Language Usage Via dialogue mode (Or making dialogue modes NOT useless)

[daggerdude]

I got to be honest, language skills are stupid and useless. they always have been. And 90% of the time i just want to kill the enemy anyway. I think they made a good move getting rid of them. I do like how ettiquete and streetwise are different skills, something they should have retained in later games.

Instead of language skills, conjuration and illusion can work just as well. I'd much rather have the 4 armor skills, blocking, and conjuration from morrowind than useless language skills.

But if people insist on having them, yes, dialogue buttons would be nice, with a message saying you were either successful or unsuccesful.

[jayhova]

I got to be honest, language skills are stupid and useless. they always have been. And 90% of the time i just want to kill the enemy anyway. I think they made a good move getting rid of them. I do like how ettiquete and streetwise are different skills, something they should have retained in later games.

The problem is that there is always someone who thinks this way about everything. Eventually, you get Skyrim where all the skills are made to go away. The stats go away. Everything not used to bash monsters and get the stuff is taken out. The failing of Daggerfall is not how they included useless skills but how they did not use the skills they included.

[jayhova]

I'd really like to see quests that only become available if you have skills over X level

[daggerdude]

I got to be honest, language skills are stupid and useless. they always have been. And 90% of the time i just want to kill the enemy anyway. I think they made a good move getting rid of them. I do like how ettiquete and streetwise are different skills, something they should have retained in later games.

The problem is that there is always someone who thinks this way about everything. Eventually, you get Skyrim where all the skills are made to go away. The stats go away. Everything not used to bash monsters and get the stuff is taken out. The failing of Daggerfall is not how they included useless skills but how they did not use the skills they included.

It's true, it would be fine if they utilized what they programmed well. However, it just seems to eclectic. My concern is there are good skills which should be added, such as conjuration or armor skills or blocking, but that they'd have to take the place of other skills unless someone wants to rewrite the entire game. You know?

[jayhova]

I got to be honest, language skills are stupid and useless. they always have been. And 90% of the time I just want to kill the enemy anyway. I think they made a good move getting rid of them. I do like how etiquette and streetwise are different skills, something they should have retained in later games.

The problem is that there is always someone who thinks this way about everything. Eventually, you get Skyrim where all the skills are made to go away. The stats go away. Everything not used to bash monsters and get the stuff is taken out. The failing of Daggerfall is not how they included useless skills but how they did not use the skills they included.

It's true, it would be fine if they utilized what they programmed well. However, it just seems to eclectic. My concern is there are good skills which should be added, such as conjuration or armor skills or blocking, but that they'd have to take the place of other skills unless someone wants to rewrite the entire game. You know?

These things like language skills etc. were settled on because they belong in an RPG. Daggerfall was supposed to take TES in the direction of an RPG simulator. That, however, is difficult. It is far simpler to make a video game with straight forward goals. This is what Todd Howard did because it's far less risky to do so.

There are a number of things you can do with language skills. What, for instance, happens when you pick up a book written in a language you do not speak? Perhaps if you speak a bit of it you can translate part of it. Perhaps, there could be a mini-game where you can puzzle out the meaning of some words and raise your skill.

[Jeoshua]

It would be great if books had languages associated with them, and if every word had a pseudo random roll to see if you understood it (seeded by the name). If you understand it, you get the real word. If you don't, the word is mangled into garbage in a thematic looking font.

That is not exactly a trivial mod tho. And the languages books are likely to be written in (Altmeri, Cyrodillic, Breton, etc) aren't actually skills in the game.

[jayhova]

My thought is the shorter/common the word the more likely you will be able to translate it. Every point in the language might give you 10 words up to 25 then 20 words per point up to 50 then 30 up to 75; 40 up to 100.

[Jeoshua]

Shorter, maybe. Common would necessitate a whole dictionary and... Well were already well into the realm of a difficult suggestion without that.

[jayhova]

Shorter, maybe. Common would necessitate a whole dictionary and... Well were already well into the realm of a difficult suggestion without that.

I thought about that and I think the easy solution is to take all of the books in the game and all of the words used in those books and then order those words by number of times used and size.

[daggerdude]

So language skills right now are worth it if it's daedric - there are a lot of daedra and they're not fun to deal with and so a chance to pacify a monster automatically is neat to have. BUT it's unreliable and magic also has this capacity. Orcs are somewhat worth their language skill...

then theres dragonish, spriggan, nymph, centaur, and impish. leaning a skill for one enemy is absolutely worthless. absolutely.
To make these skills worth their slot above armor skills or conjuration or blocking is like way more than just a few books.

For me to even bother the following would have to happen.

1.) the possibility of a familiar/friend with language skills. If you could either summon or gain a friend through the skill, that would be worth it.
2.) there would be a guild associated with language skills. Not like temples who just mash all skills together and hope it works, a legit "scholar's society".
3.) that you'd have a chance to do quest, receive money/items, experience lore/story content, and otherwise do things you wouldn't want to ignore.

I simply see these conditions never being met. I really am not happy with language skills: a whole new game would have to be rewritten where societies of dragon/wyrm people or centaurs or nymphs or what have you existed and you could extract some benefit from knowing their language.