Skinning Observations and Suggestions:

[Squeak]

Now that my little toon can actually skin things (hooray!), I’ve been out and about testing the whole thing. A few observations that I’ve come across:

For skill gains, it seems to be good. Gained about 6 skill points in a couple hours; Anything listed under the “You could potentially skin the following from the corpse” gave gains; the hide granting the most (0.178) with other incidental skin-able pieces produced a gain of .063. In my opinion, it feels good this way, with an organic feel to the progression that’s away from the wanton slaughter of animals. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to go and kill thousands for the skill gains, but it gives each kill more value.

Second thing I’d like to bring up is that there should be skill gains for cleaning and scraping the hides. Cleaning, if memory serves, is only one step, whereas scrapping is several – I think it’s dependent on pelt size, and if not, it should be. I think each step should give some gains to skinning, too. There’s considerable downtime preparing hides with the wait times (which aren’t exorbitant by any means) in each of the tubs, that having some skill gains would make the process feel better overall, in my opinion.

Lastly, I’d like to see some differing animals that can be skinned. Some prairie rattlesnakes (musical nope-ropes) with a small snakeskin “pelt”, a rattle that can be shaken for amusement purposes (or strung on a necklace/bracelet?), and some fangs (see the beforementioned note). Any type of animal claws could also be strung on a necklace, too, needing a drill and bit to attach them.

Anyhow, that’s it for now. If I come up with anything further, I’ll post it! As always, thank you, Rias, for giving my toon and I something new to do.

Edit to add: Well. Damn. It seems while I was writing this, the incidental gains from skinning claws, antlers, hooves, et cetera from things was removed. I’m not sure if it was an intentional thing or not, but if not, I’d like to discuss getting them put back in. With the risk involved in training skinning, I think the gains for the skill should be greater than say foraging, or mining – even if the latter does have some risk, it is not a constant thing and from what I’ve heard, somewhat mitigatable. I’m hoping it was just something that messed up and isn’t a proper change because accumulating 6 points in the skill, in several hours with no training, seemed appropriate for the risks involved.

[Squeak]

Update: Seems all skinning gains have been removed for the time being. I'm hazarding a guess they're still being tweaked, but in the off chance they are not and it's in actuality a bug, I'm posting here just to give folks a heads up.

Granted, I didn't test on everything I could feasibly test on, but I did try it on moles, rabbits, crawlers, lizards, turkeys, marmots, and ravens. Some of those I never got a successful roll on, so it's possible they still work (marmots and lizards).

[Squeak]

Random thoughts, again:

Not sure how the abilities are going to line up this go around, but I was thinking; What if Skinning Focus gave a passive reroll for successfully skinning something and provides an ability that gives a chance for someone to re-cut a less-than-average skin for a chance to produce an average pelt of one size smaller, if applicable? So Huge => Large => Medium => Small, anything after small just produces strips or something that can be used in creative ways (perhaps a tie in to weaving for necklaces, anklets, bracelets, et cetera?) Referencing the above:

...a rattle that can be shaken for amusement purposes (or strung on a necklace/bracelet?), and some fangs (see the beforementioned note). Any type of animal claws could also be strung on a necklace, too, needing a drill and bit to attach them.

. Those would be neat accoutrements for braided leather jewelry.

Since bushcraft basics has a passive chance to increase the quality gained, or did in Grandfather Clok, I think this would be a unique way to, forgive the pun, flesh out skinning focus.

[Squeak]

I'm back!

Finally got skinning to 100 (100.091 to be exact) and it appears that there is nothing else for me to skin for practice. I know, I know, everything is being worked on.

I'm just asking for clarification that this is the case (i.e. the difficulties of the mobs needing to be manually tweaked) or if I'm just missing something to continue the growth of the skill.

Thanks!

[jerc]

Chiming in to say I also have this problem - skinning stuck firmly at 100.something. I suspect that gains are simply disabled above that point, since there's plenty of stuff that I can only get a terrible pelt out of, in the rare event that I manage to successfully skin it at all. Seems like that level of difficulty sould be producing practice gains.

[jerc]

After the changelog entry "01/15/25 Skills: Fixed a bug that was causing skillgain challenge qualification ranges to become much smaller than intended at around 100 ranks in a skill," skinning seemed to be unblocked and can now be practiced above 100 🎉

Unfortunately I seem to be stuck again. I received practice from the Olrac Trail moles up to about 134, and now I'm back to not getting practice from anything, even if I can only succeed every forth attempt to skin a particular critter.

[Dean]

Chiming in to mention I am also stuck at 134 on the dot. There's something weird going on where the challenge isn't proportional to the max level threshold, as there are still some mobs I cannot successfully skin whatsoever, while every mob I can find no longer gives any XP.

[Rias]

A recent update will allow getting a little more Skinning skill, but the real thing that needs to be done is a once-over of skinnable creatures and their associated challenge ratings so there's more to skill up on of increasing difficulty. There's also a gap at one point that I think is impossible get past at the moment.

[Rias]

the real thing that needs to be done is a once-over of skinnable creatures and their associated challenge ratings so there's more to skill up on of increasing difficulty.

Anyone have any compelling reason to not just base skinning challenge of a creature (excluding vendor trash skinnable trophies) on the creature's combat skill/danger level? Extra modifiers or exceptions can be made for specific creatures when desired, but this would be a super simple fix to the skinning skillgain situation.

[Lun]

I like this. +1

[jerc]

My only concern would be for potential gaps if there aren't enough skinnable creatures for each challenge range.

Oh, and also my own personal sanity as I scramble to catch my skill up.

Otherwise, SGTM!

[Dorn]

The only thing I'd say is it very much ties skinning ability to combat skill. I imagine some might consider that a con.

[Squeak]

If it's easier, I'm fine by it. It'd make planning the skinning grind a bit easier knowing that their skinning roles are inline with their combative ability instead of wandering around killing anything that moves to find that one thing that'll give practice again.

I'd like to add that some animals should be far easier than their combat rolls should indicate - rabbits, for instance. It's ludicrously easy to skin and gut a rabbit, even without a knife. Conversely, things like nope-ropes (snakes) and crocodiles should be harder than their combat ability would suggest - The former have an annoying, and remarkably creepy, habit of still moving hours after they're dead, especially when you put a knife to them to try and skin them. Crocodiles have a particularly tough hide that's a) brutal on the equipment to skin them and b) very, very tough to penetrate with a knife. There's a reason why crocodile skin boots and accessories are made from baby crocs (for the most part) ... they're easier to skin than that tough old bugger that's 15' long.

Those are just the RL equivalents, though, but for some of the fantastical critters - anything with a tough hide should be more difficult than their combat rolls would suggest ... you'd just have to make sure there isn't a gap in training skinning because of that increase in difficulty. It would also be nice if those same critters produced pelts that provided some additional affect when putting to use in leatherworking - additional resistances, special effects, lighter/heavier, etc. Sort of like how bronze, steel, iron armors all have the same resistances, but some are lighter than others. A snakeskin vest, for instance, might have the same resistances of typical leather, but be a little bit lighter. Croc skins might have a smidge higher slashing resistance, but be heavier. That sort of thing.


Also, while on the topic, the pale crabs and gargantuan crabs aren't skinnable/butcherable yet. I'm assuming it's because of the "legs" they have require a special cooking recipe that isn't in yet. Just wanted to mention it to have it logged somewhere.

[Gorth]

It'd be reasonable to assume that you could modify the animal's skin difficulty (which would already be combat based) by if it had any natural armor/health buffs, like Bison. This'd let low health critters like rabbits be easier than combat would suggest.

As stated, I'm not super happy by the idea of tying skinning directly to combat progression, but at the end of the day... it's a game, and if it works, it works. It's not like you don't use combat to kill the animal, anyway.

[Squeak]

[api] <**CHANGELOG**> (Mobs) The following creatures can now be skinned: plains lizard, barrens lizard, bog serpent, badlands viper, leafscale snake

I don't want to add more to the already over-burdened to-do list, but could we possibly have the option to throw skins into tub (like fur) to get an end result of "a light-brown lizard skin" instead of "lizard leather"? That way there's an option to see all the nifty colors of some of these skins? Pretty please?