Because it was stupid?

Here, let me tell you a joke...
Oh, you didn't like that?
Well, let me intimidate you...
Oh, that one made you smile?
Perhaps you will like another joke now?
No, huh? Well, you're a tough cookie.
Let me brag to you...
Oh, I'm out of options now? Well this was rather [censored] pointless.

People don't communicate like this, and they have never communicated like this throughout the entire history of the world.

Speechcraft is a stupid, unnecessary skill.

Persuasion wasn't really essential to the quests. Rather the disposition of the NPC was.

Disposition is still there in Skyrim, but it is a hidden stat -- I guess for realism.

The "persuade" options are there too, but as speech options, more like in Fallout 3 or New Vegas than Oblivion.

I prefer the Skyrm system, because the Oblivion mini game didn't make sense. And also it was too easy to increase disposition in Oblivion with Speech, or spells or potions.

I'm all for the new speech skill. I can see the rationality behind combining Speechcraft and Mercantile, but I think the Speechcraft part of the skill should be a bit more expanded. As it stands now the mercantile part of the skill is far bigger than the Speechcraft part of the skill. This is reflected in the skill tree where 6 skills make the Mercantile part and only 3 make the Speechcraft part.

To me skyrim persuade mostly seems like another skillup that allows me to level.

Lol it was like the Sims...

i assumed (yes, that was wrong) there was going to be an obvious combo of newvegas, oblivion and fallout3.

instead, it regressed and is all very superficial and has no real use.

I prefer it. Oblivion's system was ridiculously shallow.

Want top-secret information? Tell 'em the one about the Argonian.

Doesn't make sense.

The disposition mini game felt kinda stupid. And on PS3 there was a glitch that caused all NPCs to hate boasting, so I never got to hear any positive reactions to my boasts.

They added a perk tree.

u mean the speech wheel of death

man it was lameeeee...

Tons of rpg elements were removed also.

Shallow rpg.

All Beth does anymore is cut, gut, snip, streamline, merge.

I hated the wheel but I wished it was improved.
Why also have we lost the charm spells? It was not spreadsheety.

Oblivion's system was pathetic.

Nothing broke my immerision more than to hover my mouse over a wedge and see that the NPC that I was talking to already had a reaction to it before I even selected it. Not to mention to think what it would have sounded like if your character actually voice acted the minigame:

(Joke) "I knew a gal once who claimed she didn't know where the cave was and her head turned into squib jelly"
(Intimidate) "I can't turn your head into squib jelly, but I can test the sharpness of my axe on the bridge of your nose for the information"
(Admire) "Without a nose, it would bring out the color of your eyes remarkably"
(Boast) "Because I'm be best nose surgeon in all of Cyrodill"

.... to reminisce on the old system makes me cringe.

How it worked in Oblivion was awful. It was fine the first few times, but when you realized it was just the same thing over and over and over and over that was when I stopped using it altogether. I just used a charm spell whenever I needed a higher rating--better in so many ways. Here in Skyrim it's much better, just not used enough.

I never liked that system so i always used the spell to boost their disposition (forget name)

yEs, getting rid of the general ability to persuade people was stupid. It wasn`t brilliant in Oblivion, but couldn`t they just have fixed that? It don`t take a scientist to cook up better forms of persuasion. Every tries to persuade at some point it should be possible with everyone even if they have a 0% chance of success.

Another part of dumbing down that Todd said they didn`t do.

Because it was stupid in Oblivion and why there was a mod dedicated to ratifying that problem. Skyrim's speechcraft still svcks but at least it's better.

When Bethesda tries something to make up for the lack of AI in rpg's, it amazes me they are then criticized as being infantile or trite or insignificant. Yes, Bethesda dropped it. It is 'not' 'behind the scenes', however to the same degree it once was above-board. Drastically curtailed. NPC interaction is curtailed- Bethesda quit- the corny dialogues were also criticized. Now the vast majority of NPC's do not know what the player is doing or has done, nor do they 'talk' much about it between themselves. Our actions are in a blind world. Well, the softeware wasn't ready to mimic AI so we get Skyrim? Fallout NV proved you could do it in a different way but still do it.

I don't know what cultural giants and software geniuses they've been talking to, but eliminating imperfect assets is not an answer. Talking away choices in the character build is not an answer. Better looking castles and caves are only as interesting as long as they are new.

A generation raised on video games should want more than this. And I think they do.

I'd rather have the silly NPC's of Oblivion than the silly NPC's of Skyrim who repeat a line to me I can never respond to, who wouldn't know if I saved the world or had murdered 100 people. Getting rid of fame and infamy must have seemed like a good idea to those who thought dropping interaction, or eliminating spell making would be worth it for better graphics.

Gamer's want better graphics and to pick the clothes their characters wear? That's it? If Bethesda is correct about that then the future of rpg gaming and video games is a boring dead end indeed.

Fantastic point Old Grog and I can even somewhat agree with ya.

I have to agree with you on the 11/11/11 deadline. Deadlines are tough enough as they are sometimes, but this one must have been like a brick wall to management and will most likely have cost the game in its quality. Really stupid indeed.

Maybe they were afraid the world would end?

Even though they took out the Charm spell, you can buy Fortify Persuasion potions from alchemy merchants, they're called Potion/Philter/Elixir/etc of Glibness. None of the standard alchemy ingredients uses that effect though, so you can't create your own potions unless you use the Creation Kit on the PC.

you can use "persuade", "pay" or "intimidate" to skip parts of a quest.
example: in the quest with sam and the staff, at a certain point you go to a farmer and he asks you to get back his goat, you can either persuade or pay him for the goat, or you can really go look for the goat and bring her back to him

Speechcraft was essential in Oblivion, that's a good one. Speechcraft was by far the worst skill in Oblivion, you could basically bride someone to raise their dispustion or use charm and the mini game was really bad. I don't mind that Speechcraft was merged with Mercantile although I wished that Beth didn't do it and fixed speechcraft but I don't see how they would do that with the way leveling is currently done.