I dont mean to sound brutal, but that was one boring read...and i dont like the idea. Sorry, but just being honest.

That's ok I'd rather you be honest and tell me what you don't like about the system. It's the best that I could come up with in a short period of time. I probably could come up with a better version of this system if given more time. That's kinda why I posted it as maybe Beth could get some ideas on it and improve on what I posted if they choose to use the system.

If you read a book about destruction it raises your skill, not your intelligence. The skill encompasses knowledge of the skill

Technically it's both the Skill and the Intelligence. The Skill because you got better at it, The Intelligence because you learned it and figured out how to get better at it.

On the surface it may appear as though this discussion is tossing around the merits of attributes with one side saying they could or should be in and the other side saying they can't or shouldn't be in. Underneath though what it really boils down to is one side supporting Bethesda's decision and they other side questioning it.

Yes, but what I'm saying is that intelligence is self evident IN the skill. Someone with 100 destruction isn't going to be an idiot when it comes to destruction. Just like someone with 10 in 1-H isn't going to be able to chat for hours about the ins and outs of light weapon combat

I know and that's what I've been trying to avoid with this thread. It's mainly to talk about the system and if it can or can't work. I think I've gone off topic a couple times I've got to work on stopping that. :biggrin:

Or in my case trusting a quality developer with their flagship game until I play it myself and can judge whether or not it's crap.

What can I say, I'm an optimist.

This. Bethesda has never produced a bad TES game (though some people will disagree...). I'll judge for certain when the game comes out but right now, from the info we have now and the scenarios I've played through my head to see how much customization and how things will work have all been amazing, of course it's theorycrafting but it's working out in my mind so I'm highly optimistic. For the few issues that Oblivion had like level-scaling and the magic compass, the game overall is my second favorite and I started with Arena. It seems to me that most of the people that doesn't like the direction the game is moving are those that grew up playing pen and paper RPGs. I've played Pen and Paper RPGs before, not really hardcoe like some people have but I have, but I don't really see the appeal of staying in attributes that define your characters physical traits when you can define their physical traits visually in a video game now. That is another reason why attributes beyond health, magicka and stamina aren't really that useful anymore is due to the fact that everything they represented can be represented by the video game visually.

It just gets me that those that love the pen and paper stats so much are unwilling to imagine how intelligent their character is. If you are unwilling to imagine something, then how did you ever play a pen and paper RPG? That's the only question I really have.

Well, since Bethesda's decision was to do away with Attributes, arguing the merits of them for their inclusion = questioning that decision. I'm not questioning it just to be contrary. I'm not even saying that the game won't still be amazing. But it is my belief that without some system of Attributes more complex than Health, Fatigue, and Magicka, there are many things you cannot properly display in the game. Although most of those things wouldn't be in the game even with an Attribute system, which is why I'm not overly concerned about it. However, there certainly are some things which would be made more interesting or effective with Attributes, such as checks and balances which prevent some characters from too easily becoming jack-of-all-trades'.

My system has a check and balance by having the +5 in an Attribute only occur every 5 levels thus preventing people from getting maxed in all of their attributes.

Can you elaborate on the things that cannot properly be displayed in the game?


Also, we have checks and balances for your character not being a jack of all trades. In other games, it wasn't difficult to be a jack-of-all-trades, however, the new leveling system in Skyrim works against that. If you try to level all your skills, your going to be gimped in the overall scheme of the game. Your going to have a much more difficult game experience if you try to pick many skills, but it's still your choice to do so. Also, as you get higher level, your leveling really slows down and when you reach level 50, your leveling slows to a crawl, basically telling you that you should stop there, however if you want to, you can max out all your skills afterward but it's going to take a LONG time as slow as it will be. At least that's what the GI article said. So it seems the checks and balances are already in place in Skyrim, something they didn't have in the past.

If you're going to do something like that, then don't have attributes level up at all.

Every race gets set attribute values, and give the player 40 or so points to distribute as they wish during character creation. Then don't give them any more and let skills and perks dictate character advancement. Attributes represented characteristics and many (Intelligence, Willpower, Personality, Luck) aren't physical manifestations at all and wouldn't "improve" in a realistic sense. Starting race bonuses set the stage for natural genetic variations, and some points for distribution gives a player the chance to build a character's "background" in a similar way to Major and Minor skills but without the potentially game-breaking balance issues.

Better yet, make attributes completely cosmetic in addition to this, so rollplayers not willing to delve into the Creation Kit will actually feel like their character's super smart for dumping points into Intelligence! Placebo's awesome.

I'd like the return of attributes a lot. -_- It's not a revamp, just some small touches to please some hardcoe fans like me. The Attributes are a TES tradition.

Wow...your really going to start that just because he doesn't think attributes being removed is a big deal? There are plenty of us hardcoe TES fans that are fine with the change and many of us played long before Morrowind and Oblivion, so we have been around those attributes longer. Doesn't make you a "casual player" if you are fine with the change, some of us just see the innumerable possibilities birthed from the new 3 attribute, 280 perk system.



How are they just "small touches"? By adding them back in, you just caused a redundancy that causes an imbalance because you just doubled up bonuses. The functions of the old attributes are still in the game, so you can just put attributes back in because you are doubling the effects, the only way to put back in the 8 words you want to keep is to make a completely new system altogether with them. I think a lot of people that advocate for the return of the old system don't take that into account.

I'm not against Attributes being removed but I still think there's a better option then getting of them completely and I do like the new system of perks and the 3 status Attributes of Health, Magicka and Stamina. I think though that Attributes could still work in the perk system however they can't be more important then the perks hence why I made it a 20-50 format from a 30-100 and every 5 levels in my system.

Ok....side thought. Sleign alluded to that its better to come up with a system then saying for beth to Fix it........I..wonder what exactly what this thread is then?

Again, not about perks being bad...or saying the game will svck.......is a brainstorming but people are still frothing the moment attributes is brought up.

I already borderline derailedthis topic, can you stop? add on to Terrors thoughts or make your own.


Saying its too late to implement or change anything is bs, as I've stated before Dual wielding(an Integral part of the system effect every npc) was not in the original game of Skyrim, as todd stated its a fairly recent addition (looking for link atm) and Spell Combo also wasnt in four months ago, and apparently these are -descisions- that were changed....

so please enough of that.




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Terror, how would your method handle fortifications to health?

If I have 200 hp, and Fortify it by 100 for 5 seconds and in that 5 seconds I take the equivilant of 230 by some monsterous thing I thought I had the balls to face...would I die? after the 5 seconds?

I don't think they will be any fortify health spells in Skyrim and if there are some then yes you probably will die.

Don't forget that the old attributes were in the game originally as well but Bethesda found that they didn't work well with the new systems so they replaced them with the 3 main attributes now and put the old attributes effects elsewhere in the game. A lot of people either didn't know that about attributes or forgot.

Well, for instance, reading. Why should a character with little Intelligence be able to read a book which increases their skill? Now, this might seem to "gimp" that character, however the reason his Intelligence is low is because he's already spending more of his time increasing specific skills which have nothing to do with Intelligence.

It's not game changing stuff, but it really reinforces whatever character you play, makes each time you play the game an entirely different experience. Can the game function without it? Of course. But it does increase complexity. Some people might find that complexity frustrating, but frankly there's a lack of complex games and I think Bethesda is the type of company which can push the envelope.

Also, many abilities are really the function of multiple Skills and Attributes. Earlier I mentioned that how well you speak really is determined not only by your Speechcraft Skill, but also your Intelligence and Personality, and in fact the level of your Speechcraft skill should be directly determined by those two Attributes. This also then reinforces logical behavior patterns. If having a good Personality and Intelligence rating allows you to have a good Speechcraft Skill, you are also likely to do other things which rely on Personality and Intelligence.

Now, this is only really important if you could say, play the whole game and not use a single offensive spell or melee weapon. Simply convince your enemies not to attack you, or make good friends with people who can fight for you, or become such a successful merchant that you can hire mercenaries for protection. I doubt these options are in the game, but they are the kind of thing which would push ES from being "Great" to "Astounding."

Oh I knew they did that but they probably used the old version of Attributes from Oblivion and not the Attribute System that I proposed. My system would be better suited for Skyrim over Oblivion's system because Oblivion's Attributes overlapped with Skills. My Attributes don't really affect skills at all, The Attributes are mainly additions or in Strength's case it's own group.

I never got to ask you but what part of H/M/S is speed, personality, intelligence Strenght...etc etc you know aspects of the character that effects what they are doing and interact with the world Rather than the amount of H/M/S they have before they Die/Can't cast spells/ Can't run-fall.



Terror what If the attributes were -actually- personified in H/M/S?. I mean -Actually- in there, not these people saying they are when they haven't played the game and are speculating no less then we are.


How would you array this, how would it -effect- the Character and how would you address intangible aspects like Personality.

I am almost positive that the attributes aren't gone but just hidden from us, I dont even think they can be gone becuase most of them are game setting so, if you dont like the new system and own a PC they can be modded back in

I don't think that the attributes are hidden within lets say Health because where would Strength and Agility be which they are in the skills/perks now. Magicka is the same as Intelligence hence why I changed it for my Attribute system and Stamina replaces Fatigue and will probably do the same thing that Willpower did although Magicka regeneration is still unknown unless it's grouped with Magicka. Basically from what I could gather, Health= Endurance, Magicka=Intelligence (Oblivion's version not mine) and Stamina= Fatigue and possibly Magicka Regeneration although like I said it's still unknown.

Personality I did desposition towards characters, I could've expanded it with something like Better bartering skills but Speechcraft and it's perks will probably acomplish that. You know I could theoreticly eliminate Endurance, Luck and Personality if I wanted too however I wanted to at least have the attributes be like the previous games although not have them govern over skills or have them affect skills.

That's kinda the reason why I changed the attributes a bit because I want to keep Health, Magicka and Stamina in. Endurance is still an Attribute I need to work on because right now it's basically the same effect as what Health's probably going to be.

Speed is no in sprint, strength is now in perks for the damage part (used to be strength and skills for damage and now it's perks and skills) and chances are encumbrance is under Stamina. Personality is logically under speechcraft, which personally I think was a long time coming. Luck has always been something in the background but also we already know that there are perks for critical strikes for swords and what not as well. Intelligence as I said, really didn't make sense because your intelligence doesn't actually increase over time and how smart you character is should be decided by you, not some arbitrary number that didn't make sense. Someone who is good at destruction magic or alchemy doesn't have to be smart, it's a trade, you don't have to be overall intelligent to be a master of something like the magical arts or making potions. The list goes on but they are all still in the game, just really everything you had control over (basically just H/M/S) is still under your control and the little secondary effects are there still somewhat in your control, so in reality you didn't lose any of your control over those attributes and their effects, you just lost 8 words that labeled those effects. Those effects just have new labels.

@Keltic Well how intelligent you are shouldn't decide you can read or not, because someone can be dumb and still read and if they are somewhat familiar with the skill they are reading about, they can learn from it. However, if someone wants to RP that their character can't read, then they can make sure that they don't accidentally read a book while playing. Some things are just going to have to be left to the player to decide to RP in their own imagination, otherwise it could hamper someone else and how they decide to RP. It could be really annoying to some if they end up not being able to read lore books because their character's intelligence isn't high enough (which I don't ever touch on my warriors) even though my warriors are intelligent (because I decide my Argonian warrior is a clever little argonian).

@Terror of Death Btw, the old attributes aren't "Oblivion's version", they are what have been in TES as a whole.