The game uses design to have a few square miles stand in for millions. I think they've done a good job this time, the weather changes and mountains let each hold have it's own vista and the 'detours' extend distance helping you to feel like you're actually travelling.

Oblivion it was bad enough that you could literally see cities that in lore are hundreds of miles away. Levitation and superman style jumping would make you feel like a fly buzzing around in a small box.

Skyrim is not a pocket kingdom/valley like Hyrule. It's a vast area the size of a large state.

..No, armor smiths don't have anything to do with locks.

I have to say good athletics was essential for ranged characters, but I never understood acrobatics. You never jump very high anyway unless you'd abuse alchemy and stuff.

I felt that pickpocketing and lockpicking skills are pretty redundant
And im kinda neutral on the acrobatics thing; for one i'd like to jump higher, however its a pain if you wanna "grind", and the random level ups are what i do not want

Combining athletics with acrobatics would be great, it only makes sense that running and jumping a lot will make you faster/better jumper. Also combining sneak with pickpocket as right now pickpocket is useless.

TLDR; You're way of playing a game is wrong. Think like me.

My own experience of athletics/acrobatics was that I could improve them just by running everywhere and constantly jumping like a fool. Now that they're gone, I sneak everywhere instead

Never had much use for the athletics & acrobatics, but I can see how some people would like them. I'd guess the athletics lets you jump further, and acrobatics lets you climb steeper, and wriggle through mobs better.

Athletics would have been worse in Skyrim because running around exploring would force you to constantly level up with that skill and there would be no way to turn it off.

Acrobatics is nice in theory. But if it involves jumping a lot to increase that then it feels silly. In Oblivion you had to bounce all over the place like a hopping madman just to improve it.

So they might be better as perks for some other skill. Maybe something like an explorer skill which could include athletics, acrobatics, horse-back fighting, fighting underwater, and other miscellaneous stuff useful for wilderness exploring.

Actually your post made me miss my acrobatic rolling dodges again. Skyrim does just fine without it but I do feel its a fun thing lost. On the other hand those acrobatic dodges give me another reason to play Oblivion again occasionally.

Its also something http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ut5jENqBX8 do often.

It is a fantasy game... Ever watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX6EHqcvqyo? (And in the Fellowship of the Ring, Legolas walks across fallen snowdrifts with no footprints). Just the thing a fantasy acrobat might do... no?

Then you didn't understand the anology. If the chemist is also a gymnast, then he'd have levels in fitness and perks on the acrobatics side of the tree, and the chessmaster who runs marathons will have levels in athletics and perks on the athletics side of the tree. My point is, if you take two people who have never run a marathon in their lives, one of whom is an olympic gymnast and the other is a scientist (the closest real-world anolog to a mage: someone who has dedicated their lives to an intellectual pursuit) the gymnast will win because the gymnast is more fit. In the proposed system, this is done by the gymnast having a higher "fitness" skill than the scientist, even though they have the same number of perks selected from the "athletics" side of the perk tree.

But a championship fencer will wield a mace better than a guy whose never held a weapon in his life, if for no other reason than because his arm is stronger. I do wish the perks for the different weapon types would matter more, but the idea that they all fall under one basic skill does make sense under the new system.

In OB athletics and acrobatics were simply overdone.


But in skyrim we have 'thrown the baby out with the bathwater'

All the attributes are gone, and now I feel like moving my sly khajiit archer in light armor is not much different than moving my tank orc in heavy.


Just because it was overdone in OB doesn't mean it couldn't have been done right in skyrim. The real shame is they didn't even try.

We don't need lockpicking. Why do we have it in? So that we can pretend to be a skillful sneak thief breaking into to things. For fun. That is the same reason many of us want atheletics, so that we can pretend to more agile, faster, better jumpers and climbers (I wish) than the other "people" in Skyrim.

My point was about acrobatics, and that it should not be merged with athletics ~just for the reason that you then make all athletes acrobats. Acrobatics is a trade skill discipline while athletics is about keeping fit.

So do I ; but why would you think so (of a fencer)? A fencing foil weighs about ½ a pound, while a mace weighs more like 5 pounds and is very top heavy. A foil has all the weight just below the hilt. (Point being that these skills are unrelated aside from being one-handed).

*Attacks with these weapons are completely disimilar; much like Acrobatics and Athletics... Athletics are about building stamina where Acrobatics are about building control (over movement). A bit of athletics does come from practicing acrobatics, but not so often is true of the reverse; and I would guess that most acrobats could not keep up with a marathon runner long term.

** An RPG'ish example would be dwarves on a forced march, marching for hours without rest, being very athletic, but that doesn't teach them back-handsprings or proper tumbling technique; or necessarily ensure they have any aptitude but the stamina for it.

Why was it over-done? Certainly the like should never apear in a Fallout game by them, but Oblivion is a medieval fantasy setting, where high skill can (IMO should) lead to extrodinary ability.

Acrobatics is awesome in Skyrim. Now we just need to mod in fall damage resistance.

You could easily combine sneak, lockpicking, speechcraft and pickpocketing into one tree. The main purpose to any of those is many back end dealings.

I miss running faster and jumping higher in oblivion. They could make it less moon jumpy if they didn't svck...

Yes we do.

I'm fine with their removal, however I would of preferred a skill-less general perk tree that contained all of what acrobatics/athletics offered and more cool features; and only required you to go through the tree to unlock the perk benefits.

I leveled up acrobatics in Oblivion just so I could do the blocking backflip. Holy cow did that take a long time - pretty much just running up the stairs in Bruma and then jumping off.

NO NO NO

why do you want to reduce number of skills, are you .... intellectualy challenged or something... cant count past 3.... so you want 3 skills

and no blacksmith dont make lock, you confound with locksmith, totally different, verry specialized

acrobatics could be interesting, but it need to be done cleverly. not just a silly easilly abusable jump height multiplier

in any case I can do mountain climbing in skyrim, so I m happy

lol

I don't mind the idea of an acrobatics/athletics skill, but it would need a major overhaul. If we can roll while sneaking, why can't we duck or roll out of the way to dodge an attack? Or climb some shelves or a jagged wall in a cave? If I were to implement them, they'd be merged into one skill, and deal with actual acrobatics, not just letting you jump cartoonishly high.

Arrr, acrobatics be lore friendly landlubbers, arrr. Be a sad day when I's cant jump over me enemies, arrrr.

I want acrobatics it was good with my thieves and acrobats, and any stealth based character.