The Elder Scrolls XVI: Sworn to Carry Your Burdens

[LibraryOgre]

For climbing, make the fatigue a function of slope. So, say, no fatigue under 30* slope, climbing a steeper slope costs fatigue, but at a relatively low level, and also trains climb at a slower pace. You want to train climb, you need to hit slopes higher than 45*, and slopes bigger than 60* might require a perk (assuming they keep something similar to Skyrim's system).

You might make it part of a general athletics skill which determines speed when running and swimming.

[Morty]

I dont understand where the issue is here. Any answers we could give here are fairly arbitrary. When the question is "could they do it" the specific details of how they implement it matter very little. Tie it to athletics with sprinting and swimming, make it its own separate skill, it doesnt really matter, there are a lot of different ways they could add it to the game without even really needing to change any of the fundamentals around it (bar level design).

I'm listing problems with implementing a climbing skill or making it a function of some other skill. You're... brushing them aside and saying they don't matter, without actually offering any kind of solution. The climbing skill existed in Daggerfall and was removed in Morrowind. Don't you think there's a reason for that?

For climbing, make the fatigue a function of slope. So, say, no fatigue under 30* slope, climbing a steeper slope costs fatigue, but at a relatively low level, and also trains climb at a slower pace. You want to train climb, you need to hit slopes higher than 45*, and slopes bigger than 60* might require a perk (assuming they keep something similar to Skyrim's system).

You might make it part of a general athletics skill which determines speed when running and swimming.

If climbing otherwise unclimbable surfaces is going to be a perk, there's no point in making it a skill or even a function of one. I doubt such perks would be worthwhile even so, though. And, again, if Athletics or Acrobatics were to come back, they'd need to be something that's not increased just by going places. And do something other than just passively increase your speed. Since that ends with characters who don't have the skill being slow, like in Morrowind... but increasing the skill does nothing interesting whatsoever, just makes it less inconvenient to get around.

[Aeson]

I guess it's technically better than acrobatics and athletics in that there is actually an alternative to using it.

How exactly would Climb be any different in that effect from Acrobatics and Athletics? It'd almost certainly be a passive mobility skill more or less exactly like them, and any alternatives to it that aren't just one of the other passive mobility skills wouldn't be any more convenient than the alternatives to the other passive mobility skills; it also has mostly the same use-case as Acrobatics, except that it would presumably also let you reach things that you can't jump high enough to reach and is probably less convenient for crossing jumpable gaps.

Beyond that, I really don't see how Acrobatics and Athletics are skills that you're compelled to develop in for example Morrowind; Athletics in particular is a skill that I almost never advanced in Morrowind, because low fatigue sucks as a low-level character, sustained running basically means you're permanently exhausted, carrying Restore Fatigue potions/items to deal with that isn't really worthwhile early on when you might actually want to loot the dungeon for the money it could make you or craft potions for fun and profit, and at higher levels you can just wear the Boots of Blinding Speed with little downside. Yes, you will almost certainly use Acrobatics and Athletics at some point in the game, because sometimes you fall off that ledge, sometimes you swim across that pond, and sometimes you don't want to spend magicka, item charge, or a consumable or change out your gear or have a reasonably-available alternative to get away from an enemy or reach something that you can't just walk to... but if you're not constantly using them then the rate of skill development is essentially negligible, and if you don't actually have much skill in them then the alternatives, even if less convenient, are often quite a bit better. I don't see any reason to assume that a Climb skill would be any different; at some point in the game it will be more convenient to just climb a short way up to that ledge rather than drinking an Exquisite Potion of Levitation, or there'll be a hill or a wall or something like that in the way that you could go around - but just going over it would be faster, or even an incline that's just high enough to advance Climb skill or a climbable surface you accidentally run into and start climbing up, and pretty much anything that's an alternative to Acrobatics would also be an alternative to Climb, with more or less the same reasons to use or not use them.

[Morty]

How exactly would Climb be any different in that effect from Acrobatics and Athletics? It'd almost certainly be a passive mobility skill more or less exactly like them, and any alternatives to it that aren't just one of the other passive mobility skills wouldn't be any more convenient than the alternatives to the other passive mobility skills; it also has mostly the same use-case as Acrobatics, except that it would presumably also let you reach things that you can't jump high enough to reach and is probably less convenient for crossing jumpable gaps.

Beyond that, I really don't see how Acrobatics and Athletics are skills that you're compelled to develop in for example Morrowind; Athletics in particular is a skill that I almost never advanced in Morrowind, because low fatigue sucks as a low-level character, sustained running basically means you're permanently exhausted, carrying Restore Fatigue potions/items to deal with that isn't really worthwhile early on when you might actually want to loot the dungeon for the money it could make you or craft potions for fun and profit, and at higher levels you can just wear the Boots of Blinding Speed with little downside. Yes, you will almost certainly use Acrobatics and Athletics at some point in the game, because sometimes you fall off that ledge, sometimes you swim across that pond, and sometimes you don't want to spend magicka, item charge, or a consumable or change out your gear or have a reasonably-available alternative to get away from an enemy or reach something that you can't just walk to... but if you're not constantly using them then the rate of skill development is essentially negligible, and if you don't actually have much skill in them then the alternatives, even if less convenient, are often quite a bit better. I don't see any reason to assume that a Climb skill would be any different; at some point in the game it will be more convenient to just climb a short way up to that ledge rather than drinking an Exquisite Potion of Levitation, or there'll be a hill or a wall or something like that in the way that you could go around - but just going over it would be faster, or even an incline that's just high enough to advance Climb skill or a climbable surface you accidentally run into and start climbing up, and pretty much anything that's an alternative to Acrobatics would also be an alternative to Climb, with more or less the same reasons to use or not use them.

That's more or less my point. We either have that or a situation like Skyrim's Speechcraft or Lockpicking, where every character advances it but very few characters will have it particularly high or invest in their perks. Either way they're pretty irrelevant. I was admittedly thinking less about their functions in Morrowind and more about a hypothetical situation where they're slotted into Skyrim's system.

[Keltest]

I'm listing problems with implementing a climbing skill or making it a function of some other skill. You're... brushing them aside and saying they don't matter, without actually offering any kind of solution. The climbing skill existed in Daggerfall and was removed in Morrowind. Don't you think there's a reason for that?



If climbing otherwise unclimbable surfaces is going to be a perk, there's no point in making it a skill or even a function of one. I doubt such perks would be worthwhile even so, though. And, again, if Athletics or Acrobatics were to come back, they'd need to be something that's not increased just by going places. And do something other than just passively increase your speed. Since that ends with characters who don't have the skill being slow, like in Morrowind... but increasing the skill does nothing interesting whatsoever, just makes it less inconvenient to get around.

I still don't understand. Those aren't problems, they're just decisions. There are a bunch of options and the only thing that favors one or the other is how you want to do it. They need to be made, but they aren't problematic.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

For climbing, make the fatigue a function of slope. So, say, no fatigue under 30* slope, climbing a steeper slope costs fatigue, but at a relatively low level, and also trains climb at a slower pace. You want to train climb, you need to hit slopes higher than 45*, and slopes bigger than 60* might require a perk (assuming they keep something similar to Skyrim's system).

You might make it part of a general athletics skill which determines speed when running and swimming.

I absolutely want a perk to climb vertical walls (maybe with the caveat that they have to be reasonably rough - so a cliff face is fine, a stone wall with vines growing over it is fine, but smoothly polished Ayleid walls are not). And then I want to roll up a thief character to climb those walls and break in through windows to steal everything not nailed down and on fire.

[LibraryOgre]

I absolutely want a perk to climb vertical walls (maybe with the caveat that they have to be reasonably rough - so a cliff face is fine, a stone wall with vines growing over it is fine, but smoothly polished Ayleid walls are not). And then I want to roll up a thief character to climb those walls and break in through windows to steal everything not nailed down and on fire.

I was thinking about this: If you don't want to include a new skill, what about putting it on Sneak? In the parlance of Skyrim, make it a limb on the perk tree.

[factotum]

But you want a completely parallel alternative to joining the Dark Brotherhood? Or you insist that you have a choice to betray Nocturnal instead of swearing fealty to her?

You appear to be mixing up two questlines there? Nocturnal is Thieves' Guild, and let's face it, just having a questline that was moderately well written and with some internal logic would be a massive improvement over what's in the game there. As for Dark Brotherhood, you already have an alternative to joining them--you can wipe them out instead. The only thing that's annoying about *that* is that you can't do this without going through the same process you would to join them, e.g. you have to kill Grelod the Kind. Oh, and it also requires that Astrid is an absolute moron for putting herself into a position where you can easily kill her...

[veti]

For climbing, make the fatigue a function of slope. So, say, no fatigue under 30* slope, climbing a steeper slope costs fatigue, but at a relatively low level, and also trains climb at a slower pace. You want to train climb, you need to hit slopes higher than 45*, and slopes bigger than 60* might require a perk (assuming they keep something similar to Skyrim's system).

Assign to every point on the walkmesh a value from 1 to 100, representing the climb skill you need to have to establish a foothold on it. Flat ground would be 1, climbable-but-near-vertical walls would be close to 100. To do a reasonable job, you should also introduce some alternative walking animations - maybe "clambering on all fours" above about 30, "climbing (requiring both hands otherwise unoccupied)" above 60 or so. You gain skill by stepping on points close to your current limit.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Assign to every point on the walkmesh a value from 1 to 100, representing the climb skill you need to have to establish a foothold on it. Flat ground would be 1, climbable-but-near-vertical walls would be close to 100. To do a reasonable job, you should also introduce some alternative walking animations - maybe "clambering on all fours" above about 30, "climbing (requiring both hands otherwise unoccupied)" above 60 or so. You gain skill by stepping on points close to your current limit.

My big problem with this is that if you scale those numbers linearly you’ll basically be forcing the player to stay on flat roads and inside buildings; they’d have to raise their Climb skill just to manage gently sloping hills. Plus having it be tiered would be more intuitive for the player I would think; fewer instances of “What do you mean this slope is 36 degrees instead of 35?!”

Requiring hands empty to climb seems like a reasonable restriction though, and also a good way to prevent the player climbing accidentally if, for example, they get into a fight and just want to maneuver next to a slope/climbable wall. I’d also throw in weapons the player could use when climbing (brass knuckles or claws) and maybe bring back Unarmed so if the player gets attacked while spelunking in a steep cave, they can still fight if they’re prepared.

[Keltest]

My big problem with this is that if you scale those numbers linearly you’ll basically be forcing the player to stay on flat roads and inside buildings; they’d have to raise their Climb skill just to manage gently sloping hills. Plus having it be tiered would be more intuitive for the player I would think; fewer instances of “What do you mean this slope is 36 degrees instead of 35?!”

Requiring hands empty to climb seems like a reasonable restriction though, and also a good way to prevent the player climbing accidentally if, for example, they get into a fight and just want to maneuver next to a slope/climbable wall. I’d also throw in weapons the player could use when climbing (brass knuckles or claws) and maybe bring back Unarmed so if the player gets attacked while spelunking in a steep cave, they can still fight if they’re prepared.

You could maybe dramatically decrease the stamina requirements to climb slopes below your skill threshold, with the requirements overall increasing based on the steepness. So a relatively gentle slope is possible, if difficult to climb even untrained, while a steep slope basically requires mastery to avoid hurting yourself. Meanwhile an expert would consider that previous gentle slope to be so trivial that it almost wouldnt slow them down.

As for empty hands, you can already sheathe your weapon. Is that not a good enough system?

[Anteros]

I feel like if you wanted to introduce a mechanic like climbing you'd have to redesign a lot of the maps to account for the increased verticallity. And if you wanted to do that, you may as well just reintroduce flight/levitation which removes any need for climbing as a mechanic anyway.

[LibraryOgre]

I feel like if you wanted to introduce a mechanic like climbing you'd have to redesign a lot of the maps to account for the increased verticallity. And if you wanted to do that, you may as well just reintroduce flight/levitation which removes any need for climbing as a mechanic anyway.

Until someone decides they're going to do a "No Magic" run and can't climb anywhere.

Climbing and levitation coexisted just fine in Daggerfall. I'd fly across town and then kill time by climbing the Mage's Guild over and over (and jumping down)

[Morty]

Until someone decides they're going to do a "No Magic" run and can't climb anywhere.

Climbing and levitation coexisted just fine in Daggerfall. I'd fly across town and then kill time by climbing the Mage's Guild over and over (and jumping down)

Again, the main two kinds of obstacles in Daggerfall were dungeon walls, city walls and buildings. All of them vertical. To introduce a climbing skill in a game that looks like Skyrim would be a lot more complicated. And of questionable value.

[Vinyadan]

I would also make it a part of stealth, so that the stealth skill makes it you also climb more swiftly and silently (you can climb vertically from the start, but you are slow and visible). I would modify the maps to turn windows into doors, and add a random chance that a window is left unlocked during the night. So you can use it to enter homes. I would also add a good number of tower-homes.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

You could maybe dramatically decrease the stamina requirements to climb slopes below your skill threshold, with the requirements overall increasing based on the steepness. So a relatively gentle slope is possible, if difficult to climb even untrained, while a steep slope basically requires mastery to avoid hurting yourself. Meanwhile an expert would consider that previous gentle slope to be so trivial that it almost wouldnt slow them down.

I still don’t think that would work well at the lower levels. Having a stamina cost for every minor hill in a game with a major exploration element will just slow down the early game and make it tedious and frustrating. Not something you want the game to do period, but especially not at the beginning.

As for empty hands, you can already sheathe your weapon. Is that not a good enough system?

No, because not being able to fight Slaughterfish in Skyrim just because my head is below water is irritating, and not being able fight spiders just because I’m on a steep slope would be the same problem in a different skin. I’m fine with it being harder, I’m fine with needing specialized equipment because I acknowledge it would be odd swinging a two-handed axe while simultaneously hanging onto a cliff, but it shouldn’t be impossible.

I feel like if you wanted to introduce a mechanic like climbing you'd have to redesign a lot of the maps to account for the increased verticallity. And if you wanted to do that, you may as well just reintroduce flight/levitation which removes any need for climbing as a mechanic anyway.

TBH I’ve been writing under the assumption this would be for Elder Scrolls 6 so the maps would need to be built from the ground up anyway, this is just the sort of thing I would like to see in it.

And I’m with Mark Hall; I may not want to play a wizard on a given run through. Having more than one way up a mountain means the quests don’t have to all take place on flat areas, so you can keep more quests open to more characters without having to dumb down the level design.

[Resileaf]

If an Elder Scrolls game took place in Valenwood, a province that is like 99% trees, I would expect vertical play to be extremely important to give variety of how to get around the world.

[LibraryOgre]

Only tangentially related: One time, before Skyrim came out, I played Morrowind as Jiub. Just "Ok, let's make this guy into the Nerevarine."

[Anteros]

Until someone decides they're going to do a "No Magic" run and can't climb anywhere.

Climbing and levitation coexisted just fine in Daggerfall. I'd fly across town and then kill time by climbing the Mage's Guild over and over (and jumping down)

In general I don't think games should be designed around niche challenge runs, and Daggerfall is so outdated that it's completely meaningless as a point of comparison.

[Rynjin]

In general I don't think games should be designed around niche challenge runs, and Daggerfall is so outdated that it's completely meaningless as a point of comparison.

In an RPG, it's not a challenge run. You may just not have the skill to cast it, or don't want to be a mage.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

In an RPG, it's not a challenge run. You may just not have the skill to cast it, or don't want to be a mage.

Seconded. This being Elder Scrolls, I could play a healer or a fireball-happy Destruction specialist or a conjurer, as long as I don’t specifically practice the school Levitation is in (Alteration in Morrowind) I wouldn’t have ready access to it.

So, not niche. Rather the contrary in fact; the player specifically raising a skill and hunting down that particular spell for regular use is more niche than the other way around.

[Morty]

Of course, scrolls, potions and enchantments exist, so a character who has no alteration magic skill whatsoever can still get the effect.

[factotum]

Seconded. This being Elder Scrolls, I could play a healer or a fireball-happy Destruction specialist or a conjurer, as long as I don’t specifically practice the school Levitation is in (Alteration in Morrowind) I wouldn’t have ready access to it.

So, not niche. Rather the contrary in fact; the player specifically raising a skill and hunting down that particular spell for regular use is more niche than the other way around.

It's worth noting that the only place you really *had* to have Levitation to access in Morrowind was the interior of Divayth Fyr's tower, which IMHO was fair enough because he was a mage and therefore didn't want any scummy non-mages visiting him. The spell was a nice to have in other situations, but certainly never actually required.

[Keltest]

It's worth noting that the only place you really *had* to have Levitation to access in Morrowind was the interior of Divayth Fyr's tower, which IMHO was fair enough because he was a mage and therefore didn't want any scummy non-mages visiting him. The spell was a nice to have in other situations, but certainly never actually required.

The other Telvanni also required it for similar reasons, but if youre poking around with them, then youre almost certainly a mage yourself anyway.

[druid91]

So, I picked up a used HTC Vive the other day, and finally got the chance to do some Skyrim VR.

My first impressions are that....

A.) Everything is huge, except the people who are all shorter than me, but not by a lot.

B.) Being able to direct your hands in two different directions is neat for spell slinging.

C.) I had minimal Vertigo right up until I started moving my feet and realized I'd crossed the entire room without realizing it, and bumped into a chair.

[Caelestion]

It's worth noting that the only place you really *had* to have Levitation to access in Morrowind was the interior of Divayth Fyr's tower, which IMHO was fair enough because he was a mage and therefore didn't want any scummy non-mages visiting him. The spell was a nice to have in other situations, but certainly never actually required.

And even then, I think Caius Cosades provides you with a Rising Force potion.

[Resileaf]

And even then, I think Caius Cosades provides you with a Rising Force potion.

Three of them, if I recall correctly, but that's not enough to last the entire game since you'll be meeting other Telvanni councillors to become Nerevarine later.

[Caelestion]

Well, given that the Stop the Moon shrine provides Levitation, that's hardly a massive issue.

[Morty]

And, once again, finding potions, scrolls and items with levitate isn't exactly difficult, as far as I remember.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

And, once again, finding potions, scrolls and items with levitate isn't exactly difficult, as far as I remember.

Still RNG-based though, which is less than ideal if you have multiple quests/dungeons that require you to travel vertically. Especially if they level the loot like they did in Skyrim. Remember the Waterbreathing enchantment? And how you could miss it entirely pre-Dawnguard if you leveled up enough and were unlucky? Hence having more than one method of going up.