I shouldn't to great with a one-handed weapon, but I shouldn't be useless either.

It's common sense really. Several things should factor into how effective you are with a weapon:

- Your attributes (physical strength = more powerful blows, agility = faster movement and reflexes, etc)
- Your skill with that particular weapon
- The quality of the weapon itself, ie. base damage (personally i'd like this to be even more complex, with weapons having different damage ratings for thrusts, slashes, etc. with armour having similar defence stats)
- The enemy you're hitting, their skills, attributes and armour

Taking any one of these factors out of the equation is dumbing down in my opinion. Sure, the end result might be the same - you either kill the enemy or die trying, but it's still dumbed down.

Every variable that was derived from attributes in previous games is certainly not in Skyrim. From Luck, the differences between personality and speech craft, and a hand full of others. And these aren't features from oldest games either, I'm talking just Oblivion and to a lesser extent, Morrowind.

OMG, it is so cool to see someone else say "you didn't have to play that way" -- the only logical response to the min/maxers!

The attributes were actually the master number system. The HIGHEST denominator in EVERY calculation. If it didn't define or affect anything for you, then you obviously never played around with it or had any particular attribute gimped at any time. Or just plain failed to notice as they went about their business in the background, quietly affecting everything.

The system was such that it flowed naturally in order of importance from top to bottom: Attributes>skills>items/spells. And now in Skyrim, Beth has turned that system completely on its head by making the Perks the truly defining element in the character equation. Perks...Think about what that word actually means. Think about when Perks originated in earlier roleplaying games, and how those games treated the significance of perks.

Attributes a pointless rpg mechanic? Well hey, if Beth thinks console users are dumb, who am i to argue...

Things you cannot do in Skyrim:

Light-armor pugilist
Destruction mage with no aptitude for other forms of magic, but high magicka regen.
Death from above urban assassin
blunt weapon expert with no talent for swords

we didn't lose anything?

"It does not matter to M'aiq how strong or smart one is. It only matters what one can do."

I'd say the individual skills were actually the most important, as most things are either affected by the individual skills or they modify the skills in some way.
Given that perks now modify and enhance the individual skills. Attributes enhanced the skills back then. Your character level is because you level your skills. Back then you were able to more effectively level your attributes because of which skills you level. And you are able to level your attributes (or in Skyrim, Perks too) because you level your character which is a byproduct of leveling you skills. It seems to me that TES has been more about the skills defining who you are and what you do. The other stuff does factor into it also of course, but the main thing seems to have been the skills.

Hear hear.

I guess it's similar to how people of differing intelligence attributes deal with tasks involving evaluation and comprehension of meta-physical systems. Not to mention recognition of flawed lines of argument. There may well be lesser factors in the character equation serving supplemental roles in the calculation of various aspects previously governed at a higher level by more generalised aspects, but just as this thread is now starting to highlight, inadequacies abound...

Self implication of being a console user?

Attributes in addition to skills and perks will be very confusing. Attributes aren't intuitive.

When I fired up Fallout 3 New Vegas a few months ago, I felt uneasy in setting my attributes because intelligence will increase the number of skills you get. But then again, other attributes like perception will already increase your energy weapons skill for every point you put in it. And you have Luck that increases all your skills by a number.

So what do I do? Do I put points in perception? Or should I put all my points in intelligence, to ensure maximum efficiency? Or should I put all into luck to increase everything?

Thus making attributes govern skills is very confusing. Damage coming from both your strength and weapon skill was redundant and confusing.

They don't really add to role-playing.

I would also add both FO3 and NV both suffered from Attribute power disparity. In both Intelligence was the strongest stat and Charisma was universally considered a weak stat. Functionality is ultimately more important than simple implementation.

*points gun Chinese rifle at Nubius*

Now... repeat after me...
"Fallout's system is perfect and i would rather see a kitten die, than seeing it changed"

i like the new system much better its less complex and easier for me but i can understand how some might not like that also i'm glad they put perks in just wish the didn't do them in a tree and it was like fallout were you just had to be a certain level ect.

Only if your not into RPing, or getting everything out of the game in one way or another. Ive never seen min/max in any Beth, or Beth-type in regards to NV. Just an RPing medium that used to allow almost anything, although the pond has shrunk considerably in the years of late.

I don't miss them. I hated how I had to use certain skills to level up my attributes, and how we could be much much weaker at higher levels if we didn't get at least 2 +5 bonuses.

Charisma in the older Fallout games was more important, because they were much more of a party-based affair, where 3/NV are more "you and a buddy". A high charisma character in the original games can have multiple party members - my last Fallout 2 run had myself, three humans, a robot, and a cybernetic dog. A low Charisma character is stuck with one or two at best.

I can see why that's not the case in 3/NV though, because can you even imagine herding five people around the Capital Wasteland or in New Vegas? Brrrr.

Which has nothing to do with the faults in game design that lead to poor skill,attribute or any other comparable value parity.

Fallout is different than TES anyway. In fallout you raise both the skills and attributes on a level. Besides attributes governed additional stuff that you couldn't change in another way. I am literally terrified by the thought they might do the same simplifications to FO4. Why did you have to terrify me like that?

But only if your into min/maxing, or getting the best possible outcome. As per your examples, a high charisma could allow for higher perks and a higher level in speech, including upping its overall level. Through check in Fallout specifically, this was huge and not "underpowered", or imbalanced for what it was supposed to do. Intelligence was more tangible in allowing pretty good perks and raising skill points per level, as well as random and paced check points. All in all, they're are all equal for what they do. NV balanced this even more since Obsidian was all about balance in their patch notes. As well as the obvious, copious amount of bugs that were addressed in the same patches. Sawyer actually puts balance first from everything Ive seen, as well as talking to him in the Fallout forum.

+1 miss attributes

Then you're NOT aware that character creation guides for NV and FO3(this one especially) almost unanimously recommended dropping Charisma to 1 and making Intelligence a priority attribute. This is because the nature of the game mechanics made Charisma the overall weakest attribute and Intelligence one of the most important. Even NV's increased Charisma functionality didn't change this even if it was a nice effort. Discussions about non optimization for various reasons(RP,etc) happen BECAUSE of game design flaws, not because they don't exist.

What cares what guides say? This, or those, are RPGs. I role play, which doesn't come from a guide. My RPs, and most I know, don't come from optimizing, or non optimization.

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