Ah, but therein lies the problem. If there were a strength-attribute, this would be true. But without a shared variable, I can make a character that carries stuff like an ox, but punches like a hamster. Or a character that crushes an orc's head with one hand, but can't lift a box of kwama eggs. Without attributes, there is no connection between related abilites.

Ah, but therein lies the problem. If there were a strength-attribute, this would be true. But without a shared variable, I can make a character that carries stuff like an ox, but punches like a hamster. Or a character that crushes an orc's head with one hand, but can't lift a box of kwama eggs. Without attributes, there is no connection between related abilites.

I am a huge long time fan of the Elder Scrolls series. However, a few things have been bothering me for quite some time. Finally, I decided to take action and start topics on a forum. This is my first post, and I'll take it to discuss the first thing on my mind: loss of attributes.
I've been following Todd Howard and his explanations. I cannot quote him EXACTLY, but I remember reading something along these lines in an interview about lost attributes:
'the eight attributes are gone, now there are only three (health, magic, and energy/stamina). When someone complains about this, I ask them 'what do you want?' they say 'I need Intelligence, so I can increase my magic' but now when you level, you can do that anyway. All the old attributes jus trickled down to one of those.'
I read that and was simply dumbfounded. Personally, if he asked ME, I wouldn't have given the [censored] 'intelligence' answer. Asked for what I wanted in attributes, here would be MY answer:
Attributes are a MUST... ESPECIALLY for an RPG. you need things like Strength, to distinguish the max carry weight between a powerful but physically weak Mage and a hardy Warrior. How about Willpower, to pick up magic regeneration rate? Or speed, to give rogue-like characters a running-speed advantage that their character build needs? Don't forget Agility, to help the thieves take less damage from blows, also a necessity for that build (since their health isn't too high). All of these things don't "muck up the waters", not even close! They make the game experience the way an RPG should be. Skyrim looks amazing, I pre ordered it and plan to puck it up ASAP, but still, attributes need to be included, even if they increase slowly or even not at all. The races should be distinguished, especially in things such as speed and carry weight. As if right now from all I gave heard, they aren't, in EITHER of those things.
I may talk more on this subject later. Feel free to send me feedback, thoughts, hate mail, whatever ya want. I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on this.

-Bill

ive read some news and watched some interviews and from what ive seen he never said they were cutting attributes he merely said that he is changing what they effect now instead of increasing intellegance to get more magicka instead you just increase magicka and now when you increase intellegance it affects something else.

ive read some news and watched some interviews and from what ive seen he never said they were cutting attributes he merely said that he is changing what they effect now instead of increasing intellegance to get more magicka instead you just increase magicka and now when you increase intellegance it affects something else.

No, they explicitly stated several times that attributes other than Health, Magicka, and Stamina were gone. Just those three and skills are left.

Even in pen-and-paper games with these stats, they played a very minor role in actual gameplay.

If you are almost dead and he wants you to be able to surprise that monster, he's still going to let you succeed in surprising that monster, regardless of your DEX score, or what the die landed on.

For example, how would you feel about a game with detailed, old school RPG stats, but very poorly written quests, or not enough interesting factions to join, or absolutely no compelling NPCs?

Which in turn gives you more functional variety not less right ?You could be the worlds strongest dude and have a boxer beat youre head in skill is the main issue in combat given you have the basic strentgh to weild said weapon which as dragon born we will and if you want a heavy swinger im sure you can customize that way.

How does character Wisdom or charisma/Personality pertain to those three mentioned attributes, when in dialog? Consider (for example) the Aragorn character. He was wise, but not a spell caster. He was also not an exaggerated personality like any of the hobbits, or the other non-humans in the Fellowship.

Question: Based on what we know of Skyrim, is it possible to create each of the characters in the the fellowship accurately and ~most important distinguishably (both in ability and in indicated behavior)?

I don't see it as possible without character attributes (and a lot more of them than Skyrim seems to have).

I like the change. Here is why...
Your carry weight can be determined by stamina.
Magic Regeneration can be handled with a perk, or automagically (I went there) by leveling up.
Agility can also be handled with perks, in the sneak tree. Or autosneakilly (I lost my self with that one) by leveling up. Speed same thing.

I like attributes and how they are folded into perks and the 3 main skills (Health=Warrior, Magicka=Wizard, Stamina=Thief) <- the way i see it.

I agree that the races should be distinguished be it speed or encumbrance.

I will never hate!

I think attributes are already so simplified in TES games as to be entirely irrelevant anyway. If this was a D&D-based game I would absolutely argue against the removal or merging of any attributes, because each attribute does so many things for a character, but TES seems to be Skill-driven and not Attribute-driven like D&D.

Simply comparing the handling of attributes in the two systems should be enough to show what I mean:

Intelligence in TES determines the following:

• Base magicka.
  
• Magicka cost of spells.
  
• Success and capability in Alchemy, Conjuration, Mysticism.

Intelligence in D&D determines the following:

• How hard a wizard's spells are to resist.
  
• How powerful the spells are (they can improve with your character).
  
• Number of skill points gained per level.
  
• Success at ability checks (eg. an NPC might attempt to confuse your character, but a high intelligence would see him unfazed).
  
• Languages the character knows.
  
• Likelihood of learning new information/feats/skills from books and scrolls.
  
• Success and capability in Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge, Search, Spellcraft.

You can see that attributes are a very important part of D&D, used to decide pretty much everything at any moment. On the other hand, attributes in TES are not used very much at all, and the skills almost stand by themselves. In such a system where attributes are unimportant, it makes sense to combine them and simplify the whole thing.

I never quite understood how one could improve personality/luck since one is all based on perspective while the other is a total immeasurable facet. Nonetheless, in regards to gameplay the one stated attribute (willpower) that previously affected the PC (gameplay) does indeed wholesomely contribute to the three main attributes seeing as willpower can be calculated with the recharge rate of ones magika, however, you are going into more of the named atrributes and what they stand for, and not what they improve (in regards to PC's ability) indirectly, thusly proving that in my opinoin while no gameplay mechanic is taking a hit with the new attribute setup, it may prove unfavorable to those who used the named attributes as numerical/measurable means of defining their character.

Sure, that argument was about realism, not about variety. However, keep in mind:
With attributes, you'd have the possibilites to make a strong, an agile or an enduring swordfighter. Now you are only a swordfighter. As someone said earlier, stamina now basically represents strength and agility - why would a strong character necessarily be agile at the same time? Overall, options seem to be less.

Sure, that argument was about realism, not about variety. However, keep in mind:
With attributes, you'd have the possibilites to make a strong, an agile or an enduring swordfighter. Now you are only a swordfighter. As someone said earlier, stamina now basically represents strength and agility - why would a strong character necessarily be agile at the same time? Overall, options seem to be less.

Its pointless


The money they hope to get from the "new customers" has been determined to be higher then any "old customers" not buying the game by the bean counters

Attributes are gone, just like loot was removed from ME2 and armor control in DA2

Its the era of simplification of RPGs and Skyrim swallowed it hook line and sinker

He wouldnt the way i see it unless he choose to pick the right style of perks to make him all of those things over the ones that just made him a better basher head crusher style.over all i think it adds more combos.

With attributes, you'd have the possibilites to make a strong, an agile or an enduring swordfighter. Now you are only a swordfighter.

Attributes + Perks + Skills

Is Greater Than

Perks + Skills.

I sincerely doubt any significant portion of players (whether its here on the forums our elsewhere) would actually take issue with having the 3-part system above as opposed to the 2-part one. Would any of you take that major of an issue with the leveling system if it retained attributes but still added Perks and everything else thats new about it? (coupled as well with the removal of Oblivion's level scaling, which exacterbated EVERY PROBLEM WITH EVERYTHING)