Sorry for the injection of a seemingly off topic post, but my response got stuck in the limbo and the shadow of a locked thread, and since this one is dealing with the same content and since I imagine some of the people from the other one will eventually trickle over here, I thought I'd post my reply.



This^ was in response to this:



Although, in many ways, I agree with you Sleign, you missed the point Omega was trying to make -- and it was a good one. He's saying that if attributes were still a part of the game, then they could further diversify and alter the effects of the perks. So if someone had the 'ignore armour' perk with maces, and had a certain strength level that allowed him to ignore the armour of chainmail, leather, mithril etc. and then his strength reached a certain threshhold value, that perk would now allow him the ability to ignore heavier armour types, such as Daedric, orcish, ebony and so on. In fact they could have added even greater complexity and depth to the perk by assigning each armour type its own base strength value, which the character would need to reach, in order to effectively use the perk against that specific type of armour.

This idea of having the perks and attributes dependent on one another for new effects could have been creatively implemented in the game for many of the perks, and really does counter the idea that a perk system and attribute system working in unison, would be redundant.

I dunno. I'm going to do the rational thing and reserve judgement until we actually know what the heck the truth is. People are seriously fanatical if judgement are being made on dumbing down, less characterization, blah, blah, blah.

A thought...

If some perks have skill level prerequisites, then the player should have the ability to "bank" perk choices. Otherwise we'll wind up with a counter-intuitive skill leveling system all over again.

For example, if the next perk you want has a min skill level, you may focus on getting the associated skill to the required level before the next level-up. However, since ALL skills contribute to your level, an inadvertent increase of some other skill can trigger the level up before you reached the pre-req. Then, if you happen to sleep, you'll be forced to pick some other unwanted perk.

"Banking" solves this.

i like the the perk system better than oblivions, it's not dumb-downed or simplified because perks take over, it allows you to customizes your character to the skills you use the most, and if you put your perks into a skill you don't use well thats your own damn fault for being an idiot.
the one thing i would like to know is how i will be able to make my hunters characters move faster and my warrior characters do more damage,

my theory is in the constellations of the game, the mage, warrior, and thief, those constellations contain specific skills in them, maybe once you increase enough skills in the said constellation it gives you constellation bonuses that upgrades things like speed, or maybe constellation specific perks, yes when you look to the stars the 18 skills are in three constellations, mage, thief, and warrior.

so say my character increases and puts his perks in the skills of the warrior constellation, maybe once i put enough in there i unlock and constellation perk that increases damage with all melee weapons, or increases my carrying capacity. this way the the old attributes are there to define a character but tehere in the as a way specific to the constellation your better skills are in,
now some of you just to argue with me will say but all our skills will be 100 at sometime, possibly but you cannot get all the perks of the game,soo really constellation unlockable perks would solve everyone bitterness and we can all party and live in harmony. :hugs: :celebration: :celebrate:

P.S i am starting to think that this is a civil war the scrolls told about man fighting each other,

Everything depends on how they implement it. What I have heard so far about the bow, dagger, axe and mace perks sounds very cool and is something that I wanted to see in TES games since forever, Finally, finally different weapons will really handle differently and it will pay to specialize.
OTOH, a lot of stuff that they promised for Oblivion also sounded very cool, but turned out not so well in the end. I can only hope that the perks are interesting and varied and not just + X to damage with skill Y for the most part.

When Bethesda said no more attributes, this was actually what I was thinking they would do. It remains to be seen, but my gut instinct turned out right about how there would be perk trees for individual weapon types after it was announced there were only 1 hand and 2 hand skills instead of axe, blunt, long sword, short sword, etc.

I was somewhat worried by the news that attributes are being dropped but I'll wait and see how the new system works before condemning it
Attributes were far from perfect in TES and if perks were done well they could help define a character better than attributes did
eg rather than the rather vague personality one might get to choose from perks like War Leader (gives a bonus to anyone fighting on your side), Courteous (gives a bonus when dealing with nobles), Streetwise (gives a bonus when dealing with the underworld) etc

Can someone please explain to me how the new system works without attributes?

Only thing i'm worried about is strength. now the encumbrance and weapon damage aren't tied together anymore. i liked to level both at the same time. otherwise i'm just fine with this i mean i get the health/magicka/fatigue , overall i like this a ton better with this one exception. and i'm positive that bethesda did something to make up for it.

Yeah, would be nice to see a return of courteous and streetwise from Daggerfall. Maybe there will be animal languages again too (besides the dragon language of course), similar in effect to animal friend of Fallout 3.

Pete Hines : "Effect of Attributes have been folded into skill perks and Magicka, Health, Stamina."

This stat removal thing definitely scares me. It may turn out not to be such a big deal, but I dread the possibility that Skyrim might be going down the same dumb, ahem, "streamlining" route that ruined Dragon Age 2.

Yes also see the perk trees over the skills, http://cms.elderscrolls.com/sites/default/files/tes/screenshots/SkillsMenu_wLegal.jpg

Yes it could be loose perks at the edge of the skill list that is not linked to a skill, but without attributes it could only be linked to character level, a strength based perk has to be copied to both one and two hands weapon tree.
However I don’t really like the idea of perktributes as they combines the worst part of perks and attributes, you has to raise a somewhat related skill to be allowed to waste a perk on a passive function like jumping higher or carrying more.

I understand why they removed attributes, not only was the +5 increase on level up an invitation to micromanagement, but even if solved raising low skills is the best way to raise attributes as they increase faster, yes it might be a bit realistic but it reduce specialisation.

A better solution might be to just calculate them, say you want to calculate how much you can carry or do a strength based roll for some action, use max of one handed and two handed weapons in addition to hand to hand.

But it's a very bad way to decide how much you can carry! Think on it for a moment, how come only fighting with a weapon or punching people increase your strength? Unless by strength you mean mostly arm strength with some bonus muscle mass here and there. I agree it gives you a good handle on your ability to pick up something heavy. But picking up something from the ground and traveling all around the place, even doing heavy stuff like fighting with your life while carrying all that depends on a LOT more than arm strength. I'd say that training your athletics by swimming through the whole Cyrodiil should have been a much higher contribution to your total carry capacity than your weapon skills.

Besides, maximum carry capacity is far too annoying of a stat to have very low, we don't want every pure mage or thief to train all the weapon type skills just to improve their Str to not be burdened a soon as they pick up their 10th potion while using only robes as armor.

This change is for the best.

I’m just adjusting the attribute system from Daggerfall to Oblivion to Skyrim based on that the developers has said, in addition you would have a racial modifier. I agree that it’s make limited sense, and yes athletic had been a better handle but no athletic in Skyrim, perhaps stamina, stamina would also affect speed directly as it would also tell how long you can sprint.
I have a feeling that restore stamina potions would be important, if they are as easy to make as restore fatigue potions I might sprint a lot and use restore fatigue as fuel

Don’t tell a female Khajiit about the downside of having low strength and carrying capacity; they started with 30 in strength.

DA2 has a full & robust attribute system in place, and the talents were more robust for warrior/rogue. Stats were not nerfed or removed at all. It was dumbed down in actual gameplay features, not stats.

Skyrim is doing the opposite, adding tons of actual gameplay features and trimming stats because these features (such as 280perks through 18 trees..aka a big system) probably conflicted with alot of the attribute effects.

In oblivion each attribute contributed different things to each bar (health/mana/stamina). So in the end each bar had 2 properties

1.) The length of the bar.
2.) The speed at which it refills.

3.) the speed at which it diminishes is a third property, but this was not usually based off attributes

From what I've heard the new system allows you to modify the length of each bar, but does it allow you to customize the speed at which it refills, or is that going to be static?

We don't know yet. It may be that increasing mana also increases the rate at which it regenerates or there may be perks which specifically increase mana regeneration.

To many things depend on 3 parameters, I believe variables what before working in conjunction with attributes still present in game just hidden from player, thats part of making less hard game for beginners (like removing birthsigns so they will not use unpropitious combinations, IMO better make warning for them like such combination is not easy for beginners, instead of complete removal birthsigns)
but developers hardly delete such flexible tools as attribute depended variables from game set as hidden is more likely, if an perk will allow regeneration of Magicka then there must be variable what regulate such rates and with perk we change such rate for actor in certain predefined by devs range, so if can receive access to such we can create illusion of Will attribute based on it as well ad additional scripted effects if spell effects still present in game like magic weakness\resistance.
About intelligence attribute, Todd say race will be more unique does thats mean thats racial Magicka multiplier will return, in such way there will be also variable what will control such multiplier as well
Or luck still can be presented in game as random variable modifier in certain formulas, if we can modify such variable by adding value thats represent raising of Luck attribute or subtract out generated random value to create effect of bad luck.
In such way almost all attributes can be found in game as hidden ones, like ghost of past.

Eh I think if They implement it correctly it could be interesting. Personally I used a mod called NGCD in Oblivion, it essentially made skill level ups co-relate directly to attributes.
Ie. Raising blade, block and heavy armor skills dynamically affected both your level and your attributes.
This mod also eliminated the need to "meditate" to level up. Your character just leveled up as your skills and attributes leveled up. It was 100% dynamic and in the background. This mod took the leveling system away completely and left nothing but the gradual increase in your abilities. So it was 100% here and now, real time improvement.
I must say I loved this mod and I had dearly hoped bethesda would take this route.
I feel the biggest problem with a perk/talent system is that it limits the possible choices you can make throughout the game, after all Bethesda can only account for so many different combinations of these talents and the inevitability of inferior perk choices is inescapable.
When it all comes down to it neither can really be "better" because they are completely different styles of character development and play. One uses preset and premade abilities, while the other does the same but allows you to pick and chose from 8 or so "big" ones that trickle down into the unseen stat mechanics of the game.
I personally felt the majority of skills and perks in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas were inconsequential, and I often questioned why they were even there except as little baubles to keep our attention until the next level. But I suppose I just don't like that kind of system *shrug*

Indeed about nGCD (and others like it). seems to me it solves the "problem" those who favor the new attributes seem to see in the old system. IMHO the TES style of getting better by doing doesnt go with the new system. i have no problem with the d&d or FO system where you can swing a sword or shoot a gun all day and then level alchemy or medicine (which you might never have used) at level up. But being able to level mana when you never cast a spell doesnt go with the rest of the system to me. you could end up with a very high mana character who never cast a spell in his life. "perktributtes" seem a better compromise to me but OB mods (like the aforementioned nGCD) fit much more because if your health, mana, stamina depended on how you played.

nGCD solved the issue of the +5 to attributes in Oblivion and Morrowind. But then when you think about it, you'd improve your Blade skill which would increase damage done thanks to higher skill level. But it'll also increase Str which would allow you to do even more damage. And it'd allow you to carry more and I already showed linking carry capacity to your weapon skills isn't good.


The major (and sneaky) problem with attributes wasn't those multipliers. Those multipliers were an issue of the class system of major/minor skills and (n)GCD fixed that admirably. The problem of attributes where that they had exactly three effects :

- train skill A which improves stat B which silently improves back A.
- train skill A which improves stat B which does nothing at all to improve A effects
- train skill A which improves stat B which improves something else that has no good reason why it should be better through training skill A.

Examples of the later : train Blade => carry more. Get hit while wearing light armor => run faster. Train Security => higher magicka storage. Train Marksman => easier time picking locks (yes, the governing stat for Security in Morrowind is Int, but Int gives NO bonuses to security rolls, it's Agility that does. Talk about convoluted)

You could if you wanted to I suppose but what would you need all that mana for if you were never using spells?

I suspect encumberance will reduce your stamina. The more you carry the quicker you'll tire when running, fighting etc. Simple but it would work.

That's exactly what I hoped Bethesda would do with Skyrim. It's a very elegant system in my opinion as it allows your character to be defined entirely by your actions which is very much in keeping with the skill system.

However, in one of his interviews, Todd Howard spoke about wanting each level up to feel like an event which I think is why they went in the direction of perk choices.

Thats really interesting idea, and remove Strength dependency on encumbrance and tie it to maximum fatigue, equipment weight will affect combat and character sprinting abilities since swinging weapon will burn fatigue, at over encumbrance character will faint not just sticked to place, burden will become useful spell, since will lower number of swings with heavy equipment and usage of sprint and frequency of power attacks.

But for example how decide speed of actor, sprinting increase actor speed at certain value, different actors have different movement speed, since there is no more athletic skill how decided fatigue usage on running, what skill will govern such parameter as running speed and fatigue usage on it, all actors cannot have constant equal for all speed value.

Perks what will be chosen when %PCname will go sleep, and number of unused perks can be stored, and will not stop leveling of other skills so receiving level up will automatically rise slightly health (nice to see racial multiplier for health and fatigue also not only for magicka) and will not be reseted at next level up (like training session did in Oblivion), as well on sleep can be raised parameters like health, fatigue and magicka like before we can choose attributes for raising, thats how I see vanilla leveling in Skyrim.
Edit: make it more readable now and add some details.