I do think the skill system needs an overhaul. While I don't mind a deterrent to throwing yourself at something over and over, the amount of xp needed to level skills grows exponentially, once you get high enough it's not hours, its real time days of using it over and over to get it to that level, so dying and losing literal days of work is too much IMO, having some way to get it back at an accelerated rate or something to incentivize being active about it instead of being oh well would be something. (300% XP gain within 48 in game hours perhaps?)

I would honestly rather make a full set of armor again than lose 4 levels from a 90+ skill, the grind to get mats back is faaaaaaar lesser than the xp grind at that point, i think that's what the defenders are missing is it's not really that bad to get mats in this game.

It's not horrible but letting the player do something about lost levels faster, be it just accelerated XP for the amount of levels lost or just making it so you cant go back a bracket (like once you hit 90, it wont ever go lower than 90 on death). Also swimming is such a meme bad skill it should just be taken out of the game it's barely noticeable lmao