How so? What you choose to use, as much as how you use it, defines a character. And having controllable variables that allow you to shape those decisions is the core of the RPG experience.

I just don't see safecracking, lockpicking, and trap handling to necessarily be that starkly different from one another, though... fanning out lockpicking as we currently have it into those three things seems like an excuse to justify having it as a skill in the first place.

I'll agree that the 1h and 2h skills needed more to differentiate themselves, but I still thought that division was perfect for Skyrim, and the best way they've organized weapons in any game - playing as 1h or 2h feels different, in a way that I don't think they could accomplish just between swords, maces, and axes. Keep in mind, it doesn't all have to be outlined in the character system - we don't need separate perks for sabers, shortswords, and katanas if they're given functional differences within their own stats and through crafting. The character system doesn't exist in a vacuum - it's not the only place we can make character choices.

And on attributes, at this point I'm seeing less and less a point for them in the Elder Scrolls system. Tying attributes to skills will probably repeat the Morrowind/Oblivion mistake of power-leveling unrelated skills to get ideal attributes... I'd favor more of a Fallout system, where your attributes are largely set at chargen and it takes a significant investment to improve them. And beyond that, I'd still want them to only affect gameplay in broad strokes like in Skyrim - Strength covers stamina and carry weight, endurance covers max health, agility covers stamina regen... if Intelligence and Willpower need to serve a purpose for non-mages, intelligence can have a minor affect on skill advancement and willpower can have a minor effect on magic resistance (if TESVI adopts Fallout's new damage reduction system, there'll be room for a stat to offer a broader percentage reduction for magic). And they don't have to bring back all of the attributes wholesale... I'm not saying different characters shouldn't move at different speeds, but the range of speed in all of the prior games was over the top. And it doesn't have to be completely realistic - other RPGs let us get away with using XP gained from killing monsters to make us a better sweet-talker, so I don't think it's too big a deal if we get generic attribute points we can spend anywhere on level-up instead on the attributes our character actually exercises... that also helps to give us a better feeling of control over our character's development, which is mighty appealing.

In the end, they're going to build the character system around the gameplay, and not the other way around. Jeez, you guys get way ahead of me.

Because in the majority of RPGs, even Skyrim, you don't actually control how the weapon moves, its just a swing.

In action games you have actual control over how the sword moves, left, right, up, down, etc. etc., its this actual control over how the weapon moves that allows action games to allow the differences between something like a sword, and a saber, actually mean something.

Weapon types in RPGs amount to various levels of speed, DPS, and special effects. You can't do more with it because its an RPG, and it not YOUR skill with the sword that determines how effective it is.

In an RPG, the difference between a sword and a saber is how fast they swing, and maybe the saber does something special like bypass enemy defense stats by 5 or something. Its really just a damage/speed/dps difference, and not an actual playstyle difference.

This was true of RPGs even going back to Baldur's gate.

Maybe, but trying to reconcile everything into a single skill (I.E. Sneak) is not a good option. You either dump the mechanic all together, which is probably not going to happen, or try to supplement it elsewhere without making it a pointless endeavor that everyone always succeeds in. As it stands, broadening a different skill with Lockpicking under its governance the only feasible soloution without bogging another skill down elsewhere. Its frankly too big a part of gameplay to make that work. I'd rather not become a master of stealth just because I lockpick things after I slaughtered all of the occupants.

I'd disagree, and the problems of Vanilla Skyrims problems are only illustrated when you can see what the modding community has done with the idea.

Except you can have both! In the hands of a novice, none of those weapons regardless of in-game statistics are going to radically differ in any way, shape, or form. If you actually have branches dedicated to a single weapon type, you can have active moves you can initiate once you begin investing in those specializations. Crafting is all well and good, but being able to point out where your character can actually do in which another one in a different playthrough cannot is all the more better.

We mostly agree here, except for the Skyrim part. I'd divorce Attributes from Skills for the most part, aside from things that would be readily obvious. Higher Strength characters would obviously be able to coup better with heavy armor and weapon, for instance. Still, this post is long enough, so I'll drudge up what I said in another thread and post it here again later.

And that's a problem that no one seems to address. We spend so much time fixated on dialogue, the choices you can make, how things are delivered, the moral implications etc... But combat by far lags the furthest behind in terms of meaningful divisions and choices. HOW you fight is just as important as whether or not you fight, or how you talk your way past a problem, or whether you climb the wall and sneak in the back. But no one deals with it, when they very much should.

Definitely. I'm personally from the mindset that no two strikes are the same, which is why I think it would be great to bring back damage thresholds rather than dealing an absolute amount every swing. I'm not sure how anyone else would feel but I think it could be interesting to incorporate limb based damage similar Fallout or Dying Light. In Dying light especially, there is something very rewarding about clocking a zombie in the side of the head.

Indeed. Though, in Dying Light (which i actually found had a slightly inferior limb damage system to Dead Island, even if it improved on everything else. Which is somewhat funny, because they're the same studio...) you're against generally slow Zombies, which makes it's limb targeting easier. I still want it in TES, of course, but making it functional without resorting to a clunky VATS system is... more complicated.

But the main issue is... RPG's are about making choices in characters. This can be as simple as the combat-choices of JRPG's, or as deep as the micromanaging virtually every aspect of a character like in Betrayal at Krondor (love-hate relationship with that game...). But one of the overriding things is that, the decisions you make influence how you think. I've never seen an RPG that allows you to just create a character, and then have their settings determine every interaction. You'd basically be creating a character, clicking play, and then it would run through the game and tell you whether or not you saved the princess or died trying. Player agency and control is always a factor. And that agency should be a consideration in any mechanic. It's the player, not the character, that decides how to approach a situation, what dialogue options to pick, what skills to level etc.

Which, at least to me, means that every option needs to have a twofold impact. It needs to influence the Characters capability at a certain action, but it also needs to change how the PLAYER thinks about the actions available. Anything that offers the exact same outcome and doesn't change how the Player considers or approaches the relevant situation is, frankly, a garbage option.

This is where Morrowind's Weapon skills really failed. They all did the exact same thing. It didn't matter which one you picked, it didn't influence how you engaged in combat interactions. The only meaningful choice was 1-handed or 2-handed. Everything else functioned in exactly the same way, did exactly the same kind of damage, and scaled exactly the same. And that's why i don't miss them at all. The Armour Skills continue to suffer from this problem.

The weapons you choose to use should force you, the Player, to think differently about your engagements. The more refined this is, the better. You shouldn't be running in there and engaging something exactly the same way if you're using an Axe as if you're using a Sword. And you shouldn't (ideally) be treating a Broadsword like you would a Sabre.

At the same time... Using one weapon isn't critically different from another. A Master Swordsman isn't suddenly a mewling invalid who can't hit anything if he picks up an Axe. This has always been a problem i've had with the idea of Weapon Skills as a whole, and for the longest time i was a big fan of the 1-handed and 2-handed dynamic. But, Dargor has convinced me that, to represent the above relevance and depth, you simply can't use the 1-handed and 2-handed system without it becoming absurdly disproportionate, regardless of the dividing criteria you use. The Axe-Blade-Blunt system is more concise, and allows for better and more meaningful divisions.

But, again, the issue here is still that these need to function distinctly from one another, and influence how the Player approaches situations. If you're fighting a heavily armoured foe, your approach should be quite different if using a Zaghnal (a type of Indian war-pick, probably best governed by the Axe skill) than if you're using a Broadsword. But to do that, you need more diversity in the available variables in order to create that distinction. TES has never really HAD that diversity, and it's combat, along with it's RPG depth, won't improve without it.

Its not addressed because it cant be addressed in an RPG, since, at the end of the day, its still an RPG, and combat is still character based, not player based.

But it can be BOTH. You can have a high degree of Character Skill without sacrificing Player Interaction, meaning you don't have to resort to automatic combat like in D&D games (which, somewhat ironically, is nothing like actual combat in D&D) or sacrifice all influence of character development from the combat.


This isn't an Either-Or situation. You can have your cake and eat it too. But no one, in any RPG, seems to be trying. They've all been convinced that the Cake is a Lie.

If in RL, that a RPG is supposed to mimic and we hurt someone who trusts us. They are likely going to become emotional and want to hunt use down and bring us to justice or seek vengeance and kill us, depending on their everyday characteristics. If you convinced them for years that you loved them and betray that love, they mite even commit suicid. Then the people in a world like Tamriel who knew mite put a bounty on your head. But the bounty hunter would have to, through dialog inform you of the contract so you know they killed them selves to strike at your emotions. These things are needed to creat dynamic depth in RPGs. The more depth, the more that can go right or wrong. Combat mechanics is the easy part...

Yes, they are. And yet no one deals with them. Which is the problem. Why not address the problems which are, frankly, so easy to fix, so you can devote more time further down the line to the more complex ones.

How would you program combat limited to two swords? One opposeing sword and one defending sword controlled by two bodies fighting each other? In metaphorical terms and pacific examples like collision and response, visa versa, versa visa...

Well, Kingdom Come; Deliverance handles that mechanically well enough, but actually misses out on the hectic nature of battle... Formalised technique and martial arts don't work on the battle field that well, and i'm waiting to see how they handle it...

But combat shouldn't be limited to two swords anyway. It should by a dynamic model which is based on interactions between different Attack and Defense models. Using a Slashing sword against Slash-resistant armour should elicit different results than using a Piercing Sword against the same armour.

The actual programming shouldn't be that difficult. It's just about programming circumstantial effects and variables. We know parrying and precision strikes are achievable. They've been part of more action oriented games for more than a decade. So that's not much of an issue mechanically. Swing your sword when your enemy swings, and you parry. Hit your enemy in the arm, damage his arm. We know it works, and these types of things are common everywhere but RPGs.

The question is why. Some people seem to believe that these should be handled automatically, like in your 'typical' D&D model combat. You attack, dodge and parry based on your character skills, and as a player you sit back and watch, hoping you're choices in skills allow you to survive, occasionally deciding to drink a potion or something. That's a problem, because it's taking away player agency. You might as well just run the game on auto pilot the whole way.

So, to have a good system (which, ironically, is more like tabletop D&D, Runequest and other RPGs, where you can freely elect to not defend, have more direct control over attacks, and actually don't resort to many automated systems to determine interactions) you need to represent Character Skill without sacrificing player agency. You should have influence on parrying, dodging, blocking and even HOW you attack, the same as you should have influence on how your character engages in conversation.

Solving this is mechanically simple. As i said, we ALREADY have all the components, proven and refined, through other games. Hell, even Minecraft has parrying. And dodging in various forms is present in many games spanning the last decade. You then divide up attacks into simple 'Types' like Morrowind and Daggerfall used, allowing you to have 3 basic types of attacks to play with. This instantly gives you a wide range of interactions to engage in, which is important. This becomes the Player Agency part of the equation.

You then need sufficient variables to create diversity amongst these actions, allowing for certain approaches to favour certain interactions. Diversifying damage types (say, 3 physical -Cut Pierce Blunt- and 3 Magical -Fire Ice Lightning-) allows you to diversify weapons and armour, making your choices in equipment more meaningful. This, in turn, makes the skills you choose to invest in more important because the bonuses therein and the Perks they offer will further refine how effective your character is in certain interactions. Someone whose refine their use of a Sabre (a mostly slashing weapon) while unarmoured is going to behave different than someone who wears heavy plate and wields a warhammer.

You can of course make this even more variable by getting rid of automatic skill bonuses entirely and giving direct control over the variables such as Speed and Power, meaning each individual Character is going to have a different total effect at the same skill-level.

There's a LOT you can do to add more RPG elements into combat, and absolutely ever part of it has been seen in other games. Mostly Action games, actually. It's just a matter of shifting the variables to be defined more by Character Skill than, say, specific Item stats or pre-set characters.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think the worst attribute related problem in TES history, was Endurance in pre-Skyrim games. I believe Skyrims stat/attribute system was the worst, but had one major upside in that, you weren't made to max out Endurance ASAP to avoid permanently stunted health.

I think it'd be interestingly actually, to make something between Fallouts Special, and TES attributes- only you know from 0-100 rather than Fallouts 1-10 spectrum, and basically while your health/magicka/stamina go up each level Skyrim style, stuff like Intelligence, Strength, Speed, /etc/ would instead be static after you created your character, with the exceptions of enchantments, vampirism and stuff buffing stats farther. So say just for this example you start out with 8 attributes- the ones other than Health/Stamina/Magicka that were removed in Skyrim, and you start out with 30 in every stat like agility/strength /etc/, you get 140 attribute points so you can can max out four of those attributes without penalties, and you can choose to reduce some of the attributes that were originally at 30 to 10 to increase other attributes. (Maybe too little or too much idk... Anyways just a basic example maybe not the best math there for perfect balance) you can choose to make your characters base stats.

it'd basically just be creating what the natural, bare bones untrained abilities of your character are... And because of this you can no longer max out every attribute just by leveling, so different characters will actually feel very different, and you no longer level up in bizarre ways to get your stats right... And if Endurance makes a come back- since the basic "naked" stats of a character would be static, the pre-Skyrim problem of speed leveling Endurance at low levels to get higher max health endgame will no longer be a problem. Honestly I think it'd be the perfect medium and solve SO MANY PROBLEMS that have plagued TES games for so long. Maybe a bit of a controversial idea but personally that's what I'd prefer. It'd also help characters feel more unique than ever as well... It'd help achieve having no more end game characters all feeling the same at the end- which has been a problem in many TES games.

Also, the missing with low levels system might be flawed/outdated, though I'd like it if in the next TES, they added something almost as significant as missing at low weapon skill, but also a lot less frustrating as well if that could be done.

Something like, it's made harder to aim with a weapon you aren't skilled with, or you become vulnerable to powerful counter attacks, or something like glancing blows where you still hit the target, but do like 90% less damage, and perhaps after doing a glancing blow you'll take more damage if counter attacked, then at higher levels you'd almost never get glancing blows. Or even something as simple as, low weapon skill drains stamina much faster, including regular attacks, and at low stamina you do significantly less damage.

The missing system of Daggerfall/Morrowind may be outdated and flawed, though the thing I liked about it, was it made leveling up skills a lot more rewarding, and I wonder if something could be done, where it would be much much harder being low level than in Oblivion or Skyrim, but at the same time also avoiding the old school hit and miss mechanics.

Personally, I'd make the three major attributes (Stamina, Health, Magicka) divorced from the Attribute system for the most part. And by that, I mean none of them intrinsically raise or lower your total amount based on their level. Stamina and Magicka are easy enough to manage, since you could easily have it so that their total is influenced by your Skill level in relevant areas. A character, no matter how dumb they may be, who practices magic a lot is most likely going to have a greater affinity for it then a intellectual who never cast a spell in his life, and anyone involved in a lot of physical activity is going to have more stamina then those who don't. Only problem is health, since that's a bit of a abstract game concept that doesn't quite play nice with any particular system.

I still think schools of magic should be studied. Greater powers issued only to experienced mages through university training under imperial rule and legislation. Perhaps by joining the dark brotherhood there could be necromancy training or other new outlawed practices. This could all depend if the provinces are occupied by the imperials. Im not familiar with the most other provinces.

I liked the mages quest line more in Oblivion than the college of winterhold in Skyrim. The experience of earning a university placement through guild tasks (although somewhat tedious) felt quite rewarding.

My problem with that approach has always been that... While the absolute potential of an individual's attributes may be roughly set throughout their life, the expression of those attributes changes dramatically throughout that lifetime. If you stop running for a month, you're going to notice the difference next time you try. Thats part of the reason I personally like the idea of Dynamic Attributes (and because they encourage specialization without prohibiting diversity) but that notion comes with potential maintenance issues.


Really, what systems are good and what ones are bad is going to depend on what Attributes there are, as well as what they influence...




I think a potential solution would be Damage Range. If weapons have a minimum and Maximum damage, having Skill influence that range would be a good way to represent your increased competency. It serves the same basic function; Normalising damage over time. But it does so without having the frustration or tedium of missing completely. there are some more variables that can be thrown into the mix as well, such as Familiarity and Perks, but having Skill at base influence the range of minimum and maximum efficiency may be a decent alternative.




Maybe a difference in nomenclature for clarity... Call them Stats maybe?


Anyway, I would like Attributes to have some influence on them, but HOW is a more complicated issue... Total dependence on Attributes causes too much uniformity between 'builds' but NO dependence only really serves to marginlise Attributes again and overly abstract the Stats.

The most likely implementation of attributes would probably be Strength for Stamina and Carry Weight, Endurance for health, Intelligence for magicka, Agility for Stamina regen, Willpower for magicka regen. I really don't think Bethesda's going to reinvent the wheel with attributes, or make them a central focus of the character system... if they include attributes at all. Attributes work great in Fallout 4 for defining our characters, but skills serve the same role in TES, and not every character system needs attributes to have depth. Don't think I like the idea of deriving Stamina/Magicka straight from our skills, though. That's just repeating the same problem that connecting skills to attributes in the earlier games caused - plus I just like having independent control over those things.

Looking back at what I like about different RPGs, it rarely comes down to the complexity or the variety of options in the character system itself, but in the ways I can interact with the world. My friend's been replaying Oblivion and he surprised me by saying he's come around on the speechcraft minigame - even though it makes no logical sense, he's warmed up to it because it's an interactive system he can play with and even use to make NPCs hate him. And "interactive systems" doesn't just mean minigames, either - in Skyrim or Daggerfall our skills do the haggling "automatically", but being able to actually poke the system and haggle high or low was still a lot of fun in the other games.

Actually they wouldn't need to, because we already have a precedent of the "staple" fantasy Attribute types working outside of their tropes in the series. In Daggerfall, the Skills Intelligence governed had nothing to do with Magic, the fact that it influenced your total Magicka and its otherwise terrible leveling system now withstanding. Its been repeatedly talked about in-universe that Willpower is the key component to spellcraft, not intellectual superiority, so I'd leave the Magicka business to it. A smarter mage would merely have a easier time conserving energy used on their spells, but its by no means needed.

Other then that though, I actually don't like Fallout 4's attribute system at all. I like the perk chart and the idea behind it, but Attributes more fulfill the purpose of unlocking those perks, and by themselves are nowhere near impactful enough by themselves like they could be in New Vegas for it to really matter. They just don't do enough things for me to care about them on their own merits. As it is, they're merely locks keeping me from getting a certain perk. It did what it needed to do, but beyond influencing character development, its not enough. Skills show us what our characters can do, but Attributes make them who they are.

If you're talking about Fallout 4's lack of attribute/perk checks in dialog, then I'll agree with you. But beyond that, the perk chart does so much more to make your attribute distribution meaningful than anything the old Fallouts ever did, and in a way that keeps the stats more balanced against each other, instead of Intelligence being disproportionately useful compared to any other attribute and the strange phenomenon of Charisma being the dump stat and Speech being the best skill in the game. I much prefer this system, where everything's wrapped up in the same layer and how everything works is more self-evident.

But Elder Scrolls has skills to fill that role, especially now that perk trees are the new thing. They could still add attributes into that system, but I think they're questioning the point of attributes if they can roll those things into one consolidated system, instead of something akin to having two separate character systems going on at once.

And instead of organizing skills by how neatly or logically similar things can be lumped together, or by actions we can perform repeatedly (lockpicking, acrobatics, smithing), Bethesda might think about how to organize it by the different ways we can play. What I feel that means, is rethinking how things like armor or crafting are handled. I'm not a fan of the way armor skills are handled - the process of getting hit to increase our armor skill is counterintuitive, since one of the main things you do in action RPGs is avoid getting hit, so I think they'll try something different with armor. Crafting is becoming more and more central to Bethesda's gameplay, to the point where it's almost expected (and for good reason) that every character is going to engage in it - there's almost no reason not to craft at least a little. So instead of Smithing being a standalone skill that the majority of characters invest in, they might parcel it out so that characters with different skillsets can craft different things. Not sure how that might apply to Alchemy and Enchanting, though - you learn recipes in those skills through experimentation rather than any skill investments, and the majority of perks in those trees were just for boosting the magnitude of different effects. It may be possible that they stop being skills at all, and Bethesda finds different ways to approach their progression.

There's also a bit of grindiness involved with the crafting skills that makes you go out of your way to truly advance them, in a way that isn't as inherent with other skills. I can grind my Destruction skill just as much as enchanting, but I can also just use destruction as I play the game and eventually get it to 100 whereas with Enchanting, if I only enchanted gear that I planned on using instead of creating merchant-fodder to level my skill, it would take forever to master that skill (it gets bonus points for advancing from disenchanting and recharging, though, but that doesn't make a very huge dent). One of the major criticisms I hear from RPGers about the TES "learn-as-you-use" system, and one of Skyrim's major improvements over the older games, is how much grinding it can encourage.

(Stray observation: I find it a little funny that among Daggerfall's 35 skills, it didn't have alchemy, enchanting, armorer/smithing, or any armor skill. Block, too, but shields were just considered extra armor rating in that game.)

Right, but that's not because of what your Attributes are actually doing for you, they're just letting you in on neat perks. The problem is that if you remove the Attributes themselves and call them anything else, you're losing nothing. At base value at the start of the game, I see no real discernable difference between any of the characters regardless of attribute distribution, outside of anything to do with V.A.T.S, which is a easily discarded mechanic in Fallout 4. And that, is the exact same problem Beth has had with Skyrim. None of our characters have any real discernible differences, or ability to actually emphasize anything outside of their Skills. That's the exact opposite of what should be happening here, especially when these games are very much the types you run multiple play-throughs. The more content we can be provided that allows us the ability to alter our characters, the less we have to depend on mods in order to try and fill that hole.

Except that is still missing the vast bulk of what potentially separates characters from one another. Skill Trees (Though not how Skyrim handled them) are a step in the right direction, they're too laser focused to generally get across who our character is. There's no modifying how strong or smart they are, and without those potential modifiers existing in-game, there's no way to actually demonstrate who our character is. Skills do not simply have any room for nuance or ability, and thus we miss out on a huge amount of potential modifiers that do in fact seperate our characters from each other. Skyrim failed on this count terribly, and while Fallout 4 barely preforms better, its not because of its Attributes.

Never had that problem, or in Skyrim at any rate. Worst Skill I can think of is Smithing, but if we get anything resembling Fallout's crafting system...that won't be a problem either.

Skyrim was a marked improvement, since there was more logic in skill progression - in previous games you were better off fighting with a low-damage dagger to maximize the number of hits you make, or standing still while getting swarmed by rats to maximize the number of hits you take, or casting custom 1-point spells over and over to level a magic skill. Skills advanced simply by the number of uses, instead of the magnitude/effectiveness of the uses, which became counterintuitive as you had less real "uses" to each skill the more effective you became at it. And the bunny hopping! I'll never let that go. >.> I actually feel like the progression rates of skills in Skyrim is pretty perfect for just using the skills naturally over time without grinding, save for the crafting skills - for them it feels more like I'm supposed to collect all the materials and craft stuff as often as I can, instead of only crafting what I really need.

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

I'm not sure the blank slate-iness of Skyrim is that big a problem, and I certainly didn't feel like a blank slate in Fallout 4 even with the attributes having a diminished role compared to the perks they opened up - and the perks were the point - I certainly spend a lot of time deliberating over my attribute distribution at chargen in Fallout 4, moreso than I do for any other Fallout. And yeah, Skyrim lacked something for us to deliberate over in chargen - but I'm not sure what should fill that role in TESVI, or if that's even a problem. My experiences with different characters are different because of the skills they choose to use and if Bethesda expands on that, gives us different ways to use our skills and new ways to interact with the world, that will add its own depth regardless of whether or not there are attributes. (and if we're talking about replay value, well, people make their own replay value so it's hard to really define. But for my part I'd like to see that accomplished with a more nonlinear character development system like Fallout 4's, and more ways to approach a problem.)

Long conversation train going but the general discussion seems to be about attribute and skills so I'll give my two cents on the topics.

Attributes absolutely need to be brought back. They allow a player to further define and fine tune their character to feel and act uniquely and also provide a source for the game to use as checks such as a CHA or a INT check that opens up a new dialogue option or a STR check to break down a locked door. As for the attributes themselves I think they should be:

• Strength - Increases total Carry-Weight, Increases Melee and Thrown Damage, Decreases Fatigue Exertion for Combat Increases Parry Effectiveness.


• Endurance - Increases Max Health and Stamina, Decreases Stamina Exertion, Increases Resistence to things such as Heat/Cold, Poison/Disease, Etc...


• Dexterity - Increases Ranged Attack Damaged, Increases Attack and Movement Speed, Increases Parry and Dodge Effectiveness


• Intelligence - Increases Magicka Pool, Spell Damage, and Effectiveness, Increases Learning Speed.


• Wisdom - Increases Magicka Regeneration, Spell Resistance and Efficiency.


• Charisma - Increases Effectiveness and Chance of chosen Dialogue/Options.


• Luck - Increases Positive outcome for anything that involves Chance.

How I think the System should roughly work:

1) Pick a race - Each race has different starting attributes that reflect the strengths and weaknesses of that race. For example Orisimer start with a slightly higher STR while suffering from a slight decrease to their DEX. (I know some of the forum disagree on this point but I think we discussed it enough)

2) Create a Class/Background - This is where you add some depth and background to your character and apply their personal history to their Attributes. You're given 5 points to distribute between the attributes (perhaps six may be better as it's 1 point per skill minus luck but I feel five spreads better in a way). The max amount you can put into any attribute at this time is 3. For example a Character who is going to be a Warrior would probably want to put 3 points into STR and 2 into END.

3) Upon each Level-up the character is given 5 more attribute points to spend and a perk point to put into a skill like Skyrim.

Some other things I think attributes could be useful for:

• Strength Check for Weapon/Armor


• DEX bonus for Lockpicking/Pickpocket


• Attribute requirement for Perks


• INT increasing EXP gain

You know, it just surged right into my head... A big part of what was so great about Morrowind. And no it's not the debate of how the stats or gameplay should be handled, but rather the lore, quests and story... And it can very easily be summed up in one word: Ambiguity. As well as mystery, and consequently in it's atmosphere... Uncertainty. Skyrim and particularly Oblivion had a lot of scariness, a ton of scariness, and a ton of epic, but little to no creepiness. Creepiness requires uncertainty and is different than outright scariness, and the uncertainty of it often makes it more interesting. Daedric Realms for example, were more SCARY and GORY than most anything in Morrowind, yet anything Sixth House related in Morrowind it tended to be... Creepy. Scary too but it had that subtle creepy build up to it, that uncertainty that Daedric realms lacked. I want less upfront gory scary, and more something subtly creepy that leads up to something terrifying- just jumping the gun to a bunch of gore like Oblivion did, makes it much less interesting. Alright well to be honest Skyrim's giant spiders that ambush from the ceiling of caves with their webs was very creepy... But I feel like that was the only real creepiness Skyrim had for the most part, which still didn't compare to Morrowind.

And also aside from the whole obviously scary vs subtle creepiness thing, this goes beyond that. All the guilds in Morrowind, Morrowind's politics, it's main quest... And many of it's side quests too, there was just so much mystery and uncertainty, and uncertainty to this very day about so many things in that game.

Hmm what would you think of semi-static attributes? Like for example, you can build your character where your characters minimum speed stat is 80, if you run around a lot you can bring it up to 100, if you don't maintain it enough it goes back to 80, but is always higher than the average of 50, just due to an innate natural physical talent your character has- in this case speed?

Also I think it'd be interesting if with weapon skill, they made it where higher weapon skill means faster attacks- even though obviously daggers would always be faster than hammers, more stamina efficiency and being able to recover faster after an enemy blocks an attack.

All Weapon Skills: The damage penalty for low stamina (around less than 20 Stamina) for a specific type of weapon goes from 95% at the lowest skill level, to just a 20% damage penalty at maximum weapon skill, also the higher weapon skill is, the lower less stamina regular and power attacks require. Attack speed scales slightly for all weapons, and dramatically so for daggers.

Blunt Weapons skill: The higher your blunt weapon skill the higher your chances of knocking over a blocking enemy, and the faster you can recover from the velocity of a missed swing. At low skill levels you'd be more vulnerable to counter attacks if you even mis-aimed one hit- because of the recoil from huge weapons moving the whole body in a sense.

Sword Skill: The higher your sword skill, the higher a chance you have of doing a powerful parrying counter attack if you strike at the same time another sword using enemy does, the lower your sword skill the higher your chances of getting hit by a powerful counter attack when fighting another character with a sword. The counter attack wouldn't take control from the player, but rather just be a damage bonus for a sword attack.

Axe Skill: The higher your axe skill the less your axe gets stuck, and the faster you can pull it out if it gets stuck.

Dagger Skill: Daggers become much faster than other weapons with skillups, and at higher skills you gain the ability to frequently attack multiple times in one activated attack. At a high enough skill level you can gain the ability to sometimes leap behind a blocking enemy to get in a strike at them from behind, at low skill levels you tend to struggle against enemies with shields.

This way swords would continue to be the well rounded weapon- this time with a classical sword fighting element added in... The other weapons would have their own challenges/weaknesses, and swords would be made more challenging by most humanoid enemies using them.

I think if something like these were done just right, it could be a perfect in between, right in between Daggerfall/Morrowind mechanics and Oblivions/Skyrims mechanics. With something that makes more sense, and isn't as frustrating to most people as failing to do any damage at all, but also something that makes leveling up weapon skills feel a lot more rewarding again.

Edit:Er I accidentally double posted while trying to quote, can a mod please delete this specific post? Sorry about that...