Jail seems almost pointless to me, what do you think? : V

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:53 pm

In skyrim when you commit a crime and serve time in jail there is almost NO negative impact. Yeah, you're skills lose their progess to their next level, but how hard is that to make up for, really? Not very. How come your skills actually dont decrease by levels? That would be REAL incentive to avoid capture. You can basically do anything you want in skyrim and never have to pay a fine if you just serve 1 second in jail, with no other real negatives. If you kill say 10 people and have bounties on all of them (10000 bounty) and choose to serve time that should mean SEVERE losses to skills, since it was such a harsh sentence for such a harsh crime. What do you think?

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:14 am

Jail time isn't long either. I remember when I was brought to the judge in Daggerfall, I killed only a few people but got a sentence of over 400 days. That is pretty good in terms of game time.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:44 am

They took out the decreasing levels thing so that people can't do what they did in morrowind and oblivion: deliberately go to jail to decrease their skill levels and get past the level cap.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:47 am

They probably didn't want to allow for abusing the jail penalties to gain higher levels. Although a simple level cap would have prevented this but a lot of people would complain about that too.

I really can't think of anything they could do to properly penalize you.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:53 am

If you don't have the coin they should take it in items. Maybe make the items random or let you pick what ones you want to lose.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:55 am

Jail in Skyrim is pretty much useless now. Actually in previous games it wasn't a whole lot better.

Instead of just decreasing skills and things like that they should make it so that if you are sent to jail, say by Whiterun guards, you would be exciled from Whiterun for an amount of time. You wouldn't be allowed back until a certain time or you would be attacked on sight.

Make going to jail actually something you want to avoid at all costs, instead of just decreasing skills that you can easily get back up again.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:00 am

The reason they didn't make it so that you lose skill points is because of perks. If you take a 70 level perk and then that skill gets down to 69, how do they decide what happens? Does the perk become useless until you get it back to 70? Can you still use it even without the high level? It's simpler to make them go back, instead of down. Although there should be some sort of punishment involved with it. I just can't think of anything that would make it so you wouldn't have to redo the whole prison system.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:24 am

The only point of jail in Skyrim is exploiting Sibbi Black-Briar's defenselessness and power-level pickpocketing.

So that's one thing.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:16 am

Getting your stolen items taken away is kind of annoying, though

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:56 pm

the prison system SHOULD be revamped. that's the issue. if it's included then it should add something to the game. innovation and advancement.
now, the prison system, like other systems, has regressed and more useless.

if they can't come up with some ideas then scratch it. otherwise, like many things in this game, it's fluff.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:45 am

Stop people from leveling to 999. If it decreased a skill, they cud level up inifinite amount of times.

I think there should be two different types.

Roleplaying - You wait in jail, normally, for like 1 minute per 1000 septims of bounty you gained (1 minute irl). That would REALLY want people to stay outta jail, if they are forced to.

Normal - Perhaps you have to pay gold? Or, as mentioned before, become excilled

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:47 am

Mods will fix it. Lost health and stamina will make for a much better deterrent.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:24 am

Mods will fix it. Lost health and stamina will make for a much better deterrent.

This. Definitely seems plausible enough as a crime deterrent.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:58 am

Jail in Daggerfall was scary because you would potentially fail all of your quests as they were timed. Not to mention, the easiest way to get there was accidently clicking the rest button in town. I'm not sure why I'm talking about this in the past tense, I'm playing right now.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:44 pm

That would be REAL incentive to avoid capture.

It wasn't an incentive in Oblivion: in fact many people went into jail deliberately to exploit this.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:28 am

During that one quest in Markarth where they throw you into jail for a life time. You can choose to serve your sentence. That made no sence at all.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:15 am

it's simple, imo: get rid of the exploit and come up with, ya know, in-game punishments. community service, clean up, mining, exile, whatever.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:49 am

During that one quest in Markarth where they throw you into jail for a life time. You can choose to serve your sentence. That made no sence at all.

no you can't

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:05 am

Agreed. Daggerfall's punishment system was scary as hell, the way it should be. I also miss there being a punishment for loitering more than 3 hours; inns are pointless in Skyrim unless you either make that a rule for yourself or want the rested bonus. At least in Oblivion you had to sleep to level up, so it gave inns a point.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:26 am

They probably didn't want to allow for abusing the jail penalties to gain higher levels. Although a simple level cap would have prevented this but a lot of people would complain about that too. I really can't think of anything they could do to properly penalize you.

Loss of property and items would be a pretty harsh one, especially if you either couldn't get them back or had to break in to steal them back everytime it happend. Or a permentant damge to a skill, so you can once you hit your level cap on a specific skill, you still can never become a master. That would be a little excessive though.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:55 pm

I support the idea of having items being repossessed if you go to jail.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:20 pm

if you commit a crime that is worthy of a loss of property then just have another available property respawn later. can't sell/buy, exile for limited time durations.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:17 pm

Still haven't been caught for anything... wouldn't know.

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:45 am

Still haven't been caught for anything... wouldn't know.

speaking of which-- is there some way to know (like a bounty screen) when i did something illegal? is it illegal to pick ALL locks in towns, as a default?

» Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:38 am

I have yet to go to jail in skyrim