I don't see how choosing to use minor skills to leverage attributes requires more use of your brain than choosing perks would. Maybe the first time you played an Elder Scrolls game it took some figuring out, but it's really not a complex concept. And grind is not good. I'd much rather spend my time in-game adventuring than performing repetitive chores. I finally quit WoW after I realized that washing my kitchen floor was both more fun and more rewarding than doing dailies. Perks sound like we may be making tough choices between alternative advantages. That would seem to me much more mentally engaging than deciding whether or not to practice a minor skill in order to maximize your attribute gain on level up.

Hey, don't knock it 'till you play it. I mean, I'm not entirely sure about some of the new things going on in Skyrim, (the combat system with its complicated wielding seems a little odd to me) but I won't start building a funeral pyre for my shattered dreams just because of a few gameplay tweaks. When you play the game and you don't like the system, then fine, that's your opinion. However, you have not played the game so please resist the urge to cry "IT'S RUINED FOREVER!" every time a new feature is revealed that you don't like.

- Soul.

I hesitate to post definitions, but in this case it seem neccissary.

role–play verb \?rōl-?plā, -?plā\
Definition of ROLE-PLAY
transitive verb
1: to act out the role of
2: to represent in action
The fact is you can still roleplay without stats. As long as you are deciding the actions of your character and living his life then you are roleplaying. How that is delivered is up to the style of game you are playing and how much the developers choose to show you. For all we know all these stats are being played behind the scenes, just displayed in an intuitive manner.

I'm a roleplayer in RPGs and it doesn't require numbers to define who your character is. In pen and paper it does, but now that video games have gotten to the point they have, it doesn't require numbers to define you, your actions and your skills define you, not your attributes. Numbers to a point are still required such as how much health, stamina and magicka and of course your skills. That's really all you need numbers for anymore. The game isn't becoming less RPG because people are able to become more hands on thus requiring more player skill instead of character skill, that is definitely not dumbing down the game, that is bringing in more thought to be put in the game.

Edit: I want to make clear that this post is to just reinforce your position on the situation, it's not against it hehe.

What makes you think you'll just have every perk available to you at level 1?? What makes you think you don't need to be a minimum level at something in order to get a perk?? Stop jumping to mindless conclusions, and get off the band wagon of ignorant, blind hate.

Those are all stats. As in statistics that make up the game. How can you gain stronger spells for example if they are not tied to stats? What would make them stronger? How would you even roll that (dice wise)?

uhh... no, I am pretty sure playing a character who uses a certain set of skills is definitly role playing, its not the only element to roleplaying, but its an actual existing concept as opposed to "metagaming" which doesn't make sense at all (or at least not in the context of the discussion)

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1180756-attributes-completely-removedremoved-encumberance/page__st__40

Truth be told, I was thinking about what character I wanted to be and I figured an Aragorn type character, with one handed, alchemy, sneak, marksman, etc and be a mix of a warrior and a stealth character. I was worried about how to level him and keep him powerful because of the variety of skills used.

So I, personally, am glad they got rid of attributes. It will make leveling flow easier and you don't have to focus on how you level your skills to effectively level your character.

The spells are tied to the skills like lets say Destruction. The more you use the Fireball spell the higher the destruction skill rating will be and the higher that skill gets the more damage you'll do with the Fireball.

Thats a bad argument imo, as that takes options away instead of adding them.
Nothing more frustrating than seeing your goal right there but you cant get there, you have to circumnavigate a long windy path because you cant jump over the blockade.
Thats bad level design, not a redeeming factor.

I hope that there will be acrobatic like perks included, that give you a greater jump height or let you run faster.
Choosing them would then be a trade off. You can maybe jump obstacles others cannot, but you didnt get that nifty armour perk and are therefore more fragile in combat.

And I was happy that we're soon reaching the post limit :sadvaultboy:

"leveling minor skills to get proper attributes on level up is strategy,"
Sounds perfectly metagaming to me.

Requiring more player skill than build skill is losing the RPG elements. Your not role playing yourself, with your strengths and weaknesses regarding your own player skill playing, Its your characters skill.



It would depend on if your in game character actually knew how to level efficiently on his own. If he didn't, then that would be meta gaming, but how would you know if he knew? Its all rather hypothetical.

:lmao: and the kitchen floor was clean ever after!

Well there is always a finite combination of character designs. However, perks with the three attributes we are keeping actually gives you more combinations. The total combinations for Skyrim were in the Septillions, Morrowind and Oblivion were in the billions. That is a major difference.

As for the perk system in Skyrim, sure you get to pick your perks but each perk can be leveled up also and also it is called a "perk tree" so we might not be able to choose some perks until we pick certain other perks first or get to a certain level.



If anything, that only increases the RPG elements. The point is to roleplay as your character. If your actually in control of your character instead of dice rolls, then YOU are actually roleplaying instead of the game. We still have our skills and our customization to make ourselves unique and give ourselves specialties that no one else will have, that is the true RPG elements and we have strengthened that more in Skyrim than ever before.

The Nameless One from Planescape Torment had no skills (just attributes), no appearance customization (you're always the same heavily scarred man), and a predetermined past. You couldn't even pick a name. It's still a fantastic game, and throughout the game you can still develop the character any way you like based on what you do.. You don't need endless number customization to make a proper character that is unique and that you can roleplay with.

With that said I don't know if this new direction Bethesda decided to take is better than what we had before, but I'm not shooting it down until I've played it.

And yet your character's skills are now represented in a different way. The new method still allows you to build your characters skill, just goes about it in a different manner.

Well - actually, that will harm them more, and I have no doubt that that's a good chunk of why the games change as they do.

If they make them less complex and more linear, then at least up to a point (which point they didn't reach with Oblivion, and are certainly hoping not to reach with Skyrim) the RPG nerds are going to buy the game anyway, just because it's something. The sugar-addled 12 year olds, on the other hand, are going to go, "Man... this game svcks!" and they and all their friends are going to go buy Call of Black Redemption Creed VII instead.

From a pure marketing perspective, Beth gains more by catering to the most casual players with the shortest attention spans, since they're the ones who are most likely to simply not buy the game if it's not exactly what they want.

no where in the qoute you used shows me saying that all the perks would be available at level 1, so...?? but since you bring it up, how many perks will be available at the first level up, sure not all of them, its a perk tree after all. so the closer to the lower level a character the more likly it is that some one has the same exact perk selection as me. how does that add more options to be unique. the attributes system will influence your character from the begining and despite todd's weird spin speech about how before it was not possible to change the course of the progressions was, well. bizarre, if not false.



I think they're eyes just glaze over when they see the "spreadsheet" and then begin critisizing a system they never made the effort to understand, so it is logical that so many of these pro-slash the attributes people don't even realize how warped they sound when they say that attributes didn't affect any thing any ways. I'd say the issue with the "spreadsheet" was user error, not a problem with the system as it existed.

I think ultimately someone needs to do the math and come up with the permutations of each system. I'd put my money on Skyrim.

That was the "more rewarding" part!

I haven't seen this "spreadsheet" that you keep talking about, never heard of it. Another forumite and I did the math, I would think people would like the number values of the combinations.

It was more of a tier system. I guess you could consider that stats, going from one to two, but I never considered them as stat bound mainly because they were usually just upgrades to the techniques you all ready had.

No it wouldnt, you'd be doing what your good at, not your characters. If through player skill alone you could do anything in the game regardless of stats, that would not be an RPG. That would be an action game. Your skill directly relating and equating to your avatars skill is an action game.