When I say visual I mean animation wise. One of the things todd howard said before Skyrim's release was that magic in Oblivion felt very much like a stat sheet and it kind of took the magic out of magic. He was referring to the different spells more or less looked the same when from the weakest to strongest.

I mention what Todd Howard said because it partially touches on what I am proposing. I think that we should see the visual representation of our skills for now on. Even Skyrim has a stat sheet approach to a certain extent. When you swing a sword at level 1 it looks the same as swinging a sword at level 80.

So imagine this. If we are level 1 and have a fairly low one handed sword skill then our sword swinging animations will look very much look like an amateur when it comes to technique. So the enemy can easily anticipate your moves and either avoid you or block you(Imagine if the enemy laughs at you and taunt you because how weak you are). But as you start to progress your swinging gets more precise, you start to swing faster, you start to do more advanced and complex sword moves Until reaching the point of master swordsman.

This can work with other skills too. But first Bethesda would have to add a hell of a lot more animations. For example we should see our character whip out the mortar and pestle if in the field when trying to mix a potion together. So if we are bad at alchemy we could see that the potions start to react badly. Like the liquid may overflow the pot, or maybe erupt from the pot like a volcano, or if you do a really bad potion it could blow up the pot right in your face.

I can go on and on about the different skills with examples of visual representation, but I think by now you got the point. So the point is to actually see how bad we are in the beginning so we can see our characters grow. I think it would add so much more to the experience and so much more satisfaction as we get better.

I think there should be weapon/magic challenges that unlock new perks for you depending on what weapon you're using.

Kill 100 enemies with a sword: Your sword has a 5% chance of scoring a critical hit.
Kill 300 wolves with your dagger: Your dagger swings 5% faster.
Kill 500 enemies with poisoned arrows: Your arrows hold their poisoned status for 10 arrows instead of one.
And so on and further. Various challenges that increase the your capacity with weapons beyond simple perks and level. This way, you'll be clunkier with a war-hammer if you've been using a battle-axe, despite having the same skill level and whatnot. Think it would add a lot more variety and differentiation of character builds.

Fallout: New Vegas has something like this, and I'd like to see it integrated here.

These are both really good ideas and would be a welcome addition for me

i dig this idea a LOT, especially if it's something independent of the overall skill development. one thing i really liked about Oblivion was how you'd unlock new abilities automatically as you progressed through skill ranks, and i think something like that adapted to the general weapon specialization that the perk trees allow right now could be really really cool.

i love the idea of a more visual representation of your skill level and it's something i've been advocating since Oblivion, and actively trying to push since Fallout 3. it's one of the easiest and best ways to balance out PLAYER SKILL vs. CHARACTER SKILL without getting into things feeling unnecessarily abstracted -- when you tie it in THAT HEAVILY and have your skill level directly impact the tactile feedback of the controls it adds a ton to your ability to GET INTO THE ROLE and not feel compelled to just "compensate for the muzzle climb", so to speak.

i tend to take it one step further and suggest it as a FULL REPLACEMENT for a visible numerical system, so the numbers still exist and they're THERE but you never see them ever because it's entirely depicted through your ability to handle your weapon or whatever, but that's a niche idea that i don't expect people to get behind.