First off I′d like to apologize for making yet another poll, and for if there has been one like it before but I have not seen one on the Skyrim forums and I intend this poll to be aimed at questioning how you want the attributes to work in Skyrim.

Now I′ve played through Oblivion with a few characters and often end up with 100 in my favored attributes, I even have two Bretons both with 100 Endurance but one of them has a lot more health than my first one because I invested into endurance a whole lot sooner, but both of them have the same mana at 100 Intellect. It kinda looks weird to me how my Breton that is pure mage ended up with the same mana as my breton that is a battlemage, but not the same health, I don′t care too much about if they had ended up the same, or if my pure mage breton had ended up with a lot more mana and my battlemage with more health, but I don′t think it′s good when my pure mage is basically "lesser" than my battlemage just because I went the mage way and went first for intelligence and then for endurance, ending up just as good a mage as my battlemage, just with less health.

Best would be in my mind if every stat except luck worked the way Endurance does, that if I had a thief type character and I made him have high agility early on it should contribute to making the things agility affects stronger for him than perhaps a warrior I had made that hit 100 agility later, or if I had a mage that hit 100 intelligence early on that mage should have a lot more mana than my thief that perhaps just got to 100 intelligence on his last level.

But I would not really mind too much either if they all ended the same, but I would feel that was a little cheap, but I know a lot of people who would just want to play once, or feel the need to be as powerful as possible with one character (some people don′t have the time to play the game twice or more after all).

Please vote and discuss what you think about this matter and what ideas you may have for Skyrim, even possible outlines of how each attribute should affect each skill or stat in the game would be a nice start to discuss how it could work if every attribute was changed the way I′d like to see them work.

I agree that some should build up but maybe not all. Maybe health (from end), mana (from int) and movespeed (from speed), the rest I think should be left as is, and anyway, what from agi would build?

Well for example ranged damage could, if I understand it right in Oblivion the more Agility you have the more damage with a bow you do, or how easily you go undetected while sneaking.

Or perhaps there could be another approach, like maybe for each 10 skills in Agility you have you would be able to get 0.1 more marksman skill the next level (possibly only increase until you got 100 skill, so at 110 skill you′d not get 1.1 level next), so if you got 100 agility early on like maybe at level 20, then by level 30 you could have a max of maybe 110 Marksman skill rather than the normal 100 (assuming you hadn′t gotten any increase in skillcap from levels 1-20 but you would so maybe more like 118 or 115 max marksman skill), for agility the same could go with sneak and other skills agility governs.

I'd definitely like to get rid of the non-retroactive Endurance. Doing that to all stats comes with a number of problems. For one, it's a nightmare to balance; if the game expects you deliberately train your stats, you end up being forced to play that way instead of at your own pace lest you end up crippled. If not, the game is going to be ridiculously easy for characters with high stats. That's before you get into the mess of balancing things for the countless possible combinations of stats.

What I would prefer they do is to make individual stat gains more significant, and much harder to increase. Some people like to do enormous, multi-hundred-hour saves that scour the map, do everything, and master everything. That's fine, but they're the only ones who should be getting 100 in every attribute. In past games it's almost a given that you'll reach 100 in at least one attribute by the end of a normal-length game, possibly several, and honestly I find it ridiculous. A game that's huge and encourages exploration and roleplay shouldn't reach maximums and cease progress so quickly and easily. It typically forces you to either stop all character progression, which can easily get boring fast, or start training in other things, making you reach the inevitable maximum and leading characters to all become the same. 100 is treated as the maximum possible you can reach, which is basically superhuman. We've seen olympic athletes and enormous bodybuilders, but how many of them could be said cannot physically possibly become any stronger? Who is unquestionably the most *insert attribute here* in the world? It shouldn't be so easy to obtain.

I won't get into high detail on the leveling scheme I suggested way back, but to put it short, I'd have it so skills increase with use, as they already do, and attributes increase through the use of relevant skills. No level-ups, no modifiers. Health would go up directly with endurance. Races wouldn't start inherently stronger, but instead would have multipliers to these increases; an orc would gain more strength through using the same amount of strength-based skills than a bosmer. With that plus smaller numbers making more difference, the average orc would be stronger than you without it being a hard cap that makes it impossible for you to be as strong. The same would apply to health and endurance. Skills and attributes would increase more slowly the higher they go, making it unlikely to reach a maximum, but entirely possible if you're directly training for it. Instead of a hard cap, after 100 that slowdown would be exponential. Anyone with 100 sword skill would be a peerless master swordsman, but instead of moving on to mastering other things they could continue devoting themselves to it, maybe reaching 110 and always being able to improve, however slowly.

Endurance and other attributes would work the same. Characters could potentially have the "same" health, but those whose builds/play style leans toward it would generally always have better. With smaller/more significant numbers things like Fortify Health/Endurance would make an actual difference, too

That would be quite very awesome... !!!

Sorry didn't realise your post Rhekarid. Both would do what I'd like better than the current system, which is for players to actually be one of the three specialisitions, not epically more awesome than anyone else in all three. For example, instead of a battlemage being a better mage and a better fighter than an allout mage or allout fighter, they should be a worse mage than a mage and a worse fighter than a fighter and so on. Specialisation should actually matter throughout the entire game.

Thank you for the contribution Rhekarid, you come with good points and I really appreciate it, I know it would be a pain to balance, if not impossible, but having a slight unbalance could perhaps not be so bad, I mean after all let′s say the game was a bit unbalanced and that magic would get too overpowered, then that would only happen like around the time you′ve already finished every single quest, and by then it shouldn′t matter too much if your enemies explode from the huge blast you generate each time you throw a fireball, after all you already are the hero of Skyrim, the protector of the Dovahkiin and a god amongst men.

With the "perfect" balance system it wouldn′t happen, and I know it′s impossible for anything to be "perfect" but one can dream

To go a tad off-topic in order to expand on it, another thing I'd like to see is the addition/return of advantages and disadvantages to character creation. You could pick things like a faster increase modifier, or +1 health per endurance point, to make a character feasibly "better" than others in some way, without going nuts on the balance.

And while of course being a master in everything is going to be imbalancing regardless, it just shouldn't happen so quickly and easily. As in, long after when you ARE the "hero of Skyrim" or whatever, and not halfway there.

Imo I don't think you should even be able to be master in everything. Ever.

Yeah, not really. Slower increase in general + slower the higher it gets would go a long way toward that in general, and to derail a bit into other past skill-system suggestions, I'd wanted to make training no longer an instant skill gain, but a requirement alongside experience to gaining them at all. Like, you get training in a weapon skill, and then proceed to run around using it. The increase gets slower with each level gained until after, say, 5 levels you need more training before it will increase at all anymore. It would also be handy for things like wanting to play a mage who carries around a weapon for emergencies, and pulls it out in close quarters, without inevitably mastering the skill just because you use it now and then. It would only go as high as you want it to.

Hmmm yes sounds like it could work. I think we're getting a bit OT here though eh? lol

Eh, rather have when you are at 100 endurance, you have 1000 health or something, and 900 health at 90 endurance, instead of trying to force the endurance stat to be a high as possible and early as possible. Hell, I want the micromanaging removed all together.

Health should only depend on how high your Endurance is right now, not on how quickly you built it up to that value.

But isn′t that just boring and bland, if every character you make is the same, if the thief you make becomes exactly the same as your mage and warrior ?

If how quickly you build into each attribute affects the stats and skills then each character is more unique and there is more customization, it doesn′t have to be micro managing if you just don′t care about getting the "best" after all the "best" is just to have it all, and to have it all is bland and boring, like Jyggalag.

Yes
Other

I like the old-school RPG style HP calculations with what you gain per level determined by Endurance. (ie, the way Endurance worked in Oblivion)

"Other" because I think Intelligence as relates to Magicka should work the same way, and all the other stats should work like they always have.

Not feeling the "strength should go to 500 if maxed very early" or "Speed should go to Warp Factor 9 if taken to 100 by level 8" thing.

I get the feeling that the game just looks at your level during scaling operations, rather than how you've actually played.
A real GM hate power players, those who try to exploit every exploitable part in the rules. Here it is the opposite; unless you power play, you may end up with a very weak character that doesn't stand a chance. A real GM would adjust so that he could still enjoy the game and have a chance, rather than kill him off as fast as possible.

I've mentioned a way to avoid that, by having sub skills associated with the normal skills. These sub skills can only be improved by means of trainers, not by practicing. The maximum reach of these sub skills are governed by the normal skill. So if you have a main jumping skill at 80, these 80 have to be assigned to sub skills (i.e. long jumping and high jumping, nobody can excel in both) via trainers. As you increase through levels, the balance is shifted more and more towards the specialty skills wrt how much they weight in the calculations.

Only skills within your specialty skills should be possible to master, and if we get Major, Minor, and Misc skills back, you'd get to be Master in Major skills (cap @100), Journeyman in Minor skills (cap @74), and only Apprentice in Misc skills (cap @49). If the rest of the game is designed with this in mind, it should be more fun and challenging to start new characters. I quit playing them when they become too boring (read: powerful).

That's a lot of fairly unrelated stuff, so what's the point? Point is that by changing only how health and endurance is related, you're only scratching the surface of (imho) what needs to be addressed. Oh, and btw, my own dream skill setup includes 56 main skills (with typically 2 or 3 sub skills each) instead of OBs 21, and 5 Specialities instead of OBs 3 (Combat, Nature, Stealth, Social, and Magic). That's more than Daggerfall, but doesn't come close to dice based rule books.

The end goal for me, is that I want a more role playing based and less action based game.

I really don't like how endurance at least worked for Oblivion. It made you increase everything on endurance as soon as possible, because everyone wants to make a good character in the end, right? This is the wrong way to do it. They need to change it.

Hitpoints should be END+100 imo.

I like the system just fine.
Wouldn't care if it got changed though so I voted for "Other"

How about this on the Enduranc and max HP? :

Your HP is:

Endurance x 4
+ 3 * your current level.

Example: (asuming max lvl is 50)
Low levels:

Lvl 1, Endurance 30: HP: 123
Lvl 2, Endurance 30: HP: 126

Lvl 1, Endurance 50: HP: 203
Lvl 2, Endurance 55: HP: 226

High levels:
Lvl 50, Endurance 30: HP: 270
Lvl 50, Endurance 50: HP: 350
Lvl 50, Endurance 70: HP: 430
Lvl 50, Endurance 100: HP: 550

Something like that might work a bit better, you still get more HP from leveling up, but only 3 points if you don't spend points on endurance.
Tell me what you think.

I think personally it should be possible to max out on the standard levels for your endurance, intelligence etc. However i think it should be possible to further improve upon items directly connected with your speciallity. An example would be mages being able to further research, locate training manuals, hidden teachers etc to gain more power in this area, and gain access to further spells and greater intelligence that warrior classes wouldn't be able to access. A swordsman for example would be able to gain access to additional combat moves, greater defensive options and so on ....
This i think would add greater depth to each individual class and allow you to develop your character further.

I think every race should have a base HP, that differs at most 20% from other races, and that Endurance should give you a maximum of 30% boost in health. Why? Because an RPG means that stuff affects your abilities, that stuff being skills and attributes earned and distributed by you. What it doesn't mean, is that combat and other aspects of gameplay have to be bland, slow-paced, and unrealistic. I can't try and drive this home enough. How does it make sense that anyone can take ten arrows to the head? It doesn't! Now, characters with higher Endurance should be taller (based on how much you choose at start game), and more muscular (based on how much you choose at start, and increasing as you increase it through your playthrough). Being bigger and tougher should let you have a little more tolerance for pain and damage, but shouldn't allow you to take twice as many stabs to the chest as anyone else. Endurance can affect the penalties of having low health. It can affect things like how effective you are at functioning while under a heavy burden or wearing lots of armor. It can affect resistance to disease, cold, etc. So with this in mind, someone with the lowest possible health ("weakest" race, and say like 5 Endurance or whatever), should have something like 80-82 health. Someone who chooses to play as an Orc and max out their Endurance, should be tall, look extremely thick and powerful, and have health of near 130 (which would be the max anyone could have). Don't hate.

I voted for option 2. Option 1 only encourages micromanaging; and, with the leveling systems in TESIII and TESIV, micromanaging to get those x5 multipliers.

Retroactive endurance mods are popular for a reason.

I do like the idea of all attributes being like Endurance has been. Having just one attribute affect your stats every level, and all the attributes affect your stats only after increasing them is a tad unfair. Although it could be hard to balance, I know.

Of course agility would have to have its own special effect, just as speed affects move speed, agility needs some benefit to increasing it. Perhaps weapon swing speed? I'm not sure exactly what.

And another problem, is how to make things like speed from becoming stupid. If I maxed it as early as possible, I don't want it to be like running with the boots of blinding speed without a blind effect. And if I maxed it out later on, I don't want to barely be any faster than I was when speed was still at 30.

Perhaps it's better to keep attributes affecting your character only when you increase them. But then there's the danger of all characters becoming the same. But as Rhekarid said, I guess slower increases could solve that problem.

I wasn't aware of this and now that I am I think it should be retroactive. I wasn't a fan of the irritating (for me) stat bonus system either, and hence used a mod to get rid of the micromanagement needed to get +5s.