I hate to be that guy that starts getting worried about the game when we haven't even seen that much of it yet but news of only 18 skills is worrying me.

I always hated how Oblivion combined short and long blade, combined blunt and axe, removed spears, removed unarmored, made enchanting this process that you could only do if you went and did these 7 boring mage guild entry quests and removed the total number of armor pieces. I hated how spells like levitate were removed and how cities were no longer a part of the world thus requiring a limit to maximum jump height.

Were there possible abuses? Yeah! But it's a single player game so who really cares? So what if you can add chameleon to 9 armor pieces, so what if you can levitate around the world avoiding conflict, the fact is that Morrowind had more depth than Oblivion because there was more you could focus your character around. You could wear different style pauldrons and style yourself in some ridiculous way. You could create an interesting backstory to your character. In short Morrowind allowed you to create a character in this vast world and play it how you wanted to.

When Oblivion came out it had great improvements to casting (only having to press one button as opposed to 2) the combat felt better than Morrowind, the graphics were greatly improved, the physics system allowed for spells like telekinesis (which may be removed now with the lack of mysticism) and overall it was a great game and I loved it but I still missed that depth that Morrowind offered. I figured that these were simply growing pains that ES was going through and that the next release would improve upon these faults with the next release.

Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case, at this point it seems as if a greater emphasis has been put on combat and less on depth. In short its a game for the console masses. Now I know I'm making a big assumption there having seen very little information on gameplay but I've been burned by far too many console centric "for the masses" games in the past 5 years to not feel anything but cynical when hearing news about less skills and combining helmets with body armor.

If anyone can ease my fears that'd be great but I have a feeling all I'm going to hear is a community manager telling me how awesome the game will be and that I should really wait to see more information.

I will wait and see, but right now it looks as though I probably wont even buy the game.

Skyrim has 4 new spell effects, and I really doubt the spells for mysticism is removed, just moved to a different class
and the removal of 3 skills pry isn't that bad, acrobatics and athletics probably got combined, sneak and security most likely got combined, and mysticism is gone

They know what they are doing and though I might not agree 100% with some of the changes, in a simplified world without; birthsigns, attributes, or classes, it only seems fitting the trim some of the skills down. Now I'm not advocating making a polearm be in the same catagory as a battle axe, or a dagger in the same catagory as a mace, because IMO that about as silly as saying preofessional ice skating and Basketball are the same because they are both indoors. BUT enchanting is back, and in my opinion Skyrim is looking good. I am interested to see how perks will replace all forms of previous non-appearance related customization, and how this new combat system will feel. IF they manage to pull of true radiant AI and this new style of conversation and include everything else at the level they proffesed to in the GI articles well... This will be a game to remember for a long time, perhaps even the best ES ever made by FAR, but right now all we can do is take shots in the dark and mike blind threats at beth and each other, because really we still don't know anything about anything in skyrim.

First of all, the spells that were in mysticism (ala telekinesis) are most likely in the game, just in a different school.

Secondly, I wouldn't consider fewer skills a bad thing. For a few Reasons:

- Most likely, they simply combined redundant skills. (sneak and security, athletics and acrobatics, mercantile and speechcraft)

- Fewer skills means much more importance to every skill individually. Sure, there were more skills in Oblivion, but some of them were nearly useless. Persuasion could be leveled to 100 in under 20 minutes. Seriously, it was abused very much. And if you had enough money to bribe (which I always did) then it became useless anyway. Each skill will have much more to it in Skyrim. ( That is, I assume they will)

- Perks will make up for much of this. I understand people are very skeptical about them, but just wait and see. We'll probably have more specialized characters this time around, with so many of them.

-The new leveling system has a whole will take care of the problem of efficient leveling (tad bit off topic)

that's 85 spells hopefully better telekinesis is in there as well.

fewer skill means better, why?? because skills in oblivion were lame, I would rather have a skill with 100 possibilities than a skill with 4 perks

Most of what's been said to reassure about depth and specialization I agree with, but what's been forgotten is that the addition of the Dragon Shouts mean yet more abilities to choose from/

I believe Pete clarified it and said affects this was discussed on another topic

I think most people left those out because they seem kinda gimmicky >.>

Things that add depth when compared to Oblivion: ( confirmed only)
1. Perks, an entirely new layer of RPG. Boosts individuality and re-playability through the roof.
2. Can cut wood, cook, farm, mine, etc. Another new layer of RP
3. New expected max level of 50 with level scaling like FO3 instead of Oblivion's. Combined with perks every level...far more customization than Oblivion and FO3 combined.
4. Can mess with body appearance + more differences between the 10 races.
5. More deep/complex Combat. I'm sorry but this this counts as depth...no more spamming 1 button.
6. More rich and complex environments. (shadow, snow physics, water physics, etc.), including that Dungeons vary more.
7. Extremely deep AI that do cool/interesting stuff, with better faces, and new immersive speech.
8. More spell types + Spell combos through DW

Things that remove depth when compared to Oblivion.(confirmed only)
9. 3 less skills, (and even then skills like acrobat+athletics, barter+mercentile, and mysticistm+alteration probably just merged)



I'm sure you won't buy it :celebration:

We dont even know if in fact the abilities are gone, people just assume that
and you know what happens when you assume

It's been theorised that the skills been consolidated into more generic skills, and that perks are in the game to branch them out and flesh them out.

That would make a heck of a lot more sense than trying to cover everything with a skill. So Blade would branch off with perks for long blades, and perks for short. A combined Athletics and Acrobatics skill could have perks that benefit both seperately etc. That's one theory that's been floating around anyway, and I agree that this could possibly why they've done this.

And both Morrowind and Oblivion had several redundant skills. Some of them just had to go.

Couldn't have said it better myself.
If there is one thing I'm NOT worried about, it's the depth and complexity of the game.

Thu'um (which the Dragonshouts seem to be or be based on) are an integral part of Nordic and Imperial lore. Since they've been present outside of gameplay (like Dragons themselves) from the beginning, they don't seem so gimmicky to me.

Hopefully they got rid of hand to hand.

If not, hopefully they made it not svck so much.

they seem to assimilate alot of the successful ideas from FO3/NV which leads me to believe fist-weapons might be in for unarmed. Or atleast i'm personally hoping.

It would be nice.

Hand to hand just wasn't very viable in MW or OB. Sure you could use it, but you would get your ass kicked from here to Vivec. I personally hope they include kicking, or at least some unique unarmed moves.

I trust Bethesda. Whatever the case may be. I don't know exactly what they're doing by shortening the skill list but I'm sure they're doing it right. As long as it's still an Elder Scrolls experience where I have to use the skill to level it up, I don't mind. I hope that, since they combined some skills, it'll take longer for us to level up such skills. It didn't take long at all to level up most of the skills in oblivion except athletics...bleh...But it won't bother me either way.

At the moment, the main theory is that they're consolidating skills, but at the same time they're using perks to introduce more diversity in character builds. So, for example, you'll only have one skill for all one-handed weapons, but there would be perks that would give you more significant bonuses applying only to, say, swords, or only to axes. This is the system Obsidian used in Fallout New Vegas, and it worked well there. You could also compare it to the introduction of feats in D&D 3rd Edition.

Still, I'd like to hear some confirmation on this from Bethesda.

Oh, right, and I somehow missed your shot at consoles in there. Seriously. The console masses like depth, too.

Im happy.. but then for once they told us all the magic skills early on and its NICE.

And perks.. depending on how many there are and how fun they are I dont care if we have atributes. perks are alot funner then moving atributes up each level. And we dont know if we dont just have atributes via race and six.

Because the devs noticed that whatever they do,the community welcomes the changes -before Oblivion spears and crossbows were rubbish but now everybody seems to see them back- so they are going for the easy way for both themselves and potential gamers who cannot handle a complex game.In simple terms,long live the dollars...

Wow wow WOW, hold on right there, where do you guys got all that info from? Is that magazine people ware talking about out?

I will never understand people who think that bad design decisions sell more games.

Good marketing sells games. Bad design decisions don't hurt as much as they should, but they don't sell games. Stop pretending there's some mythical potential gamer who can't handle a complex game. He doesn't exist. It's all in your head.

When playing Oblivion, it was rare that I used Alchemy, Illusion, Alteration, and Mysticism. No offense to anyone but I could careless if those skills were not in the game. I know Alchemy isnt in it. Im the blade and bow and blunt type of guy. I like to charge into battle.

On a bit of a more positive note to add to that 50 is not the level cap. Todd said in the GI mag that you can level beyond 50 it would just be alot slower and that those higher levels are very much to be desired.

Honestly as long as they do it right it doesn't matter how many skills there are. It really depends on how it is done. With the perks it can be made in a way that has a lot of unique character customization. PS Sorry if this isn't on topic but weren't there 111 spell effects in Oblivion so didn't that also get a large ax to it.