I've just been thinking about the skills and all... and I concluded that "Perception" might work as a new TES attribute.

This is what we have now:

STR:  Blade       Blunt         Hand to Hand END:  Armorer     Block         Heavy Armor SPD:  Athletics   Acrobatics    Light Armor AGI:  Security    Sneak         Marksman PER:  Mercantile  Speechcraft   Illusion INT:  Alchemy     Conjuration   Mysticism WIL:  Alteration  Destruction   Restoration LUK

Perception could be used to do the following:

Highlight items in the grass/snow/swamp- shader effect at very close range only (~10 ft)

Make certain distinctions between enemies more apparent- this goes along with my persistant call for diversity within a single spawn type. So there can be multiple rats, boars, wolves, land dreughs, etc. And some types would have unique markings and such that warn you. Thing is, low perception, they blend away highly, high perception, they blend less. You can probably implement this as a simple alpha blend based directly on perception, meaning there's no yesterday/today effect, but rather that ANY TIME perception is raised (even through fortify), you receive immediate benefits from as little as one point.

Allow for increased assessment of enemies (not the same as above)- the higher your perception, the more details about an enemy you can discern, both in combat and when considering combat. All it takes is centering focus on the target, and it shows what you know. All "hard numbers" are shown with a +/- until your perception is high enough to be certain. At low perception (20), HP might be +/- 50 for an NPC. AT 50, it would be more like +/- 5...

Make hidden doors more (or less) apparent based on one's perception: again, shader/blending magic. The trap door is ALWAYS visible, mind you. it's just that at low perception, the cracks in the wood on it are much less visible, emulating what the character notices. With good eyes, you never NEED perception, you'll just notice that you probably WANT it.

Control the range at which you can "see" map marker locations- figure Oblivion's range to be like Perception 125 or so, and Perception 1 means you're close enough to the marker to activate it. Linear scale. This is what shows up on the oft-hated magic compass. Hey, it feels natural enough in FO3 for me...

Help you detect enemies. Same as above, but with MUCH lower range.


I would propose this rearrangement (PER is now Perception, while Personality is CHA for brevity, as it functions the same as Charisma)

STR: Long Blade    Blunt         Spear END: Athletics     Block         Heavy Armor SPD: H2H           Short Blade   Light Armor AGI: Security      Sneak         Acrobatics  PER: Armorer       Marksman      Alchemy CHA: Mercantile    Speechcraft   Illusion INT: Enchant       Conjuration   Mysticism WIL: Alteration    Destruction   Restoration LUK

An explanation of my choices:

1. Armorer -> Perception: repairing armor is about attention to detail, noticing the little problems and fixing them. It has no real relationship to endurance, considering the worst you endure is a few hot, sweaty hours.
2. Marksman -> Perception: Agility doesn't make sense if perception is available. How much I can twist, contort, bend, or otherwise make all the little sudden movements... doesn't affect how well I can shoot an arrow. Especially from long-range. How well I can pick my target, feel the wind, and so forth? That matters heavily. So... Perception.
3. Alchemy: Considering how Alchemy works in The Infernal City, it just seems like intelligence is helpful, but not governing. Whereas perception might be useful in discovering the benefits, removing impurities, etc.
4. Acrobatics: not terribly SPEED related, it's more of the epitome of Agility.
5. Athletics: count up everything that is "Athletic", and far more of their success is about endurance than raw speed. Tour de France vs. 100m dash.
6. H2H: while strength matters for damage purposes, you gotta "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". Faster guy has a better chance of evading hits and delivering his own.

The new skills are simply the ones I felt most viable for the slots available or transferable, and the ones that gave the most diversity. Short Blade is stealth, Spear comabt, and Enchant Magic, rebalancing the specialties.

Your thoughts/suggestions for what Perception in TES could look like?

In might help in trap detection or maybe detecting invisible creatures?

i sound like a broken record.

dark messiah had detect traps feature which was really nice. if you stood still for a few seconds traps and hidden doors woudl be highlighted. this simulated taking a look around very nicely. if you run and gun youll miss stuff cause it didint work while you were moving so it encouraged you to examine your environment.

I certainly wouldn't argue against anything that would make character creation a more thought-intensive process. The more stats their are, the more specialized characters become.

I really like the new attribute.

STR: Long Blade    Blunt          Spear              Great AxeEND: Athletics     Block          Riding             ClimbingSPD: H2H           Short Blade    Misc Weapons (1)   DodgeAGI: Security      Sneak          Acrobatics         Armor (2)PER: Armorer       Marksman       Alchemy            TrappingCHA: Mercantile    Guile(3)       Flattery(4)        IllusionINT: Enchant (5)   Conjuration    Alteration (6)     MedicalWIL: Destruction   Restoration    Mysticism          Torporism (7)LUK

This is my own take on skills. This is also a result of peeking at many different idea threads. I am terrible with names, if the idea is yours claim it.
OB lacked in varieties for each attribute, so here are 4 per.

1) Shades covered it best, it includes the use and throwing of small arms including hatchets, daggers, rocks, stars, etc...
2) I think a general Armor skill, that decides how quickly and how effectively one adapts to using armors of any kind. As is armor should have a much more noticeable movement effect such as increased staggering and additional momentum. I don't think it will go away forever. Yes, I have changed camps.
3) Streetwise to an effect and covers lying, bluffing, and any use of general wit.
4) The brown noser skill
5) Someone else suggested this become Sorcery; with spellmaking, enchanting, and channeling (momentary enchanting via Magicka)
6) True Alteration with Thaugumatry and spells of the like that include re-forming of matter: Water Walking, Swift Swimming, Water Breathing, That iron ore is now an impromptu sword, Mind manipulating Matter.
7) Toporism (Thesaurus: Inertia-ism) for the telekenesis spell and the old alteration spells of: Shield, Levitate, Slowfall, Jump, Burden, Feather, Open, Lock. Mind over Matter.

3) Awesome reference to Daggerfall and use of skill.
4)lolz
6) Another Daggerfall skill (Thaugumatry) I'd like to see used.

In theory, this could work. What if it was a skill somehow?

I'm not opposed to a new attribute, but I think it needs a different lineup of skills. The first skill that comes to mind when I think perception in a TES game would be Security or Lockpicking (whatever it's called these days).

:rock:
3 - I'd still call it Streetwise for old time's sake, but I like what you said.
5 - Good call, I like it.
6 - I think it would work well enough to split off into Thaumaturgy and Daedric (replacing conjuration) to get a stronger definition on what the skill deals with.
7 - Excellent. That would be a great skill to add. I'll put it on my skill sheet too if you don't mind.

Well, that was considered. Heck, if I didn't make "keeping things in balance" one of my personal requirements, I could probably do it. The main thing is I was left to choose what required less "agility": bows, lockpicking, or sneak.

Given that the definition of agility is given (in part) as "quick, nimble", I chose to remove Marksman. In gameplay terms, almost all of the "true thief" skills ought to benefit from a perception score. Lockpicking, for example, as you stated, or Sneak (detection-side, anyway).

Actually, that gives me another reason I like this: detection of sneaks by NPCs is not a function of their Sneak, but of their perception! Nice.

Of course, you're welcome to propose your own personal line-up. This is just "the best" I could manage while keeping attributes and specializations both in balance. (One of the reasons I took a poll on specializations was to see if people even care... they do)

Never actually got past the controls of DF. I'll probably give it another shot but until then they would be great to see in the next game.


As an attribute it could work like the friendly / enemy detector from FO3. No red and green magic compass tickers, but a line of sight thing.
Possibly also influencing how damaged the armor seems, how hard locks seem to be pick, how well you detect being detected (sneak), use in forgery?


Trapping was just fodder. It could be combined with Armorer into Crafting. [edit] And if need be Crafting and Medical could be switched.
6) Sweet
7) Its open game.

If you think about it, Perception can be used in various ways. I dont think it works well in an TES game though. Magic is your main element for what would be Perception. You would use Alteration magic to unlock things, teleport objects, so on and so forth. Plus with the Bow idea, I would think that would be manditory as your skill level increase with it. Good idea, but I dont think it will apply to the game very well.

I think Perception is lumped in with Agility.

I like the idea of having perception as an attribute but i would add the ability to notice things. For example if you are entering a cave the game would inform (Or if there are voicesets like in some RPGs your character would say) "You smell a scent of goblin sweat", like in Daggerfall. With lower perception this would only be "You sense a disgusting smell" . Also you could examine different objects. It could also combine other attributes Fe. If you have 70 intelligence and 70 perception, you could maybe translate dwemer( dwarven for Oblivioners) inscription in a dwemer jar to cyrodilic. :tops:

Things to add,change?

-Empiria-

I think it is a good idea and personally I am all for more advanced and compex character development but I am afraid that this is not the direction that Bethesda and several other developers are taking these days. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if TES V is a more dumbed down game and Agility and Speed are merged into Dexterity, Endurance and Strength are combined into Stamina, and Intelligence, Luck, and Personality are all merged into Charisma. And the same logic also applies to all the skills in the game. I suppose you get the idea.

Finally starting to cool off from work (they baked me today). Let's make a valiant effort at being insightful, witty, and coherent. I might even manage one of the above!

Shades wants Security as Perception as well. Unfortunately, I can't manage that yet.

MadCat: I don't think it could work as a skill, because then it would be dependent on an attribute and displace an existing skill. New ATTR = new Skill. New skill = good.

BloodyKilla: I disagree, actually. I think Perception would work out as a wonderful addition to TES. In Oblivion, certain characters were given 100 Sneak skill to DETECT the player. Not because Mankar Caramon was himself "sneaky", but because he was perceptive. Adding it as an attribute just allows so many more directions that they CAN go in, and a governing attribute they have experience with

Empiria: I think it worked better in Daggerfall than it would now. Unless you added a sort of "familiar" that was optional and would actually SAY them. My characters tend NOT to sound like Bethesda characters. They tend to sound more like "Insane voice #17", or "Dark Knight from chapter 4" to me. On the other hand, I'm all for basing skills on multiple attributes and assigning them to the highest factor, and for having "abilities you can learn" at various stat levels. Just not a fan of "Hey! One more INT and I can read Aldmeri!". More a fan of "If you find the NPC in the place you have no reason to be near, AND you've got the attributes, AND you have the cash, prestige, or whatever needed, you can learn." Essentially making learning obscurica difficult, but useful enough to be a rewarding experience.

Now I can resume attempting to "fix" matters for Shades...

Time to follow olfy's lead a bit and cheat

To do that, I need 8 additional skills, and a new specialization. Or 24 more skills.
How can I manage that?

I'm defining a new class: tinker, which is entirely composed of "Tradesman" skills. Any other "Tradesman" class will focus on a relatively small subset of the specialized skills compared to Magic, Stealth, and especially combat. Why? Because I might manage if I do this. Why am I going all this way to appease Shades? Because of the sig....

STR: Long Blade(C)    Blunt(C)         Spear(C) END: Athletics(C)     Block(C)         Heavy Armor(C) SPD: H2H(C)           Short Blade(S)   Light Armor(S) AGI: Security(S)      Sneak(S)         Acrobatics(S)  PER: Armorer(T)       Marksman(T)      Alchemy(T) CHA: Mercantile(T)    Speechcraft(S)   Illusion(M) INT: Enchant(M)       Conjuration(M)   Mysticism(M) WIL: Alteration(M)    Destruction(M)   Restoration(M) LUK

Initial assignments made 7 combat, 6 stealth, 7 magic, and 4 trade skills. Hypothetically, I could assume you'd go to see an enchanter in a shop... but it's not a high-demand business, unlike alchemy, where potions are affordable and useful in day-to-day life. Let's see what else I can swing, then...

(short explanation: Marksman = hunter, Armorer = duh, Mercantile = Merchant, Alchemy = only semi-magical skill that seems like a day job)

STR: Long Blade(C)    Blunt(C)         Spear(C)        Axe(C)END: Athletics(T)     Block(C)         Heavy Armor(C) SPD: H2H(T)           Short Blade(S)   Light Armor(S) AGI: Climbing(S)      Sneak(S)         Acrobatics(S)   Staves(S)PER: Armorer(T)       Marksman(T)      Alchemy(T)      Security(S)CHA: Mercantile(T)    Speechcraft(S)   Illusion(M)     Performance(T)INT: Enchant(M)       Mysticism(M)     Restoration(M)WIL: Alteration(M)    Elementalism(M)  Thaumaturgy(M)  Conjuration(M)LUK

First, Stealth gets Climbing back from Daggerfall, because it would be cool and the technology exists to do it well (just not in the current Bethesda engine). Next, I was going to bring back Axe, but decided I'd rather have a quarterstaff skill. Then I decided I want both. Axe is assigned to combat, and Staves to Magic (=no actual good reason, but the mage + staff stereotype exists.). That put me at 8,7,8,4. Need 5 skills, and most need to be "trade" skills. Ouch. Reassigning H2H to trade under the "Prize Fighter" justification helps. Opening new spaces in Combat is definitely helpful, since I can fill those in more ways. Likewise, Athletics as a dubious connection to actual combat, but is clearly a courier's best friend. That also helps (6/7/8/6). Conjuration moves to Willpower (because I can do more with Intelligence than WIL) Add a "Performance" skill that removes the performance/crowd aspects from Speechcraft and makes that skill dominate personal relations only (CHA). I now need 4 skills: 2 combat, 1 stealth, 1 trade, 2 INT, 1 SPD, 1 END. This isn't working, so we switch Staves to Stealth (Robin Hood, anyone?), giving us 4 skills, evenly split, with the same attrib issues. In following the latest trend, I rearrange an entire school of magic. Destruction is forked between Elementalism and what I'll use as "Thaumaturgy", given that the word is quite flexible. Thaumaturgy in this instance is "manipulation of living things in a generally negative way". This inherits Absorb effects and drain/damage effects, as well as weakness effects. Yes, this leaves elementalism as effectively "elemental damage" and moves damage weapon/armor to Alteration. The counterbalance is that I'd move certain effects to Elementalism: Slowfall, Water Walking, and Water Breathing, for example. Restoration moves to Intelligence.


Hopefully, that can be followed and understood. I now need 2 combat, 1 trade, and 1 END, SPD, INT. The obvious result is INT = T, END, SPD = C. Trade Alchemy back to Int, even though PER should play a role, introduce "Cartography" as PER. Cartography is a fairly passive skill, in that all it takes is for you to have the necessary equipment and not run outside combat. The higher your skill, the more detail and wider radius you can map at a time. It's been discussed before. Speed... I think of that as absolute swiftness. We'll bring back Medium Armor here: It's not really the most necessary skill, but it fits, at least. That leaves me with an endurance problem. Well, I'm going to break tradition here and make some weapons dependent on two skills. Ultra-heavy weapons now only draw partially on the main school. I'm adding a heavy weapons skill that governs the use of the heaviest swords, hammers, and axes. This dual dependency makes these massive damage dealers more difficult to master and use, accurately reflecting the nature of the weapons. Done.

STR: Long Blade(C)    Blunt(C)         Spear(C)        Axe(C)END: Athletics(T)     Block(C)         Heavy Armor(C)  Heavy Weapons(C)SPD: H2H(T)           Short Blade(S)   Light Armor(S)  Medium Armor(C)AGI: Climbing(S)      Sneak(S)         Acrobatics(S)   Staves(S)PER: Armorer(T)       Marksman(T)      Cartography(T)  Security(S)CHA: Mercantile(T)    Speechcraft(S)   Illusion(M)     Performance(T)INT: Enchant(M)       Mysticism(M)     Restoration(M)  Alchemy(T)WIL: Alteration(M)    Elementalism(M)  Thaumaturgy(M)  Conjuration(M)LUK

This is why I personally HATE specializations. I could come up with something much less insane without the need to balance those. Or if someone came up with a good alternative specialization. I realize that my skill tree here probably svcks compared to my original, but I thought about that one longer (and this was a 2 hour post)

If they ever implement my idea for attribute advancement you wouldn't have to worry about attribute balance.

The idea is actually very simple. You know how at present if you use a skill you gain skill exp and when you gain enough exp your skil lgoes up by 1? They can simply extend that to attributes as well. So when you use a skill you gain both skill exp and attribute exp for the governing attribute (or attributes - in case they go for multiple governing attributes per skill). And when you gathered enough attribute exp you attribute goes up by 1.

One beauty of this system is that it makes all attributes equally easy/hard to raise. If you fight with a sword or an axe or switch between the two it doesn't matter as far as improving your Strength is concerned. All three ways give you an equal increase in Strength so maintaining an equal number of skills per attributes becomes a matter of OCD rather than actual game balance.

It would also put an end to the quest for 5x multipliers and allow you to keep on increasing an attribute even after the skill you're using are maxed. Like if the only Willpower skill you're using is Restoration you could keep on improving your Willpower by casting healing spells even after mastered Restoration (casting spells would no longer increase your skill, but you'd still be getting attribute exp for Willpower).

Edit: And to actually stay on topic I don't really see much need to include a Perception attribute in TES considering the way TES games are right now. Perception is really more something that you'd use for skill checks and I don't see any skill cheks in Oblivion.

I think that TES series can replace Luck attribute with another one like: Perception, Sight or Insight.

The attribute "Luck" is the remaining side-effect of TES series initial exploration into AD&D games and deciding to use some aspects of the series like the old AD&D, but it has evolved into just an unrecognizable buff of all the skills.

What was the last time that you had thought: "Aha, this is *luck* in effect!", or what was the time that you were gratified after increasing your luck attribute?

This is such an unbalanced, and non-gratifying attribute that I don't think replacing it with another more visible attribute like "Sight", or "Perception" would not only have no negative effect, but would create new opportunities for character and skill development.

So please Bethesda, replace Luck with Sight.

Quite useful for actions like, archery, parry, dodge, trap detection, and so on...

Conjuration is much more than relations with Daedra or Oblivion, however Daedra (who generally like interfering on Mundas; it amuses them) are the easiest things to summon. Lore wise, everything from water to thoughts are summoned by masters of conjuration, and I believe there is one reference to somebody conjuring an iron axe, but don't quote me on that.

In Oblivion, Conjuration had three types of spells. Bound Item, Summon Creature, and Turn Undead. Put Turn Undead over to the Thaumaturgy skill set. Morrowind had the same skill effects with the addition of Command Creature or Humanoid. Those effects would go under Dominate in my skill set, and under Illusion in someone else's.

You could summon bears and undead before with conjuration, and that's goofy. People with an Outdoorsman skill should be able to get the wild animals to help them out. Necromancers in the game should have to build their undead (if they want some at ready notice) and place a Mark upon them. Cast recall after that and your skeleton teleports to you. Personal teleportation is handled with Anchor/Teleport.

My own skill set uses Knowledge and Survival in addition to the original three, but really, I don't see any need for them to matter in-game. I just use them for categorization and such while working on my own suggestions.

Who can say whether or not they would add something like that. Some may be skeptical, but you made some nice thoughts to go along with the idea. It all comes down to what the Devs deem neccesary however.

That's not a bad system, really. Bust out the spreadsheet and start thinking numbers. Even if you don't do it, someone should try that as a mod.
Perception as I described it would actually be "checked" quite a bit, but never for a yes/no answer. It would invariably take effect as a "strength of effect" idea. For example, take two creatures that are similar, but one has orange stripes. Those are always present (second texture), but they blend in better when the PC has a perception of 20 than they would at 22. Not much difference, but enough that it exists. The higher the perception skill, the less transparency used. Likewise, trapdoors can be "hidden" by blending.
It's really fairly simple: transparency level of the "cover/detail" texture is 1.0 - (Perception/100). Every single point of perception skews the blending towards making these aspects stick out more. (Dust covering a trapdoor, or seams in the wall). See? no specific skill check. Just a constant blend can do most of the "damage" for you.



I actually have a different idea for Luck, I'm just trying to decide whether to mod Oblivion to showcase the idea or not. It would dramatically change the way the game plays, according to a casual gamer co-worker. (Just assume for a second that my idea is that Luck is never gained from levels and starts at 0, which in TES mechanics means you'd be starting in the hole)



I'm making my attempt to act in a manner that is consistant with what I expect out of Bethesda. Everything's got to be balanced for me to be happy. I just don't hold anyone else to that standard. Like I said, I'm not a big fan of the specializations concept, although the non-vocal majority of the forum disagrees. Got a link to your Knowledge/Survival skillsets?



I think there's a bit more to it than what the Devs feel is necessary. There are a lot of factors in play: does it add something concrete to the gameplay? Is the idea something that can ultimately be dealt with quantitatively? Are the mechanics intuitive? Does the idea require complex controls? Is it compatible with the lore and general direction of the Elder Scrolls narrative (which is generally non-specific)? Does it require budget allocations to content most users will never see? All those constraints need to be met for the devs to even consider giving the idea serious consideration. I hope I've managed to meet THAT requirement.

All I can do is try to create a bit of a pro-Perception mood here and hope that when the wider audience has "no real opinion" on matters, that the devs take the forums a bit more strongly than normal. Otherwise, we're quite certain they follow the largest demographics on most matters. And I'm pretty sure "Perception" outside of the game is pretty hard to explain to a casual fan...

No link, but I can just post them. Admittedly, I do the same; even if the specializations themselves aren't something I'd use, they all still have to have the same number of skills or I'll go crazy.

KNOWLEDGE
Alchemy: (Identification, Brewing, Extraction)
Mercantile: (Appraisal, Economics, Haggling)
Speechcraft: (Language, Culture, Information)
Cartography: (Geography, Mapping, Passage)
Crafting: (Forging, Stitching, Carpentry)
Lore: (Magical, Legendary, Bestiary)
Guidance: (Strategy, Training, Leadership)
Divination: (Astrology, Deduction, Prediction)
Thaumaturgy: (Favor, Prayer, Smiting)

SURVIVAL
Maintenance: (Organic, Metal, Unusual)
Tracking: (Prints, Scent, Disturbance)
Conditioning: (Swimming, Running, Riding)
First Aid: (Medicine, Bandaging, Immunity)
Harvesting: (Skinning, Mining, Growing)
Evasion: (Armored, Dodge, Tumbling)
Nature: (Blend, Call, Bond)
Throwing: (Javelin, Projectile, Bolas)
Creativity: (Art, Music, Writing)