THIS! I fail to see how people can't seem to realize the incredible potential of perks in terms of greatly increasing the replay value and depth of the game, ESPECIALLY in comparison to attributes. I honestly believe a lot of people are simply stuck on this fact, but attributes have been such a staple of RPGs for decades.

what class does smithing and crafting fall under?

Yeah. My main concern is that this is something they fix with Skyrim. From the sound of it, the combat system they're going to be using will be considerably better than the one in Oblivion was, and more built around timing and shifting between offense and defense. That gives them a lot of room to play with character build so that they impact a far broader variety of things than they did with Oblivion's system (like how often and for how long the player and their opponents are staggered by attacks, how much damage individual attacks do, how quickly attacks and blocks come out, and what kinds of attacks and abilities are available to the player). It's just a matter of whether or not they handle it well as well as it could be handled.


The article's written in a way that very strongly implies their exclusion, and the menus and leveling system are described in a way that doesn't really leave any room for them.

EDIT:
That's a pretty exceptionally weak response, so I'm going to assume you basically couldn't provide any explanation of any way in which attributes are complex and leave it there.

aww


I will hold onto those 6 remaining attributes until Beth says otherwise though.

Less is more.

It won't even be like there are fewer skills. They are just more defined. And the perks WILL MAKE THEM MORE SPECIALIZED!

I agree.

I think elimination of attribute grooming is a necessary step toward a happy marriage of first person real time interaction and do it to level it skill based character progression.

What I'd like to see is the 18 skills be just the starting set and through perks you could pick an additional 8 out 24 other skills as well as perks to specialize in each.

I'm mostly hoping for this functionality because it would mean we will basically be able to add whatever skills we want to the game through modding and that would be pure awesomeness. One more of our modding wishes granted. Here's hoping.

Yeah, but perks are derived from increasing a skill. Should you be able to increase a skill to high values simply by doing it more; or should you have certain attributes (such as general Intelligence) in order to understand certain things at their best?

Agreed!

"One-handed" and "two-handed" is a pretty major assumption to be making based on a single line that doesn't really indicate anything specific of the short. And keep in mind that we're going from Oblivion (where the skills were "Blunt" and "Blade"), not Morrowind, so this isn't a large drop.


Not just this, but given the kind of game Bethesda makes (where character movements and actions are controlled directly by the player), a system built more heavily around perks and individual skills does make more sense than one built around skills and attributes. With perks applying to the individual skills, it's far easier for them to design stats that tie into the player's skill while still providing a clear sense of character progression and variety.

EDIT:
I get the feeling that you're trying to imply that one of those systems is more realistic. I'm not buying it. Neither system is realistic. A skills/perks-based system could potentially play better, however, so I'd still go with that. And besides, general intelligence isn't really that strong of a determining factor on one's ability to gain knowledge in a specific area in real life.

This isn't science we are talking about. It is sneaking, fighting with weapons etc...

Means none of the old skills have been brought back (like climbing), and it means that the streamlined weapon skills (no spears, axes being blunt weapons, etc...) are still streamlined (possibly more so). It IS a bad thing that the skill list has gone down.

All I'm saying is that complexity means different things to different people. Personally, I prefer numbers as I do not think choosing among a pool of perks is as complex as leveling attributes within a range of *start value* and 100.

We don't know that.

...I don't know that I am not insane and this forum is my own imagination, but I am pretty sure it is not....

See... hell, nearly all of the posts I've made in this thread. I've covered this.


Still a weak response. I've made several extremely long posts explaining why a perks-based system is more complex. You haven't given a single justification as to why a short list of numbers is more complex.

^^lolwut

Maybe, but I still always felt underwhelmed by what Oblivion had to offer. Each guilds are finished before you know it, and if you stick to one guild, you feel like missing out. There were far more guilds and of different specializations in Morrowind, so you could be in more than one quest in a way that makes sense, unlike Oblivion. Plus, you could ignore the obvious Fighter's, Mages or thieves guild and got for others, and still be offered a decent amount of work to do. Some things were deeper in Oblivion yes, but it still made customization shallower. Those skill tiers did make those skills deeper, but it didn't cover the fact that some skills were cut. Where are the spears? How the hell using a claymore is identical to using a knife? etc...

If I didn't want to do the same quests each playthrough - and deeper quests automatically means it's more of a pain to do if you're tired of them - well, I'm short on them. How can I play some sort of adventurer without getting in the thieves guild or the arena? The only thing I'll do besides miscellaneous quests is the main one. It svcks. Oblivion has so little to offer to specialized characters, yes what Oblivion had was deeper than what Morrowind had, but you can't cover the fact that OB had a LOT less to offer and that OB is far easier to get tired off because all quests are more complex to do. You know, it doesn't really bother me recovering the lost tax money in Seyda Neen or giving back the pants to the dude in Gnisis 10 times, but you bet I don't want to do Chorol investigation 10 times. Well, it really depends on the complexity of the quest, it's more the case for guild quests.

Some of this nonsense you guys are spewing is making no sense at all, come on guys in the case of CIV V and ME:2 simplification(dumbing down, streamlining, what ever you want to call it) was better!

Yes we do. They already said they were rolling anything from Mysticism elsewhere. They will do the same thing with the other 2 dropped skills because they won't just drop TES gameplay staples. I always thought Athletics was absolutely pointless so I won't be surprised if it is merged with Acrobatics or something like that.

Despite this being off topic, I did not like the simplifications made in Civ and ME. I much prefer CIV IV and ME. When you find nonsense that makes sense, do share.

I hope you are kidding about ME2.

The biggest problem is that they ADDED tasks but without an appropriate increase in skills, what skills determine mining? smithing? woodcutting? axe... err double hand? Sadly the game is turning the supposed fun additions into basically extra income/animations. Perks will not fixthis.

After I calmed down :tongue: I thought about it and I think Bethesda did it like that:

I think they've put athletics and acrobatics together
and maybe speechcraft and Mercantile(that would be things I can understand).

But I think I will never understand why they still have only two weapon skills.

I was talking about Intelligence affecting things like magical ability at higher values, enchanting, alchemy, etc.

It's just one example anyway. Why did Bethesda put the Attributes in so that they would guide the skills?