4Game

I've always disliked the per-swing, per-action, per-second style of gaining experience in skills and I still haven't seen a mod for what I've had in my head. I'm thinking of making it myself and I just wonder if there's interest to determine how much time I spend on it. If you can't tell from the outset, here's what I'm thinking:

1. Damage done to dictate (or at least influence) xp gained for relevant skills e.g. fists, clubs, swords, axes, bows, etc. additionally sneak attack damage done while sneaking could provide an increase to one or both skills. Depending on feedback (if I had any) it would also be affected by enemy type if the math gets hazy, especially if I try integrate it with any of the more popular gameplay mods
2. Running, jumping, sneaking, swimming, all being affected by stamina drained and distance travelled to some degree. Probably a logarithmic increase for stamina drain since cooking buffs max out and without mods like Levelling System or Epic Loot there's little in the way of expanding your pool
3. Mining and Woodcutting could have similar damage done scaling but since the difference between tools is minimal I think the rarity/quality of the material mined could have an effect on the amount gained
4. And finally, blocking. I'd rather parrying/parry timing and total damage prevented be the real driving force here. Total damage prevented being for tower shields and potentially having a lesser impact on non-tower shields so it doesn't compound with the parrying shields

I'm someone who prefers to have one character and eventually get them to max level while steadily increasing the game's difficulty by increasing the number of spawns, enemy health/damage, etc. but even so, I have always disliked the very linear skill progression of smack trees with a macro for hours. I think something like this would reward taking risks to push forward in the game's progression, as access to better weapons and tools would mean more effective experience gain overall. Same goes for access to food, mining resource nodes, and enemy types. And I think this method of levelling lends itself to those who like starting fresh characters as well, because it eliminates the urge to cheese those early levels for an easier early to midgame

I've never made a mod that I've considered releasing for others or maintaining, but I think this would be worth it and the timing feels good for where the game is at in its life cycle. Knowing other people like the idea and aren't opposed to being involved (input on balancing and stuff so it's not game-breaking by default) would be a nice motivation boost, because I'm lazy as all hell