Ask me this question last week and I would have said Nords, Orcs, and Redguards would be the best bet if you want to go the combat route. But now that attributes are removed from the game, I kind of wonder does the race choice matter anymore? I don't know if I can accurately answer this question.

If all races start out as a blank slates and an Orc and a Wood Elf decide to specialize in blunt weapons and obtain the same skills, perks, health points for the same level. Would there be any difference between the Orc and the Wood Elf during combat? Will the Orc's innate physical prowess over the Wood Elf be rendered null and void?


If there is no difference, why have different races? The same can be said about races that previously had a better inclination towards magic.

I'm still in denial that they've taken out attributes. I mean, they couldn't have just taken them out, they must realize their fans will crucify them! There's just no way Bethesda could make such a poor design decision, I have too much faith in them.

By level 10 all races in Oblivion were inferior to Bretons in every role.

Starting attributes never made a lasting difference. Neither have starting skills.

I bet you can't wait until mounts are confirmed, then you can beat a real dead horse

So think races, especially combat type race, wouldn't make any differnce right. I am just trying to figure out if my race choice will just be asthetics.

I would think that the only logical path would be to have each race have different starting skill values?
i.e. An orc would have a base heavy armor skill of lets say, 30, and a base marksman skill of 10 or 15 whilst a bosmer would have a base heavy armor skill of 10 or 15 but a base marksman skill of 30

regardless, you would eventually be able to make any character as skilled as any other, it would just take longer for some characters

I'm thinking that certain races will have higher starting bonuses in skills like Nords should have a higher 1 handed skill, Bosmer higher Archery, Bretons higher Restoration etc.

Also due to no attributes I'm thinking that the Encumberence starting point will be different. Wood Elves will have a lower amount of encumberence while Nords will probably have a higher encumberence. However unless Stamina raises Encumberence it'll be a lot harder to raise the encumberence outside of Enchanted Feather if that's even in Skyrim.

I hope not. It would artificially shorten the game if such large bonuses were given at level 1. Reminds me too much of major skill bonuses, which I'm glad are gone.

If anything, races will be defined by their non-attribute, non-stat racial bonuses. They always have been. I expect them to be expanded.

Well they DID mention they wanted to make the races look AND FEEL a lot different from each other, so I doubt a nord will be just as intelligent good with magic as a high elf

Exactly, have faith that they know what they are doing. They haven't taken out attributes, as all the functions attributes did before are still in the game, there's just no numerical value for them.

This is getting ridiculous. It's come from the mouth of TH himself that everything attributes did in the past are still in the game but people insist on continuing the "they removed attributes, now the game is bad." argument.

I'm picking that it will be more obvious with the races which ones are more attuned to the traditional classes of mage, warrior, thief - I'm still picking Redguard for warrior as i imagine their racial abilities remain similar to the the other games and if anything I hope the Breton's are a bit more powered down this time.

Races have different starting skill bonuses and racial abilities just like Oblivion and Morrowind. Honestly I NEVER paid attention to the racial attributes, just skills and abilities (since that is what is ACTUALLY important)

Are you refering to the once a day 'powers' or something else?

Todd is a hype man as much as he is a designer. While I'm putting faith in Bethesda as a whole, I can't believe a word he says seven months before release. He's becoming the Vader to Molyneux's Sidious.

@above: He's referring to both power and passive bonuses like Breton's godly 50% Resist Magicka. I never felt the powers mattered personally, never used them.

Oh yeah, since it's mostly on topic, was originally in response to one of your posts ebsn, and the thread was locked almost immediately after, I'll repost my thoughts on race size becoming more significant in gameplay. Your original post:



My response:

I would love for this to be handled by height and weight. It never worked well with attributes anyway because, depending on how that nord and elf leveled, the elf could very well have more strength. And a height/weight ratio would follow your black belt example. Characters in Morrowind and Oblivion already had a fixed height and a ratio of height and weight based on their race or six. It's just a matter of translating it into damage output and other things like running/jumping. And because Skyrim seems like it will allow some changes to height and weight in character creation, a player could tailor the character to fit his needs.

Say you're making an Imperial who has a base height of 10 (arbitrary measurement). Pretend also that character creation allows you to vary a character's height by 10% of its base, so you can make an Imperial with a height of 9 or 11 or anything in between.

Say also that your base weight is equal to your current height. This can be changed too by 10%. If I made my Imperial the default of 10 height, I can set his weight to be between 9 and 11. If I made him have a height of 9, my base weight would be 9 as well but could vary between 8.1 and 9.9.

The height/weight ratio then defaults to 1.0, but can vary between 1.11111 or 0.90909 (best to round it to 1.1 and 0.9). This ratio cannot be changed directly, but can be changed by moving around the weight.

Now say that the character has two hidden attributes "dmg" and "spd". They start at 100 and represent a percentage of the default damage and speed. dmg is multiplied by weight/10, and spd is divided by the ratio of height/weight. So, characters that are heavy do the most damage, and characters that are light for their height (regardless of actual weight) run faster. Remember that even though dmg only depends on weight, weight depends on height. So a taller character has a higher maximum and minimum weight than a shorter character.

You could even add two other hidden attributes, "enc" and "acr" or something which represent maximum encumbrance and maximum jumping height/distance as a percentage of default. enc could be multiplied by height/weight so that characters heavy for their height (regardless of actual weight, low center of gravity and whatnot) can carry more. jmp could be divided by weight/10, so lighter characters jump higher. Again, shorter characters have a lower minimum and maximum weight, so they'll typically jump higher.

The numbers can and should be invisible to the player, really. It should be made clear to them that the taller and heavier they make their character the harder he'll hit but the lower he'll jump, etc.

Too complicated? Take all the ugly maths out and I think it makes more sense than attributes would. Now, 95% sure they won't implement something like this, but it's a dream of mine.

Of course, I should mention this in case someone misinterprets. Different races would have different base heights. So Nords would start at 11 height and can go from 12.1 to 9.9, Bosmer start at 8 height and can go from 7.2 to 8.8, etc. Still making up all numbers.

:rofl:

I guess I can hope for the best case scenario. That the core attributes (agility, strength, intell, willpower, speed, endurance) are still there, but they can not be increased. So in the above example, the Orc would still have edge over the wood elf because his hits would be a couple of points higher due to his innate strenght.

It's possible that the different races may have different starting values for Health, Magicka, and Stamina.

Once a day powers, magicka bonuses, resistances, etc. I assume all is fair game for revival

Yeah, I thought that too as far as revival... But those things you mentioned won't mean much if the Orc and the Wood Elf got into a fist-a-cuff battle.

height actualy affect speeds in oblivion. i dont know if it affects anything else tho.

As I mentioned already, as always each race has different skill boosts at start.

I know. Unfortunately it doesn't affect it in a very balanced way. Wood Elves, which you would think would be quick, are actually slower than everything else. It makes some sense, because their stride would be shorter. But the way I have the calculations set up, a Wood Elf would be lighter as well and that would make up for the difference in stride. All races will basically have the same run speed until you start altering the Weight, and all races will have the same potential run speed. But, a combat character will want to increase weight to increase damage, and that will reduce run speed.

I'm pretty sure speed was all height affected. Shorter races might have been sneakier, but I don't know. There was a height/weight ratio thing as well which determined how anorexic a race looked, but it had no impact on gameplay.

I suppose that can be a metric. And could be use to figure out who are the best warriors. High health, low magicka, average stamina.
And likewise for the best mage. Low Health, High Magicka, average stamina. But problems arise when you get more detailed in trying to determine the best bow user etc..

Archers will want Stamina. Sprinting will be a ranged fighter's best friend, and if it ultimately affects overall speed and/or stagger chance then all the better. And I'm hoping with the changes to bow speed and damage Bethesda won't just get rid of bow fatigue burn at as low a level as they did in Oblivion.

wow

But seriously though. Every time I read that health, magicka, and stamina are now attributes I cringe. These are tank bars in the traditional since of RPGs. I mean they dwindle the more you use them or are taken away from you. Attributes are not depleted.