I can see how a mod could return the attributes for those who miss them.

Certain skills would automatically increase the attribute as they are increased.

For example, all of the Magick skills could increase the magicka regeneration rate and perhaps even the magicka itself. These could either increment each attribute by a tiny amount at each skill increase, or set certain checkpoints - such as reaching level 100 in Destruction automatically adds 10% magicka increase and 25 total magicka.

Some stealth skills could lead to faster running speed and a higher carry weight. There is a perk to add 100 to the carry weight in Pickpocket, why not have some skills automatically increase this carry weight by small increments as well?

Carry weight could also be tied to the fighter skills along with strength. Strength would be implemented by having a slightly higher damage for one or two handed weapons, as well as a slightly increased jumping height.

'Personality' could be implemented through the Speech skill, though the system already in place in Skyrim is sufficient.

Some skills won't do anything to contribute to these attributes. Smithing 50 iron daggers won't make you run faster, for example.

I miss them too.

I don't think that is true. Your base speed is the same for everyone, but your speed is most certainly affected by what type of armor you are wearing, whether your weapon is sheathed, what persk you have etc.

Although this is true, there is still no diversity amongst characters.

A nord mage wearing heavy armour moves at the exact same speed that a nord warrior or nord archer wearing heavy armour moves. And hyrbid characters wearing heavy armour move at the exact same speed as well.

It makes no sense.

I understand that there are diffferent base stats, but the amount isn't noticeable, and quite frankly, should not have been implemented the way it is. Taller characters = faster and stronger. So, high elfs are not only stronger than nords, but they are faster than wood elves as well. To me, it seems like the developers never finished the game, and had us beta test the game on 11-11-11.

MODS SAVE US!

If you were lying on your back in it, unable to stand up because of its weight, I don't think you would be as well protected as you imagine.

Of course man. Removing stats really took a lot of the RPG out of Skyrim and made it more of a Mass Effect "kill stuff, RANK UP" action game. Will I get banned if I say "dumbed down" like they ban on the Dragon Age 2 forums? Because straight up, that's what it is.

Really? As much as I dislike Bioware's handling of DA2, this is a brilliant idea.

Okay, can we at least wordfilter it to something silly?

Are you seriously suggesting that we silence any attempt to criticize the game? You realize that you'd be taking away our freedom of speech, right? And by doing so, Bethesda would indirectly be admitting to dumbing down the game.

your logic is: "if someone says something that I don't want to hear, they shouldn't have the right to say it". Who made you the king of the world?

Sounds a lot like how china's dictatorship is set up. Cool story, bro.

There's "criticizing the game", and then there's "stock phrase people trot out when they don't really want to put effort into an argument and insult a broad group of people that (poster) is obviously superior to at the same time".

I'm a big fan of stats, but I never really liked what came out of it in TES. I'm against their removal in Skyrim, but honestly I actually think it plays out surprisingly good without them. The biggest challenge in stats is making them useful yet balanced over the leap of lots of levels - everyone says it has to progress (unlike in Fallout where they are static), and everyone is obsessed about maxing and no caps, complete with additive stacking of effects.

These demands ruins much of the potentially good effects that stats can have. They either feel useless to the role player, or they become over powered to the power player. Take i.e. speed in Oblivion. Max it out and add a ton of additive bonuses to it, and you could probably reach 300, making it appear utterly ridiculous. In Skyrim, your speed is static, but it's set at a fairly high pace (games do that usually), and it actually feels pretty good with the way sprinting works as it doesn't give you a get out of jail free card anymore. Keep in mind, a living thinking GM does know how to get around power players - a generic game algorithm generally can't.

I only see a few possibilities around stats:

1) Pretty much locked at low levels (Fallout), where you don't get to change things very much. This counters the idea of evolving throughout the levels, but does allow for some nice checking that FO/FONV already utilizes.

2) Put you stats in the 30-70 range with a 50 average, where you increase one selected stat every level. Obviously there will be no maxing out everything, and it's governing only as a percentage of your skill.

3) Counterstats, where instead of always evolving something it now comes with the cost of decreasing a counter stat. Works in pairs, i.e. Strength/Stamina, Intelligence/Willpower, Speed/Dexterity. Problem with this one is that it is hard to design around. When you introduce a new idea to the system, the balance is disturbed unless you also design an idea to follow up on the counterstat (with fairly equal user usability/desirability).

Another problem is that no matter how deep you make the stat system, it alone won't do the appropriate effects to the system unless you start hooking up external tables. This gets away from generalizing (which helps automation during the implementation phase) which tends to be most developers primary goal (for good reasons of course, even if we players tend to hate it ). An example of this is the ability to jump.
* Is it governed by skill (acrobatics) how high you can jump? Yes.
* Is that skill (strength or stamina or endurance or willpower? makes you think!) governed by stats? Yes.
* Are there external (what are you wearing? how much weight do you carry?) influences? Yes. It suddenly grows very complex, for a single ability.

Bottom line: Stats would be great, but it actually needs to be a lot deeper to have good impact that makes sense. But this sort of complexity in a "generalized system" is something developers try to avoid, for very good reasons.

Attributes were ok in previous TES games (well, at least in some) but I'm happy with the new system. I just don't see much of a practical difference between the two. Of course, there is the issue of speed, but it doesn't affect my ability to enjoy the game. It surely isn't worth complaining about, and I find it amusing that we embrace a culture where people are more likely to [censored] and moan than they are to fix something themselves, or simply find something else that they enjoy more.

So I guess I'm pro-removal.

This is why I miss attributes and the reason for why they needed to stay.

I find it absurd that a weak woodelf has the same magica, endurance and health that a burly Orc has or that a very intelligent High Elf has.

There is nothing separating the races except for a few racial traits that are really irrelivant.

With Classes and Attributes each character was worth playing. Now it doesn't matter what race you pick, they are all pretty much the same. Nothing seriously distinguishes one from another.

I don't miss attributes, they were rather useless.

You just levelled your primary stat and endurance to 100, with the rest going to willpower or strength or speed, then from level 30 just maxed out the rest. I cannot say it felt much different depending on which stats you had at beginning.

I disagree. I don't think those types of attributes are necessary because there is not much decision making that needs to be done while leveling and all this does is serve to punish players in a hybrid role. I would much rather have control over what the Attributes EFFECT. For example, Strength may affect Carry Weight, Melee Damage, and Block values in most traditional RPGs. Instead of modifying my Strength, I would like to be able to Modify Carry Weight, Melee Damage, or Block Values independently. This give you MORE options to play around with rather than raise 1 governing stat.

Further, I think that the Perk system is a fantastic idea in concept. The problem is that the Perk system does not have enough unique skills or abilities introduced by it rather only modifies effectiveness by a % age.

I thought I would miss attributes but I really don't. Ideally I would have liked them in but I find the perk system adds more depth and character development strategy then attributes ever did. I spend alot of time ploting out my perk selection and have banked perks based on my set strategy. For attributes I would simply increase them at a level up without too much thought.

I would like attributes to come back and have a larger impact on gameplay than oblivion though I might trim there numbers a bit. I am sure there would be other ways to handle it but it isn't handled currently. I would also change how they were imrpoved, I liked daggerfalls flat improvement but so be it.

Attributes represent an area of general competence as opposed to a specific degree of competence shown by a skill.

Personally I would remove the perks that give flat X% bonuses and I'd incorporate that into the base skill and attributes. So currently one handed getting up to 100 increases your damage by 40% and the armsman perks increase it by 100%. I'd have improving your strength to max handle that 40% while the skill going up to 100 got you the 100%, the thing is that 40% from strength would also apply to two handed weapons showing that your improvements in one skill helped you in related skills. attributes would have the added benefit of extra things like carry weight, disease resistance, extra conversation options etc.

didn't sift through the whole thread but i feel where the OP is coming from.

Do I want a stat system that was clunky and grindy as Morrowind and Oblivion? No

But the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system from FO3 was really well thought out and integrated and would have been perfect. I guess they scrapped it just to avoid the "Skyrim = FO3 w/ swords = Oblivion w/ guns" trolls. But yeah, it not only would have added some customization and control to our character development, it also would have added customization and control to our crafting profs as well with the stat/gear integration. I'm hoping actually some aspiring modder figures out someway to integrate this.

Attribute systems are an enormous paint to design around. You have to make items for virtually every playstyle. This often means you either A.) Find gear you have no use for B.) Find gear that somewhat benefits you, but you wonder why it has some random stat tied to it C.) Can't find any gear that benefits your playstyle. Attribute systems put hybrids at extreme disadvantages. There is little to no thought process put in to raising attributes. Homogenization and streamlining by the removal of an Attribute system and implementation of a supplementary system is greatly welcomed.

The majority of people who miss having attributes are likely the ones who grew up playing stat-heavy RPGs. I miss attributes... they offered more choices (or the illusion thereof) to help define your character. Most attributes affected multiple aspects of character proficiency which IMO made leveling up more interesting. Now it's extremely boring. Bethesda even removed the level-up screen from the previous games that gave you some nice flavour text... all we get now is a tiny overlay on the skills screen to level up magicka/health/stamina that seems like an afterthought. The perk system is a great addition but it's extremely shallow and while the whole constellation interface is very creative in principle, it's a PITA to use. Yet another example of form over function.

To me, managing attributes is a HUGE element of a hardcoe RPG game. With the current system they might as well have just automatically increased health, magicka & stamina by a fixed percentage based on skills used to gain that level (I guess similar to Oblivion's system, unpopular as it was). But welcome to the future of gaming, I guess- having old school mechanics that required a degree of thought being neutered to cater to more "action-oriented" instant gratification gameplay.

One day a truly insightful developer will include BOTH options in an RPG game- a streamlined "action mode" where leveling choices are auto-calculated or reduced to basic principles, and an "advanced" mode for players who'd like a deeper level of customization and have the patience and imagination to do so.

It really shouldn't be an either/or thing though, should it? Why not have both? Attributes should be there to define your character's traits, while perks are more connected to skills.

I simply hate when such staples need to be implemented by mods and not by the developers.
I hate to use mods that make substantial changes to the game, I would prefer to have the developers implement it.

Does anyone agree?

In my opinion, your opinion is flat out wrong. Contrary to your personal experience, it has been my personal experience that hybrid characters were infinitismally more leniant in Morrowind and Oblivion, especially if you took the time to design a custom class. In those games I could focus on a character who melee'd, magic'd, and manipulated...and do so successfully. Try spreading your perk points between one handed, two handed, heavy armor, smithing, enchanting, destruction, alteration, restoration, sneak, archery, pick pocketing, and speech equally, and tell me how lenient Skyrim feels to your hybrid character.

I will believe that when you tell me how to make a fast character.

So why can't skills/perks/stats/whoever do the same thing as attributes again?

Why are attributes such intregnal part of the game and how are they any different from any other number describing your character?


I STILL haven't got a good answer to this just "It's simplistic, baaaw".


Light armor, a lot of stamina, the roll perk and a lot of sprinting.

There you go.


The point is still, even if there would be a way to change speed the "old way", it can be done without any "speed" attribute.

Here's your answer: they added depth through the illusion of choice. Many of the attributes were redundant but they provided more options for developing your character and for many people that added to the experience.