Ok, I am going to ask a simple question.

Why do we need acrobatics in Skyrim?

In oblivion all it really did was make you jump higher. I really don't understand why people want it in there. It seems like such a wast of time.....

Also, people want pickpocketing to be combined with something else? WHY? Lock picking is a MANGER skill in Skyrim. Even if your not doing thievery, there are always locked cheats in caves and the like, so your always using it.

Skills ideas that MAKE SENSE:

Combining Sneak and Pickpocketing. This makes seance due to pickpocketing requiring you to be sneaking when doing it.

Combining Lockpicking and Smithing. Smithis make locks, so they would know how to pick them. To balance things out, you reduce the amount of Smithing XP you get by half when smithing and lock picking.

I want acrobatics so my Khajiit can jump over buildings like he did in Morrowind.

Nuff said.

I don't find it a waste of time.

Just because you do doesnt mean people shouldn't make mods for it. Threads like this are useless. If you don't want to use something someone makes, don't download it.

???

Lets not say "we" alright? lol because I would like Acrobatics back, I already "attempt" to climb mountain sides by spamming jump, and exploiting surfaces. it'd make my life alot easier simply jumping across them.

but i agree In putting Sneak and Pickpocketing into one tree. called subturfuge. Either you work on killing people or taking their stuff and getting away.


I'd also combine Enchanting and Smithing so you either pick, I dabble in improving equipment with the Arcane or with Fire and hammer.

I like the idea of something like an acrobatics skill, or physical strength/endurance that builds over time like all the other skills. Being encouraged to build it by bunnyhopping everywhere though is just stupid. The best solution to that that I can think of is to make physical activity actually tire your character, so that you'd be handicapping your combat skills if you ran around jumping all the time. Maybe have another stat similar to stamina, but with a very slow or nonexistent regen rate, basically making it so that you need a rest after really exerting yourself if you want to be at 100% for your next fight. Couple that with a needs mod that increases your calorie consumption based on your level of activity, and you'll have to plan a bit if you want to powerlevel your physique (i.e. roleplay a bodybuilder.)

These are mods. People can add it if they want.

In Oblivion it allowed you to jump, higher, but in Skyrim it could do much more. I like the idea of putting sneak and pickpocket together (they both after all simply affect if you're seen or not) and that would free up a skill/perk tree for an acrobatics like skill. Perhaps it could include evasive jumping, or rolling, perhaps even climbing.

It feels less like a TES game if I am not jumping all the time. (Like, for a reason.) I have actually been missing this in Skyrim.

Acrobatics wasn't as simple as jumping, though. It was part of the balance of skills goverened by and determining your ability to increase stats. Those missing stats are the real problem.

Acrobatics also decreased the fall damage you take, leading me to die several times in Skyrim because in Oblivion, that jump would have been nothing for a character my level. Though all the Portal and Portal 2 I played earlier this year probably contributed just as much.

I don't see anything wrong with modders adding back stuff Bethesda took out in their infinite wisdom (cough). Having a varied and rich character and skill development system like Morrowind did, would be nothing but a plus for Skyrim.

I'd like to combine Pickpocket and Sneak, and create a new tree all for Monk stuff, like acrobatics and unarmed combat.

I mostly wish the JumpingBonus actor value actually did something. I'm fine with no Acrobatics skill, but it's just not TES without Tinur's Hoptoad, and Khajiit should be naturally able to jump higher (and fall farther, but I think that might already be possible -- they did it for Heavy Armor, anyway).

Acrobatics would be a nice skill tree to have, stealing a few perks from Light armor (dodging and stamina boost) and adding many. Sprint distance, Stamina consumption overall, Stamina regen, Jump height, Sprinting jump, Movement speed, and unarmed attacks.

Call it the fitness tree rather than the Acrobatics tree, whatever. The skills could TOTALLY be there.

And I assume/hope/pray YOU will be making these mods, right?

We dont need a "More Complex Needs" mod,
We need a "Needs" mod in general...lol And I think I know who would be perfect for this! hah

And incorportating physical fitness into these needs would be just...Awsome...Especially if those fitness needs meant climbing/scaling mountainsides easier!

P.S. OP, pointless as the topic is (because you saying whats needed and whats not is really going to change anyones mind on the matter right...? lol), alot of times these pointless topics lead to some pretty good ideas! So I guess thats one good thing about hater-ish topics by the Anti-Acrobat Brigade...lol

A while back I started a thread on "attrition", that I think can help solve the problem of, among others, jumping everywhere or other "abuses" to raise skills. As Imp said, making it tire your character (or as in my thread, reducing the max stamina, health, and mana - H/M/S fatigue - as the character grows more hurt and tired) might make the player think twice about jumping everywhere (or even power-leveling smithing) when that means less over-all stamina for the next fight. Spamming spells to level skill might not be such a good idea when your mage wont have as much max mana throughout the day. Got hurt in a fight? Choose between healing with a spell (cost:mana fatigue) or downing a potion (cost: item).

The OP has a valid point but Beth has never had a stellar record with skill usefulness or balance. I mean they sought to replace the "tediousness" of repairing (click 1 thing) and replaced it with the "streamlined" (and "balance") of smithing (carry ores, smelt, make, improve, in 6 workstations)

@Norbingel
I do like your idea about "attrition", and would add alot of (perhaps a bit too much for me, lol) balance to the game, but one thing about the argument about spamming jump, or smithing daggers, is that...Its 100% their choice to spam those skills! All that says is that they do not have the will power to control how they play the game...

If they dont want their game to become unbalanced because of spamming smithing, or spamming jump, then simply DONT DO IT...The only one they can blame for their acrobat skill being at 100 while all others are at 50 is themselves..Its not Beths fault (lol, this is a rare thing for me to say...) you cant control your own thumb slapping against the spacebar...

Anyways just my opinion....I am for a tree (I could care less if its called "Acrobatics") that as stated above, will make mountain climbing easier w/o a horse, sprinting farther, weapon swing faster (Dont think this has been really adressed for this "fitness" type skill but I wish my enchanted mace would swing faster since elemental whatever doesnt work on enchanted weapons...) and jump higher. And I wouldnt be opposed to penalties being applied to overuse of it, but it should be made solely for balance, not for people with no self control...

Also, I agree with you that Beth has definately made some pretty poor decisions reguarding "Tediousness" and "Streamlining", and I really hope the awsome community does somthing to rectify these...."choices"...To put it lightly...lol

Just my 2 cents

I think that would be a really good way to handle it. I started planning out a system a while ago for tracking this sort of thing, kind of a more intricate version of the TES stamina system. Every activity in the game would be assigned a power output, based more or less on real world numbers (watts I guess.) Running would consume so many watts, as would swinging a sword or drawing a bow, or jumping. There would then be two energy bars, one for long term stamina and the other for short term power (relating to slow and fast twitch muscle fibers, respectively.) An activity would draw from one or the other of these bars depending on how strenuous it is. The stamina bar would take a long time to deplete (like an hour) but would also take a very long time to regenerate, possibly requiring sleep to get all the way full again. The power bar would both deplete and regenerate much more quickly, on the order of a minute or less. As your character became more fit, the width of the bars would increase, allowing your character to perform actions more times before getting tired. But the threshold values used to distinguish between stamina and power activities would also increase, so eventually "power" actions like swinging a warhammer might become stamina actions that could be performed effectively indefinitely.

For something like running and sprinting, your run speed would be determined by whatever power output would keep you within the stamina threshold. Sprint speed would be determined by your power threshold.

For weapons, basic attack speed might be effected by your stamina threshold, while power attacks would become more powerful as your power threshold increases. Some weapons might just be entirely unwieldable for weaker characters.

Its funny, back in MW and OB i tried a few of the "smooth" leveling mods to see if i liked then, and for the most part they were ok for a playthough, but now with Skyrim and its own built in version of this "smooth" leveling i find it's one of the worst aspects of the game and i dream of the day when a modder brings us a mod that returns the character creation and progression systems we had back in MW/OB or even Daggerfall. I dont mind the perk system, dont get me wrong, but i think it should have been something add'd to the original system, sort of alternate advancement, not the main beef of you character development. The new system just feels watered down and empty, where are my stats, my skills, my class's ? What happen to actual birth signs and real racial differences and bonuses ? What happen to working on your actual class skill in order to advance your character, actually thinking about what stats you wanted and how you wanted to play your class, none of that matter now cause everything you do levels you up and everything has been narrowed down to one choice and a perk. Yes everything you do should add to your characters overall development but one choice and a perk isn't a replacement for everything else in between.

I haven't actually played Skyrim yet (will probably start next week) so I will need more direct experience to make a truly informed opinion on this matter. However, I will say that when I read through some of the information about the skills they removed I was a bit disappointed.

If Athletics and Acrobatics had been combined I think that would have been fine, but based on what I've read, there currently really isn't a way to model trying to run faster, jump higher, dodge, etc. One of the nicer things about Acrobatics in Oblivion was that it could actually be used as an unarmored skill with some practice, given that it provided a dodge ability once it was high enough. As for Athletics - I always thought it was kind of important especially with overhaul mods as some times the best course of action is to run away in the face of impossible odds.

I did recently spend some time looking at the list of Daggerfall skills (some of which weren't that useful, but the system did provide a huge amount of permutations for character development) vs. Morrowind (27 skills) vs. Oblivion (21 skills) vs. Skyrim (18 skills)

I personally will miss a skill dedicated to athletics/climbing/acrobatics/etc. Not to mention statistics - I guess that's part of the old school RP'r in me. I'm certainly willing to give Skyrim's new system a try and reserve final judgment until then, but my gut so far just seems to think something has been lost on the character development front.

What remains to be seen is whether all the cool new stuff they've added at the engine level will override my gut feeling on that part, or whether I find myself drawn back to heavily modded Oblivion.

They did (almost) everything in this game to keep you from gaining height. Jump height is locked down, no jumping while sprinting, no standing on objects that can be moved around (because of weird repulsion properties), and no levitation spells. It's a 3 dimensional world, but it's like you're only allowed to play in a slice of it. I can forgive an FPS for this flaw, but I expect more from an immersion game.

While I don't doubt that modders will give players some weird powers, to use them in many areas may break the proper progression of certain quests. And it would always be considered a cheat, because the cells were not designed with height gaining abilities in mind.

Maybe someone could take this on as a total conversion project.

I can get behind the idea of things that create seances in Skyrim. I want to talk to Uriel Septim VII again.

I loved acrobatics and jump spells in Morrowind, but you have to realize that the game world was designed differently. If you just add it in to Skyrim you will break the game.

Morrowind was built to account for high jumping or using levitation. A few areas had specials barriers to prevent you from jumping or levitating out of (like Mournhold), but the game was mostly non-linear and allowed movement in all directions. Quests were also simpler and much less scripted so you couldn't really ever break the game.

On any previous game based on this engine tree has there ever been any success in adding back in skills or adding new skills?

I can't think of any. I don't mean an odd power here and there or an extra bonus to a skill, but really adding skills that effect factors and formulas.

I can understand people feeling gyped by the new derived attributes only character building, and I already see how birthsigns and specialization can be easily added back in, but I don't think skills will be that easy to add nor attributes. Better to move forward I say. Maybe I'm wrong and it is all there as legacy only to be reactivated, but I really doubt it.

I do support overhauling perks and I think that in doing it there will either need to be complete perk overhauls or there will end up being several patches for individual perk tree overhauls. Scope creep on that concept is steep.

Lockpick....Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Master didn't need to take up an entire tree, it could've been reduced to a Lockpick 0/5 or 0/4 skill
1/4 Novice, 2/4 Apprentice, 3/4 Adept, 4/4 Master, all with the same requirements. so there's 3 perk spaces cleared

There were 27 total skills in Morrowind, compared to 18 in Skyrim, and when it comes down to it there are only really four skills that aren't a part of Skyrim's overall character development scheme (and don't refer to things not in the game); Acrobatics, Athletics, Hand-to-Hand, and Unarmoured.
There are also the Attributes, but I imagine adding them back in would be tricky. Besides, it's kinda questionable whether they actually really made character development more interesting.

roxahris-

that signature is the first I've ever felt like lifting.

Well said.