblivion after all... you'd end out with lots of personality that monsters would happily digest as they eat your personality over-filled backside.

The Seperation of one and two handed weapons I am not sure about, since both swords and axes easily go into both categories, what would that do to weapon perks? While I am hoping for more weapon variety over what Oblivion had, I am sure there are better ways to seperate it out then one and two handed weapons, after all I am sure a claymore has more in common with a long sword then a halberd. Then again, it really is not biggy if it is seperated out like that, it still works fine, just against my personal preference really.

We have sprint now,so athletics may have gone,or will be athletics and acrobatics combined. If you jump when sprinting you'll leap/jump further,because of momentum.Obviously not as far as jogging or walking when jumping.
Mercantile was useless..why? Well you could argue spellmaking made a few skill useless for a start because of expliots. But anyway...When bartering etc,your using your speechcraft,your charming,liked,smooth talking...all this = speechcraft and speechcraft only,no need for mercantile,because it's the same thing.


You say your not sure about one handed and two handed. Well...to me it makes sense,and if i was a developer i would do the same. Now where you say a claymore as more in common with a sword..well...your right,thats why perks and ranks allow you to specialize in swords etc. Say your good at the two handed weapons skill....that means as two handed goes up you will be good at two handed swords,axes,hammers,halberds etc...Then from there you specialize in swords say. Now you are better with two-handed swords,than you are with two-handed axes,but because your two-handed skill is going up,you can still use two-handed axes,hammers etc well,because your good at two-handed. But because you went down the sword/blade route,your even better with two-handed swords....because it's your speciallity. It makes complete sense to me. So say your claymore ( swords your speciality ) gets knocked from your hands or breaks,you can now use another two-handed weapon well,because your good at two-handed-just not as good as you would be with a two-handed sword.....hope that makes sense. Again this is something i would do as a developer too,it makes complete sense.

Some people are not understanding what bethesda are trying to do here. They are seeing 27 skills,then 21,then 18,and seeing as rubbish. That is not the case. It needed looking at in my opinion. What they are really doing is giving you the same or if not more skills. With ranks and perks the options are way better. Mercantile needed to be merged with speech,it's the same...so get rid of the name mercantile. Mysticism ( as a name ) is not there,but the skill/spells in or under that name are,just moved around into different spells skills...again that makes sense.
The 18 skills + the ranks and perks will end up being more and better than the 27 skills from daggerfall...don't just look at the number 18,that to me it's an illusion ( if that makes sense ).
All this needed to be done in my opinion,it will work out alot better and be more in depth,and will allow you to specialize more in the long run.

I never said Mercentile was useless, I implied it was broken if you levelled it early, since it left you unable to fight reasonably well, it'd be a struggle to take down a troll , I was at the same time leaving open the idea it's something for later on in the game.

Indeed longswords and claymores are more alike, that's why the skill to use them would be common to them and not a halberd, which is what I meant. If you learned to use a claymore, you'd be more apt at using a longsword then a halberd, yet if the skill is more associated to two handed weapons... you'd see the skill bonus to Halberd, which using a claymore would not actually really help you with at all. The mentality of common types of weapons I think can be seen in previous TES games, even in Oblivion it was Blade and Blunt (tho axes aren't really blunt they still share more in common to a mace then a sword). I suspect such a change would be for an expansion of overall weapon types, since a Halberd is not really a blade or a blunt weapon.

The problem isn't skills and I never said it was, it's balancing skills, since this is a skill dependant levelling system, if you have too many and too wide fairing skills then levelling up those useless skills leads to higher levelled weak characters, having too few skills means no real customization and fairly static characters. So it needs a good balance of skills, where as above Mercentile, Athletics, acrobatics and speechcraft left Oblivion a bit more then broken if you focused on those skills too early (and given how both Athletics and acrobatics level really fast even if your focus was magical or combat...)

I wasn't disagreeing with you,only trying to state why i think one-handed and two-handed are needed and why it makes sense to me. I know what you said about mercantile etc
I was just explaining my way/point thats all. As for game balance. Thats exactly what bethesda is trying to do.They re-worked combat,they have re-worked the skills and have looked or are looking into spellmaking. All these things needed looking at,and thats what they are doing which = better game balance

That's two-hand. Dual wielding and two-handed weapons will probably use the same skill.

It's not two handed....yes you use two hands,but your holding two ,one-handed weapons. Duel wielding will be there by default or a perk.
Your holding two ,one-handed weapons,Thus it's a skill in one handed,not two handed. The two-handed skill requires you to hold one weapon with two-hands because of it design,length,weight etc.
It.s different than holding two one handed weapons in each hand.

Too everyone who thinks armor will still be split into two skills again, or thinks armor skills are completely out. Lets stop arguing. Lets wait and see when the game comes out who is proven right.

thank you this is rediculous

A lot people are also suggesting that block should be taken out and combined with armor skill to make a Defense skill. I just don't think that going to happen either. Its not that armor and shields are unrelated, it's that blocking is an active skill and armor is a passive skill. Blocking well with a shield is not a just a matter of getting used to the weight. It's also a matter of learning how to move it quickly to block from any angle, your reflexes, learning how to withstand blows, and how to predict when and where your opponent is going to strike next. Its a skill that takes quite a long time to master. The kind of skill that you can't do well the first time you try it. You can say what ever you what about the armor skill, but combining it with block is a mistake that can't really be justified. "They both protect you" is not a good enough excuse to make that move.