Attributes only gave a tiny hidden boost to skills that was completely ignored once you reached 100 in a skill anyway cause skill values were capped at that. Nothing more or less.


If by "many" you mean "none", yeah.


Alchemy potion strength will be decided by your alchemy skill. Train Alchemy, get better pots. The Int bonus for alchemy from Morrowind was broken like hell anyway. Stat potions will be lost, and so what? There's no attributes so no need for such potions that's all.


What? The only things that affected poisons was poison resist and magic resist if the poison source was a spell or enchantment.


I'm not sure I follow you here. Diseases just drained your attributes and skills over time with no varying factor

Did you even play Oblivion? There's NO skill chances checks. Heck there's barely no chances checks left and it isn't exactly a bad idea either.

Skills can expand dialogs as much as attributes. Both happened in the Fallout games.

Are you drunk or something? When was last time you talked to an NPC twice in a TES and he didn't just say the exact same things each time and what the heck does it have to do with attributes removal in the first place?

But its not ~for many (hopefully most). The fundamental idea behind role playing is to experience the world |a world, (or just existence) as a different person or creature, and how they react to the world; not as one's self.

If I'm role playing a character who is not mechanically inclined and has never tried picking a lock ~then I cannot base it on me; and I should play it without any (of my own) familiarity with locks and other machines.

On the flip side... If I'm roleplaying a master thief who is very mechanically inclined and an absolute expert with locks, then I can't base it on me either, because the character has skills and habits that are not my own.
(This is why I dislike the lock pick game, as the master thief should be able to handle any lock without help, and should not be subject to my mistakes in the minigame; while the novice should not be able to get past locks because I happen to have been able to open them.)

This also goes for a socially adept merchant that can wrap a mark around his finger and sell them the bridge into town ~again, this couldn't (and shouldn't) be based on me, but on the unique character that I am roleplaying. Its the idea that they would do something, because they were [personally] good at it and would likely succeed, where another might usually fail.

Except "traditional" dialogues were never a strong point of the TES series. Dialogue choices were always more generalised more like just keywords other than full sentences. This is done for the sake of more freedom, otherwise there would be pre-set conversation options everywhere, leading closer to the Dragon Age 2 category, which as I think not many people liked in this forum.

So I doubt we'll see a more improved dialogue system in TES any time soon.

No, that's Fallout.

In Fallout if you raise an attribute you can see the skills rising, in TES you don't see anything because these bonuses only apply when you use the skill, but the skill level has a stronger effect on your actions than attributes.

Skill level add variety.

There were no variability in poisons or diseases, ever. You only had a chance to get poisoned/infected depending on endurance and disease/poison resistance, but if you're hit the effects were the same.

What skill chance check?

You are focusing too much on Oblivion while ignoring what attributes can do in potential, and did do in other games.

That sums up what we don't know yet. The previous games used the "useless" stats internally. Npcs reacted differently to players or other npcs with different attributes. If you you used the console, you could check the disposition of npcs towards a player with a high personality or a low personality. Oblivon, in particular, didn't use those differences as well as it could have, but a lot of mods like Toaster's CSR did use it effectively. I'm sort of wondering if attributes will actually be hidden from the player instead of totally removed from the game. That would allow the developers to continue using a fairly complex system without having to rebuild its functionality from scratch.

That's it then...


http://www.1up.com/previews/elder-scrolls-skyrim-seven-things-need-to-know

I would have said 'No'. It may be futile in TES (dunno), but I would increase it so as to have a wiser PC, (and preferably have that be acknowledged in the dialog and opportunities made available).

Sounds like they did a survey.

Between the 3 primary attributes (health, magicka, and stamina), skills, and perks, I don't see anything they could do before that they can't still do. Perks are going to have skill requirements (as per recent articles), which is actually an improvement over Oblivion, where you could, for example, still improve your intelligence or personality despite not using any skills related to them. It also allows to be more precise in these psudeo-attributes... eg, in Oblivion, you had "Intelligence". Well, there's many types of intelligence (eg, book-smarts vs street-smarts), so a simple "Intelligence" attribute is very vague and/or broad. There's multiple ways to measure strength (eg, muscle brute vs lithe martial artist vs sumo wrestler). Perks allow for that differentiation, and helps clear up the mess attributes caused with previous games... just look at the various levelling mods for Oblivion, to see what I mean.

What did intelligence do in previous games? Increase Magicka pool.
What was intelligence replaced with in Skyrim? Magicka pool increase.


Most attributes are simply pointless with the new skill levelling system. It will be way more fluid and believable.

Yeah but why stick to the old idea, when you could have the character's intelligence radically affect NPC conversation, and open up new options in quests.
(This could even go both ways, where the characters attitudes could restrict interaction with some NPC's and even inspire distrust; or the opposite PC build could innocently question or attempt something that would never occur to the high INt PC). :shrug:

*Why should Intelligence have such a limited effect in the game ~Its an RPG right?
Right? :unsure:

*Just a thought...
In MS-Flight is there a 'pilot skill' or 'pilot IQ' that affects the control of the plane? I dunno ~never played it; (I'm downloading the trail right now), but I assume not, as the point is to be flying and to fly the plane, not to be a particular pilot and fly how they would do it. Simulators don't need an Intelligence attribute.

Because "intelligence" is such a vague concept, and they way attributes worked in previous games led to a bunch of headaches. Everything you could previously do with attributes, you can still do now (assuming they have appropriate perks). In addition, it lays the groundwork to be much more defining and creative.

Really? I would think that it lays the groundwork to be much more homogenous.

How (hypothetical and opinion) would it be more creative?

---

Some of these perks seem awfully contrived. Like the Axe perk for bleed damage; when absolutely anyone skilled with an axe (or even a novice) would inflict a horribly bloody, bleeding wound with one.

These perks might well just be merit badges pinned on boy scouts [IMO].

Well, think of it this way. You could have an "intelligence" attribute, or you could have perks for Language (speaking to daeda, goblins, etc), History/Lore (learning enemy weaknesses, secret information about places, etc), Arcane (using Magicka more efficiently), Social (how to extract information from people, making them less or more aggressive towards you, without changing their disposition)... suddenly, you have many more classes of intelligence to pick from and work into gameplay. You can have two intelligent characters be completely different... vs encouraging many types of characters to all be intelligent in the same way because the one attribute helps in a lot of ways.

But none of those examples are intrinsic to intelligence. One can be a genius and illiterate as well as monolingual, and even so introverted as to not be able to speak very well (in game terms).

Intelligence does positively affect certain skills, but does not provide them, or guarantee understanding.

IMO the stat should add a bonus to existing skills and play a commonly checked part in dialog interaction; and serve as a requirement for certain opportunities in the game; (dedicate your stats elsewhere and those opportunities are not available). Its moot at this point, but I consider it a sad turn of events.

As I said, there are many types of intelligence. You can be a complete genius in understanding language, while very dumb when it comes to history. Or you can be a genius when it comes to using magicka, while barely being able to speak your own language.

If you only had one Intelligence attribute, and had it do more than simply increase your magicka pool, how would you differentiate between a character that really knows their history and lore, and one that knows how to use magic really well? You're forcing characters into being intelligent in multiple ways through the one attribute, whereas skills and perks allow you to be intelligent in more specific ways.

That's how it is though. Being a genius and illiterate means you never learned to read; but [barring optical or psychological infirmity] you might have an easier time picking it up. Intelligence does apply across multiple skills. Just being really good at something is a talent.

*I'd certainly accept some perks as being talents. :tops:

Key word being "might". You can have a great understanding of magic, while still having a hard time understanding foreign languages. You can have a great understanding of history, while not grasping magic.

Quite plausible really, but otherwise irrelevant.

I have to use 'might'; its preemptively and politically defensive.

Yesterday, I mentioned an Orc character, that was not exceptionally bright, but was determined. He could not master any complex spells, but managed to train himself to be able to cast the ones he did learn a great many times before exhaustion set in.

Is this even possible in Skyrim? (I know that we don't know enough yet to know.)

:foodndrink:

My morose Orc mage hasn't gained a point in personality. He'd surely like to, but he's just too sad and depressing and he puts people off and that's the way it is. He is, however, quite intelligent, for what that's worth. My little slip of a Bosmer girl has an enormously high personality score, simply because that's who she is. My brutish Nord warrior actually has lower intelligence than the default (I changed it through the console), specifically because he is, even by Nord standards, as dumb as a post.

I like being able to do those things. I'll miss not being able to do them.

I believe actually learning something should give you some intellect.. Like reading a book.. I believe it was a great idea for getting rid of the things half the people didn't understand...

Okay now that was funny!


GENIUS! :celebration:

Attributes did not have that kind of scope on the game. I think your overplaying attributes role in the game. Just because they "governed" a skill doesn't mean they affected the skill. In actuality, it was more like the skills governed the attribute as it was what decided which gets more points on level up. There were only a few attributes that affected only a few skills and it was negligible at best. Attributes gave a very little boost to the character and were basically useless. They have been condensed to the three attributes they all affected and all their side effects are still in the game in a different place. Then we have 280 perks to choose from and as far as we know we can only get 50 on each character. So the "loss of variability" has no basis and is in fact the opposite as we gained exponentially more customization and "variability". Have to look at the big picture instead of just seeing the phrase "no longer in the game"

This argument is a straw-man as you are arguing the descriptive detail and qualification of a person in attributes vs. skills perks. False anology as no one, to my knowledge, is advocating removing skills and or leaned perks from an game, much less this one. More accurate comparison is skills aside as they can/do exist in both scenarios: What better defines the character you are playing: 8 arbitrary and not completely accurate mathematical qualification of a person (str, agility, constitution, intelligence, personality, wisdom, and luck) versus three arbitrary mathematical figures describing people/character via health stamina magica?


If i were to describe new upcoming character as 100 health, 50 stamina character then a 50 health 100 stamina character you have no clue what gender, what race, or the background/history/base abilities of what is being played as health/stamina are so generic umbrella adjectives that a slew of items fall under their purview. The race, gender, I choose to change the visual avatar on the screen is meaningless as health/stamina do not define anything or anyone. Whereas using attributes, or any other system for quantifying an individual, if I were to assign number to the above stats or letter grades, anything you would have a somewhat better picture of whom is being created/described/played. Yes, attributes or any other mathematical system in comparing people based upon chosen criteria will not be all encompassing and can catch every variable or exception, but much like Democracy - it is the worst system there is, except for all the rest.

Riddle me this: what health/stamina (as magic doesn't exist) would you assign: Winston Churchill, Michael Jordan, Pele', Einstein, Barack Obama, and Mother Theresa when each was say, 20. What is the mathematical probability of someone else successfully putting the figures you come up with with the names? Would or would not that probability change if you were to mathematically assign figures to their strength, dexterity, bodily constitution, intelligence, wisdom, willpower, etc, etc?

What excited me about Bethesda's overarching creed "play whoever you want to be, go where you want to go, etc, etc, etc" is precisely my problem with the oversimplification/crude abstractness of the three "attributes" which are very poor descriptors for TES V. I am not playing "who i want to" as every person with the exception of a few points of health and energy is like every other person as the variables are greatly reduced and poor descriptors to boot. I am playing clone version 1, avatar chosen E, next time close version 2,avatar chosen H.

Mordy:'None of those. It would be the 21/18 numerical mathematical figures describing your capability to perform some specific category of tasks. ". My ability to bench press is a bodily ability not a leaned trait, my bodys ability to fight off disease is a natural trait and not a learned ability - please attempt the riddle above and you should see my point.

The OP has an interesting point. If you have a score that makes it clear your character is smart, dumb, charismatic, these scores can affect your RP experience and quest choices as a player.

In the case of being strong, dextrous, lucky, or possessing an iron constitution, you can RP all you want, but the game mechanics will make it clear by the effect those stats have on your health, carry weight, critical chance, etc.

Since the SPECIAL-type attributes are gone, we can make use of perks and an improved skill leveling mechanic in order to flesh out some of these RP character traits.

• Want to play a weakling? Don't get the extra carry weight, 2H sword, heavy armor or hand-to-hand perks.
  
  
• Want to play an agile, lucky archer? I'm sure there will be some appropriate perks and you can invest skill points in archery.
  
  
• Want to play someone very smart or very dim-witted? Magicka point allocation, skill points from practicing the schools of Magic, alchemy and enchantment, as well as magic related perks

Just seems like something personal to your roleplaying experience to be perfectly honest. You need someone to hold your hand and tell you your intelligent, when in actual fact it could just be cleared up with a different word in its place.

I think what Bethesda meant, was that Magicka was the general stat that intelligence affected, and going by that, the main reason anybody would increase it would be to gain more magicka. I'm guessing those who played as mages would attain this style of play. You're talking about something unrelated in a sense to what they meant, something person to your experience. Seems a little selfish really. You can't expect them to cater to every roleplaying style out there. With a game the size and scale of Skyrim, theres almost an infinite amount of things to do and ways to play. They can't cover all that. They can only create a template for you to work with.