Every effect in alteration is possible without relying on other skills. And yes, some require a greater proficiency. How is this relevant to the usefulness and pacing of the pickpocketing skill? Pickpocketing does two things: take stuff from people and give stuff to people. In the former, it's only useful once you've nearly maxed pickpocketing. In the latter, it's reliant on alchemy. In both instances, it is reliant on stealth. This simply isn't true of alteration and that's why it's a poor comparison

Pickpocketing money isn't useful. This game throws so much money at you that it's irrelevant.

It would be nice to be able to move faster and jump higher as the game goes on. Although, I do like being able to move fast from the get go. The only thing that bugged me about these skills is if they were not Major or Minor, they leveled up so slowly, and if they were Major/Minor, my character leveled up just exploring. One thing I have noticed in this game, is there is not that much to jump up to. I have not missed the lack of jump height in this game.

I realize that your stuck in a box and will nitpick anything I say, so I give up. Have a nice life. Pickpocket is mega-fails forever, you win argument despite not winning argument. You can't kill people with paralyze, but your logic works just because of circulor logic. Because you know because you know.

On the speech and lockpicking, the topic is about forcing you not whether you think the skills are useless or not. Nobody forces you to tak to people, and nobody forces you to pick expert or master locks, you could just bypass them and go for the end-dungeon chest loot.

To me it looks like you are being purposefully daft.

You're certainly not forced to pick every lock or buy and sell every item in sight, or take perks in either skill so I don't really see the problem. Besides occasionally what a Guard might say, but that's fairly minor.

The trick to this game is to only put your perks into the skills you want your character to be really good at, the rest is just icing on the cake so to speak.

This.


This is exactly what's wrong with this game. Read what you just wrote. Why are we forced to level skills at all when the perks we place are going to determine the lion's share of our effectiveness with any given skill. If skill level is "just icing" I imagine that Bethesda is eyeballing it to cut for TES VI.


First off, the "you don't have to" argument is tired and a poor defense of any mechanic, and in this case, you pretty much DO have to. What idiot is going to forgo opening every chest he has the opportunity to get at? I appreciated in earlier games how there were at least several ways to get at this, such as open spells, but now we have one option. Second, why are you defending this? Your opinion on the matter is strangely absent from your post, but because you are defending this design decision, it would lead me to assume that you support it, however, you clearly identify where there are issues with the system as it is, so simply: why defend it?

Where is the objectivity? Why must people be so dogmatic in attacking or defending Skyrim? Some stuff in this game svcks, some stuff in this game rocks, can we please stop trying to argue that it is all black or white and just acknowledge that there is a bunch of both? Gah, it's infuriating.

It's more the fact that in a game all about choice forces you to level up skills that you wouldn't normally want ...yes you can get a follower to open a chest (and I've actually been doing that) but that means you have some person following you around all the time just so you can get the loot at the end of a dungeon, and even then most normal followers will only open adept level chests.
And yes i know about those hidden chests but looting them every week or w/e is completely cheating imo.
So why should i be forced to take a birth-sign that i don't really want just to open chests? when i could have the warrior stone and my combat ability would go up faster?

Anyway My topic was mainly aimed at Speech, you can't complete certain quests and i think I'm right that you can't enter Whitern without using speech? i want my Dovakiin to prefer dragons then people

I really miss acrobatics and athletics.

What they could do with a little thought: Is something similar to the vampire and werewolf trees.Make it separate so people who do not care for don't have it,but those that want it can unlock it some how. I don't mean just being able to do it as a werewolf or vampire though. I mean an hidden tree,so to speak.

One side of the tree for speed and one side for the jumping height.

Nobody is forcing you to pick those locks.

Which quests *require* Speech?

My higher level characers have 70+ in Speech and Lockpicking. I don't mind having the skill that high, I realize I use it. I also don't put any perks into it. What I don't like is that it's leveling my character. Without classes it doesn't matter that I what to be a warrior and put all my perks into armor and weapons, when I talk to people or pick a lock it levels me. One of the many issues I have with the classless leveling system. And now if I am expected to ever see an Ancient dragon I have to level skills my warrior would never actually use. Please tell me how brilliant that is.

I don't see how you're forced to level up speech or lockpick. They're "forced" the same way the game forces you to "defeat" enemies. IIRC speech and lockpick levels up the same way they do in Oblivion.

I roleplay so some of my characters do lockpicking and some don't. The ones who don't accept the consequences of their actions. They simply don't get quite as rich as my other characters. But, being the besically honest people that they are, it doesn't much matter to them.

Thank god... it doesn't force us to level up Athletics.

Back to topic.
No... it doesn't... just don't sell any items and don't pick locks. Instaed use pickpocket, go hunting, mininig, soultrap, smithing and craft your own gear.

Viele Weg führen mach Rom (German-translation: My roads leads towards Rome.)

I have to disagree about speech. It will go up regardless. Are you telling me not to speak to people or sell anything?

There should also be other ways to open locks,but they should have a down side.

A warrior type character,could force it open,but risk breaking his weapon or some things inside.

The "problem" must be that leveling up the skill contribute to leveling up the character.
Now this was an issue in Oblivion because of the rigid level scaling and the need for good attribute boost over time. Standard rule in Oblivion was not to use non combat skills you used all the time as major skills.
In Skyrim this is not an problem unless you role-play an pure thief or other non combat characters.

Yes you level up, you might get an extra level or two extra at level 50 because of the two skills, put some point into health and you get harder to kill.

Perks have no impact at all on your effectiveness unless you acquire them. You can't acquire them without improving your skills.

Forced is probably an accidental word choice. As you say, skills improve automatically as you use them. Some players would like more control over which skills improve with use and which ones don't.

If you become better at something, you gain some power, so I think that should impact your level.

I been 100 lockpicking long time ago. I love picking locks. Speech though lol I never relied on shop vendors, so my speech level is something like 17.

That wasn't even remotely close to my point, but I gotta be honest when I say I don't really care.

The leveling system in Skyrim has a lot of problems, it should have been given more time and work, but I guess we have to deal with it as it is. In regards to what the OP said, I am not terribly bothered that we end up leveling certain skills regardless of what class we play, I did much the same in Fallout with Lockpicking and Science. My biggest gripe with this game is that it has so many bugs. Everything else is just disappointing, but why, WHY all the bugs?

Be a mage, then you dont need loot.

A way to not use athletics in oblivion: Sneak all the time.
A way to not use acrobatics in oblivion: Don't jump a single time.

Just as smooth as never opening locks, which are extremely easy to pick with 0 skill, and never buying or selling anything.

Uh...no?

I wasn't nitpicking anything. I was describing the difference between pickpocketing and alteration. I also didn't say that there was anything wrong with the action of picking people's pockets. I was just advocating reorganization to improve pacing and roundedness. I also didn't say anything about every skill needing to kill people. I said it's best if a skill has both combat and non-combat applications---light sources and damage reduction are both in the alteration school, for example---because that allows the player to use that skill in a variety of situations. This is one of those things that improves pacing and doesn't require the player grind out skills that don't improve in sync with the rest of their character. And while pickpocketing does have combat applications, they rely heavily on other skills.

Using skills in tandem isn't a bad thing. stat interaction is a good thing. But it works better when they compliment each other rather than one making up for the deficiencies in the other. Sneak attacks, for instance. You can be just as capable a fighter without any stealth ability, but there are still benefits to pursuing that skill. When we are talking about pickpocketing, you rely too heavily on these other skills. Without sneak, without alchemy, these combat applications are worthless or impossible. That's not a good formula for a stand alone skill. It requires that every character using it also invest in these other skills to really get anything out of it. Skills designed in ways that force certain decisions are bad. They limit character possibilities.

I don't think you know what "circular" means. I think I've provided a pretty clear line of thought.

Or walking, or horse riding, or fast travel. There were plenty of ways to get around running in Oblivion and Skyrim if you really want to.

actually my thief/assassin, pretty much survived off pickpocketing and lockpicking for the first 20 lvls of her carreer. its all about playstyle and rpg flavor bro. sure i could have just delved dungeons and cleared crypts to make money like every other adventurer but that wasnt what i wanted for my character, i wanted a street smart cutpurse/burgler type character that thrived in urban settings. so basically what im saying is the system worked out great for that character and the seperation of the skill tree's fit the playstyle of that character perfectly and added alot more flavor to the world. to me, picking a lock, which requires the knowlege of complex mechanisms has nothing to do with a person's ablility to stealthily slip some coin out of someones pocket. as far as the speech skill goes, its kind of a no brainer to me, if you spend alot of time trying to bribe, pursuade, or intimidate people you will get better at it, similiarly if you spend alot of time buying and selling things eventually you will get better at buying and selling things, no reason to seperate the skill trees tho because fundementally you would be using the same conversational skills for either.

long story short, if you dont like lockpicking, pickpocket, or speech, then dont use them. i cant think of one quest outside of the thieves guild or assasin's brotherhood that requires you to have any skill at all in any of them.