I will put you some examples:
Your ranger is using Survival to track a monster. He find the monster. He use his survival check.
Your party is crossing a river swiming. Use athletics.
Your bard is distracting a guard talking with him, the rogue is using this to go from behind. The rogue will use stealth and the bard performance.
There is closed door and the enemy is inside. Your party want to do a surprise attack. THe rogue will use stealth, the barbarian that destroy the door use athletics.
How are your players "maxing out perception"? Are they aware that it is not a skill and can't be increased with skill feats? I've seen a few players get confused by that. Are your players all taking Canny Acumen for Perception as their first general feat? That feat would make perception proficiency maxed compared to their skills at some levels, but even then, a low wisdom character might prefer another strategy.
Other than that, it seems mostly left up to the creativity of the players and gm. Perception is the most common way to decide initiative, as there are a lot of situations where you are just watching out for threats. Dungeons tend to encourage using mostly perception or stealth. That's ok.
However, PochiPooom has given quite a few examples, and I'll add a couple more based on what I've seen in online games.
If the players are trying to track a creature, they can use survival as they are actively looking for it using specific methods.
In a social encounter in which they are trying to convince an npc that they bear them no ill will, when they are, in fact, ready for a fight, they might use deception to hide their intentions for as long as possible while they try to get more information, or diplomacy, if they are honest, as they try to keep the other calm and to pay attention to cues in the conversation.
Gladiators literally jumping into an arena or fighting pit might use Athletics to see who manages to land on their feet and be ready to fight the fastest. (That one I just made up.)
If you want to make full use of this new rule, it's up to you as gm to put the players in situations in which they are not just walking through a place trying not to get jumped, whether it's because there is room for creative ways of attaining some goal or because you are requiring that they do some specific tasks to keep moving forward. Encourage the players to be creative in their descriptions of what they do, and pick a skill based on that.
Also, note that scouting gives a +1 to initiative, not perception, so other players might use other strategies during that time.
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I'll agree this rule kinda feels.. "tacked on" even if it's been that way since the Playtest. It´s easy to theorycraft all these scenarios but in practice most of them are very gimmicky and it's gonna be perception/stealth 9 times out of 10 when a combat is supposed to begin(Not in the middle of using skills for non-combat stuff). Can't imagine a Tracking attempt starting a fight unless you crit fail it, for example.
One I can think of that might actually happen is Intimidate for when the enemies show up and banter/threaten the party before actually attacking. A lot of combat vs other civilized humanoids is going to have some talking prior to the start, limiting the choices.
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So what I am going to post is a collection of post from others on these forums to understand Encounter Mode to Initiative. I sent this out to my players and I saw their collective light bulbs turn on...hope this helps
So if a party is in a room and first wants to thoroughly search it for traps, then magic, then study the inscriptions - that's not really exploration mode. You're apparently having an encounter with that particular room. But if you're moving through a very large dungeon with monsters in only a few rooms and the party's mostly just walking through, trying to get this whole thing done today, then you use exploration mode. Or when the party is walking through the forest trying to reach the next village, you can use exploration mode.
Exploration mode gives you nice clear answers to "what was everyone doing just before the encounter started".
Here's how I could see it working. The most important point that I took away from reading the book is that exploration activities are not static. The players can (and are expected to) change them depending on what happens.
Here's an example of how I would use this. Assume a party of three: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard.
The party enters a dungeon complex. The Fighter goes first with his shield raised, the rogue wants to detect for traps. The first part of the dungeon is pretty barren. There's nothing that immediately interests the wizard, so he'll also use Perception to check for anything out of the ordinary.
Around the first corner, there's a hallway with paintings all around. Now the wizard will have to make a choice: He could either study the paintings as they walk (Investigate) or he could check for other interesting things (like secret doors and traps). If he's focusing on one, he's not focusing on the other. The party could let the rogue handle Perception while the wizard focuses on the paintings, or they could be very meticulous and have both do Perception before they even begin to examine the paintings. That will take more time, though. If time's not an issue at all, there's nothing to stop the party. But it's something that they'll have to make a conscious decision to do. "First we sweep the entire hallway for traps and other hidden things. When it's clear, we'll take a look at the paintings."
Final example: The party comes across an alcove with a statue. No perception necessary. The GM describes what it looks like, and asks what the players will do. The fighter wants to study it (Investigate), the wizard wants to detect magic. The rogue is anxious and says he'll stay out of sight for the moment (Hide). They find some info, and press on. The GM checks with the party whether they want to use the previous exploration tactics, or something else. And the group continues.
Or, maybe the party gets ambushed at this point; the statue comes alive. The fighter made the choice to study the statue, so doesn't have his shield raised. But he might be allowed to roll Craft for initiative, realizing just in time that the statue is a construct. The rogue was hiding, so gets Stealth for Initiative. The wizard might roll Arcane as Initiative to realize the statue was animated, just before it started to fight. Etc.
Again this is from many others on the forums just talking and shouting out ideas. I think a lot of what is here makes sense.
Lots of good examples in this thread. I like this rule, it feels intuitive and leads to interesting use of a character's skills. Like with any rule/tool, how creatively it is utilized is largely up to the group.